Love in the Moonlight: A Regency Romance All Hallows' Eve Collection: 7 Delightful Regency Romance All Hallows' Eve Stories (Regency Collections Book 6)

by Arietta Richmond

  Together they rose and left the room.

  As Kenneth entered the dining-room he perceived that everyone there would become an addition to his family, and that his life was about to be changed forever.

  He had no idea of the extent that change would entail.

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  Regency Romance

  The Superstitious Earl Finds Love

  Katherine Keats

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Copyright © 2017

  For questions and comments contact KatherineKeatsBooks@gmail.com

  Chapter One

  The year had wound around again and played out its pageant without surprise or event. Spring had followed winter, summer had followed spring. The world had turned as it always did and the small village of Old Bridge had remained unaltered. It often felt as if the unremarkable little hamlet had somehow become unstuck from the wheel of time. While the rest of the world moved forward, with wars and intrigues and fashions and invention, Old Bridge stood frozen in time, like some landscape on canvas: unalterable.

  If the people of the little village were aware of this tendency, they didn’t seem to mind it. Indeed, the folk who populated the village seemed to take a curious amount of pride in repeating the same patterns as their ancestors. Eveline wondered often if she might have been just as content were she a natural denizen of Old Bridge’s time locked hills and fields.

  Eveline’s mother was, to the best of her knowledge, in equal measure strong-willed and fanciful. It was a rare combination that had proven detrimental to her fortunes and circumstance when she found herself in love with a young, newly moneyed gentleman of the country. Despite the intercession of her grandparents, neither of whom Eveline had ever seen, Eveline’s mother had eloped with the handsome young entrepreneur and thus become tied to that small village of Old Bridge, from whence the man’s family was derived.

  Though the doctors had attributed it to a severe chill, Eveline had always suspected the town of having killed her mother. She had been six when it happened. She was young, and understood little of the world. Still, she managed to retain, from those few years, a strong memory of her mother’s listless boredom and dissatisfaction with her lot. Her memories were of a beautiful, refined woman who sat staring out of the window, her chin resting on her elbow. Most of all, she remembered the way that her mother would sigh away the days and years, watching absolutely nothing change in the small town where she had become trapped.

  Now, at nineteen years of age, Eveline found herself mirroring her mother in word and deed.

  She did not know how long she had been sitting at the window. The pane of glass she stared through had been cleaned so often, and so well, that one could scarcely even tell that there was glass there at all. Cleaning it was the one chore which Eveline could be relied upon to complete with total dedication. If she noticed the slightest speck of dirt or the smudge mark of a finger, she would clean it off at once. With half her attention on the window pane and the other half on the passers-by and the yellowing leaves of the trees, Eveline reflected on the season ahead

  Autumn had struggled to gain a foothold this year. Summer sun and cloudless skies had clung stubbornly all the way through September. For ladies of leisure looking for husbands, it was a joyous time. Even Eveline, weary of life in time-locked Old Bridge, had enjoyed the endless procession of days spent picnicking in the fields with the other gentlemen’s daughters.

  She suspected that the men out harvesting the year’s crops were less grateful for the heat. Relentlessly hot days made for slow work, and she had become quite used to hearing folk grumble about bad backs and aching joints when she made her daily journey to the village’s only inn. As she listened to the complaints of her neighbours, only one thing seemed to bring them solace: the promise of All Souls’ Day.

  All Souls’ Day celebrations were a curious thing. Eveline’s mother had never approved of them and so, by extension, Eveline did not approve either. For a start, the celebration of All Souls’ Day had almost no currency within civilised society.

  She had been assured that no one in London or the other great cities would mark the occasion. Indeed, the villagers often spoke with a note of pride of having kept faith with the old feast day. Eveline could not understand why they should be so smug about it. To an outsider, the strange rituals and superstitious observances that sprang up in the village before All Souls’ Day likely left the community looking like ignorant savages braying worship to a pagan god.

  “Will you not be going out to see your friends today, dearest?”

  Eveline took a deep breath and her lips drew thin. Whenever her father caught her sitting at the window too long, he always prescribed a trip into the village as the correct remedy for her restless mind. She made no attempt to argue, standing slowly and walking with no great urgency to the door. If she did not agree to venture out to meet with her friends, then her father would only come up with some chore or else send her to the shops for supplies they did not really need. He had become quite crafty in his own way, and seemed to exercise his powers more and more readily these days to keep her from staring off too long into the distant horizon.

  Taking her bonnet and a light shawl, Eveline slipped out through the front door without a word.

  ~~~~~

  As she walked along the dirt road into the centre of the village, Eveline’s dark brown eyes drifted to the various wards placed outside the doors of houses. A plethora of turnips and other root vegetables sat, like tiny lap dogs, outside each of the houses that lined the way, each one carved to resemble some terrible face with a grim visage. These little carved totems, it was claimed, helped to keep unwelcome spirits from entering the home. According to the ever-so-superstitious Mr Jones, such malevolent spirits would see the gruesome carved vegetables and assume that one of their kind must already be inside, tormenting the family. This story impressed many of the youths, though Eveline had always found herself wondering just why the church and man were so fearful of devils and demons. Why fear such creatures when they could be duped by mere root vegetables?

  Coming to the home of her good friend, Mary Thorne, Eveline was pleased to find that no leering vegetables stood guard by the front door, though she knew that her friend would likely put some out at some point. Knocking at the door, she brushed down her morning dress, and ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair to try to make herself a little more presentable.

  When the door opened, Eveline let out a chuckle and shook her head to find her friend holding a half-butchered parsnip in her hands.

  “When I saw your door, I had hoped that your family had decided to put aside superstitious nonsense for one year. Now, I see you’re just struggling to carve a face in a vegetable without cutting the thing to pieces.”

  Mary pouted, looked both ways to check that they were not being observed by their neighbours, then stuck out her tongue. There was a pause as both women eyed each other with serious expressions. It lasted only a moment before they both burst out laughing and Eveline leaned in to give her naïve young friend a hug.

  “It is good to see you, Mary. I am sorry I haven’t been by earlier this week. I’ve been wrestling with myself more than usual and have had little desire to stray far out of doors.”

  Mary’s grin did not abate, as if she hadn’t heard Eveline’s words at all. It was not uncommon for Eveline to go through bouts of melancholy restlessness in her home, but it disappointed her somewhat to see how little the news seemed to concern her friend.

  “Well, I am sure that your brooding desire to have a knight in shining armour steal you away from all this must have been very compelling and agonising for you, but I have news you’ll want to hear, so you’ll have to forgive my not providing the usual sympathetic ear
.”

  Eveline tried to resist a smile but failed. Mary was far and away the best person in the village. Even though she shared the same irritatingly slavish love of her home that the others did, Mary had a singular wit and wry humour that was uncommon among both men and women in the area. She could never hate her, even when Mary so mercilessly teased her. Eveline kept a dignified silence, choosing to ignore the jibe made at her expense.

  Standing next to the hallway mirror, she carefully took off her bonnet and set it down with the utmost dignity.

  “Well then, dear, do tell me what this news is, that has you so wound up. I should warn you though, I will be disappointed if it turns out to be something less than sensational.”

  Mary’s grin widened and she wound her finger about the blonde ringlet curl that dangled by her right ear.

  “Well, if you didn’t rank the arrival of the Earl of Darlington in our little village as sensational news, then I would say that you are rather too hard to please.”

  Eveline could not even feign nonchalance at that surprising titbit of information. All at once, her head turned and her dark brown eyes studied Mary’s face for any hint of a lie or trick.

  “Really? An honest to goodness Earl is coming here to Old Bridge?”

  Mary’s lips continued to spread wider as she dangled the news like some shiny bauble in front of a cat.

  “Well, it would be more accurate to say that he is already here in town - been here two days now, in fact. I would have called to inform you, but I know how you like to be left alone when brooding.”

  “I do not brood!” Eveline pursed her lips and tried to keep her mind on the topic at hand. “But why, what kind of business could a man like that have here? Do say he is here to build a lavish new mansion and add new colour to the village.”

  Mary laughed and shook her head.

  “I assure you, I, and all of the other young ladies, are doing our very best to make him consider such a venture. As it is, it seems he has come by to view the local festivities.”

  “Festivities? You mean All Hallows and the hiring fare?” Eveline was doubtful and began to suspect that this Earl might just be an elaborate lie concocted by Mary to torment her.

  Mary shrugged her shoulders. Her blue eyes seemed to be gazing off into some dreamy distance far away from Eveline.

  “I know it seems unlikely, but he is here. I don’t much care how he came to hear of our community or why he wishes to sample the local flavour so badly, but I am not going to be the one to stop him.”

  Eveline crossed her arms and shook her head. She let out a slight tutting noise.

  “My, your dreamy look has me worried. He must be quite handsome… perhaps I should introduce myself to him on my rounds today, as you are obviously too busy carving turnips.”

  Mary looked down at the half effaced white vegetable in her hand and put it down on a table in irritation.

  “Joke all you like, Eveline. I am afraid it is an open field when it comes to this gentleman and I, and most of the other women in the village, already have the upper hand on you.”

  Eveline was becoming more intrigued by the second.

  “You mean that he has spoken to everyone already. He must be quite the oddity to converse so freely with common folk. Do you think he is, perhaps, looking for a country bride… or perhaps he is more nefarious and seeks only an autumn romance to pass the time before the next London Season begins in earnest?”

  Mary laughed.

  “You wouldn’t say such things if you had met him. He is far too charming and honest in face to be such a villain. Though I will admit it is a little strange.”

  Eveline gave a slight nod in agreement and picked up her bonnet that she had only just put down. “Well, I think then that our time would be much better served wandering the village on a fine day like this, don’t you Mary?”

  “You don’t even like the village,” Mary reminded her while simultaneously grabbing her cloak. “Besides, before you get too far ahead of yourself, there is another piece of news I should really pass on, before you go trying to seduce a member of the peerage.”

  “Oh, and what is that?”

  Eveline stood by the doorway, fingers already wrapped around the handle as she waited to go.

  “Joshua Byrd was making some rather grand declarations about you over the last few days. Ever since he had his romantic fortune divined for him it seems that his mind has been set on asking for your hand.”

  Mary’s face was far more serious now, the friendly banter now passed.

  Eveline took a deep breath and her hand clutched the door handle a little tighter, as though it were some anchor preventing her from falling away. There was a long moment of quiet before she could force a smile back to her lips.

  “Well then, I had best hope that my great charms might persuade this Earl to make enquires ahead of him.”

  Her smile faded rapidly when Mary did not laugh at the joke. Deciding that she needed air, Eveline opened the door and stepped outside.

  Chapter Two

  Eveline did not need to defer to her friend’s knowledge when seeking the Earl of Darlington out. One of the few times that living in a small, rural community proved advantageous was when it came to seeking a person out. If a person was not at home, they were either at their work, socialising at the unimaginatively named Old Bridge Inn, or purchasing goods in the village’s select number of shops. Of course, in the case of the visiting Earl, the most likely place for him to be was at the Inn, where he was doubtless renting a room.

  As Eveline strode down the road towards the village Inn, she found her pace slowing as important questions began to frame themselves in her mind. Perhaps the most important one was how she would be received by this Earl if she were to simply walk brazenly into the Inn and introduce herself. Beyond this, she realised that she knew nothing about the man except for his title. It was not a promising start. Sheepishly, she stopped in her tracks and turned to Mary. A little red coloured her cheeks as she noticed the amused smile on her friend’s face.

  “Oh, are we stopping?” Mary let out a demure chuckle as she drew level with Eveline. “A pity. I was really hoping to see you burst through the Inn doors and announce yourself loudly to our esteemed visitor. I felt certain that you would do so by the hurried pace you set from my house.”

  Eveline tried to control her blush, but the heat would not depart from her face.

  “I am sure that you were just as eager to see such a rare breed of man in our little slice of nowhere.” She sighed and shook her head. Try as she might to justify herself, she had really acted in too much haste. At least it was only Mary who had seen her behaving so recklessly. While her friend might make wry jibes at her expense over it, she would not spread word of it around. “Well… I suppose I should wait until I am introduced to the man… which I suppose you will have to do, as you already have made his acquaintance.”

  Mary’s amused smile became a wicked grin. It was the same kind of smile she wore before playing a winning hand at the card table.

  “I suppose it really must fall to me to introduce you. My, you had better hope that I am feeling charitable enough to allow you to enter this particular competition. There are already a number of other women I am having to compete with, in order to keep the man’s attention. I would not wish to injure my chances further by allowing you to toss your name into the ring.” She paused for a moment, seeming to savour the power she held. “Then again, it is true that you are little threat to me. Your more than common brown hair and muddy eyes are no match for the beauty of golden blonde hair and crystal blue eyes.”

  Eveline tried to resist a smirk. She wanted so badly to appear offended, but it was impossible to be so with Mary, when she acted like this.

  “So, you’ll introduce me then?”

  Mary shrugged her shoulders, clearly enjoying the chance to tease her friend for as long as possible. Still, when she answered, her voice was more serious.

  “I do not think that it w
ould do for us to simply walk in. As much as the Earl of Darlington is a personable man, I think we would seem a little too keen were we to accost him.”

  Eveline gave a slight nod, her lips puckered a little as she tried to decide on the best course.

  “The gentleman is here for pleasure you said. I suppose he takes walks across the nearby hills and woods?”

  “Yes.” Mary looked down the road towards the river. “In point of fact, he likes to follow the river course and has made some quite remarkable sketches on his walks.”

  Eveline smiled.

  “An artist too? This man is becoming more and more appealing by the moment. It is rare enough to meet a man of fortune and rank. That he might actually possess some meaningful interests… Next you will be telling me that he is handsome too.”

  Mary blushed, which came as a surprise to Eveline. While she played the role of a perfectly refined girl much of the time, she was usually quite outspoken and unabashed when discussing such things with her friend. She did not answer the question, but averted her eyes and coughed twice. Eveline could not fathom what had taken hold of her until a voice from behind caught her attention and caused her to freeze up.

  “Miss Eveline? Miss Eveline, I thought it might be you.”

  All talk of the mysterious visitor and, indeed, any hope of meeting him were suddenly destroyed by that voice which tailed her, and had dogged her for months. It was a voice that had been responsible for her most recent decision to cloister herself away at home.

  Eveline had to really work to force the muscles in her face to form a stilted smile. Of late, her body had been in open rebellion against her whenever she was forced to meet with the man, stubbornly refusing to put on any of the airs expected of her. She took two deep breaths before turning smartly on her heels and facing the unwelcome presence.

  “Mr Byrd, it seems that your powers of observation are as keen as ever. You must be a terror to the fowl when shooting if your sights are as good at hunting as they are in finding me.”