Page 10 of A Marriage is Arranged

When her ladyship informed her grandson of his betrothed’s forthcoming visit, he groaned and said he couldn’t come to the first night dinner en famille. He had another engagement.

“If you think any engagement is more important than seeing your fiancée on her first evening in Town,” she told him tartly, “I do not! I expect you to be here.”

“Oh, Gran! Spare me!” he answered. “I really don’t see the least need.”

He had hoped to be able to carry off his betrothal and wedding with as little change to his normal routine as possible.

Diane Courtland’s ruffled feathers had already given him trouble.

“You might at least have told me,” she had complained with a brittle smile with which she attempted to conceal her very real disappointment. “Instead of having me read it in the papers like everyone else.”

“I didn’t think of telling you,” he replied. “It makes no difference to us.”

“Doesn’t it?”

She looked up at him, her eyebrows slightly raised. She had recently discovered one or two tiny wrinkles and had observed that holding her eyes wide helped to smooth them out.

She was what was described in the clubs as a prime article , with a generous bosom, tiny waist, and rounded derrière. Her dark hair and green eyes were set off by a creamy complexion she was doing her best to maintain. She presented herself as the widow of a military man, one of the many who had fallen during the Peninsular Wars. In reality, she was the relict of a Midlands mill owner who had fallen, not in military action, but into the slurry from his own mill, while walking home in his cups one night. He had left her well provided for and she had removed to fashionable London with a view to completing her fortunes by, as her mother would have put it, marrying up.

But she liked the intimate company of energetic young gentlemen and had made the mistake of succumbing early on to the temptations of the flesh with a nobleman only just out of his teens. She thought she could keep her indiscretion a secret and marry him. She could do neither. When the young man announced to his startled family that he intended to marry her, they had immediately shipped him off to run their estates in the north and, after some negotiation, agreed to pay her a handsome sum in compensation.

After that there had been several more men, culminating in the Earl of Shrewsbury. She really felt she had hopes there. He was by no means good-looking and his manners were far from conciliating, so it was no surprise he hadn’t been able to fix the affections of a young bride. But Diane was sure she could manage him. He was certainly rich enough to make the effort worthwhile. Now she saw his betrothal as a betrayal and knew it would change things between them, no matter what his lordship might say.

“Can you really think it makes no difference to us?” she said now.

“None whatsoever,” he answered, pulling her into his arms. She submitted, partly because she enjoyed his embraces, but also thinking, again in her mother’s words, that half a loaf was better than none. Until a fresher one came along .

In spite of the Earl’s reluctance to dine with his betrothed in intimate company, such was his grandmother’s authority that when Louise came down to the drawing room an hour before dinner, the Countess was able to announce, “Gareth will be dining with us. I didn’t mention it earlier because he wasn’t sure he was able to come, but I have just received a note in confirmation. I’m glad. I hope you two will at last be able to have a conversation of more than a few minutes. No one else will be joining us.”

Louise’s heart missed a beat. She had expected she would be seeing her betrothed at some point, but hardly thought it would be so soon. Her ladyship had said she need not change for dinner that first night; they were dining en famille . She was pleased she was wearing the blue sprigged muslin day dress she had changed into after removing her traveling outfit. She knew she looked better in that than her old brown dress, which was all he had ever seen her in. But then she chided herself. What difference does it make? He knows what I look like. We are neither of us marrying for looks.

In fact, when the Earl came into the room nearly an hour later he did notice she looked slightly better. As her mother had said, the muslin gown with its blue sprigs did bring out the color in her wide eyes, but the dressmaker had followed Louise’s own instructions not to make it too close fitting or too low in the neck, so the gown was bunchy and did little to reveal her figure beneath. Her hair was still confined in its accustomed tight braid.

“Miss Grey!” The Earl came forward and took her hand, touching his lips to the tips of her fingers. She dipped into a perfectly judged curtsey, murmuring, “My lord.”

“Good gracious,” cried the Countess, receiving her grandson’s kiss on the cheek, “Is it still Miss Grey and my lord ? Where are we? At the Court of St. James?”

Louise was just wondering whether she would ever be able to call her haughty betrothed Gareth , when she was saved from responding by the sonorous voice of the butler declaring, “Dinner is served, my lady.”