Beautiful Beast (The Marriage Maker Book 36) Read online

  Beautiful Beasts

  The Marriage Maker

  Book Thirty-Six

  London Lonely Hearts Club

  Book One

  Pearl Darling

  Beautiful Beast: The Marriage Maker Lonely Hearts Club Book Thirty Six © 2020 by Elizabeth Jones Leather

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: dreams2media

  Editor: Kimberly Comeau

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  The Marriage Maker is born…

  More Marriage Maker Romances

  Chapter One

  Miss Ophelia Weatherop shifted on her hard chair and wondered when the dancing would end. To a lay person, the sight was riveting—elegantly clad men and women swirling around a dusky gold ballroom lit by a thousand candles, and a dozen waiters attending the glittering throng.

  But it wasn’t just the gentle snores of Mrs. Grundy’s propped-up figure on the chair beside her that spoiled the experience. Even before Mrs. Grundy had fallen asleep, Ophelia’s keen observations had ruined the experience. Next to her uncomfortable chair, the lead white paint below the marbling decoration on the wall was so worn that the plaster was beginning to show through. The stuttering and smoking candles overhead, obviously made of the lowest grade tallow rather than beeswax, created thin plumes of black fog. And the smell! She suspected that most of the crowd hadn’t bathed in the last month.

  If she could have stopped scrutinizing her surroundings and joined the crowd in their exuberant prancing, perhaps she could have overcome the knowledge that this was most certainly a second-rate ballroom. Earlier that evening, Aunt Amelia had pushed her out of the door into the waiting carriage of her chaperone, Mrs. Grundy, and told her earnestly, You will enjoy it, young girl like you, your life ahead of you. She obviously hadn’t been aware that, with her last shove, Ophelia had heard her mutter, Though god knows, your father’s name hasn’t helped either of us.

  Yes. Being the Wolf of Weatherop Wold’s daughter had not helped her secure dance partners. Or marriage prospects. She’d heard many comments in the provincial gatherings near her home in the Wold before she’d been launched onto the ton by her aunt. Oh—she wasn’t bad to look at, she’d been told, though not a diamond of the first water. There was a certain something about her but, again, not enough for a young gentleman to consider engagement to the Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold. Never mind that, technically, she wasn’t a whelp, she was a—well, female. Alliteration was more important to the ton than facts. All the Weatherops knew that.

  Ophelia lifted a silk clad leg to ease the pins and needles that had gathered in her thigh from the hard chair and sighed, her shoulders slumping. She straightened as a dancer flew out of the crowd, brushed her dress and fell laughing into the chair next to her. Ophelia took a quick sideways glance and quickly faced forward as a handsome, well-dressed man followed the laughing lady to her seat. Now this was more interesting than the dancing. She picked at a fleck of barely there dust on her dress and smiled, facing forward again, her mind racing. Hmm. The lady next to her had made very good use of rouge and kohl. She was more finely dressed than the crowd before her, and the lines of the dress cut well for her less-than-sylph-like figure. Whilst most would have, at first glance, placed the lady in her late twenties, Ophelia had already noted the creases at the edges of her cheeks and the smattering of freckles across her exposed collar bones. Ophelia placed her in her early forties, more mature than matronly, more elegant than frumpy.

  But that passed Ophelia onto her next conundrum, the dance partner, who, in a pleasing baritone, discussed the dance with the lady. He was definitely younger than she, but not a young buck. Unusually, the edges of a plaid waistcoat were visible beneath his tailcoats. Ophelia swept a glance upward and peeked through her eyelashes, meeting the man’s glance for an instant. Of long habit, she didn’t smile nor look away quickly. No—that would have shown that she had been looking overtly. She kept her gaze blank whilst her mind worked furiously. He definitely bore no resemblance to the lady who sat next to her. Nor did he look away quickly, though he broke the glance first. Then he smiled at his dance partner and murmured something strange in a soft Scots burr. The unfamiliar accent distorted the words, but Ophelia was sure she heard something like a prime candidate for George’s Club before he stepped away with a lithe grace.

  The lady sat back with a happy sigh and, as the dance ended, snapped open the fan that dangled at her wrist. Ophelia sat up a little straighter, as her aunt said she should, squared her shoulders, and smiled a rictus grin that she was sure would one day freeze on her face in a death mask. Even Mrs. Grundy, who sat on her left side, woke with a snort and blinked a few times before gazing expectantly into the crowd.

  One by one, the dance partners left the dance floor. One by one, the men bowed over the ladies’ hands. One by one, they advanced back onto the dance floor with strutting steps, leaving Ophelia and her stricken grin in the same place, seated on the same hard chair.

  Once again, all of the men had avoided her like the plague.

  She couldn’t prevent the way her shoulders wilted. Or bother to say sorry as she brushed the lady next to her. She’d promised herself before she left home that evening that today would be the last ball, the last soiree, before she left for a convent or took up aggressive gardening in the parkland of Weatherop Wold.

  Both seemed like pretty grim prospects.

  Almost as grim, perhaps, as the thought to some men engaging in a dance with a girl whose father’s honor had been blackened and besmirched in an ill-fated duel twenty years before. Indeed, her father’s fall from grace had been so catastrophic that he and his family had been cast from society to live a life so quiet and plain and dull that when her father had passed two years before, despite his title, he hadn’t even merited a paragraph in the Times. Ophelia gripped her skirts. What she wouldn’t give to run away to an exotic location—Italy, perhaps, with its grand paintings—where she could watercolor to her heart’s content without scathing critics reminding her to paint what was there, not what didn’t and would never exist.

  “Oh well, love.” The redoubtable Mrs. Grundy picked up her reticule and searched among her never-ending supply of handkerchiefs. “There’s always the next dance.”

  Ophelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and folded her hands tightly in her lap. She darted a quick look right to find the mature lady looking at her with a smile. She paused, years of quiet living instinctively pushing her to face forward again, but something in the lady’s expression stopped her. A softening in the eyes perhaps? A crinkle at the edge of the nose? It certainly wasn’t pity.

  “An excellent evening to enjoy dancing,” Ophelia ventured, her aunt’s voice in her head reiterating in even tones, Engage, engage, engage with those around you.

  The matur
e lady’s smile broadened. “Yes, although I hear this might be the last at this fine ballroom.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward a little. “My dance partner, Sir Stirling James, told me that Lord Concard will be selling soon.” Sitting back with a laugh, she slowly wafted herself with her fan and shook her head. “Sir James has been down from Inverness for a week and already he knows all the gossip in London.”

  Mrs. Grundy snorted. “Fine place, indeed.”

  Sir Stirling James. His was a good Scottish name and explained the accent. Ophelia wondered if he was married. Of course, he would be. One didn’t dance with quite so much delight if one wasn’t. That is, if one was given the chance to dance at all.

  Ophelia’s dim prospects and catastrophic future caused her to throw her ingrained Weatherop caution to the wind. “I’m not surprised. His decoration needs more white lead paint and his candles more bees wax. All point to a severe lack of—” She clapped a hand to her mouth. Oh gods. What was she saying? She felt Mrs. Grundy staring at her back. Was this the way the ton reprobation had started for her father? “Aha. Um.”

  “A severe lack of funds?” the mature lady finished for her and raised an immaculate corner of her lips. “Quite. I caught the candles but hadn’t noticed the paint work.” She extended a gloved hand. “Mrs. Leticia Severance. Call me Letty.”

  Ophelia’s mouth parted in shock, but luckily her arm raised reflexively, her hand closing into Letty’s warm grasp. Though, as Ophelia started to shake her hand, the lady looked away, her attention caught by a disturbance among the throng. “Well, would you look at that,” she murmured.

  Ophelia followed her gaze. A couple strolled through the crowd. The woman was on the older side and seemed strangely familiar. She was heavily made up. A tightly waisted, high-fashion dress lifted her chest to obscene heights. The man—a gasp fell from Ophelia’s lips. His face had been carved by an angel. The deep planes and angles of his face were capped by a mop of outrageous black curls. His dark eyes flicked from side to side as the crowd parted before him. Murmurs rose as the couple advanced, the man’s arm possessively curled around the woman’s waist.

  “Bloody hell,” Letty said. “That’s Lord Barden, the portrait artist. They say that every lady who sits for him succumbs to his hellish charms.”

  The lady with Lord Barden turned toward him and said something sharply. Ophelia sat up straighter as two thoughts collided. “That’s Carina, the Prince Regent’s mistress,” she said breathlessly. “I saw her with the prince not two weeks ago at the Grenfield’s ball. He’s said to be mad about her. Lord Barden’s meant to be painting her portrait for—”

  Ophelia stopped speaking as the couple approached.

  Mrs. Grundy leaned forward over her reticule, handkerchief poised in hand. “Where on earth are they going? Why aren’t they dancing?”

  Where they were going was to the small space in front of Mrs. Grundy, Letty and Ophelia. The murmurs of the crowd swelled as the mismatched couple arrived and turned, all eyes on them. He’s stolen the King’s mistress! What a bounder! What kind of cur would do that? The Beast of Barden Hall, that’s who. The Beast of Barden Hall.

  Ah, the ton and its alliterative tendencies.

  The couple stood in front of them unflinching. Ophelia couldn’t see beyond the man’s very solid thighs and the lady’s rather rotund form. Ophelia frowned. Lord Barden’s hand, shockingly bare of the customary dress gloves, clasped the lady’s side with long fingers that uncaringly rumpled the delicate fall of the woman’s silk dress. Long fingers that were strangely streaked with blue paint. In fact, Lord Barden’s entire outfit was a little askew, almost as if he had only just got out of bed and pulled his chemise and topcoat on in one go. A streak of gold marred the rather tight breeches, and the back of the luxurious boots were heavily scuffed. The general disarray of his attire and obvious connection to the woman pointed to a rather louche lifestyle where the lines were blurred between outings in the ton and relations of an intimate nature.

  Ophelia reddened, gasped and then froze as Lord Barden turned and his dark eyes met hers. The promise in his stare could have melted the ice caps of the North Pole. Ophelia’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with her rapid breaths. His lips twisted up at the edges as if he knew the affect he was having on her. She forgot her own mantra and broke his shadowed gaze. Her attention fell upon her hand, still linked with Letty’s. “Oh.” With a start, she broke free and cupped her face in her hands.

  A card fluttered to the floor between her and Letty, falling at Lord Barden’s feet. Ophelia watched it settle close to the heel of his left boot in horror. How could she—

  Lord Barden pulled his arm away from Carina and crouched in one fluid movement. His eyes flicked across the card before standing again and offering it to her. “You’ve dropped something,” he said, his low voice causing every nerve in Ophelia’s body to sing.

  She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. He is a rake, for goodness sake! She stared at the card on his palm, a palm streaked with all the oil paint colors of a rainbow. “I—thank you.”

  She took the card, brushing against his long fingers. Her already tingling nerves sizzled to fever pitch. Goodness, what was happening to her? Her future involved entering a convent, or deadheading roses for the rest of her life, not having odd thoughts about rainbow colored handprints on warm skin.

  She looked up at him before she could stop herself. His mocking eyes, framed by long, dark eyelashes suddenly widened. He turned away before she could say thank you again, slipped an arm around Carina and said, “We’ve done enough. It’s started. Now I’m going.”

  Without a backward glance, he marched the lady out of the ballroom.

  “By gods, that was cold,” Letty said, standing up while shaking her skirts. “Just like his dear departed Father. An angry-at-the-world man with a complete lack of interest in the world around him. And what a way to show the world you’ve stolen the Regent’s mistress.”

  I’m not sure that he has, Ophelia thought. Although, she wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking. Something nagged at her. Something she had seen, or heard, perhaps. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she offered the card to Letty. “You dropped this.”

  Letty shook her head and snapped her fan shut. “No. I was giving it to you. I thought it might be of interest. When you meet Mr. George Baker, tell him I sent you.”

  Ophelia looked down at the card. The elegant writing was plain and simple, centered on the quality white board. “London Lonely Hearts Social Club. 22 Charles Street.” Ophelia frowned and turned the card over. Scribed in beautiful cursive handwriting across the back, For people looking to meet people.

  Ophelia shook her head. “I don’t want to meet any more people. Besides, they don’t seem to want to meet me. I’m going back to Weatherop Wold or—” She looked up. Letty had already gone. “—or the nearest convent,” she finished under her breath, alone.

  With a loud parp, Mrs. Grundy finished wiping her nose. “What’s that, Ophelia?”

  “Nothing, Mrs. Grundy.” Ophelia sighed. There was no way she was going to a convent with the thoughts she’d had about paint and naked bodies.

  Deadheading roses it was, then. That would be boring enough to keep any passion at bay.

  Chapter Two

  Two months later…

  Lord Raphael Barden settled into a chair in front of a desk in what was obviously a man’s study and pulled angrily at his chemise. It was too tight. As were the godawful tailored shirt and confining breeches.

  He crossed his arms and gave the man on the other side of the desk a customary glare.

  Mr. George Baker wasn’t intimidated. “I ask you again, why do you want to be a member of my club? We checked your background for any criminal activity and discovered that your past is clear, and you obviously can support a wife, but it is your present situation that concerns me.”

  Raphael sketched a cruel cartoon of George’s face in his mi
nd, pulling the plain features into an absurd angular nose and outsized, round ears. Though perhaps he didn’t need to be cruel to the man’s features, they were plain enough in themselves, a portrait of which, alongside his beautiful masterpieces, would invite ridicule and acclaim, enough to have the man hiding from the ton. Perhaps Raphael was wrong, however. His last portrait had been of an ugly subject—ugly inside and out—but too lucrative to turn down.

  His present portrait troubled him though. He could not get it right. Which was why he now sat opposite the founder of the London Lonely Hearts Social Club. The card that had fallen at his feet at that godawful Concard ball was the only knowledge he had of his quarry. He could almost believe that she had planned its exact placement, right under his boots.

  “My present situation?” Raphael echoed George’s words. “Tell me about my present, George.”

  George winced. “Your affair with Carina, the Prince Regent’s mistress. He was said to be furious. And now the ton call you—”

  “The Beast of Barden Hall. Yes, I know. And what of it?”

  George steepled his fingers. “You cannot come here to meet likeminded men and women if you are otherwise engaged.”

  Raphael shrugged. “Carina gave me my marching orders yesterday. I’m as free as a bird.” Thank god.

  George blinked.

  Raphael had to give him credit, as that was all he did.

  “Secondly, you cannot enter my club looking to steal other people’s…ahem”—George coughed discreetly into his hand—“friendship interests.”

  “Past form has history,” Raphael murmured softly. “And all that?” Raphael’s friend Bertie always said the same—his ex-friend Bertie, he should say. Bertie hadn’t spoken to Raphael in two months, which was killing Raphael because he needed to talk to him.

  “You certainly don’t find it hard to meet women.” George fixed him with a flinty stare. “The gentlemen and ladies of my Society have enough problems meeting reasonable people in real life without having to deal with flighty and roguish bachelors invading the Club. That kind of behavior will not be tolerated.”