The Marquess Finds Romance Read online

  “And that leaves you out? Because your wife would be a viscountess?”

  “At present, yes.” The words slipped out under Clara’s interrogation.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “At present, yes.”

  Lord Carswell considered prevaricating, continuing the lie.

  “Janie is unaware—in fact, I believe none of my acquaintance are aware, other than my solicitor—but my older brother is the seventh Marquess of Huntington. He is on his deathbed, one of many deathbeds he has enjoyed over the past few years. He has no heirs, and upon his demise, I will inherit our paternal grandfather’s title of marquess. At that time, any wife of mine would become a marchioness.”

  “You’re kidding!” Clara breathed.

  “It is true.”

  “But Hickstrom knows, right? She knows everything!”

  “I do not believe she is aware of the inheritance. She forbad me to marry Janie, and I am to become a marquess. Ergo, Janie would become a marchioness.”

  “Right!”

  Lord Carswell let his weary head hang.

  “So what’s the problem, James?”

  “Miss Hickstrom is the problem. Her decree. She was not aware that I might one day become a marquess. I urged Janie to go home so that she might be spared the coercion of an unwanted marriage. To me.”

  “Oh, I think now I’m understanding. You told Janie to go home? Last night? No wonder she bailed out of here.”

  “Bailed?”

  “Let me guess. She begged Hickstrom to send her home? It’s not like we all haven’t done that!”

  “Yes, that is exactly what happened.”

  “Hmmm,” Clara murmured almost under her breath. “Well, I think this is fixable, but it will take some strategizing.”

  “Strategizing? In what way? I am not under the impression that Miss Hickstrom’s edicts can be altered. Again, she stated that I should not marry Janie.”

  “But Janie doesn’t have a story. Why can’t her non-story change?”

  Lord Carswell shook his head.

  “She’s in love with you, right?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, trust me. She’s in love with you. I could see it in her face when she couldn’t take her eyes off you.”

  Lord Carswell remembered something. “I believe Miss Hickstrom was to keep your confidence, but she did not. Thank you for thinking of me in your letter and for wishing to continue our friendship. My mind was eased by your kindness.”

  “My letter?”

  “The letter that you wrote Miss Hickstrom while on your honeymoon? She related your concerns to me and that you wished you might speak to me upon your return? I was on point of journeying to London, and she encouraged me to stay and await your return.”

  Clara smiled widely, and Lord Carswell knew his suspicions had been realized.

  “You did not write any such letter, did you?”

  “I did not,” she said. “Sneaky, isn’t she?”

  “Indeed. Why do you think she wished me to tarry here?”

  “To fall in love with Janie.”

  Lord Carswell shook his head and expelled a sigh. “The lady is a trickster.”

  “I hope you mean Miss Hickstrom and not Janie. Janie is as honest as they come. But yes, I agree with you. Hickstrom does whatever she wants to get her way.”

  “I have heard her described in that way before.”

  “That’s because it’s true. That’s also why you can’t count on any ‘edicts’ or ‘decrees’ she makes. She can change her mind at any time.”

  “Then this book of fairy tales is naught but a ploy, a device to confuse and deceive?”

  Clara bit her lower lip.

  “No, that’s a real thing. I’m not sure how we’re going to get around that. Frankly, Janie actually read from the book. She read a few lines of my story with me. I don’t know if she can get back without reading her own story from the book, and that story wasn’t written as far as I can tell.” She paused. “At least so far.”

  “Hickstrom!” Clara looked up toward the ceiling. “Oh, Hickstrom! Can you come here for a second?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Within a week of her return, Janie had contacted her lead maid and discovered that the company had run well in her absence. She had hemmed and hawed in response to questions about where Clara had gone, mumbling something about an extended stay in England, a story that Janie would eventually transition into a “she liked it so much, she stayed” sort of thing.

  In a strange twist she had not expected, Janie had signed notification to vacate her apartment, and she had moved into Clara’s digs. Janie’s lease expired the following month, and she had little to move, with most of her mother’s things kept in storage. Her furniture had been rented, a fact Clara had often chuckled about.

  “It’s like you’re just visiting,” Clara had said. “You might as well just get one of those extended-stay hotel rooms for all that you have anything personal in your apartment. Why don’t you buy a condo or something? I know how much you make. You can afford one. Plant some roots or something!”

  “I haven’t found anything I want,” Janie had said. “Nothing quite matches Mom’s big old house in the country.” Janie had sold her mother’s large farmhouse and land as the property was too far from the city to warrant keeping and maintaining.

  “No, that was a great house!” Clara had agreed. “Still, it’s like you’re just passing through or something.”

  “I like your place,” Janie said. “It’s cozy, though your view of the parking lot stinks.”

  “Your place would be cozy too if you would buy some of your own furniture.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Janie had said. She hadn’t given it another thought.

  Over the week since her return, Janie had cried and laughed and mourned and spoken to the mirror in Clara’s apartment of her gratitude for her adventures. She missed Clara but knew she was happy. She missed Mary’s rational companionship. She hoped Rachel was feeling better. She missed James beyond words. She even missed Hickstrom, the fairy godmother who twisted words and meanings until no one knew what had been said or promised.

  Every now and then, Janie whispered to Hickstrom, but she kept her voice muted. She wasn’t ready to see the short blue-haired woman, even if it were within Janie’s power to summon her.

  One night, near midnight when Janie struggled to sleep, as she had every night since her return, she thought she heard a sound in the apartment. More comfortable on the couch than the bed—with her hand touching the book of fairy tales under the throw pillow—Janie had jumped up at the sound to switch on the table lamp.

  “Hickstrom!” she called out. No one came. She heard no further sound.

  Janie wandered into the kitchen and made herself a cup of decaffeinated green tea, her concession to the late hour when she should be sleeping. She had several houses to clean the following day. A new bag of oatmeal cookies enticed her, and she broke it open, set some on a plate, and returned to the couch. In her haste to turn on the table lamp, she had knocked the throw pillow to the floor.

  Hickstrom’s Book of Fairy Tales stared at her, taunting her, daring her to open it and read from it. As she had so often during the week, Janie resisted the urge to open the book. She had toyed with the notion that she could at least read Mary, Rachel and Clara’s stories because they didn’t involve Janie. The promise of those stories had been fulfilled, their mysteries unlocked.

  Janie munched on a cookie with one hand while tracing the golden lettering on the book with her other, as she had hundreds of times over the past week. The book looked old, the bindings in decent shape but faded. There was no way the book had been revised, not recently. Janie pressed her palm flat against the cover, as if she could divine its contents.

  “Dear girl, simply open the book,” Hickstrom said.

  Janie shrieked and jumped up from the couch. Hickstrom, her hair a glorious
mess of blue curls, stood by the window overlooking the mundane parking lot. She sported a brilliant-yellow flowered island dress that floated about her in a gauzy cloud.

  “Hickstrom! You scared me!”

  “Did I now, Janie? But you called me!”

  “No, no, I didn’t,” Janie stammered. “I heard something and then I accidentally called your name. So no, I didn’t really call you. But I’ve missed you! I’m so glad to see you...I realize now.”

  “I have missed you too, dear. Everyone has.”

  “Everyone?” Janie repeated, her heart skipping a beat, then two, then three.

  “Everyone,” Hickstrom repeated again. “Shall you offer me a cup of tea?” she asked. “I would love some of those biscuits.”

  “Oh! Sure! It’s decaffeinated and green. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Green? How very modern or ancient of you.”

  “Would you like coffee? We’ll be up all night.”

  “No, tea will be fine. I did not notice that you were sleeping.”

  Janie moved into the kitchen to make a mug of tea.

  “No. I’ve been struggling with jet lag, I guess.”

  “Do not think I fail to understand your jest, Janie. I know about your airplanes and such.”

  “I’m not surprised, Hickstrom. I’m not surprised.”

  “And here is my book of fairy tales,” Hickstrom murmured affectionately.

  Janie returned to the living room with a cup to see Hickstrom snacking on cookies and looking at her book. She had lifted the front cover, and Janie sat as far away from Hickstrom—and the book—as possible.

  “Can you close that?” Janie asked.

  “Why, dear? It will not bite!”

  “No? Lots of things have happened to women who open that book, Hickstrom, as you well know.”

  “Well, but they must read from it.”

  “I know, but I’d feel better if it was closed.”

  “Then you are happy here?” She looked around the apartment with a quirked eyebrow. “Now that you have returned?”

  “Not at all,” Janie responded sincerely.

  “Do you wish to go back?” Hickstrom asked.

  “I don’t want to marry a marquess,” she said.

  Hickstrom sighed heavily. “Why does no one understand me? I told Lord Carswell that he would bow over the hand of Janie Ferguson, marchioness.”

  “I know. I know. But I’d have to marry a marquess to do that, right? If I can’t be with James—and I don’t even know how he feels about me—but if I can’t be with him, then I don’t want to go back.”

  “I should not say, dear Janie, but Lord Carswell is quite besotted with you. He loves you.”

  Janie’s heart bounced around, and she put a hand to her chest, as if she could manually calm it down.

  “Really? Did he say so?”

  “He told Clara, who summoned me and verified it.”

  “Sooooo?” Janie asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Will you lift your curse?”

  “Curse?” Hickstrom repeated. “Curse? Whom have I cursed?”

  “Well, whatever you call it, Fairy Godmother. If James is in love with me...” Janie’s voice broke. “Then can we be together?”

  Hickstrom sipped her tea, appearing to consider the matter.

  “Hickstrom!” Janie cried out. “Why won’t you answer me?”

  “I am deep in thought, dear. You appear to be under the impression that I have unlimited powers. I do not. Once something is set in motion, it is almost impossible for me to change the outcome.”

  Janie heard roaring in her ears, as if she was in a wind tunnel. But she was still in Clara’s living room, listening to Hickstrom tell her that she couldn’t have what she most wanted in the world...to be with James.

  She pressed her hands against her ears and stared at Hickstrom as if she could will her to change her mind, to do something.

  Hickstrom set her tea down, folded her hands in her lap and eyed Janie with all the sympathy in the world, adding insult to injury. No matter what the fairy godmother said, Janie believed Hickstrom could send her back...to James, to happiness.

  Janie dropped her hands and stared at the fairy godmother helplessly.

  “Janie, dear, do not distress yourself so. Only moments ago you refused even to open my book. That suggests to me that you do not wish to return.”

  Janie drew in a deep, steadying breath. “I didn’t want to find out that I had a story in there, a revised edition, as you’ve been hinting at, or that I didn’t have a story, frankly. Is it revised?”

  “You have only to open the book to discover that information.”

  “I can’t. What if it has me marrying someone else, a marquess? What if it has James marrying someone else, a redhead?”

  “You cannot know unless you read the book, dear.”

  “Why are you doing this, Hickstrom? You can tell me what’s in the book. You’re the author. You can also dispense with this fairy godmother stuff and just send me back in time to be with James...if he wants me.”

  Hickstrom shook her head, still as if she sympathized with Janie. “I wish that I could, dear, but you have to want to return.”

  “I do want to return. I do!”

  “I do not see that desire.”

  Janie scooted over on the sofa, took Hickstrom’s soft hands and squeezed them. “How do I show it to you? How do I show you that I want to go back?”

  “At the risk of being repetitive...” Hickstrom withdrew her hands gently.

  Janie noted she rubbed them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you so hard.”

  “Think nothing of it, dear. I understand your fervor.”

  “Fervor, desire, enthusiasm, it’s all there. Send me back.”

  “Will you do what is required to return?”

  Janie hopped up from the couch. “The book. That book!” She looked down at it as she moved away to pace the living room floor. “No!”

  Hickstrom picked up another cookie and bit into it.

  “I would have had a better chance to be with James if I’d stayed,” Janie said morosely. “Isn’t that right?”

  Hickstrom tilted her head and eyed Janie with a faint grimace.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Yes, I do believe so, though he has much to answer for. He attempted to deceive me.”

  “What? Deceive you? What are you talking about? What could I do? James wanted me to go! I thought he wanted me gone!” Janie realized she had repeated herself.

  “Like you, he feared if you remained, you would be required—forced is such a violent word—to marry a marquess whom you did not know and could not love.”

  Janie stopped her pacing and stared at Hickstrom. “Really? Is that why he wanted me to go? But why in such a hurry? Why did he think I needed to go at once?”

  “I believe he thought that once Clara had returned, you would be required to fulfill your destiny as I had decreed.”

  Janie stared hard at Hickstrom. “This always goes back to you, doesn’t it? You’re in charge. You can change things with a snap of your finger.”

  “I wish that I could, but often I cannot.”

  “How is that possible? You can do anything!”

  Janie’s frustration with Hickstrom erupted.

  “Why do you meddle in other people’s lives? Why can’t you just let people be? If they want to be lonely, then let them be lonely. If they want to be brokenhearted, then let them be brokenhearted. Why do you have to do this, Hickstrom?”

  Janie caught her breath, horrified that she had yelled at the little woman. Plump she might be, but she seemed very small sitting on the couch as she was, with a red nose and glistening eyes.

  “I have tried to answer your questions, but you fail to hear my responses. My vocation is to tend to lonely hearts, to help those who cannot or will not help themselves.” She rose. “I have tried to help you as much as I can, but you have resisted my every attempt to guide you toward happiness
. I shall leave you to your own devices, Janie, but I will not sit here while you shout at me. Goodbye.”

  “Hickstrom, I’m sorry—” Janie began, moving toward her. She was too late. The fairy godmother vanished, and Janie had no idea if she would ever see her again.

  “Hickstrom!” she called out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down Janie’s face as she recalled the hurt look on the fairy godmother’s face. Whether Hickstrom helped her or not, whether she even could help her or not, Janie regretted that she had shouted at her. She had never even shouted at her own mother.

  She lowered herself to the couch and bent over, hugging herself, rocking back and forth gently. The book of fairy tales lay beside her, and she reached out a finger and traced the lettering.

  “Just open the book, Janie,” she whispered aloud. “Just open the book. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

  Marrying a man she didn’t know was the worst thing that could happen.

  Janie lifted the cover of the book. She leafed through the first few chapters, noting the titles: The Earl Finds a Bride, The Viscount Finds Love, The Baron Finds Happiness. She recognized the stories: Mary and the Earl of St. John, Rachel and Viscount Halwell, Clara and Baron Rowe.

  With a sick feeling in her stomach, she turned to chapter 4: The Marquess Finds Romance.

  A very long time ago in a land far, far away there lived a fairy godmother with little to do but concern herself overly much with notions of love and lonely hearts and the lives of others. No solitary heart was safe where she was concerned. She must do everything within her power to ensure that love conquered all.

  What follows is the tale of two such lonely hearts.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Janie read on, terrified of what she might find.

  The marquess, a lonely gentleman with a broken heart, wandered through the meadow, pausing to scratch the ears of a sheep. The flock of silly creatures followed him, bleating and pressing against his legs for attention.

  Mourning the loss of the lady who had captured his heart, the marquess looked up toward the sky.

  “I miss you, my dearest. I hope you are well and happy. If I could have one more moment with you, I would tell you how much I adore you. I would tell you of the many ways that I admire you. I would tell you how much I long to walk with you and hold you close again. My heart yearns for your companionship, your smile, your laughter.