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“You mean to say you were slighted?” her father rasped. “By God, Lord Morrilton will hear of this.”
“No, father.” Talia lifted her head in horror. It was bad enough to be ignored when she was forced to attend the events to which she was invited. She could not bear to be a source of resentment. “I warned you, but you would not listen. You cannot purchase me a place in society, no matter how much money you spend.”
The anger suddenly faded from her father’s face to be replaced by a smug smile.
“Now that is where you are wide of the mark.”
She stilled. “What do you mean?”
“I have just returned from a most satisfying meeting with Mr. Harry Richardson, younger brother to the Earl of Ashcombe.”
Talia recognized the name, of course.
A handsome gentleman with brown hair and pale eyes, he possessed a reckless charm and a talent for shocking society with his outrageous pranks and notorious passion for gambling. He was also infamous for being deeply in debt.
Watching from the fringes, Talia had secretly concluded that the gentleman’s wild behavior had been a result of being so closely related to Lord Ashcombe.
Unlike his younger brother, Ashcombe was more than passably handsome. In fact, he was…breathtaking.
His hair was the palest gold that shimmered like satin in candlelight, and his lean features were so perfectly carved that he appeared more like a god than a mere man. His cheekbones were high and sharply chiseled, his nose was narrow and boldly arrogant, and his lips surprisingly full. His eyes…
A delicate shiver raced through Talia.
His eyes were a pale silver rimmed with black. They could glitter with cold intelligence or flare with terrifying fury. And his lean body was hard with the muscles of a natural athlete.
He was grace and power and cunning all combined together, and while he rarely made an appearance at the various gatherings, he was all but worshipped by society.
How could Harry not feel as if he were forever in the shadow of such a man? It seemed perfectly natural he would rebel in whatever manner possible.
Aware that her father was waiting for a response, Talia cleared her throat. “Did you?”
“Well, don’t sit there gaping like a trout.” The older man gave a wave of one meaty hand. “Ring for that hatchet-faced butler and tell him to bring up a bottle of that fancy French swill that cost me a bloody fortune.”
Feeling a chill of premonition feather down her spine, Talia absently tugged on the bell rope near the fireplace, her gaze never leaving the self-satisfied sneer on her father’s face.
“Father, what have you done?”
“I have purchased you a place in that stiff-rumped society, just as I said I would.” His smile widened. “One they can’t ignore.”
Talia sank onto the edge of the nearest chair, a growing sense of horror flooding through her.
“Dear lord,” she breathed.
“You can thank me, not the Almighty. He could never have performed the miracle I achieved over a boiled beefsteak and a bottle of burgundy.”
She licked her lips, trying to quell the rising panic. Perhaps it was not as bad as she feared.
Please God, do not let it be as bad as I fear.
“I assume you were at your club?”
“I was.” Silas grimaced. “Bastards. It is nothing less than barefaced highway robbery to demand that I pay a fee just to rub elbows with the tedious idiots who believe themselves above us honest folk.”
“If you find them so repulsive, then I cannot imagine why you bothered to join the club.”
“For you, you pea goose. Your mother, God rest her soul, wanted to see you respectably established and that’s what I intend to do. Not that you make it an easy matter.” Her father ran a dismissive gaze over the curls escaping from the neat bun at the nape of her neck, then at the dust that marred her skirt from climbing among the bookshelves. “I hired the most expensive governess and a dozen other instructors who promised to polish you for society, and what did I get for my money? A lump without the least appreciation for all I have sacrificed.”
Talia flinched, unable to deny her father’s accusations. He had paid an enormous sum of money in the attempt to mold her into a lady of quality. It was not his fault that she lacked the talents expected of a debutante.
She could not play the pianoforte. She could not paint or do needlepoint. She had learned the steps to the various dances, but she couldn’t seem to perform them without tripping over her own feet. And she had never been able to capture the art of flirtation.
All of these failures might have been excused had she possessed the sense to be born beautiful.
She knotted her fingers in her lap. “I do appreciate your efforts, Father, but I truly believe Mother would have wished for my happiness.”
“You know nothing,” her father snapped. “You are a silly chit who has spent too much time with your head stuck in a book. I warned that governess not to allow you to read that dodgy poetry. It’s rotted your brains.” He paused to glare at her in warning. “Thankfully, I know what is best for you.”
“And what is that?”
“Marriage to Mr. Harry Richardson.”
The room briefly went black, but Talia grimly battled back the urge to faint.
Swooning would do nothing to sway her father. Perhaps nothing would. But she had to try.
“No,” she whispered softly. “Please, no.”
Silas scowled at the tears that glittered in her eyes. “What the devil is the matter with you?”
Talia surged to her feet. “I cannot marry a stranger.”
“What do you mean, a stranger? You’ve been introduced, haven’t you?”
“Introduced, yes,” Talia agreed, willing to bet her considerable fortune that Harry Richardson could not pick her out in a crowd. Certainly he had never bothered to take notice of her since their brief introduction during her first season. “But we have exchanged barely half a dozen words.”
“Bah, people do not wed because of ballroom chit chat. A man seeks a female to provide him with a pack of brats…?.”
“Father.”
Silas snorted, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t be giving me your missish airs. I know enough of the world to call a spade a spade. A man has one need of a wife, while a female needs a man who can provide her with a home and a bit of pin money to keep her happy.”
The panic once again flared through Talia, and she sucked in a deep breath, pressing a hand to her thundering heart.
Dear Lord, she had to stop this madness.
“Then I fear you have made a poor choice,” she managed to murmur. “From what I’ve heard, Mr. Richardson is a reckless gambler and a…” Her words faltered.
“Aye?” her father prompted.
She turned to pace across the carpet, unwilling to admit that she often used her position as a forgotten wallflower to eavesdrop on the latest gossip. It made it difficult to explain how she was aware that Harry Richardson was a lecher who kept a string of beautiful and extremely expensive mistresses.
“And a gentleman incapable of providing either a home or pin money for his wife,” she instead pointed out.
Silas shrugged, obviously willing to overlook his potential son-in-law’s numerous faults so long as he could provide the necessary pedigree for his grandsons.
“Which is why I have informed him that I will be using a portion of your dowry to purchase a suitable house in Mayfair as well as to set aside an allowance for you.” He deliberately paused. “There, now you can’t be saying I haven’t done my best by you.” Best?
Talia abruptly turned to meet her father’s belligerent glare, anger burning through her at the ridiculous words. It was bad enough that Silas was willing to sacrifice her to satisfy his frustrated lust for social acceptance. But to hide behind the pretense that his only thought was for her was beyond the pale.
“Why would you choose a younger son? I thought you were determined that I should wed a title?”
“After three seasons of waiting for you to bring even one gentleman up to snuff, I accepted I had set my sights too high.” He drained the last of his brandy, his gaze sliding from her too-pale face to study the tips of his boots. “Just like when I wished to sell that chestnut nag this past spring. A man has to bear the occasional loss when he’s bartering.”
She flinched. Her father was always willing to trample her pride as well as her feelings to force her to do his bidding, but he was rarely so cruel.
“I’m not a nag to be bartered.”
His jaw tightened with determination. “Nay, you are a young lady who has a great deal too many sensibilities considering you’re close to being put on the shelf.”
“Would that be such a tragedy?” she asked softly.
“Don’t be daft, Talia,” he barked, lifting his gaze with an expression of impatience. “I have not acquired a fortune only to have it end up in the hands of some nitwitted nephew when I cock up my toes.” Stepping from the desk, he stabbed a finger toward her. “You will do your duty and provide me with a grandson who will be the flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood. He will attend Oxford and, in time, become a member of parliament. Perhaps he will even become prime minister.” A smile of smug anticipation curled his lips. “Not bad for the son of a butcher.”
“I am surprised that you do not demand a throne,” she muttered before she could cut off the words.
“I might have if you hadn’t proven to be such a disappointment.” Silas turned to stomp toward the door, clearly finished with the conversation. He had made his decision and now he expected Talia to meekly obey his command. “The wedding will be held the end of June.”
“Father—”
“And Talia, you will make certain that it is the social event of the season,” he said, overriding her soft plea and glancing over his shoulder to offer a warning glower. “Or you will pack your bags and join your Aunt Penelope in Yorkshire.”
Talia’s stomach clenched at her father’s stark threat.
Penelope Dobson was her father’s eldest sister. A bitter spinster who devoted her life to her incessant prayers and causing others misery.
After her mother’s death, Talia had spent nearly a year in her aunt’s decrepit cottage, treated little better than an unpaid servant and rarely allowed to leave her cramped rooms. That might have been bearable if the horrid woman had not taken pleasure in striking Talia with a horsewhip for the tiniest infraction of her rigid rules.
Her father was well aware that she would toss herself in the Thames before she would once again be imprisoned in Yorkshire.
Heaven help her.
CHAPTER TWO
MUCH TO TALIA’S astonishment, her wedding day dawned with a glorious sunrise that painted the cloudless sky in shades of pink and gold. It promised to be a perfect summer day. She had expected a gray, dismal morning that would have matched the impending sense of doom that had haunted her for weeks.
Even more astonishing, she appeared almost pretty in her ivory silk gown overlaid with silver gauze and sprinkled with diamonds along the low-cut bodice and the hem that stopped just above her ivory satin slippers. Her dark curls were carefully arranged in a complicated knot on top of her head and held in place by a large diamond tiara that matched the heavy necklace draped around her neck and shimmering earrings.
Gifts from her father, of course.
He was determined that her wedding would be the talk of the season, impervious to Talia’s pleas that a lavish wedding would be in poor taste considering that all of society knew that the bridegroom had been purchased with Talia’s vast dowry.
So far as Silas Dobson was concerned, discretion was for those who could not afford to toss about their money in gaudy displays of extravagance.
Reluctantly accepting that the earth was not going to open up and swallow her whole, Talia silently entered the glossy black carriage and allowed herself to be driven to the small church where the private ceremony was to take place. After the ceremony they were scheduled to return to Sloane Square for an elegant wedding breakfast with two hundred guests.
It was only when she was standing at the altar that the disaster she had been anticipating the entire day at last struck.
The rector was attired in his finest robes with a somber expression on his round face. Talia’s father was standing at her side wearing his finest black jacket and silver waistcoat. And on the other side was Talia’s only friend, Hannah Lansing, the daughter of a baronet who shared Talia’s miserable fate as a wallflower.
But there was one notable absence.
Mr. Harry Richardson was nowhere to be found.
For nearly two hours they waited for the missing bridegroom to make his appearance, while the increasingly bleak silence that had filled the church echoed in Talia’s heart.
She felt…numb. As if the humiliation of being abandoned at the altar was happening to some other unfortunate lady.
It was a sensation that refused to be dismissed even when her father had stormed from the church, swearing that the bastard would suffer for having made a fool of Silas Dobson. And when she had been forced to return to the house and announce to the two hundred avid, twittering guests that the wedding had been regrettably postponed.
Or now, as she sat in her private sitting room decorated in soothing shades of lavender and ivory.
Perched on the edge of the window seat that overlooked the rose garden filled with guests still reveling at being in attendance at the greatest scandal of the season, Talia understood she should feel something.
Anger, humiliation, heartbreak…
Anything but the awful emptiness.
Absently she watched as Hannah paced across the Persian carpet, the swish of her rose satin gown the only sound to break the thick silence. The poor girl was clearly at a loss as to how to handle the awkward situation.
“I am certain there must have been an accident,” Hannah at last muttered, her round face flushed and her frizz of brown curls escaping from silver combs.
Talia shrugged, unable to stir an interest in why Harry had failed to appear at his own wedding.
“Are you?” she asked, her voice dull.
“Yes, indeed.” Hannah’s dark eyes held a sympathy she couldn’t entirely disguise. “No doubt the carriage overturned and Mr. Richardson and his family were knocked unconscious.”
“Perhaps.”
“Oh.” Hannah pressed a hand to her plump breasts. “Not that I would wish for the passengers to be injured.”
“No. Of course not.”
“But it would explain…”
“Explain why I was left at the altar?”
Hannah grimaced in embarrassment. “Yes.”
