Page 3 of Miss Hawthorne’s Unlikely Husband (The Troublemakers Trilogy #3)

Landel House, Cheshire

“A re you planning on marrying, boy?” Aunt Theo barked from her chair near the fireplace.

Elodia glanced up from her seat on the sofa to watch her father roll his eyes at what had to be the twentieth marital inquiry from his great aunt since their arrival a fortnight ago.

He didn’t look up from the letter he was writing, however.

They’d decided to spend some time with Aunt Theo before returning to London for the season, especially as Isolde was accompanying Elodia this year.

A decision Elodia was almost positive her father was regretting.

Beside her, her aunt’s guest, Miss Walsh, or Isolde as she insisted on being called by Elodia and her aunt, pressed her lips together as if hiding a smile.

She had become a firm fixture at her aunt’s house lately.

She didn’t know why but it seemed as though the woman had all but adopted her after last year.

Elodia couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a relief to have female companionship that wasn’t either a servant or nearly one hundred years old.

With Ada and now Regina married and settled, she was finding herself increasingly on her own.

Elodia loved her father, but after having Regina and Ada, it was difficult to go back to having only him for company.

She didn’t judge them for it. It made sense that they would spend more time with their beloved husbands.

Regina and Leo had gone to the continent for their honeymoon after Parliament closed the previous year, and Ada had gone into her confinement to give birth to her daughter and son.

Thankfully, they were all healthy and happy in the aftermath.

“A pound says he’ll answer this time,” Isolde murmured, and Elodia fought back a chuckle of her own.

They’d taken up this particular bet on the third night with the agreement to settle scores before she and her father left for London and the season.

So far they’d broken even, but this one could be the decider.

“A pound he’ll avoid it like the plague,” Elodia replied. They pressed their palms together for a moment, their version of a handshake, then watched and waited.

“You seem inordinately curious about that subject, madame,” her father replied, his tone even.

Elodia winked at Isolde who narrowed her eyes playfully, “Best of three.”

“Only curious,” Aunt Theo continued. “The season is approaching after all, and I am in the twilight of my life. I want all my chickens sorted.”

“Why me so damned particularly?” he groused, aggressively dipping his quill in the crystal ink well.

Aunt Theo let out a wheeze that could have been a laugh.

Her father was a man of experience with a formidable reputation.

He was tall, handsome, and considered to be in his prime.

A peer of the realm. And yet he was always ‘Cuddy’ to Aunt Theo.

Always her great nephew, never Lord Melbroke.

“You are already five and forty years of age, Cuddy, with no heir in sight. You inherited your father’s title easily enough but his will stipulates a wife for a reason, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

He let out a short breath and finally looked up at her, his bright blue eyes annoyed behind his reading glasses. “It does. And to answer your very nosy question, yes, I am.”

The sinking feeling in Ellie’s stomach had little to do with the loss of a pound. It was happening. Her father was going to remarry. But what was the stipulation they had mentioned?

“What stipulation?” she asked.

Lord Melbroke pursed his lips, glaring at Aunt Theo for a moment before turning to Elodia. “I really didn’t want to get into this at all. It’s nothing to concern you, sweeting.”

“If it has to do with you then it concerns me.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded before meeting her eyes. “It’s to do with the balance of my inheritance. There is a deadline for me to remarry in order to receive the rest of my father’s fortune.”

“When is the deadline?”

“The end of this year,” he replied.

“Oh.” She didn’t know how to feel about it. Her mother had been dead for some time, almost a decade. She couldn’t pretend he hadn’t mourned her or respected her memory.

“I was hoping to have you settled first, Ellie, before bringing another woman into our home. You have been and will always be my first priority.”

“The girl is three and twenty.” Aunt Theo grumbled, “You’ve hardly been pushing the matter.”

“Because I’m not disposing of unwanted property, it cannot simply be anyone who asks.

Elodia is special in more ways than one.

Her husband must be at the very least equally remarkable with sensibility, intelligence and his own degree of accomplishment or she would never be happy.

To say nothing of his social status and background. ”

“Those must be very thin on the ground,” Isolde commented.

Elodia shot her a look. “Practically extinct.”

He spared her a glance, “Yes. But thanks to the law of the land, she only needs one.”

“Have you been looking for your unlikely and elusive match in the wilds of England, Elodia?” Aunt Theo asked.

An image of Richard swam before her eyes, complete with the twinkling eyes and mischievous grin. Her heart fluttered and her cheeks prickled with heat. “I have been, in fact.”

The three adults turned to her with interest. “And?”

“There have been a couple of promising candidates but nothing concrete so far.” Namely because the man she decided on when she was fifteen had no idea how she felt.

“Who?” Lord Melbroke asked.

“I will tell you when there is something to tell, Papa,” she replied.

No doubt her father would beat down the man’s door and demand his compliance if he knew the truth.

Elodia wanted Richard to love her freely before she sought and attained her father’s blessing.

She’d watched the way he loved his sister, Ada.

He was a passionate man, thoughtful and unapologetically caring when it came to those precious to him.

How much more would he love his wife and children?

The woman who married him would never want for anything or anyone else.

Elodia had dreamt of being the recipient of that love, of being the one to return it fully the way he deserved.

For that to happen, he couldn’t be pressured by her father or anyone else.

“What about you, Isolde?” Aunt Theo asked.

Isolde’s head swung in her Aunt’s direction with comical swiftness. “Me? What have I done?”

“You would do well to marry yourself.”

Clearly her aunt also considered the woman to be one of her ‘chickens’.

Ellie had often wondered what it would be like to reach Isolde’s age with no marital prospects.

The older woman was wonderful in every way but had no permanent home.

And yet she seemed entirely unfazed by it.

Perhaps she had some wisdom to teach in that respect.

“I have no interest in that prospect, ma’am. You would do better to lend your force to your nephew and your great niece.”

Aunt Theo dismissed her statement with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense, I have energy to spare. You are far too young and pretty to spend your life alone.”

Isolde chuckled lightly and smiled at the old woman with what seemed like effortless patience.

“I am thirty-eight years old, ma’am. I may be young compared to yourself, but too young is a bit of an exaggeration.

Besides which, I will not be alone as you say.

I have a wonderful circle of friends, the means to secure and maintain a living, and your good self for company at the moment. ”

Aunt Theo grumbled but left the matter alone.

Elodia watched her father’s gaze bounce between his aunt and Isolde in shock. “Is that all?” he asked.

“For now,” Aunt Theo replied.

“Why didn’t I think of that answer?” Lord Melbroke mumbled.

“Maybe you’re not so opposed to your fate after all,” Isolde replied with a cheeky smile. Her father gave her a deeply disingenuous smile before returning to his letter. The room settled back into a companionable silence once again but Elodia couldn’t help but be ill at ease.

Was Isolde right? Elodia felt odd thinking about it.

It had never occurred to her that her father had been waiting for her sake all this time.

That he’d been lonely without a companion.

Had she been selfish waiting for so long?

Should she have been practical from the beginning instead of waiting for a dream match with Richard Thornfield?

Over the years, he had always been kind and considerate, even attentive.

She still carried Richard’s father’s pocket watch from the time she’d found it at a pawn shop, just before she and Ada had been kidnapped nearly two years ago.

The minute she’d seen it in the window, she’d recognized it as his from the two silver cranes against a gold background to the mother of pearl moon.

She’d spent every farthing she had on hand in order to get it back that day, in lieu of buying new dresses with Ada.

But then Mr. Trent had struck and in all that danger, the glass face had been cracked.

Elodia had used her pin money to have it fixed and cleaned.

Her plan was to present it to Richard as a gift and confess her feelings.

It was a bit improper as he was an eligible gentleman and she was an unmarried woman, but it was his property after all, and while they had never been truly inappropriate, nothing about their relationship was strictly obedient to societal doctrines.

But then Ada had gone on her honeymoon and Richard had all but disappeared between renovating Ada’s houses in town and the countryside.