by Ella Edon
The Marchioness’ Buried Secret
She married him without a choice, now she would only choose him...
Ella Edon
Contents
Thank you
About the book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
Afterword
Do you want more Romance?
The Rogue’s Dangerous Confession
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Thank you
About the Author
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About the book
She wasn't supposed to marry him, now she can't live without him...
Emma Thornton was raised all her life dreaming of the perfect gentleman. When her father announces the loss of their fortune Emma is devasted. To save their family legacy from ruin, she has no other choice but to marry the Marquess of Dunberry, a man she knows from infancy and wants nothing to do with.
All Henry Blackmoor wanted was peace, quiet, and distance from his controlling father. When he is issued to marry, Henry detests the idea, even though his bride is the most charming creature he has ever met. But when marital bliss seems to be within their grasp, Emma and Henry will realize that the forces that brought them together, move to tear them apart.
Now they must overcome years of resentment and mistrust while uncovering secrets that will destroy, everything they hold dear...
She married him without a choice, now she would only choose him...
* * *
Prologue
Dunberry Village, England 1803
“Just because you’re a Marquess doesn’t mean you can lord over everyone, Henry!”
Lady Emma Thornton huffed her way through the freshly fallen snow, her walking boots were doing their job keeping her feet warm. She was tired, cold, and irritated.
While normally she loved these trips into the village when her family visited the Earl of Drysdale, being stuck with Henry Blackmoor, The Earl of Drysdale’s first-born son, and the newly titled Marquess of Dunberry, was always a bore.
“Actually, Lady Emma, being a Marquess means I can lord over everyone,” he replied, pushing his spectacles, which kept falling, to a more balanced spot on the bridge of his nose. The spectacles, to Emma, looked too large for him. “Plus, one day these people will be my tenants. When I am Earl they will have to see me as a leader. I should be the one to decide how we deliver the gifts.”
He was so arrogant, Emma could not help but roll her eyes. He may have been four years older than her at sixteen, and he may have been getting a full education at Eton, but that was only because he was more privileged. It certainly didn’t mean he was smarter, not in the least. She was not going to allow him to intimidate her. Being a Marquess was only a courtesy title after all. All sons of Dukes had them. If Henry had a little brother, he would know that. Plus, he wasn’t the Duke, yet. Therefore, as far as Emma was concerned they were on equal footing.
When the day finally came that he would be the Duke, hopefully, she would be long gone from the county and in London, being a Seasonal smash.
Emma had her life all planned out. She would come out at eighteen, like her mother and older sister Mary-anne before her. She would receive her invitation to Almacks, be a smashing success and make an excellent match. She would marry in her second Season, most likely to an Earl, like her father. She would host the best balls and assemblies in town, and by her twenty second birthday she would be mother to at least three children, two lads and a lass. After she had secured an heir, and a spare, for her husband, she would spend her days doing charitable works.
Emma loved reading and learning, above all else, and she could not wait to be a true Lady of influence so that she would have the resources to help women of all social classes learn to read and enjoy books as she did. But, most importantly, she would be far, far away from Henry Blackmoor.
Emma grew up differently than other girls of her station. Other girls were expected to be accomplished, seen, but never heard. Emma was not forced to learn things that held no interest to her. She was free to search out her own interests. Of course, she was expected to be accomplished to secure a good match, but spending hours endlessly embroidering handkerchiefs, or pillowcases was not part of that plan. Her mother and father the Lord and Lady of Elesmere had always encouraged Emma to find her own path, to ask questions, speak her mind, and learn only those subjects that intrigued her.
It was that exact encouragement that fueled her now in challenging Henry in his decision to start at the far end of the village and work their way back toward the Drysdale estate to give the gift baskets, rather than what she knew to be a better way, which was to divide and conquer thus ensuring they would complete the task earlier, and be able to return to the warmth of his father’s parlor.
“If we split up, half of the tenants will not know it was the Marquess of Dunberry who delivered their gifts, it will not do for a Lady not of Dunberry to be giving out such gifts,” he said. “It makes no sense.”
“Henry, the tenants have seen me with your family since I was a toddling babe. They know who you are, and they know who I am. It is cold,” she said. “There is no reason for us to tarry.”
“I suppose if it was known that we were to be married one day that would be true, Lady Emma—”
“How could you even think that Henry Blackmoor?” Emma looked at him aghast.
“What?” he asked feigning innocence. “You know that it is what our fathers wish. With all your incessant planning, I would have thought you would want to be a duchess?”
Emma could think of a million other things she wanted to be rather than the Duchess of Drysdale someday. Surely there were other titled men in the world that were a better choice for her who weren’t arrogant, angry, entitled brats like Henry Blackmoor.
“My plans are none of your concern,” she said, turning away from him, rubbing her hands rapidly in her fur lined muff doing anything she could to keep them warm. “Just because our fathers are friends does not mean we will wed. If you were the last titled gentleman in all of England, I would not marry you.”
> “And what, pray tell, would be so horrid about marrying me?” Henry looked at her as if she were an apparition. She almost giggled at his shock. He simply could not fathom that a girl would not dream of marrying him.
“Well, for one, I would wish for a husband that would be a partner, and not order me around like the lord of the manor. Secondly, you are arrogant. You think you know everything.”
“That is simply ridiculous,” he said. “No one person can possibly know everything. I simply know more than you. But don’t fret, as my wife you would be one of the most influential women in all of England. That is something you have always wanted isn’t it? Besides,” Henry continued. “A woman’s place is to support her husband, not to be his partner. I would be the lord of the manor, there is no other way for me to be.”
Emma uttered a word under her breath that she had only heard used by the stable hands, but that she felt adequately represented her feelings at learning Henry knew even that much about her private thoughts.
“You simply don’t know what you are talking about Henry,” she said. “I no longer care how we deliver these baskets. Can we just get on with it?”
She let out a ragged breath. There was no point to allowing the conversation to continue. She was getting chilled and they hadn’t even delivered one basket. At the rate they were going it would be the new year before they got back to the estate. Her stomach growled loudly, and Henry let out a laugh at her expense.
“I suppose we can, if you are willing to admit that I am right, and you are wrong.”
“I will admit no such thing!”
“When you are older, Emma, you will think differently. We will one day make an excellent match,” he said. The familiarity of which he used her name without the honorific and the finality of his statement made her skin crawl.
I despise him, she thought. Mother and Father would never allow their friend the Earl to dictate a match between us, if I did not want it. At least of that I am sure.
Chapter One
Elesmere Estate, England, 1813
“What do you mean it’s all gone, father?”
“I mean, my dear, all of the money, the un-entailed lands, the horses, the carriage, the servants, it is all gone.” Emma watched in horror as her father, the Earl of Elesmere, a man she had always revered as a giant among men, hung his head in shame.
She looked around his study where they now sat, a room that as a child she had always felt was magical. She had spent hours contemplating if the fox escaped the hunters in the painting of the English countryside that hung on the wall behind her father’s desk, or how it was the fire always seemed to be stoked in the hearth when she had never seen a servant in the room.
She had sat under his large mahogany desk and listened as he conducted business with his man of affairs, or tenants on their land. When the men left, she would pop out and ask her father what it meant that the wheat crop was weak one year. Or how many bales of hay were needed to keep the horses in the stables fed. The earl would smile and answer each of her questions no matter how complicated, or how busy he was. Yet, that was a long time ago, Emma thought. That was before mother…
“How could it all be gone father? What happened?” She sank into the oversized leather chair that sat opposite the hearth and faced her father at his desk. Papers that were usually piled high waiting for her father’s review or signature, were scattered along the top, and some dropping carelessly to the floor.
“Oh Emma, my sweet girl. I have been so reckless,” he said still unable to look her in the eye. “I’ve made a horrible mess of things, and I’m afraid you will be made to suffer for my mistakes.”
“What do you mean, father?” she asked. “How will I be made to suffer? You are speaking in riddles.”
“I fell into a deep despair, when your mother died,” he said.
“I know, father,” Emma replied with condolence.
“I made foolish decisions, gave up so much. I gambled with our funds, not for any true love of sport, but rather thinking I would make our little corner of England so grand. I would make your mother proud.”
“But father, everything in our little corner of England is fine just the way it is.”
“Yes, it was indeed,” he said, rising and walking over to Emma, taking her hands in his own. He looked at her as if she were some kind of apparition, and not the flesh and blood daughter that sat right before him. “And it will be again soon,” he said. “Were your mother alive, she would have not allowed me to do what I have done. I know however she would be pleased with how I have been able to fix it. You too should be very pleased, though knowing you as I do daughter, it will take you some time to see how good this is for you, as well as our family.”
“Father, please tell me what is going on,” she replied. It was unlike him to be so affectionate with her. It was far more common for her father to treat her with a cool aloof air. Emma thought hard for the last time her father had comforted her. It was certainly not often in the five years since her mother’s death.
“It would have been so much worse were I forced into a debtor’s prison. Our name and status lost with no one to care for you. But I have fixed it. I hope you will see it was my only option.” He was speaking rapidly, and in riddles, repeating himself over and over with no true explanation. If Emma did not know it was her father in front of her, she would have thought she was speaking to a crazed man, daft, and perhaps under the influence of some unknown substance.
“Now you truly are terrifying me.” Emma searched her father’s face for some clue as to what he was talking about. It was hard enough to accept that he had gambled away the family money and properties. All though Emma was sure there was a bad investment or two in his ledger as well. Since losing her mother she knew her father’s despair had been great, and Emma had long feared that he kept company with an unsavory gentleman or two from time to time. Yet, until this moment she never thought her father foolish enough to squander their living.
Even though her father was an Earl, they did not have much in way of funds that were not entailed as part of the Earldom. Emma did not know the exact amount. As a lady it never occurred to her to ask. They lived comfortably enough, if simply.
Of course, Emma had new gowns from time to time, in order to stay fashionable, but only for their country entertaining. Since she rarely went to town, and never had a Season, clothing wasn’t her highest priority. She had even forgone spending her pin money, on ribbons, and other adornments, opting instead to use her time and resources to help those in need in the neighboring farms and villages.
They had lands to keep up and a few tenants, but nothing as grand as her father’s closest friend, the Earl of Drysdale who had more land, tenants, and investment than Emma thought decent for one family.
“Emma, darling, there is no need to be terrified,” he said. “All will be well. We will have the funds we need to keep the creditors at bay, and you will be positioned to be one of the most influential women in all of England. Wasn’t that always your dream, Emma, to enrapture the ton with your charms, marry well, and be a woman of means and substance?”
“Father, I was a child. Certainly, you don’t think I still crave those childish dreams.” Emma knew where the conversation was headed, and dread filled her, realizing her father had done the unthinkable.
“Those dreams are not childish at all. It’s what all women should want for themselves, what all fathers want for their daughters, and the match I have made for you will be the success to rival all other successes.”
“The match?”
“The Earl of Drysdale and I have spoken in great length about the matter. His son is in need of a wife. A wife who is accomplished and able to move in the right political circles.”
No, he could not possibly mean…
“Father, you wouldn’t—”
“Darling, you and Blackmoor were friends in childhood, there is a reasonable expectation that you will make a superb match. The Earl is prepared to payoff all of
the debt. Of course, some of the property will not be able to be reclaimed, but the estate can go on. It really is what is best for everyone involved.”
Emma’s head began to spin. She got up and moved to the sideboard where she knew her father kept the good French brandy. She needed fortification.