Be My Bride (4 page)

As soon as the door closed behind him, he sighed in relief.

He really should have known better. He shook his head as he climbed into his waiting carriage. Cynthia no more saw a suitor in him now than she had when they were both in their youth. He was a fool to let three little boys convince him he could succeed in winning her. Even desperate as she was, she could do far better.

And she was desperate, he could see that clearly. He didn’t usually notice clothing, but it was hard to miss the fact that the boys were quickly either outgrowing or wearing out every stitch of the black mourning clothes, which he was beginning to believe was all they had. And Cynthia’s mourning dress, for all its careful hemming, had obviously been made for someone larger and taller than she was. He could remember a day when she would not have allowed herself to wear the same frock twice in a month. Yet he had seen the same dress both times he had visited.

But that doesn’t mean she’s willing to take you, my boy
, he chided himself.
Our Cynthia can whistle up a prince. Small chance she’ll settle for a frog
.

Chapter Four

The boys were good as gold for the rest of the afternoon, and, as if that wasn’t enough to make Cynthia suspicious of their motives, they asked to go to bed early that night. She was not completely surprised then to find that, when she retired sometime later, three rather large lumps had appeared under the coverings on her bed.

The temptation to tease her sons was strong, but she forced herself to stride to the bed and thump on the largest of the three shapes. “John, James, Adam, come out of there at once.”

The lumps wiggled, and John’s head appeared from under the covers, James and Adam shortly behind him. Cynthia put her hands on her hips.

“What am I to do with you? Why aren’t you in bed?”

John straightened and affixed her with a stern eye. “We had important matters to discuss with you.”

James nodded seriously. Adam hiccupped.

Cynthia sank onto the bed beside them. They seldom felt the need to confront her like this, so it must be important. “I see. Is something wrong?”

“Not wrong,” James started.

“Yes, wrong,” John interrupted insistently. “Mother, we have decided that we need a father.”

Cynthia glanced around at the serious faces. “You had a father. He died.” The words came out colder than she had intended, and to cover it up she reached for Adam and pulled him onto her lap. “Why do you want another one so soon?”

“Has it been so soon?” James asked thoughtfully. “I remember Father, but it seems as if he’s been gone a very long time.”

Cynthia gathered him closer too. “I know, James. He was out at sea so often, I’m sure it seems as if he’s been gone much longer. But it has been barely six months. I’m still wearing mourning.” She plucked at the hideous black dress.

“It does not signify,” John insisted. “We would like a new father. You have to marry him.”

“I see,” she said, trying not to brindle at his authoritative tone. However, she couldn’t help adding, “And have you picked out the gentleman and chapel as well?”

It was the wrong choice. “Yes, we have,” John replied. “You will marry Mr. Daniel in the Wenwood Church.” He quailed before her frown. “Please?”

“Yes, Mother, please?” Adam chimed in, baby face turned entreatingly to hers and making it impossible to scold John. She took a deep breath and smiled at the three of them.

“I’m very glad you like Mr. Lewiston so much, my sweets, but I assure you, we would not suit.”

“Why not?” John demanded, crossing arms over a puffed out chest. “He’s very good to us.”

“He gives us cakes,” Adam piped up, “and candy.” He sighed gustily. “There’s nothing sweeter than candy.”

“He has the most wonderful house,” James put in. “With a very large library full of books, almost as many as Uncle Jonathan.”

“He has a large estate, a French chef, and thirty thousand pounds per annum,” John summarized. “And I heard he thinks you’re a diamond of the first water.”

Cynthia suddenly had the image of Daniel’s visit that morning. Good heavens, had he been attempting to court her? The very idea so agitated her that she set Adam off her lap and got up to pace the room.

“You must be mistaken, John,” she tried. “Daniel Lewiston may be pleasant to you, and he certainly has been pleasant to me, but he cannot be interested in making me his wife. The last he knew of me, I was a rather giddy young girl. In fact, I hate to tell you this, but his younger sisters and I tormented him to no end. We used to play the most shameful tricks on him.”

John bounced to the foot of the bed and watched her with wide eyes. “Like what?”

Cynthia was almost afraid to confess how shallow she had been, but if it would convince them that she and Daniel could not make a match of it, then it was worth a try. “Well, we used to tell him tea was later than it was so that when he arrived his mother would scold him for being late. We must have played that trick on him at least a dozen times, and he never seemed to catch on. And once Daphnia, his closest sister, actually bribed the footman to put a snake in his bed.” She shuddered even now at the thought of waking to find oneself beside a slithering serpent. “But I think the worst thing we ever did was sneak into his room while he was sleeping, steal all his clothes, and hide them in the maze. He was the most pitiful sight, bumbling through the branches in his nightshirt.”

“Why didn’t he have the servants go fetch them?” John asked with a frown.

Cynthia cocked her head in wonder. “You know, I never considered that. We never had all that many servants here, but the Lewistons seemed to have dozens. He could have called upon any number of footmen or gardeners or stable hands. Odd that he chose to do it himself.” She remembered his comment that morning about doing anything to keep loneliness at bay and suddenly realized why he had never told his mother of their pranks. She didn’t have time to consider it further for John had obviously decided he had had enough of reminiscences.

“I still don’t see,” he pouted, “why you cannot marry.”

She was tired, but she had to try not to let him exasperate her. “John, this truly is none of your affair.
If
I remarry, I would like to decide on the husband, thank you very much.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Jonathan asked from the doorway. Cynthia frowned at him, but if he noticed, he didn’t let it deter him.

“This isn’t a proper conversation for children,” she replied with a sniff.

He leaned against the door jam and crossed one slippered foot over the other. “I quite agree. If the infantry will please decamp?”

Adam started to protest, but John hushed him, herding his brothers before him to the door. She would have sworn he winked at Jonathan in passing.

“You don’t honestly think they’ll return to bed without help, do you?” she asked.

“Most likely not, but you can check on them after you answer my question. I just caught the end of that conversation, but I take it you still have the same objections to Daniel Lewiston as a suitor as you did when you were a girl.”

Remembering a similar conversation with her parents ten years ago, she blushed. “I was afraid Mother and Father would force me to marry him. I said awful things as I recall.”

“You said he was fat and stupid and nothing would induce you to so much as dance with him, let alone marry him.”

She thought of the kind man who had rekindled her sons’ joy in life and cringed. “That was badly done. He was patient when we were children, and he seems even kinder now. In truth, Jonathan, I think I’ve always admired him for that. But if I remarry I want more than kindness. I would want a good provider, someone who would take care of all of us.” She forced herself to put Nathan’s handsome face from her mind. “Someone who would stay around this time, who wouldn’t leave for adventure or fame. Someone who’d love us and want to be with us more than anything else. Someone who’d bring little presents . . .”

“Like candy,” Jonathan put in.

She had a sudden vision of an impossibly large box of candy and felt her blush deepening. “I warn you, Jonathan,” she told him sternly, “do not throw him at me again. I’m quite capable of choosing a second husband,
if
I decide to remarry.”

Jonathan straightened to go. “Of course you are, my dear. But you’ll forgive me for believing that you couldn’t do better than Daniel Lewiston for a husband. I hope you’ll give it some thought.”

Whether it was Jonathan’s suggestion or otherwise, she found herself thinking about the issue a great deal over the next couple of days. She saw Daniel Lewiston at church services in Wenwood, but he didn’t seem to pay her any particular notice. She decided that her fears over Daniel’s visit had been wrong. Daniel obviously just enjoyed watching her sons play, and he wanted to keep himself in her good graces, no more than that.

She supposed it was logical. After his father had died, his mother had been so fearful of loosing him, she had almost locked him in the house. Besides occasional visits by Jonathan and the tormenting by her and his sisters, he had had no interactions with other children. His mother had even had tutors at the house rather than send him away to school as was usual with other sons. Small wonder he was enjoying her sons’ childhood when he had had none of his own. Still, it was a little disappointing to think that she had so effectively depressed any feelings he might have had for her all those years ago that he had no interest in courting her now.

She was pleased, however, to see that her sons seemed to be settling in at her old home. They smiled and nodded to the other families at services as if they had lived there all their lives, and John went so far as to spend some time visiting with several of the elderly widows of the village as the congregation was filing out. Like his father, he got along well with everyone, and she was glad to see he was putting his gift to good use.

She was forced to reconsider her luck at settling in when that very afternoon saw the beginning of a string of rather interesting callers. First it was the Widower Trent, a large, red-faced man who she remembered owned a considerable farm on the other side of Wenwood. His intentions were obvious from his leering grins, but it was his suggestion that the boys would be best put to work on his farm, saving him a great deal in laborer’s wages, that prompted her to have Jonathan show him out.

The second caller arrived Monday afternoon, his footman helping him across the threshold and assisting him to perch on one of the chairs in the sitting room. Mr. Lassiter, it seemed, had not been able to find a girl to suit him in all his seventy-five years, but rumor that her husband had left her wealthy had encouraged him to call. She saw him to the door herself.

The third caller arrived Wednesday morning, straightening his cravat and trying to hide a cut on his chin where someone, presumably himself, had been attempting to shave the beard he had yet to grow. Young Mr. Pittley stammeringly explained that young women made him nervous therefore he wanted an older woman to wed because she would be able to teach him the finer points of life and would not mind when he then took younger mistresses. He left of his own accord when she began laughing hysterically.

“I never knew Wenwood boasted such a crop of idiots,” she confessed to Jonathan that evening. “One would almost think there were no decent marriageable men for miles.”

Jonathan shrugged, putting his feet up before the fire. “I don’t suppose there are. With Squire Pentercast and his brother married, that only leaves Tom Harvey, but he seems to have his eye on Mary Delacourt, lucky dog. I thought she’d prefer Daniel to him, but Daniel seems to have abandoned the field. It simply points out that your choices are limited, my dear. If you decide to remarry, you can’t afford to be choosy.”

The idea had no appeal, but she decided not to think about it. Word had obviously gotten out that she was too top-lofty, for her sudden popularity disappeared almost overnight. She tried to focus her energies on her sons, overseeing their schooling, looking through trunks in the attic for older clothes or material that might be made into clothing for them, and making sure Jonathan’s cook prepared dishes the way they liked. From time to time, she allowed them to go over to the Lewiston estate to visit, but as they almost always came back ready to take up the fight for Daniel to be their father, she was loath to let them go very often. She was therefore surprised to find them missing entirely when she returned one afternoon from an outing to Wenwood in search of buttons for a new coat for John.

She found Tims dozing in the rocker, the schoolroom otherwise deserted. The two of them had searched the house and then the grounds with mounting concern. Jonathan was unable to shed any light on the matter. He insisted that they must have gone to visit Daniel, but she kept visualizing the nearby River Went with three bodies washed up on the bank. Determined to set her mind at ease, she demanded the carriage brought around and set off for the Lewiston estate.

Chapter Five

Gravel biting through the knees of his pantaloons and the palms of his gloves, Daniel peered around the corner of the maze. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he hurriedly checked behind him and before him once more, his breath coming in deep rasps. The path before him stretched empty to the exit. He listened but heard only the faint sound of the summer breeze rustling through the close-cropped laurel. Heart pounding, he scrambled to his feet and raced toward freedom. Behind him, he heard shouts of pursuit and doubled his speed.

“Halt, or I’ll shoot!” John yelled, leaping into his path. Daniel skidded to a stop. James and Adam leaped onto his back, and he went down laughing under the weight. As soon as all three of them were on top of him, he wrestled James and John to his chest and tickled them unmercifully while Adam whooped in delight.

“Mercy, mercy!” James giggled.

“I give up!” John shouted, squirming.

Daniel released them, and they crawled off him, collapsing on the path laughing. As their merriment faded, he heard the sound of carriage wheels on gravel and knew they were in for it.