A Chance Gone By (Brides By Chance Regency Adventures Book 2) Read online

  A CHANCE GONE BY

  Brides By Chance Regency Adventures

  Book Two

  Elizabeth Bailey

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  HEAR MORE FROM ELIZABETH BAILEY

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH BAILEY

  Chapter One

  Even with the double doors open to the vestibule and the staircase beyond, it was insufferably hot. Added to the press of brightly-clad guests shifting under two massive chandeliers, with the windows tightly closed against the harsh March winds, there was a distinct lack of air.

  Marianne Timperley plied her fan vigorously, aware that her discomfort was not wholly attributable to the prevailing atmosphere in the stuffy ballroom. Her pulse was behaving in an irregular fashion, becoming more unruly as she scanned each new set of arrivals, and she did not see the face she had nerved herself to confront with every appearance of normality.

  She was conscious of the fact that she had begged the family not to be made to stand with them in the receiving line. Especially when the son of the house, Justin Crail, officially Lord Purford since the death of his father, who should have been here at the start to take his place, chose to be disgracefully late.

  Rowsham’s announcement heralded another set of guests and Marianne’s heartbeat quickened briefly and subsided again when she took in the new faces. No Justin yet.

  This suspense was playing havoc with her self-control. While she curtsied in her turn and murmured a greeting, digging into the fog of her mind for a couple of innocuous remarks, Marianne began to think of leaving her post. Imprisoned in this fashion, her customary good sense had vanished. She could better employ her time and energy in making a discreet check that all her careful arrangements were in place and everything was running smoothly.

  Taking advantage of a lull in the stream of arrivals, she whispered to Jocasta at her side: “Surely nearly everyone is here now? I might slip away.”

  Her cousin’s expressive young countenance, lively with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, turned towards her. “Don’t desert me, Marianne, I beg of you. You promised!”

  That was undeniable. Indeed, it was owing to Jocasta’s insistence that she was standing here at all. With an inward sigh, Marianne pushed her own troubles away, and tried for a note of reassurance. “Yes, I did. It’s just so hot.”

  “Hot? I’m shivering with fright!”

  Marianne conjured a smile. “You look delightful and it’s your ball. I told you, all that is required of you is to enjoy yourself.”

  “And behave demurely, and not shock all the starchy matrons, and —”

  “Jocasta, be quiet!”

  The hissing admonition came from Grace, Lady Purford, resplendent in a robe of crimson-coloured sarcenet trimmed with black lace, her neck and ears bejewelled, her dark locks bedecked with a white and crimson feathered head-dress. Her attitude was only too clear a justification for poor Jocasta’s fears. In vain had Marianne tried to hint to her cousin Grace that her daughter would do better at her come-out if she were not plagued with a catalogue of restrictive rules.

  “I will not have her taken for an impertinent hoyden by the likes of Lady Burloyne and the Marchioness of Colgrave. And that wretch Mrs Guineaford, who thinks herself so high merely because a coterie of foolish men is convulsed by her wit, would be all too glad of an excuse to take me down.”

  Marianne interpreted this without difficulty, being fully acquainted with the rivalry subsisting between her cousin Grace and the peerless Mrs Guineaford. The latter’s success arose more, she suspected, from her immense wealth than her dubious reputation for uttering bon mots.

  “Dear ma’am, it is highly unlikely Mrs Guineaford will expend one moment’s energy on Jocasta. I doubt she will even notice her. As for attending the ball —”

  “That is just what I am saying, Marianne. She will attend, if only to spite me, and be on the watch to jump the instant Jocasta says one little thing out of place, which you know she is bound to do. It is all Justin’s fault! He has spoilt her to death and see what has come of it. She is totally unfitted to be let loose in company and I will be blamed.”

  Recognising the futility of argument once the refrain of Justin’s mishandling of his half-sister had entered the lists, Marianne had applied herself instead to reassurance.

  “Recollect, ma’am, there will be three of us to keep an eye on Jocasta. Unless you mean to turn off Miss Stubbings now that she no longer needs a governess?”

  “Certainly not. The child has every need of the woman, for I cannot be forever at her side once we are established in Town, and I will have more need of you than Jocasta. It is the greatest comfort to me, Marianne, with my uncertain health that I can depend upon you. But all that is beside the point. I will not have my daughter considered too free and if I must drum it into her head from morning to night, then so be it.”

  And drum she did, Marianne reflected, recalling how often poor Jocasta had run to her in floods, declaring she’d rather remain a spinster than be subjected to the frightful ordeal of becoming a debutante. As for the prospect of her presentation to the Queen, she had claimed to be in a regular quake months before the event.

  Between soothing Jocasta’s tears and, later, listening with what patience she could muster to Grace’s complaints and dire prophecies, Marianne had had her hands full in the lead up to Jocasta’s coming out ball. Once preparations for departure to London had begun, she was burdened in addition with the many domestic crises plaguing the housekeeper and butler. Rowsham’s austere requests were easier to deal with than Mrs Woofferton’s prognostications of disaster, which were almost as dismal as those of her mistress, although pertaining to the inadequacies of the female servants rather than those of Lady Jocasta Crail.

  It was as well she had been too occupied to chafe at Justin’s long absence and worry at its meaning. Just as she had done all last year, on tenterhooks every time he left the estate.

  The crash had come upon her in a wholly unexpected fashion three weeks into the season when she was preoccupied with organising the ball — which could not be delayed once Jocasta’s long-dreaded debut had at last occurred at the Queen’s February drawing room — as well as dealing with the escalating panic of all concerned. She had come late into the dining parlour where the other three ladies were already seated at the reduced dining table, an innovation Marianne instituted to give the place a cosier feel in the mornings. She had been delayed by a tearful Nancy, who had endured a scold for clattering the fire irons in the grate and waking the dragon Stubbings far too early.

  “You’ve missed Justin,” Grace had announced, setting down her cup and reaching for one of the pile of fresh spiced buns in a silver dish.

  Marianne’s heart had done the little flip it always did at the mention of his name. But she kept her voice even as she crossed to the side table where the butler was waiting to serve her from the several covered dishes set out there. “Is he back at last? Did he come to breakf
ast?”

  “Breakfast? No! He rushed in and out so that we barely had time to take it in.”

  Jocasta, her mouth full of spiced bun, chimed in. “Would you believe it? He has finally offered for Lady Selina.”

  The shock had been severe. Marianne felt her mind go blank and spots began to dance in her vision, but she had pulled herself together. She waved away the proffered viands and contented herself with a couple of oat cakes. Busying herself with buttering them and spooning blackberry jam on to her plate had afforded an excuse not to meet anyone’s eyes.

  “To tell you the truth,” Grace had said as she stirred her coffee, “I had quite given up hope of his fulfilling Sessay’s expectations. It was an understood thing for years between him and my dear lamented Purford.”

  “Yes, and last year he never came up to scratch, though he danced attendance on her all through the season.”

  Miss Stubbings, severe in purple chintz, looked up from her plate, where she was addressing a substantial breakfast of baked eggs and ham, and bent her spectacles upon her charge, tutting in a reproving way. Grace immediately took it up.

  “Jocasta! That is precisely the sort of remark…”

  “But it’s only us, Mama. There’s no one to hear me.”

  Miss Stubbings cut in, stiff with disapproval. “Besides, how do you know that, Lady Jocasta? You were not out and therefore not present to observe it.”

  “Oh, Delia wrote to tell me, for she made her debut then, and if you ask me, she was hoping to attach Justin herself, only she never quite said so or I would have warned her that he was pretty well promised.”

  “Jocasta!”

  “Gossip, Lady Jocasta, is the work of the devil. If I have told you once, I have told you fifty times.”

  Marianne did not hear much of the ensuing peal rung over her cousin’s hapless head by her mother and preceptress. It had been as much as she could do to preserve her countenance and hold back the tide of misery threatening to engulf her. Long practice came to her rescue. Schooling her features, she maintained a spurious air of calm, passing off her lack of appetite on disturbed sleep. Not that she could flatter herself any of the combatants noticed.

  She would have been glad enough to escape to her room, but there were far too many calls upon her time to allow for that indulgence, which had proved useful, since the common activities of the day served to buffer the shock and dull the pain. At least until the night hours, when sleeplessness really had claimed her, though by then she could not weep, which might have afforded some relief.

  Instead she had tossed and turned, berating herself for allowing that tiny seed of hope to fester. She’d long known the futility of her impossible dreams. Justin was not for her, never had been.

  Yet she’d hugged their close friendship to her heart, believing it compensated for the more intimate relationship. Only a traitor streak of obstinacy had snaked its way into her bosom, declaring that it might be, it could be — if only Justin loved her. It would take that, if he was to defy convention, defy his commitment to his deceased father’s arrangement, and ignore Marianne’s utter ineligibility as the potential wife of an earl. He could not and would not choose his stepmother’s poor relation, orphaned daughter of an obscure naval lieutenant.

  Even if he loved her as desperately as she loved him. Which he did not. He did not love her at all. Except as a friend. If one could call it love when he had been carelessly kind and obliging to an unhappy girl, in whom he learned to confide. But everyone did that, did they not? It meant no more than simple trust and an ease of confidence that Marianne would not betray him. Naturally she would not. She would die first.

  But he had not confided in her when it came to the question of his marriage to Lady Selina Wilkhaven, most eligible daughter of the Earl and Countess of Sessay. He had hesitated all last year, causing Marianne to suffer a series of aching questions as to his intentions. Indeed, she hardly saw him, even during the rare times he was at home. When they met, he was as indulgent towards her as ever, but Marianne sensed distance between them, which she’d put down to her own disturbed condition.

  Marianne’s racing thoughts were interrupted and she was abruptly brought back to the present.

  “Forgive me, dear Grace, but it truly was not my fault.”

  The light, caressing tones jerked Marianne’s pulse into high gear and she had all to do to remain standing. Her legs turned to jelly and she had to grip her fingers together to stop their trembling. He was here. He had come at last.

  “There was an unfortunate accident just as we were setting out, and my poor Selina was obliged to change her dress. You are acquainted with Lady Selina, of course, ma’am.”

  Marianne heard Grace’s reply through a haze as she took in the radiant vision at Justin’s side. Lush dark curling locks, a creamy complexion, sweeping lashes over eyes as blue as the sky and the face of a fairy princess. How could she possibly compete?

  “Jocasta, my charming girl, you look delightful.”

  His sister preened, turning this way and that to show off the elegant spotted silver muslin drapery that adorned her short-sleeved white gown, fixed to the front and shoulders with Wedgwood medallions. A double row of pearls was clasped about her neck and a gold medallion decorated the large curl at the front of her hair, the rest caught up in ringlets.

  “Do you think it pretty?”

  “Indeed I do. If I shower you with compliments, will you forgive my tardiness?”

  Justin bowed over Jocasta’s hand in the teasing fashion he invariably used towards her, the customary glint in his eye.

  “Never, you heartless wretch!” Jocasta declared, at once falling into her normal spirited self instead of the demure pose she’d perforce been wearing.

  “Alas! What shall I do to make it up to you?”

  “I’ll think of something, be sure. But at least you are here to lead me into the first dance.”

  Justin threw up hands of mock horror. “Good God, does that fate await me?”

  “Horrid creature! You know it does. And I won’t tread on your toes. I’ve been practising.”

  “I am relieved. Though I’ve no doubt you’ll find some way to unhorse me and I’ll crash to the floor and embarrass us all.”

  His sister’s giggles unfortunately attracted her mother’s attention.

  “Jocasta! For heaven’s sake, Justin, don’t encourage her!”

  Marianne saw the siblings exchange a conspiratorial glance of understanding and then Justin was before her, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes in the way she loved.

  “Marianne.”

  Her name on his lips set the seal on her despair. Her heart was drumming in her chest and she had difficulty finding her voice. She put out her hand, and his touch as he took it seared her fingers even through the glove.

  “You’re shockingly late,” she managed, trying to speak normally through lips that felt stiff and alien.

  “But with very good reason,” he returned, releasing her and drawing his companion forward. “Allow me to present Lady Selina Wilkhaven. Our cousin, Miss Timperley.”

  Marianne dropped a curtsy, dredging up a smile. “May I offer you my…” The word ‘sincere’ stopped her tongue. Heavens, what in the world was she to say? “…my warmest congratulations?”

  “Thank you. Most kind.”

  Selina had a delightful mellow voice, as well as everything else. No one would suppose she’d had to change, for she looked stunning in a white gown embroidered in gold and trimmed with fur, ornamented at the sleeves with diamond loops that matched the diamanté in her hair and around her throat. She turned away immediately.

  “Do we remain with your family, Justin? Or should we join the throng?”

  Join the throng, please, Marianne begged silently, unnerved by the thought of having to stand alongside the creature who had dashed her future to pieces. Herself modestly attired in a blue-spotted Russia robe over a plain gown, her hair mostly concealed by a chiffonet of light blue satin with si
lk-trimmed ends and a single feather, Marianne knew she would be completely outshone.

  Fortunately, Grace intervened. “We will all go on, I think. Now that Justin is here, we may shortly start the dancing. Marianne?”

  “I will see the musicians, ma’am.”

  “Find Miss Stubbings, if you please, and send her to me.”

  “As you wish, cousin.”

  Thankfully moving away, her limbs still unsteady, she heard Grace behind her. “You had best circulate, Justin, until the dancing begins. Jocasta, stay by me until he comes to claim you. Or if I should be occupied, Miss Stubbings will be here directly.”

  Glad of the necessity to resume her duties, Marianne tried to ignore the deadness in her chest as she pinned a rictus smile to her lips.

  Chapter Two

  Leaving his betrothed surrounded by her usual court, Justin went in search of his sister, prepared to hear a more comprehensive complaint than Jocasta would dare with her mother’s ears flapping beside her. If Grace would only let the child be, she would do very well. Nothing could more surely prejudice her chances than stifling her natural vivacity and presenting her as just one more colourless debutante.

  Though he doubted, with an inward chuckle, that Jocasta’s exuberance would remain buried for long. Once she found her feet and was permitted to be out of the Dragon’s or Grace’s sight for more than five minutes, Justin had no doubt she would revert rapidly into the pert and bubbly enchantress who had long since learned how to twist him around her little finger.

  At least their dance would afford her an opportunity to show her true colours. He would be at pains to provoke her. He owed her that much, after appearing so disastrously late.

  His irritation revived. He could scarcely blame Selina for tripping over that urchin, who dashed across the path just as she was about to enter his carriage. Justin was only too aware that his own inattention had been responsible for her fall. Worse, he’d gone directly to pick up the ragged boy and set him on his feet before attending to his fiancée.