The Arrangement

Chapter 1At precisely ten-thirty in the evening, the night before his thirtieth birthday, Vincent Pennsbury, the thirteenth Duke of Fallshire, made the decision to marry. He toasted the resolution with a glass of brandy, his third of the night, and saw himself to an early bed. To his surprise, his resolution was unchanged when he woke the next morning. He had slept heavily and well, and rose with the belief still in his chest that it was time for him to be wed, and soon. His youth had come to a close, quietly and without circumstance; it was time to enter the next phase of his life. While still in the period of his youth, he had looked forward to the thought of marriage with, if not dread, then at least a little disquiet. To be tied down, promised to one person alone for the rest of his life? It had not exactly filled him with delight. He was not his closest friend in the world, Edward Rathbourne, the Marquess of Chesburn, who had joined him willingly in a decade and a half of the most delicious sport, but always with the dream of true love in the back of his mind. Vincent was not like Edward at all, he reflected as he dressed the morning of his birthday. Vincent did not intend to love anyone at all, and certainly not the person he married. He had slept later than was his wont, by about half an hour, and so his breakfast was already waiting for him, kept warm by his housekeeper in advance of his rising. He sat down to it in a surprisingly good mood, digging into the sausage and eggs and toast with relish as he read the morning paper and picked through the first post of the day. He was not surprised to find a note from his mother among the latter, announcing her intent to visit him that morning. She always made a point of visiting on his birthday; not that they did not see each other frequently the rest of the year, but she liked to be the first one he saw on this particular anniversary. Vincent met her in the library when she arrived, shown in by his footman. She strode toward him, beaming, her hands extended; he took them and allowed her to kiss his cheek before leading her to one of the armchairs. She settled herself down, Vincent dropping into the one next to her, and propped her chin on her fist. “Well, my son,” she said, still smiling at him. Her chestnut hair was swept up, braided and pinned atop her head, and she was wearing the green day dress he had gifted her three years prior; she looked every inch Anna Pennsbury, the Dowager Duchess. “How do you feel, now that you have reached the venerable age of thirty?” “I am well,” he said honestly, lounging back in his chair. She squinted at him, silently chiding him for his posture, and with a sigh he straightened. “Today has begun, at least, remarkably well.” “Oh?” Anna lifted an elegant eyebrow. “What has blessed your morning with such greatness?” He laughed, and her eyebrow lifted higher. “You will not believe me,” he warned her. “Try me.” He hesitated for a moment, checking his resolution for a final time, and then said, “I have decided that it is high time that I married.” Vincent had always admired his mother’s composure. Even at this most unexpected of admissions, not a whiff of surprise touched her face. “I see,” she said. “I should congratulate you, then. Who is the lucky person? I thought you were between lovers.” “I am,” Vincent said. “I haven’t a clue whom I shall be marrying; I only know that it is time I picked someone.” His mother sighed. “You are still determined to avoid a love match, then?” Vincent paused. They had moved into the dangerous portion of the conversation. “I am,” he said gently. “I have seen what marriage for love can do to a person.” The words were as kind as he could make them, but even his mother’s rock-solid composure was not enough to prevent her paling slightly at the reference to her own marriage. Vincent knew they were both remembering her last fight with his father, both of them screaming and weeping even as they clutched at each other, until finally his father had done what she could not, and walked out. He had sent for his things the next morning, and repaired to the seaside, where Vincent had dutifully visited him once a year until his death three years ago. “I have never regretted marrying for love,” Anna said, drawing them both out of their reveries. She had regained her color, and was back to meeting his gaze directly. “And I think you will regret not even trying for it.” “You may think so, but I do not,” Vincent said. “My marriage will be a business affair, nothing more. I am determined on that front.” Her lips pursed slightly, but she just waved her hand and said, “Very well. How do you intend to pick your intended, if they are not to be a current or past lover?” Vincent relaxed, now that they were out of the shallows. “I had rather hoped to ask your help in that regard,” he admitted, allowing his fingers to pick at a loose thread on his armrest. “Oh?” “I am only familiar with my circle of society,” he elaborated, “and though I have a wide variety of friends, none of them will do. I need someone sensible, who knows how to run an estate, and who will look for love as little as I do. Preferably someone with their own money, as well.” While his coffers were more than well-stocked enough to withstand a rigorous spendthrift, he would rather not take the chance. “Unfortunately, no one in my circle will fit the bill.” “I see,” she said. “So I am to pick a sacrifice for you, to put to work and sully their reputation by your affairs?” “There will be no affairs,” he said, stung. “I have had a good run of sport, but it has always been my intention to put that behind me when I married.” “So you will be celibate,” she said, clearly disbelieving it. “You, my darling son, will cease pursuing lovers for the rest of your life?” “Yes,” he insisted. “I am not a slave to my passions, whatever you might think of me, Mother. I am perfectly capable of being celibate. I have no intention of shaming my future spouse.” Anna regarded him for a long moment, then shrugged. “So be it.” She laid a finger on her chin thoughtfully. “There are a few people who come to mind, who might suit your purposes. No doubt you wish an attractive spouse?” she added, turning back to him. “That does not matter to me,” he said firmly. “I do not care what they look like, only what they are like.” “Mmm.” She tapped her chin again. “I will think on it, and make some discreet inquiries, with your permission.” He nodded. “Very well.” She rose, elegant as a swan, and Vincent pushed himself up after her. She laid a hand on his arm. “As for what I think of you,” she said, her pale blue eyes gazing into his matching pair, “I think you the best of men, with the best of intentions, as I always have.” “Thank you, Mother.” He kissed her cheek, and she took her leave of him, leaving a soft cloud of lavender scent in her wake, which he still found soothing, even at the ripe old age of thirty. The majority of the rest of his birthday passed much like any other day, for Vincent was never much one for lavish celebrations on his own behalf. He spent it mostly inside, catching up on his correspondence, which confirmed for him a certainty that had been growing in his mind for several weeks. “It is time to go home,” he murmured to himself as he came to the end of a letter from his housekeeper in Fallshire. He’d been away too long. “After I marry,” he decided. For, resolved as he now was, he planned to do it quickly. The real highlight of his birthday tradition, aside from his mother’s annual visit, came after nightfall, when he descended from his carriage and entered his club. The air was already smoky and close, and he cut through the small gatherings of men to find his two closest friends at their usual table, with a brandy waiting for him at his spot. “Happy birthday,” Edward cried when he saw Vincent, rising to clap him in a warm embrace. “Many happy returns, my friend.” “Thank you,” Vincent said, hugging back until Edward released him. “It has been a good one so far.” Roger stood next, to extend his hand to Vincent. Vincent shook it warmly, until Roger graced him with one of his smiles, which always seemed so tremulous and delicate that Vincent could not help but treasure them. “Happy birthday,” he said, settling himself back down in his chair. Vincent and Edward dropped into their respective seats as well, and Vincent picked up his brandy for a long drink. “Thirty already,” Edward said, his handsome face spread into his usual good-natured grin. “Are you feeling decrepit yet? Bones creaking, joints aching?” “Not yet, and I’ll remind you that you’ve only two years left until you suffer whatever fate awaits me,” Vincent told him, earning himself a cackle from his best friend. “And poor Roger here is only six months behind me.” “Ah, but Roger’s kept himself in much better repair than you and I have,” Edward said, clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’s you and I that have run ourselves ragged.” Roger flushed, as he always did whenever Vincent or Edward made reference to their s****l histories. Vincent took pity on him. “Not me, not any longer,” he said. Edward c****d his head to one side, curious. “I asked my mother to find me a spouse today,” Vincent explained, taking another large sip against what was sure to be an explosive response. Sure enough, Edward cried, “Oh, Vincent,” as though despairing of his friend. “To leave such a thing to one’s mother.” “She’s as like to find a good match for me as I ever could, if not more so,” Vincent said firmly. “I trust her judgement far more than my own.” “I think your resolution shameful,” Edward said, as he had many times before. “What resolution is this?” asked Roger, looking between them in confusion. Edward sighed heavily and leaned onto the table, gesturing at Vincent. “Our dear Vincent has decided against pursuing love in his marriage,” he said, disapproval dripping off every word. “He has locked the emotion away in himself and will settle for nothing other than a cold, passionless business arrangement.” “Oh, surely not,” Roger said, looking aghast at Vincent. “Some marriages are made for reasons other than love, it is true, but not to even try?” Vincent chuckled at his friends’ expressions. “It is not for me,” he said mildly, tracing a finger around the ring of his glass. “Some people were made for love; I am not.” “Nonsense,” Edward said decisively. “You love us, do you not?” “Much to my chagrin,” Vincent said, laughing as Edward swatted at his arm. “No, I take your point, and I am not opposed to friendship growing between my future spouse and I. I just want nothing further than that emotion.” “Shameful,” Edward muttered into his tumbler of whiskey. “As you will no doubt have gleaned from your long acquaintance with him, our Edward is a romantic,” Vincent said conspiratorially to Roger. Roger inexplicably flushed, his pale cheeks turning pink. “There is nothing wrong with romanticism,” he managed to say. “I have always admired that about him.” Edward put a hand on his shoulder again, squeezing gently, and Roger flushed pinker. Vincent leaned back in his chair and regarded his friends. They were an almost perfectly contrasted pair: Edward dark where Roger was pale, Edward sturdy while Roger was willowy, Edward gregarious and confident where Roger was reserved, nearly timid. They had known each other longer than Vincent had known either of them, Roger being Edward’s uncle’s son, adopted when he was ten, rather later in life than most adoptions happened. Vincent had met Edward when he was seventeen and Edward fifteen, and Edward had cajoled Roger into meeting Vincent a few years later. They had all three been friends at least a decade at this point, and Vincent knew they nagged him out of affection. “I know you want me to be happy,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table. “And I believe I will be, even if it does not look the way you would wish it for yourself.” Edward drained his glass and set it heavily down on the table, then took Vincent by the wrist. “You will be happy, if I have to come and stand over your spouse every day until they make you so,” he said. “Having you around every day would hardly be conducive to my happiness,” Vincent said, unable to keep his grin off his face. “Poppycock!” Edward cried, gesticulating with his empty tumbler. “You adore me.” “Do I?” “You do,” Edward declared, “as does Roger.” Roger seemed likely to remain that shade of bright pink for the rest of his life, Vincent reflected, laughing. “And we adore you, don’t we, Roger?” Despite his fierce blush, Roger shrugged. “I’m fond enough of both of you.” “Fond enough!” Edward put the back of his hand to his forehead, sagging against Roger in a mock swoon. “Damned with faint praise are we, Vincent. However shall we recover?” “With another drink!” Vincent gestured to the bar for another round. “If these are to be my last days of singlehood, I would spend them in style.” “In style or in your cups?” Roger quipped. Edward hooted, and Vincent toasted Roger with his empty glass.