Marry Me by Sundown Read online

  She nearly swooned in delight at such a provocative hint as that!

  Sophie tried to keep her circulating among the guests. More people had come than either of them expected. Violet met all the other young gentlemen present, but Lord Elliott never left her alone for long.

  “You’re breaking every rule, you know,” Sophie whispered as she dragged her away from Elliott yet again.

  “I know, but no one will remember it by the time I get back,” Violet replied.

  “He is handsome, I suppose,” Sophie said grudgingly.

  “Incredibly.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far—good grief, Vi, you weren’t supposed to fall in love at your very first party!”

  “I haven’t—well, I don’t think I have.” But she soon amended, “So what if I have?”

  “It simply isn’t done.” But at Violet’s smile, Sophie threw up her hands, conceding, “Well, at least it shall get you back here posthaste, agreed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Her aunt, having noticed Elliott’s attention, confided to Violet, “I know his mother well. She has complained quite often that she despairs of her boy ever settling down. I will be happy to inform her that might not be the case after all.”

  And her uncle also whispered an aside to her: “Good choice, m’dear. He’s going to be a viscount one day.”

  Elliott stole a kiss, but it was a chaste one on the cheek as he was leaving. And it made him blush. Perhaps he’d finally realized that he’d broken more than one rule of etiquette that night. But he left not knowing that she was sailing in the morning. After meeting him, she so wished she weren’t. She’d nearly confided that she was leaving London for a while, but decided not to say anything that might deter his interest in her. She intended to quickly settle whatever needed fixing in America and be on another ship back to London within the week.

  ELLIOTT PALMER DOMINATED HER thoughts on the voyage home. Her thrilling memories of him kept her from worrying so much about what she might find when she reached Philadelphia. And Jane Alford, her new maid, provided distraction as well.

  Talkative once she relaxed, the portly, middle-aged woman had been hired by Elizabeth to accompany her. Violet wished the maid she knew so well could have come with her instead, but she’d shared Joan with Sophie all these years and couldn’t ask her cousin to relinquish her, even if only for a couple months—not that Joan would have agreed. Her aunt had complained that most of the women she’d interviewed for the position had refused to travel to America. Jane was the only one willing—and only when Elizabeth, desperate by then, had agreed to provide her with money for her own return passage in case she got homesick by the time they reached Philadelphia. Violet had to repeatedly assure the maid that America was a civilized land and Philadelphia was as fine a city as London. Despite Jane’s trepidation, Violet found it hard to contain her excitement about seeing her family again after all these years.

  The day finally arrived when she was standing outside the home she’d been born in, her trunks piled on either side of her. She didn’t immediately go to the door, just stood there smiling as the memories flooded back. The large house had been her brothers’ playground. How often she’d had to chase after them to keep them from breaking things! Boys that age could be quite rambunctious. She’d never told her father about their wild antics unless something did actually break. Charles hadn’t often been at home during the day, and the servants had been afraid to scold the sons of the house.

  Her father was wealthy, had received a substantial inheritance from his father, including the house. He was able to live a life of leisure and pursue his own amusements and interests. She wasn’t sure what those were, could only remember that he liked betting at the racetrack and finding promising investments that he could brag about to his friends.

  Violet finally noticed that all the draperies were drawn shut on the windows on either side of the front door, which was odd for such a beautiful Sunday in June. Even if the family wasn’t at home, the servants should have opened the drapes. She moved to the front door, but found it locked. She knocked, but no one answered. Where the deuce was the butler? She knocked louder, pounding on it with her fist, quite worried now. A locked house was definitely not what she’d expected to find at the end of her journey.

  She turned around but was daunted by the sight of her four large trunks. She’d dismissed the hired carriage and had no idea how long it would take to find another. Was she supposed to sit on her trunks all day waiting for her family to come home? If they were coming home. Again she wondered why no servant had answered the door.

  “Will we need to break into the house, Miss Violet?” Jane asked.

  Such a pragmatic solution! “Let’s hope not.”

  Violet glanced to the side at the windows. She didn’t relish crawling through one in her fancy traveling ensemble, but if they were open that would at least indicate someone was in the house. But the windows were shut, too. The drapes on the other side of the glass were utterly still.

  “Is it an American holiday then, and everyone’s gone off to celebrate?”

  Violet didn’t know what to think, except that someone, even if not the butler, should be manning the door.

  Looking worried, Jane added, “Shall I go to the corner and hail a carriage? We can go to a hotel and wait there for your family to return.”

  Violet was about to agree when she heard the door open. She turned back to it, but it had opened barely a crack, and all she could see was an eye peering out at her; then: “Violet?”

  She let out a relieved sigh. “Of course!”

  The door opened wide to admit her. Both brothers were standing there, and while she used to have no trouble telling the twins apart, today she couldn’t. Dark-blond hair like hers, sapphire-blue eyes, strapping instead of slim like their father, very handsome, they looked nothing like the boys she’d last seen five years ago. They were men now, twenty years old, and as tall as their father, which was a half foot taller than she! She leapt forward exuberantly to hug them, only to be grabbed by the one on the left who said, “I’m Daniel.” He lifted her high in the air, then passed her to Evan, who swung her around in a full circle. By the time her feet were on the floor again she was laughing, and finally managed to put her arms around their waists and hug them both at the same time.

  She’d missed so much these last five years. She’d asked them to have portraits done when she’d sat for hers, and to send them to her so she could see how they’d turned out, but they hadn’t done it. They’d turned out splendidly indeed. And she felt something like motherly pride as she looked them up and down. It was hard to imagine she’d ever bossed and scolded these two, or that they’d let her!

  But they had much to account for, and recalling that, she stepped back to say, “One of you let Father know I’ve arrived, then have someone bring in my trunks. We’ll talk in the parlor. You’ve much to explain, Brothers.”

  They both walked past her to bring in her luggage themselves, Daniel only saying, “Father isn’t home.”

  “Twin brothers?” Jane whispered as she joined Violet in the hallway. “And no butler?”

  Violet sighed. “I will have a private word with my brothers. Wait here in the hall. I shouldn’t be long.”

  “I’ll find the kitchen, miss, and order you some tea.”

  “Thank you.”

  Violet headed to the parlor, the first room on the left of the long hallway. She intended to open a few windows. The house smelled more than a little musty. But she stopped short just inside the parlor and didn’t take another step. This had been such a beautifully appointed room the last time she was in it, but nothing remained except the sofa. All the other furniture was gone. All the paintings that had been on the walls were gone. Were the boys waiting for her here so they could take her to their new home?

  At the sound of footsteps behind her, she said, “I hope you didn’t make me cross an ocean just to tell me Father has sold this house and moved to a bigger on
e.”

  “No,” one of them answered. “You might want to sit down, Vi.”

  Without turning, she snapped, “No, you sit down, Evan on the right, Daniel on the left. I want to know who I’m shouting at.”

  She was glaring at their backs as they moved past her. She saw them wincing as they turned to sit down on the sofa.

  Abashed, Daniel said, “It’s as bad as it looks.”

  “Really?” Her tone was sarcastic, but the added screech wasn’t. “If you haven’t moved, where’s all the bloody furniture?!”

  “We had to sell it to make payments on Father’s loan and to keep up appearances,” Daniel explained. “The paintings sold well, but the furniture didn’t. A nasty amount of money is due every month.”

  Her eyes were wide by then. “Why would he—where is Father?”

  “Not here. He left seven months ago to make a new fortune,” Evan said. “He didn’t want us to tell you he was broke, so we didn’t. But if we can’t pay the loan, Mr. Perry, the banker, is going to take the house.”

  “Broke? How is that possible?”

  “Three bad investments in as many months,” Evan went on. “Father didn’t even realize his funds had gotten so low until he went to the bank to withdraw for the monthly household account and the clerk warned him he couldn’t do that for much longer. He came home and dismissed some of the staff but not all, because he didn’t want our neighbors and friends to know he’s fallen on hard times. Then he got drunk for a week. Perfectly understandable, now that we know why, but we didn’t find out until after he sobered up.”

  “When he did, he went to the bank and got a loan, using the house as collateral,” Daniel put in.

  “He wanted us to be able to live our lives as usual while he made more money,” Evan continued. “He showed us a flier touting the discovery of more gold out west. We don’t know why he fell for that nonsense. We’ve seen fliers like that since we were children. No one ever comes back rich. But he was so sure that gold mining would be the solution to our sudden dilemma.”

  “Believe me, Vi, we both tried to talk him out of it. We warned that he was gambling on a one-in-a-million chance of finding gold, that he should come up with a more realistic plan. But he wouldn’t be dissuaded.”

  She glanced around the empty room again, and her shoulders slumped a little. “I suppose you’re going to tell me next that after seven months, he hasn’t found any gold?”

  “Worse,” Evan replied.

  “What could be worse?” And then she paled. “Don’t tell me he’s—he’s—?”

  She couldn’t say the word dead, but Daniel jumped in, “No, not that. Of course not. But he was writing regularly, and then the letters stopped. And we ran out of money. Both happened two months ago, which is why we sent for you.”

  “You should just let us tell you the whole of it, Vi, and then you might not have so many questions,” Evan suggested.

  She doubted it, which was why she was tapping her foot even as she nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Father gave us half the loan money he received to use for the monthly payments and our own expenses, and took the other half to finance his mining venture.” Daniel grimaced. “But the payments on the loan escalated after four months, and the entire loan has to be paid off in one year. Father assured us he’d be back in three to five months, so he told us not to worry about it. But with these higher payments, we had to start selling things.”

  “And we still haven’t had another letter from Father. But he seemed optimistic in the last one he wrote.”

  “More like excited,” Daniel corrected his twin. “He tried his luck in two towns out west, but they turned out to be a pure waste of time. But in that last letter, he mentioned he’d just staked a claim in Butte, Montana, near a known silver mine.”

  “That sounds promising,” she remarked. “He’s no doubt too busy mining to write.”

  “For more than two months? It’s been about that long since we got his last letter.” Evan sounded somber.

  Her shoulders slumped again. Either their father was dead—no, she refused to believe that when there were too many other possibilities to account for his silence, including his hating to write letters. She knew firsthand what a terrible correspondent he was.

  And then she realized how dire the situation was. “Then you’ve already lost the house? Should you even be here? Why did you tell me to come here? How am I supposed to fix this?”

  Daniel held up his hand to halt her questions. “The banker—Mr. Perry—did come pounding at the door. And he appeared to relish the fact that most of the furniture had been sold off, as if that meant the house would soon become the bank’s property. The only painting we hadn’t sold was your portrait. We couldn’t bear to part with it. He saw it hanging above the mantel in here and seemed mesmerized by it.”

  Her eyes went to the fireplace, but the portrait wasn’t there. “Where is it?”

  “He took it as last month’s payment and—and—” Daniel couldn’t finish.

  Evan snorted and insisted, “Tell her.”

  “You tell her.”

  “One of you better tell me, and quickly,” she snapped.

  Evan looked down at her feet before saying, “He wants to marry you. He said he’d cancel the loan if you agree. We told him you weren’t even in the country, that it would take time to get you here. He said he would extend the loan until you arrived.”

  It was too much to take in. In fact, she was having a hard time believing any of it. No money? Good God, were they actually paupers now? “I don’t suppose he’s reasonably young and personable?”

  Daniel’s eyes widened. “You’d consider it?!”

  “No, but I do want to know my options.”

  Evan quickly said, “Not young, not nice, even fat, if you must know.”

  And Daniel added, “But many women in our social circle make arranged marriages. And at least Perry is rich, lives here in Philadelphia, and is already willing. If you married him, we’d have you back with us, Violet. Our family would be together again, and the house problem would be solved!”

  “So this is why you summoned me home, to toss me to a fat wolf? Now I know why your letter was so bloody vague!”

  Daniel winced. “It’s not like that. We missed you! And we always assumed you’d make an arranged marriage—here in America. So you can’t imagine how distressing it was when you wrote in the spring that you hoped to marry over in England. It meant we’d never see you again! If Father had been here to read that letter, we would have convinced him to forbid it.”

  Her eyes narrowed on Daniel. “Oh, you would, would you?”

  Evan elbowed his brother. “I told you she wouldn’t agree to it.” Then he smiled at Violet. “But I’m happy that you came back, Vi, even if it is to such a desperate mess.”

  “Thank you, but the Perry option is crossed off the list.”

  “We have others?”

  “Of course,” she said, though a bit prematurely. “Give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”

  She started pacing in front of them. Obviously, they could return to England with her, even if they didn’t like it there, but that would mean they would lose this house, the house they’d all spent their childhoods in, the house the boys had lived in all their lives. Maybe her uncle would pay off the loan for them, but sending a letter to London and waiting for a reply would take time.

  She stared at the ceiling in exasperation. “You do realize that if you had mentioned any of this in your letter to me, I could have come here with enough money to pay off that loan so you could at least stop worrying about losing the house?”

  “We did discuss it,” Daniel said, “and agreed that Father would be furious if we asked the Faulkners for money. That’s why I wrote to you in the hope you’d be interested in Mr. Perry’s . . .” At Violet’s glare, his voice trailed off. Then he added, “But there’s a glimmer of hope now that Father’s got a mine. We just don’t know exactly where it—or he—is.”
/>   A mine that wasn’t paying off yet, but still could, though it might not happen in time. Maybe she could make the next loan payment with the money her father had given her when she first sailed off with Aunt Elizabeth. She’d never needed to spend any of it. But if she used that to make the payment, she wouldn’t have enough to solve their other problem: finding their father.

  Chapter Three

  THEY MOVED TO THE kitchen to continue their talk because the dinner hour was approaching. They, or rather she, had come up with a reasonable plan of action. At least, it struck Violet as the most reasonable option she could think of. It was amazing she could think at all, considering how unsettled she felt after learning she was no longer an heiress but a pauper. But then Jane put a dent in her plan when she stopped in the hall to explain to the maid where they were going tomorrow. And was met with a flat refusal.

  “I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t have money to return to London, and a good thing I insisted on that,” Jane said, her expression quite bullish. “So I’m returning. You’ll be needing to hire a new maid, miss.”

  There wasn’t time for that! “Jane, it will take just a few days traveling by train to reach Montana. It will be interesting! Don’t you want to see—”

  “I’ve read me a few dime novels about that wild place west of here. There’s Indians and bears and duels on every corner. No, miss, I most certainly am not going anywhere except back home.”

  The woman grabbed her bag and marched out of the house. Violet gave her brothers an exasperated look, which warned them not to laugh. But she had a brief respite from their dilemma when they reached the kitchen and her brothers paused, looking at her expectantly. They were hoping she’d cook for them, she realized.

  She laughed. “D’you really think Aunt Elizabeth would let me near her kitchen? I can’t cook, but if you’ve been on your own all these months, surely you’ve learned how to by now.”

  “Not really,” Evan said. “But at least the meal will be filling.”

  “If very bland,” Daniel warned. “And eating standing up doesn’t make the food taste any better.”