Rhyme and Reason: Bexley-Smythe Quintet, #2

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Rhyme and Reason

Copyright © 2013 by Catherine Gayle

Cover Design by Adrienne Thorne

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

For more information: catherine@catherinegayle.com

The Duke of Danby is matchmaking again.

No matter what his overbearing duke of a grandfather wants, Thomas Goddard has no intention of marrying a high-born lady. He’s the son of Danby’s by-blow, for heaven’s sake, and no gentleman! When yet another letter—complete with yet another marriage license—arrives, Thomas does as any reasonable man would do. He rips the thing to shreds, tosses it over the cliffs, and curses Danby’s name. Regrettably, his shouted curse startles the very lady his grandfather intends for him to marry.

Because of her wayward brother’s numerous and repeated indiscretions, Lady Matilda Bexley-Smythe has just endured yet another Season on the receiving end of both salacious gossip and censorious glances. She’s had all of London Society she can stand, so she intends to find a husband who is unconcerned about her brother’s ne’er-do-well behavior. She settles on the seemingly perfect choice—a gentleman unswayed by gossip—but when Mattie finds herself being carried home in a handsome stranger’s arms, her whole world unravels at the seams.

***This novella (approximately 24,000 words) has not been previously published.

RHYME AND REASON is the second novella in the Bexley-Smythe Quintet. The first is FLIGHT OF FANCY. The third, THICK AS THIEVES, is currently available as a standalone title. The Cavendish Brothers novellas are a linked series, consisting of two stories: AN UNINTENDED JOURNEY and TO ENCHANT AN ICY EARL.

Summer, 1814

Scarborough, Yorkshire

Just looking down at Danby’s red wax seal upon the letter was more than enough to cause Thomas Goddard’s blood to bubble up beneath his skin. Perhaps that was why, when the damned thing had arrived, he’d set the letter aside and attempted to forget about it for three full days. Yet despite his best efforts, every time he’d returned to his office covered in sweat and dust and grime from his work with the horses, the letter had seemed to grow in stature until it could quite nearly mock him.

Thomas’s feelings toward the duke were mixed, at best. Danby hadn’t known that Thomas and his brother and sister—or even their father, for that matter—had even existed until around Christmas time a year and a half ago. Considering that Father was the duke’s by-blow, the lot of them really shouldn’t have any expectations of the man.

Whether they’d had expectations or not, Danby had made it possible for Abby to marry a gentleman. He had even granted her a dowry—something which Father would have found impossible to provide with his butler’s wages. If aiding Abby hadn’t been enough, Danby had secured Robert a position as a butler in the employ of Lord Upton Grey.

But he hadn’t stopped there. Then he had purchased a horse breeding enterprise in Scarborough, and set Thomas the task of running it. I expect to see a healthy profit, too, he’d said boldly on the day he told Thomas of the venture. "I don’t care two figs about horses and racing and breeding, or any of that other gibberish, but you do. This is yours now. What profit it makes is yours, but the losses will be yours as well."

If all of that hadn’t been outside of enough, the duke had settled a handsome sum on both Robert and Thomas that nearly matched the dowry he’d granted Abby.

It was more than any of them had ever allowed themselves to dream, being the legitimate offspring of an illegitimate father.

If that were all the duke had done for them, then Thomas would have no complaints about his newfound grandfather. Not any real complaints, at least.

Regrettably, Danby seemed to have ulterior motives behind his generosity.

Namely, he expected both brothers to marry like Abby had done. Well, that wasn’t the truth of it. Marriage, in and of itself, was not such a horrible prospect. He doubted Robert would be opposed to taking a wife at some point in the future, and Thomas certainly wasn’t. He had every hope to someday find a lovely woman of a similar social status and begin his own family, much as his parents had done many years ago.

The problem, however, lay with the fact that Danby expected both brothers to marry so far above their station as to be laughable.

Last Christmas, when the duke had summoned all his children and grandchildren to Danby Castle, he’d had marriage licenses in hand for both Goddard brothers and some of their still unmarried cousins. He’d even had the brides and grooms he’d selected in residence at the castle as well! Danby’s attempts at matchmaking seemed to know no bounds.

The young lady he’d selected as Thomas’s intended was a viscount’s daughter, for God’s sake. He couldn’t marry a viscount’s daughter. She was a lady. She ought to marry a peer, or at least a son of a peer—someone who was a gentleman.

Thomas, despite his overly rapid rise in station thanks to his supposedly well-meaning grandfather, would never be a gentleman.

So he had taken to his horse and rode off as fast as the beast could travel.

Two weeks later, the marriage license had arrived in the post along with a curt letter detailing how the marriage contract would be drawn up once Thomas took it upon himself to meet the lady, speak to the viscount, and do what he’d been bidden to do.

The letter and the marriage license had both perished a hasty death in Thomas’s hearth. He’d hoped that that would be the end of Danby’s ill-advised attempts at matchmaking—or at least the last of Danby’s attempts at making a match for Thomas, even if he didn’t cease his attempts for his high-born grandchildren.

Apparently, he was a fool to have hoped for such a thing.

In the spring, he had been expecting some correspondence from Danby about the stables and the duke’s expectations for the running of them. As such, when a letter arrived and Thomas saw the red wax seal, he’d broken it without a second thought.

It had been another marriage license. This time, he was supposed to marry the daughter of an aging baronet. It will be a favor from me to Sir Jasper Finchley, Danby had written in his unwavering hand. He despairs what will become of all his seven unwed daughters when he has passed on. I promised I would do what I could to find them eligible matches with respectable and honorable gentlemen to marry.

An eligible match now, was he? He’d thought being of high birth was requisite to eligibility, at least according to those of the beau monde. And what did Danby know of his honor? True, Thomas could provide for a wife, though perhaps not in such a lavish style as a baronet’s daughter was accustomed. Nevertheless, whoever he took to wife would not want for any necessities in life. Danby’s settlement, combined with the now-thriving horse breeding venture, had seen to that in equal parts.

But a moderate income did not a gentleman make.

There