Penny gaped at him as if he was dim-witted. “Of course it will include all of those. The most important visitors are coming from London. We can’t expect them to walk from town and not bring their bags or servants.”
“No, I don’t expect we can.”
He sighed, wishing he could turn back the clock and rescind his offer to host a betrothal party for her.
She was eighteen, so she was barely out of the schoolroom, but even though she was much too young to be a bride, he’d succumbed to her nagging and had agreed to find her a husband. His search had been quick and successful, and they were already marching toward a wedding he wasn’t convinced he should have encouraged.
Many of her friends were marrying that summer, and she was suffering from the feeling that she’d be left behind if she didn’t marry too. He hadn’t been able to persuade her that it would be better to wait, and he’d quit trying.
His own nuptial debacle, perpetrated when he’d been twenty, had taught him many hard lessons, the main one being that a man’s spouse would ultimately furnish all of his happiness or misery. Before jumping into matrimony with both feet, an enormous amount of energy should be expended in pondering the consequences.
She was a female though and incredibly spoiled. She had to have her way in every situation, and again—because of his marital calamity at age twenty—he never had the heart to tell her no.
She was about to engage herself to the premier bachelor in the kingdom, and she’d culminated that coup by goading Charles into funding one of the most extravagant weddings High Society had ever witnessed.
She was adamant that her event be bigger and grander than any of those being planned by other brides, so he was facing a summer of balls and banquets, none of which he actually wanted to pay for and none of which he actually wanted to attend.
The current occasion was typical of how he was being swept along by Penny’s whims. Her decisions were being validated by her Aunt Millicent who’d never seen a farthing she didn’t spend.
Initially, Charles had intended a quiet weekend to ease everyone into the betrothal announcement. He’d envisioned a modest gathering of some cousins, and the engagement becoming official after several days of tepid entertaining.
Instead, Charles had wound up with a two-week ostentatious bash, where he’d have a packed home, overrun parlors, empty liquor decanters, and strangers strolling down the halls.
He’d been determined that the party be comfortable for Penny’s pending fiancé, Luke Watson, who was the guest of honor. Penny had been acquainted with Luke since she was a baby, but he’d been in the navy for the prior fourteen years and mostly out of the country, leaving when she was just four.
She’d only socialized with him a few times, and though she was excited that Charles had picked such a handsome candidate for her, she didn’t know the first thing about Luke. And Luke didn’t know anything about her. Their sole common denominator was the fact that Charles and Luke owned neighboring estates and the families had a fond connection.
Luke was thirty, so he was twelve years older than she was, and Charles viewed it as a blessing and a problem. Penny required the stable influence a more mature husband would provide, but Luke had traveled the globe and fought dangerous battles in the navy. Penny—with her incessant babbling and her focus on clothes and frivolous hobbies—would likely drive him mad.
They needed an interval at Roland to amuse themselves at the pursuits betrothed couples normally enjoyed—chats by the fire, private picnics, walks in the garden—but with Penny being so set on herself, Charles’s idea for a simple event had been smothered by her exaggerated arrangements.
The cost would be staggering, and the stress and strain on the servants would be overwhelming. Throughout the festivities, Penny would be surrounded by admirers, and Millicent had scheduled nonstop activities to keep their visitors busy. At the conclusion, poor Luke would return home no closer to Penny than he’d been when he arrived.
Yet maybe it was for the best that he didn’t learn too much about her. He might realize how flighty and fickle she was. He might skitter back to the navy, never to be seen in England again.
“Have you invited anyone I know?” he asked Penny. “Or will it be all young people? Please tell me there will be some acquaintances of mine too.”
“Well, Luke will be here.”
“He’s not exactly a friend of mine.” Charles was forty-six, and he’d been cordial with Luke’s father, not Luke or his deceased brother, Bertie. “When will he join us?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, and if you inquire again, I won’t respond. I shouldn’t have to repeat myself on every little detail. From how distracted you are, you’re giving me the distinct impression that you don’t care about any of this.”
“I care,” he said. “I just can’t figure out how the numbers swelled from a handful of cousins to a hoard of strangers.”
“You can’t expect me to march toward my wedding as if I’m an ordinary girl, can you? I’m the only daughter of the Earl of Roland. It’s proper that you make a fuss.”
He could have corrected her that she wasn’t his only daughter, but they were adept at pretending she was. He’d had another daughter once, but he didn’t ever like to drag up that prior scandal. He never liked to remind himself—or others—how gullible he’d been.
Penny liked to think she and her brother, Warwick, were his only children, even though they understood they weren’t. There had been a wife before their mother, and a daughter before them too, but they ignored those dark days from his past.
He was happy to let Penny and Warwick assume they were the center of his world, and it was reprehensible for him to act as if the first girl, Little Henrietta, had never existed,
