by Mia Marlowe
Lawrence drew a deep breath. He was his father’s heir. “What’s to be done?”
“We show this letter to your uncle and convince him to do the right thing.”
“And if he will not?” Caroline asked.
“Then we haul him before the House of Lords with our evidence, and the result will be the same.” Bredon pointed to the letter. “Trust me, Sinclair, I have a vested interest in seeing you elevated to the earldom. I’d rather my sister were a countess than a major’s wife.”
Caroline tucked her hand into the crook of Lawrence’s arm. “I don’t care which I am, so long as I’m his.”
He covered her hand with his. Just when I thought I couldn’t love her more.
* * * *
Supper turned into a celebration. The rest of the evening was filled with music and dancing and good-natured fun aimed at embarrassing the newly married couple. Lawrence and Caroline were put to bed, supposedly for the first time, by their families and left in peace to consummate their union.
“Quite satisfactory, my lord,” Caroline said once they lay spent and gasping on the fresh sheets.
“Only satisfactory? I can do better than that.”
“If you can, I’m a dead woman.”
Caroline didn’t die. But he did make her cry out loud enough for Bredon to tease him over it at breakfast the next morning before any of the ladies joined them. The Lovell brothers slapped his back and cuffed him upside the head as they passed behind him. He’d acquired not just a wife, but a whole quiver of new relations intent on making him part of their big, boisterous family.
Lawrence hadn’t felt that sort of acceptance since Ralph died. Ben, Charles, Thomas, and especially Bredon, were his brothers now. Only one masculine face was missing from the table.
“Where’s Rowley?” Lawrence helped himself to a heaping plate of coddled eggs and kippers. Cook had outdone herself with the light, fluffy rolls. Lawrence took three.
Married life made a man hungry.
“Probably still abed,” Bredon said. “That scoundrel doesn’t rise before noon if he can help it.”
“Not today, sir,” Dudley said as he reheated Bredon’s tea. Because Ware wasn’t accustomed to so many guests, Dudley had been pressed into service as a footman once more. Lawrence only hoped the fellow wouldn’t spill scalding water on Bredon. He’d waited a long time to have a brother. It’d be a shame to ruin one now. “I chanced to see Lord Rowley head for the stables just after sunup.”
Bredon frowned. “He rarely shows such industry.”
“Unless…” Lawrence left his breakfast and hurried to the earl’s study. His study now, he reminded himself.
Bredon fell into step behind him. “Where did you put that letter?”
They feared the same thing. “I locked it in the earl’s desk.”
My desk.
When Lawrence pushed open the door to the study, it was obvious the place had been quietly ransacked. Every drawer was open, and several dozen ledger books lay crack-spined on the floor. Worst of all, the one locked drawer in the large mahogany desk had been pried open.
The letter was gone.
Chapter 29
Could a sunrise in Zanzibar be lovelier than the ones here at Ware? Though I may never settle the question by direct experience, I shall always believe they could not be.
—from the journal of Mrs. Lawrence Sinclair
Caroline stood at the window, drinking in the green hills and the blue peaks beyond them. Her throat ached at the beauty of it all. Now that she’d seen Ware, how would she ever bear to leave it? Especially since by rights, it all belonged to her husband. A week had passed since Lord Rowley had disappeared with the letter. Lawrence and her brothers had set off immediately, but no trace of him could be found on the main roads. After a few days, they’d discovered he’d made for Maryport and taken ship. All they could do was wait to see what came of it.
“There is no question of what he’s done,” Horatia said from her place on the settee. She had draped a skein of yarn around Frederica’s outstretched hands and was now winding it into a tight but untidy ball. “Lord Rowley has taken that letter to Lord Ware.”
“Don’t you mean to Lord Ware’s uncle?” Freddie pointed out. “Mr. Sinclair is really the earl, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Don’t muddle the issue. I’m talking about Lord Rowley,” Horatia explained with exaggerated patience. “Honestly, Freddie, and to think you were going to give him the supper dance at Lord and Lady Frampton’s ball.”
“But in the end I didn’t. I do think it’s what happens in the end that counts. Isn’t that right, Caro?”
“Yes, Freddie,” she said, not leaving her place by the window. Sometimes she thought she’d spent the better part of her life by a window, waiting for something, anything, to signal the next change in her life. “What happens in the end is what counts.”
But why couldn’t the right thing happen?
By all that was holy, Lawrence was the earl. He ought to have been raised in privilege and with pride of place. Instead, he was treated as a poor relation and given only grudging leavings by his noble family. It hurt her heart to think he might be cheated of all he was born to yet again.
Not that Caroline put any store in titles. She wasn’t dazzled by the prospect of a countess’s coronet. It didn’t signify in the slightest because, by virtue of her birth, she’d always be Lady Caroline no matter who she’d married. But Lawrence had been so deeply happy when he’d learned his true heritage.
That was what mattered.
Then she spied a coach approaching, coming down the long, winding lane. No crest gleamed from its side, but she knew, without knowing how, that it must be the old Lord Ware coming back to assert himself. Lawrence must have seen it, too, for she saw him walk outside and then stand, hands fisted at his waist, waiting for the conveyance to stop.
Without a word of explanation to her friends, Caroline flew out of the parlor, into the grand foyer, and out the big double doors to stand beside her husband. By the time she reached him, Lawrence’s uncle had already climbed from the coach and was handing down his new wife. Caroline spared a moment of pity for Penelope Braithwaite, who looked rather green about the gills.
Dusty, hot, and bumpy, coach travel was not for everyone. Especially not a woman in the early months of confinement.
Rowley emerged after them, an evil grin on his handsome face.
Caroline could bear it no more. “Oliver, how could you?”
“Rather easily, as it turns out. Before I left London, I happened to hear that Lord Ware and his bride were honeymooning in Bath. Finding His Lordship was only a matter of a short voyage from Maryport, a few discreet inquiries, and—”
“No,” Caroline interrupted. “I mean how could you betray us this way?”
“Again, rather easily,” Rowley said. “But I prefer not to look on this as a betrayal. It’s more of an investment. Am I right, Lord Ware?”
“Rest assured, Rowley,” Lawrence’s uncle said gruffly, “you will be rewarded.”
“So you have the letter,” Lawrence said.
“I do,” his uncle confirmed. “Without it, you have no claim to the earldom.”
He was right. Even if her family, her friends, and she and Lawrence swore on a stack of Bibles that they’d seen the letter and read the earth-shattering revelations it contained, without physical proof of the late Lady Ware’s confession, no court in the land would rule against Harcourt Sinclair.
Lawrence and his uncle locked gazes. Her new husband had confided that he had a violent streak, and Caroline had seen it in action in Lord Frampton’s smoking room. But surely Lawrence wouldn’t set upon his uncle. If he lost control of that “inner warrior,” as he called it, he’d never forgive himself for attacking a man so much older than he.
“No, Nephew, you have no cl
aim at all without that letter,” Harcourt Sinclair said. “But you do have an uncle who believes in duty. First, last, and always. And a man’s ultimate duty is to the truth.”
He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew the aged foolscap. Then he held it out to Lawrence.
“Take it and take Ware,” his uncle growled. “I give it into your keeping, a strong estate on a sound footing. Try to keep it that way.”
Astonished, Lawrence took the letter from Harcourt’s hand. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Hmph. Still don’t have a nut in your noggin, eh? Some things never change. Even so, I expect you’ll make more of Ware than your wastrel father would have.” He turned to go. His bedraggled bride trailed after him.
“Wait. Where will you go, Uncle?”
The former earl rounded on him. “What do you care? I sent you out into the world to fend for yourself. I expect you to do no less to me.”
“But I’m not like you. Unless it be with respect to duty,” Lawrence said. “As the Earl of Ware, it is my duty to see to the comfort and living of my close relations. We have never seen eye to eye on anything, Uncle, but like it or not, we share Sinclair blood. We are…family.”
“I won’t take charity from you.”
“I wouldn’t offer it.” Harcourt Sinclair had been left with nothing. Lawrence decided to give the old man a way to accept his help without damaging his pride. “But I will need an adviser as I take my place as the earl. You are uniquely qualified to serve in that capacity.”
His uncle squinted at him. “I am, at that. But we’ve hated each other so long, I don’t see how we could abide spending time with each other.”
“Perhaps in small doses to start. I’ve resented you, Uncle. That’s true enough,” Lawrence admitted. “But I’ve never hated you.”
A muscle jerked in the old man’s cheek. “Don’t expect me to move into the manor and live under your thumb all day and night.”
“No. I was thinking you and your new wife would take residence in the dower house.”
Harcourt scoffed. “Now I see your game. You’d love to see me living in squalor, wouldn’t you?”
“Actually, Lawrence has just had the dower house completely redone because you said his mother would be moving into it. We’d like to keep her here in the manor with us, so the cottage is yours.” Caroline turned her brightest smile on the old curmudgeon. “Trust me, sir. It’s a charming place because it was rehabilitated with love.”
And perhaps, with love and time, her husband’s relationship with his uncle might be rehabilitated as well.
Harcourt glanced at his bride, who smiled weakly back at him. He held out a hand to Lawrence. “Very well. I accept your offer, Nephew.”
The men shook hands.
“Wait a moment. What about me?” Rowley whined. “I was promised a reward.”
Harcourt cast him a scathing look and then turned back to Lawrence. “I’d like to offer my first piece of advice.”
“I’m listening.”
“Rowley wants a reward. Give that ninnyhammer what he deserves.”
“With pleasure!” Lawrence threw a punch to Rowley’s jaw that sent the man sprawling on the pea gravel. He sat up, spitting blood and one of his eyeteeth. Its loss would spoil his looks for life.
“You’ve ruined me, Sinclair,” he wailed.
“You ruined yourself, Rowley. Now get off my land.”
Rowley limped away.
Then Lawrence turned to Caroline, clasping both her hands in his. “I won’t be taking that commission now.”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“But I do want to take you to Zanzibar.”
“Someday, love. There’s ever so much for us to do here.”
They’d drawn quite a crowd, with all Caroline’s brothers, her mother and Lawrence’s, as well as her friends, gathered round. But even with all those onlookers, he pulled her into his arms and bent to touch his forehead to hers.
“Traveling to Zanzibar is your dream,” he said softly. “I want to make all your dreams come true.”
“You have. You do. Besides, Zanzibar is an island, a fixed place on the map, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then it will be there when we’re ready for it. Right now, being your wife, living here at Ware, that’s enough adventure for me.”
“You’ll let me know if that changes.”
“It may,” Caroline said with a smile. She was a weathercock, after all. “Don’t be surprised if you find a packed trunk in the foyer someday.”
He kissed her long and deeply. “As long as you also pack one for me.”
Lord Bredon and the Bachelor’s Bible.
Read on for an excerpt from Mia Marlowe’s next historical romance!
Prologue
A drizzly Tuesday afternoon in London, 1816
Lady Daly studiously avoided the coffin at the far end of the parlor and concentrated instead on the living mourners milling about the dead man. She leaned toward the woman next to her and whispered, “What did he die of?”
Her friend did not bother to whisper back. “It wasn’t of loneliness, of that you may be certain.”
No one in polite society would fail to recognize the snide voice of the second speaker. It belonged to Lady Ackworth, the self-appointed arbitress of good behavior and the general terror of the ton. She kept a running account of all the rakes and roués making the rounds of the great houses and delighted in naming and shaming their hapless conquests. She knew who owed whom exorbitant gambling debts and whose credit was no longer welcome at fashionable establishments. It was generally accepted that if Lady Ackworth didn’t know of a thing, it couldn’t be of much import and, in fact, had probably never happened.
“Sir Erasmus Howard rarely suffered from the lack of feminine companionship,” Lady Ackworth went on more softly, “especially when Lady Howard was not in Town.”
It was only a whisper, but the unkind accusation seemed to swirl in the air above their heads. However, if the gathered crowd of mourners in Sir Erasmus’s London town house heard the gossip’s unkind patter, they were too well-bred to show it. Shortly, the entire assembly would form a procession from the Howard residence to the church on the next block, where a brief service would be held, followed by immediate interment in the small churchyard.
It wasn’t usual for ladies of quality to complete the entire ritual, a graveside being considered too stark a reality for their delicate constitutions, but Lady Ackworth was not the sort to do anything by halves. She’d see Sir Erasmus firmly in the ground, no matter how soggy the walk to his yawning grave.
How else could she speak with authority on the event in the days to come?
“Sadly, infidelity is not an exceptional failing among gentlemen nowadays.” Lady Daly eyed a few peers she suspected of the fault.
“It has always been thus, and frankly, I can’t imagine what gentlewoman would have it otherwise. Once one has had children, one needn’t be troubled with that marital duty, and good riddance to it, say I.” Lady Ackworth made a small moue of distaste. “However, Sir Erasmus would have done well to be more discreet.”
Other than that all-too-common fault, the gossips agreed Lady Howard had little room for complaint in her marriage. Sir Erasmus had provided lavishly for her. His young wife never wanted for jewels or a wardrobe cut in the first stare of fashion. If Lady Howard wished to improve one of her husband’s many homes, he apparently trusted her judgment on the matter, for he opened his purse wide to let her spend whatever was necessary.
“In many respects,” Lady Daly said, “Sir Erasmus Howard was a fine husband.”
“Indeed. But was Lady Howard a fine wife?”
“She’s managed his funeral well enough.” Lady Daly fingered the delicate black gloves tied up with a sprig of rosemary and a long length of ebony rib
bon. Quite correctly, she’d been given the mourning token when she arrived, as had Lady Ackworth. The gentlemen assembled had all been presented with black hat bands and handkerchiefs. The house was draped with ebony bunting, and the servants presented appropriately somber expressions while they offered refreshments, which were routinely ignored. No one could fault Lady Howard for not following the prescribed mourning rituals.
At that moment, the widow appeared at the head of the long staircase and made her way sedately down. She seemed to be floating, for her head of raven hair didn’t bob a bit and there was a becoming sheen to the whites of her dark eyes, evidence, no doubt, of private grief.
Lady Daly nodded in tacit approval. It was beyond distasteful to express strong emotion in public, but a hint of contained sadness was wholly proper.
The widow didn’t smile to acknowledge the presence of the other mourners. At least not by conscious volition. Everyone who knew the lady was aware that, by a trick of musculature, the corners of her mouth naturally turned up ever so slightly.
The effect was reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, of whose enigmatic smile Lady Daly had only heard rumors. She found it charming. Lady Ackworth, on the other hand, always held that the tiny expression revealed a bit of smugness, as if Lady Howard were keeping a delicious secret and the slight smile betrayed her.
“She looks terribly pale, doesn’t she?” Lady Daly said.
“Black will do that to a body.” Lady Ackworth smoothed the skirt of the bombazine gown she kept at the ready for just such occasions. “It makes everyone appear wan, which equals boring. Look at me. I’m positively peaked.”
However, Lady Daly didn’t think Lady Howard appeared wan or boring. She looked far lovelier than a widow ought. There was a huge difference between pale and listless, and pale and…mysterious.
“I’ve heard her new situation means she’ll have to come down in the world quite a bit,” Lady Daly leaned in to whisper.