FREDERICK STRODE INTO the dining room. His Hessians clicked against the floor, and he gave his cloak to a startled servant. He’d been right. The minister had agreed to issue a common license to Lady Theodosia and the vicomte. It wouldn’t be secret, but that was fine. The marriage would occur soon anyway.

Everyone was eating. Good.

“We weren’t certain when you would arrive back,” his mother said hesitantly. “Or where you were.”

He frowned. “Why would you?”

He hadn’t been taking his meals with them. Meals might lead to conversation, and he refused to discuss his heart while slicing into goose.

“Have a seat,” Miles said, venturing into his familiar jocularity.

“Oh, yes,” Miles’s wife said.

Frederick shifted his legs. Flecks of mud floated from his Hessians to the floor.

Not good for the servants.

Likely they had an ascribed time to clean each room, and Frederick was not helping them.

Strange how he’d never given much thought to them before.

Frederick didn’t need to be perceptive to note that the guests’ eyes were round with worry. He abhorred it. Normally they were a much happier bunch.

This was Christmas, they were together, and they were concerned for him.

“You can look cheerful,” he said.

His guests looked up at him. Their eyes retained an inordinate degree of worry. 

“There’s going to be a wedding,” Frederick announced.

“Splendid!”

He wasn’t certain who had exclaimed first. All the women rose, as if leaping were their first instinct at hearing about nuptial vow exchanges. The men followed, slapping him on the back and muttering something about happiness and congratulations.

Rupert stood and raised his goblet. “To the lucky bride and groom.”

The statement was met with a flurry of crystal clinking and wine imbibing.

It was ridiculous.

“You don’t suppose I am the groom,” Frederick said.

“You aren’t?” Rupert’s eyes drifted to Frederick’s mother.

“And she isn’t either,” Frederick said. “Not that she could find anyone in this place.”

“I know better than to go husband hunting,” Frederick’s mother said, but that horrible look of concern was again present in her eyes. “But just who is getting married?”

“Lady Theodosia,” Frederick said.

The others remained confused. “The real one. And some French vicomte.”

“‘Tis I.” The vicomte entered the room. He’d managed to dress for dinner, and his cravat was all intricate loops and flourishes. “I am ze Vicomte Espadon. Perhaps you know of me? I am ze man most handsome that you English write about.”

The others blinked, pictures of bafflement, but then Rosamund smiled.  “I believe I have read about you. In Matchmaking for Wallflowers.”

“Don’t tell me you still read that,” her husband grumbled.

“I only read for the fashion plates,” she assured him. 

“Oui, I am a man most fashionable,” the vicomte murmured, glancing in the gilded mirror at his reflection.

His betrothed joined them.  “I am sorry for the delay. It took me a while to find a maid. And then she was quite taken aback. But one can hardly dine with dukes and duchesses without having a professional dress oneself.”

Frederick’s lips almost twitched. He was hardly dressed for dinner, and the Duke and Duchess of Belmonte spent most of their nights dining with former pirates on the Duke’s ship.

“I require a chair,” Lady Theodosia announced in a regal manner to the footmen, and one was soon brought for her and the vicomte.

“So you and the vicomte are marrying?” Rosamund asked her.

“Oh, indeed,” Lady Theodosia said. “The Duke of Salisbury arranged the common license himself.”

“How kind of him,” Rosamund asked.

Frederick took his seat at the table.

The others might be puzzled, but he didn’t care.

Helping Lady Theodosia, even if she seemed too naïve to be grateful, was an easy decision. Her marriage would be better for Celia after all.

That was of no importance.

What seemed more important was that he could have sworn that his friends had seemed to think he was going to marry Celia.

The thought should have been absurd.

She was a maid.

And yet...

All his friends had married for love.

None for duty.

He’d always intended never to marry at all, so perhaps marrying without society’s consent would not be catastrophic.

Perhaps he’d been foolish.

Perhaps his silence was sentencing her to a life of misery under a cruel employer who despised her. Had she deserved that?

She’d misled him, but she’d been assisting her sister. He would be a fool to ignore that.

He picked up his knife and fork, but despite the cook’s consistently excellent cooking, his mind was not on the hollandaise that graced the poached fish. 

The other men kept on darting their gazes at him. They seemed under the impression he would not notice if they kept their gazes brief.

They were wrong.

He wasn’t surprised when Marcus declared a sudden and urgent desire for a cigar, even though he’d never mentioned having even tried one before.

Frederick didn’t mind the excuse to be alone with them, and they left the ladies even before the footmen had swept away the dessert course.

“I didn’t know you were having other guests,” Rupert mused.

“They were a surprise. Apparently people have enjoyed giving them lately,” Frederick said.

Rupert shrugged. “So that woman might have been posing as an heiress, but at least it had to be less confusing than a woman posing as a male.”

“I don’t recall your wife having spent her formative years as a servant,” Frederick said.

The men were silent.

Frederick’s chest ached. He’d hoped that they might offer some words of encouragement. Both Rupert and Miles had caused the ton to gossip about their marital choices, and even Marcus’s choice had been deemed below him.

But none of them had married a servant.

He shouldn’t regret Celia had fled before they’d had a chance to discuss her actual status.

He should be grateful.

And yet...

Didn’t her experience only make her stronger, more suited to life in the Yorkshire Dales? Her experience as a lady’s maid meant she would understand the servants’ perspective better than the young, protected debutantes favored as potential wives.

She’d seemed so frightened, so vulnerable in the presence of Lady Fitzroy, and he strove to fight the desire to go to her, to comfort her.

*

THE CEREMONY WAS ALL wrong. 

Lady Theodosia looked splendid.

Everyone said so.

And the vicomte was the first person to declare he looked similarly splendid, so they were well suited.

Frederick glanced at his mother, sitting beside him. She clapped in all the right places, but he couldn’t declare her content. Surely her eyes would have looked merrier if she had been.

It should have been him up there.

This was his ancestral home.

He should be marrying the woman he adored.

No matter her position.

He loved her. He’d attended sufficient ton weddings to know the rarity of that, even if Lady Theodosia and the vicomte did not seem to belong to that disinterested, dissatisfied coupling category.

“I need to go to London,” he whispered.

“Is this the time to tell me?” His mother’s lips twitched.

“The minister is speaking,” Frederick said.

“Indeed.”

“Surely you couldn’t expect me to give the ceremony,” Frederick said.

“Perhaps not,” his mother said. “What draws you to London?”

Did he imagine that her voice had a hopeful sound to it?

It didn’t matter.

He was going to marry Celia to suit himself, and not anyone else, no matter how close they were to him.

“I think I should speak with Celia herself,” Frederick said.

His mother nodded.

“And then...”

Her smile tightened. “Perhaps there are some things mothers should not know.”

Oh.

She probably thought he’d planned to install Celia as his mistress.

He would not be the first aristocrat to do that.

He could give her a nice townhouse somewhere, and marry someone else who could give him respectable children.

Frederick could pay to keep Celia in pleasant accommodations and dress. No one would think it odd to see him visiting the theatre or opera with a mistress.

The ceremony ended.

The vicomte was embracing Lady Theodosia in a manner most inappropriate. It seemed he tooked his queues about propriety from gossip magazines.

Or Britain’s own royals.

“I should go,” he repeated, moving from the pew.

Perhaps she would be a suitable mistress.

She might be the daughter of an aristocrat, but she was still a maid.

Even elevating her to mistress level would be wonderful for her.

He could free her from a life of drudgery.

It’s a good idea.

Unfortunately he couldn’t feel enthusiastic.

Celia had longed to run a household.

She was smart and capable.

She wanted to guide others.

He couldn’t confine her to some townhome in London or York, swathed in jewels that did not interest her. He could not visit her on weekends, neglecting his work and estate, and perhaps later neglecting his wife and children.