Epilogue
One Year Later
R owan knew the moment Isabella saw the sign upon entering Stevenage. First, she froze. Then, her eyes became saucers. Finally, she began to bounce.
“Stop the coach!” she cried. “Stop!”
Rowan chuckled and knocked on the roof, spoke a word with the coachman, and the conveyance rolled to a stop.
Isabella threw herself down before it had quite quit moving, and Rowan threw himself after her.
“Issy, be careful!” Foolishly brave woman. She could have broken her neck.
She ran, and with a sigh, Rowan ran, too. When she reached the boundary of the town, she passed beneath the sign, spun, and looked up. She broke into a laugh as bright as the day, then slapped her hands over her mouth.
On the other side of the sign, Rowan slowed, sauntered toward her. God, he loved her, adored seeing her happy and carefree.
“You did this,” she said without looking at him when he stood beside her.
He looked only at her. “I’ve no idea why you would think that.”
She pointed at the sign stretching from a building on one side of the road to a building on the other. Blank but for a heart in the very middle. And inside the heart, two sets of initials combined: RT + IT. “Rowan Trent and Isabella Trent. Surrounded by a heart. That was not you?”
He shrugged. “Could have been anyone. Many share our initials. But I’ll have to find them and tell them not to vandalize my property again.”
She hugged him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. “You horrid liar.” His heart thrilled at the insult. Felt like it glowed in his chest, lighting him up everywhere.
“I’m not a horrid liar. I’m an excellent tease.” He hugged her back, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Do you like it? The sign needed redoing, and I was interested to try my hand at painting it. I’m not terribly good at the task, I’m afraid. I’ll let the painter fix it up tomorrow. The heart will have to go, but the letters will be new and legible.”
“It’s perfect. I adore it. How long have you kept this from me? You’ve not been here for a month.”
“That long precisely.”
Her jaw dropped. “A month? A month this sign has been absolutely useless to travelers?”
“The Blue Hestia is not yet open. There was no need for the sign.”
“Except to announce to all who pass that RT loves IT.”
“Precisely.”
“I adore it.” She sighed. “And I adore you.”
Arm in arm, they walked the short distance to their inn. When he ushered her inside, it was bustling, maids and waiters training for the business that would restart in a few days’ time. Rowan led his wife to a small private parlor and sat at a table near the fire, watching her walk around the room, flicking tassels, inspecting paintings, and fussing with curtains and tablecloths.
“Come sit and join me,” he said. “I have one more thing to show you.”
She sat on his lap and kissed his cheek. “I’m all anticipation. What is it?”
“Come inspect the fireplace. I put in a new one.”
“Oh yes. Like the ones at the Hestia in London? With the goddess to watch over the travelers and welcome them home?”
“Not this one. Look.” He pointed to the column on the right side of the grate. A male figure had been carved there, a sun above his head. “Helios. And there.” He pointed to the left side where a woman’s figure, holding a moon above her head, had been cut in bas-relief. “Selene. The sun and the moon.”
She screwed her mouth to the side, reaching out to touch Selene. “But why have you abandoned poor Hestia?”
“Not entirely abandoned. Just here. Hestia may be home, but the sun and the moon… they are the days and nights, the journey. The home is even more wonderful when you’ve been away for a while, do you not think so, Mrs. Trent?”
“I think, Mr. Trent”—she wound her arms around his neck—“that I am quite glad”—she kissed the tip of his nose—“that you decided not to kill me off.”
“Isabella,” he growled, a sound more wild laugh than feral warning, before he sank his lips onto hers. He kissed her until tittering behind the door broke them apart.
“Disperse!” he roared at the hidden maids.
They squeaked, then scattered.
“You did not have to terrify them,” Isabella said. “Hm. But I suppose you did. It’s not quite a Hestia without rumors running rampant about its owner.”
“Rumors? What have you heard?”
She tapped her chin. “That you may be a wolf.”
He grunted. “Ridiculous.”
“That you are terribly scarred.”
“True.”
She rested her chin on his chest and peered up at him as if he were Helios come to life, bright and brilliant and impossible to look away from. “They also say you are terribly in love with your wife. ”
“You have excellent sources.”
“Shall I tell you more? There are, after all, such wicked whisperings about the sorts of things you get up to in linen closets, and I have it on good authority they are all true.”
“Tell me everything, a chuisle .” He cupped her neck and brought her up for another kiss, but before he drank his fill, he spoke against her lips, softly, “Leave out no detail.”
And she didn’t, whispering how much she loved him, as if it were the most delicious bit of gossip London, England, the entire world had ever known.
The End
Thank you for reading Court a Lady With Care!
It’s the duke’s turn! How does a man who wrote the guide on courtship find a wife? By hiring a matchmaker… Read the grand finale in Dukes Court for Keeps !
CHAPTER ONE
Edinburgh, Scotland, January 1826
Nothing spoke louder than a room full of cold, stiff backs. And Lady Emma Blackwood, upon entering the assembly rooms, watched every single body turn away from her. Such stylish coiffures. Such elegant necks. Such a cold and effective cut direct.
She resisted the urge to straighten a sleeve or smooth her skirts. They were straight, they were smooth, and they were quite fashionable as well. A white satin gown and an ivory net overlay with ivory satin trim. She looked well. She’d needed to. Fashion always proved a formidable weapon.
Difficult to woo society back from scandal, but she must do it.
Or find herself married to one of her father’s cronies, a man twice her age with rotten teeth and deep pockets for her father to dip into.
She’d never expected this to be easy, but then she’d never expected a sea of silk backs, either. They wouldn’t even look at her.
Just as they’d passed by her on George Street, faced downturned, whispering behind gloved fans. Just as they’d rushed out of church last Sunday, hiding behind fluttering fans.
One mistake. One! And one she’d been in the process of correcting! Yet it had shredded her reputation as Edinburgh’s premier matchmaker like fine muslin beneath a cat’s claws.
She, however, was terribly talented with a needle and thread. Head held high, she pushed into the small crowd gathered beneath the glittering chandeliers.
And they parted like a length of cotton giving way beneath a pair of sharp shears. Each step brought her closer to the center of the room, and each step threatened to bend her low with the weight of imminent failure, filling her ears to bursting with hissed whispers, most of which included the same word— harlot .
But then she caught a flash of eyes, blue and cold and glittering with glee. Gregory Guthrie, Viscount Parkington, that snake . She would not be talking to him, even if he was the only one who dared to meet her gaze. She darted to the side, and the crowd opened for her once more, revealing a long table laden with drinks. God, she was parched.
“Lady Emma.” The snake sounded amused, pleased. “I hardly expected to see you.”
She turned slowly, dousing her simmering anger with the ice of logic. She could not make a scene. Not more than she already had. “Lord Parkington. You should not be surprised. I go where matches need making.”
He laughed. “I do not think you’ll find anyone in need of your… services.”
He had deliberately covered that last word with oil, greased it up for nearby, ravenous ears.
“My matchmaking remains unparalleled. Miss Dunn, after all, made an excellent match.” Thankfully, the young girl had not married the snake, as she’d wished to do. It had not been Emma’s expert arguments that had persuaded her to make a better match, however. Emma’s cheeks reddened. She hovered precariously close to either crying or yelling. Time for a strategic retreat. She curtsied. “It has not been a pleasure conversing with you.” Gasps rang out from all sides. “And I hope not to do so again. Should any of my future clients wish to cast you in the role of potential bridegroom, I will tell them the entire truth of our interactions last winter. And guide them in a more suitable direction.” She raised her voice higher. “Should anyone about this evening be in need of help choosing an appropriate matrimonial candidate, I will be enjoying a lemonade and happy to converse with you.”
How humiliating to advertise in such a public manner. Until now, she’d merely had to exist and make successful matches and people came to her, happy to have tea in the Earl of Glenhaven’s drawing room, delighted to call Lady Emma one of their dear friends, grateful enough to pay her father quietly and unobtrusively for her services in a variety of ways—cigars, tips on investments, the sorts of things her father valued.
Until Parkington had mucked everything up. She waited, every nerve in her body screaming, for him to press toward her now, as he had that night last winter when he’d caught her alone in the shadowed corner of an art gallery.
But he merely walked away, content apparently to rattle her and nothing more.
Thank God.
She downed a glass of tepid lemonade, then stood by the table and waited. And waited. The string quartet played song after song, and couples changed partners again and again, and no one approached her. No one even looked at her.
She’d become invisible. Such a new sensation. At least last year they’d acknowledged her existence, whispering and looking and snickering. She’d retreated to the country, enraged. She’d done nothing wrong. But this… this silence paralyzed her. It meant an end. It meant the one thing she’d given her life, her future, over to had been shattered into such small pieces that she could never glue it back together.
Once, she’d almost had a husband.
Once, she’d wished for children.
All gone. What future was left to her now?
Her ribs constricted. Breath came stuttering, difficult, impossible. But she kept her calm as she made for the door.
Until she caught the disapproving eye of a patroness of the assembly rooms.
Then Emma ran. She gathered her skirts, darted between two tall, bald men she did not know, and made for the doors. One foot firmly on George Street, a voice called out behind her.
“Stop.”
She did. One did not disobey Lady Mercer, the dragon who stood sentry before the assembly room doors, one terribly tall feather towering above her, bobbing in the gentle evening breeze. She had a granddaughter ready to wed. A quiet thing with intelligent eyes who likely needed a stout man with protective arms. Aye, a good match, that. One Emma would never get to make.
“How dare you return here,” Lady Mercer said.
“I have done nothing wrong.” Emma held her chin high.
“You stole another woman’s suitor. You betrayed your friend’s trust.”
“Do you see me married?”
“You did not care if you married, only that she did not. Yours is a cold heart.”
Emma’s feet were cold, but her temper boiling. And her heart… well, she’d not consulted that organ in quite some time. “Absurd. I tried my best to save Miss Dunn from pain. She would not listen to me.”
“Do not come back to these rooms.” Lady Mercer’s voice held the finality of the grave. “You are not welcome. Not here. Not in our homes or gardens. Not in our lives. Do you think we’d trust you around our daughters after last winter?”
“But you’ll trust that snake, Parkington? He is the one who should be shunned. Not me.”
“You seduced him.”
Emma laughed. When she found breath enough, she let the sound die down the street and stood straighter. “Is that what he’s been telling everyone? I would never .” He’d tried to seduce her. He’d failed. He’d sought revenge with the surest of weapons—gossip.
Emma strode down the street and into the fog.
Lady Mercer did not try to stop her, and after three steps, Emma heard the door of the assembly rooms slam shut.
Only then did she droop.
Utter failure.
The gas lamps on either side of the street flickered in the deep fog, and her brain could not quite cut through the haze of her situation. How to move forward?
One step at a time and closer to St. Andrew’s Square. Closer to her father, too, and he would not be pleased. Her shiver had little to do with the chill air, yet she hesitated when she stood before her family’s home. Perhaps he was not inside. Perhaps he was in the old town, losing money over cards or wine or women. That was better than facing him after such a spectacular failure.
Surely he’d be out carousing.
Emma pushed into the townhouse and stood still in the entryway as the door closed behind her, listening. Nothing but silence. Perfect. She tiptoed up the stairs.
“Emma!”
Blast. Not only was her father home, but he knew she was, too.
Keep tiptoeing. Pretend you heard nothing.
“EMMA!”
No use hiding now. He’d keep crying out like a banshee until she appeared, or he’d stumble after her, risking his neck on the stairs. She crept back downstairs into his study and found him foxed.
“How many whiskies tonight?” she asked, standing as far from her father as she could.
“Don’t judge me, lass.” The Earl of Glenhaven sprawled across a low sofa near the crackling fireplace, a leg dangling over one end and his arm dangling over the back. He snapped it toward the ceiling, the index finger extended. “Come closer and tell me why you’re home so early.”
She crept closer, but not enough for him to grab her should he take it to mind.
He lifted his head to consider her with glassy blue eyes, then dropped it back down. “You found a mark so quickly, then? Who? Tell me.” He hiccupped.
The truth might send him into a rage. But what choice did she have? “I have not. I’m afraid I will not.”
“Nonsense.” He hiccupped. “You merely do not wish to make a little effort. You’re being a stubborn, selfish girl.”
“No amount of work will save me.”
“Is this about what happened last Season? With Parkington? You said no one saw.”
“They did not. But he has decided to talk. Whatever influence I possessed in the past is dissolved entirely in Parkington’s slander.”
He laughed, swinging his foot. “Didn’t know he had it in him. Should’ve married ‘im last Season. You’d’ve survived.” His words slurred one into the other.
Good thing she’d never expected pity from her father. He would give none.
“He was supposed to marry Miss Dunn.” He should not have even been on Miss Dunn’s list of potential suitors. But he’d seemed a charming gentleman before he’d revealed his sharp-toothed, slithering nature. He’d proved Emma fallible. And there was nothing society loved more, or hated more, than a fallible woman.
Her father pushed upright. His thin gray hair was wild about his head, and the grooved brackets around his thin mouth seemed even more deeply carved tonight. He grabbed the half-empty glass bottle on the table beside the sofa, dragging a bit of the jeweled liquid from its depths before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He pointed the top of the bottle at her. “What are we supposed to do, then? Hm? If you can’t make matches, I can’t gather the fruit of your labor. Do you want the world to know we’re paupers?”
Emma wished she’d known about being paupers sooner than she had, wished she’d known her matchmaking was the thing keeping them afloat in an ever-intensifying storm of debt. She’d thought it a hobby.
It had been survival.
“Do you want,” her father sneered, “your sisters to know?”
“No.” It would not matter to Elizabeth. Married to a good man with two bairns, she was happy. And safe from their father. But the others… they needed Emma.
“What do you plan to do about it, then, eh?”
“What do I plan to do?” Rage boiled through her, white and quick as lightning. “Why did you lose every penny? Gambled away everything not entailed, including the profits from my matches that I did not even know existed! You are why all of Edinburgh calls me the Glenhaven Harlot when they think I’m not listening. Perhaps Parkington’s assault would not matter so much had you not been selling my advice without my knowledge!”
He slammed the bottle to the table and rose, unsteady on his whisky-wobbling legs. But his hands were big, and they made dangerous fists. “Act less like a strumpet and you won’t be mistaken for one.”
She wavered backward. “I did nothing to encourage him.” Yet everyone thought she’d stolen Miss Dunn’s suitor from her, a cardinal sin for a matchmaker. Who would trust a woman who might break your heart?
“Earn their trust so I can earn their pounds.”
“My reputation is ruined.”
“Not my bluidy fault, lass.” His brogue had thickened. A good sign the drink was in control. “Marry Parkington.”
“No.”
“Worthless. You’re my golden goose, but you’re worthless as you are. If you dinna find a way to make yourself profitable, I will.” He stroked his scruffy chin. “I would have forced your hand with Parkington last Season if I’d known he’d bark up gossip like a bluidy dog. I should have married you off years ago. But you’re too damn good for the coffers. Might be too long in the tooth now. Hm. Not if it’s an older man. To a man of sixty or more, you’re nothing but a spring chicken.” He cackled. “Doesna have to be you , though. Glenna and Briar are old enough. And young enough.” Another dark chuckle.
“Briar is but fifteen . And Glenna seventeen. Not nearly old enough.” Age not the only reason to avoid marriage, not for Glenna. But that her father would never discover, not if Emma had to give her life to keep it secret.
He lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “Excellent ages. Perfectly ripe for many a man. That’s three daughters to the highest bidder, and only one of them with the stain of a scandal to question her maidenhood and lower her price. Diana is yet too young but five years at most, and she can prove her value, too.”
Oh God. Perhaps it was only the whisky talking, but if it wasn’t… She backed toward the door. He didn’t always follow through with his threats. Often he forgot them. Sometimes… he did not.
“No. I’ll find a way.” She had to. “I… I have an idea.” A last resort. “London. I’ll visit Mother’s cousin there. Macintosh. There are more matches to be made in one London neighborhood than all of Edinburgh.”
Her father hiccupped, grinned, then fell backward onto the couch. “Do it, then. Or I’ll find a more lucrative use for you. Parkington—”
“No. You marry me to him, and he’d soon become tired of giving you money. You keep me unwed, you gain with every match I make.”
“Hm. Makes sense.” The last word slurred into a snore.
She trembled as she climbed the stairs and slipped into her dark, cold bedchamber. She never had a fire. Her sisters in the next chamber needed it more. She used to have Elizabeth’s warmth to beat back the chill. Better cold limbs beneath freezing sheets, though, if it meant Elizabeth was warm and loved and safe. Far away from their father’s greed.
She knelt by her bed and reached beneath it, pulled out a wooden box, and opened it. Where was the letter, the invitation? She’d laughed at first. Her mother’s cousin in London, Viscountess Macintosh, had offered Emma a ridiculous, impossible position last year. Help the Duke of Clearford find husbands for his remaining sisters? Why would she? She had read that ridiculous column he’d written years ago. That same cousin had sent it to her, thought she might find it interesting as she, too, worked to bring hearts together.
Duke Clearly Lacking did not work to bring hearts together, however. He worked to help men trick women into marriage. She and he were not at all the same.
What she wanted no longer mattered. If it ever had. She must travel all the way to London to escape her reputation and find a new project. And she must beat down her pride to help the man whose tenants of courtship infuriated her.
She dropped the letter back into the box and moved to shut it. Something pink winked at her, pinched at her heart, and drew her hands forward. She didn’t want to remember. Not tonight. She’d locked the handkerchief up tight solely so she would never have to think about it.
It slipped easily out of the box and felt like love against her skin. The fine linen and expertly stitched shapes poured memories into her palms. Her mother just before her death, stitching with thin fingers and gaunt face. For the new baby, Emma had thought, the new babe who seemed to drain away her mother’s health. But when her mama had folded the handkerchief neatly and pressed it into Emma’s palm, she’d said, “For you, dearest. For your wedding day. I want to be with you in some way.”
Emma had pushed it back at her mother. She did not want a square of linen! She wanted Mama, needed her. Rarely did people get what they wanted, or even what they needed. She’d found the gift a few weeks after her mother’s death when she’d finally dared to enter her room. Dark, stale air, emptiness. It all washed over her now, and she crawled up and onto her bed, curled her knees to her chest, just as she had done that day when she’d discovered the pink, embroidered handkerchief under her mother’s pillow. Folded neatly, crisply. Her mama’s final words bordered with lilies of white on a field of pink. She’d cried then until she hurt, until she was hollow.
She buried her face in the handkerchief now, heart sobbing. Her mother’s final wish would never happen. The handkerchief, meant to line the pocket of a wedding dress, would remain buried in a box. One and thirty years of age, her life dedicated to her sisters, to others’ happiness, her will chained to her father’s demands—she’d never marry.
She’d wished for love once, had wanted it so badly she’d matched her betrothed with another woman to avoid marrying a man she felt nothing for. Her first match. The one that ended beautifully for the bride and groom. She’d found freedom in it, a chance to try again for herself, to keep looking for the man who would look at her as if she were a queen, the man who would make her the queen of his heart. That freedom had withered at her father’s hands.
But this servitude was nothing compared to what might come if she did not find a way to make another match.
Clearford might be her only chance. She could ignore his foolish ideas because otherwise she’d find her sisters, and herself, married to their father’s cronies before winter’s end.
Read on!