Winning the Wallflower

  “I don’t want to make you uneasy,” Georgiana said, seating herself as well, “but I would guess that Mama and Papa are going to lock you in the root cellar with the FF.”

  “They could move the matrimonial bed down to the study. Just to make sure that Rupert understands his duty.”

  “Oh, he will understand,” Georgiana said. “Men come to it naturally, as I understand.”

  “But I never had any particular sense that the FF was of that sort, did you?”

  “No.” Georgiana thought for a moment. “At least, not yet. He’s like a puppy.”

  “I don’t think he’ll mature by tomorrow evening.” “Puppy” wasn’t a bad description of Rupert, given that he had turned eighteen only the week before. Olivia would always fault her papa for leaping into matrimony before the duke, and then proceeding to procreate at the same headlong rate.

  It was tiresome to be a woman of twenty-three, betrothed to a lad of barely eighteen. Especially a boy who was such a callow eighteen.

  All through a light supper before the ball Rupert had babbled on about how the glory of his family name depended upon his performance on the battlefield—even though everyone at the table knew that he would never be allowed near a battlefield. He might have been “going to war,” but he was the scion of a duke. What’s more, he was an heir for whom there was no spare, and as such had to be kept from harm’s way. He’d probably be sent to another country. In fact, she was rather surprised that his father was allowing Rupert to travel outside England at all.

  “You’ll have to take the lead,” Georgiana suggested. “Begin as you mean to go on.”

  Olivia slumped a little lower on the settee. She had known, of course, that she would have to bed Rupert at some point. But she had vaguely imagined the event taking place in the dark, where she and Rupert could more easily ignore the fact that he was a good head shorter than she was and more than a stone slimmer. That didn’t seem likely if they were locked into the library.

  “That’s one good thing about your figure,” Georgiana went on. “Men like curvaceous women.”

  “I can’t say I’ve noticed. Except perhaps when it comes to Melchett, the new footman with the lovely shoulders.”

  “You shouldn’t be ogling a footman,” Georgiana said primly.

  “He ogles me, not the other way around. I am merely observant. Why do you suppose we aren’t simply getting married now?” Olivia asked, tucking her feet beneath her. “I know that we had to wait until Rupert turned eighteen, though frankly, I thought we might as well do it when he was out of diapers. Or at least out of the nursery. It’s not as if he’s ever going to achieve maturity as most people think of the word. Why a betrothal, and not a wedding?”

  “I expect the FF doesn’t wish to marry.”

  “Why not? I’m not saying that I’m a matrimonial prize. But he can’t possibly hope to escape his father’s wishes. I don’t think he’d even want to. He doesn’t have a touch of rebellion in him.”

  “No man wants to marry a woman his father picked out for him. Actually, no woman either—think about Juliet.”

  “Juliet Fallesbury? Whom did her father choose? All I remember is that she ran away with a gardener she nicknamed Longfellow.”

  “Romeo and Juliet, ninny!”

  “Shakespeare never wrote anything relevant to my life,” Olivia stated, “at least until they discover a long-lost tragedy called Much Ado about Olivia and the Fool. Rupert is no Romeo. He’s never shown the least inclination to dissolve our betrothal.”

  “In that case, I expect he feels too young to be married. He wants to sow some wild oats.”

  They were both silent for a moment, trying to picture Rupert’s wild oats. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Olivia said, after a bit. “I simply cannot envision the FF shaking the sheets.”

  “You shouldn’t be able to envision anyone shaking the sheets,” Georgiana said weakly.

  “Save your tedious virtue for when there’s someone in the room who might care,” Olivia advised her, not unkindly. “Do you suppose that Rupert has any idea of the mechanics involved?”

  “Maybe he’s hoping that by the time he comes back from France, he will be an inch or two taller.”

  “Oh, believe me,” Olivia said with a shudder, “I have recurring nightmares about the two of us walking down the aisle in St. Paul’s. Mother will force me into a wedding dress adorned with bunches of tulle so I’ll be twice as tall and twice as wide as my groom. Rupert will have that absurd little dog of his trotting at his side, which will only call attention to the fact that the dog has a better waistline than I do.”

  “I shall take Mother in hand when it comes to your gown,” Georgiana promised. “But your wedding dress is irrelevant to this discussion as pertains to tomorrow’s seduction.”

  “ ‘Pertains to?’ I really think you should be careful, Georgie. Your language is tainted by that pestilent Mirror even when we’re alone.”

  “You’ll have to think of tomorrow as a trial, like Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables.”

  “I’d rather muck out the stables than seduce a man who’s a head shorter and as light as thistledown.”

  “Offer him a glass of spirits,” Georgiana suggested. “Do you remember how terrified Nurse Luddle was of men who drank spirits? She said they turned into raging satyrs.”

  “Rupert, the Raging Satyr,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “I can just see him skipping through the forest on his frisky little hooves.”

  “Hooves might give him a distinguished air. Especially if he had a goatee. Satyrs always have goatees.”

  “Rupert would have trouble with that. I told him tonight that I thought his attempt to grow a mustache was interesting, but I was lying. Don’t satyrs have little horns as well?”

  “Yes, and tails.”

  “A tail might—just might—give Rupert a devilish air, like one of those rakes who are rumored to have slept with half the ton. Maybe I’ll try to imagine him with those embellishments tomorrow evening.”

  “You’ll start giggling,” Georgiana warned. “You’re not supposed to laugh at your husband during intimate moments. It might put him off.”

  “For one thing, he’s not my husband. For another, one either laughs at Rupert or bursts into tears. While we were dancing tonight I asked him what his father thought about his plan to win glory, and he stopped in the middle of the ballroom and announced, ‘The duck can dip an eagle’s wings but to no avail!’ And then he threw out his arm and struck Lady Tunstall so hard that her wig fell off.”

  “I saw that,” Georgiana said. “From the side of the room it looked as if she was making a rather unnecessary fuss. It just drew more attention.”

  “Rupert handed back her wig with the charming comment that she didn’t look in the least like someone who was bald, and he never would have guessed it.”

  Georgiana nodded. “An exciting moment for her, no doubt. I don’t understand the bit about the duck, though.”

  “No one could. Life with Rupert is going to be a series of exciting moments requiring interpretation.”

  “The duck must be the duke,” Georgiana said, still puzzling over it. “Perhaps dipping the eagle’s wings should be clipping? What do you think? That implies Rupert thinks of himself as an eagle. Personally I consider him more akin to a duck.”

  “Because he quacks? He would certainly be alone in visualizing himself as an eagle.” Olivia got to her feet and rang the bell. “I think it would behoove me—there’s a twopenny word for you, Georgie—it would behoove me to keep in mind that I’m being invited to have intimacies with a duck in my father’s library tomorrow night. And if that doesn’t sum up my relationship with our parents, I don’t know what could.”

  Georgiana gave a snort.

  Olivia waggled a finger at her. “Verrrrry vulgar noise you just made, my lady. Very vulgar.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The residence of

  Phineas Damson, Esq.

  Little Ha’penny,
Lancashire

  Late Spring

  Not every fairy tale begins with a prince or a princess. Some begin with a kiss that turns a man into a frog, or a tumble on the road that turns a basket of eggs into scramble. They begin with the realization that what was once tall and handsome is now green and croaky.

  My story belongs in that category, because it wasn’t until Miss Philippa Damson gave her virginity to her betrothed, Rodney Durfey, the future Sir Rodney Durfey, Baronet, that she realized exactly what she wanted from life:

  Never to be near Rodney again.

  It was unfortunate that she realized this significant point only now, standing in the barn and readjusting her petticoats after giving Rodney her most prized possession. But sometimes it takes a clear-eyed look at a man sprawled in the straw at your feet to realize just how you feel about him. One moment of weakness, ten minutes of discomfort, and now she was a woman. She felt different.

  Meaner.

  “Damn, that was nice,” Rodney said, making no attempt to straighten his clothing. “You’re as tight as a—” His imagination apparently failed him. “A lot tighter than my hand, anyway.”

  Philippa wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you think you should get up now?”

  “I waited so long that it took all the strength out of me. It isn’t every day that a man loses his virginity, you know.”

  “Or a woman,” Philippa pointed out, using her fingers to comb bits of straw from her hair.

  “My friends have been poking around from the moment they got a stand. You’re not innocent anymore, so it doesn’t matter if I’m blunt, I reckon. I saved myself for you. Didn’t want to get a disease.”

  The etiquette her mother had taught her did not foresee this particular situation, but Philippa said, “Thank you.”

  “If you aren’t the prettiest thing with your hair shining like that in the sunlight,” Rodney said, stretching. “I’m about ten times as much in love with you now, Philippa. And you know I’ve loved you ever since I saw you the first time, ever since—”

  “Ever since you saw me in church when I was seven years old,” Philippa said drearily.

  “You were like a little angel, and now you’re a bigger one. And your bosoms are heaven-sent, all right. Damn, but I could do that all day.” He reached toward Philippa’s ankle, and she moved back just in time. “Shall I climb up to your window tonight? I know you never let me before, but the banns have already been posted at St. Mary’s, so it seems as if—”

  “No,” Philippa stated. “Absolutely not. And you should cover yourself. What if one of the stable hands returns?”

  Rodney peered down at the limp pinkish thing he called his own. It was draped across his thigh in a way that made Philippa feel positively ill. “I bet I’m the biggest man you’ve ever seen.”

  Philippa rolled her eyes and started braiding her hair.

  “ ’Course you never saw anyone else,” he added. “I know that. You were a virgin all right. Of course you were. I had to force my way, you know.”

  She did know, and the recollection made her grind her teeth.

  “Though I did right by you too,” Rodney said, as oblivious as ever.

  “You did what?”

  “Didn’t you notice when I tiddle-taddled you?” he asked. “Diddled you right where I was supposed to, giving you women’s pleasure. I expect we’ll be making love two or three times a day in the next year. I expect we won’t even get out of bed in the next few weeks. Not even to eat. My daddy planted me in the very first week of his marriage, and I aim to keep to the tradition.”

  If Philippa hadn’t already made up her mind, that would have done it.

  She was not going to marry Rodney Durfey. Even though he had told the whole village at age nine that he would marry her or no one. Even though she had spent her girlhood being complimented by those who thought she was the luckiest girl in the world.

  Even though she had given him her virginity, which rendered her, for all intents and purposes, unmarriageable.

  Just at the moment, she had absolutely no problem with that idea.

  “I’m leaving, Rodney,” she said.

  “Won’t you kiss me good-bye?” he said, his blue eyes still hazy.

  “No.”

  And she walked out, feeling—as her nursemaid would have said—meaner than a barnyard dog. As she walked away, she realized that it wasn’t an entirely new sensation. She’d been a little angry at Rodney for a long time.

  After he’d made his famous declaration in St. Mary’s Church, Little Ha’penny, no boy ever looked at her twice. She was “that lucky Damson miss,” destined to be the next Lady Durfey. What’s more, no one ever asked her what she thought about Rodney, about his pale blue eyes, or his round buttocks, or the way he looked at her heaven-sent bosom.

  Her mother had died the summer before, clutching Philippa’s hand and repeating how glad she was that her little girl was taken care of. Her father had told her over and over that he was grateful to have been spared the expense and bother of a Bath season or—even more onerous—a trip to London to be sponsored into society by her godmother.

  The Damsons and the Durfeys had always celebrated Yuletide together and walked to the front of church together at Easter. When both ladies in their respective families passed away . . . well, Sir George and Mr. Damson, Esq., simply kept trudging side by side as they had before.

  Their children’s marriage would place Damson land in the hands of the baronet, which everyone, including Philippa’s father, agreed was a good idea.

  “My land runs alongside his,” he had told her once, when Philippa complained that Rodney had stolen her doll and chopped off its head. “You two will be married someday, and this is the boy’s way of showing affection. You should be happy to see how that lad adores you.”

  Everyone had always told her just how she should feel, from the time she was seven years old: lucky, special, celebrated, and beautiful.

  Now, though, she felt nauseated.

  She also felt like running away. Her father would never understand if she told him that she’d changed her mind about marrying Rodney. It wasn’t as if she could claim Rodney was cruel, or bestial, or even unlikable.

  And the moment her father found out what had just happened in the barn—which he would, because Rodney would stop at nothing to marry her—he would deliver her to the altar no matter how fervent her protests.

  No, if she wanted to escape Rodney, she would have to run away.

  She took a deep breath. Why on earth couldn’t she have figured this out yesterday rather than after that unpleasant episode in the barn? She’d never granted Rodney more than kisses until this afternoon. Instead, she had drifted along like a twig caught in a stream, not really visualizing her life with Rodney. The nights with Rodney.

  But now . . . there might be a baby. She walked back to her family’s trim house, so different from the garish brick monstrosity that was Durfey Manor, worrying about the possibility.

  She loved babies; she always tried to steal away from tea parties and find her way to the nursery. What’s more, she had spent her happiest hours with her uncle, a doctor in Cheshire, who allowed her to accompany him as he ministered to village children.

  Still, it was that possible baby who posed the greatest dilemma. She wasn’t sentimental about the life of servants. She couldn’t condemn Rodney’s child to a life of servitude, which is what her life was bound to be if she was with child but nevertheless fled her intended marriage.

  Her mind was spinning like a whirligig in the wind. Finally, she made a decision: She would leave it up to fate. If there was a baby, she would resign herself. Walk down that aisle, smile, become Lady Durfey. She shuddered at the thought.

  But if not . . . she’d steal freedom.

  That very night, she discovered that Rodney had failed to “plant” anything, to use his repulsive terminology.

  Philippa was still thinking about what it meant, and what she would do next, when she realized that Betty
, the upstairs maid, was chattering on and on about a castle. Elsewhere in England, people undoubtedly talked of the great castles of Windsor and Edinburgh, but around Little Ha’penny, there was only one castle worth discussing: Pomeroy. It stood on the other side of the great forest, its turrets just tall enough to be visible on a clear day. For years, Philippa had stared out her window and dreamed of a knight in shining armor who would ride through town and fall in love with her, sweeping her onto the back of his steed and taking her away.

  Away from Rodney, she now realized.

  No knight in shining armor ever came; in fact, the castle had been unoccupied and neglected for years until a real prince moved there a couple of years ago. He was a foreigner, from some place in Europe.

  As in a real fairy tale, the prince hadn’t lived in Pomeroy Castle long before he fell in love and married a princess. Or an heiress, at the least. No one really knew for sure because Little Ha’penny was far away from the polite world. Although Rodney puffed out his chest and boasted about his father’s connections, the fact was that Sir George Durfey was the sort of man who stayed very close to home. He’d even kept his son home with a tutor rather than send him off to Eton.

  “It’s not good for the lad to be so provincial,” her father had remarked, years ago. Phineas Damson, Esq., was the only other gentleman in the area, though, and if the truth be told, he wasn’t all that interested in Sir George, nor in his future son-in-law. What Papa liked was to investigate battles. He spent the better part of his days in his study, surrounded by maps of places like Spain and Egypt, painstakingly translating accounts of Greek battles.

  In short, no one knew anything about the castle and its royal occupants, and in keeping with their provincial outlook, most of the goodly inhabitants of Little Ha’penny had lost interest once the Prussian prince moved in.

  “I’m sorry, Betty,” Philippa said, “could you tell me that again? About the princess, I mean?”

  “Well,” Betty said importantly, “I was just saying what I heard from Mrs. Pickle, who heard it from the coachman of the morning mail.”