Lady Charlotte's Marquess (The heir and a spare Book 2)

by Fiona Miers

  LADY

  CHARLOTTE’S MARQUESS

  By Fiona Miers

  Dedication:

  To my mother.

  The most beautiful woman I know.

  An amazing example of what a wife,

  Friend, mother, and grandmother should be.

  I’m honored to be your daughter.

  Copyright © 2016 Fiona Miers

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:B01EHBNBBM

  Acknowledgments:

  Maria Perry Mohan - my beautiful editor.

  Thank you so much for helping me polish up this manuscript so that I can FINALLY launch it onto the world. After five years and being thrown around by the publishing world- Charlotte and Archie are finally ready to be read.

  Jess Buffett- my talented cover artist.

  Thank you for my beautiful cover. Perfect as always.

  Prologue

  Ten years earlier

  “Your father wishes to see you Archibald,” the Marchioness of Hunting announced to the quiet room in which they sat, her red-rimmed eyes puffy and fragile looking.

  Archie’s once happy heart fell so low; he was surprised he couldn’t see it lying on the carpet at his feet.

  He dragged himself out of his chair and walked the few steps across the room to the heavy wooden door that marked the entrance to his father’s domain.

  His trepidation was almost crippling. His hands shook and his desire to run away was so strong that Archie had to lock his knees in place so that he didn’t do what his instincts were screaming at him to do. He hung his head for a moment, squeezed his eyes shut, then released a long breath.

  It was time to face his destiny.

  He lifted his head and stared at the mahogany wood, lifting his still shaking hand and knocking on his father’s study door.

  “Enter,” His father’s hoarse voice sounded through the solid barrier and Archie squared his shoulders.

  He turned the silver knob, pushed open the door and saw another set of red-rimmed eyes, matching his mothers.

  Archie gasped and bowed low to his father to disguise his surprise. His father couldn’t really have been crying, surely? There had to be another reason for his appearance. Perhaps it was the result of heavy drinking and fatigue? Archie could only hope.

  “Sit down Archibald,” his father commanded, his strong voice croaking and rough.

  Archie almost tripped over the rug in his haste. His father had never before asked him to be seated in his presence. He had certainly never used his Christian name before in such a way. Archie could only hope that his father might be about to comment on his upcoming birthday, although his detached and logical brain knew that this thought didn’t fit in with the obvious tears which he had seen his cold, aloof mother and his proud, drunken father shed.

  “Archibald, we have received some bad news and it seems that your brother will no longer be inheriting the Marquessate.”

  This life-altering statement was delivered with all the excitement of a eulogy. Archie’s father had always been proud of his eldest son. It had been obvious in both his actions and words. Archie’s older brother was the charismatic, arrogant and handsome heir who had always looked and acted just like their father.

  He cleared his throat and tugged on his cuff. “Pardon Sir? Do you mean that Arthur will not be inheriting?”

  “Do not speak back to me!”

  Shock ricochet through his system, yet he schooled his features into polite regard with practiced ease. He had spent the last five years as part of a group of four youths which was generally referred to as ‘The Spares’. The four members were all the second sons of rich, old and powerful families. None of these friends wanted his father’s title, nor the responsibility which came with it. Archie felt exactly the same way. To be told that he would have to forget all his plans for the future, of managing his money and breeding horses, was devastating. He felt sick to his stomach.

  “My apologies, Sir,” Archie bobbed his head in a seated half-bow, his head spinning with questions. What was he going to do now?

  He sat still and waited for his father to continue. He needed more information, but with the unbalanced mood his father was in, Archie knew better than to push.

  The older man appeared to be mulling the words over in his head, twirling his empty liquor glass around in his hands.

  “Arthur is dying. He has indulged in his taste for loose women far too freely and now he is going to die.”

  His father shook his head sadly.

  Archie was completely shocked. If he had been standing, he doubted he would still have been erect. His brother was dying? He knew Arthur had not been feeling well recently, but dying? And from the dreaded French disease? Archie was not close to his older brother, as there were more than six years between them, but he didn’t want him to die.

  Whilst Archie was trying to digest this new information, his father hit him with the next verbal sledgehammer.

  “So, you keep yourself clean. Understand me? Stay away from the whores and make sure you marry a woman who will be able to handle the scandal when it comes. We will be sending your brother to Italy for a long holiday, but if word ever gets out, the family’s reputation will be ruined.”

  Archie felt his heart stop. Was his father asking him to stay away from women? For how long? His friends had already organized his eighteenth birthday. A night of drinking and his first time in a brothel, his first woman.

  Did his father mean that he couldn’t bed a woman until he married?

  As Archie’s mind raced with the implications of what his father told him, he felt his heart slowly disappear. It shriveled up, just like a grape left on the vine too long.

  His father was telling him that he was to inherit everything. The estate, the servants, the title, the responsibility. Everything, including a name that would forever be remembered for his brother’s grotesque death. The society in which Archie wanted to be accepted would soon scorn him. What woman would want him? As Archie thought about all the lost possibilities, he realized that his life would never be the same again.

  Chapter One

  London 1812

  Lord Archibald Turner, Archie to his friends, was the second son of the Marquess of Hunting. He had spent the last decade living an exemplary life. He was the epitome of gentlemanly behavior, habits and dress, without any of the excesses which were tolerated, but officially frowned upon. He hardly drank, he didn’t gamble and he was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. This, of course, meant he had never compromised anyone and had never taken advantage of the offers which were passed his way by the many unhappily married women in the ton. Archie spent more money on his clothes than all his friends combined, but that meant that he always looked attractive and civilized.

  Archie had spent the last six years fighting an intense attraction for one amazing woman. She was the only woman who noticed him to be more than the pious saint he pretended to be. She fought with him in public, teased him blatantly and laughed her full-bodied laugh at him. She was the only woman he had ever loved and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could handle standing close to her without declaring his intentions.

  Archie groaned as his wayward member stiffened in response to said woman’s laugh and the accompanying wobble of her generous breasts. He was wearing dark grey breeches that were so tight, they revealed everything. Archie had muscular thighs, unlike most of the men in the ton and his tailor often had trouble cutting his breeches just right. This wasn’t usually a problem, but when the front of his breeches was quite visible due to a high waisted white waistcoat and cut away evening jacket, Archie began to panic.
Desperate for something that would douse his ardor, he thought back to the last time he had seen Charlotte.

  It had been almost nine months before.

  Archie had been standing with his friend of over fifteen years, the former Lord Oliver Lyre, now the Duke of Lincoln. Oliver had shown up to a ton ball, without his new wife. Oliver had been explaining why his wife was in Scotland, rather than by his side in London when Charlotte had become incensed and started scolding him, in the middle of a crowded ballroom.

  Lady Charlotte Dunford, his heart, his soul, the only woman he would ever want to marry. She was the only daughter of the Duke of Arrow, his friend Lord John Dunford’s younger sister and the most beautiful woman Archie had ever seen. She was also a woman with a keen mind and a nasty temper when aroused and unfortunately, Oliver had aroused it.

  “You’ve done what?” Lady Charlotte raised her voice at the Duke, swinging angry eyes heavenward and then fixing them back on to Oliver’s face.

  Archie wanted to put his hands over his ears to block the sound but gallantly squashed that ungentlemanly urge.

  “Lady Charlotte, please,” Oliver had pleaded.

  Archie wasn’t sure why Oliver, Duke of Lincoln, had let his Duchess, Sarah leave him to go to Scotland, but he felt perfectly sure that a public reprimand was not the way to go about finding out.

  It was a pity that Lady Charlotte hadn’t felt the same way.

  “You’ve done what?” Lady Charlotte hissed at him, quieter this time.

  She removed the scowl from her face and plastered on her polite facade. Society did not approve displays of excessive emotion and frowned upon such public spectacles. Archie looked at Lady Charlotte’s attempt to conceal her feelings and could have told her not to bother. Lady Charlotte, having been a spoilt and indulged only daughter, had never been forced to school her features. She was, therefore, very bad at pretending to feel calm when she felt otherwise.

  “I returned to London without my wife.” The Duke repeated the words, obviously upset to be admitting the fact. His face was flushed and his eyes were darting around the room, hoping vainly that no-one had noticed.

  “And you packed her off to a Scottish castle? Your new wife? Your Duchess?” Lady Charlotte enunciated, her words calm and her face was remote, but her words dripping venom. Archie held his breath. This was going to get very ugly in a short time.

  “She wanted to go. She wasn’t enjoying being at the estate and when I asked her whether she wanted to come back to London with me, or stay there, she chose to travel to Scotland instead.”

  Archie found this rather odd. He knew Oliver’s wife, Sarah, had seen them on their wedding day. Unlike most couples of the ton, who married for financial or social reasons, Oliver and Sarah’s marriage had definitely been a love match. Why had it gone wrong so quickly?

  “What did you do?” Lady Charlotte asked again.

  Archie could see the anger in Charlotte’s eyes, he could feel the current of anger in her body, as though it was in his own. He had always been able to do that. He could read her as no one else seemed able to do, not even her own brother.

  “I didn’t do a thing. She was welcomed by the servants and I took the utmost care to ensure her comfort. When my mother and sister in law arrived they tried to...”

  “What!!!” Lady Charlotte exploded.

  Archie heard Oliver’s groan and wished he could do the same thing. Must she always be so passionate about everything?

  “You let your mother and that snake of a sister-in-law visit you while you were on your honeymoon?” Charlotte was incredulous.

  “They didn’t visit, they live there.”

  Charlotte seemed surprised by Oliver’s reasoning and Archie knew she didn’t understand. She would never know what it was like to feel like you weren’t really wanted or needed by your parents. Once upon a time, he had felt exactly the same way and it seemed that Oliver still did. Why else would he have allowed his relatives to invade what should have been his home?

  “Oh Sarah, you poor, poor thing,” Lady Charlotte murmured to herself, clasping her hands to her breasts.

  “Lady Charlotte that is really not fair, I didn’t do anything...” Oliver protested again, Archie could have told him it was pointless.

  “Exactly, you didn’t do anything to protect your beautiful, sweet, innocent wife from being set upon by the most cunning, jealous woman I have ever met.”

  Archie raised an eyebrow, wondering which woman Lady Charlotte meant. Probably Lady Honoria, Oliver’s sister-in-law. Even Lady Charlotte would have to stop short of publicly disparaging the Dowager.

  “You stupid, ignorant...” As Lady Charlotte started to wind herself up into a full blown attack, Archie gathered his courage and quickly stepped into the line of fire.

  “Lady Charlotte,” Archie said loudly, stepping in front of Oliver and bowing to her. “May I have the honor of this dance?”

  Lady Charlotte shut her mouth and eyed Archie with disdain. Archie made sure his body language left her no room for argument and he stood in a way that completely blocked Oliver from her line of vision.

  “Of course, my lord,” she managed, her eyes flashing daggers at Oliver even while Archie led her away.

  Archie felt her hand on his arm like she was holding a burning flame to his coat. He had avoided dancing with her since her coming out ball and this was the reason why. He had always hoped that his reaction to her would decrease, hoped his body would learn not be so sensitive to her, but it had never happened. Archie pulled Lady Charlotte gently into a waltz position (it had to be a waltz, bloody bad luck that he had) and started moving her expertly around the room. Neither of them had spoken yet, but her eyes told him volumes. Lady Charlotte had now divided her anger and Archie wasn’t sure if he fared worse or better than Oliver.

  “Go on, I know you want to,” Archie encouraged, schooling his face into his normal mask of politeness. He had thought that after a decade of pulling this face, it would be second nature and no longer feel like a mask. But when he was with Charlotte, every feeling was intensified, to the point of being almost painful.

  “I have nothing to say.”

  Archie bit back a smile. Lady Charlotte never addressed him, never had. He found it quite funny. He had no title so she couldn’t refer to him as that. He had never given her leave to call him Archie, and yet having been around her brother for most of her life she could really call him anything she wanted. And yet Lady Charlotte didn’t. She avoided referring to him at all and if she was really pressed, she occasionally called him ‘my lord’, with a wry twist to her lips. Charlotte had a transparent face, Archie could see every thought, every feeling there. At the moment, though, it didn’t take a person familiar with Lady Charlotte to see what she was feeling. It was there for the whole world to see. Her face was flushed, her eyes narrowed and firing with anger.

  “Lady Charlotte,” Archie began and heard her hiss at him through her clenched teeth.

  He had always addressed her as Lady Charlotte, partly because it was her title, due her because of her fortunate birth, but also partly because it annoyed her. For the first time since Archie had met Charlotte, he didn’t ignore her glare.

  “Well, what would you like me to call you?” He snapped, letting some of his annoyance slip into his voice. Lady Charlotte’s lips parted in shock and her eyes widened, measurably. Archie didn’t know if it was due to the tone of his voice or from his wording, but he couldn’t take the words back now.

  Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again.

  Archie waited. He danced them around the room and he waited some more. Charlotte looked beautiful when she was angry. Her too-full lips parted slightly and her bluer-than-blue eyes gave him a look as if she was trying to read him. He knew she wouldn’t see anything on his face, but it never seemed to stop her from trying to read him.

  “Charlotte,” she answered finally, her eyes wary as she awaited his response.

  “Well, Charlotte, say what yo
u are thinking, so you can feel better.”

  Archie tightened his hold on her reflexively, as he feared she would leave him on the dance floor if she really got angry with him.

  “May I call you Archie?” she burst out with this question, instead of answering his question.

  Archie almost laughed out loud and smiled, despite himself. He had meant that she should vent her anger at him, not ask for his permission to use his name.

  “Of course,” he inclined his head and watched her spine stiffen in anger again, her hand going rigid in his grasp.

  He groaned internally. Why was it that everything he did seemed to annoy her?

  “Archie, how dare you pull me away just because I was angry with Oliver? He deserves to know what an imbecile he is. Doesn’t he realize that Sarah will be absolutely heartbroken that he has abandoned her for his pursuits in London?”

  Archie frowned, how could Charlotte know this?

  “Firstly, I did not pull you away. I asked you to dance.” He tightened his hold on her hand, as though to illustrate the point.

  “For the first time in five years,” Charlotte muttered under her breath, looking down and away from him.

  Archie inhaled against the sudden pain in his chest. She sounded upset that he hadn’t danced with her regularly over the years. If only she’d known the torment he felt every time another man held her, she wouldn’t have been so quick to chastise him about the time they had spent apart.

  Ignoring her jibe, he continued.

  “Secondly, how can you be so sure of Sarah’s feelings?”

  Was this really something ladies discussed? Or was Charlotte making assumptions?

  “Because that was always Sarah’s biggest fear about marrying above her station. The day before they married, she told me that she would never survive if Oliver chose another woman over her, if he took a mistress or chose to gallivant around London instead of being with her. He is not only doing that, but he made sure she was in a different country, where she can only assume the worst.”