A Seasonal Pursuit (Regency Christmas Brides #1)

Chapter Five

CHAPTER 5

I t was a credit to Webb that he had not reared back in shock when Rose had told him of her task. His face did show mild surprise, and as he pulled his gloves off, he cleared his throat.

“You are going to have to explain yourself a little more, Rose,” he told her, his voice lower still than before, but ringing with the same amusement. “I did not have you down as a husband hunter, and now I am questioning my own instincts for creating information.”

Rose rolled her eyes and wished the footmen had already filled her glass with Madeira. “It is very simple. My great-aunt, who is dying, secured my invitation to this house party. Surely you know me well enough from just the last few hours to suspect that I would never have come of my own volition.”

His nod was very polite, which also did him credit, as did his honesty in doing so and not arguing her statement.

“Well,” Rose went on, plastering a false smile on her face for the benefit of others, “she did so with the promise that if I found myself a husband of love and affection here, she would gift me a cottage in the Cotswolds and a stipend to maintain it. She knows I have only ever wanted a life away from Society and to do as I pleased, and even tempted me further by claiming it has a bountiful library.”

Webb did her the courtesy of looking impressed as footmen began dishing out portions of the meal for them.

“I need not tell you that at my age, I have no expectations of making anything resembling a love match or even a comfortable one.” Rose took a moment as her glass was filled before resuming. “And nor do I particularly care about that. But if I do this, I will not have to wait until I am five-and-thirty for my independence.”

“What happens at five-and-thirty?” Webb inquired with a quick smile, appearing rather invested in the story for someone who had only just met her.

Rose snorted softly. “That is your first question?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, his smile somehow more attractive for the air of laughter in it. “My first question was going to be your age, but then you mentioned independence at five-and-thirty, and now my curiosity will not be sated.”

“Fair enough.” She nodded at the footman’s offer of boiled potatoes. “At five-and-thirty, if I am unmarried, my father will grant me the full amount of my dowry to do as I wish. I planned on securing a cottage for myself, somewhere away from London but close enough to my family that I might visit when I feel the desire. So, if my aunt’s bargain allows me to have the same thing without waiting the additional years, why should I not try for it?”

Webb bobbed his head in a series of thoughtful nods. “Very pragmatic of you. How many years would you be waiting, exactly?”

Rose tried not to hold her breath, but the mention of her age was something that never failed to alter the way she was seen, if not the expression on the inquirer’s face. And no matter how she pretended not to care about several things in her life as they were now, there somehow managed to still be a stinging sensation with those alterations .

“Six years from now,” she admitted as clearly and concisely as she knew how while still keeping her voice low.

Webb’s eyes narrowed. “Even more of a temptation, then. Six years is a long wait, regardless of the prospect. How much dowry is it?”

Rose felt herself slowly blink as she stared at this man beside her, unsure what title, exactly, he held, but fairly certain none of the peerage members inquired regularly about the financial prospects of a lady in Society. Particularly not to the lady in question.

“You’re being very impertinent,” she pointed out, feeling the need to give him the chance to adjust the topic of conversation or extend an apology if he were feeling in any way embarrassed.

“This from you?” he returned without spite, his brow quirking again. “Apologies if the financial notion is more offensive than your age. I am simply trying to get the appropriate scope of your situation. Marriage seems a steep price for someone uninterested in the state.”

Now it was Rose who was on the back foot, and she looked away, considering what he had said with a fair bit of introspection. Why should he not inquire? She had started the impertinence by asking him straightaway to help her find a potential husband.

Fair enough.

“Ten thousand pounds,” she told him softly, reaching for her wine and sipping just a little.

Webb made a whistling sound without being so uncouth as to actually whistle at the table. “A fair amount, to be sure. I can see the attraction in taking his offer, but if you want something badly enough, an avenue to achieve it sooner is equally attractive.” He turned in his seat, looking at her more directly as his plate continued to fill with food from the footmen, as yet untouched by him. “But why pretend at a love match? What does that give you?”

“That is the crux of Aunt Edith’s scheme,” Rose admitted with bitterness, sipping some more Madeira for good measure before setting it aside. “She insists on love or affection for the match, as, in her words, it would be ‘more difficult’ for me. She refuses to let me marry for convenience and get the cottage.”

“Your own aunt says it will be difficult for you to make a love match?” Webb scoffed openly, his expression scornful and pitying. “Not sure I like this aunt of yours. Where is the belief in your good qualities?”

Rose felt a little fond of Webb for his defense, misplaced though it was. “She knows I have few. She also knows exactly the sort of personality I possess, and she believes that I am capable of ‘a great love,’ as she calls it, if I’ll just try a little harder. I don’t know how she expects my efforts to prove more fruitful in that regard in a two-week house party at Christmas when several years of enduring the Season in London have failed to do so, but there’s always the six-year wait if I fail.”

Webb’s brows lowered, more in thought than in anger. “So you think arranging your own match, pretending at the love your aunt seeks for you to fool her, might accomplish your aims without the same trouble.”

“I am not the only one she has asked this of,” Rose retorted defensively, plucking up her cutlery with almost jerking movements. “Three of my cousins are also supposed to marry in the time frame, all for love, apparently. Not for the cottage, as that would put us all in competition, but she has promised each of us something we greatly desire. Her instincts are markedly accurate, I must say. I have underestimated her, it seems.”

“I am not judging you,” Webb assured her with a calming gesture of his hand, then turned to his own plate. “That was a clarifying statement, not a judgmental one. I think it’s a decent plan, actually. ”

Now that she had not expected, and her knife skidded off her meat onto her plate with an almost deafening screech that made at least five people near her twitch.

“You do?” she all but bleated. “I thought it was rather stupid myself, but I had no other recourse.”

Webb shook slightly beside her, and she prayed it was with laughter. “I do,” he eventually said, his voice choked and restrained. He took a moment to cut into his goose and take a bite, chewing carefully.

“Having made a good match of love and affection myself,” Webb went on after a swallow, “I can safely say that one cannot simply will it into being, regardless of the prospect. And I am entirely in favor of outsmarting an aunt who thinks you are difficult.”

“She also called me prickly and particular,” Rose offered, as though it were helpful.

Webb looked as though he would throw up his hands in exasperation. “The gall of this woman!”

Sensing she was being teased, but that there was some truth in his reaction as well, Rose let herself smile, finding it far easier to do than she had expected. There was almost no force in it, and she suddenly wanted to laugh. “You’re making me feel rather less stupid for all of this.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all. The cards you have been dealt as a woman don’t allow for independence unless you are exceptionally wealthy or married, and if you are married, you’re not really independent unless there is an arrangement with your husband, or you are a widow who has been well set up.” He made a face before shaking his head. “None of those options are particularly pleasing, so I can understand seeking a love match on your behalf, as it might be the happiest marital arrangement, but if independence is what you seek above all, arranging matters yourself is the way to do it. ”

He made it sound so sensible, and there was a great deal of relief in that. She might actually have an ally in this, unlike Aunt Edith’s rendition of an ally—Lady Standhope—who would never understand Rose’s feelings.

But before Rose got her hopes up too far…

She picked up her napkin and covered her mouth, turning towards Webb. “If you aren’t serious about helping me, Webb…”

“Oh, I am entirely serious when I say I’ll help you.” He nodded fervently, chewing a bit of potato quickly. “Between the pair of us, we’ll find an unobjectionable candidate who will play along adequately, allow you independence, and make a comfortable enough spouse for someone who doesn’t want one.”

Rose felt herself grimacing. “I’m not entirely opposed to a spouse. I’ve simply…lost the hope that I’ll actually get one that I want.”

Webb glanced at her, seeming far less surprised than he had been before, but there was some quiet, calming understanding in his dark eyes. And he did her the courtesy of not looking in any way smug or amused.

“Which makes me sound more whimsical than I have ever been,” Rose added in a rush as her face heated. “But I trust you know what I mean.”

“I do.” He took a long drink of his wine. “A length of time filled with disappointment makes it difficult to summon something as vulnerable as hope. Far easier to harden oneself and stop wishing entirely. It hurts less.”

“Precisely,” Rose whispered, lowering her eyes to her plate. “It’s been so long that I barely remember what made me hurt, but I remember the hurt.”

“I understand,” Webb murmured.

How in the world had they come to this serious admission of difficult feelings? And how did Webb know exactly how she had felt? Exactly how she did feel? How she had become this version of herself? It had never felt far from the truth of who she was, and yet…

And yet she was not always so outspoken and harsh. That had come with time and with hardening.

Somehow, he knew that.

“I don’t want a cold marriage,” Rose insisted, finding some strength to her voice. “I just want a quiet independence, and a husband who won’t mind that I do.”

“Seems simple enough.”

She found herself laughing at that. “Glad you think so, but I cannot pretend others will be so reasonable.”

Webb smiled at her, or perhaps at her laugh. “Reason does not always follow where it ought, does it? But I have learned the value of reason as I have aged, and it has served me well.”

“Congratulations.” She tried to quirk a brow at him, just as he had done earlier, but she was quite sure she had only managed to make an ironic face, which would do well enough. She had managed to keep much cynicism out of her tone with that single word, but he could not escape her dry humor entirely.

Webb glanced to his right along the table, then turned and looked on Rose’s left, twisting his mouth as he did so. “We’ll have to do some investigation, Rose. I’ve been away from social situations for the last year and a half, so the nature of some of these bachelors has gone a bit hazy in my mind.”

“That is quite all right. We have two weeks, after all. And I have no idea when my aunt will come and visit here, so our progress will simply have to be what it will be.” She shrugged a little as she focused on her meal.

“Your aunt Edith is coming here?” Webb sputtered softly, shaking his head. “Whatever for?”

Rose was loving the manner in which Webb reacted to her story and situation. He was perfectly in line with her own feelings, and it only solidified, in her mind, that Aunt Edith’s eccentricity was indeed that, and not some perceived state that only existed in Rose’s mind.

“To check on my progress, of course. What else?” She grinned rather playfully. “Do you really think a woman who has set this entire scheme up for me would not be personally invested in how it plays out?” She rolled her eyes, sipping her Madeira.

Webb made a face as he chewed part of his meal. “Now I am even more determined to help you thwart her ladyship for your own happiness.” He nodded once and began gesturing with his cutlery as he spoke. “You shall have exactly what you want and nothing less. I have a fiendish dislike for the machinations of people where they directly impact the lives of others.”

Rose released a breath of surprise and amusement. “Where were you when I had my coming out? My mother was an almighty tyrant.”

Chuckling, Webb speared a potato and popped it into his mouth. “I’m afraid even I have no power over the mamas during the Season. That one we will have to set aside. But in this? I think I can help you.”

A sudden though struck Rose’s mind with such force she needed to take a moment before speaking. “You’re not about to suggest yourself, are you, Webb? Charming as our conversation has been and promising as our alliance seems, I would hate to think…”

He was laughing before she finished, and she trailed off, waiting. “No, Rose, I am not about to suggest myself. I’ve had a successful marriage already, one based on friendship that love blossomed from. I plan on finding the same again, if I can, because that is the sort of life I want to live and marriage I want to embrace. I see no reason why you cannot have the same freedom of choice in your life, no matter what your aunt or Society says, and I should like to see you have it. Nothing more, nothing less. ”

“So you are the great humanitarian who will assist me,” Rose suggested wryly, relief that he was not toying with her for his own ends washing over her.

“Don’t endow me with virtues I do not possess,” Webb scolded, still half laughing. “By engaging in this form of mischief with you, I achieve my promised aims of returning to a social life without having to venture so far out of my current understanding of my own comfort. I will be able to tell my sister, hand on heart, that I was indeed engaging with others and participating fully in the events here.”

Ah, now that made things a trifle clearer in Rose’s mind, not to mention even more acceptable.

She began nodding in thoughtful approval. “Self-interest is always the more honest motivation when one is appearing to be a humanitarian. The scheming on your part is admirable, Webb. I commend you, and now I don’t feel nearly so crass for asking for your assistance in my own.”

Webb inclined his head in a playful nod and held out his glass of wine. “To our mutually beneficial mischief, then.”

Rose tapped her glass to his, the pure tone of the contact ringing quite proudly out between them. She sipped quickly, then began snickering as she caught sight of others looking in their direction after the clinking. “We may have to contend with some mischief in gossip from the other guests. Speculation runs rampant in confined spaces, and we cannot hope to escape it. Look.”

Webb followed the direction of her gaze and made her laugh even harder by toasting those who were blatantly staring at them. The guests averted their eyes, but Rose saw how their mouths moved, and presumed their continued conversation would be on the subject of Rose and Webb’s unconventional relationship.

No one would know the full story, and speculation would only help her cause, should word reach Lady Standhope of her having found confidence in an eligible male guest.

Surely, she and Webb could manage convincing acts instead. He seemed to have an eye for the company, and she hoped he also possessed a knack for understanding people. It was on his recommendations and observations she would act, so she had to trust him.

And pray that he really was as self-interested and noble as he’d made himself appear.

“We’d better talk of something else,” Webb said as he returned his attention to his meal. “Possibly disagree on something. Otherwise certain mouths will run away with themselves. Tell me, what do you think of novels, Rose?”