‘Do you have a date in mind for the wedding, my lord?’ asked her aunt, as they took their places at the table.
‘Before the week is out,’ replied Viscount Mildenhall tersely. ‘When Captain Bredon will be rejoining his regiment.’
‘Oh, but that will leave no time to purchase bride clothes!’ wailed Lady Callandar.
‘But you have bought me so many pretty clothes already,’ Imogen pointed out.
‘Indeed,’ Viscount Mildenhall put in smoothly. ‘Miss Hebden is a credit to your good taste. She always looks quite…lovely.’
The telling pause as he sought for a suitable epithet to describe her appearance had Imogen grinding her teeth. He did not think she was lovely at all. Though she might be the only one who noticed, he had as good as said that anything praiseworthy about her appearance was due to her aunt’s good taste, not the raw material she had to work with!
However, on one thing they were in agreement. ‘I do want to marry before Rick’s furlough is over,’ she put in, though it almost killed her to appear to side with the viscount. ‘It will mean so much to have him to walk me down the aisle.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, niece!’ blustered Lord Callandar. ‘I shall be giving you away. You are living under my roof and I am supporting you. Captain Bredon is not even a blood relative!’
‘Forgive me, Miss Hebden,’ put in Viscount Mildenhall in a voice that, though quiet, managed to cut straight through her uncle’s hectoring tones, ‘but I have already appropriated Rick for my groomsman.’ He turned then to her aunt. ‘And I am sorry to rob you of your shopping expedition, too, but I have promised my father to return to Shevington as soon as is humanly possible. However—’ and he turned on his most dazzling smile ‘—we will be returning to town after a suitable interlude, and at that time my bride will require a whole new wardrobe to befit her new station in life. I am sure she will wish to involve you in carrying out the requisite purchases.’
Both her aunt and uncle subsided, vastly pleased with the viscount’s suggestions.
Only Imogen still felt disgruntled. Nobody was making any concessions to what she wanted. It felt as though everyone she loved was ranged against her, on the viscount’s side.
But worst of all, it had just hit her that she was going to become a viscountess. The notion was so absurd, she did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Since she was at the dinner table, she naturally did neither, but let the conversation flow round her without any further input.
When the ladies withdrew, her aunt wasted no time in letting her know she had erred, yet again.
‘I know I have told you, time and time again, that it is not proper to display too much emotion in public, but I really think, on this occasion, that it would be permissible to look just a little pleased at your great good fortune. Your demeanour at table could have been interpreted as positively lukewarm.’
Imogen obediently mustered up a wan smile and, when the gentlemen joined them, set herself to being as pleasant as she could force herself to be. Viscount Mildenhall let no trace of the antipathy he felt towards her show at all; he was so charming towards her aunt and uncle, and on such very easy terms with Rick, that before long, she even began to wonder wistfully if, somewhere underneath all the finery and sarcasm she associated with Viscount Mildenhall, the Monty she had once admired so much might still survive.
How differently she would feel towards this match, if he had approached her first as Monty, the hero of her girlhood dreams. If she could believe he was spiriting her away from London because he understood how badly she wanted rescuing!
Instead of being determined to bury her in the countryside, and ‘keep her in line.’
The next morning, Lady Callandar came bustling into the drawing room with her hands full of lists she must have sat up well into the night compiling.
She wore a very smug smile as she offered the first one for Imogen’s inspection.
‘The guest list,’ she explained.
‘It is rather short,’ Imogen observed.
‘Yes,’ replied her aunt with relish. ‘It is going to be a very select gathering. Only family, and those who have shown themselves to be your friends. Oh,’ she breathed, ‘how I am going to enjoy withholding invitations from all those nasty-minded tattle-mongers who have snubbed you!’
Imogen could not help smiling. She could just see her aunt dropping Viscount Mildenhall’s name into future conversations. And dispersing tidbits of information about the massively wealthy but reclusive Earl of Corfe’s country seat of Shevington, where, she would boast, her dear, dear niece now resided!
‘I include Mrs Leeming, and Lady Carteret, you see,’ she pointed out their names on the sheet of paper Imogen now held. Rick’s name had been included, as had that of Nicodemus Bredon, though he was but a humble lawyer’s clerk.
‘Lord Keddinton, it goes without saying, and his dear daughters, who have taken such pains on your behalf.’
‘And Lady Verity Carlow,’ Imogen nodded. ‘Yes, I should like to include her. She has always been truly kind to me.’
‘And she is Lord Keddinton’s goddaughter too. It would not do to offend a man like him by omitting a connection of his.’
‘Did you know her brother, that is Captain Carlow, is in town at the moment? He is a friend of Rick’s.’
Her aunt pursed her lips. ‘That could lead to some awkwardness. If we invite the younger Carlow merely because he is in town, we shall have no option but to invite the oldest one too. You are aware that he has married,’ she swallowed, ‘Helena Wardale. The daughter of your mother’s…that is, your father’s—’
‘I know there may a little awkwardness,’ Imogen hastily put in, to spare her aunt from having to speak of her father’s gruesome murder or the part Helena’s father had played in it, ‘if she accepts the invitation to my wedding, but I truly hope she will come. She has done nothing for which she need be ashamed. It is not her fault that her father—’
‘Well,’ her aunt interrupted with false brightness before words like adultery, murder or execution could be uttered in her drawing room, ‘it is most commendable of you to take such a forgiving attitude. I am sure I would not like to be at odds with any of the Carlows—’ she lowered her voice and muttered ‘—no matter who they are married to.
‘There!’ she declared, adding the names to the list. ‘We shall invite them all.’
Imogen did not think there was anything particularly commendable about her attitude. She just felt a strong sense of kinship with the daughter of the man who had been hanged for killing Kit Hebden. Though neither girl had anything to do with the crime, they had both lived under the shadow of scandal all their lives. True, Helena now had a place in Society again, but it was only as the wife of Marcus Carlow, Viscount Stanegate. Imogen had no idea what terrible fate might have befallen Helena’s older brother and sister who, to all intents and purposes, seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth.
And far from believing she had any forgiving to do, Imogen often wondered if Helena was the one who might bear a grudge against Amanda Herriard’s daughter. Helena had lost her father, her home and her position, because of that doomed love affair.
The days until Imogen’s wedding flew by in a frenzy of organization. A Society wedding held at St George’s in Hanover Square, followed by a sumptuous reception for the select portion of Society who had merited an invitation, required a good deal of planning.
And though there was not time to shop for a complete trousseau, Lady Callandar insisted she have just one new gown. She managed to get her modiste to conjure up a wedding dress that was a dreamy confection of soft creamy lace over an ivory satin underdress. Some