Rowena (Regency Belles Series Book 1)

by Caroline Ashton

‘Terrified her?’ An aristocratic snort, not unlike those of Lady Tiverton, issued from her. ‘You exaggerate, Laurence. I have never terrified anyone, ever.’

  Conniston banished all memories of being hounded round the nursery by an older sister intent on relieving him of his favourite toy soldier.

  Harriette returned with assurances that yet more tea would be supplied as soon as may be. She perched on the edge of the upright chair by the smaller table, fingers knotting and unknotting in her lap and her mind switching between trying to ignore the fact that her uncle was dying upstairs and searching for a topic, any topic, of conversation that Lady D’Arborough might consider acceptable.

  Above her fraught daughter, Lady Tiverton marched a shivering Amabelle along the passage to her father’s room. ‘You will put aside this affectation, miss, and behave as becomes the gently-bred girl you are.’

  Amabelle bit the knuckles of her free hand. ‘Papa isn’t really going to die, is he?’

  ‘I assume there is a distinct possibility since the doctor has recommended your presence.’

  Lady Tiverton opened the bedroom door. Amabelle froze on the threshold, causing her aunt to collide with her back. Rowena knelt by the bed, her cheek against her father’s limp hand. Doctor Norton stood behind her, his own hand on her shoulder. Mother Haswell hovered the other side of the bed, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Amabelle wailed.

  Her aunt pushed her forward. ‘My brother?’ she began.

  ‘Is struggling hard,’ Doctor Norton said.

  ‘I see.’ She took station at the foot of the bed. ‘My good woman, please be kind enough to step downstairs and ask for one of the lads to be sent for the Vicar.’

  Mother Haswell gave a final sniff into her apron, bobbed the slightest of curtsies and swayed slowly out of the room.

  ‘Amabelle, take your father’s other hand.’ She stared at the motionless girl. ‘Come along, child. Do as you are bid.’

  Amabelle inched forward. When she reached the foot of the bed, Lady Tiverton grasped her upper arm and propelled her forward. Amabelle sank to her knees opposite Rowena. Her fingers stretched tentatively onto the back of Sir Richard’s hand. Watched over by his sister and his daughters, Sir Richard dragged breath after breath into his failing lungs.

  Downstairs, Lady D’Arborough picked up the book which lay on the little table. Raising her lorgnette she surveyed the title stamped into the front cover. ‘A Journal of the Plague Year,’ she announced into the silence. ‘By a Mr Daniel Defoe.’ She dropped the book back onto the table. ‘What a most peculiar title for anyone to peruse, let alone a young girl.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s Miss Quigley’s, ma’am,’ Harriette said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  Lord Conniston had removed from the fireplace to stare out of the window. Her words still managed to penetrate his faint air of distraction.

  ‘Most unlikely, I would have thought for Mr Defoe to be a favourite of hers. It’s probably belongs to Miss Harcourt-Spence. I believe she carried another of his works to her aunt’s.’

  The stunning burst of conversation faded into silence over the cold teacups until it was broken by Phillips showing the Reverend Jeffray Warterton into the room.

  Any reverend gentleman possessed of a living like Fincham Wortly, where he was required to attend august personages, should have been of substantial dimensions and age. Mr Warterton did not fit that mould. He was barely out of his twenties, fair of face, and with a slight build balanced on a pair of rather large feet. He was, nonetheless, an earnest young gentleman, determined to follow his calling to the utmost of his ability. This fact was not lost on most of the young maids in his parish. It accounted for an increase in each and every one of the services he held. Matins had never been so popular and the Churching of Women was attended with determination by every newly-delivered mother who had a daughter in service in the vicinity.

  Clutching his Book of Common Prayer, he bowed. ‘Peace be to this house, and to all that dwell in it.’

  The lorgnette came into play. ‘Thank you, but there is little to be had. Or so I believe.’

  The Vicar blinked. It was not the greeting to which he was accustomed. Hovering in the doorway, he looked to Lord Conniston. ‘If I might be taken to the invalid?’

  Conniston looked over the Vicar’s shoulder at the butler waiting in the hall. ‘Phillips, take the Vicar to your master.’

  Phillips bowed. ‘If you would be good enough to follow me, Reverend.’

  He waited until the vicar was well into the hall then closed the door on the trio in the morning room. Conversation dwindled to its previous non-existent level. Lady D’Arborough picked up Mr Defoe’s Plague Year.

  She had read the first six pages before the door opened again and Lady Tiverton entered. Conniston pushed his shoulder off the mantelpiece, his face unreadable. Her ladyship paused on the threshold. Her voice came tensely.

  ‘I regret to say my brother has departed this world.’

  Lady D’Arborough inclined her head a fraction. ‘Pray accept my condolences ma’am,’ she said. ‘I hope his passing was peaceful?’

  ‘Not particularly. We must look upon it as a blessed relief.’ Lady Tiverton turned to her daughter. ‘Your cousins are upstairs. Go and comfort them.’

  Harriette goggled at her mother. ‘Me?’ she squeaked.

  ‘You, miss.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well? What are you waiting for? Go along with you.’

  Harriette rose, somewhat shakily, curtsied to her mother and the guests and took herself out of the room, feeling quite as plagued as Defoe’s London inhabitants.

  With her daughter dispatched, the bereaved sister’s eye fell on the decanter of brandy on the buffet against the wall opposite the window. Noting that her own brother’s attention was somewhat distracted, Lady D’Arborough stepped into the breach.

  ‘May I press you to a sip of brandywine, ma’am? I believe it to be a significant restorative in such times as these.’

  She rose from her seat in a rustle of flounces and poured an impressive amount of the late Sir Richard’s best Armagnac into a glass. Sophronia Tiverton drank it in two mouthfuls. Lady D’Arborough blinked. She refilled Lady Tiverton’s glass before helping herself to a similar amount. Laurence, eighth Earl of Conniston stared out of the window, unheeding.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Rowena knelt beside Sir Richard’s bed alone. Amabelle had fled as soon as her aunt had left the room. There were no fresh tears on Rowena’s face. Salty tracks of the ones she had shed when Doctor Norton had raised the sheet to shroud Sir Richard’s face still marked her cheeks. The edge of the linen was lifted a fraction now so her fingers could hold her father’s steadily cooling hand. Doctor Norton had gripped her shoulder in silence before he had hurried Mother Haswell out of the room. His whispered instructions at the bedroom door had sent her bustling to Amabelle sobbing hysterically in her room to see she did herself no harm. Clicking the latch closed, he had left Rowena alone with her father.

  She knelt there, unmoved by the distant noise of Amabelle’s hysterical sobbing. The slightest tap on the door barely broke into her misery. When she did not answer it opened and Lord Conniston stepped into the room. The sight of the composed girl of previous encounters looking so distraught wrung his much-tried conscience.

  ‘Forgive my intrusion at this sad time but there is something urgent I must say to you.’

  Rowena’s head turned to him slowly. Her enormous eyes, pain-filled in a face devoid of animation, registered his presence. ‘My father is dead,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.

  Conniston advanced a pace then stopped himself. ‘I know. Allow me to express my deepest condolences.’

  The pale face inclined a fraction before her gaze swam back to the bed. Conniston remained by the door. A tightness afflicte
d his throat. It took a second attempt before the words he had so carefully rehearsed as he had mounted the stairs could be forced out.

  ‘I cannot but feel that I bear considerable responsibility for the present sad state of affairs.’

  ‘You, sir?’ Rowena tried to relate his statement to the present circumstances. ‘How can that be? If blame is to be cast it must be upon my sister. She is certainly of that opinion. So much so that Doctor Norton fears for her sanity.’

  ‘I disagree. Had I not pressed my suit so earnestly she would not have been driven to the desperate measures that have led to this.’ His hand indicated the bed.

  Rowena’s only answer was to tighten both hands around her father’s fingers. Conniston’s face remained calm but the clenched fists at his sides betrayed more emotion than he wished to own.

  ‘Permit me to say, ma’am, how much I have admired your composure in these difficult few days.’ Rowena’s bowed head turned away from him. ‘It encourages me to mention now the many things that must be decided and decided urgently.’ An inexplicable lump swelled in his throat. He cleared it with effort. ‘Your aunt speaks of taking you and your sister to live with her.’

  Rowena’s attention was caught. Her head twisted round; her eyes upon him were enormous and dark.

  ‘I cannot believe, ma’am, that a character such as yours . . . or what I have come to believe is yours . . . would wish to become a dependent relative in another’s house. Not after having had the management of your own.’ He raised a hand to fend off her protest. ‘Do not, I beg you, deny it. I know you had charge here. Anyone who has had the privilege – as I have –’ he executed a slight bow – ‘to come to know you would realise you would hate every second of that role of no matter how much you sought to display a brave and grateful face to the world.’

  Rowena’s head drooped onto the back of her hand still lying on the bed. ‘I am ashamed to say you’re correct, my lord. I would be ungrateful. And I would hate myself for being so.’

  His lordship was encouraged to step forward. ‘Since I hold myself to blame, the solution must rest with me.’

  ‘Solution?’ Rowena rested her cheek against her father’s hand. ‘There is no solution.’

  ‘I disagree.’ He drew himself up. ‘Miss Harcourt-Spence, I must insist you permit me to take both you and your sister under my protection.’

  Rowena’s head snapped up. The heavy lashes that shaded her cheeks flew up. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Miss Harcourt-Spencer, I beg you to do the honour of agreeing to become my wife.’

  Rowena stared at him, shock holding her body rigid. His lordship’s face coloured and he hurried into further speech.

  ‘There would not, I need hardly add, be any requirement upon you to accept more than my name. I make no expectation of affection on your part and of course I would respect that. After all –’ He waved a hand in a negative sweep. ‘My sister has already provided several heirs.’

  It was difficult to tell which of the two was the most discomposed by this statement. Certainly each had cheeks of a ruddier appearance than normal. Seconds ticked past while they stared at each other. His lordship’s colour mounted.

  ‘I must ask you to contemplate my offer most seriously. Just consider . . . it will relieve you of the burden of gratitude to your aunt and of the uncertainty of your future.’

  Words eventually formed in Rowena’s mouth. ‘But gratitude to my aunt would simply be replaced by gratitude to you.’

  ‘To the contrary. You would be doing me the most significant favour. For the rest of my life I shall count myself the cause of Sir Richard’s death. By accepting my offer you would relieve me of much of that guilt. The knowledge that I will have secured the future of his daughters will enable me to more easily carry the remaining burden.’

  Rowena released her father’s fingers. Slumped beside the bed, she grasped her hands in her lap. After a few seconds she raised them to her face. Conniston experienced an inexplicable urge to rush to her, lift her troubled person from the floor and shelter her in his arms. He swallowed.

  ‘Miss Harcourt-Spence, I –’

  A raised hand stopped him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. I have perhaps spoken too soon, yet I believed that in the presence of your father’s spirit, if not his corporeal being, this might be acceptable to you. No doubt you will wish to consider in private. I shall wait outside.’ He paused with his hand on the door. ‘I must mention that I have not spoken of my purpose downstairs. You must be allowed to consider your response without the pressure we both know your aunt would place on you, but please, I beg you, grant me this favour.’

  He swung the door open. Forcing his shoulders to remain straight, he stepped into the passage and latched the door quietly behind him.

  The sigh that escaped Rowena ruffled the lace trim on her gown. The emotions of the past hour threatened to press her beyond endurance. The death of her father, the reaction of her sister and now this offer weighed heavily upon her. She could only be grateful that Conniston had been considerate enough not to apprise her aunt of his intention. As he had said, it was beyond doubt that Lady Tiverton would all but stampede up the stairs regardless of any consideration of dignity to harass her into accepting. She stood up and paced towards the window. The view outside was so familiar, so dear to her, it brought another knot to her throat and threatened another bout of tears.

  She turned her back to it. Her eyes strayed immediately to her father’s shrouded body lying on the bed. Would he urge her to accept? A weak smile curved her lips. If only he could, there would be no need of it.

  The soft smile vanished. But what of her own feelings? Conniston had made it quite plain that his affections were not engaged, unlike her own. She wrung her hands together. Would a life of hiding the secrets of her heart be worse than hiding resentment of a pale life at Darnebrook Abbey? Lord Conniston had always appeared an active man. He would surely have . . . what was the term . . . peccadilloes? Could she bear that? Could she carry out her duties, smile charmingly through her social appearances, knowing that his someone else had secured his devotion? She had long ago decided her life would not include a tender husband and the blessing of children. Now she must be honest enough to admit that the stirrings created in her whenever she was near Laurence Conniston would only add further torment to a cold existence.

  Standing in the passage, Conniston stared at the opposite wall and cursed himself. How had someone as experienced as he at navigating the marriage mart come to be so entranced by a heart-shaped face and a pair of dark eyes. He had watched Amabelle’s vivacious enjoyment of her first season with amusement. He –

  His very thoughts hit him with a strength that forced the breath from his lungs. Entranced. Watched. She had amused him as would an eager puppy. That is what had caught him off guard. He thought back. Back to the many occasions he had passed in the company of the two sisters under the considering eye of their aunt. It had been Miss Harcourt-Spence he had sat beside, conversed with, laughed with while Amabelle had cast a spell of youthful enjoyment around her world. Amabelle had engaged his attention, Rowena had engaged his mind.

  A hammer blow of realisation had him almost staggering against the wall. He put out a hand to steady himself. He had just offered marriage to the woman he had never suspected he loved. And he had done so in a way that now precluded any declaration on his part. An unaccustomed wave of despair inundated his mind.

  Inside her father’s room, Rowena walked to the bed and knelt beside it, her hands gripped as if in prayer. ‘Please, Papa, tell me what to do.’ Tears began again. They dripped into her hands. She bowed her head against the sheet and wished and wished and wished that Amabelle had not been so stupid.

  Amabelle.

  What would become of her? Their aunt would never permit a girl given to hysteria to appear in her drawing room. Or in any social event she might herself attend. N
o, it was certain that Amabelle would be hidden away. Lodged quietly on the estate to spare Lady Tiverton any possible embarrassment. Or worse, affect Harriette’s prospects. Amabelle’s recklessness and today’s excessive emotion almost cast Araminta Neave into the role of a desirable companion.

  No. Regardless of what it would cost her, she must save Amabelle from such a fate. She would accept Lord Conniston. She would use Amabelle’s health as a reason to remain on his estates rather than brave the horrors of the London Seasons. Beyond doubt she would have to endure thinly-veiled hints from the dowagers as to when she should present her husband with a direct heir.

  Rowena Harcourt-Spence kissed her father’s cold fingers and rose to her feet. She lifted the skirt of her gown and wiped her eyes on it. Her own fingers, scarcely warmer than her father’s, smoothed the tendrils of her hair that had escaped during the turmoil of the day. Calm, composed, with her hands folded at her waist and her head as high as any French aristocrat on a last journey to the guillotine, she walked across her father’s room, opened the door and looked Laurence Conniston in the face.

  ‘Thank you, my lord, for your offer.’ She drew a breath. ‘I am much honoured, and I accept.’

  Colour rose and faded in Conniston’s face. Standing alone in the passage for the past few minutes and waiting for her answer had revealed to him why Rowena Harcourt-Spence’s presence disturbed his own so much. He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Be assured, madam, that I will do my utmost to promote your happiness. May I now escort you to your aunt to apprise her of our contract?’

  Rowena turned and walked along the passage ahead of him. Two steps behind, Laurence, Earl of Conniston, looked at her high head and elegant figure and wondered just how in heaven’s name he was going to keep his word to respect her privacy and person.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Rowena stood beside Laurence, her fingers resting lightly on his bent arm.

  ‘Excellent. Most sensible idea I’ve heard all day.’ Sophronia Tiverton allowed a smile to inform her features. Delight was noticeably absent from Lady D’Arborough’s face. She barely managed to keep her countenance pleasant. The delighted aunt advanced towards the affianced pair.