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  MR. MALCOLM’S LIST. Copyright © 2009 by Suzanne Allain. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  LeMoyne House, Publishers

  Kindle edition

  For my husband

  One

  The Honorable Jeremy Malcolm, second son of the Earl of Kilbourne, was the biggest catch of the season the year of our Lord 1818. It was true he had no title of his own and was only a younger son, but his aunt on his mother’s side had left him the bulk of her sizeable fortune and a large country house in Kent.

  He also had his considerable personal assets to recommend him. Only the most ambitious of young misses would overlook Mr. Malcolm, with his dark wavy hair, dark blue eyes, and slim but muscular physique, in favor of the Marquess of Mumford who was at least fifty and had no chin, just for the privilege of hearing herself called My Lady.

  For what woman would choose to be called “My Lady” when she might enjoy the sole honor of being called “Malcolm’s lady?”

  But it was beginning to look as if no woman was ever to enjoy that inestimable privilege.

  For, though he was by no means a hermit, and attended Almack’s along with various other balls, routs, and assemblies, Mr. Malcolm was earning a reputation as a Trifler, a Breaker of Hearts, a Destroyer of Young Women’s Dreams.

  “A what?” Malcolm asked his friend Lord Cassidy, upon being told of the latest gossip concerning him.

  “A Destroyer of Young Women’s Dreams,” Cassie told him, enunciating slowly and carefully.

  “What rot,” Malcolm replied, turning to survey the ballroom, and one beautiful debutante in particular.

  “I am not so sure it is rot, Malcolm. You paid very particular attentions to my cousin Julia, and now have not been to call in nearly a week.”

  Malcolm turned to look at his friend, one eyebrow raised. “I escorted your cousin to the opera. Once. I would not call that paying her ‘very particular attentions.’”

  “Well, perhaps not, but it was all anyone spoke of for the next two days. And then when you did not call again, how did that make Julia look? She spent two whole days locked away in her bedchamber because she did not want to face anyone.”

  “If that is typical of Miss Thistlewaite’s behavior she has no cause to complain when people speak ill of her.”

  Cassie did not reply, letting his silence on the subject speak for itself. He assumed a wounded expression and, although Malcolm staunchly defended his friend whenever it was remarked that Lord Cassidy closely resembled a hound, Malcolm could not deny the likeness was particularly strong when Cassie was sulking.

  “I am sorry, Cassie, that my attentions to your cousin caused you and your family distress.” The large brown eyes continued to stare at him reproachfully. “I did not set out to upset her, but neither am I going to propose marriage to a woman just because I escorted her to the opera.”

  “No one said you had to,” Cassie said.

  “Perhaps not, but it is what they want. What are those dreams that I am accused of destroying? They are dreams of wedding the ‘catch of the season’ purely for the sake of my fortune and holdings. The only way I could fulfill the numerous expectations I have excited is to become a polygamist. If I even speak to a young lady she is envisioning a trip down the aisle.”

  “So why not just choose some girl and make an end of it,” his friend suggested.

  “Why do you think I am here tonight? I am very anxious to find a suitable bride.”

  “What is wrong with Julia? She’s generally acknowledged a handsome girl,” Cassie said, although he couldn’t quite meet his friend’s eyes. Julia had harangued her cousin into discovering what she had done to earn his friend’s displeasure. Cassie was trying to do his duty by suggesting Julia as a suitable bride, but he felt uncomfortable doing so. He knew better than anyone just how annoying she could be.

  “Your cousin is handsome enough,” Malcolm agreed, “but she’s not the girl for me.”

  “Why not?” Cassie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Malcolm said, shrugging his shoulders. “She flutters her eyelashes too much.”

  “What? She flutters her eyelashes too much? That is the reason you did not call on her again?”

  “It was very distracting. I thought a few times she was dozing off. Once I thought she was about to swoon so I grabbed her arm. That made her eyes open quickly enough. I think she believed her quivering eyelashes had incited me to make her an offer of marriage.”

  Cassie just shook his head, those canine eyes of his expressing disappointment.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Cassie. That was not the only thing that decided me against Miss Thistlewaite.” Malcolm reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. He unfolded it while Cassie attempted to look at it over his shoulder. It appeared to Cassie to be a list of some kind. Malcolm perused it carefully while Cassie strained to see what it said. He saw “Accomplished in music and singing” and “Genteel relations” before the paper was waved triumphantly in front of his face, Malcolm apparently having discovered what he was looking for.

  “Here it is. Item 4: ‘The ability to converse in a sensible fashion.’ The only type of conversation Miss Thistlewaite enjoys is one composed entirely of flirtatious remarks or flowery compliments. When I asked her what opinion she held about the Corn Laws she replied that restraint in one’s diet was bound to have a healthful effect.”

  Cassie did not express any amusement upon hearing of his cousin’s faux pas. He hurriedly changed the subject as he did not want to become involved in some dull political discussion. “What is that, Malcolm? Is that a list?” Cassie tried to remove it from Malcolm’s hand, but Malcolm hurriedly folded it and returned it to his waistcoat pocket.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You have some sort of list of qualifications for a bride?” Cassie asked, his voice higher than usual.

  “So?”

  “So, that is demmed arrogant of you, if you ask me. No wonder you cannot settle upon anyone. You want them to meet some catalogue of requirements, like, like…a tandem horse you’re purchasing from Tattersall’s.”

  Malcolm seized upon his friend’s analogy. “Exactly. I have definite requirements when filling my stable. Why should I not have even more stringent requirements for a bride? It is absolutely absurd to spend more time examining a horse than a wife, a lifelong companion you will see morning, noon and night.”

  Since Cassie was of that breed of Englishman that considered a horse a lifelong companion to be seen morning, noon and night, his friend’s argument may not have carried the force it was meant to. He just muttered, “Are you going to check her teeth, too?”

  Cassie avoided Julia for nearly a week after his conversation with Malcolm, but upon receiving her third missive he presented himself at his aunt’s town house. In her letter Julia had declared her intention of calling on him herself if necessary, unescorted, and he had no desire to be forced to offer for his hothead of a cousin.

  He awaited Julia in the drawing room, looking about him in strong disapproval. Everything was in the first style of elegance, but his aunt seemed to have gone too far in following the Prince Regent’s latest taste for chinoiserie. Every sofa or chair handle had a dragon’s head, and one cabinet was filled to overflowing with pieces of pottery, glazed ceramic animals, and stone carvings of creatures that were the stuff of nightmares. He was examining one objet d’art closely, a figurine of an old Chinese sage with oversized eyebrows and a maniacal smile, when his cousin spoke in his ear.

  “He does not bite, you know.”

  He started
dramatically at the sound of her voice and she laughed at the success of her surprise. “You have the manners of a fishwife,” he told her, waiting for his cousin to sit before trying to fold his lanky body into one of the uncomfortable chairs.

  “I would not know, as I do not keep the low society you do.” She waved away his angry rebuttal, saying, “Never mind, I apologize for scaring you.”

  “You did not scare me, I was—” Cassie said, before being interrupted once again.

  “I apologized, did I not? Do not worry; I shan’t tell anyone that you find a small piece of pottery so intimidating.” Cassie began sputtering again, but Julia hurried to the point. “What did Malcolm have to say? You promised you would speak to him at Lord Wesleigh’s ball and I have not heard from you since.”

  Cassie eyed his cousin in irritation, cursing the fates for making it necessary for him to claim kinship with such a selfish, spoiled girl. Neither of them had any siblings and they were only a few years apart in age, so their parents had forced them into each other’s company from childhood on. Julia had been an attractive child and had grown up into a pretty young woman, with auburn hair, light green eyes and delicate features. Her air of innocent fragility still managed to deceive most people as to her true nature but Cassie was not fooled. There was nothing fragile about his cousin’s will.

  “Well?” she asked, drumming her fingers impatiently upon a dragon’s head.

  “Yes, well, Malcolm agreed you were a handsome girl—”

  “Did he?” Julia asked, an expression of pleased surprise on her face. “That is good news. I must say, I thought I had displeased him in some way. This is better news than I’d hoped for—”

  “Wait,” Cassie said, interrupting her exultations. “He is not at all interested in you.”

  Cassie had not meant to make such a blunt pronouncement and felt a little twinge of guilt when his cousin’s face fell. He might not like Julia, but he could not bear to see any lady cry, and he hurried to stave off the tears he thought he saw gathering in her eyes. “He’s got this list, you see, and you did not meet the fourth qualification. Believe me, I would not have met it either; I have no interest in politics and have always found the Corn Laws particularly confusing. I mean, what difference does it make if they grow the corn in Berkshire or France. Corn is corn, right?”

  Julia didn’t answer, but Cassie was pleased to see there didn’t appear to be any danger of her crying any longer. In fact, she looked almost ferocious. “He has a list?” she asked, in a voice that was far too calm.

  “Yes, well, I must say I did not care for the idea at first myself, but when he explained it to me I could see his point. Who wants to ride in a carriage pulled by a badly matched pair? It would be quite uncomfortable.”

  Julia ignored this seeming non sequitur and tried to return to the point of the discussion. “I would like to know what is on this list, Cassie. Did you see it?”

  “It would do you no good. No good at all. Even if you had passed the Corn Laws test your eyelashes irritate him to no end.”

  “My eyelashes? Is the man deranged?”

  “No, not at all. You just cannot fool him with those tricks you pull. He hates flirtatious games.”

  Julia rose from her seat to pace furiously about the room, muttering things like: “The unmitigated gall!” and “What conceit!” Cassie rose when his cousin did, but she waved him back into his seat where he shifted nervously, suddenly aware that he had said far too much.

  When Julia halted abruptly in her pacing and started smiling Cassie became even more apprehensive. He had seen that expression on Julia’s face more times than he cared to remember, and it always boded ill.

  “I have an absolutely brilliant idea,” she announced.

  “Somehow I doubt it,” he replied.

  Selina Dalton, expecting nothing more interesting than a letter from her parents, was the surprised recipient of a letter of invitation from her old school friend, Julia Thistlewaite.

  She had hoped for just such an invitation when she had written to Julia four months previously, but when she’d never even had a reply to her letter she had given it up as useless. Julia had always been a difficult sort of friend, liable to blow hot and cold, so it had not surprised Selina too much when Julia refused to acknowledge their previous acquaintance. She was more amazed that Julia had finally invited Selina to stay with her at the Thistlewaites’s townhouse in

  Berkeley Square. Selina let out a small squeal of delight at the prospect before looking around guiltily. But, of course, there was no one to hear her. She was alone, as was usual, in the drawing room of her former mistress’s home in Bath.

  Mrs. Ossory had been a kind and benevolent mistress, and Selina had been genuinely grieved upon her death four months previously. They had lived harmoniously together for three years after Selina took up her position as companion. Her duties were not at all onerous, and Mrs. Ossory had proved as much a companion to Selina as Selina had to her. Even in death she had been generous, leaving Selina a comfortable settlement that guaranteed her an independence the rest of her life.

  However, Selina had nowhere to take up this independent life. She could not go on living indefinitely in Mrs. Ossory’s townhouse, which had been bequeathed to a nephew. And she did not really want to return to the small parish in Sussex where her father was serving as Vicar. It was because she wished to see more of the world that she had originally decided to take the post with Mrs. Ossory. Her parents did not have the money to expend on a London season, but when Mrs. Ossory, a distant connection of her mother’s, mentioned that she was looking for a companion, Selina jumped at the opportunity. Here was her chance to experience life outside the vicarage.

  And Selina had enjoyed her life in Bath. She found it a charming city, with its gleaming, limestone buildings, elegant crescents, and fascinating history. She had not regretted the three years spent there, but she had felt that there was something missing. Mrs. Ossory’s circle of friends and acquaintances had, by necessity, become Selina’s acquaintances, and there was not anyone under fifty among them. She felt the lack of society of those of her own age and interests, and felt that perhaps she could find such society in London.

  But she knew a young lady of two and twenty could not live alone so she was again at a loss. She could hire a paid companion—a thought that made her smile at the irony of her situation—but that would not give her entrée or introductions to the society she sought. So she had written Julia, whom Selina knew was living the very life she coveted. And, lo and behold, she had finally received the prized invitation.

  It arrived just after Selina had made the decision to return home to her family, realizing that she had delayed the inevitable long enough. She had already planned on leaving the next morning and was grateful the letter had not arrived one day later. For now her destination was London.

  Selina was a little taken aback by her reception when she arrived in London two days later. Julia waved away Selina’s apologies for arriving so soon, interrupting Selina in the middle of her explanation by saying, “It is better this way. We can begin immediately.” She then proceeded to circle Selina as she stood in the drawing room, eyeing her critically.

  “I suppose we will have to make do,” she finally said, and Selina felt the urge to apologize for her inadequacies although she still had no idea what Julia was talking about.

  Realizing that some response was called for, Selina said, “I beg your pardon?”

  Julia, startled out of her ruminations, gave a tinkling laugh and apologized for her odd behavior. “I will explain all to you shortly, but I am waiting for my cousin, Lord Cassidy, to arrive.”

  Selina nodded, although still at a loss, and Julia began chattering excitedly. “Please come and sit down so we can renew our acquaintance. Tell me, what have you been doing this—has it really been four years?”

  Selina assured her that it had been four years since they had last seen each other, and explained about her tenure as Mrs. Ossory’
s companion.

  “How very boring for you,” Julia said.

  “No, it was actually quite nice. She was a genteel, kindly lady, and she treated me very well.”

  “Yes, but I am sure you found little in the way of entertainment. You will be treated much better here in London.”

  Selina, beginning to remember how selfish Julia used to be, rather doubted the truth of her statement, but nodded her agreement just the same. She was then treated to a recital of the delights that awaited her, but as Julia’s conversation mostly consisted of the names of people Selina was destined to meet, but currently held no meaning for her, she was hard-pressed to appear interested. So she was quite relieved when Lord Cassidy finally arrived.

  Julia made the introductions and Selina eyed Lord Cassidy with interest, thinking that she had not been in London for two hours and already she had made the acquaintance of a young gentleman. The interest eventually faded to amusement, however, as she decided that Cassie, as he insisted upon being called, could have been torn from one of Cruikshank’s cartoons.

  His features, while pleasant, seemed to be exaggerated, so that his eyes, ears, and nose all appeared slightly too big for his face. His arms and legs were long and skinny; his clothing, while fashionable and expensive, was creased and rumpled. And though he smiled genially at Selina, his expressive face took on a scowl whenever he glanced in the direction of his cousin Julia.

  “So, now that my cousin is here, I thought I would explain to you the reason I invited you to London,” Julia said, once everyone was seated. Sensing Selina’s surprise at this statement, as Julia had said in her letter she had invited Selina to visit because she wished the pleasure of her company, she hurried to explain. “Of course, you know I’ve always enjoyed your company, dear Selina, which was the reason I even conceived of inviting you, but I also felt that while you were residing in town you might undertake to help me with a little project.”