Page 3 of Dropping the Ball

“We’re all so happy to have you here, Lady Bernadette,” she said once everything had been set down and the woman had introduced herself as Mrs. Pettigrew. “We’re all so very fond of Lord Alden, but to a one of us, we are desperate for him to find a wife and for this house to have a lady running it. Things have become a bit … disorganized.”

“Is that so?” Lord Cedric said, arching one eyebrow as Muriel handed him the tea she’d prepared for him.

“A bit,” Mrs. Pettigrew said.

Despite speaking a little out of turn about her employer, she didn’t seem eager to say much more. She curtsied, and when it was established that none of them needed anything more, she took herself off to whatever other duties she had in the vast, shabby house.

“Extraordinary,” Muriel said as she sipped her tea, her eyes alight with intrigue as she glanced to Lord Cedric.

Bernadette couldn’t have imagined what her friend meant by that one word, but she had drawn her own conclusions. The servants were fond of their master, but deeply untrained. She wondered how many of them Lord Alden employed. Certainly not enough to have the house looking new and fresh, although it was not dirty or dusty, to be sure.

“Lady Bernadette, if you do not mind my asking,” Lord Cedric interrupted her thoughts, “why do you spend all of your time arranging entertainments and balls designed to make matches for other people? Why are you not married yourself?”

A jolt of hot and cold hit Bernadette at Lord Cedric’s question. She was in the middle of biting into a small fruit tart and nearly choked on it.

“Cedric!” Muriel scolded him, smacking his arm. “What an impertinent question to ask. You know Bernadette is one of my dearest friends and a fellow Oxford Society Lady. Marriage does not define her. She’s not some simpering Wessex woman who only wants a husband to make her life complete.”

“You were a Wessex woman,” Lord Cedric replied, his lips twitching with mirth as he teased her. “Marriage has made your life complete.”

Muriel made a frustrated sound. “This is why I did not want to marry you in the first place. A woman is more than the man she stands beside. Bernadette has built a thriving and respectable business for herself, and she has done it all on her own. You are a beast to ask why she has not thrown all of that out the window for a man.”

“I was just asking, love,” Lord Cedric said, taking a sip of tea and wiggling his eyebrows at Muriel.

They were adorable, as far as Bernadette was concerned. Even if Lord Cedric’s question had skated too close to the thingthat gave her the most anxiety in her life. She longed to have the sort of rapport with a man that Muriel had with Lord Cedric. For a short while, she had almost thought it would be possible. Indeed, sometimes that friendly sort of intimacy had almost seemed within her reach. But time had made it clear that loneliness and longing were to be her bosom companions, despite what certain bits of paper said.

No sooner had those thoughts crossed through Bernadette’s mind, squeezing her heart and filling her with melancholy, than a tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed man in slightly disheveled clothing strode into the room, filling it with his presence.

“So sorry to leave you all waiting,” he said, greeting them all with an open smile. “I couldn’t find Egbert, and you know I cannot complete any of my research without Egbert there to encourage me.”

Bernadette drew in a breath and sat straighter, immediately affected by the man’s presence. Though, if she were honest, much of that reaction originated in an area quite a bit below her heart.

“Alden,” Lord Cedric said, rising and crossing to greet his cousin with a bow and a handshake.

“Cedric. So good to see you again. And you as well, Lady Muriel,” Lord Alden said, full of warmth and good humor as he greeted Muriel with a deep bow.

Bernadette rose to greet her host and employer as well. Despite her tangle of circumstances, she was not immune to a man’s charms, and Lord Alden had them in abundance. Her heart beat swiftly, and it was difficult for her to catch her breath as she moved around the small table containing their tea to approach him.

Simply put, the man was beautiful. He might have been close to fifty, but he was fit and strong, and he had the carriage ofa man who spent a great amount of time outdoors. His hair was lighter than Lord Cedric’s, despite their family resemblance, and the bits of grey at his temples only made him seem more distinguished, and more virile. But it was the distinct lines at the corners of Lord Alden’s blue eyes that made Bernadette smile as she approached him. They were the lines of a man who had smiled and laughed much in his life. No wonder the servants spoke so highly of him.

Bernadette was certain at once that she would have no trouble at all designing the ideal ball to draw every unwed lady in southern Britannia, and that each one of those ladies would fall all over themselves to be the one Lord Alden chose. Not just to be his bride, but to fall into his bed.

“And you must be Lady Bernadette Attleborough,” Lord Alden said once he’d finished greeting Lord Cedric and Muriel. His smile was warm and welcoming as he stepped forward, extending a hand to Bernadette. “It is such a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Bernadette was convinced he meant it. “And you as well, my lord,” she said, curtsying as she took his hand. The clasp of skin against skin sent a carnal throb through her that nearly made her laugh. Perhaps those members of the ton who looked down upon Oxford Society Ladies as wicked heathens were right. Or perhaps Lord Alden was truly that magnetic.

“Oh, forget all that formal nonsense,” he said, his charm reinforcing Bernadette’s opinion that he was magnificent. “We’re all so stuffy here in Britannia. Why, in the jungles of the Amazon, no one bothers with titles and forms of address. My name is Alden, and I do wish you would refer to me as such.”

Bernadette wanted to laugh, the man was such a delight. And she wanted to sigh because he was so alluring. “I am not certain that would be proper, my lord,” she said.

“Proper is overrated, Lady Bernadette,” he said, still smiling at her and still holding her hand. “I have always been improper for my entire life, and it is too late to stop–oh! Egbert!”

Bernadette was so mesmerized by Lord Alden’s amiable demeanor and the fond way he looked at her, even though they had only just met, that she did not notice the flicker of green at the cuff of his jacket. She didn’t realize that the green was alive until it darted out of his sleeve entirely. She didn’t realize it was a long, plump lizard until it grabbed hold of her wrist, then scurried all the way up her arm to her shoulder.

And then she screamed.

Chapter Two

It was the perfect plan. Alden had thought it through from every angle, and he was confident that the best way for him to find a wife and dodge The Curse of Godwin Castle was to hire his cousin’s new wife’s friend to host a ball for him at Lyndhurst Grove. To be honest, his Uncle Gerald’s ultimatum fit perfectly with his desire to fill the empty space in his life and to settle more completely, now that he was back in Wessex to stay. He wanted a wife. He wanted to put past hurts aside and love again.

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