Protect & Serve(55)

The life of a young woman living among the upper echelons of British society was, without a doubt, one of privilege and often a great deal of to-do that hardly seemed to mesh with the modern age. For instance, many among the aristocracy still scoffed at the idea of work, aside from a few select professions: lawyer and politician being the most agreeable to the senses of the “old blood.” Men were, more often than not, still expected to hold down respectable careers while women were expected to take up one or more charities to help boost their popularity among the people. I, being only the stepdaughter of a lord, was afforded certain freedoms, most of which came from not bearing the name of his house upon my shoulders. The greatest of these freedoms, I felt, was the simple option of actually choosing my own profession, something few of my fellow members of the nobility shared.

My job, which many would not qualify as “acceptable” or “respectable,” was something that many among the upper class still desperately needed, especially in a day and age where “good breeding” was hard to come by. When the country’s nobility needed to find their sons and daughters matches, I was the one who found the most compatible options. Matchmaking was my specialty, and I was one of the best in Britain.

I always laughed at the old saying that “those who can’t do, teach,” but the longer I stayed in my profession the longer I came to realize that the same was true for a great deal of people like me. “Those who can’t find love, find it for others.”

Thoughts like that brought me back to days before I was the confident woman I am now, back when I had been spared the misfortune of the attention of men—back when I’d not yet grown fully into myself. It was those thoughts that made me think of Tristan.

For all the years he had been away I still found my mind drifting back to that pantry, to the way his hands touched me. I closed my eyes and tried my best to push those intrusive images away. And were it not for my driver, I don’t think that was a battle I would have won.

“Where to this morning, Ms. Gwendolyn?” came Franklin’s deep, heavily accented baritone from the front seat as I shut the door and buckled myself in. I’d always liked Franklin’s Scottish drawl, ever since I was a much younger girl.

“Straight to the office today, I think, Franklin,” I sighed. “No time for our usual stops. And besides, it looks like rough seas today.”

“That it does,” Franklin said, his voice taking on a dark, mocking tone. “Lucky for you, then, that you’ve got yourself a fine sailor at the helm of this ship then, isn’t it?”

“Aye, aye, captain,” I said, smiling as I relaxed back into my seat. I watched as Franklin pulled my car out into the sea of honking horns. It almost felt like we’d joined a herd of angry wildebeests with an exceptionally colorful vocabulary.

“Must be a big to-do if you’re skipping your morning cuppa, Miss,” Franklin said, clucking his tongue. “Does some big fish need to find their soulmate so fast the breakfast had to wait?”

“Afraid so,” I said, shaking my head at his motherly concern. That had always been his way, especially in my younger days, looking after my best interests and always making sure that I was fed. I always joked to myself that Franklin doted on me like an old fishwife, especially with the lack of his own children at home. “At least, that’s what Tina made it sound like this morning.”

Tina, my personal assistant—and probably the person I could rely on just as much as Franklin—handled much of the running of day-to-day aspects of my business including acting as the buffer between myself and the multitude of pompous nobles who all demanded that they be first and last priority when it came to my time and energy. There was no one so demanding of quality work as those who had never done a day of it in their lives.

“Must be, if Ms. Tina is calling you so early,” he said, glancing back at me through the rearview mirror, his crinkled blue eyes creased with no shortage of empathy. I wasn’t sure what I ever did to deserve Franklin, especially on stressful days like this.

“I’m just hoping that I don’t walk into another one of Lord Adderby’s explosions like the last time she called me so early.” The infamous Lord Adderby was one of my more usual clients, being a man in his late sixties, finding him a proper match had proven to be more than a little challenging, even for my considerable talent. It had been over a year since he had engaged my services as a matchmaker, and the entire time he had either offended or rejected every single woman that I had set him up to begin courting. This, in part, had been due to the lord’s rather grating personality, and the fact that he was probably the most inappropriate man that I had ever had the misfortune to do business with.