Nothing Denied (2 page)

Beatrice shuddered as she considered the rest of her life. Soon she would receive fewer invitations, then none at al , save from her sisters. Her few remaining friends would fade away, leaving her at the mercy of her mother.

When that happened, she was certain she would go mad.

Beatrice flopped onto a bench in the center of the garden and massaged her temples. How could she escape this fate? There were few choices.

It was possible she could take a position as someone’s ladies’ maid or a governess, but she abhorred the idea of lowering herself in such a fashion. Aside from which, she had a tidy al owance thanks to her two brothers-in-law. Somehow she doubted the earl and the duke would let it be said that their kin had been forced into a life of servitude.

Which left her with but one option. To marry, as she had not been able to do for so long. She covered her eyes, rubbing hard on her temples as she considered the impossibility of her task. Because of a variety of circumstances, some of her own making and some not, no one had wanted her for years. Beatrice could not imagine finding someone who miraculously did so now.

Unless he was as undesirable as she was, herself. She lifted her eyes at the thought. Could that work?

Perhaps. Even if he wasn’t ridiculously wealthy or scandalously handsome or cunningly intel igent as she had always hoped…any man she could catch would be a way out of her mother’s house. A way to keep herself from being an utter fool in front of the entire
ton
. And real y, wasn’t it her only option now?

Beatrice pushed to her feet and paced down the pathway. Yes, that had to be it. She would find the most undesirable man in the
ton
and she would make him hers.

She
would
marry before this Season was finished.

Her sisters and her past and the consequences be damned.

Gareth Berenger, the Marquis of Highcroft, stood in his parlor staring at the letter he had already read at least a hundred times since he received it from his grandmother’s solicitor three days prior. The words remained unchanged, but they continued to shock him every time he reviewed them.

“Have you managed to change your grandmother’s deathbed wish by staring at the letter long enough?”

Gareth shook off his reverie and turned toward his best friend, Vincent, Viscount Knighthil , with his best cold glare, the one that had made six maids quit over the years. Vincent merely feigned terror and poured himself a drink.

“If only I
could
change her final directive with my mind,” Gareth final y groaned. “She never understood me. But then, no woman ever has.”

Vincent rol ed his eyes as he handed Gareth a tumbler. “Yes, you are so misunderstood, my friend. I know. It must be terrible to be rich and handsome and—”

“I possess several other qualities that are less desirable to women,” Gareth interrupted as he downed his liquor in one gulp. The burning sensation did not al eviate his torment. “Which is precisely the problem. Grandmother’s final wish was for me to remarry. Yet how can that be possible after the last time?”

Now Vincent’s dark brown eyes softened with compassion. And pity, which Gareth flinched away from. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was and you know it,” he snapped, hating himself more than ever. “You were there, you saw what I did.”

His friend seemed on the verge of launching into the same argument they had been having for almost two years, but then he shook his head. Gareth al but sagged with relief. He was too exhausted to go over the past again and again.

“You know, you could always ignore her request if you fear the consequences so deeply,” Vincent pointed out quietly. “Your grandmother has been buried for half a year, this letter was something she wrote months before that and arranged to be delivered once your mourning period was over. It isn’t as if she wil pursue you from the grave.”

Gareth shut his eyes as the pain of his loss came crowding back into his body from the corner where he had banished it. He thought of his grandmother, a thousand memories at once, but al of them sharing one common element: her undying devotion and love to him when no one else had cared.

The idea of denying her one final desire simply because she would not be around to look at him in disapproval…wel , it wasn’t right.

“I cannot do that,” Gareth said on a sigh. “Whether she is here to press me or not, I cannot in good conscience disregard her wishes. And her logic is very real, at any rate.”

His friend nodded slowly. “You are the last male of your line. The last one who can create a son and continue the Highcroft line.”

“If there is no marriage, there wil be no heir.” Gareth shrugged. “Is she not correct that it is my duty to prevent that from happening?”

“Yes, I suppose that is accurate.” Vincent sighed. “It is bad luck to be the last of your line.”

Gareth

nodded

silently.

Bad

luck,

indeed.

Sometimes it seemed his family had been cursed. Events of his life certainly supported such a foolish notion. He had once had two brothers, “spares” who might have saved him from this duty he did not wish to uphold.

But they had died within a year of each other, from two accidents. His mother had quickly fol owed, from a disease that had wasted her to near nothing before the end. Within a few years of her passing, his father had fal en il of an apoplexy and gone to the grave beside her.

Before his twenty-first year, Gareth had seen his entire family decimated. And then there was his first wife, Laurel. She had been cold in the ground for two years, though he could not blame anyone but himself for that tragedy.

“Duty be damned, friend,” Vincent said with a shake of his head. “It seems foolish to do something you want so little.”

Gareth shrugged. “What I
want
makes no difference now.”

Vincent’s eyes went wide. “Then you are determined to reenter Society.”

It took every effort for Gareth to nod his head. “That is why we have come to London, isn’t it?” A great sinking feeling settled over him, a weight on his shoulders that bogged him down. He could only hope it would not drown him in the end.

“Your task won’t be easy,” Vincent muttered, almost more to himself than to Gareth.

“No, my friend.” Gareth paced to the window and looked out at the rainy afternoon. “I do not think it shal be. I may be the only rich, titled and reasonably handsome man that no one wil choose to fight over.”

Chapter Two

B
eatrice straightened her spine and fought the urge to work her stiff jaw. Damn, but smiling al the time was painful. No wonder she had never bothered much with the mask.

But no, that was the wrong way to think. She could change her life this Season. She
would
change her life, no matter what the cost.

Across the room, she caught a gentleman watching her. Mr. Roger Westin, she thought his name was. He was only the third son of a marquis, and at one time she might have turned up her nose at him. But he had made a tidy fortune from some sort of business venture. He would do.

She made her forced smile wider and met his gaze

…only to have him turn away with a shudder she recognized even from so far away. Her heart sank, but she refused to surrender to the panic rising in her chest.

Scanning the room, she found another gentleman who was away from the ladies. The Baronet Harker was older, yes, but he stil had most of his teeth. And three smal children who apparently needed a mother, if the gossip was to be believed. She shivered at the thought, but desperate times cal ed for desperate measures. She met his gaze. But like Mr. Westin before him, Harker did not return her advances. In fact he backed away, as if she might come across the room and hit him with her shoe. Then he found the first person close to him and launched into a conversation so that he could politely ignore her.

The flush of embarrassment and terror began to fil Beatrice’s cheeks, but before she could find a way to graceful y exit the room, her mother reached her elbow.

“Beneath you, both of them,” she whispered, though her voice was anything but low, and several people close at hand tittered at the ridiculousness of her statement.

With cheeks burning hotter than ever, Beatrice clenched her fists tight at her sides.
Beneath
her. How many hundreds of times had her mother said that of perfectly decent men? Ones who might have been good matches for her? In the beginning, Beatrice had believed her mother, scorning those men.

Over time, the scorn had become a shield she held up. Now it was just second nature. The thought of losing that bitter exterior that protected her from anyone getting too close, from seeing any vulnerability, was quite frightening despite the fact that it damaged her at every turn, just as her mother’s lofty expectations had.

“I thought you said that having an old maid as a daughter was a humiliation,” Beatrice hissed, keeping her voice low so that no one heard. “Is that not what you confessed to Miranda when she offered to take Winifred away for the Season?”

She tried not to flinch as she thought of watching Winifred ride off in Miranda’s fine carriage that very morning. Her sister had looked so happy to be free of their mother’s prodding. Beatrice couldn’t help but think that if she had not been so difficult, she, too, could have been free of her mother years ago, either by marriage or through some similar arrangement with her sisters.

“Yes, dear,” her mother said, her blank stare meeting Beatrice’s. “But that doesn’t mean I wish for you to settle for just
any
man.”

“An old maid like me cannot expect a gentleman with a title or grand fortune or…” Beatrice hesitated.

“Teeth.”

“Dearest—”

But she could not listen anymore. God, how she wanted an escape. And possibly a drink. And to hide from the crowd and their contempt for her. Perhaps she deserved it, for it was only a mirror of the feeling she had showered over others for so many years.

“I would like to take some air,” Beatrice choked out.

“I shal return in a moment.”

Her mother opened her mouth to protest, but Beatrice did not wait. She fled across the room and through the open terrace doors into the damp, cool night. It was a temporary respite, of course. Escape from her mother was
always
temporary, but she had no choice but to take what she could get.

One way or another.

“Beatrice, is that you?”

Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut hard. She recognized the voice that had intruded on her moment of peace as the voice of her oldest…and virtual y
only
remaining friend, Amelia Kinley.

“Yes, Amelia,” she said with a sigh. “I am here.”

Her friend stepped onto the dim terrace with a shiver. “There is a chil to the air, isn’t there? What in the world are you doing out here?”

Beatrice shrugged. “It has not been a good night, I am afraid.”

Her friend pursed her lips. “Yes, I assume not. The w ho l e
ton
is abuzz about how Lord and Lady Rothschild have taken your sister under their wing this Season and swept her off to the exclusive gathering at the Duke and Duchess Kilgrath’s in the country. Winifred wil surely make a good match there.”

Nostrils flaring, Beatrice calmed her natural reaction, which would have been to rip her friend to shreds and leave her crying. That would do her no good, no matter how enticing the idea was.

Instead, she sighed and turned to sarcasm rather than wrath. “Thank you, Amelia. Your observation is very helpful to me. After al , I am seven Seasons into my own old maidenhood. I wonder how many more I shal have before I am firmly and irretrievably on the shelf?”

Amelia tilted her head, clearly oblivious to Beatrice’s true emotions. “Two more probably. Mama says no one can reach a decade of being out without becoming hopeless, no matter how pretty or rich or charming they are. And you are neither rich nor charming.”

Beatrice stared. With most people, words like her friend’s would be subtle knives intended to destroy, but Amelia was too empty for such sabotage and cruelty. In truth, her friend was so stupid that she didn’t even realize she was being cal ous. The only reason Beatrice endured her was…

Wel , in truth, there were few people left who al owed her presence. Beatrice had settled for Amelia, and now, staring at her vapid friend, she wondered if she would be forced to marry someone just like her. Perhaps her only remaining hope was a man too empty

and

stupid

to

recognize

Beatrice’s

shortcomings.

It was almost too depressing to consider.

“Wel , thank you, Amelia,” she managed to grind out past clenched teeth. “I have much to think about thanks to your blunt words.”

She pivoted, ready to stalk back into the bal room and the waiting clutches of her mother, when Amelia grasped her arm and yanked her back.

“Oh, great God,” her friend breathed.

Beatrice stared at Amelia, unaccustomed to any kind of real emotion from her empty little shel of a friend. Now Amelia’s eyes were wide, her mouth made an “O” and she was actual y trembling as she stared past Beatrice into the bal room.

“What is it?” she asked.

Her friend shook her head. “Did you not see who just entered the bal room?”

Beatrice turned and almost took a step back herself. The man who had just entered was not one she was personal y familiar with, of course, but she knew him by reputation.

“Is that the Marquis of Highcroft?” she breathed. Amelia nodded. “Gareth Berenger.”

“Gareth,” Beatrice repeated, staring at the man. He remained across the room, so she could not discern individual features in any kind of depth, but she got a good sense of him nonetheless. He was tal , broad shouldered and very handsome. His dark hair was too long in front and curled around his forehead like he couldn’t be bothered to give a damn about it. He had a strong, wel -defined jaw that even from this distance appeared clenched and tense.

“Wel , he is certainly as beautiful a man as gossip has labeled him,” Beatrice said softly.