LITMIR.BIZ

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just as Penelope did. Marianne had no interest in Bucky. In fact, she is the one who came up with a delightful scheme that cooled Bucky’s fever for her and threw him right into Penelope’s arms.” Nicola smiled at the memory. “I wish you could have seen her performance.

      Whenever Marianne was around him, she played the most shallow, self-centered creature in existence, making sure always to leave him with Penelope for comfort and advice. Eventually, even Bucky saw that he was pining after the wrong woman. And Lord Lambeth, as you know, won Marianne’s hand.”

      “When are Bucky and Penelope to be married?”

      “Soon. They are going to be married here in the village church in a month. It seemed only right, what with an alliance between a Buckminster and a Montford.” The Montfords, the family to which the Earl of Exmoor belonged, and Lord Buckminster’s family were the noble clans of the area.

      “That’s true. Penelope’s mother was a Montford,” Deborah mused. “I sometimes forget that Lady Ursula and her mother are Richard’s cousins. We see them so rarely.”

      Nicola carefully made no comment. It was a well-known fact that Penelope’s grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Exmoor, had little liking for the man who had inherited the title when her own husband died. Though the Countess sometimes wintered in the Dower House, which was also in the area, Nicola doubted that she called on or received the Earl of Exmoor.

      “The Countess is in her element, let me tell you,” Nicola continued, sliding past the subject. “Preparing the whole thing as if it were an army going to battle. She and Penelope and Marianne will be driving up to the Dower House in a couple of weeks to oversee the preparations. I can hardly wait for you to get a chance to talk to Marianne.”

      “But I cannot imagine Lady Ursula letting anyone else arrange Penelope’s wedding,” Deborah protested, mentioning Penelope’s overbearing mother. “And do you mean that the Countess is taking on Marianne’s wedding, also?”

      “Even Lady Ursula will back down in the face of money. The Countess knew that Penelope would not get the wedding she wanted if Lady Ursula was in charge of it. So Lady Exmoor told Ursula that she would pay for the entire cost of her granddaughters’ weddings—but she made it clear that her word was the one that would be final in all matters. You know what a skinflint Penelope’s mother can be. She gave in—though you may be sure that she does her best to try to run the thing, anyway. As for Marianne’s wedding—well, that is the most fantastical thing of all. I wonder that Richard hasn’t told you about it.”

      “Richard? But why would he? Men have little interest in nuptials, I find.”

      “Yes, but I would think he has quite a bit of interest in Marianne. You see, it turns out that she is Lady Exmoor’s granddaughter, too—Richard’s cousin.”

      “What!” Deborah stared at Nicola, her jaw dropping. “You’re joking!”

      “Not a bit.” Nicola shook her head. “She had been lost to the family for years. That is why no one knew her. But she is one of Lord Chilton’s children.”

      “Lord Chilton? The Countess’s son? But he—didn’t he and all his family die years and years ago? I mean, that is why Richard inherited the earldom, is it not? Otherwise Chilton would have been Earl after the old Earl died.”

      “That is what everyone has believed all these years.” Nicola shrugged eloquently. “But it turned out that the children escaped. It was only Lord Chilton and his wife who died.”

      “But…this is fantastical! How could Lady Exmoor not know? What happened to them?”

      Nicola knew that she was treading on shaky ground here. She could hardly tell Deborah what the Countess believed had happened without bringing Richard into it. And she could not bring herself to tell her sister, especially in the condition she was in right now, what a thorough blackguard her husband really was.

      “I, uh, I’m not exactly sure about all the details,” Nicola hedged. “But apparently the children were rescued by a friend of Lady Chilton’s, an American.”

      “I see. Then she took them to the United States?”

      “Yes, one of them. The boy, John, died of a fever he contracted on the journey. But the other, Marianne, uh, wound up in an orphanage.”

      Nicola knew that Penelope and her grandmother believed that it was Richard who was responsible for the fates of both the children. When the children had been brought to London by Lady Chilton’s friend, she had turned them over to the Countess’s companion, a woman named Willa, because the Countess was prostrate with grief, believing her son’s entire family dead—and all this right on the heels of her own husband’s recent death. But Willa had confessed on her deathbed that she had given the children to Richard. She had been enamored of Richard and knew that the little boy John was the rightful heir to the title and estate of the late Earl, and that Richard had inherited only because Chilton and his son were both believed to be dead. Richard had then hidden the children away, sending the boy no one knew where, though Willa said that he had died not long after, and giving the little girl to one of his henchmen to get rid of. The man had put her into an orphanage.

      “No! Oh, how awful! You mean, all these years, she didn’t know who she was?”

      Nicola nodded. “This all came out a few months ago when the baby, the one taken to the United States, came here to visit and the Countess met her. It so happens that she looks exactly like her mother, and the Countess knew she must be a relation. Eventually it emerged that she was Alexandra, the youngest of Chilton’s children. After they were reunited, they set out to find Marianne.”

      “How exciting! This is like a novel.”

      “Yes. It even had a romance. Alexandra fell in love with Lord Thorpe, and they were married. The Bow Street Runner they hired finally tracked down Marianne—at Bucky’s party.”

      “Was that when that awful man was killed? Richard told me about that, how the man was threatening one of the guests with a gun and Richard had to save her by shooting him?”

      “Yes,” Nicola replied dryly. “He was threatening Marianne. The man who was killed had…had something to do with Marianne’s being placed in the orphanage.”

      “The villain! Well, I am glad Richard shot him. It—it sounded so awful. I was very glad Richard had already sent me home earlier in the carriage.”

      “It was awful,” Nicola agreed shortly, biting back the words she longed to say—that she suspected that it had been Richard’s own neck he was trying to save, not Marianne’s. “But even then, none of us knew, you see, why he had tried to kill Marianne. It seemed utterly senseless. Then the Bow Street Runner arrived the next day and revealed who Marianne was.”

      “My!” Deborah’s eyes widened in wonderment. “How could Richard not have told me! Men are so silly sometimes. They think the dullest things are fascinating and then forget to even mention really exciting things.”

      “The Dowager Countess has been happier than I have seen her in years,” Nicola went on. “She and Alexandra are ecstatic at being reunited with Marianne, and of course it was a dream come true for Marianne, finding her real family after all these years.”

      “I should think so. What a wonderful story! And to end with a double wedding…” Deborah released a sigh of happiness. “I can hardly wait until they come to the Dower House and I can meet them. I—I see so few people here.”

      “You should get out more,” Nicola urged. “You should come to London with Richard instead of staying here, rusticating.”

      Deborah looked at her, her face falling into a look of sadness, and Nicola thought that she was about to say something, but at that moment a male voice came from behind them. “That is what I keep telling her. Perhaps she will listen more to a sister than to a husband.”

      The two women turned around to see the Earl strolling along the dirt path toward them, smiling. He was followed by another man,

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