Page 8 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
“Lady Arial Bledisloe,” Richards confirmed.
In Peter’s memory, the ten-year-old girl smiled at him over a chess board, her eyes sparkling with glee as she put his king into check. She wasn’t like the other girls he knew. She rode out around the countryside with him and their fathers, astride on a horse that was only a little large for her, since she was as tall as him and sturdy. She climbed trees and rowed boats and played cricket. She didn’t fuss about her clothes or her hair.
He had liked her, though at thirteen he was not prepared to admit it. And he had always felt guilty for what he had done on the night of the fire, had always wished he could make it up to her.
His natural sympathy for a lady beleaguered on all sides deepened into a longing to serve and protect his old friend. Perhaps she would turn him down. But he must at least try.
“So, what happens next?” he asked Richards. “An interview, you said?”
Richards gave a thoughtful nod. “You are willing, then?”
“I promised to consider it. Lady Arial and I were friends, once.”
“Very well, my lord. My instructions are to discuss the marriage settlements with you, and then, if you still wish to proceed, to set a time for you to meet Lady Arial.”
*
The first candidatedisqualified himself within ten minutes of being shown into the little parlor off the entrance hall that Arial was using for these interviews.
The hint of condescension in his manner grated from the first. He won no points with his answer to her question about what he wanted from this marriage—her money to put into the businesses his uncle had mismanaged, so he could sell them as going concerns and live a life of leisure as a gentleman should.
He topped his dismal performance by announcing he would need to renegotiate some terms of her proposed marriage settlement, because women were not clever enough to keep control over their own money. He was astounded and not a little annoyed when Arial thanked him for his time and told him she did not think they would suit.
The second was courteous and charming. His uncle, an earl, had shot himself after losing everything in a speculation, and he sought marriage to an heiress as a way of relieving his older brother of responsibility for providing for him and his three younger sisters. “Buck can bring the estates back to solvency if he has only himself to worry about,” he explained.
That wasn’t quite what Arial was hoping for when she asked what he wanted from marrying her, but at least his answer was not entirely self-serving. She continued the interview. He would do, she thought. He had no complaint about the proposed financial arrangements. His comment on her continuing to manage her business and investment interests was that he couldn’t understand why she wanted to, but he had no intention of interfering with her life.
That was slightly disconcerting—surely a husband and wife should interfere at least a little with one another’s life? She had hoped for someone who would be in some sense, at least, a partner; perhaps a friend.
Which brought her to the vexed question of children. Or to be more precise (though only in her own mind) to the consummation of the marriage. Arial had already faced the possibility that she might be forced to accept a white marriage—one where she remained a virgin. She was, after all, ugly.
Her chest tightened and a vein at her temple throbbed, but she fought the sensations and kept her voice calm. “I would like you to give me children.”
His eyes widened at the bald statement. “Ah. Well. Of course.”
She barely heard him, focused as she was on forcing her suddenly leaden arms to move, to grasp the veil that protected him from having to look at her. “I need to show you what you are agreeing to,” she murmured, as she lifted first the veil and then—when he did not react to the minor scarring disclosed—the shielding mask that covered the ravaged side of her face.
He stood, his hand over his mouth, his eyes so wide that the whites showed around them. “I am sorry,” he mumbled. “So sorry. Sorry.” He kept repeating the word as he backed towards the door and flung it behind him as he left the room. “Sorry.”
So much for that. Arial sat forlorn and alone, numb with shame and disappointment, while the daylight faded. She only stirred when Clara Tulloch came looking for her and was startled to find her sitting in the dark. “Are you well, Arial?
Arial roused herself. “Quite well, thank you. I was just thinking.”Thinking that I have all this to do again tomorrow, with two more men. And I am afraid it will all be for nothing.
*
Peter walked throughthe London streets, trying to think of some other way out of Arial’s dilemma. He couldn’t reconcile his dignity to the idea of selling himself to a rich wife. On the otherhand, leaving Arial to the non-existent mercies of her cousin was impossible. He owed her his help.
He had come to no conclusion by three, the time appointed to meet John at his lodgings.
John’s betrothed lived in a large townhouse in one of the finest parts of town. Several young ladies dotted the luxurious drawing room, but he knew which was Belinda immediately. Only one lady was dressed for the indoors. Only one was surrounded by gentlemen callers. Indeed, only one deserved the adjectivebeautiful, though Peter was willing to make allowances for a besotted man, and if John had looked at any of the other ladies, he might have doubted his immediate identification.
Belinda sparkled like the diamond John called her, and was just as hard, unless Peter completely missed his guess. When he and John were announced, she glanced over, not at John but at Peter, calculation in her gaze. As an older woman approached the two of them, Belinda turned away to laugh at some remark by one of her courtiers.
“Captain Lord John! Do introduce me to your friend.” The mother was an older version of the daughter, her beauty even more polished, her adamantine soul less well-camouflaged. After his experience with his stepmother, Peter could detect a rapacious harpy at fifty paces.
“Mrs. Weatherall, allow me to present my friend, Lord Ransome. The viscount and I served together in the Horse Guard. Peter, Mrs. Weatherall, our hostess.”
Peter knew his duty. He bowed and tossed the woman the food her sort most enjoyed: a compliment. “Mrs. Weatherall, my friend did not exaggerate when he told me how beautiful your daughter was, but he did not mention your own loveliness.”
