Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé: Four Weddings and a Frolic Read online

  “How much capital do you estimate you require to start this project for the excavation of the river banks and the dam?”

  “For all three parcels of land,” Bridges said, “I cannot be certain until I do a survey.”

  Giles waved a hand. “Guess, then. Please. Humor me.”

  Dalworthy narrowed his gaze in a curious muse. “Including an investment by you?”

  Giles nodded. “And, or my father. You are surprised I offer?”

  “Indeed.” Bridges sat forward—and did not say what they all surmised that Brentford would rather die than invest. “I would like to survey it to be certain, but my recollection is that your land is eight miles long by eighteen inland near Dalworthy’s home and mine.”

  “I cannot remember the last time I saw the original maps,” Giles said. “They must be in my father’s files. But I recall examining similar documents about that parcel a few years ago in my house in London. My estate manager and my father’s would have reference to all of them, too. So let me say for now, I not only welcome your new survey, but I will also pay you for it.”

  “Wonderful,” said Bridges.

  “So the cost if the duchy contributes a share to the dam?”

  “Given the size of the dam and say, six months to build,” Bridges said, “I’d estimate approximately one thousand three hundred per man. A total of four thousand pounds at most.”

  Giles pondered the amount. He had only a few projects to compare to this but the price seemed fair, to be sure. “And if I wish to sell the land to you?”

  Dalworthy’s eyes popped wide. “It is not entailed?”

  “No.”

  Bridges blew out a gust of air. “Then Dalworthy and I would have to deliberate on a price.”

  “And make me an offer.”

  “Do you think your father would entertain that?”

  He must. He will. If I dare give the choice in hopes he will never ask for more. “I will see to it that he entertains all options.”

  Bridges tipped his head. “All?”

  “I think we have a few possible means of financial cooperation. Three to be exact.”

  Bridges checked Dalworthy’s expression and both nodded at each other. “Well then, let’s discuss them all.”

  Chapter 6

  Esme rushed up the lane toward the parsonage and—at the sounds of two women chatting—she sank back into the budding shrubbery. In the orange-red rays of gloaming, they couldn’t spot her.

  Mrs. Tandy, the innkeeper’s wife and her friend Sadie who was the wife of the brewer skipped along the lane. Tipsy, they giggled like girls.

  Esme winced. It wouldn’t do to be seen, not headed for the vicar’s cottage. At dusk, too. Alone the day before her wedding. Perhaps they knew if her father was still in the village. Well, it was too late now, hiding as she was, to ask them.

  The two women had to be leaving the May Day revels, headed for home. They told each other ribald stories about the new village blacksmith, a swarthy jovial man, who was as flirtatious as a girl at her Coming Out.

  “And do ye know what ‘e said to me, Sadie?” The innkeeper’s wife was bursting with laughter.

  “Tell me true, girl!”

  Esme felt something with a thousand legs crawling on her neck. She swatted at it, hoping it wasn’t a bee. Bees loved rhododendrons—and her. But it was too early in spring for bees. This was…an adventurous spider? She shivered.

  “Gar, Sadie! He told me I were pretty as a madonna.”

  “Lizzie, how would ‘e know what a madonna is?”

  “He’s got eyes.”

  “And flash your’s at ‘im and your Tom’ll bend you o’er his knee.”

  “I know.” Through the rhododendron leaves, Esme watched her elbow her friend in the ribs. “That’d be fun, too.”

  “Nooo!” Sadie doubled over and slapped her knees in delight.

  “Oh, my Tom, he’s—” Lizzie feigned a swoon.

  And her friend guffawed.

  Another bug bit Esme and she crushed it to her neck.

  “He’s got a gentle touch. When ‘e’s mad at me, he pretends he’s a villain. But he’s just foolin’.”

  “You’re wicked, Lizzie!”

  The two of them locked arms.

  But Sadie spun around, leaned into a bare spot among the leaves and threw Esme a lopsided grin. “Come out o’ there now, Miss ‘arvey. If those beetles bite ye, ye’ll look like a speckled dog for the weddin’ in the morn.”

  “Of course.” She grimaced and stepped forward, at a loss if they asked her the reason for her odd hideaway. “Thank you.”

  Sadie curtsied.

  Esme smashed two tiny black bugs on her arm as the women cackled and hurried down the lane.

  Then she ran for the front door of the vicarage and swung it wide.

  “Charlie!”

  “Jesus!” A tall muscular creature whirled toward her from his stance by the hearth. He was naked to the waist, his shirt around his hips and his hair disheveled. “Esme? Do you knock?”

  “Oh, Charlie.” She stood quite still, admiring the marvelous specimen of manhood, chest proud and rippling with muscle. “I am sorry. Did I frighten you?”

  “Hell yes!”

  “Tsk, tsk, Vicar. Your rhetoric is scandalous!” She laughed, in spite of her problems, and strode toward him, feigning nonchalance. He stood, one hand on his decanter of wine, one on a glass, another within reach. “You anticipated my visit! Wonderful! I came for a drink, a quote and advice.”

  He squinted at the ceiling. “All right. We’ll be quick then. Wine, first. Quote, second, and advice, third?”

  She considered how deliciously broad in the chest was Charles Compton, her childhood friend and often hilarious spiritual adviser. She liked manly men. Like Charlie and Giles. “Wine, then advice. Skip the quote.”

  “As usual.” He rolled his eyes. At once he filled the second glass he’d had so readily to hand and gave it to her. “Sit. I shall return with all you need.”

  “Promises I need you to keep.”

  He snorted, then disappeared into his bedroom at the back of his warm limestone house. Before his small but comforting fire, she took one of his two over-stuffed red silk Queen Anne chairs and contemplated the fan of flame and color. But when she sat, she felt a lump, reached beneath her bottom and came up with a ladies frilly white fichu.

  Well then. Whose, eh?

  “Have you been at the frolic all day?” she called to him.

  “No. I’ve a sick parishioner and visited.”

  “Oh, who’s that?” She’d been so busy with preparations for the party and her wedding that she hadn’t been keeping up with the tenants’ needs these past few days.

  “Mabel Cummings. Ailing. Her heart fails her. I’m afraid she may not recover.”

  “Her family will miss her.” The woman was seventy…or so Esme thought. There’d been a parish fire in the mid-fifties and many records were burned. Lack of a birth registry in the church books meant Mabel could only guess her age.

  “That’s so,” Charlie exclaimed from the back of the house. “Why aren’t you thrilling your mother and getting dressed for the ball?”

  “Because I’m here with you.” Wondering why you are taking so long to emerge. And why I hear…yes, I do…hear whispering back there.

  “I see,” he called out, a bit too jovial for the moment. “Soaking up the wisdom of the church.”

  “I am,” she said as her gaze landed on the distinctive tiny red embroidered purse she knew to be Willa Sheffield’s. Her dear friend was here enjoying a few secluded moments with the man her papa forbade her to wed.

  “Come for comfort before you enjoy the temporal fruits of love?” he teased her.

  Oh, Charlie was trying to throw her off his scent. If Willa needed to see him, who was she to nay-say her? No, no. She would hope they could enjoy each other if only for a few moments. Best to love than never, eh?

  Right. Charlie had been through hell in the wars, minis
tering to the wounded and dying. He’d come home, suffering from loss of hope and worse, loss of faith. But he’d returned to working in the Church with renewed hope from Willa. He’d told Esme that months ago. So he and Willa could have a few minutes together. She would not rob them.

  “I do need to talk to you.” She focused on why she’d come here. And why she needed Charlie’s advice. Because he knew her so well, this man who had skipped rocks with her, hunted deer and lost his father’s gold watch piece to her…twice. “I’m expert at the temporal pleasures. Always have been indulged.”

  She didn’t have to imagine that this man of God sucked in his breath on that statement. She’d often heard the sound of others’ shock. “Don’t worry, Charlie. Aside from my vices, I can say I’m still a virgin.”

  He emerged from the back, a clean linen shirt dangling from his fingers. “All credit to your fiancé.”

  “There you have it! You do not trust me.” She was teasing but she also understood that he’d know her capable of—even desirous of—enjoying the temporal fruits of love before she exchanged her vows. “But Northington is a gentleman.”

  “Thank the Lord.” He had pulled on his white shirt and tucked it in his breeches, then sat in the opposite upholstered chair. His wine decanter always within reach of his favorite chair he used when counseling his flock, he topped up his own glass of good red. “To your health, Madam Marchioness!”

  She drank, taking her leisure to think and to savor the rich flavors that filled her throat. “That’s what I want to discuss. My health.”

  “Then you need a doctor or a chemist. Not a priest.”

  “You consult on unhealthy humors of the soul.” She took another sip and settled back into the sumptuous cushions. She’d be quick as she could, what with Willa waiting in the back bedroom.

  “Esme, you rid yourself of unhealthy humors years ago.”

  “Bah. How do you know?”

  “I rid myself of mine at approximately the same time.”

  “Your’s were worse than mine.”

  His face taut, he lifted his glass in a toast. “Indeed.”

  “Forgive me for pointing that out.” He had served in Wellington’s renowned army in Spain and killed more men than he could count. This horror was his greatest grief and the primary motivator of his return to the clergy.

  He pursed his lips and stared at the fire for a long minute. “I’ve come to terms with it.”

  “Serving here can be peaceful.” From her skirt, she picked off two tiny crawling black insects.

  Charlie handed her his handkerchief to crush them in.

  Apart from the bugs, she loved her home, her parents and her father’s tenants who were all upstanding hard-working men and women.

  “The atmosphere soothes the soul.” He considered his glass, half empty now.

  “I wish mine were soothed.”

  “What bothers you, my dear Miss Harvey? You are about to become a bride of a man you adore. So you have told me. Have you changed your mind?”

  “About Giles? No. Or rather…maybe.”

  Charlie slapped an open hand to his heart. “There’s a chance for me then?”

  “Never.” Willa is your destiny, good sir.

  “Ah, well.” He took another draught. “A man can try.”

  “You had better try instead to curry favor with your only love. Willa arrived finally,” she said, but he did not blink an eye.

  Lady Willa Sheffield was the daughter of Earl de Courcy. Last year, Willa had attended the frolic and renewed a childhood friendship with the newly assigned Reverend Compton. Both had taken to each other with delight that was soon doused by Willa’s father who would not permit her to marry a man so low in status or income. Charlie had not taken the rejection well.

  “Did you know she arrived?”

  He stiffened. “That she’s here? Yes. That she does not care for me any longer? That too.”

  That could not be true. Not if Willa was minus her fichu and Charlie had been minus his shirt. “Who said?”

  “I do. Enough of me!” At that, his expression fell to no nonsense. Very well, he would not speak of his own problems. Only hers. That was why she was here in any case.“What ails you, dear lady? Nerves about the wedding night? The vows of obedience? Or is it the family you take on?”

  “You mean the duke?”

  He nodded gravely.

  “I take him on not at all.” The Duke of Brentford, the old libertine, was one she would never miss. “In fact, I expect not to see him for years.”

  “He may appear tomorrow. Then what will you do?”

  “Offer my cheek?”

  “Ah, yes. Your cheek—” He tapped his finger on his own. “Or your cheek?” His eyes flared with challenge.

  “Whatever gets me through the hour.” Another sip of the excellent vin rouge seemed fitting.

  “And your larger problem? The wedding night? I assure you, love makes any night—or day—a pleasure.” He got an wicked gleam in his eyes. “Even the first for a virgin.”

  She giggled.

  He snorted. “You’ll become addicted to the joys of it.”

  “You speak from experience with virgins, do you?”

  “Yes. Once I was one.”

  She threw back her head to guffaw.

  He winked at her. “Oh, Esme. Northington cares for you and he will make it fun.”

  She picked at her skirts. “I always hoped so.”

  “Well, then? Has your mother not taken you aside to explain the mechanics of the deed?”

  Her cheeks burned. “Oh yes. It sounded…terminally boring.”

  “This piece fits there? A slight sting? A few kisses and we’re done? Babies come forth, viola!”

  “Word for word. How did you know?”

  “It must be a litany mothers share. My sister told me what Mama told her when she was to wed the Earl of Sudbury. Shall I finish the tale?”

  “Yes. But all I want to know is, is your sister happy now?”

  “Embarrassingly so. She dotes on the man. He on her.”

  That made her grin. But then there was that other aspect. “So…they have found pleasure?”

  “Quite a bit of it. She doesn’t say, of course.”

  “But you know because she…what?”

  “Looks…” He waved a hand. “Dreamy.”

  “Ah.” She wanted to appear dreamy. Be dreamy.

  Charlie sat forward. “Do you worry about pleasure?”

  “I do.”

  “Don’t.”

  She scowled. “Can one have too much?”

  He widened his eyes. “No.”

  “Horses don’t seem to have it,” she blurted.

  He gulped. “You’ve seen—?”

  She nodded. “I have. Good heavens, Charlie! My father breeds horses.”

  His laughter rang around the tiny room. “Forgive me,” he said and wiped tears from his eyes.

  “Of course. And dogs don’t seem to like it either.”

  “Dogs?”

  “Papa’s hunters.”

  He nodded once. “Quite.”

  “Why not?”

  “They are not humans, my dear.”

  “But if I feel this burning need to—”

  He looked like she’d shot him in the groin. “What?”

  “Why do I want more than kisses and other things from Giles if it is all so perfunctory?”

  “Well, my dear girl, it is not. It’s glorious. It’s heaven. Or the closest you will ever get to it here on earth. But please do not tell anyone I advised you of that.”

  “Fine. Good to know. That’s what I want at the least. Pleasure.”

  “Very well. So if I cannot assure you that pleasure is a natural byproduct of attraction no matter the first discomfort then…what, Esme, is your real problem?”

  “Money.”

  “Ha!” He slapped his knee. “I need another drink on that. You too?”

  She put out her glass.

  He poured. “How m
uch money might you need?”

  “Do you ever lose your sense of humor?”

  “You know I did. Left it in the dust and blood at Salamanca.” That sobered him, but he shook it off. “I’m eager to learn what kills your good humor on the eve of your wedding.”

  “Brentford has not signed the agreement.”

  “I thought that was all settled?”

  “Papa has signed. The agreements between him and Northington are done. But the duke holds out. For money.”

  “Ah, well. An old dog does not change his habits.”

  “If I marry without Brentford’s agreement, he may not recognize me as Northington’s rightful wife.”

  “The Church will. So will Parliament.”

  “He is the duke’s only son.” She had been taught the rules of primogeniture. Iron-clad, were they not? “So he cannot deprive Northington of the estate, can he?”

  “My dear, Brentford has recognized Northington as his lawful son by his lawful wife, his deceased Duchess, since his birth. Nigh to impossible to reneg on that after thirty years.”

  “So. Good. There is no changing that.” She sipped her wine, gloom clouding her hopes for the future as a happy wife and mother. “I needed to be certain of it.”

  “I am confused, Esme. What is your concern about money?”

  “Papa’s settlement on me has been more than the norm.”

  “Well, of that I am not surprised. The man has made a fortune in wool, cotton and trade. Why would he not give some of it to you?”

  “I worry that what Papa has worked for all these years may go to line the pockets of a derelict. Bankers can be bought. Settlements manipulated by those who hold the pursestrings.”

  “I will not disagree. Corruption can occur.”

  How can I allow that to happen? “That is not just, Charlie.”

  “True.”

  “Much of this marriage business is not just. Not for me or Giles or you and Willa.”

  The stillness in the little cottage was deafening.

  For them all, she was furious and bereft. “But I am a woman and we have few rights.”

  His silence told of his agreement.