She was sorry that Cathy’s elopement, on the eve of a much-trumpeted marriage, would be humiliating to Papa, particularly given that all of Marslip as well as the jilted bridegroom would witness it. She did not want to let her temper get the better of her again and lead her into making a massive mistake that all of them would rue for the rest of their days. She didn’t like quarreling with her only remaining parent, who was so like her in temperament and humor, making them the closest of fathers and daughters—when they weren’t quarreling like mortal enemies.
But before she could bring herself to say any of that, Papa opened the gate for her, and Bianca stalked through, carried along by fury and outrage.
Ironically, it was a glorious day. The sky was a peerless blue, dolloped with billowing clouds of pure white. The honeysuckle was in bloom, its sweet scent rising to meet her as she strode down the path toward the small stone church. Peevishly Bianca hoped the roads to Wolverhampton were dry, so that her sister at least would remember this day happily.
Guests were loitering outside the church—no doubt waiting for the bride to arrive. Bianca cut through them like a scythe, ignoring their scandalized and fascinated stares, until someone touched her arm.
“Good morning, Bianca,” said her friend Amelia impishly. “That hasty to see your sister wed, are you?”
She opened her mouth, then paused.
“Such a lovely thing for your papa to invite us to the wedding celebration. Mum’s beside herself; unpicked her best gown and turned and pressed it.” She wrinkled her nose at this waste of energy. “Where is Cathy?” Amelia craned her neck. “Is she already a fashionable London lady, late to everything?”
Bianca seized her hand. “Amelia, go home,” she whispered. “Tell everyone—take them all away—”
“Bianca!”
She looked over her shoulder. Papa had come back for her. He barely managed a nod at the astonished Amelia before taking Bianca’s arm and leading her, firmly, into the sacristy. “A moment,” he barked at Mr. Filpot, who was trying to don his vestments. The startled fellow fled, collar in hand, and Papa closed the door behind him.
Too late Bianca realized Mr. St. James was also in the room. Today he was magnificent in an ivory coat over emerald green breeches, his coal-dark hair as sleek as a seal’s fur. At their entrance, he looked up from the book in his hands, his brows raised in idle inquiry.
“St. James,” said Papa with determined cheer. “Good morning, sir.”
“Sir. Miss Tate.” The man made a languid bow. He was so elegant, so handsome, Bianca glared at him in fulminating disgust. In return he gave her a sinfully intimate smile. Not at all the sort of smile a decent man would give any woman except his bride, on his wedding day.
Then she remembered that she might now be that bride. Not that St. James knew it, which left him firmly in the category of rogue.
“I have some unfortunate news,” went on Papa. “It appears my daughter Catherine has . . . left.”
St. James’s brows snapped together. “Left?”
“She’s eloped with someone else,” said Bianca before her father could reply. “A man she is desperately in love with. No doubt they are exchanging their vows at this very moment.”
St. James didn’t move a muscle but the room seemed to grow at once smaller and hotter.
“I cannot vouch for that,” said Papa, holding his palm out toward Bianca as if to push her physically from the conversation. “But it’s true she’s run off with the fellow.”
“Our agreement, sir,” began St. James.
“I have another daughter,” said Papa, almost defiantly. “If you’ll have her.”
The man blinked. He turned to Bianca as if just realizing, very belatedly, that she was there.
“Bianca’s agreed already,” said her father. He turned toward her, that bullheaded glint bright in his eye. “Haven’t you?”
Angrily she shrugged.
If asked, at that moment, she would have said that she fully expected St. James to cry off. There would be some shouting, perhaps; at the very least a blazing argument. Not because he cared for Cathy, whom he’d only met twice, but because Cathy was beautiful and gentle and eager to please, and only a madman would take Bianca in trade for that. She would have wagered everything she had that by now, St. James had taken her measure, enough to be well aware that she despised him and saw right through the fraud he was trying to perpetrate on her father.
Slowly his gaze, now as bitter cold as ice, ran down her figure, then back up to her face. Bianca’s temper began to boil.
“Very well,” said St. James, as coolly as if he and Papa had just agreed to the sale price of a different horse.
Papa nodded once. “Excellent. Bianca, come with me.” And he pulled her from the room before she could say anything.
Cathy would have been in tears by now, incoherent with despair. Bianca felt only righteous fury as she stomped down the path with her father. All he cared was that someone marry St. James. He cared that much for St. James’s connections and business proposal, that he would marry any daughter of his to the man, one way or another.
Fine, then. Papa would have his distant-cousin-of-a-duke son-in-law. He would have his elegant new London manager, flattering lascivious countesses into buying some dinnerware so that Papa could boast of the aristocratic tables his soup tureens sat upon. He would be rid of both spinster daughters, and she hoped he reveled in having that big, empty house to himself.
As for St. James, he would have his share of Perusia and a wealthy bride. Bianca meant to make certain he bled for every farthing, though. If he could consider marriage purely a business arrangement, so could she.
The only thought that consoled her was that Cathy would be blissfully happy as Mrs. Mayne.
Papa opened the church door. Amelia was standing there, holding the posy of flowers she had offered to provide, craning her neck looking for Cathy.
Bianca snatched the flowers from her and started down the aisle. A confused murmur arose from the guests awaiting them outside as Cathy failed to materialize. Inside, Aunt Frances was all but falling from her pew, her face flushed with interest. Bianca ignored them all and fixed her eyes on the mercenary rogue at the altar.
And he, of all people, wasn’t even looking her way.
Chapter Five
There was a genuine possibility, growing stronger by the moment, that Max had lost his mind.
No more than ten minutes had elapsed since he had agreed to switch brides, and wed not the lovely, gentle Catherine Tate, but her fiery sister, Bianca.
You remember her, Max savaged himself mentally. The one who hates you.
He wondered if this had been Tate’s plan all along. Perhaps Max had been just as much the prey as the pursuer. Perhaps he’d been tricked, coerced into marrying the shrewish sister so Tate could win a better suitor for his more appealing daughter, and be rid of both in one neat trick. Max vaguely thought there was a similar case in the Bible itself. Tate could have got the idea right here in church.
Not, Max admitted, that Bianca wasn’t a beauty as well, in her own way. Her hair was somewhere between blond and brown, her eyes shifting from gray to blue. She was taller than her sister, and curvier, too. He had not missed the fact that she possessed a spectacular bosom. She moved with purpose and energy, not gentle grace, and her wit was as sharp and keen as a rapier.