The Courtship Caper: A humorous matchmaking Regency, page 9
***
It was hardly to be wondered at that Venetia barely slept.
Feeling ill with fatigue the next morning after breakfast, she sat with her book of poetry, tucked away behind a couple of large plinths topped with Roman busts.
Here, she’d sought cover from Lady Indigo’s ill temper after her employer had overslept. Of course, she’d blamed it on Venetia.
Though, really, it was the maid who was supposed to have rapped on their door who hadn’t done her job.
What was strange was that Lady Indigo was generally such an early riser. Yet, she’d woken up an hour later than she generally did, saying she’d felt woolly-headed. She’d even suggested Venetia had laced her evening milk with some sleeping draft or herb to minimize her snoring.
It would have been nice if such a potion existed to mitigate the nocturnal noises that so often kept Venetia awake when they shared close accommodation. She would have to make it a point of extending her investigations in this area, she thought.
Especially considering she had many years of Lady Indigo’s snoring from the next room to disturb her rest.
She covered her mouth to muffle the sound of yet another uncontrollable sob for she’d just heard several guests enter.
Drawing her knees up to her chin, she tried to focus on the words of the book through her teary vision.
Sebastian thought he had discharged his obligations regarding full disclosure by admitting to the fact that he’d formed a relationship with Miss Reeves four months earlier. What he hadn’t told her was that Miss Reeves now claimed he was the father of her child.
A claim he disputed.
A claim which could only be disputed if he and Miss Reeves had never…
Dropping the book in despair, she pushed the heel of both her palms into her eyes.
But if he and Miss Reeves had taken their relationship to the same level of intimacy that he and Venetia had, and if Miss Reeves was with child...then how could Sebastian and Venetia, in good conscience, be married?
Venetia was not with child. But Miss Reeves was?
Which therefore meant Sebastian was honor-bound to wed Miss Reeves.
It didn’t matter how much he truly did love Venetia—and she knew he did—he would have no choice but to marry Miss Reeves.
Her eyes felt puffy from crying as she stared out of the window and onto the lawn, now lightly dusted with snow.
Tonight, the entertaining rooms would be perfumed by beeswax candles and bodies of various scents pressed together as nearly one hundred guests enjoyed the Christmas festivities primarily on Lord and Lady Quamby’s ballroom floor.
She heard Lady Fenton cry, “It looks marvelous!” as a couple of maids struggled through the doors bearing an enormous vase of hothouse blooms, adding, “You have heard Lady Indigo slept in! First time ever, she says! And now it’s too late to make the journey in a day so she’s decided to remain another night.”
“But she’ll keep to her room since she hates large gatherings,” she heard Lady Quamby reply.
Venetia watched her step back and instruct a change of position for the floral arrangement before she returned to the painful subject of Sebastian and Miss Reeves.
Venetia would rather not hear it, but she was trapped.
“Both the young people’s fathers will be in attendance, which was not at all expected. And Mr Reeves is bringing along Lord Yarrowby, who will no doubt try and pressure Arabella into a marriage she does not desire.”
A sudden surge of hope made Venetia stiffen into awareness. Could Lord Yarrowby be the father of Miss Reeves’s child? They had, after all, been on the verge of announcing their betrothal four months earlier, she’d heard.
Perhaps Venetia was leaping to conclusions before she had given Sebastian the benefit of the doubt. After all, she hadn’t given him a proper opportunity to defend himself against the charges.
It was one thing to have become romantically entangled four months ago...and quite another if, in fact, [BH5] that entanglement went no further than kisses and hand-holding.
Slipping the book back into the bookshelf as her hostesses moved to the far end of the room to discuss further decorations, Venetia made her escape without the ladies even knowing she’d been there.
Well, she would not always be so insignificant, she decided with energy.
She wasn’t always going to be Lady Indigo’s unpaid servant. No, she was going to clear this matter up so that she could be what she had been destined to be since Sebastian had returned from his Grand Tour and fallen in love with Venetia. She was going to be his wife.
Sebastian surely could not be the father of Miss Reeves’s child. And he was not the kind of man who would abrogate his duty and sacrifice honor under any circumstances.
Even to marry the woman he loved.
There must be some logical explanation which Venetia had missed, coming into the drawing room halfway through her hostess’s conversation the night before.
As she turned into the corridor that led toward the billiards room where she had some hope of finding him, her palms were damp with the nervousness of what her direct questioning would uncover.
She didn’t expect to come upon him so soon. He was standing at the far end of the corridor, almost obscured by the gloom, but she had no trouble recognizing his tall, handsome physique, and she was nearly overcome by the familiar rush of excitement she always felt to see him.
She was about to call out when she saw Miss Reeves was talking to him, for she’d been half hidden by the connecting corridor.
Then Miss Reeves threw her arms about her Sebastian’s neck, as if in entreaty, before he disengaged them and put her away from him.
It was clear he was trying to let her down gently, and while Venetia should have felt sorry for the girl, she could only feel relief that Sebastian had remained true to his heart.
Now Venetia just had to satisfy herself that that did not entail compromising his integrity.
Chapter 12
“Sebastian!”
When Sebastian heard Venetia hail him from the end of the corridor, it was as if a ray of pure joy had speared him right through the heart. He’d hardly slept for fear at what a dim view she’d taken of his relations with Barbara Compton and had in fact been up since dawn due to the possibility that his attempts to stymie Lady Indigo’s dawn departure had failed.
“You didn’t leave with Lady Indigo after all?” He gripped her hands, relieved she didn’t pull them away. “I was so hoping that the maid would take to heart my judicious suggestion that the old dear might have a better night’s sleep with a mild sleeping posset, as suggested by...well, I couldn’t remember if it was Lady Fenton or Lady Quamby.” He grinned at Venetia, hoping that another assertion of his desire for her company would go some way toward dispelling her apparent displeasure with him.
Instead, she merely smiled, disregarding his remark to say, “It’s very gloomy in here, but did I see you talking to someone just now?”
And, because he knew that Venetia was filled with enough doubt and mistrust over his relationship with Mrs Compton, he thought it best not to mention that he’d just been in company with Miss Reeves.
Not when that young lady had thrown her arms about Sebastian’s neck as she’d entreated Sebastian speak to her father on her behalf with regard to her ridiculous notion that Signor Boticelli would make her a better husband than Yarrowby.
So, he sidestepped the question, saying smoothly as he ran the tip of his forefinger gently over the shadows beneath Venetia’s normally bright eyes, “I think you should have had some of Lady Indigo’s posset, my darling. You look positively overwrought.”
Lord, but he knew he would have to face up to her questioning.
He glanced the length of the corridor. A couple of housemaids had just disappeared around the corner. They were in a musty, gloomy part of the house. Unlikely to be disturbed or observed, at any rate. Best get the interrogation over and done with, sooner the better, he thought, so they could dance the night away and announce their betrothal in front of all.
Now that Lady Indigo was remaining, Venetia would have to be allowed to attend tonight’s Christmas Ball.
What a wonderful occasion it would be, too.
Sebastian would give Libby the bolstering she needed to assert her right to marry her beloved; and their father would simply have to accept that his children were grown-ups now, and he no longer held sway over their futures, as he once had.
“I’ve barely slept, it’s true, Sebastian,” Venetia said, clasping his lapels and looking up into his face. “I’m sorry we parted on bad terms last night. I wanted to come after you and, in fact, when Lady Indigo asked me to darn her stocking, I returned to the drawing room in the hopes that you’d be there.”
“My darling girl, if only I had been!” He stroked her face, happier than he could say that her feelings for him hadn’t changed.
“And then I heard Ladies Fenton and Quamby talking...about you. They didn’t know I was there.” She drew in a shaky breath, closed her eyes briefly, then burst out, “So now I know about the baby!”
Oh lord. A wave of shame enveloped him. Of course she’d take such a discovery hard, but he hadn’t thought she’d take quite such a dim view of it.
“Venetia...I don’t believe it’s mine.” It was the most direct way he felt he had of making it clear to Venetia that he would not let it come between them. And it was the truth. Initially, he’d accepted paternal responsibility after Compton had thrown his wife out of the house and threatened divorce proceedings. But the more he learned, as time went by, the more he suspected Barbara had framed Sebastian.
Why? Because the real father of Barbara’s child was her husband’s arch foe, and she’d been too afraid to name him.
Sebastian cupped Venetia’s beautiful, tearstained face and looked deeply into her eyes as he tried to convey the depth of his love for her. “Honestly, my darling! I can reassure you that this won’t stand in the way of our being together. I’ve told her that I don’t accept responsibility. I’ve made that quite clear. It’s just you and me, Venetia. You are the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
“And you are the only man I’ve ever loved, Sebastian, but honor requires us to live with our mistakes.” She stared balefully up at him before asking abruptly, “And you say you’ve severed all ties with her?”
“Would I lie to you, Venetia? Yes, I swear I’ve had nothing to do with her since she agreed—reluctantly, but with good grace—that my life was my own, to live as I chose; that she’d make no further claims on me.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gently tipped her face upward so she was forced to look into his eyes. “Does that satisfy you, Venetia? Would I lie to you? Please tell me that we can be married as soon as it can be arranged?”
Her mouth dropped open, and her hands dropped from his shoulders. To Sebastian’s horror, he saw tears gathered in her eyes as she shook her head.
To his even greater horror, he watched her step back as she whispered, “I’m sorry, Sebastian, but...I’ve changed my mind. I no longer wish to marry you.”
***
Prostrate with grief and disappointment, Venetia pleaded a megrim, earning dispensation for a couple of hours until Lady Indigo, herself, returned to their apartments. But, as she was so demanding, Venetia decided it would be less exhausting to take herself off to the library than be within earshot of Lady Indigo and her demands.
Returning to her position on the windowsill, half hidden by the curtain, she again found refuge within the pages of a book whose title she had not the energy to ascertain.
It was simply a relief to be alone in the large and lofty room, positioned so she could both read and glance out onto the snow-covered lawn in the hopes of seeing Sebastian with Miss Reeves, so she could then truly justify the seething hurt in her breast.
The loud stomping of someone slightly infirm as they made their way to the library to her right made her glance up. Expecting to see Lord Quamby or Lady Indigo, to Venetia’s horror, she beheld old Mr Wells himself.
Her late father’s employer. Sebastian’s father. The man who’d said that over his dead body he’d see his son waste himself over a mere nobody like Venetia.
She put her head down and kept very quiet, concentrating studiously on the page.
Until a peevish voice was directed at her, and she could not pretend she had not heard.
“Young lady, would you be so good as to climb the stepladder to retrieve a volume of Milton’s works I cannot reach?”
Obediently, Venetia rose from the windowsill to do as she was bid, ensuring that her cap shielded her face as much as possible. Stepping down from the ladder, she handed the volume of Milton to the man responsible for destroying her happiness.
No, Sebastian had done that last night.
“Very kind, very kind, young lady,” he muttered, peering at the embossed lettering on the front before raising his monocle to regard Venetia with a frown.
“I know you.”
Venetia said nothing. He’d aged since she’d last seen him. Perhaps his faculties had deserted him. He certainly no longer appeared the intimidating tyrant of her memory.
“It’s that dreadful cap that prevents me from seeing you properly in this dim light. But yes, it’s Venetia, isn’t it? How is your father?”
“He died three years ago, sir.” Did he even remember how angrily he’d railed at her father, threatening to dismiss him when Sebastian had declared he wished to marry Venetia?
“I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man. Best bailiff I ever had.” He blinked a few times. “I’ve had my losses, too. My beautiful daughter-in-law. Perhaps you’d heard.” He looked at her a little more sharply. “And now my own daughter. She wants to throw herself away on a nobody, also, you know.”
“I...did not know.” It was easier to lie. “I was supposed to leave at dawn with my employer, Lady Indigo,” she added proudly. “Instead, we leave at first light tomorrow. Please send my regards to Libby. I doubt I’ll see her.”
Old Mr Wells’s eyes narrowed. “So, you won’t be at the ball tonight? No fond reunion between you and my son? Does he even know you’re here? Perhaps not, if you’ve insisted on wearing that ghastly rag on your head all this time.”
He drew in a labored breath, and his frown deepened as he went on, “Oh no, his eye has been taken, I’ve learned to my horror, by Miss Reeves. Nothing against the gel, personally. After all, Sebastian is old enough to make up his own mind, now. He can marry whomever he chooses.” He coughed. “Except where it causes me outright embarrassment, and I can tell you, my gel, that I am highly embarrassed to have to look my old friend Thomas Reeves in the eye when I know he’s wanted his gel to marry Yarrowby all these years.” He stamped his cane on the floor for emphasis. “I know the pain of recalcitrant children, and I’ll not have my son the cause of more trouble.”
“So…they are going to get married?” Despite every instinct telling her it was not her place, Venetia had to ask.
Mr Wells let out a harrumph. “Reeves is apoplectic! I saw him just now after he’d come out of discussion with Ladies Quamby and Fenton, who have been sticking their noses into business that doesn’t concern them, if you ask me.”
Venetia didn’t know what to say, so she just lowered her eyes with a subservient, “Indeed, sir,” while her insides fluttered nervously, and she tried to conceal the acute physical pain that gripped her.
“I have to take a stand if my club is to remain the harmonious haven it used to be.” His mouth worked as if he were grinding his gums, before he added, “Four years changes us greatly. It has changed me. I’ve grown soft.”
Venetia was hardly going to say she saw no signs of it until he went on, “I regret what I said to you when I thought you were going to run off with my boy. I saw how unhappy he was trying to be a good husband to Dorothea and it nearly broke my heart. But you. You’re here now. Take off that thing.” He pointed to her cap.
Venetia blinked. “Why, sir…”
“I want to see if you’ve changed so greatly in four years that my son would be repulsed.”
“I don’t think I need to…”
“Lady Fenton!”
Venetia jumped as the old man barked at their hostess who happened to be passing by, together with her sister. They turned and took a few steps toward their guest, their faces bright and curious.
“Please arrange some suitable clothing for this young lady so she can attend tonight’s Christmas Ball. Her father was my bailiff, you know. Excellent man. I’d like to do something for his daughter.”
Lady Quamby smiled at Venetia. “I’m certain that will present no problems, Mr Reeves. I’ll send my maid to her bedchamber with something suitable,” she added before moving on.
The old man turned to direct a look at Venetia, but she was not about to humor him with a smile.
If Mr Reeves believed he’d appeased Venetia, he was wrong. “I’m not going to even try and win your son back from Miss Reeves,” she said softly.
“Eh? He’s changed that much for you?” The old man looked startled.
Venetia sent him a level look. “You made your feelings very clear to me four years ago, sir. And I did your bidding, then.” Proudly she pushed back her shoulders as she prepared to leave. “But I’m not going to do your bidding now.”
Chapter 13
Sebastian saw the housemaid flinch at the sound of his Hessians ringing on the flagstoned hallway as he entered Quamby House after a furious gallop.
It had not eased the terrible ache in his heart.
"Mr Wells?"
Reluctantly, he stopped and turned. It was Lady Fenton, smiling warmly at him. He could see why Fenton had been captivated. She was a beauty in the same kind of dark, mysterious way that Venetia so appealed to him. Like Venetia, she had eyes that hinted at an intelligence that went so much deeper than her beauty.
