The Risqué Resolution

by Jillian Eaton

  “Do not do this Abby,” he said gruffly. “We said our goodbyes. There is no need to make this harder than it already is.”

  There was every need, but Abigail merely nodded. The time for words had passed. There was nothing else she could say. Nothing else she could do. “I hope you have a happy life.” Shoulders pulled back, hazel eyes sparkling with unshed tears, she took a deep breath and walked out the door.

  As he watched her leave, Reggie knew only one thing for certain: with Abby gone he would never know true happiness again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thirty Years Later

  Marseilles, France

  The funeral was short and bittersweet.

  Standing over the freshly dug grave of the woman he had called his wife for twenty seven years, Reginald disguised his quiet grieving behind a mask of stoicism. The stiff autumn air pulled at his cloak, sweeping it off his shoulders. Beneath the swath of black fabric he stood tall, a formidable man even at the progressed age of fifty and two.

  His hair was more gray than brown now and wrinkles creased his face, but time had treated him fairly and aged him well, rather like a fine wine that grew more potent as the years passed it by.

  Murmuring a quiet prayer, Reginald knelt to lay a single white rose on the overturned earth and with one final, lingering glance bowed his head and walked away from Theresa’s final resting sight. She was beside her parents now, which he knew she would have vastly preferred to being brought back to England and buried at Ashburn, an estate she had never cared for nor frequented more than a handful of times.

  Their lives had been in France, much to his mother’s everlasting dismay. It was where they built a home. Where Theresa bore him three daughters. Where one of them died before her fifth birthday. Where they learned to live, and even occasionally laugh, together. Their union was never intended to be a love match, but there had always been affection and respect both given and received.

  If they found physical comforts beyond the marriage bed neither complained and in the later years of their marriage when they lived separate lives, both of them were content in the knowledge they had always been kind to one another.

  Leaving the small, well tended graveyard behind Reginald followed a narrow footpath to the bluffs that ran along the edge of the property. It was a cold, blustery day and the salt air stung his eyes, summoning tears he wiped briskly away.

  Soon it would be winter. Theresa’s beloved gardens would go dormant and the cold would gnaw mercilessly at his aching bones. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Reginald wondered when the bloody hell he’d grown so old.

  This winter would be his fifty second. It was a lifetime for some. A fleeting second for others. Where had the time gone? To a wife he cared for but did not love. To children he loved but did not know.

  With Theresa dead and buried, there was nothing left for him here. His two daughters had moved on years before, drawn back to England to begin and raise families of their own. He missed them, but as he stood on the edge of the cliff and stared down at the waves crashing violently in a spray of raging white surf against the rocks below, Reginald did not think of his daughters or his grandchildren or even his deceased wife. He thought, as he always had, as he always did, of Abby.

  And he yearned.

  Abigail had only one thing on her mind.

  Crumpets.

  Bustling through her small, tidy townhouse – the passage of the time may have given her more gray hairs than she would have liked, but it had done nothing to dull her energy – she zipped through the parlor, whisked through the foyer, and came up short in the kitchen, an expression of horror slowly dawning on her face as she took in the porcelain plate sitting empty on the table.

  “The crumpets. What happened to the crumpets?”

  “I ate them all.” Stepping out from behind an open cupboard balancing a stack of white serving plates trimmed with delicate pink roses, Lady Dianna Foxcroft – Abigail’s beloved niece and apparent devourer of sweet – smiled innocently at her aunt.

  A remarkably pretty young woman with short blond curls, a heart shaped face boasting two matching dimples, and cornflower blue eyes, Dianna lived on the other side of the park with her parents but frequented Abigail’s townhouse more than she did her own. The two shared a close bond, one that had been forged during Dianna’s childhood when her parents dedicated more time to their various social causes than they did to their only child.

  Since her best friend Miss Charlotte Vanderley – Graystone now, following her impromptu and rather scandalous wedding to Gavin Graystone, a handsome entrepreneur – had retired prematurely to the country, Dianna had been calling upon her aunt more often than usual. Normally Abigail would have welcomed the extra attention, but not at the expense of her beloved crumpets.

  “Did you truly eat them all?” she said, aghast at the very idea.

  Dianna giggled. “No, Aunt Abigail, I did not eat them all. Calm yourself,” she said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. “You know too much excitement is not good for your digestion. I put them by the window to cool. They will be ready to eat in a moment or so.”

  “Brat,” Abigail said with great affection. “I thought I raised you better than to play practical jokes on poor old women.”

  Dianna set the serving plates down on the table and pulled out two chairs, one for Abigail and one for herself, before she went to the window to fetch the plate of crumpets. She set them down in the middle of the table before sinking gracefully into her seat with only a slight flutter of blue muslin. “First of all, you are not old. Second of all, you are the one who used to encourage my pranks! Do you remember when you coaxed me into putting a frog in Mother’s drawer of unmentionables?”

  Abigail sniffed even as she hid a smile behind her hand. Dianna may have inherited her poise and ladylike grace from her mother, but her mischievous nature came purely from her aunt. “I am quite certain I have no idea what you are speaking of,” she said.

  Unfazed by Abigail’s prim denial, Dianna continued, “She was cross with me for weeks. Not to mention when we put some of Father’s scotch in the lemonade at the picnic—”

  “Eat your crumpet dear, it is getting cold.”

  They ate in companionable silence, and when the plate was empty and the dishes wiped clean retired to the parlor for a spot of tea. Dianna sat in front of the pianoforte and began to play a soft, lilting tune that brought to mind flowers in the springtime and rolling fields covered in sparkling dew.

  “You have been practicing,” Abigail observed with no small amount of pride. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with a little sigh, letting the music wash over her in a tinkling wave of notes. This was what she had always wanted and never let herself dream: a house filled with music and children and light and laughter. She could have had all of that, she supposed. But without Reginald beside her it would not have been true, and having something be only half of what you wished it was far worse than not having it at all.

  “Aunt Abigail, I have been thinking about what you said all those weeks ago in the carriage,” Dianna said suddenly.

  Abigail opened her eyes to find Dianna had stopped playing and was watching her, a troubled expression marring her fair countenance.

  “Oh?” she said, her brow creasing in thought as she struggled to recall what conversation would give her niece reason to remember it after so much time had passed. As Dianna’s chaperone she accompanied the younger woman on nearly every outing and they often discussed a myriad of topics ranging from the weather to Dianna’s tenuous relationship with her parents. Nothing out of the ordinary immediately came to mind, forcing her to ask, “What did I say?”

  “Charlotte was with us,” Dianna began, referring once again to her dearest friend, “and we were on our way to Twinings Tea Shop.”

  That hardly helped to narrow it down. “I am afraid you will have to be more specific.”

  “Your engagement to the Duke of Ashburn.”


  Reginald.

  Abigail’s breath escaped in a little hiss of dismay. She had never meant to tell Dianna and Charlotte of her one time fiancée, but given Charlotte’s predicament at the time it seemed a rather fitting story to share.

  They had been on their way to Twinings, just as Dianna said. Charlotte was meeting with her maid to learn more information about the heinous man she was engaged to against her will, and Abigail was attending as their chaperone.

  Now that she had a reference as to what conversation Dianna was referring to, it played back through her mind as though it had happened yesterday instead of weeks ago.

  “I was engaged to a duke once, you know,” she had said, setting aside the book she had been reading on the carriage seat beside her.

  “A duke, Aunt Abigail?” Dianna had repeated dubiously. “Are you certain?”

  “Am I certain who I was once engaged to?” She smiled, amused by her niece’s incredulous expression. “Yes, I do believe I am. I may now spend my days with my nose buried in a book, but it wasn’t always so, my dears. I once led quite the exciting life.”

  “What was his name?” Charlotte asked.

  “And what happened?” Dianna piped in.

  Taking a moment, she smoothed her skirt into place before resting her hands across her lap. She gazed out the window, her countenance softening as she remembered a time long since past. “His name was Reginald Browning the Third, Duke of Ashburn.” The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I called him Rocky. We grew up next to each other and as a result became fast childhood friends, even though he was destined to inherit a dukedom and I was the third daughter of a Baron. He asked me to marry him on my seventeenth birthday. He was the impulsive sort. We both were.”

  “Oh, how romantic,” Dianna sighed.

  “Romantic, yes. Practical, no. Rocky’s mother was furious with him, and with me. She demanded he break the engagement. By then it had gone public, of course.”

  “Oh dear,” Dianna murmured.

  “Yes,” Abigail agreed, “‘oh dear’ sums it up quite nicely. Rocky said he loved me, and I believed him. But we both knew the engagement could not continue, and he ended it a week later. We fell out of touch after that. I saw him occasionally in London, but after his father died and he became a duke he ran with a more exclusive set than I did. He ended up married to the daughter of a marquess, I believe, and moved to France to be near her family. I have not seen him since.”

  “Were you heartbroken when it happened?”

  Dianna’s question, bluntly spoken, drew Abigail out of the past and into the present. Had anyone else asked her about Reginald she would have changed the subject, but if Dianna wanted the truth, then she would receive.

  “I was,” she confessed. Her hands twisted in her lap and for a moment she stared at her left ring finger where the Ashburn crest had once rested. She wondered now, as she had wondered then, how different her life would have been if the ring remained there still. But she banished the wayward thought with an inward shake of her head, chasing away all of the “would haves” and the “could haves”.

  Dianna bit her lip. “I do not mean to pry, but I have been giving my own engagement considerable thought lately. I never loved Miles as you loved your Rocky, but it still hurts.”

  The Mannish women, Abigail reflected dryly, were quite unlucky in terms of love. Of her three sisters only Martha had ever married, and it was not precisely what one would call a happy union.

  Rodger Foxcroft, a baron of some wealth and property, had swept Martha off her feet in a matter of weeks and she was married before the season’s end. Unfortunately, by the time Dianna was born the passion between Rodger and Martha had cooled considerably and they lived completely separate lives; a sad, albeit not uncommon, occurrence within the ton.

  That did not stop them from forcing the same fate upon their daughter, however, and Abigail’s mouth twisted in anger as she thought of the ridiculously outdated betrothal contract her sister and brother-in-law had made Dianna enter at the young, impressionable age of nine.

  To her surprise and relief, however, it seemed for a time as though all would be well. Dianna and her future husband – a charismatic lad who would one day inherit the Earldom of Winfield – got along splendidly as children and continued their friendship into young adulthood. But the day before Dianna’s sixteenth birthday Miles left to travel the continent.

  That was four years ago, and no one had heard a word from him since.

  “It must be positively dreadful for you,” Abigail said sympathetically. “I cannot imagine.” To lose Reginald was bad enough, but at least she knew what had happened to him. To go through her life never knowing… It was unbearable to think about. “I do not mean to upset you, dear, but do you know how much time must pass for one to be declared legally deceased? If that were to happen then you would be free from the contract.”

  “His mother claims she still receives letters from him,” Dianna said, a rare sliver of bitterness creeping into her tone. “I fear she lies, but what proof do I have?”

  “What proof indeed,” Abigail murmured. She sighed and straightened in her chair. “When I lost Reginald, it was a decision we came to together.” More or less. “We were foolish to ever think we could be married.”

  Dianna’s blue eyes darkened. “You were not foolish, you were in love.”

  “Stupidly so,” Abigail agreed.

  “Do you… Do you still think of him? After all this time?”

  Every day. “Once in a great while.”

  “You must despise him for what he did.”

  “Oh, no,” she said honestly. “When I remember him and our time spent together it is with great affection and fondness. We were children, Dianna, and were both forced to pay the price for our impetuousness. But that part of my life is long over.” Reaching out blindly, she grasped her tea cup and took a liberal sip of the cooling liquid. “Best not to dwell on the past, my dear. Memories are what they are. You cannot change them.”

  One of Dianna’s shoulders lifted and fell in an elegant shrug. “I suppose that is true enough. It is curious, though, is it not, that you never married?”

  Something twisted unpleasantly in Abigail’s stomach. Now she knew why she never talked of Reginald, nor of the history they had shared. It hurt her now just as it had back then. It seemed time did not lessen the pain of all wounds, and the ones she had sustained all those years before were still slowly trickling blood. “I did not marry because I had no wish to do so,” she said firmly, hoping her tone would put an end to the subject.

  “So you have no lingering feelings at all,” Dianna persisted.

  “For Reginald?” Abigail took another sip of her tea. “No, none at all.” It was, she reflected, one of the only lies she had ever told her niece.

  “Then it will not matter to you, then.”

  Abigail peered at Dianna over the curved rim of her cup. “What will not matter?” she asked suspiciously.

  “It was in all of the papers yesterday morn. I am surprised you have not heard already.”

  “Heard what?” She loved her niece, she truly did, but sometimes the girl could be nothing short of exasperating.

  “The Duke of Ashburn. He is returning home.”

  Abigail’s teacup slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor.

  Young and blissfully in love, Reginald and Abigail were once engaged to be married. Their lives should have ended in happily-ever-after, but he was destined to be a duke and she was the third daughter of a baron. Curtailing to his mother’s demands, Reginald broke the engagement… and Abigail’s heart.

  Thirty years have passed since then. Now a confirmed spinster, Abigail has forgiven the boy she loved, but she has never forgotten the man. When Reginald unexpectedly returns to England she wants nothing to do with him, fearful of stirring up old feelings that should have died long ago.

  Reginald made the worst mistake of his life when he left Abigail. She is the only woman he h
as ever loved, and he is willing to risk everything to get her back. But once lost trust does not come easily, and Abigail is reluctant to give her heart away a second time.

  Can Reginald and Abigail come to terms with their painful past? Or are some second chances best left untaken? Find out in The Spinster and the Duke.

  BARNES & NOBLE // AMAZON

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  Praise for Jillian Eaton

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THE SPINSTER AND THE DUKE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE