Giving a Heart of Lace: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 3)

by Arietta Richmond

  His Majesty’s Hounds– Book 3

  Sweet and Clean Regency Romance

  Arietta Richmond

  Dreamstone Publishing © 2017

  www.dreamstonepublishing.com

  Copyright © 2017 Dreamstone Publishing and Arietta Richmond

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this work may be copied without the author’s permission.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-925499-50-6

  This story is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Books by Arietta Richmond

  His Majesty’s Hounds

  Claiming the Heart of a Duke

  Intriguing the Viscount

  Giving a Heart of Lace (a prequel to Winning the Merchant Earl)

  Being Lady Harriet’s Hero (coming soon)

  Enchanting the Duke

  Redeeming the Marquess

  Healing Lord Barton (coming soon)

  Winning the Merchant Earl (coming soon)

  Loving the Bitter Baron (coming soon)

  Rescuing the Countess (coming soon)

  The Derbyshire Set

  A Gift of Love (Prequel short story)

  A Devil’s Bargain (Prequel short story - coming soon)

  The Earl’s Unexpected Bride

  The Captain’s Compromised Heiress

  The Viscount’s Unsuitable Affair

  The Count’s Impetuous Seduction

  The Rake’s Unlikely Redemption

  The Marquess’ Scandalous Mistress

  A Remembered Face (Bonus short story – coming soon)

  The Marchioness’ Second Chance (coming soon)

  A Viscount’s Reluctant Passion (coming soon)

  Lady Theodora’s Christmas Wish

  The Duke’s Improper Love (coming soon)

  Other Books

  The Scottish Governess (coming soon)

  The Earl’s Reluctant Fiancée (coming soon)

  The Crew of the Seadragon’s Soul Series, (coming soon - a set of 10 linked novels)

  For everyone who had the grace to be patient while this book, and the ones before and after it, were coming into existence, who provided cups of tea, and food, when the writing would not let me go, and endured countless times being asked for opinions.

  For the other writers in my Regency Romance mastermind group, who inspire me, and ask the kind of questions that make us all learn more about this fascinating period.

  For the readers coming to know these characters well, and who inspire me to continue, by buying my books!

  For my growing team of beta readers and advance reviewers – it’s thanks to you that others can enjoy these books in the best presentation possible!

  And for all the writers of Regency Historical Romance, whose books I read, who inspired me to write in this fascinating period.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Books in the His Majesty's Hounds Series

  Here is your preview of Claiming the Heart of a Duke

  Chapter One

  Books in the Derbyshire Set

  The coal box was empty. The larder contained some cheese, some bread, and very little else. Serafine walked to her room with a heavy heart. In her dresser drawer, there was a small metal chest – the sort that, in another life, she might have used as a jewellery box.

  She turned the key, and opened the chest. She stared at the contents, as despair gripped her. The box contained only ten pounds. Ten pounds that were their last remaining money. And, carefully wrapped in a scrap of silk, a heart made of lace and ribbon and beads, all sewn onto a piece of parchment.

  Lace that was all she had left of her grandmother. Everything else had been sold. Sewing that heart had been just for fun, then – it seemed an eternity ago – before ‘the fall’ as she thought of it. Before her fool of a brother had gambled away everything, drawn into a tawdry gaming hell by that demon Pendholm, and bled of everything that had any value in their lives. Before her brother had committed the ultimate betrayal, and killed himself because of it.

  Before the ton had shunned them for the scandal of a suicide in the family. Before…..

  She shut the thoughts away. At least they had the house. It was small, and in a rather unfashionable part of town – not quite respectable at all – but it was her mother’s outright, left to her by her aunt, shortly after Serafine’s father’s death. Although an unheated house, with no servants, and little furniture left was not exactly the most pleasant place to live, at least it was theirs.

  She took out two pounds, her finger absently stroking the lace as she did, then shut and locked the chest, hiding it away again. Today, she could buy food and coal. What would she do on the day when there was no longer any money to do so?

  ~~~~~

  Serafine sighed, holding the bag of food close against her. It was heavy, but she treasured the weight – it was the substance of survival, at least for a little longer. The coal would be delivered later in the day – enough for a month, if she was very careful. The food would not last near so long.

  Passing the shop on the corner, she paused to look in the window a moment. Once, she would have thought such a shop beneath her – now, what it contained was as far beyond what she could afford as the moon was above the earth. Yet she still liked to look at pretty things. A little collection in one corner of the window caught her eye. A pile of what might be called favours – little cards and items, decorated with ribbons, lace and sometimes paste gems or feathers.

  Pretty little nothings that a man might give his mistress, or a woman he was courting.

  One, in particular, a little stained on the edges, but still pretty, reminded her of the heart with her grandmother’s lace – it was the sort of thing that some called a Valentine. She stared at it for a while, feeling as if it was important, but not knowing why, then shrugged, lifted her bags again, and went home.

  ~~~~~

  The next day was clear and bright, but very cold – they would likely have snow on Christmas Day. Serafine sat at the window of the parlour, sewing. She was nearly finished embellishing the gown for Mrs Johnson, which was a relief, for it meant that she would be paid for the work, but also a worry, for there were no more dresses waiting her attention. And her sewing was their only income –the only way to stretch out what money they had, for a little longer.

  The ladies of the merchant classes, who lived all around them, those who had some money, but were not rich enough to ever consider going to a modiste in the heart of London, they were her customers. They found the idea of a Lady born sewing for them somehow satisfying (not that anybody ever called her ‘Lady Serafine’ any more – that manner of address belonged to before – now she was just ‘miss’ most of the time. And to those who knew her name at all, she was Miss Sera – Serafine had seemed a lovely name to her mother, who was fascinated by old mythology and similar, but now it was simply out of place for her current station in life.).

  The merchant ladies appreciated her fine sense of fashion. But more
than that, they appreciated her affordable pricing.

  She hummed as she worked, her clever fingers sewing beads onto a tracery of lace on the hemline of the dress, but her mind was elsewhere.

  Her thoughts kept going back to that sad little pile of favours in the shop window. She wondered if they sold well, and what sort of people bought them. She’d seen a few things like that… before… but she’d never thought much of it. She thought of it now. They were such little things, and sewing them was, she suspected, not so different from sewing embellishments onto dresses.

  Were they a thing that members of the ton might buy? Perhaps – if someone important bought one, or gave one to someone noticeable… if that happened, then others would follow – there were always those who simply copied everything the arbiters of fashion did, or the royal family did. She brought her attention back to sewing the last few beads onto the dress – what a goose she was, dreaming about the royals and the ton! They had nothing to do with her world now, nothing at all.

  Mr Raphael Morton was bored. That was a terrible thing to admit, when what he was doing was going over the business ledgers with the man he employed to do his accounts. Mr Manning was excellent at his job, and the ledgers were neat and clear. They showed just how wealthy Raphael was – just how well Morton Empire Imports was doing. Most men would be excited by what they saw – not bored.

  But, bored he was. For Raphael, the exciting part was the planning, laying out the path that led to this, that ensured that, if all the steps were followed, the wealth would grow. After years at war, the inactivity of sitting in an office, or walking the warehouse and speaking to customers, was slowly driving him mad. To make it worse, his ship’s captains came back not only with cargoes of exotic goods to make him even wealthier, but with tales of distant lands, strange sights and different people.

  He envied them. He wanted to see those places himself. No amount of wealth and rich living here could change that. London was a gilded cage.

  For, no matter what they had vowed to each other, the world would go as it did – his friends, those who had been closer than family for those long years of war, would be forced away from him. It was simple fact. They were all titled, and he was not. He was, in fact, that worst of things (from the ton’s point of view), a Cit – a merchant, one tainted by dirtying his hands with trade. No matter that it had made him wealthier than most of them, no matter that they craved the luxuries he imported, he was, to the ton, to be disdained for his lower class existence.

  How could his friends ever overcome that? He would not wish them shunned by their peers for associating with him. Yet he missed them sorely. Better to travel the world alone, than to live here in luxury, so close, yet never able to see them.

  “That will do for today, Manning. Your work is excellent, as usual. Make sure that the Captain of the Morton Venture receives a suitable bonus – he has done far better than I expected with this cargo.”

  Manning blinked in some surprise, for they were barely half way through the review of the ledgers, then nodded, closed the books, and left the office.

  ~~~~~

  Two hours later, Raphael was still sitting there, thinking. He had reached the rather depressing conclusion that there was no easy answer to his boredom, or to his sense of being trapped. Perhaps it might be more bearable if he had something new and different to do, some new venture?

  At least then he could sink himself into the planning, into bringing something new to life, and making it profitable. But what? He had warehouses full of exotic materials, objects, spices and other things – was there some new way that he could use them, something new he could create, that could be cleverly brought to the attention of the most influential of the ton, or perhaps even the Prince Regent? Raphael knew that, for something new to become a profitable venture, it would have to draw the attention of those with money to spend.

  The idea took hold, it was a puzzle to be solved – what new thing could he create, using goods that he already had, which could take the fashionable people by storm, and make him even wealthier? (not that he cared about the money, he had enough – it was the challenge that mattered…)

  He spent the next few days stalking through his warehouses, looking at everything, terrifying his managers and warehouse labourers, who were certain that he must be seeking evidence of wrongdoing on their part. He could feel an idea, an insight, at the edge of his thoughts – but it refused to surface. He went home to toss and turn in restless sleep, dreaming of exotic oddities.

  ~~~~~

  With Mrs Johnson’s dress completed and delivered, Serafine took a little of the money that she had been paid, and went to the market. She would add some more food to their supplies while she could, and getting out and walking felt good, after the last few days of sitting and sewing.

  At the little shop on the corner she stopped, looking at the items in the window again. Surprised at what she saw, she considered a moment, then turned and entered the shop.

  “What can I do for you, Miss?”

  The shopkeeper looked at her, obviously assessing her possible wealth from her clothes.

  “In the window – those little… favours? I noticed them the other day, and meant to come in earlier – I particularly liked the heart shaped one, but I can’t see it now – has it been sold?”

  “Oh yes Miss, you’ve got to be quick to get a nice one of those – they sell all the time, any that I get. The young gents are always looking for tokens to give the girls they’re courting. The heart shaped ones go fastest – seems they like it to be obvious what they mean when they put it in the girl’s hands. Don’t often get a young lady asking about them though.”

  Serafine thought for a moment, as the shopkeeper waited, his expression curious.

  “Where do they come from? I mean, who do you buy them from?”

  “Well Miss, it’s not always the same. Used to be my old mother made some for me, but she’s gone to God now, and m’wife don’t like to sew fiddly things. So now it’s only when someone brings some in, that they want to sell, that I can get any. Pity, because there’s always those as wants to buy ‘em.”

  “How much do you sell them for?”

  Serafine waited for the answer, almost holding her breath.

  When the shopkeeper, after some time thinking, named a figure, she was pleasantly surprised, even though she suspected he might have inflated the number, because he thought she looked like she could afford more. That idea almost brought a bubble of bitter laughter to her, but she repressed it. An idea was forming – maybe there was a way for her to earn more, to keep them surviving a bit longer.

  “What if I had some to sell you? New ones, heart shaped ones with pretty beads or ribbons, not just lace?”

  The shopkeeper’s eyes narrowed with avarice, and Serafine knew, instantly, that her instinct was right – this was a way to earn more.

  “Likely I’d be interested in buying… if the price was right…”

  Twenty minutes of haggling later, Serafine left the shop, with a bounce in her step that hadn’t been there for a long time. They had agreed that she would bring him three as a sample, in a few days’ time. For those, he would give her about half of the price he normally sold them for. If they sold well, he would buy more – and give her a better percentage of the price, especially if she made things that he could sell for a higher price to begin with.

  By her calculations, she could earn as much from making four or five of the pretty little favours as she could from embellishing a dress – and she would need to use less materials to do so. After a quiet luncheon with her mother, who declared it far too cold to go out, and wanted only to huddle by the fire and read, Serafine went out again – to buy beads and lace, and some heavy paper.

  It was time to get to work.

  ~~~~~

  Some hours later, tired but satisfied, she carefully put away the collection of beads, laces and little paste gems that she had bought – the amount it had cost her, even buying mismatched and
second-hand (for small favours did not need many beads, unlike dresses!), worried her, for it had taken far more of their money than she was comfortable with, but there really was no choice – she had to earn money somehow, and that meant spending some first.

  If these did well, though, she would need to find another source of materials – both to get better quality, and because, with today’s purchases, she had quite exhausted the supply from the places she usually shopped.

  Christmas Day arrived with a deep fall of snow overnight, after which the day dawned clear and beautiful, the winter sun making the icicles on the trees and eaves sparkle like decorations. For Seraphine and her mother, it was a day of sadness – their second Christmas since ‘the fall’ - and now they were considerably poorer than they had been for the first one. They missed James, her brother – for no matter how much Serafine might curse what he had done, he was still her brother – and his absence hurt.

  There was enough coal to warm one room of the house – it had to be enough. And, taking Serafine completely by surprise, Mrs Johnson, and two of the other ladies whose dresses she sewed, had sent their servants to her door bearing a hamper of Christmas food and a bottle of good wine. The simple kindness had brought her to tears.

  Between that, and the success of her first few favours, the money would last a little longer, and that was, at least, something to be grateful for.

  Curled by the fire, Serafine was thinking about favours. The first few that she had made were Christmassy – in the hope that young men might buy them to give to their sweethearts for the Holiday. She had tried, as much as possible with the cheap materials, to make them look expensive, to make them look like the sort of thing that a member of the ton would not be ashamed to give.

  It seemed that she had succeeded, for Mr Tanner at the shop had been impressed, and she was sure that he had sold them for even more than he had originally thought he might. She had seen his eyes narrow with avarice again, when she unwrapped them from the box she had brought them in. She might have pushed for more than he had paid her, but she was grateful for what she received – and anyway, if she wanted him to buy more, it was best not to make that too hard for him.