by Regina Darcy
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
BONUS CHAPTER 1:MESMERISING THE DUKE
BONUS CHAPTER 2:BEWITCHING THE VISCOUNT
Copyright © Regina Darcy 2016
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and writer except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a contemporary work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
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reginadarcy.cleanandwholesomeromance.com
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CHAPTER 1
Miss Beatrice Seton looked so forlorn that, despite herself, her aunt felt a smile begin to tilt the stern set of her lips. Beatrice saw it too and her expression changed immediately. “You see, Auntie, you do understand! You know that I’m simply not suitable for the order.”
“Reverend Mother,” the Abbess chided her niece gently.
“You must remember to call me by my title child.”
“But there’s no one here but you and me, Aunty Jane. You know that I always remember when I’m with the other novices or the sisters.” Beatrice replied with a shrug. Then she leaned in eagerly and continued the conversation that had started several weeks ago.
“Auntie Jane, you do understand, don’t you? I want to live in the world, not closed off from it. I want to fall in love and marry, I want children. What’s wrong with that?” Beatrice’s brown eyes were intent with the ardour of youth for claiming what it regarded as its due. She was young and although she had no awareness of her beauty, the Abbess knew that Beatrice was a lovely girl who could, if she were out in Society, have held her own with the belles of London.
The Abbess sighed. They were in her study, a simple but well-furnished room which reflected both her religious vocation and the family wealth that she had brought with her when she chose to leave the life of affluence and worldliness in favour of the convent. Now, years later, she was the Abbess of Boxley Abbey, a position she had held for over twenty years.
“Your mother’s dying wish was for me to protect you and keep you safe,” she said. “She fled France during the Terror so that you would be safe. I cannot forget my promise to her.” The Abbess recalled those terrifying years and the uncertainty that had clouded their lives. She had been a sister at St. Margeaux convent in France, but back then, not even the religious houses were safe from the rage of the public.
Beatrice didn’t remember her mother, who had died just hours after Beatrice’s birth. But the Abbess treasured her likeness of the frail, lovely Lisette who had married a French peer. Tragically, her husband, the Comte de Villegagnon had been one of the first aristocrats to lose his head to Madame La Guillotine, as the French revolted against their king and queen, the church, and all sanity. The Abbess, the members of her order and her young niece, had fled as well, to England, where they would be safer, despite being a Catholic minority in a heathen country of Protestants. But the order had thrived thanks to the Abbess’ shrewd business sense and warm-hearted compassion. The sisters made herbal tonics and salves that they sold, however the healing that they offered to the community was given at no cost. Still, it suited the Abbess to be able to have a product which benefitted those who used it while providing the Abbey with a livelihood. The medicines were crafted from the years of experience that the sisters had gained from their knowledge of the herbs.
As she turned towards her bureau and sat back down, she focused her attention back on her niece.
“But surely Maman would have understood. She married!”
The smile left the lips of the Abbess. Yes, Lisette had married, and had died in childbirth, a widow before her child was born. It was, the Abbess realized, the fate of many women in the world, when childbirth was as dangerous for females, as warfare was for soldiers in battle. Although women were rarely credited for the courage of giving birth.
She sighed deeply. She could not protect Beatrice from all that life would do to her but she had hoped that her niece would find a calling in the Abbey. However, clearly that was not to be.
“She would not have wanted me to wither away inside a convent.”
“I was not proposing that you should wither away,” the Abbess replied drily. She fingered the ornate jewelled cross that hung around her neck. “You are a wealthy young woman, as you know. Although there may be no way of claiming your French lands and inheritance, your mother travelled to England with gold and jewels. You will be a very attractive matrimonial prospect for a husband, but I want you to marry wisely.”
“I want to love the man I marry,” Beatrice said, her full lower lip trembled. It was halfway between a pout and a sob, as if she were already considering the prospect of a marriage to someone she did not love.
“And I want you to marry someone who will be a good husband. A man of good character.” The Abbess did not add that she intended her niece to acquire a title. The heiress to the de Villegagnon fortune was not a pauper on her maternal side; Lisette and the Abbess had come from a gentile line,. That breeding and wealth would not be thrown away on someone of inferior rank. “I am not averse to you marrying,” she said finally.
Beatrice’s hair was hidden by the head-covering that all the novices wore, but her brown eyes could not be concealed and they were bright with joy. “Thank you, Auntie!”
“But I will choose your husband,” the Abbess interjected firmly. “I will choose wisely, with God’s guidance. But I will be discerning. We will pray over this matter.”
Beatrice had already been praying that God would send her a husband. Someone tall and handsome, who knew how to tie a cravat that Beau Brummel would approve of; someone whose locks were arranged in a Brutus hair style, or perhaps a Bedford Crop.
Or perhaps a man in uniform who was fighting with Lord Wellington; soldiers looked so very handsome. But with Bonaparte ruling over France and, it seemed, half of Europe, marriage to a soldier would mean that he was very likely to have to join his regiment and that was not at all a pleasant thought. “A Corinthian!” Beatrice breathed.
“Really, Beatrice, where do you hear these things?” the Abbess inquired. “When you go into the village you are supposed to have your mind on the service to the poor, not on gentlemen.” The Abbess picked up her quill pen. “Run along, now. It’s nearly time for vespers.”
“You will find me a husband soon?” Beatrice asked eagerly.
“Yes. I will let it be known that a member of my family who has not taken her vows has expressed a desire to leave the Abbey and that I am seeking a worthy man for her to marry,” the Abbess replied with a bemused smile.
“Now run along.”
Worthy sounded very dull, Beatrice thought. She had hoped that she would be allowed to leave the Abbey and be taken in by someone of the ton who would steer her into Society. Someone to supervise her coming out, and chaperone her for balls and social events so that she could meet dashing young gentlemen. She smiled as she imagined how they would kiss her hand when no one was looking, recite odes to her beauty, and tell her that her eyes were as bright as gemstones, and woo her with passion.
Beatr
ice was not quite sure what passion consisted of, apart from the manner in which it was presented in the pages of the pamphlets that she surreptitiously read at night when she was alone, but it sounded like something that would be very exciting. Yes, excitement was something Beatrice believed she was ready to encounter.
CHAPTER 2
The Earl of Kent pulled on the bell rope. Nothing happened. He muttered a curse. “Alistair!” he bellowed.
“My lord?”
The butler, who had been standing outside the drawing room awaiting his summons, entered as soon as he was called.
“Does anything work in this damnable ruin of a house?”
Christopher Davenport, had been the Earl of Kent for approximately seven weeks since the death of his father, the previous Earl. Christopher had left his regiment when he receive the news that the Earl had died as scandalously as he had lived, in the private bedchamber of a woman who was the wife of another man.
The circumstances of his death had been somewhat smoothed over by the time Christopher arrived from the Continent. The lady in question had retired to the country and the dead Earl had received a sober funeral which would not have pleased him at all. But with an empty wine cellar and a stack of debts to pay, Christopher was in no mood to go into hock merely to feed the county’s rich and spoiled.
Except for the night of his arrival, and the day of the funeral, when he had lodged in the village tavern, he had spent the seven past weeks in London.
His solicitors had provided him with the grim news that he was, through no fault of his own, virtually bankrupt. If he sold everything that he had inherited, it would not be enough to bring him out of debt. He had instructed the solicitors to make a complete list of all that was owed so that he could prioritize which debts to pay first.
Old Horace Ponsonby, who had tended to the Davenport family’s affairs since Christopher was a child, looked doubtful. But Christopher had insisted. He needed to be able to identify his enemy, whether it was the French approaching the battlefield, or the array of debts that his father and brother had managed to leave unpaid. Now he was back in Chisterton village, the ancestral home of the Davenports.
It was time to take a reckoning of his inheritance. Thus far, he had discovered that the roof leaked; the blue bedroom wallpaper was peeling and mould was suspected; the fireplaces smoked; the stable boys could not be paid fair wages and most of the horses had been sold; the carpeting in the dining room was in deplorable condition. And this morning Higgins, the groundskeeper, had informed him that the beechwood trees that lined the pathway to the manor seemed to be afflicted with some sort of blight.
“Some repairs are needed,” Alistair admitted diplomatically.
“Some? I’d be surprised if anything is intact. Did my father do nothing to maintain the estate?”
Alistair coughed. “I believe that His Lordship was more inclined to stay in town, sir.”
“Yes,” Christopher commented grimly. “Running up gambling debts and conducting himself like the roué that he was.”
It was not for Alistair to comment on the behaviour of his deceased employer. “His Lordship was fond of society,” he said noncommittally.
“Yes, indeed. Whilst I was off fighting Boney it seems as though I was also fighting for your late Master’s right to squander my inheritance. My great-grandfather would have been aghast.”
His great-grandfather, the first Earl of Kent, had fought with Marlborough, been decorated for bravery, and been given an Earldom by a grateful monarch. Christopher had never known him except as a family legend but when he had procured his commission, he had done so with a sense of pride that he was following in the first Earl’s exalted footsteps. His grandfather, the second Earl, had not been martially inclined but he maintained his grounds well. He had married an heiress, been influential in the county, did his duty in the House of Lords and was, if not as celebrated as his father before him, at least remembered as an honourable man.
Nichols sighed. Then came his father. The third Earl. Scandal, debts, and duels had been his manner of living.
“Well, Christopher, I didn’t expect to see you here. Come to see your inheritance?” a dry voice said from somewhere behind him. Christopher turned around to the unsurprising sight of his younger brother Jasper. “Alistair, be a good chap, and bring up a bottle, won’t you?”
“The wine cellar is unfortunately empty, milord,” the butler replied.
“Surely there’s a bottle somewhere. Do go and search. I can’t believe father drank it all,” Jasper replied.
“I can,” Christopher said, eyeing his brother sternly. “Did you know the place was in such a condition?”
Jasper sat down, sprawling upon the faded upholstery of the chairs upon which royalty had once sat in grander days.
At 28 years of age he was still a bachelor.
Jasper was, unfortunately, much more like their father and most unlike their great-grandfather. Although they were brothers, with a family resemblance which shared the dark hair and dark eyes of their father, they were as unlike as two brothers could be.
Christopher looked at his brother warily; the debauchery that had altered his father’s features had not yet made its presence visible in Jasper’s handsome face, but there were signs.
Christopher noted the stylishness of his waistcoat and wondered if his tailor had been paid. Probably not. More than likely, the bill was outstanding and would be delivered to the Earl’s door; no doubt other hopeful vendors and shopkeepers would be presenting him with the indebted proof that what he had inherited was a title, an estate in ruins, and a mountain of bills. Jasper shrugged.
“I’m generally not in the countryside,” he said with a wide smile that showed off perfect white teeth. “Father and I both enjoyed the city more.”
“Fortunately the house in London seems to have been maintained better than this has,” Christopher said.
Jasper shrugged again. “Father and I dined out, we didn’t entertain, so it didn’t really signify.”
Speaking in curt tones, Christopher retorted. “It certainly does signify. This house, these ground are our inheritance as much as the London house is; they should be maintained as our great-grandfather intended.”
“They’re your inheritance, brother, not mine,” Jasper said, looking up at his brother. For a moment, the genial blue eyes were cold. “Unless, of course, you die without an heir.”
“I’ve managed to survive Bonaparte, I fancy I’ll last a bit longer,” Christopher drawled.
“Long enough to father an heir?”
“I’ll need to marry first.”
Jasper fastidiously removed a speck of dust from his immaculate cuffs. “Ahh, does the search for an heiress begin?”
“It does,” Christopher said, his tone matter-of-fact and business-like. He had not thought to marry yet, not while he was a soldier, but now that he had resigned his commission to take up the title and its responsibilities, he was obliged to think of his family duty.
“Who’s the lucky wench?”
“I’ve no idea. What about you?”
“Me? Who is going to want a penniless second son with no inheritance to speak of, and a title that only lasts until you’ve sired an heir? No, I don’t fancy a wife just yet.”
“What about the military?”
“Good Lord, no!” Jasper looked disgusted. “I don’t fancy the thin red line at all. No, I shall manage as I have been.”
“Doing what?”
Jasper’s smile was back. “I’m deuced lucky at cards, you know.”
“Are you?” Christopher asked, with a raised eyebrow. When he played, he won more often than he lost. This was something he credited to ever-fickle luck and not to skill, he knew better than to trust Dame Fortune. “Lucky enough to afford those Hessians?
Jasper glanced down at his boots. “Oh, these are not paid for,” he said as if he were relieving his brother’s concern.
“They should be,” Christopher replied, very disappoint
ed at his brother’s cavalier manner.
“Don’t be absurd, brother. One doesn’t worry about paying the tradesmen. They’re not gambling debts, you know.”
“You pay those, I trust?”
Jasper smiled. “I told you, brother. I’m deuced lucky at cards.”
“It’s hardly a reliable source of income.”
“Neither is soldiering,” Jasper replied. “At least with cards, one is unlikely to be shot.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Christopher observed ironically.
CHAPTER 3
Christopher left the house for London the next day. His conversation with his brother had left him irritated and dissatisfied. Was Jasper really so dissolute that he cared nothing for the debts he had incurred, nor that honest tradesmen would be left with the expense of his purchases and nothing to show for it.
Christopher believed in paying his debts. It was not a fashionable notion but it was one he lived by. He would need to purchase new garments, however, if he intended to present an image befitting his new station in life; he was no longer an officer in His Majesty’s army. It was odd, he reflected as he walked up the steps of the Mayfair house, how unreal it felt to be out of uniform, walking casually, among citizens who were going about their business as if, just across the Channel, there wasn’t a nation in the grips of a man who intended to be the master of Europe.
It was perhaps unusual, he supposed, to have made no matrimonial plans thus far, and now suddenly to be determined to find a bride, simply because his family home needed repairs, his funds needed replenishing, and he had acquired the title.
What would a woman think, he wondered, to be sought out for her wealth rather than her own self. Was it arrogant of him to assume that a woman would want to marry him and bind her dowry to a run-down estate? The Davenport name had meant something, once upon a time. What did it mean now, other than a scandalous death and unpaid debts?