by Wolf, Bree
How to Climb a Lady’s Tower
(#3 Happy Ever Regency Series)
by
Bree Wolf
© Copyright 2020 by Bree Wolf
Text by Bree Wolf
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
La Verne CA 91750
[email protected]
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition March 2020
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
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.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
ARE YOU SIGNED UP FOR DRAGONBLADE’S BLOG?
You’ll get the latest news and information on exclusive giveaways, exclusive excerpts, coming releases, sales, free books, cover reveals and more.
Check out our complete list of authors, too!
No spam, no junk. That’s a promise!
Sign Up Here
*
Dearest Reader;
Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.
Happy Reading!
CEO, Dragonblade Publishing
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Bree Wolf
Happy Every Regency Series
How to Wake a Sleeping Lady
How to Tame a Beastly Lord
How To Climb A Lady’s Tower
*** Please visit Dragonblade’s website for a full list of books and authors. Sign up for Dragonblade’s blog for sneak peeks, interviews, and more: ***
www.dragonbladepublishing.com
Amazon
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Bree Wolf
About the Book
Prologue
Chapter One – A Lady’s List
Chapter Two – An American in London
Chapter Three – Whispers
Chapter Four – A Siren’s Call
Chapter Five – In Hyde Park
Chapter Six – A New Ally
Chapter Seven – Another Ball…
Chapter Eight – Merely an Acquaintance
Chapter Nine – Observations
Chapter Ten – A Masked Man
Chapter Eleven – Into the Country
Chapter Twelve – The Beast of Ravengrove
Chapter Thirteen – A Moment in Time
Chapter Fourteen – A Night’s Revelations
Chapter Fifteen – The Thought of a Man
Chapter Sixteen – Echoes of the Past
Chapter Seventeen – Step One
Chapter Eighteen – Of Two Minds
Chapter Nineteen – Rather Uneventful
Chapter Twenty – A Window of Opportunity
Chapter Twenty-One – Questions & Answers
Chapter Twenty-Two – More Than Meets the Eye
Chapter Twenty-Three – A Scheming Debutante
Chapter Twenty-Four – A Moonlit Stroll
Chapter Twenty-Five – A Ride Down Rotten Row
Chapter Twenty-Six – Off to Brighton
Chapter Twenty-Seven – A Swim & a Kiss
Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Last Item on the List
Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Black Baron Strikes Again
Chapter Thirty – Unusual Women
Chapter Thirty-One – The Man Behind the Mask
Chapter Thirty-Two – Out into the Night
Chapter Thirty-Three – Together
Epilogue
About Bree
About the Book
An untamed lady. A stranger in the night.
And a match made in heaven.
Nothing but a pawn in her uncle’s game for title and station, Miss Rebecca Hawkins is forced to spend her days in the company of the most boring lord to ever cross her path, dreading the day he will finally work up the courage to ask for her hand. Her dreams of adventure are crushed by the duty laid upon her shoulders. Still, her heart dares hope, longing for a man unlike the one her uncle chose for her. A man yearning for adventure as much as she does.
An American at heart, Zachary Caswell travels to England upon inheriting his uncle’s title, determined to put the family estate back on its feet before returning home. However, when a family heirloom is stolen, Zach is forced to mingle with a society he holds in contempt. Vain and simpering misses crowd London’s ballrooms as he seeks to uncover who took his father’s ring…until the night his path crosses that of a woman unlike any he’s ever met.
Dauntless, she offers him her help in exchange for his.
In fact, the lady has a list of unusual requests she sets before him, and although Zach knows he would be wise to refuse her, he finds that he soon longs for the adventurous glow in her eyes. As they work hand in hand, both come to realize that they might be more to the other than merely a helping hand. However, will they dare admit how they feel?
Prologue
Pembroke Hall, Spring 1812 (or a variation thereof)
“Pembroke Hall,” Zachary Caswell mumbled as he strolled down the long corridor lined with family portraits; people he had never met and never would. “Pembroke Hall.” A smile teased his lips for he found the name quite fitting considering how run down the place had been when he’d first arrived from America.
Indeed, the estate had been broke as well as broken, falling into disrepair over many years of neglect. As far as Zach knew, the late Earl of Pembroke – his uncle – had gambled away most of the family’s fortune before he’d passed on about a year and a half ago.
Never had Zach thought that he’d ever set foot on English soil, much less on this estate.
Decades ago, his own father had left England after a falling out with his family. As the second son, he’d dreamed of making more of himself than English society considered appropriate. He’d dreamed of making his own way in the world, and so he’d packed his bags and left for America, breaking with a family who had only ever been disappointed in him, prophesying that he’d return soon, a shamed and reformed man.
However, fortune had smiled upon Zach’s father. He had indeed made his own way, forging a successful iron furnace out of nothing, solely by his hands’ work and steadfast belief that if a man only put his mind to it, he could accomplish anything.
Still, even this success had always paled in comparison to his father’s personal joy. For he had not only found acknowledgment in his work, but he’d also found love. Zach remembered well the
way his parents had always managed to hold entire conversations without saying as much as a single word. There had been a connection there that had gone beyond anything he himself had ever experienced, and their love and devotion had left an impression on Zach that would forever guide his decisions.
The sound of hammering and sawing drifted to his ears as he proceeded farther along the corridor, his eyes gliding over the many portraits as they did so often. Here and there, Zach saw a certain resemblance, and he could not deny that a part of him would have liked to know the people he now saw before him. Would they have rejected him as well? Would they have deemed him unworthy?
No matter what their opinion would have been, it seemed it was of no importance when it came to consanguinity and how it lay at the root of laws dictating who was to inherit a title and the entailed estate. Worthy or not, Zachary Caswell, a simple man from America, who was no stranger to hard, physical work and had the calluses on his hands to prove it, was now Zachary Caswell, Earl of Pembroke, a gentleman of the highest regard.
At least in theory.
Another smiled tugged on Zach’s lips when he remembered the look of utter shock on the servants’ faces when he had rolled up his sleeves and bent to work alongside them. After all, why shouldn’t he? Was this not his estate now? Was he not responsible?
Indeed, as ludicrous as the sound of his newly acquired title still seemed to him, Zach now was the one responsible not only for the estate, but for all those who depended upon it for their livelihoods. It was a responsibility he would not take lightly as he could still hear his father’s words echo in his ears, Only a man familiar with every part of the whole can ever truly expect to be successful.
For that very reason, Zach and his twin brother, Nate, had both worked their way up in their father’s iron furnace. They’d toiled and sweated, cursed and groaned under the weight of each task, and they’d become better men for it.
For worth, Zach knew, was not determined by blood and birth. No, it was a man’s mind and heart that made him who he was, and Zach knew the kind of man he strove to be. One who would have made his father proud.
Looking out the window at the workers, who were putting the finishing touches on his ancestral home, Zach could not deny that he did feel proud that it was his father’s hard earned money that was now restoring Pembroke Hall to its former glory. His English family might not have seen his father’s worth, but Zach knew it to be of the highest regard.
He was proud, and he always had been.
His gaze moved over a large portrait showing a man with two young children, a son and daughter. The man had a certain resemblance to Zach’s father, and from Pembroke Hall’s butler, Gusford, Zach knew that the man had been his uncle, his father’s elder brother, the late Earl of Pembroke.
In the painting, his uncle had black hair and silvery pale eyes like his children. There was sharpness in his gaze, but the way he stood behind his children, a hand on each of their shoulders, spoke of affection and protectiveness. The boy glanced lovingly at his little sister, and a hint of a smile rested on her gentle features. Had they been happy here? Zach wondered, feeling a pang of regret that he had never even met his uncle and his cousins.
And now it was too late.
His cousin, Emery, had fallen in the war almost two years ago and his father had followed him to the grave shortly after. Perhaps that alone was proof that deep affection had existed between them. Now, only the daughter remained. Her name was Eugenie, and according to the solicitor who’d found Zach in Boston and informed him of his unexpected inheritance, she had been married the year before to a Lord Wentford if he remembered correctly.
More than once over the past year, Zach had wondered if he ought to seek her out. However, he could not deny that a part of him feared that she might have inherited her father’s dislike for their branch of the family tree. Would she refuse to see him? Would she look down upon him? Deem him unworthy of her father’s title?
Well aware that merely pondering these questions would not see them answered, Zach turned away from the long row of portraits. Footsteps echoed closer and, before long, Gusford appeared from around a corner, his balding head held high in that dignified sort of way Zach had come to expect from him. Still, he could not help but wonder about that spark of mirth that every now and then showed in his butler’s eyes – no matter how appalled he acted at Zach’s oftentimes outrageous behavior. “Gus, old man, how are you today?” Zach greeted him, delighting in the tightening of the man’s lips, a clear sign of his disapproval. Still, there was that spark again, and Zach could not help but grin.
“Quite well, my lord,” Gusford replied in that annoyingly monotonous way. “This was delivered for you.” Giving a slight bow, he held up a silver platter upon which rested a letter that bore Nate’s handwriting.
“Thank you very much, old man,” Zach teased, reaching for his brother’s correspondence. “It’s been a while since I heard from Nate. I admit I was beginning to worry.” He tore open the envelope. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. As you know, he’s getting married soon. I’m certain he has other things on his mind than writing letters to his slightly elder brother.”
By a few minutes at most.
All but squirming where he stood, Gusford seemed utterly uncomfortable with Zach’s overly friendly way of sharing confidences and apparently wished for nothing more than to be dismissed.
Zach grinned. “Do you have a brother, Gus? Or a sister?”
The man’s lips tightened. “A brother, my lord.”
“And are you close?”
“I’m afraid not.” A deeply disapproving tone rested in Gusford’s voice, and his jaw seemed to be clenching harder with each passing moment.
“Is something wrong, old man?” Zach teased before directing his eyes at the parchment in his hands. “You seem uncomfortable. Are your shoes too tight?”
Dimly aware of the fortifying breath his butler took, no doubt in order to maintain this air of calm indifference that always lingered upon his shoulders, Zach nodded to the endearing, old man and then proceeded down the corridor toward his study. His eyes were drifting over the first lines of his brother’s letter when his feet suddenly drew to a halt.
Zach could all but feel the blood draining from his head as he took in his brother’s message.
Words cannot express the sorrow and shame that now live in my chest. I’d thought Abigail a different woman, indeed. I’d thought her heart mine, mine alone. Unfortunately, it seems I was thoroughly mistaken.
As I would make a request of you, dear brother, you deserve to know the fullness of this devastating affair.
A few weeks past, an English lord came to Boston and was paraded around society with the utmost delight. He possessed a charming smile as well as pleasing manners but, as has become clear now, also a black soul.
As far as I was able to deduce, he flattered Abigail, complimented her and whispered to her of marriage and taking her back to England to be his lady. I know now that Abigail was not the only woman he said these words to; neither was she the only one who believed them.
This man, who goes by the name of Lord Mortimer, asked for a token of her affection, and to my great shame and utter sadness, Abigail offered him the ring I’d given her.
Father’s ring.
Then she severed all ties with me, certain to be an English lady before the year was out. However, as far as I was able to ascertain, Lord Mortimer left Boston not three months past – without Abigail or any of the other young women he’d courted.
Shame is now my constant companion for the thought of Father’s ring in that man’s possession turns my stomach and chills my blood. Please, Brother, if possible, do what you can to retrieve it. Not for myself, for I do not believe I shall attempt to open my heart to another ever again. Nor do I believe I deserve to have Father’s ring returned to me.
But you do.
Retrieve it and offer it to the woman of your choice. I pray it will be a wiser one than my own.<
br />
For a long while, Zach simply stood in the corridor as the spring sun shone in through the large windows, illuminating his brother’s clean and precise handwriting on the parchment clutched in his hands.
His heart had stilled, torn between outrage as well as the need to rant and scream, to break something or rather someone – a very specific someone! – and the deepest, soul-crushing sorrow. Zach knew only too well how Nate had loved Abigail, how he probably still loved her despite her betrayal, and the thought of his brother’s suffering almost brought Zach to his knees.
“Gusford!” The word flew from Zach’s lips without thought as the sudden overwhelming need to see his brother gripped him. He knew he needed to go home. He needed to be there for his brother. To stand by his side. To at least attempt to lift his spirits. To ensure that Nate did not blame himself for what had happened.
“Yes, my lord.” With his pale blue eyes slightly narrowed, Gusford appeared before him, a hint of confusion on his face.
“Pack my bags,” Zach barked out, his gaze returning to the parchment slowly surrendering to the unyielding pressure of his hands. “I’m going—”
Home. That was what Zach had wanted to say. Still wanted to say. His eyes locked on to something that instantly stilled his tongue, to my great shame and utter sadness.
Zach hung his head.
Indeed, Nate did already blame himself, and nothing Zach could say would make the slightest bit of difference. If Zach were indeed able to retrieve the ring, then perhaps his brother would be able to forgive himself.
Closing his eyes, Zach remembered the ring that had been on his mother’s finger until the day she’d passed on. A simple gold band with curved lines, twining in a modest pattern around an emerald set in the middle between two smaller diamonds.
It had been the only item of worth their father had brought with him from his old home. His own mother had given it to him, first begging him to stay and then begging him to return. From what their father had told them of his life and family in England, she’d been the only one to see past her second son’s misguided aspirations. Zach had always felt a keen sense of regret for never having had the opportunity to make her acquaintance.