Table of Contents
1: A Debt Of Honour
2: Dinner At Drummoor
3: Lady Harriet Arrives
4: Brothers And Sisters And Cousins
5: The Parsonage
6: Chickens And Stipends
7: Just Impediments
8: A Day At Kirby Grosswick
9: Secrets
10: Of Marriage
11: Christmas
12: Patience
13: A Wedding
14: Hopes And Fears
15: Currant Cake
16: Rain
17: Rescue
18: Guests
19: Theft And Deception
20: The White Hart Inn
21: Confrontations
22: Letters
23: Family
Epilogue
Thanks for reading!
About the author
Acknowledgements
Sneak preview of Lord Gilbert: Chapter 1: A Winter Journey
LORD MONTAGUE
Sons of the Marquess Book 4
A Regency Romance
by Mary Kingswood
Published by Sutors Publishing
Copyright © 2018 Mary Kingswood
Cover design by: Shayne Rutherford of Darkmoon Graphics
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.
About this book: A traditional Regency romance, drawing room rather than bedroom.
Lord Montague Marford is looking forward to a quiet life as clergyman of a rural parish where he can hope to do some good. But sometimes his compassionate nature gets him into trouble, and when a bedraggled young woman turns up on the doorstep to call in a long-forgotten debt, Monty’s sense of honour compels him to offer to marry her. But he soon begins to wonder if he’s made a huge mistake.
Miss Melissa Frost is very grateful, and thrilled to find herself surrounded by luxury. It’s just like a fairy tale, and although Monty is an unlikely prince, she’d love to be his princess and make him happy. But she daren’t tell him the truth — that she’s run away from home and her guardian wants her back. She has to keep Monty at arm’s length until she comes of age, or she could lose him altogether.
Book 4 of the 5-book Sons of the Marquess series, each a complete story with a HEA, but read all of them to find out all the secrets of the Marford family!
About Sons of the Marquess: when the ninth Marquess of Carrbridge finds himself short of funds, his five younger brothers have to make a choice: take up a career to support their lavish lifestyle or marry an heiress. But love has a strange way of appearing when it’s least expected…
Book 0: The Earl of Deveron (a novella, free to mailing list subscribers)
Book 1: Lord Reginald
Book 2: Lord Humphrey
Book 3: Lord Augustus
Book 4: Lord Montague
Book 5: Lord Gilbert
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Table of Contents
1: A Debt Of Honour
2: Dinner At Drummoor
3: Lady Harriet Arrives
4: Brothers And Sisters And Cousins
5: The Parsonage
6: Chickens And Stipends
7: Just Impediments
8: A Day At Kirby Grosswick
9: Secrets
10: Of Marriage
11: Christmas
12: Patience
13: A Wedding
14: Hopes And Fears
15: Currant Cake
16: Rain
17: Rescue
18: Guests
19: Theft And Deception
20: The White Hart Inn
21: Confrontations
22: Letters
23: Family
Epilogue
Thanks for reading!
About the author
Acknowledgements
Sneak preview of Lord Gilbert: Chapter 1: A Winter Journey
1: A Debt Of Honour
“Melissa, I hope you have a pretty gown for evening tucked away somewhere,” the new earl said. She still thought of him as the new earl, although his father had died more than two years ago.
“My lord?”
“You will be dining with the family tonight, so be sure to look your best.”
“With the family? Me?”
“Ah, I see your pleasure,” he said smugly. “A rare treat for you. But why not, just this once, eh?”
So rare a treat was it, that Melissa could never remember it happening before, and was mistrustful. The new Lord Bentley was not a man who dispensed largesse, or even kindness, as a rule, and she was quite certain this outburst of generosity had some dark motive.
But still, a dinner in company was a welcome event. She curtsied and thanked him with sincerity, and went to see which of her two evening gowns might manage to rise to the occasion. Neither were worn very often, and both had been castoffs from the present earl’s stepmother, taking pity on Melissa before the annual servants’ ball. The pink, she supposed, being the newer and least outdated of the two. The previous Lady Bentley had had a pale prettiness that was well-suited to delicate colours, and the gown had looked charming on her. With Melissa’s dark complexion, it looked less well. How she wished the present Lady Bentley would offer her a gown, for the striking colours she liked would suit Melissa admirably.
When the dressing gong sounded, Melissa was already in her little room, half undressed and trying to decide whether the addition of ribbons in her hair made her look even more ridiculous or not, when a tap at the door revealed Miss Thompson, Lady Bentley’s maid.
“Milady sent me to help you dress, miss,” she said, with an audible sniff of disapproval.
“Oh. How very kind of her ladyship.” And how very unexpected. Now Melissa was deeply suspicious. She had a sinking feeling that she was being wrapped up like a gift, to be shown off to someone. Perhaps the countess had found her another position, now that she was no longer wanted at Bentley Hall? Although prospective governesses were not usually paraded at dinner. Well, she would find out soon enough.
Miss Thompson primped and curled and fussed until Melissa hardly recognised herself in the glass.
“There, miss, you look very pretty,” Miss Thompson said, and her thin lips almost twitched into a smile.
Was she pretty? She would love to be pretty, or perhaps handsome. Everyone said that the present Lady Bentley was handsome, and it seemed to be a compliment, but Melissa was not quite sure what they meant by it. Lady Bentley was elegant, to be sure, in her exquisite colourful gowns, and her manner of piling her blonde curls on top of her head gave her an imposing height, but her countenance was not pleasing. But perhaps that was because she was always scowling when Melissa saw her.
She was not scowling when Melissa entered the drawing room. When she smiled, however insincerely, she did indeed look quite handsome.
“Ah, here she is at last! How impatiently we have awaited you, Melissa dear, but we do not mind in the least, for see how we are rewarded. I never saw you look better, my dear.”
“I did not mean to be late. I beg your pardon.”
She tittered. “My dear, I intended no rebuke.”
Melissa was silent. Since when had Lady Bentley not had a rebuke on her lips? Her first lesson as soon as the new earl had married was to learn to keep out of his wife’s way.
The countess rose smoothly from her chair and crossed the room to where her husband and brother-in-law stood with a third man, unknown to Melissa. The earl was shorter than average, with an undistinguished air. His brother tended to foppery, with a complicated and slightly lop-sided cravat, a bright red coat and such an array of rings and pins and fobs as to quite dazzle the eye. The stranger was excessively fat, his coa
t buttons straining across his vast stomach, and a balding head already shining from the heat.
“Here she is, gentlemen. Mr Pontefract, may I present to you Lord Bentley’s ward, Miss Frost?”
“Enchanted, my dear,” he murmured, creaking as he inclined very slightly from the vertical in what Melissa supposed was a bow. As she rose from her curtsy, he was licking his lips as if she were a particularly tasty dish presented at the dinner table. “Delightful, quite delightful.” His eyes ran slowly down to her shoes and back up again, before settling on her chest. “Charming!” He rubbed his hands together, and leered at her.
Melissa shivered.
Dinner was an awkward affair. The Miss Wilkeses, Lady Bentley’s daughters from her first marriage, were late, which put the earl out of countenance. Then they giggled and whispered throughout the meal, which put the earl’s brother out of countenance. Melissa was seated beside Mr Pontefract, which would have put her out of countenance if she had only dared. She was beginning to have some inkling of the reason for her invitation, and it turned the food to ash in her mouth. She ate but little, and took no more than two sips of her wine, and tried to make pleasant conversation with Mr Pontefract. It was hard work, for he ate prodigiously, leaving him little opportunity to speak, and when he looked at her, his eyes somehow never rose to her face and his breathing grew heavy. In addition, Melissa soon discovered that he had very few thoughts in his head beyond his plate and wineglass. Fortunately, a casual mention of his dogs led her to enquire further, and he then talked with great animation of his kennels and his numerous dogs, and which of them he had bred from and which others he intended to breed from, and so the meal was got through somehow.
When the ladies withdrew, and the Miss Wilkeses had disappeared in a giggling cloud of sarsenet and spangles, still whispering, Melissa would have retreated to her room, duty done, but Lady Bentley summoned her with a crook of one finger into the drawing room.
“You see how generous Lord Bentley is, my dear? For you could not have expected so handsome a gesture, I am sure. But so it is with my dear husband — no effort spared, even for someone like you. What a fortunate young woman you are, to be sure. You may be quite comfortable now, for your future is assured. If you and Mr Pontefract see Parson Albright tomorrow to arrange the banns, you may be married within the month.”
“Oh, marriage,” Melissa said, relieved that nothing worse was expected of her, as had happened at midsummer with the pretty under housemaid, who had left in tears the next day. Mr Cornelius Brockenhurst, the earl’s brother, had a roving eye and, it was said, roving hands as well, and all the female servants had learnt to keep away from him and his lascivious friends. It had always surprised Melissa that she had never attracted his attention, but she supposed she was not pretty enough.
“Yes, marriage, of course. Mr Pontefract is an admirable man, I am sure, and a better catch than you could have hoped for. I trust you will express your gratitude to Lord Bentley.”
“Indeed, I am very grateful to his lordship for all his trouble, but I do not in the least wish to marry Mr Pontefract.”
“What you wish is not of the slightest consequence. Lord Bentley is your guardian and—”
“I beg your pardon, but I shall soon be of age, my lady. I shall be one and twenty in three months.”
“Oh, very hoity-toity! And what other options do you have? Do you have a better husband in mind?”
“No, but I acted as governess to the late earl’s daughters for several years, so—”
“And they are gone, and my own daughters do not need any tuition from a rustic like you. So you see, my dear, you have no place here.”
“I am sure I could obtain a position as governess elsewhere, my lady. All I should need is a reference—”
A triumphant expression settled on Lady Bentley’s face. “Not from me, and not from my husband’s stepmother, either, not while he has control of her jointure.”
“I see.” Melissa’s stomach churned with fear, but she tried not to show it. She found some stitchery to occupy her trembling hands, and when the gentlemen returned and sat down to cards with Lady Bentley, Melissa watched her future husband and tried to imagine herself married to such a man.
Mr Pontefract left in a flurry of creaking bows and smiles, kissing her hand with a smirk Melissa could not misunderstand. Lord Bentley went to the door to show him out, and the two men could be heard laughing together in the most amiable way.
“I congratulate you, Melissa,” Lord Bentley said when he returned to the room. “Pontefract is quite charmed by you, and will return in the morning to make his offer in form.”
“I am very honoured, my lord, but I shall not accept him.”
Lord Bentley exchanged a glance with his wife. “You were always wilful, even as a child, so these flashes of disobliging behaviour are no more than to be expected. However, you will marry Pontefract. I am your guardian and you must do as I say.”
Melissa jumped to her feet. “I may not marry against your wishes, but you cannot force me to marry a man I cannot like.”
“No?” He crossed the room in two strides, and caught her wrist in a grip so tight that she cried out in pain. “Remember that your bedchamber has no lock to it. All it would take is for me to invite Pontefract to stay for the night, and show him the way. By morning, you would be happy enough to marry him, I swear. And if even that is not enough for you, I know the very place in Portsmouth for you, and once there, no man will ever want to marry you. Think carefully on it, Melissa, before you spew your defiance at me.”
When she returned to her room, she found the housekeeper awaiting her, to help her undress, just as she had when Melissa was a little girl.
“Oh, Mrs Clark, what am I to do? He is quite dreadful! Yet I daresay he is respectable enough.”
“Perhaps,” the housekeeper said. “I’ve heard rumours… I don’t like to think of you in the hands of a man like that.”
“I suppose… they mean it kindly?” Melissa said. “Surely they do. It is nothing to their advantage, so they must feel it is to mine. Do you not think?”
Mrs Clark sighed. “I’ve heard that Mr Cornelius got into some difficulty with gaming debts, and rather than ask the earl for help again, he borrowed money from Mr Pontefract. I suppose this is his way of repaying the debt. Gentlemen regard such debts as a matter of honour.”
“Mr Pontefract does not know his danger,” Melissa said defiantly, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “If ever I were to marry him, I am sure I should make his life a misery and he should be very sorry he ever thought of me. Luckily for him, he is safe from me, for I have no intention of marrying him.”
“But what will you do, Melissa? You have no family, no friends to take you in, no money and no possibility of respectable employment without a reference.”
“I shall think of something,” Melissa said stoutly.
And she knew precisely what she would do. She still had her letter, and there was another debt of honour to be repaid, but this debt was owed to her. Yes, she would go to Drummoor. As soon as Mrs Clark had gone, she pulled out her purse and began to count her coins.
~~~~~
Lord Montague Marford was bored. After the excitement of his brother agreeing — finally! — that he might become a clergyman, and then the joy of his ordination, and several months spent as assistant to Mr Callimont at York, now he was right back where he had started, at Drummoor. His brother, the Marquess of Carrbridge, had several livings in his gift, but none of them were vacant, nor likely to be soon. He could amuse himself as chaplain at the Drummoor chapel, but that was only one day a week. For the other six, he must sit and wait and wait some more. It was dispiriting. Even the weather was in dreary sympathy with his mood.
He laid down his book of sermons, and looked across the winter morning room at the only other occupants. His sister-in-law, Connie, was bent over the worktable, making a list. Guests to invite, possibly, or chores for the housemaids, or chutneys and preserves for th
e kitchen to make, or perhaps just one of her endless lists of Things That Must Be Done. Meanwhile she was chattering non-stop to her sister, Mrs Allamont, who was presently visiting. Mrs Allamont was more productively employed in trimming a bonnet, although she seemed to take her full share in the conversation, even though her fingers never stopped moving. Aunt Jane March said nothing, but she nodded and smiled at intervals, while steadily tatting.
Monty could hear Carrbridge and Mr Allamont out in the hall, laughing about something. No doubt Mr Allamont had come up with another of his outlandish schemes of improvement to his land, for he was full of ideas, while Carrbridge was much more conservative in his methods, and teased him unmercifully. It was all rather remote to Monty, the productivity of milking cows being very far from his concerns as a clergyman. His interest would be in the spiritual welfare of his parishioners, and if he kept a few chickens at his parsonage, that would be as near as he would come to agricultural matters.
If ever he had his own parsonage, of course. Eventually, Mishcombe would be his, which was a fine living within half a mile of Drummoor, but the present incumbent, Mr Hay, although elderly, was perfectly hale and likely to live for another twenty years at least. In the meantime, he had to wait with as much patience as he could muster for one of several clergymen to drop down dead so that he might have their place, and it was an uncomfortable feeling. He did not wish any of them dead, but nor did he much like sitting about at home, being bored. Perhaps the Archbishop would have some sudden need for one of the gentlemen, and summon him to York, leaving the way clear for Monty. That was a happier thought, a promotion rather than death.
Connie rang for tea, and that brought everyone into the winter parlour, including the usual array of aunts and uncles who had been invited to visit in the summer and had stayed on for months. For once there were few house guests other than family. Connie loved to have the place full of visitors, but with her confinement fast approaching, even her enthusiasm for entertaining had waned somewhat.
Daniel Merton came in with a note for Carrbridge, and the two whispered together for some time. They were an interesting contrast, Carrbridge every inch the aristocrat, his coat, his trousers, even his hair all of the first style, and his manner patrician. Merton, his secretary, was a gentleman and so there was nothing obsequious in his manner, but he never put himself forward, either, and his plain black coat was just as unobtrusive as the man himself.
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