The Reluctant Bride Collection Read online

  Six

  The countess sat in her carriage and debated with herself.

  On the one hand, she was simply visiting a member of the ton. A slightly scandalous member sitting perhaps-not-so-happily on the fringes, but it wasn’t as if Flora was sitting outside the home of a woman of ill repute.

  On the other hand, her husband would be quite upset with her should he learn of her visit.

  On another hand. . .

  Flora stopped. She’d obviously been married to Sebastian for far too long because now all she could think was she only had two hands. There wasn’t another hand.

  Only had one decision to make with two choices.

  To go inside. Or tell her driver to go back home.

  Flora descended from the carriage, and when she was sitting comfortably in a brightly colored drawing room and sipping tea with the widow, she didn’t know how to start.

  Lady Haywood started it for her. “You’ve come about Sinclair.”

  The countess sipped. “Not entirely. Though I am concerned for him and you. You must know that any attachment would be. . .doomed.”

  Elinor smiled. “Doomed. Yes, that’s the word for it. Never fear, Lady Ashmore, I realized that the moment I knew who his brother was.”

  Flora sighed. “If we’d had a son, it might have been different.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have.”

  She was no doubt right. If Flora had had a son, George would have never come back from India.

  The widow said, “And there still may be a son. You still have time.”

  Their eyes met and Flora said, “There may be time. There is little interest.”

  “I think few women have interest in a fifth go-around.”

  “It is the earl who is not interested.”

  Flora’s heart raced at that confession and she felt her face heat. It was shameful that a man who lived by duty couldn’t bring himself to bed his wife. Shameful to the wife.

  “Why is he not interested?”

  Flora patted her cheeks. “Does it matter? The result is the same.”

  Lady Haywood shrugged. “I have had a husband or two uninterested in procreating. Each for their own reasons, and despite the sting I think it had little to do with me. In each case there was little I could do to change his mind.”

  “I must change the earl’s mind. It is my one job, to provide him an heir. That is it. And he won’t let me.” Flora took a deep breath. “I wondered if you could help.”

  Lady Haywood paused with her cup halfway to her mouth, froze with her mouth open and her eyes wide. She flicked her eyes up to meet Flora’s, and then quickly back down.

  “I. . . I. . . have heard of such things but I’ve never participated. I have no interest in providing a third for your bed sport. But thank you for the offer, Lady Ashmore.”

  Flora blushed hotly and set her cup down. “You misunderstand me.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “I would like you to help me seduce my husband. Tell me how to wave my fan and bat my eyelashes and generally overwhelm his senses into complete and dithering madness.”

  Lady Haywood said incredulously, “Complete and dithering madness. The earl?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would like me to tutor you.”

  “Yes! Yes, that is right. Tutor me.”

  Flora beamed at the blank look on Lady Haywood’s face.

  “So you can seduce the Earl of Ashmore. The most stoic and reserved man to grace polite society with his presence?”

  “Yes. Well. I would like to change all that.”

  “You can’t change him.”

  Flora thought no truer words had ever been spoken.

  “I don’t want to change him. I want to change us. I want what we used to have.”

  “I don’t think I’m the right person to be giving that kind of advice. None of my husbands have lasted more than a year; I have no experience in rekindling a dead passion.”

  Flora tamped down her anger. Their passion wasn’t dead.

  Dying, perhaps.

  “If you were to seduce the earl, how would you do it?”

  Lady Haywood muttered into her tea cup, “I would do it by leaving the country as quickly as possible.”

  “Would you? Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that?”

  Lady Haywood cleared her throat. “No. Excuse me. I was being rude about your husband. There is no excuse except. . .I have never had a conversation quite like this before. And, to be truthful, I don’t want to think about the earl in that capacity.”

  Flora smiled. “You remind me of my brother-in-law. Although your tone has more of a bite to it.”

  When the widow’s face fell and she looked toward the window, Flora said softly, “You know it is impossible. Not while he is heir presumptive.”

  “I know it.”

  “So help me.”

  Lady Haywood sucked in a breath and Flora whispered, “Help me and I will do what I can for you.”

  If there was no son for the earl, there would be no help for the widow. Nothing Flora could do to make a scandalous, married-five-times widow acceptable as George’s wife.

  But if there was a son. . .

  “And call me Flora.”

  Lady Haywood’s breath came too fast, the hope in her eyes too bright for Flora to doubt that her offer would not be accepted.

  Lady Haywood said, “Elinor,” and turned away from the window.

  “I will do all that I can for you, Elinor. If there is no son, what I can do is nothing.”

  Elinor nodded. “Very well.”

  She tapped her fingers and Flora could see shrewdness and intelligence in her eyes.

  “I must ask again why he has no interest. Does he like men?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Too much drink?”

  “Of course not,” she said in the same tone of voice. The earl didn’t too much of anything.

  “I’m afraid, Flora, that we have exhausted my limited experience in the disinterest of men.”

  “I was very sick after the last. I think he is. . .scared.”

  “He cares for you?”

  Flora nodded. She knew Sebastian cared for her. Perhaps more than most gentleman did of their wives.

  Or perhaps he did not want to go to the trouble of finding himself another.

  “He doesn’t care for me more than he does for a son. That can’t be possible, Elinor.”

  “It does seem unlikely for an earl of the realm. It does seem unlikely for the Earl of Ashmore, specifically.” She held up her hand and closed her eyes. “Forgive me. I will stop insulting your husband.”

  Flora hadn’t been insulted. She knew how her husband came across. And she knew that it was unlikely that any earl, hers included, would care for his wife more than he wanted a son.

  But she said, “It might be for the best. A good habit to get in to, in case. . .”

  Elinor opened her eyes. “In case. . .”

  She cleared her throat.

  “Step one: touch him every chance you get. Play with his hair, brush lint from his coat even if there is none, touch his hand. Get close to him.”

  The Earl of Ashmore was tired. Too many problems this week at his estates, too many meetings with his advisers.

  He’d dragged his brother to all those meetings, and dragged was exactly what Sebastian had been forced to do.

  “I will not do it, Sebastian,” that brother said. “I am too tired.”

  George flopped back in his seat, the carriage bumping along the road to another ball. . .at the. . .

  Sebastian turned to his wife next to him and she patted his knee. “The Westins.”

  He nodded. “Right. The Westins.”

  George said, “With, I am sure, an eminently eligible daughter who I will be forced to dance with and converse at. And I am too tired. My plan is the card room and copious amounts of liquor.”

  And copious amounts of eminently ineligible women, if Sebastian knew his brother.r />
  He looked again at his wife and her hand still perched daintily on his knee.

  She said, “Yes, a daughter. Just out this year–”

  George closed his eyes and groaned. “The torture, it never ends.”

  Flora’s shoulders shook and she shared a look with Sebastian before saying, “She is a lovely girl, actually. Beautiful and gay and somewhat spirited. I think you will like her, George.”

  “Shall we make a wager?”

  “And, I think, you will have quite the competition for her. The problem may very well be that she will not like you. She might not even notice you.”

  George opened his eyes a slit to glare at his sister-in-law. “Your tricks will not work on me, Jezebel.”

  “That was not womanly manipulation, dear George. That was truth.”

  He hmphed and closed his eyes again, folding his arms and saying with nary a word that he did not believe it.

  If truth be told, neither did Sebastian.

  It wasn’t easy to not notice George. He also didn’t believe that Flora wasn’t trying to manipulate his brother by making the girl somewhat unattainable.

  He smiled at his wife, relieved that it was not him who would need to swing around a fresh-faced silly girl.

  She smiled back into his eyes, snuggling a little closer in the tight confines of the carriage. Sebastian took her hand from his knee and hooked it through his arm.

  He patted her hand and smiled. Relieved that the tension between them was gone. Relieved that she was herself again.

  And he pushed down the little wiggle of worry that was making him wonder just why his wife was no longer tense and unhappy with him.

  And stopped dead the next question before it formed. . .

  A little too late.

  Sebastian stopped smiling and wondered just who had relieved his wife’s tension.

  Flora had been right.

  The girl was beautiful and gay and when George tried to shock her, her eyes twinkled. Her hair was a dark lustrous brown, her skin the color of smooth alabaster, and her chestnut eyes the same color as his favorite horse.

  It, she, was not unattractive.

  She was still a girl, though. And young.

  And while George did not normally find silliness off-putting, she was slightly silly.

  All those would be easily overcome with a little experience and he could very well see that in a few years, with a husband and children behind her, she would be the toast of the town.

  Flora was right. This one he could like.

  This one would not make him want to swim the Thames with his pockets weighed down with bricks.

  This one could be it.

  If one absolutely had to make do with one of them.

  He left her after their one set of dances, not asking for a second when every other gentleman begged it of her.

  When he made it back to Flora, she murmured behind her fan, “She watched you walk away.”

  “Of course she did. Who wouldn’t?”

  He turned though and when he found Miss Westin still looking at him, he bowed his head at her.

  She lowered her eyes in a subtle curtsy, then turned back to her hordes of admirers.

  “I think you were right about the competition,” he said and Flora nodded.

  “She still noticed me.”

  Flora laughed. “Of course she did. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Have I done my duty, then? Am I allowed to escape to the card room and lose my brother’s fortune for him?”

  She nodded hesitantly and George waited.

  Flora shook herself and smiled widely. “I might join you a little later.”

  “I would enjoy that immensely, Flora. It will be grand fun to throw away Sebastian’s money with you.”

  She shooed him off and George left, pretending not to look for golden locks even though he knew she wasn’t here.

  Tried not to feel deflated when he entered the card room and no icy blue eyes were there to greet him.

  Sebastian was there though, acknowledging George with a tip of his head and waving him over.

  George snaked his way through the crowd.

  “What are you doing in here? Losing your fortune is my job, not yours.”

  Sebastian didn’t bother saying he wasn’t here to gamble. The man never did. He just held up his drink and said, “Taking a short break.”

  “Surprising that you decided to do this while I was safely ensconced with Miss Westin.”

  “Was it?” Sebastian sipped. “As you well know, I came to make sure there was nothing here to distract you. Not when we’ve finally found someone interesting.”

  No one here to distract him.

  George shuddered. “Don’t say it like that. We’ve found someone interesting.”

  “Have we not?”

  And when George didn’t answer, because what could he say, Sebastian said, “I assume you have procured a second set of dances with her.”

  “No, I have not.”

  Sebastian choked and George gave him a few hearty whacks to the back.

  George enjoyed it thoroughly.

  “Why the devil not,” the earl shouted when he’d caught his breath, and the room paused in its excited frenzy to look at them.

  George sighed, smiling and shrugging his shoulders at his brother’s antics. When everyone went back to their games and drinks, George said, “You have no notion of subtlety. Of restraint.”

  “Go back right now and get those second dances. How will she know you have your eye on her?”

  “And when I go crawling back and her dance card is full, what then Cyrano?”

  “Then at least she’ll know you are interested and not accept any untoward proposals.”

  “Firstly, I doubt there will be any proposals tonight or even this week. And secondly, she knows.”

  Sebastian froze for a second. “What the devil did you say to her?”

  George wasn’t sure if he found his brother’s lack of faith amusing or irritating.

  “The subtlety will be lost on you, Sebastian.”

  “Try me.”

  “I asked her to save the first waltz of the next ball for me.”

  Sebastian nodded happily. “The subtlety is not lost on me. And good.” He handed his now empty glass off to a servant. “And you’ll call on her tomorrow.”

  George shook his head. “Really, Sebastian. How in the world did you not scare off Flora?”

  “Don’t let this one get away, George. Or you’ll find yourself wed to whatever is left.”

  George clamped his jaw together tight. “I know what I’m doing. And kindly remember that I am not to the marriage stage yet with Miss Westin. I am interested.”

  Sebastian sighed. “Despite what you think, I would love for you to be happy in your marriage. But that I can not wait for. Interest is almost more than I can wait for.”

  “Did Father wait for you to be happy with your chosen? Or were you merely interested?”

  “I knew Flora would be my countess the first time I spoke with her. I wasn’t happy or not happy. I wasn’t interested or not interested. It simply was.”

  George knew he was right. Everyone had known that Flora was it. Everyone had been happy with the match.

  And if George had been in the same situation as his brother had been, he would have known that Miss Westin was his countess.

  It galled him to admit that he was in the same situation as his brother.

  Miss Westin was everything he needed. Everything he should want.

  And while he was interested, he wasn’t entirely happy with her. But that wasn’t her fault.

  He simply didn’t want a countess.

  Elinor received the Countess of Ashmore in her drawing room again.

  “We missed you at the Westins.”

  Elinor laughed. “I doubt it. But thank you.”

  “Were you ill?”

  “No. I didn’t want to see him.”

  Not when she might have him. If.

&nb
sp; If was too tempting.

  “The earl was relieved to not have to chase you off.”

  Elinor smiled conspiratorially. “Oh, yes? How relieved was he?”

  Flora pinched her lips together. “Not that relieved.”

  “Oh.”

  “He thinks he’s found a wife for his brother,” she said and Elinor’s heart stopped beating.

  Flora said into the void, “Miss Westin would be a wonderful countess. And George was interested despite himself. Or so Sebastian assures me. I, of course, have my doubts.”

  Elinor put her cup down before she broke the thing. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Flora took a deep breath, looking down at her hands.

  “I love my husband, despite how gauche that is. He is happy in his position of power, happy with the wife he needed to choose.

  “And I love his brother, too. As if he was my own. I would like him to be happy and I can’t see him ever being happy as the earl. Can’t see him being happy having to choose the wife he needs to fill that position.”

  “You think he would be happy with me?” Elinor held her breath, waiting for the countess’s answer.

  “I think he will only be happy when he can choose what he wants, not what he needs.”

  He already wanted Elinor. She could make him want her more. She could make him want her enough.

  If.

  Elinor said, “If he could choose.”

  “If he could choose.”

  “And why can’t he, Flora? I know we are speaking of the earl but he is a man. They are notoriously easy to seduce.”

  Flora set her cup down, looking away.

  Elinor stood, rounding the little table to sit next to Flora and say softly, “That was not a comment on your womanliness. I am sure you lead your husband around like all wives. It is what we must do. The man thinks, just like a horse, that since he is in front, he is in control. And all women know that it is she who holds the reins who tells him where to go. So why isn’t he going where you want him to?”

  “You do have a way with imagery, Elinor.” Flora shook her head. “And this is an area where I have never needed to lead him before.”

  “It is no different than getting him to do anything else. Put his nose in the right direction and let him get there himself. The real trouble is in getting him to stop, and that you do not need to worry about.”