Page 3 of Two Vows and a Viscount

“To whom,” Ella amended.

“Lord Peregrine.”

“The man who used to be betrothed to Lady Regina, the sister of the Duke of Lennox?” Fulvia asked. She was an assiduous reader of the gossip columns.

“Don’t worry about competition. You’re as beautiful as she,” her father said, “and certainly more chaste, since I kept you in the country, and she spent last year racketing about Town.”

“Lady Regina is the daughter of a duke,” the viscountess said, blinking rapidly. “One must hope she doesn’t take Fulvia in dislike.”

Ella’s aunt actively feared social events, a condition driven, to Ella’s mind, by the viscount’s constant disparagement.

“You need to keep the man on a leash,” the viscount said to Fulvia, ignoring his wife again. “The betrothal papers will be signed the morning following your debut ball, after he’s met you. Not that a contract guarantees the marriage. By all accounts, he’d already signed papers when he dropped Lady Regina.”

“Lord Peregrine doesn’t wish to meet Fulvia until the ball?” the viscountess asked, her brow knitting.

“He’s too busy counting his mountains of sovereigns,” her husband replied with a snort. “More to the point, better he meets her infrequently so he can’t squeak out of the engagement.” He turned to Ella. “It’s up to you to make certain this goes off.”

Ella blinked at him. She was used to responsibility, but ensuring that Fulvia married a man who had discarded a duke’s daughter—a lady whose gowns were surely made by a French modiste rather than the village seamstress?

“Lady St. Trevelyon,” the viscount said waspishly to his wife, “I must ask you to attempt to look less hangdog. Your drooping shoulders put one forcibly in mind of a lame donkey.”

Her ladyship instantly straightened. Ella reached over and gave her aunt’s hand a squeeze.

“I shall make up my own mind about whether to marry Lord Peregrine,” Fulvia mused. “It is a lady’s prerogative to reject a gentleman, after all.”

“You will marry the man I chose,” the viscount thundered. He resembled a bull pawing the ground, but his daughter didn’t even glance at him.

Instead, she tapped her chin with a finger. “I shall decide only after the first few weeks of the Season. I must ascertain how well Lord Peregrine dances. Given he is of lesser status, merely a baron, it might determine our future standing in society.”

“A pile of gold trumps a title!” the viscount exclaimed. Then, turning to Ella. “Shake some sense into her before you take her to a modiste—and make sure you watch for quality. No cheap satin trim. I told Peregrine that my daughter was exquisite, elegant, and eloquent.”

Even Fulvia was startled by the last. “But Father, you said last week that my head was as empty as a skull.”

“No one expects a woman to be intelligent. Peregrine knows as well as I do that he was asking for the impossible. He does, however, have the right to expect his future wife to be tastefully gowned. Let simplicity and elegance be your guide, Ella.”

“How am I to pay for Fulvia’s gowns?” Ella inquired.

Her uncle glared, but she raised an eyebrow, noting the red veins in his eyes and the start of a jowl. “Dear me,” she said sweetly. “You seem quite tired, Uncle. Perhaps you should have fewer snifters of brandy tonight.”

Beside her, her aunt gave a faint sigh. Ella immediately regretted her comment. The viscount took out his temper on his wife. Hours of irascible male shouting often echoed from his lady’s bedchamber.

“You shall inform them that I will settle the bill when I choose to do so,” he snapped.

“Surely it would be better to know how much you would like us to spend,” Lady St. Trevelyon said nervously. “Ella will need a wardrobe as well.”

“As will my aunt,” Ella pointed out. “I shall require several hundred guineas, not to mention funds for Fulvia’s debut ball.”

“Every modiste in London would consider it an honor to outfit the only daughter of Viscount St. Trevelyon,” her uncle said, with complete confidence. That was typical: St. Trevelyon squandered whatever money entered the household, expecting everyone from the baker to the tailor to ignore unpaid bills due to the privilege of serving a nobleman.

“They will not consider it an honor,” Ella said flatly. “Any more than does the butcher. As a result of which, dinner will include fish tonight, without a meat course.”

“My daughter is marrying Lord Peregrine, one of the richest men in the country,” his lordship countered. “Given your parsimonious housekeeping, I shall dine at my club tonight.”

Ella managed not to roll her eyes. Apparently, her uncle hoped that Peregrine would pay off his wife’s wardrobe as part of the marriage settlement. “Modistes will expect Fulvia’s father, not her fiancé, to pay her bills. You yourself said that Lord Peregrine is notorious for breaking a betrothal.”

Her uncle shrugged. “Your father left this estate in appalling disorder, and you’ve only made it worse. I rue the day I allowed you to take over the accounts.”

As if he had been doing her a favor when he fired the previous housekeeper and told Ella—at the age of fourteen—that she had to earn her keep? Outrage swelled in Ella’s chest.