The Three Evesham Daughters: Books 1-3: A Regency Romance Trilogy

by Audrey Ashwood

  Lady Blankhurst’s driver knew the way, since it was clearly not the first time that Lady Blankhurst had met the priest. Felicity peered out of the window of the carriage and watched how the streets became more and more filthy, the further east they drove. In Mayfair, where the houses of her parents and also Lord and Lady Blankhurst’s manor was located, homeowners paid street children to sweep the pathways and keep them clean from any dirt and waste. In the poorer suburbs of the city, Felicity realised, this was an unnecessary luxury.

  Her heart shuddered inside her chest when she thought that she recognised the tavern where she had met Rupert that fateful night. A man, who was most likely the landlord of the run-down establishment, was emptying a bucket into the gutter. The houses and the passers-by all turned into one big blurry mess. Hastily, she retreated from the window. What if someone were to recognise her? No, that was almost impossible. Felicity had arrived in her maid’s clothes that night, and her face had no significant or distinctive features, neither in a positive nor a negative way. There was no disfiguring scar, which would remind anyone that it was her, and her reddish-coloured hair and brown eyes did not exactly mark her out a beauty, either. Everything about her was rather average looking, from her nose to her mouth to the shape of her face, which was neither round nor oval-shaped, but rather something in between. Slightly less nervous, she noticed that they had left the area that she thought she had recognised, behind.

  “Is everything all right?” Lady Blankhurst inquired and patted Felicity’s hand. “Do not worry, my child, we are almost there. I am well aware that this will come as a huge shock to you when you see for the first time how the people here live. This incredible poverty…” She sighed and left the sentence unfinished. After all, it was not necessary. Felicity understood what her mother’s friend was trying to say, without her having to find the right words.

  The carriage slowed down in front of a house that, obviously, had not been there for very long. Her father had once told her and her sisters about the most horrifying years in the history of the capital, which had been the years 1665 and 1666. First came the plague and then The Fire. After the big Fire of London had destroyed most of the city, over one hundred years ago, the king and his architects had planned to build a much more modern and open-street system, but the Londoners had ruined these plans by simply rebuilding their city themselves. They had scraped together building materials, which sometimes were nothing more than leftover debris, and they had rebuilt whatever, wherever and however they could. For example, Felicity could tell that the house, before which they stood, had been squeezed into a gap between two other houses.

  A small boy sat next to its entrance, marching little sticks in different sizes up and down as if they were toy soldiers and he was the general. When he noticed the carriage, he quickly grabbed his little stick army and stuffed it somewhere into his trousers, which were riddled with holes. Felicity caught her breath when he came running towards them, and she feared that he would be caught underneath the wheels, but when the coach finally came to a halt, she saw the blond head appear once more in front of her window, before it disappeared again.

  Lady Blankhurst’s servant opened the door for them and helped them out of the carriage.

  “Hello, Joseph,” Lady Blankhurst greeted the little boy by his name. “I can see that Pater O’Donnell has told you to guard his door once again.” Felicity was surprised at how familiar the older woman seemed to be with this little boy. It was as if she had known him for a long time.

  “Has anything peculiar happened?” Lady Blankhurst asked.

  The boy straightened his malnourished little body and held up his dirty hand for a salute. “Nope, m’Lady. Apart from ol’ Molly, who still can’t keep ’er hands off the gin, and who the pater ’ad to kick out of the house because of it.” He pulled his little eyebrows together. “She said, if she were to come back, then she’d bring someone with ’er, who would thoroughly kick the papist’s arse, but the pater only said that he was looking forward to it. That’s when she left.”

  Felicity suppressed a shocked smile when the little man spoke about the papists as if they were some kind of outrageous fashion trend, rather than the Catholics he was actually referring to.

  “Who’s that fine lady with you?” the child asked.

  It was bizarre… but looking at the small man and how he was eyeing her curiously, catapulted Felicity straight back to her younger years at school. The eyes of her former governess had been just as penetrating, when Felicity had messed up the lineage of the British kings once again, or whatever other unforgivable mistake she had made back then. She stepped from behind Lady Blankhurst and faced the small boy’s gaze directly.

  “My name is Lady Felicity Carlisle,” she introduced herself and watched, from the corner of her eye, how Lady Blankhurst suppressed a smile. “And you are Joseph. Did I hear that right?” She did not know if that was the way one was supposed to speak to children. She had never really spent much time with any, apart from her younger sister Rose, who was already seventeen years old, which would make her at least five years older than the little man before Felicity. He was so skinny and filthy that it was almost impossible for her to accurately gauge his age.

  In the space of a couple of heartbeats, they openly looked into each other’s eyes. Then the little boy’s face split open in a wide grin, revealing all the teeth that were missing.

  “My friends call me Joe,” he replied. “I’ll tell the pater that you’re ’ere,” he called out to them, before turning on his heels. Lady Blankhurst’s servant helped him to push open the heavy wooden door to the house, and the boy disappeared inside the rather dimly lit hallway.

  “Come, my dear, we will follow him,” Lady Blankhurst prompted, and she lifted up her dress to step over the threshold into the house.

  The first thing Felicity noticed was the bizarre layout of the building. Inside her parents’ house, as well as all of the other town houses she had visited, one would first enter a large square room, from where a wide set of stairs usually led to the upper floors. On the ground floor, there would typically be the parlour, then the study, the dining room, and furthest away from all these rooms, would be the kitchen. On the upper floors, one could find the private rooms, and at the top of the house, beneath the roof, would be the servants’ quarters. Depending on the fortune and status of the home’s owner, certain rooms would either be added or simply not exist.

  Here, however, in this narrow hallway, not even lit up by a few candles, tiny rooms branched off to the left and to the right, and not a single one of them had a door. Walking through, Felicity could see that these rooms had been crammed with as many cots as would fit in the spaces. Once she thought that she could make out a figure beneath a blanket, but she quickly walked on, following the rustling skirts of Lady Blankhurst.

  At the end of the hallway was a door. Just as the servant went to lift his hand to push against it, it opened. Felicity blinked, suddenly blinded by a bright light in which she could just about make out a tall and broad-shouldered figure dressed all in black. She instinctively held her hand in front of her mouth to suppress her startled scream. Then she realised her mistake. For a terrible moment, she had thought that this had been Rupert, who was standing before Lady Blankhurst and her. This man’s stature – the way he held his head, as well as his dark hair crowned by a fiery halo in the brightness of the back light in this room – that and his undistinguishable facial features… she let out the breath she had been holding once she realised what she was actually seeing. This was not Rupert’s ghost, resurrected from his grave to haunt and wreak revenge on her. It was also not the viscount himself, who had miraculously only faked his death. This was simply a broad-shouldered man in casual clothes, who now seemed noticeably embarrassed as he wiped off his hands on his trousers, before leaning over Lady Blankhurst’s fingers to kiss them.

  “Pater O’Donnell, I would like to introduce to you Lady Felicity Carlisle. She has volunteered to help us w
ith our important work here. Lady Felicity, please meet Pater O’Donnell, who is in charge of this house for fallen women and their children here in Whitechapel.”

  There was some awkward bustling in the narrow hallway as the Father brushed past Lady Blankhurst with an apologetic smile to greet Felicity, also with a kiss on her hand.

  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said and smiled at Felicity. Fine lines showed in the corners of his eyes. Not only was he older than Rupert, but after seeing him up close, Felicity realised that he did not bear the slightest resemblance to the viscount at all. When he spoke, his beautiful voice gave a strange contrast to his dark words.

  “Welcome to Hell, Lady Felicity.”

  Chapter 4

  Four weeks later

  “You look very well, my Lord. I wager that the ladies will not be able to get enough of you,” Branwell said with a grin as he handed Luke his hat and cane. Over the last few weeks, a somewhat odd combination of formal and familiar address had been established between them, and it was something both could live with. Luke, on the other hand, found it hard to slip into the skin of Lord Layton, whom he had left behind a year ago.

  Today, he did not like the man who he had been before the war. He had not been a bad man – the old Lord Layton – but one who tended to seek superficial pleasures. He remembered the gambling tables in the back rooms of the slums all too well, much like the meaningless conversations with his so-called friends in the gentlemen clubs. He had kissed whores and duchesses (and more), but only afterwards he realised how shallow those pleasures had been. Still, one thing the lord of those days and the one of today had in common: both had not yet found their way.

  With a sigh, Luke allowed Branwell to adjust the hat on his head. But when his valet began to fiddle about with his bejewelled cufflinks, he had enough.

  “That’s enough!” Luke hissed and circled the cane in the air as if to threaten him. The result was a shattering clanking sound, which immediately caused a worried maid to come running to clean up the pile of chards with a broom and a scoop.

  “What is wrong with you? Aren’t you looking forward to the opera? I thought you liked singing women.” This was a hint at Luke’s affair with a singer – or at least she had thought she was – back in America, which he had enjoyed in secret before the fatal Battle of Lake Erie. He had thought his little fling had remained hidden. Obviously, this was not the case.

  “Yes, that is what I thought, too,” Luke’s father interjected, who had joined them unnoticed. The presence of the old man immediately silenced Branwell. The duke was still an imperious person. If, Luke thought, he was not lying in bed, mimicking a dying man. It seemed as if Luke’s words had cured the seemingly deathly ill patient in less time than it took one to blink.

  The duke also took his hat, coat, and cane from Branwell. The young man was too in awe of the duke to dare put his hands on him to adjust anything.

  “I am glad to hear that my son has not changed in this regard, at least,” the duke said.

  Luke gritted his teeth. By God, he loved his father dearly. He had learned that during the year away from home. But that did not mean that the duke, with his fickle and ever-changing opinions, made it easy for anybody to like him. Luke knew that the duke did not find it easy to show his feelings. He was remarkably similar to him in that regard, preferring to hide his softer side behind a cold façade. But one should be able to expect a little joy that one’s only son and heir to the title had agreed to marry a suitable woman, should one not? All Luke ever heard, instead, was his father’s surprise at his son’s changed character.

  “It almost seems to me that you miss the old Luke,” he countered. “Even though, back then, I often had to listen to you telling me how dissatisfied you were with me and how much you abhorred my manner.”

  A servant opened the front door to the street, where their noble carriage was already waiting. Luke expected not to receive an answer, but as soon as they were seated in the luxurious vehicle and the horses were trotting, the duke leaned forward.

  “I have never felt abhorred by you,” he said and looked Luke straight in his face. “I only abhorred the fact that you did not know what to do with your life.” He fell silent for a short and dramatic pause. “I am glad that you have decided to continue our name, but I wonder what else it is you seek to achieve. I could ask the prince regent to assign you a position in the Foreign Office.”

  This was just another example of a task that his father had done, successfully, for over forty years.

  “No, thank you. I do not feel like deceiving people.”

  “The tasks of a spy are exciting and vital,” the duke continued, and acted as if he had not heard his son’s objection. But at least, he now described the task as it was, and called things by their name, instead of vaguely suggesting a “position in the Foreign Office.”

  “Oh, yes, I can only imagine,” Luke replied with a dry expression on his face. He remembered all those countless times his father had returned home, more or less severely injured. He had been nursed back to health – only to leave for his next adventure as soon as he could. As a child, Luke had often begged to accompany his father.

  Before the atmosphere turned melancholic, Luke changed the subject. “So, who are we meeting tonight? You haven’t told me yet which lady will be continuing the round dance for potential wives for me.”

  “I have invited the Duke and the Duchess of Evesham to join us in our balcony box tonight. They will bring one of their daughters.”

  “Did you not tell me earlier that you had given up the thought of a possible connection with the Eveshams?”

  The Duke snorted. It was not a noise one would hear in the noble parlours or at the tables of high society, but here inside his own carriage, the Duke of Somerset did not hold back. “What kind of world are you living in, boy? By now, Lady Annabelle has become the Countess of Grandover, and from the way she looks at her husband, you will not stand a chance of stealing her from him. No, I am talking about the middle child, Lady Felicity.”

  “No,” said Luke. “That is out of the question. First of all, she is still a child, and second…” He fell silent.

  Just last season, he had witnessed how Lady Felicity had flirted with Viscount Greywood. Luke knew certain things about Greywood, which, even for him, went too far – he, who was well acquainted with brothels and gambling houses. To this day, he remembered vividly how he had tried to warn Lady Felicity about Rupert Greywood. After all, she was not only the daughter of his father’s friends, but she was still an innocent young girl, who had no clue what she was getting herself into. But she had ignored his warning with a mocking remark of ridicule. She had laughed and jumped right into the viscount’s arms and whatever pleasures he had offered her.

  Nevertheless, Luke could not bring himself to share all this knowledge with his father. Some things were better kept to oneself.

  “At eighteen years old, she is no longer a child. Just wait until you see her.”

  “I do not plan to,” Luke replied. He used the hold-up in the busy street to push open the door of the carriage and jump outside, completely disregarding the mud, which splashed up against his trousers and threatened to suck away his shoes. “I have tried, Father. But this… is going too far. Give the duke and duchess my best regards, and let them know that they will have to look for another man for their daughter.”

  For the first time in his life, Luke felt the satisfying gratification of having left his father speechless.

  “Are you sure that you do not want me to call for Doctor Fullerton, my darling?” The duchess’s cool hand rested on her daughter’s forehead. “I really hope you did not contract some kind of infectious disease on one of your excursions. Your father would never forgive me.”

  “I have a headache, that is all, Mama. Tomorrow morning, I will feel much better.” Felicity closed her eyes for a moment to evade her mother’s inquisitive gaze. “I do not need anything other than some sleep. And peac
e.” Ever since the duchess had told her whom they would meet at the opera tonight, Felicity had pondered how she could escape the situation. Luke Thornfield, Lord Layton, son of the Duke of Somerset and soon to be a duke himself, was not somebody she wished to see. Particularly not if her parents had every intention to offering her to him, of all people, as a potential wife.

  It was already degrading enough that amongst all of her former best friends she was the only one who was not yet engaged to anyone. But did it have to be this… this… she could not think of a fitting word to describe Lord Layton. Know-it-all did not nearly do him justice. Neither did moraliser, because his own reputation was barely flawless enough to earn him the title. Hypocrite? Yes, that would do.

  She closed her eyes with relief when her mother kissed her on her forehead and then said goodbye to accept the Duke of Somerset’s invitation to the opera. Felicity felt a sudden heat rise into her cheeks when she remembered her initial encounter with Lord Layton. It had been around a year ago, when Rupert was already vigorously courting her. She was beginning to have feelings for him that went beyond a harmless infatuation.

  At a dance, Lord Layton had waited for his opportunity to take her aside, after watching her and Rupert for the entire evening. At first, Felicity had felt flattered. She had even thought she would boast about her newest conquest to her friends. Lord Layton was one of the most desirable bachelors in London, and his mature age of twenty-seven years actually demanded that he find a loving wife. Luke Thornfield was a very handsome man, dashing even, with his bright-blue eyes in a slightly tanned face. This was just one of the things that distinguished him from the type favoured by her friends, who preferred noble and pale complexions, which Felicity did not like at all. Lord Layton’s movements had seemed strong and yet elegant, whether he was riding his horse through Hyde Park or dancing a waltz with a lady. Perhaps he was not as eloquent as Rupert was, and he also did not have any of his carelessness about him, but in the eyes of many ladies, that made Lord Layton even more interesting. Sometimes, when she saw his dark glance move over the crowd in the room, Felicity found it hard to imagine that this man had ever smiled in his life. Still, in her eyes, neither his good looks nor his alleged romantic melancholy, which he exuded in spades, made up for his impertinence.