Enchanting the Duke: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 5)

by Arietta Richmond

  His Majesty’s Hounds – Book 5

  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: 978-1-925499-57-5

  These stories are works 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

  Enchanting the Duke (coming soon)

  Redeeming the Marquess (coming soon)

  Healing Lord Barton (coming soon)

  Winning the Merchant Earl (coming soon)

  Loving the Bitter Baron (coming soon)

  Rescuing the Countess (coming soon)

  Attracting the Spymaster (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 every other book that I have written, was 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 readers who inspire me to continue writing, by buying my books! Especially for those of you who have taken the time to email me, or to leave reviews, and tell me what you love about these books, and what you’d like to see more of – thank you – I’m listening, I promise to write more about your favourite characters.

  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.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Here is Your Preview of Redeeming the Marquess

  Chapter One

  Books in the His Majesty’s Hounds series

  Books in the Derbyshire Set series

  Regency Collections with Other Authors

  Other Books from Dreamstone Publishing

  The County of Berkshire, England – late March 1815

  The crisp Spring air carried the last frosts of winter across the bleak countryside and nipped the exposed cheeks of the burly coach driver who steered the stately coach carefully through the wide wrought iron gates and into the grounds of Casterfield Grange. Frost-covered poplars lined the gravelled driveway and groundsmen in warm, long, woollen coats touched their hats in respect as the coach rolled by, wheels clattering on the small pebbles and steam swirling from the backs of the tired horses.

  “Finally,” whispered Lady Cordelia Branley, the elder daughter of the Baron whose family had held the noble title of Tillingford for nearly eight hundred years. She pushed her hands deeper into the fox-fur muff that kept her hands protected from the cold and smiled.

  “Home at last and we have arrived whilst it is still daylight.”

  Her companion (once her governess) tried to smile, but looked tired from the journey.

  Miss Millpost was a strict and severe spinster of some fifty summers, a woman whose main responsibility was to chaperone the pretty, dark haired seventeen-year old girl, teach her how to run a household as only a good and obedient wife should, and keep her out of mischief. The companion shifted her bony frame on the hard, leather-bound coach seat.

  “How may we even know if the sun still exists beyond those dark clouds and the bitter cold? If I don’t have warm tea to revive me, child, I fear I shall expire from the ague!”

  Lady Cordelia tried not to laugh, for she knew that Miss Millpost would sooner revive her spirits with a glass or two of her father’s excellent Madeira.

  She sighed. It felt good to be home once more, and she was more than excited to see her loving father again and her beautiful younger sister, Georgiana.

  Ever since their dear mama had died, in a cholera epidemic when Georgiana was only five, and Cordelia seven, Cordelia had tried to assume the role of mother, and she naturally felt deeply protective of her sister.

  The younger girl often behaved more like a boy and had seemed to prefer playing in the garden and getting herself covered in mud and leaves rather than learning to embroider and excel at the feminine arts. But their father loved them both dearly and indulged them in whatever ways might make them happy.

  Despite the constant shadow of their mother’s tragic death, it was still a happy household and a wonderful place to grow up.

  Georgiana’s insatiable curiosity had even prompted her father to consider appointing a tutor for his younger daughter and he was weighing the issue in his comfortable library with a pipe of fine Virginia tobacco and glass of good cognac when he heard the carriage wheels and the horses’ hooves approaching the house.

  Clouds of hot breath surrounded the horses as they pulled the carriage across the frosted ground and finally slowed to a welcome halt outside the grand entrance portico of Baron Tillingford’s elegant home. Servants hurried to open the carriage door and unfold the steps so that the passengers could alight. They were smiling as Cordelia stepped down, obviously pleased to see her Ladyship safely returned from her journey. They fussed around her, almost ignoring the companion as she struggled to step down without lifting the hem of her heavy skirt and revealing her bony ankles. It was important to observe the correct proprieties at all times, she felt. Especially in front of the servants.

  “Papa!” Cordelia cried as she caught sight of her father at the top of the steps. She raced up the broad stone stairs and hugged the Baron, who could barely contain his tears of joy as he held his lovely daughter in his arms and gave thanks for her safe return.

  “You look so much like your beloved mama, my
dear. How can I look upon you and not see the radiance of her grace and beauty? It warms my heart and cheers my soul!”

  The companion coughed loudly behind Cordelia’s back to announce her presence.

  “Miss Millpost. Well met and welcome back. You must join me in the library for a glass of light refreshment and tell me how went your visit to London.”

  Cordelia had not long celebrated her seventeenth birthday and the Baron had finally bowed to pressure from his precious elder daughter and allowed her to visit relatives in London. The Baron’s cousin was an influential woman and a well-known and popular guest in the salons and elegant drawing rooms of London’s high society. Sadly, her husband had died a little more than a year ago, of an apoplexy, and whilst she was well off, she was, it had seemed to the Baron, rather lonely. Cordelia’s visit was a boon for both of them. She had provided the perfect opportunity to introduce Cordelia to the nobility of the nation’s capital.

  At seventeen, the Baron was also aware that his daughter would soon be eligible for marriage and that it would do no harm for her pretty face and lovely smile to be seen in the discerning circles of the gentry. The hard fact was that the endless wars with Napoleon had taken far too many young men away from England’s shores to offer their service in His Majesty’s Army and Navy. And too few of them ever came back.

  The result was that there simply were not so many young, eligible noblemen around who might come to Baron Tillingford and seek Cordelia’s hand in marriage. Introducing the young woman into London society might possibly draw the attention of a noble young suitor, and then the ageing Baron could rest easier in the knowledge that at least one of his daughters had made a good match. It was all he wanted for his girls. To see them happily married and presiding over a great and noble household.

  For, as he sadly had no son to follow him, the Barony, and its entailed estates, would pass to someone else, probably some extremely distant relative, or someone chosen by the King, as he had, to his knowledge, no male relatives to succeed him.

  That made it all the more important that his girls be well placed with suitable husbands. He could leave them Casterfield Grange, for it was not entailed, nor were a few other properties he held, including the house in Bath where his great aunt Petrina had lived out her life as a spinster, so their beloved home would still be theirs when he was no longer here to care for them. Still, he wished to see them happy, and married to men of suitable wealth and breeding, as soon as possible.

  It wasn’t too much to ask for, but the Baron was aware of his age and his growing infirmity. Time, he felt, was not on his side.

  London had been a revelation for the young Lady Cordelia Branley. She had danced until her feet hurt, charmed and excited by being so much in demand, and flushed with the attention of so many gentlemen. She had found many of those attentive gentlemen rather too old for her liking, and many were not so handsome of figure, no matter how elegantly dressed. Still their attention was flattering, and it was obvious that her beauty stood out amongst the girls present, with her striking dark hair and fresh skin. Many of the younger men seemed to avoid the dancing, perhaps because their families were pushing them to marry? Their absence initially disappointed her, but Cordelia soon discovered where they were hiding themselves during most of the Balls.

  She’d been thrilled to see the well-dressed young bucks in their expensively-tailored attire, seated around card tables and wagering loudly on the outcome of every hand. Whilst the card rooms at Balls were more commonly frequented by men, and a few of the older ladies, only, Cordelia had begged her hostess for a chance to see what went on.

  The games had been exciting to watch and, one evening, when one of the young nobles spied Cordelia and nodded his head at her with a courteous smile, it was all that she could do to contain herself. She blushed and the young man laughed, his carefully-oiled mass of dark curls set off with a black silk ribbon tied in a bow at the back.

  He looked back at the table and roared with delight as he turned the final card and gathered up his winnings. His companions groaned as they threw their cards on the table and Cordelia turned to her hostess and asked who the young man might be.

  “That is Lord Edward Fitzhugh, second son of the Earl of Bolton, my dear, a fine young man who should be alongside his father in the King’s uniform, fighting the French in Spain. But he prefers to spend his days slug-a-bed and his nights gambling at the card tables and carousing.”

  Her hostess’ voice was severe, quite disapproving, but she refused to say more on the matter. With her heart beating and her pretty eyes widening, Cordelia was utterly convinced that he was by far the most handsome young man she had seen.

  Ever.

  ~~~~~

  To one side of the room, an older gentleman, handsome, elegant and exquisitely presented, in attire that was in no way ostentatious, yet spoke, in its every line, of the best tailoring that money could buy, leant against the wall watching the room.

  Philip Canterwood, Duke of Rotherhithe, enjoyed a hand of cards, but never gambled with any serious intent. He had just finished a game with some acquaintances, and now simply stood, quietly, watching. The behaviour of men when they gambled intrigued him.

  The room was full of extravagantly dressed young fops, eager to display their wealth, with an unconcern for its loss, hoping, at every turn, to impress the young ladies who watched wide eyed. The fops might not yet wish to be captured into marriage, but they were hungry for a woman’s admiration.

  His gaze travelled around the room, alighting on a face he did not know. Beside Lady Mathilde Egremont stood a girl he had never seen before. She was young, and innocent inexperience showed in everything about her. But she was outstandingly beautiful, with rich dark hair and glowing pale skin. Her lips, currently open in a small gasp, as one of the fops looked her way, were a delightful dark pink that fair begged to be kissed, if one were a man prone to kissing innocents.

  Not usually one to be interested in the young girls, barely past childhood, that the mothers of the ton paraded in hopes of snaring a husband, he yet found himself watching this girl closely. Something about her drew him, as if, in some way, she might be different from the others.

  He shook his head at his whimsy, and turned back to conversation with some friends, with a last faint wondering at who she might be.

  ~~~~~

  During the following days, Cordelia conspired with her hostess to attend as many social functions as possible, overtly to meet as many noble ladies and gentlemen as she could but secretly with the hope that she might catch sight, once more, of the dashing Lord Edward Fitzhugh. Her hopes were not in vain.

  Many of the great salons offered cards and the sport of wagering on the outcome, a pursuit that might have been reserved for the candlelit interiors of the gentlemen’s clubs, but was widely accepted as a fashionable way to offer entertainment and draw the young bucks into the well-lit reception rooms where eligible young ladies might be viewed and appreciated for their potential as future brides.

  Lord Edward was considered to be a most fortunate card player, for he displayed remarkable skill at the gaming tables. He always smiled and offered his fellow players a warm handshake when the games were done and he was filling his purse with his prize of gold coins.

  On the final night of Cordelia’s stay in London, she was sipping her glass of punch and watching the other guests in the elegant ballroom, when someone touched her bare shoulder and gently moved an artfully trailing curl of her lovely auburn hair aside.

  She turned and stared into the pale grey eyes of Lord Edward Fitzhugh, and her heart nearly stopped beating.

  He bowed to her, and when he looked up again he was smiling.

  “Your servant, my Lady.”

  Miss Millpost, standing beside Cordelia, seemed on the verge of apoplexy when she noticed that the young Lord was being far too familiar with her charge, and without a formal introduction!

  Cordelia, well used to Miss Millpost, was aware of her disapproval, and
ignored it.

  Miss Millpost would, no doubt, berate her soundly later. She was more interested in what Lord Edward had to say, than in Miss Millpost’s opinion at that moment.

  He looked into Cordelia’s eyes and she found the intensity of his attention flattering, if almost unnerving.

  “Pray, my Lady, would you grant me the boon of your favour and let me hear from your lips the sound of your name? For ‘tis a perfect misery to my heart to behold your loveliness and not know how to address you.”

  At this rather overly dramatic pronouncement, Miss Millpost coughed so loudly that people in the vicinity turned to see if she were having a spasm, or a fit of the vapours.

  “Sir!” she finally spoke with a steely edge to her voice. “You may address that question to me, for I am sure that you have not been formally introduced to the young lady and that you presume too much by speaking to her!”

  The young lord laughed.

  “The fault is entirely mine for forgetting my manners in the presence of such beauty. I was bewitched and enchanted by the lady’s smile and I no longer know what I do.”

  Cordelia nearly clapped her hands in delight at his poetic manner, but managed to restrain herself beneath the watchful gaze of the disapproving Miss Millpost, who continued to speak to him firmly.

  “Sirrah, I will have none of your poetry and nonsense! This is the elder daughter of the Baron Tillingford whose estates lie but two days’ ride from London and whose family are well known to His Majesty the King! Who might you be, to presume so rudely to speak to her?”

  Fitzhugh bowed deeply before Cordelia, with a dramatic sweep of his arm that brought his forefinger to almost touching the marble floor at the young Lady’s feet, before drawing himself up to his full height and declaring, “And I am Lord Edward Fitzhugh, my Lady, and I am at your service.”

  Cordelia almost stuttered in the presence of the young Lord, so swept away by his looks and manner did she feel, but she made an attempt at appropriate behaviour, nonetheless.