Amberley Chronicles Boxset I: The Impostor Debutante My Last Marchioness the Sister Quest (Amberley Chronicles Boxsets Book 1)

by May Burnett

  “Thank you,” Cherry said. “You think of everything. It will be fun to refurbish the house, if we decide to live here. I want it to be a joint decision.”

  Jonathan bowed and smiled at her. He then had the housekeeper conduct the older ladies and their maid to their apartments, and drew Cherry into a drawing room for another, more passionate embrace.

  She responded with enthusiasm. When she came up for air she blinked, however. “Jonathan, what is that?”

  “A sarcophagus, love, though why anyone would have it standing up like that in a drawing room is beyond my comprehension. I have not ventured to open it, and can only hope that it does not contain a body.”

  “No, indeed,” Cherry said. “Even if it is empty, funereal objects do not belong in a drawing room. It is no better than that bloody hare in Lobbock Manor.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, at least the colours are more cheerful. But let’s not waste our time on trivialities. Are you well? What is the news you spoke of?”

  “It turns out I am not infertile after all,” Cherry said, her eyes anxiously fixed on his, “at least not with you, Jonathan.”

  His pupils widened. He stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  “I have not consulted a physician, but yes, I am sure.”

  Jonathan let out a whoop, and hugged and kissed her again. “You have no idea how happy you make me, Cherry.”

  “I am not supposed to marry before the end of the year.”

  “This is much more important,” Jonathan immediately said. “Damn the conventions, the risk of your child being born fatherless, if anything happened to me, has to take precedence. When I think of that fever … life is so uncertain. We must be married right away, privately. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, and at least Lady Spalding and Aunt Horatia will be present.”

  “You don’t mind missing a big wedding celebration? Most ladies look very much forward to that, I’m told.”

  “I can forego it if you can. You were planning on a big wedding yourself, weren’t you?”

  “Not with any expectation of taking pleasure in the event. We must also find a physician. I wonder which is the best in London? I will make discreet enquiries right away.”

  “I leave it all to you,” Cherry said. “This pregnancy makes me a little tired and lazy. I am also much more sensitive to odours, and my breasts are more sensitive as well. You will have to touch them with great care, when next we have the chance.”

  “I was thinking to show you my current house tomorrow, when you are rested from the journey, so you can see which you like better. But now I’ll be busy purchasing a special license, and organising our wedding.”

  “One more day or two makes little difference.” Cherry strove to hide her disappointment at the delay.

  “It makes an enormous difference to me. We’ll simply do it all,” he decided, “Tomorrow we choose the house, and the day after we’ll be wed.”

  “Good. Let’s seal the plan with another kiss.”

  “Cherry, you don’t need any pretexts for kissing – I am always at your service for that.” Jonathan suited action to words, and she melted in his strong arms. Her future would hold daily bliss, even if some high sticklers disapproved of her quick remarriage. A good thing they did not belong to the ton.

  Chapter 29

  “Welcome, Mr. Durwent,” Marianne, Lady Amberley, greeted the dark-haired young man who had climbed out of the elegant travelling coach, “I have heard much of you from James, and I am glad that you decided to accept our invitation after all.”

  Durwent bowed politely, but turned to help the lady coming after him to climb down the steps before replying. His fiancée, presumably, but was she not supposed to wear black?

  “Mrs. Randolph? Welcome to Amberley.”

  Durwent bowed again. “I beg your pardon, Lady Amberley, but we are already married. May I present Mrs. Durwent?”

  “Already married! My best wishes to you both, for a happy union,” Marianne said warmly. It was shocking, to be sure, but as a hostess she would not betray the slightest criticism. “And here we thought we were going to witness a courtship. You are certainly not letting the grass grow under your feet, Mr. Durwent.”

  “Thank you for your welcome. We shall only stay for a week, and go on our wedding trip from here,” the new Mrs. Durwent explained. “I look forward to meet Jonathan’s particular friends James and Henry, and their wives.”

  “Mrs. Randolph? Welcome! I am glad to see you have left off those depressing black clothes.” Marianne had been unaware that her brother Anthony, who had been passing by on his way from the stables, was acquainted with the newly-wed lady.

  “Lord Pell,” Mrs. Durwent curtseyed, “I am already Mrs. Durwent.”

  “Congratulations!” Anthony kissed her hand, and shook Durwent’s with enthusiasm. “Am I forgiven for my role in bringing this happy conclusion about?”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Durwent said, smiling broadly, “on the contrary, I am very much obliged to you, for being the first to suggest the match.”

  “As you should be,” Anthony said with an admiring glance at Mrs. Durwent. Marianne wondered at it. Her newest guest was a pretty brunette, but years older than her brother. Was it the expressive eyes?

  The Durwents were soon settled, leaving one of the prepared guest rooms empty, since they expressed a strong preference for sharing. So soon after their wedding, it was only natural. Marianne went to tell her husband and James about this interesting development. She found them discussing politics in the library with their brother-in-law Henry Beecham.

  “Durwent has arrived,” she told the trio, “and is already married to his lady. Was she not supposed to be in deep mourning for the rest of the year?”

  “Love is stronger than such considerations,” James said, “and when I last saw Jonathan, he had all the symptoms of a man deeply in love. I beg you not to mention the mourning again. Since the Durwents are not known to your other guests, except for Henry and me, I see no need for anyone to know about the abbreviated mourning.”

  “As you like, James.” Marianne doubted whether love was the only reason for the early wedding, but would keep her speculations to herself. “But you are wrong that only Henry and you know them. Anthony is acquainted with both Durwent and his wife. I was hoping he would look at one of the debutantes in our house party, but I have yet to see him regard any of them the way he looked at Mrs. Durwent, with deep admiration.”

  “No matter - she’s married and out of his reach,” James consoled her. “You have several weeks until the end of July, so your matchmaking may yet bear fruit.”

  “A good thing that Durwent is already married,” George opined, “it means Rook cannot alienate his girl’s affections. I fail to understand how you can expect your brother to fix his interest with anyone, Marianne, while Rook is on the premises.”

  “Mrs. Durwent is not a giddy girl, but close to her husband’s age,” Marianne said. “I doubt very much that she would have fallen under Rook’s spell, even were she not safely married.” She added, as a loyal sister, “Anthony is just as good-looking as Rook. I have high hopes of Lady Ariadne for him.”

  “Hmm.” George was sceptical, but disinclined to argue the matter. Time would show who had the right of it.

  ***

  By the time their departure was imminent, a week later, Cherry and Jonathan had become general favourites, excepting only the two of the young debutantes and their mothers, who resented the attention Cherry received from the gentlemen. The dowager Lady Amberley had not yet arrived.

  “Jonathan is a lucky fellow,” James said to George as they were watching Rook shuffle the cards in the library after dinner. “All the unmarried men seem to regret that he found Charity first.”

  “She is very attractive,” Rook said, “though Anthony or I would be too young for her. But I agree that Jonathan is very lucky indeed.”

  “Marianne wonders what makes her so very appealing,” George said. “I am not
sure myself. It’s like magic, this power she has over the male of the species. We are very lucky she is a devoted wife. Such women can wreak havoc if they barely try. I wonder if it’s a quality other women of her family share? Her birth is still a mystery, or is there any news, James?”

  Rook had stopped shuffling and offered the pack to George for cutting, then started dealing the cards.

  “Jonathan has told me his investigator retrieved the clothes Cherry wore as a baby, and a ring that was taken from the body of the dead mother,” James reported. “They are of superior quality; the supposition must be that Cherry is of gentle birth. The clothes were embroidered with the letters MD.”

  Rook stopped mid-deal. “MD? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what he told me, but you can talk to Jonathan himself, he’s not leaving until breakfast tomorrow. Why, do you have any idea what these letters may represent?”

  “I’d rather not say any more at present, but I have heard of a missing woman with such initials. It was long ago, before my own birth.” He finished the deal.

  “How intriguing.” James stared at Rook, while George took up his cards and started to order them by suits. “If there’s the slightest chance that you have the other half of this mystery, I urge you to talk to Jonathan and Cherry right away.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Jonathan appeared at their side. “Please don’t interrupt your game.”

  “This may be more important,” George said, putting his cards face down on the table. Rook nodded, and drew Jonathan aside.

  “Durwent, is it true that your wife’s baby clothes were embroidered with the letters MD?”

  “So my investigator has reported to us. He is going to bring them to us within days.”

  “I know of one woman who went missing about thirty years ago, with these initials,” Rook said, “she was my mother’s older sister Mariah, Lady Desborough. The servants told the family that she had fled to the colonies with a lover and her little daughter.”

  “Cherry was abandoned in that inn on December 1st, 1794,” Jonathan said. “Her mother had a bad cough, which was taken to have caused her death during the night. Did your aunt Mariah suffer from such a cough?”

  “I don’t know,” Rook said, “remember, all this happened years before my own birth. I only heard about it from my own mother, who is no longer alive either. But Lord Desborough, my aunt’s husband, ought to know.”

  “Did he not search for his wife and child?”

  “If he thought she had abandoned him, I doubt it. He is a very proud man.”

  “Even in that case, I would search for the child, if not the mother … I suppose aristocratic pride takes a different form from the more ordinary kind. If Lord Desborough did not care enough to search for his child, I will not bother him with any questions, though I will inform Cherry of your theory.”

  “I will write to him myself,” Rook said. “He married again eventually, after having his lost wife declared dead after seven years. But if Mrs. Durwent, whom I admire greatly, should prove to my first cousin, she certainly deserves acknowledgement by her family and a proper dowry. The child was christened Madeline, by the way – Lady Madeline Desborough.”

  “I thank you for your suggestion. As for writing to Lord Desborough, it is up to you.” Jonathan bowed and left Rook to continue the card game with the Ellsworthy men.

  He found Cherry and they took their leave of the others, perfectly at ease among the aristocratic crowd.

  “Lord Molyneux thinks you may be his cousin, Lady Madeline Desborough,” Jonathan told Cherry when at last they were private in their bedroom. “Would it not be ironic if after all you turned out to be a lady from the highest circles?”

  “Nothing would surprise me by now,” Cherry said. “My fate already has taken so many strange turns. I am only glad that my husband is right here with me, and not impressed by the navy, like poor Mrs. Jones’s Tom.”

  “I should have seen through that right away,” Jonathan said, dropping a kiss on Cherry’s neck, “but your red hair blinded me so much that I was unable to reason.”

  “If ever you should tire of the prim Mrs. Durwent, Mrs. Jones might come and seduce you – I still have the wig somewhere in London.”

  “You don’t need any wigs or false names to seduce me at any time,” Jonathan said, tearing his neck cloth off. “As for the other, Hendrickson will soon find out if there is any merit to Lord Molyneux’s theory. Lord Desborough is still alive, but if he is your father, he does not sound like the kind of man we want in our lives. Remarried, very proud, and he believed his servants when they claimed the wife had run away with a lover. He should have gone after the child in any case, whether that was you or some other girl. These aristocrats don’t value their girl children enough.”

  “Not only they,” Cherry reminded him gently, “think of Prune.”

  He turned a stricken face to her.

  “Don’t look so - we can learn from others’ mistakes, and will do better ourselves,” Cherry said. “This little one I carry may be a girl. Promise me that if she or I ever should be lost, you will go after us – after her – till we are found.”

  “I swear – and you know full well that I will not let either of you be lost. You are much too important to my happiness.”

  She threw him a wicked glance from under her lashes. “Oh? Just how important am I?”

  “I’ll show you,” he vowed, and proceeded to do just that, throughout their last night at Amberley.

  The End

  Thanks for reading!

  The author hopes you enjoyed the first three volumes of the Amberley Chronicles.

  The saga continues! Additional volumes appear at roughly bimonthly intervals.

  Catching a Rook tells the story of that young nobleman as he faces an unwanted engagement to a minor foreign Royal, to whom he is first introduced at a house party under Lord and Lady Amberley’s auspices. See overleaf for a short preview.

  In Lady Anthea’s Choice, the naïve daughter of an Earl must learn to stand up for herself when she discovers her eligible engagement is not all she had hoped for.

  The Perils of Lord Pell chronicles how the younger brother of Lady Amberley meets his future wife as he returns from a two-year journey to India and China. Until well after their wedding, Emily has no idea she is to become a Marchioness.

  The new Lady Pell has a somewhat temperamental but gifted older sister, whose love story is told in Margaret’s Turn.

  The subsequent volumes feature the next generation, so technically they are Victorian rather than Regency. So far, this second round of romances comprises A Scandalous Journey, about the love story of Monique de Ville-Deuxtours, and The Late Heiress, whose protagonist is the eldest son of Belinda and Richard Seymour from The Impostor Debutante. These latest books in the series tend to have strong mystery elements as well as the obligatory romance.

  May Burnett is also the author of a Regency Trilogy about the aristocratic Winthrop family (the first two volumes are somewhat darker than the Amberley Chronicles). Lady Susan’s Bargain was followed by Lord Fenton’s Revenge and A Lady’s Ruse.

  A standalone regency novel, A Priceless Gift, takes place earlier than the other books, at the very beginning of the Regency. It contains some gothic and very dark elements, though the worst is over by the time the protagonists meet.

  The author would greatly appreciate your feedback in the form of a review on your local Amazon website. Thanks!

  Preview of the next volume of The Amberley Chronicles:

  Catching a Rook

  Chapter 1

  “Would you be so kind as to turn the pages, Lord Molyneux?”

  Lady Ariadne Saxon was about to display her skills on the pianoforte to the house party at Amberley. Why she could not do so without having him turn the notes, Rook had no idea, but he bore her simpering invitation with outward good humour.

  “Nothing could give me greater pleasure, Lady Ariadne.” How many such polite lies did he utter over the
day? At least a few dozen. Perhaps he should have pretended he was unable to read music, and yielded the thankless task to Anthony, Lord Pell, the only younger man among the select audience.

  Ariadne had wanted him to do it, however, as she wanted him to court her. And indeed he ought to be looking for a wife, as he had promised his father; but while Rook admired Ariadne’s profile and sense of style, he was not about to tie himself to a lady who was frightened of dogs and horses, and whose favourite subject of conversation were the most salacious scandals of the day. And while her playing was correct enough, it lacked spirit.

  Turn the page – there. Lady Ariadne played steadily on. Rook let his gaze pass over the faces of his hosts and fellow guests. If any of the group were passionately fond of this musical offering, they were hiding it well. James Ellsworthy was discreetly smothering a yawn, and Lady Minerva Beecham had a far-away look in her eyes, that most likely meant she was planning the next days’ activities.

  Minerva, his host’s younger sister, was the only woman to whom he had ever made an offer in form, but these days Minerva and he were just friends. She was happy with the MP she had married – a mere solicitor at the time – just as Rook was determined to be happy with his own future bride, when he found her. Not at this house party, with too many old acquaintances and distant relatives. The only woman he had not met before was Mrs. Jonathan Durwent, a most attractive lady, and just possibly his first cousin; but she and her newly-wed husband had left Amberley the night before, after just one week. She would have been unsuitable for him anyway, as a childless widow close to thirty, even if Durwent had not nabbed her before anyone else got a chance. Rook had to continue the noble line of the Bretons, as his own father had done by fathering four sons, and needed to focus on young, healthy, fertile women.