Unforgettable (Mockingbird Square Book 1)

by Bennett, Sara

  UNFORGETTABLE

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books By Sara Bennett

  Copyright © 2018 by Sara Bennett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design and Interior Format by

  The Killion Group, Inc.

  Chapter One

  Summer, 1816, Mockingbird Square, Mayfair, London

  Lord Ashley Linholm stepped out of his town house at Number Five Mockingbird Square. The square was one of London’s famous garden squares, set in exclusive Mayfair. Ash was headed for an address on the other side, beyond the garden, and he was feeling confident and relieved that he had finally made his decision.

  He was twenty-seven years old and it had taken his brother Simon’s injury and long recovery to jog him into action. At the age of twenty-one, Simon had followed Ash into the army, only to find himself in the most decisive battle of the long war with France—Waterloo. While carrying a message from his superior officer into the fighting, Simon had been badly wounded. It echoed something that had happened to Ash, eight years earlier, and his brother’s close call had shocked him into action. Neither Ash nor Simon was married and there was no heir to the Crevitch estate, where their family had lived and ruled for over seven hundred years.

  The Earl of Monkstead’s dwelling lay ahead of him, the grandest in this Georgian square that was known as a rare architectural jewel. The earl’s family had once privately owned this prime piece of real estate, until his grandfather, like so many forward thinking men in the 18th century, decided to turn it into a place for the wealthy and the well-bred to reside while they were in the capital. It had since become one of the most exclusive addresses in London.

  Ash had visited Monkstead’s house only last week for a dinner party, and it was then that he had made the acquaintance of Miss Christina Beales.

  She was young, barely twenty, and pretty in a fresh sort of way. She came from a good family, with connections, although she was not personally wealthy. She was also shy and quiet and biddable, and after one Season when she hadn’t really ‘taken’, she had been content to step aside for her younger cousins to have their turn. Ash was sure that Miss Beales would be grateful for his proposal, and he told himself she would not make a fuss when he set up a mistress, discreetly of course. And as long as he was polite and thoughtful, he could probably continue to do very much as he pleased.

  He was no young, romantic youth, not anymore, and he didn’t want a starry-eyed debutante. Someone sensible, he thought, who didn’t expect her husband to declare undying love for her. Surely that was all one needed in a wife? Apart from an heir of course, because that was his main reason for shackling himself in marriage to a stranger. Once the deed was done, and the child on the way, they could both breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their respective lives.

  Christina just happened to be Monkstead’s niece—a poorer side of the family the earl was currently assisting—which was why Ash was heading there now, to ask the earl’s permission. He was confident he would be given it. He was young and reasonably good looking, and he was rich with a pedigree that was long and aristocratic.

  It was a perfect match.

  From the rumours he had heard about Monkstead, the earl was rather keen on making perfect matches among his friends and neighbours. Even if he did not have one for himself. There were other rumours—a miserable marriage made when the earl was a young man, and his desire to spare others the fate that he had suffered. Ash counted himself an acquaintance of Monkstead, rather than a friend—he wasn’t sure the earl had many close friends—and he would never presume to ask about such personal matters. But nor did he believe every piece of gossip that circulated in the square.

  Ash had sent a note ahead, requesting a meeting with his illustrious neighbour, and had been granted it. As he used the brass knocker on Monkstead’s front door, he smiled and told himself it was not arrogance to believe this morning would go just as he planned.

  Forty minutes later Lord Ashley Linholm was walking back across the square with his hopes, if not exactly in ruins, then very much torn and shaken about.

  He turned the conversation, which he admitted now had been an odd one, over in his mind.

  “Not exactly a grande passione, I take it?” the earl said, with a mocking smile. He was a striking man, in his thirties, and wealthy beyond imagining.

  “I doubt a marriage for love would be in anyone’s best interests,” Ash replied cynically, taking the glass of brandy from his host. They were in the earl’s study, the large windows looking out to the well-tended garden at the back of his town house.

  The earl considered him with a frown. “Do you think not? Oh I agree that some love matches can be disastrous, but for you, Ashley, I think it is imperative.” He leaned forward seriously. “You would be miserable with a marriage of convenience. You need someone to keep you on your toes, and to come home to at night. You need a grande passione! I’m afraid that in those circumstances my niece would see very little of you if you walk her down the aisle.”

  Ash hesitated, thrown by this defence of love. Everyone knew that the rich and titled married not for love but to further their own ambitions. He remembered again the gossip about the earl making a disastrous marriage and being prepared to go to any lengths to help others to avoid the same fate. He’d dismissed the rumour at the time, but now he wondered if it was indeed true.

  “All the same,” Ash tried for a forceful note, “I am asking for your permission to approach her. You cannot say I would not be able to give her an enviable lifestyle, Monkstead? Surely you can have no objection there? She would live like a queen at Crevitch!”

  There was no glimmer of answering laughter in those dark eyes. Ash had never thought of his neighbour as being a fanatic but now he wondered.

  “No, but you will repent it,” the earl insisted, his gaze intent upon Ash. “Everyone knows of Lord Linholm, who sails through life without a care, never getting involved, never taking anything very seriously—”

  “That isn’t true. I am taking your niece seriously, and my estate, and the need to—”

  Monkstead held up his hand. “Let me finish, Ashley. I believe there is a deeper reason for you keeping a distance between yourself and the world. Your heart was once broken and you wish never to repeat the experience! Come, who was it? Who do you lay awake dreaming of at night, your blood running hot?” He must have seen something in Ash’s face, because now he smiled. “Ah, I see I was right. What was her name?”

  Ash found he had stopped in the middle of the square and had been standing there for some time. A breeze ruffled his blond hair and stirred his perfectly tied neckcloth. Startled, he looked about, wondering if anyone in the adjacent town houses had noticed him staring into nothing. But the square was empty, and with a shaken laugh at his own stupidity, he set off again toward Number Five.

  He knew now he should have told Monkstead that there was no lost love in his past, and that he was mistaken. That in fact he had been waiting his entire life for Christina
Beales and, contrary to what the earl thought, he intended to remain faithful to her for the rest of his life. He thought he could pull it off, but Monkstead was a tricky fellow and those dark eyes of his seemed to see right through Ash.

  He’d felt vulnerable, exposed, and the truth had gushed out of him.

  “Juliet Montgomery,” he said, and then gave a surprised laugh.

  Monkstead smiled a knowing smile. “Ah, my friend, tell me about your Juliet.”

  And as if he couldn’t help himself, as if those dark eyes had put a spell on him, Ash found himself doing just that.

  “She was the daughter of one of our neighbours. Her mother ran off with an Italian count when she was in leading strings and her father never forgave the mother. Or the daughter. She was miserably unhappy at home and spent most of her time running wild in the woods. With me.”

  “Did you kiss her, Ash?”

  Mouths hot and passionate, her body arching against his, both of them beyond thought, beyond anything but the need to join . . .

  “I don’t remember.”

  The earl smiled again but to Ash’s relief didn’t refute his claim. “And have you seen her since?”

  He had, from a distance. He had been in Taunton once, and caught a glimpse of her passing in a carriage. He’d known it was her despite the distance of years. And then the carriage had come to a stop and she had stepped down gracefully and he had almost called her name. Something had stopped him. He still wasn’t certain what it was—perhaps a warning not to reopen that particularly painful episode for his own self-preservation, although at the time he had told himself it was prudence and good sense.

  And now Juliet had returned home.

  “My brother Simon was at Crevitch for a time after he was wounded, recovering under my mother’s care. There is a cottage hospital in the village and Juliet volunteers there. He mentioned seeing her, but I thought nothing of it until now. I’m not sure I even remembered who she was,” he added blithely.

  “Liar,” Monkstead spoke softly.

  Ash looked to him, and then gave another rough, surprised sort of laugh. “Yes, you’re right, I did remember who she was. It was just that I didn’t wish to. We . . . well, the matter between us ended awkwardly. Her father found out, and then told my uncle, and at nineteen I was handed over to the army. It was 1808 and Napoleon had invaded Spain, so we were sent to fight him. There was plenty of scope for promotion and it was thought I could make a fine career.”

  “You have a reputation as a hero!”

  Ash shrugged. “Despite that, the army and I weren’t suited.”

  Monkstead wasn’t to be distracted. “Did Juliet marry?”

  “Yes. I believe so.”

  “Happily?”

  Ash hesitated and then said it anyway. “He was a great deal older than she. He’s dead now.”

  “Let me understand,” Monkstead said, considering the matter, his fingers steepled under his chin. “Eight years ago, you and Juliet fell in love, but there was resistance from your two families. You were put into the army and she was married off to an older man. Is that not a reason for you to seek her out, Ash? You had the best of the bargain after all, in that you could leave the army when you discovered it didn’t suit, and she had no choice but to remain married to her old husband. You should listen to her point of view, at the very least.”

  Ash began to interrupt but the earl held up a hand.

  “Yes, I understand, with so many years gone by, she may feel resentful and you awkward. And yet I think there is a reason you have remained a bachelor and now seek to enter into a loveless union with my niece. I wonder if it is because you have never recovered from loving Juliet.”

  Ash drained his brandy. He was uncomfortable. He told himself that really it was too bad of the earl to bring up his past just when he had set his face toward his future.

  “I want to make a request of you,” the earl would not be silent. “Go home to Crevitch and visit Juliet. I believe you need to make peace with that part of your life first, before you think about opening a new chapter with Christina. You may find Juliet still loves you, and if so then I wish you well. Alternatively, if you find there is nothing left of her feelings, or yours, then I promise to see you again when you return to Mockingbird Square, and to give serious consideration to your request to marry my niece. What do you say?”

  He wanted to refuse. He told himself it was ludicrous, and that one did not go backwards. At the same time he was aware of a dizzy sensation, as if he was falling, and it was not at all pleasant. And yet once more those intent dark eyes drew words from him that he hadn’t meant to say, and Ash found himself reluctantly agreeing.

  “Think of this as a challenge I have set you, like a knight of old,” said Monkstead, as the meeting came to an end. “Like Lord Radulf and his Lady Lily. Surely, as their descendant, you must feel the urge to seek out a romance that soars like theirs?”

  “Madness,” Ash murmured now, as he reached the door of his town house. “Sheer and utter bloody madness.”

  He would do it, he’d have to since he’d agreed! He told himself it would be unpleasant, and embarrassing, and afterwards he would breathe a sigh of relief and head back to Mockingbird Square. Put it behind him and assure Monkstead there was no longer a spark of anything between himself and Juliet Montgomery.

  But that didn’t explain the way he was feeling right now.

  He tried to remember the last time he had been so sick and shaken, and realised it was when he was a soldier in Spain. He’d been at the head of his troop, preparing to ride through a treacherous enemy valley, knowing there were snipers above and perhaps an ambush below, and that he could die. Only he hadn’t died, although he’d been seriously wounded. Afterwards, they had called him a hero.

  He didn’t feel like a hero now. He knew he had to see Juliet, but he was feeling as if he was about to take another gallop through enemy held territory. And like last time, he may not escape unscathed from the encounter.

  Chapter Two

  Summer, 1816, Montgomery House, Crevitch, Somerset

  Juliet tucked a truant strand of dark hair behind her ear and reread the letters before her. Until this moment she had not had a chance to sit down and look at them closely. There had been an outbreak of illness in the village, and she had been asked to help at the cottage hospital. She was a healthy, competent woman, with no dependents, and Doctor Knowles considered her a far more suitable prospect than some of his other volunteers.

  This morning, with all the patients sleeping peacefully, and Juliet dead on her feet, she had been sent home to rest. And to face her maid’s disapproval. Yvette had never served a lady who performed such menial tasks and she didn’t know what to make of it.

  “We must burn your clothing, madam,” were her first words upon Juliet’s entry into the house.

  “No, we must not, Yvette.”

  “Yes, madam. It is the only way!”

  “Nonsense. Fill my bath. I will wash myself, but leave my clothing be.”

  Now, wrapped in her old, woollen bedgown—something else Yvette was keen to burn—Juliet read her letters.

  The first one was from an old school friend who now lived in Yorkshire. She smiled as she read about her days as a wife and mother to five boys. It seemed as if her friend never had a moment to herself, and Juliet envied her. Her own life, apart from the hospital, was quiet and isolated since last year when her husband had died. She had moved back to her childhood home while she was in mourning, although she was no longer officially so.

  All the same, she couldn’t say the invitations were coming thick and fast. This was the house in which she had been born, but Juliet had never fitted into the local social scene. The scandal involving her and Lord Linholm had been eight years ago but it appeared no-one had forgotten it. And then there was her mother’s own disastrous decision. Was life here really so tedious that such a thing was still news? It frustrated her that people hadn’t moved on.

  After their wedd
ing, Juliet’s husband had preferred to live in the Somerset county town of Taunton, and she had been more than happy to agree. She would have stayed there, but upon her husband’s death she’d been obliged to return to her childhood home. The house belonged to her—her father was dead—and although Juliet had had no real desire to move home, she’d had no choice. Her husband had spent almost all of his money—on her, if she was being honest—and now Juliet must live quietly if she was to live at all.

  At first she had attempted to be happy with her quiet life, trying to reconnect with the village, and ignoring the sideways glances she attracted. Doctor Knowles was a kind man and valued her contributions to the hospital, and she felt needed. But lately things had changed. Not with Crevitch village, that never changed, but with Juliet herself. She had become restless.

  It was an inner restlessness, and it seemed to stem from her meeting with Simon Linholm. Lady Linholm had brought him to the hospital after a particularly bad night with his injured leg, and Juliet happened to be there. Doctor Knowles soon ascertained there was an infection and dealt with it in his usual no nonsense manner. Simon was asked to stay at the hospital overnight so that he could be watched, and it was Juliet who had sat by his bedside.

  Simon had soon recovered from his slight fever, and they had spent most of the night in friendly conversation about all manner of things. He had told her about his brother, whom he seemed to idolise, never realising that Juliet had once known Ash very well.

  “He was a hero when he was with the army,” Simon had said proudly. “The troop he was with needed to clear a valley which lay between them and the main British army. The valley was manned by renegade French soldiers who would ride out at night, attack swiftly, and then retreat to their hideaway. They had been causing havoc. No one was brave enough to take this particular band on, until Ash came along. They were asking for volunteers, and everyone knew it was likely to be a mission with no survivors. It was my brother, young as he was, who put up his hand. He led his fellows through that valley and they swept the renegades before them. Against all odds, they were victorious.”