All Dressed in White EPB Read online

  “Well, it was a sacrifice, because I was a valuable servant. You should see the polish I put on a pair of boots.”

  His tone was light and teasing. He was so very confident, even about this. Especially about this.

  She said, “Not only a servant but a skilled one.”

  “I am nothing if not skilled.” Another wink.

  Tessa felt her cheeks go hot. She’d known she would flirt with him today, but she had not anticipated how effectively he would reciprocate. She put a hand to her throat. He was . . . irresistible. Irresistible and totally unsuitable for her parents’ expectations.

  “But the earl spared you as valet?” she prompted. She would hear it all and determine some way to frame it for her parents. Or conceal it.

  “Before I was educated, one of my roles was as the earl’s . . . sort of . . . arms bearer, I suppose you’d call it.”

  “His what?”

  “He was a bit of an adventurer, and I worked in his service when he traveled abroad. While I was an excellent valet, I believe I was even handier in a fight. There were years in Greece when our lives were rougher than . . . well, than life in his London townhouse.”

  Tessa was fascinated. A fighter in Greece? Yet another detail her parents need never know, but she herself would squirrel it away to savor when she was alone.

  “In any event,” he went on, “when the earl insisted that I begin daily lessons, it became clear that my brain was the asset to pursue. One tutor turned to two, then three. The older I got, the more my household duties fell away. Eventually, the earl sacked me as servant and sent me to university instead.”

  “Unbelievable,” Tessa whispered. “And then he sponsored you in your shipping venture.”

  “Ah, no. Then I refused his financial support and became wholly self-sufficient. The shipping company I’ve built with my partners is the result of hard work, ambition, and instinct.”

  “And my dowry,” she added. She couldn’t resist.

  He laughed. “Yes, and your dowry.”

  “From a servant to a gentleman,” she marveled.

  “Well, from a servant to a man of means. We’ll leave it at that. You understand that I cannot conceal this from your parents, Tessa?”

  “Actually . . .” she began. “Would you consider hedging this bit of your history? Holding back? Just until they become better acquainted with you? They are quite wrapped up in appearances and social expectations, I’m afraid.”

  “Holding back until when?”

  “Oh . . . until after we are safely married, to be sure.”

  “You mean conceal it?”

  “Well, I mean perhaps don’t raise it? That is, if no one asks.”

  He stopped walking. “The parents of my wife-to-be can hardly be considered, ‘no one.’”

  “Yes, but some pieces of our potential union are too complicated to share, aren’t they? My parents shouldn’t know about the advert, for example. They shouldn’t know that my friends are marrying your partners. Excluding these fine details simply helps to ease the way. If we mean to succeed. If you want my dowry, and I want to get to London with my friends. If we want these things to happen post haste.”

  Joseph considered this, his expression pained. He shook his head, struggling to reconcile himself to masking his history.

  Tessa forged ahead, determined to convince him. “I am very taken by you, Joseph Chance. So very taken. I want you very much. I should be devastated if something as inconsequential as my parents’ obsession with rank got in the way of—well, if it got in the way.” In a day of half truths and outright lies, this was, perhaps, the boldest truth of all.

  He smiled again and bent his head. Not taking his eyes from hers, he brushed another faint whisper of a kiss across her lips. “We won’t tell them yet,” he whispered.

  Tessa’s eyes closed and she tipped forward for another kiss.

  Can this happen? she marveled. So easily? With a man I enjoy? Nay—a man by whom I am captivated? Can I have a father for this baby and a loving husband, just for me?

  This kiss went deeper, and Tessa made a sighing noise. Joseph growled and gathered her up, kissing her in earnest. Tessa felt swept away.

  I will not risk any part of it, she thought idly, swimming in the kiss. Not his disdain. Or his outrage. Or his leaving. I need only not tell him to make it work.

  He will love me, he will love us both.

  I shall not tell him, and the child will be his. And I will be his.

  A family.

  We. Are. Saved.

  Chapter Three

  Joseph called on Tessa at Berymede every morning for the next five days. On the sixth day, their discussion of marriage turned from conjecture (Do we dare?) to reality (How soon can it happen?).

  On the seventh day, Joseph asked Wallace St. Croix for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  If there had been more time, Joseph would have happily stretched their courtship by weeks, if not months, but the guano expedition was already underway, buyers were expecting delivery on the fertilizer, and Tessa herself seemed urgently motivated to pass over an extended betrothal and proceed immediately to the altar. He would be lying if he said her urgency did not thrill him.

  Despite their shared rush, Tessa’s parents imposed a two-day consideration period during which they would weigh Joseph’s proposal.

  Joseph had expected this—in all honesty, Joseph was shocked that they’d welcomed his escalating devotion from the start—but Tessa had been angry and indignant about the delay. Joseph assured her, imploring her to remain patient and respectful. Meanwhile, he kissed her good-bye and forced himself to stay away until some summons—yea or nay—came from the St. Croixs. He holed up at the Pixham Inn in the meantime, enduring the skepticism of his partners, Jon Stoker and Brent Caulder.

  Brent, the Earl of Cassin, had his own complicated proposal to sort out. He had managed to shackle himself to the leader of this unlikely trio of “dowry investors,” Tessa’s girlhood friend Willow. Cassin was back and forth to London as he reconciled himself to a marriage of convenience.

  Unbelievably, it appeared Jon Stoker would marry before either of them, as his Convenient Bride was under the dominion of a violent uncle, and few things motivated Stoker more than abuse. Stoker was sorting out a special license and skulking about, alternately complaining about the marriages of convenience and not being able to wed his bride sooner.

  If Joseph thought his friends would congratulate and encourage his own rushed marriage (the only affectionate and authentic marriage of the lot), he was mistaken. The men riddled him with questions and cautions instead, heaping on doubts and dire speculations. By the second drink-fueled night of scrutiny, Joseph had had enough. The three men sat before a blazing fire in the common room of the inn, drinking ale and eating roasted chestnuts.

  “I refuse to answer another accusation about her,” he told his friends, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I’ve enough to answer for from her parents.”

  “And what is it that her parents accuse her of?” asked Jon Stoker.

  Joseph glared. “Tessa is blameless in this. Her parents will accuse me, which I’m sure you realize.”

  “Accuse you of what?” asked the Earl of Cassin. “You’re a rich shipping merchant with an even richer future. Your manners are above reproach, you dress like a courtier, and aspire to run for bloody Parliament. I’d marry you myself if I could.”

  Joseph made a face but Cassin continued, “Best of all, you’ve made no secret of falling madly, adoringly in love with their daughter. In record time, no less. And let’s not forget that you’ve saved her from any other rotter who might answer the advert.”

  “First of all,” sighed Joseph, “I don’t dress like a courtier, I dress like a gentleman. If you’d begun life polishing someone’s boots instead of wearing them, perhaps you would value the pleasure of your own fine pair.”

  “But don’t you mean pairs?” Stoker cut in. “How many in your collection at the moment? Three
? Four?”

  “Second,” continued Joseph, “her parents are blissfully unaware of the advert, as you well know. And there’s no credit for being the best of the worst, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What I mean,” said Cassin, “is Tessa St. Croix and her esteemed parents should be grateful to have you.” He raised his glass. “And I’ve no doubt that their joyful permission will come down from on high any hour. My concern was always that Miss St. Croix and her lot deserve you.”

  “Deserve me?” said Joseph. “A man who could be laying her supper instead of eating it beside her?”

  Cassin said, “You’re preoccupied with your past life in service.”

  “Says the man in possession of an ancient earldom,” Joseph shot back.

  “What did her parents say when you explained about your previous life below stairs?” Cassin took a drink.

  “She’s asked me not to elaborate on it.”

  Cassin’s tankard froze, halfway to his mouth. “Define elaborate?”

  Joseph sighed. “It would take too much time to convince them to endorse the marriage if they knew I was not . . .”

  “. . . A rich shipping merchant who may one day be prime minister?” provided Cassin.

  “. . . if they know we are not of the same class,” Joseph finished.

  “You know what I think?” said Stoker. “I think you like it that she is so very haute and modish, and she has set her cap for you.”

  “You’re full of shite.”

  “Stoker makes an excellent point,” said Cassin. “Are you certain the mad love into which you’ve fallen is tied to the girl and not her place in society?

  “Wealthy gentlemen’s daughters abound,” Cassin went on. “Despite your so-called ‘humble beginnings,’ you could have your pick of fine ladies . . . assuming fine ladies are what you want.”

  “And you’ve borne witness to my long history pursuing society misses, have you?” Joseph asked.

  His friends considered this, sharing a look. He’d won the point, and they knew it. He’d never courted anyone as wealthy or esteemed as Tessa St. Croix.

  “All we’re asking,” said Stoker, “is why this girl? You’ve only known her for a bloody week.”

  “And yet I knew the first day,” said Joseph carefully. He pushed up from his chair and threw a handful of chestnut shells into the fire. His friends were merely trying to protect him, he knew this, but their suspicions grated. He was a grown man, well in touch with reality. He was familiar with the notion of class envy. He was not shallow—or envious for that matter. It was Tessa he wanted, not her place in the haute ton.

  “You knew what the first day?” asked Stoker.

  Joseph turned away from the fire. “That I was changed.”

  “That you were randy, more like,” guessed Stoker.

  “Careful, Stoker,” Joseph warned, shoving off the mantel. A brawl in the stable yard would bring a satisfying end to this conversation, and Joseph suddenly wanted that very much. Stoker merely rolled his eyes.

  “Was I drawn to her at first sight?” asked Joseph. “Yes. Do I desire her? More than any woman I’ve known. But it is more than desire. And it’s more than her bloody family and their bloody money. She is . . . buoyant in a way that holds me up. She is so clever. Her wit makes mine funnier. She is wholly confident and capable, and yet I find myself wanting to provide for her. She is alive in a way that makes my own life seem a little less livable without her in it.”

  There was a pause, and Cassin raised his glass again.

  Stoker said, “And she would say the same of you, no doubt?”

  “She does not hide her enthusiasm for me,” Joseph said, biting back a smile. “From the beginning, she has wanted me. She has made that very clear.”

  The dining table of Berymede seated twenty-four, but when her brothers were away and there were no guests to dinner, Tessa and her parents took their evening meal in a small windowed alcove that overlooked her mother’s roses.

  Joseph had joined the family there on Wednesday, the day before he proposed. He had laughed with her father and described tropical flowers to her mother. He had winked at Tessa across the table and asked her to tell them about her antique German piano.

  Until that meal, Tessa had never realized how rare it was for anyone to ask her to contribute to dinner conversation. Oh, she had always made herself heard at mealtimes. In a family of four brothers, she’d learned early to interject and tease and speak loud enough to be heard over the din, but she couldn’t remember ever being asked.

  What are you reading, Tessa?

  What piece are you working on at the pianoforte?

  What new music would you like us to collect for you when we are in Town?

  But Joseph had asked. He’d asked this and more.

  And no matter what she said, he appeared captivated. His attention thrilled her in a way that no male attention ever had, after years of earning the attention of so many men. He truly wished to know—and not simply the what, he wanted to know why.

  If Tessa waited for a certain question—Why a rushed convenient marriage, why me?—she did not prompt him, and he did not ask. Thank God.

  If he had asked her, would she have told him about the baby?

  Possibly.

  Maybe.

  Hopefully.

  Hopefully she would have blurted out the truth and begged him to understand her desperation—and also her burgeoning love.

  Because she was falling so very much in love with Joseph Chance. And not simply because he was saving her and not simply because he was handsome and charming.

  She loved him because he seemed to truly see her, to decipher her.

  He understood that she was pretty and silly and gay, but also that she was curious and empathetic and felt happiest when she encouraged other people. Had anyone at Berymede ever seen her as more than entertaining or cute? To Joseph, she felt entertaining and interesting; she was pretty but also so very clever.

  And despite the secret about the baby and the manipulation of her parents, she believed she understood him too. She understood what he had overcome, the brilliance and hard work that had hastened that triumph. She saw the humility, the strength, the desire—desire to achieve all of his wild aspirations and desire for her.

  Her parents, of course, were oblivious to all of it. Her parents, as always, were concerned with only one thing: the appearance of the St. Croix family in the eyes of the world—or rather, in the eyes of their world, which was lofty London society. What would their friends and peers think? How would the gossip papers depict their union? What level of envy was painted by the picture of Joseph Chance and Tessa St. Croix?

  “I had held out hope for a title,” said her father, Wallace St. Croix, a day after Joseph’s proposal. He was seated with his back to the alcove window, sawing into the bony side of fish. “You could have been a countess or even a duchess, I daresay.”

  Although the St. Croix family boasted wealth and refinement, their bloodline was more French than English, with nary an aristocratic relation in sight. It was no secret that Tessa’s beauty and dowry might one day see her married into this previously unattained rung of society.

  And perhaps at one time, Tessa had dreamed of marrying a lord. But only vaguely, only in as much as she dreamed of having curly hair instead of straight, or of seeing Venice instead of the canals of any other place in the world. It sounded nice, but so did so many things.

  Her more defined, more authentic dream had been far purer—simple, really. She had dreamed of falling in love. Real love, like in a play, like Orpheus and Eurydice. She dreamed of falling in love the way Berymede’s head groom, Virgil, loved his wife, Susan, the kitchen maid. She wished to be in love like her friend Sabine’s mother and father, before her father had died.

  In contrast, the marriage of Tessa’s parents was a partnership. Wallace St. Croix was wealthy and well connected, and Isobel St. Croix was beautiful, stylish, and exacting. Together, they shared one goal, which wa
s to be revered in society. They worked in tandem to achieve this, they reveled in their strides, they cursed their setbacks.

  Her mother had brought her up to marry the most eligible man she could possibly ensnare, but Tessa’s own intent had been to use her considerable allure to marry for love.

  She would be lying if she said she had not enjoyed four seasons of auditioning one potential True Love after another. There had been many men, yes, but was True Love special if it was easy to find? If she stumbled upon it with the first man or the second . . . or any number of wrong men? Mostly, she told her friends, who teased her about her many beaux, she would meet the wrong man. But she would not find the correct man if she did not weed through all the others.

  In the end, she cared less about eligibility and more about finding her one, perfect match. What good, she’d thought, were the dresses and the dance cards if the end result was not True Love? She wanted the fairy-tale union with a handsome, dashing man and a passionate wedding night that swept them both away.

  The life after the wedding night? She had perhaps given this less thought. More of the same, she thought, more dash and more passion?

  The great irony was of course that “what came after” actually seized Tessa first. Within one month of Captain Marking and the tree.

  Just like that, Tessa’s long idealized romantic love was set aside in favor of survival. In favor of “what came after.”

  And then Joseph Chance magically appeared, and she wondered if fate might have actually sent her a savior and a happily-ever-after all in the same man.

  The possibility made her doubly determined to extract her parents’ speedy blessing, and for every challenge issued by her parents, she had an answer.

  “Mr. Chance is not a titled gentleman, no,” Tessa told her father at dinner, “but his dearest friend, a man he loves like a brother, is an earl of considerable means. The Earl of Falcondale. Many of his friends are highly esteemed, I believe. One of his partners is also an earl. The Earl of Cassin.”

  Tessa idly set a copy of Burke’s Guide to Peerage beside her mother’s plate. Isobel St. Croix raised her eyebrow and picked it up, thumbing to the Fs.