by Regina Darcy
She had spent the entire evening in the centre of revelry, passed from one gentleman to another, until she had torn herself away for a moment to breathe. Bodies were packed close together and potential lovers stole furtive glances at one another as the music continued to swell. Her dearest friend, Miss Lucy Grove, pulled her behind the crowd.
“Well now, Emmeline, are your feet sore yet?” she teased. “You have hardly found a moment’s rest since the night began. Quite popular among the local prospects, are we?”
“Even so, I can hardly remember the name of a single gentleman from this evening,” Emmeline admitted.
“Ah, they would weep to hear such news. Half of them looked ready to propose.”
Emmeline merely scoffed. “Forgive me if I feel relieved that none acted on such urges. A rejection would absolutely ruin the mood of the ball.”
“Now, now, Miss Knight. That is not an attitude befitting a lady such as yourself,” Lucy said with a wry smile. “They all seemed perfectly nice. You have plenty of time to find a husband who fits your tastes, but if you reject every kind soul who comes your way...”
“Oh, Lucy. I hardly think it any fault of mine that the local boys are all just that—boys.” She sighed. “Is it wrong to wish for a few better options?”
The surrounding people parted like the red sea, eagerly making room with eyes politely downcast and hungry. Lord William Blackwood, viscount and heir to the Earl of Dingby, wore a light expression of haughtiness, that was so common of the aristocracy, as he sailed through the crowd.
Lord Blackwood had come by his title suddenly, when his older brother had died during his commission in the French revolutionary war of the Second Coalition. As the sole heir of the Earl of Dingby, it was anticipated that he should marry soon. He was one of the most eligible bachelors in the Berkshire society. Unfortunately, he was also not the most eloquent gentleman around, frequently comporting himself much older than his mere 28 years.
“What of Lord Blackwood? He has always been most cordial to you,” Lucy murmured, “and you cannot do much better than a viscount.”
“Archibald told me that there’s only one thing he would want from someone of my status, and it is not marriage,” Emmeline whispered back.
“How oddly realistic. I would never have expected such beliefs from you.”
“I trust my brother’s judgement. Besides, he is too much of a cold fish. Now, come along before he sees me; I should not wish to dance again yet.”
Her mother stood at the side of the dance floor next to her younger brother, Archibald, who was only half listening to her, as the couples in the centre of the room giggled and pranced around each other. Emmeline made her way towards them.
“Yes, mother. Of course,” Emmeline heard him say as they approached.
“Archibald, you always say that. When will you accomplish the task of providing an heir?” her mother chided in response. “The matter is of outmost importance. You’re getting to the age that—oh! Emmeline! Have you been enjoying the dance?” Mrs. Knight smiled in an eager manner that indicated she was asking something else entirely.
“The dancing, yes. The gentlemen, however, I found far less interesting,” she responded. Mrs. Knight’s face fell.
“Oh, Emmeline. Must you be so choosy?”
“Mother, these boys are hardly worth your fretting. Besides, it is not as if there’s a threat of me becoming an old maid. At nineteen, I can afford to wait for someone truly wonderful for a little while longer, can I not?”
“I fear your judgement may be tainted by all those fairy tales you love so dearly,” Archibald muttered.
“Oh, you are hardly in a place to lecture me on judgement,” Emmeline shot back at her brother.
Archibald tutted. “So bold. You are fortunate that none of your followers heard that.” Miss Lucy Grove watched the playful sibling rivalry with an amused smile, but Mrs. Knight seemed eager to change the subject.
“Now, you two, please. Emmeline, I would like you to be married in a timely manner,” Mrs. Knight said. “Though a love-match would be perfect, my dear, most maidens marry out of practicality and convenience. You are unlikely to find a prince in these parts.”
“That’s not quite so,” Lucy interjected, lips touched with a sly smile. Emmeline’s curiosity was piqued.
“What do you mean, Lucy?” she asked.
“Well, I heard whispers while you were on the dance floor. Apparently, someone just rented Archester Manor.”
“Archester? Really?” Emmeline said, breathless. Archester Manor was no humble abode. The estate covered nearly 4,000 acres and looked fit for a royal’s summer retreat. For the money it would take to rent it, the guest may as well be royal. Lucy watched her friend’s shock with excitement.
“You have yet to hear the best of it,” she said.
“Please stop holding me in suspense and just say it, Lucy!” Emmeline cried. By this point, all three Knights were leaning in, eyes wide.
Lucy enjoyed her last few moments of superior knowledge, then spoke. “The guest is a Peer from France.” Her small crowd let out a single synonymous gasp. She continued, “His name is Le Comte de Coligny, and rumour is he plans to stay all season.”
“Did you say his name was de Coligny?” Mrs. Knight echoed. “Hmm…a Count…I believe my grandfather knew him. Archibald, perhaps you should call on him?”
Emmeline seemed not to have heard her mother.
“Did you say that he came alone?” Lucy nodded.
“I hope I do not presume too much to say that may be the reason he came for the season,” she said.
“Why Berkshire?” Archibald mused quietly. “If he is truly of the peerage as the rumours say, why not look for a companion in a city like London?”
“I do hope you do not mean to insult Berkshire ladies, Mr. Knight, or some of us may take offense,” Lucy said, still wearing her sly and amused smile.
“I can hardly believe—here. A French Count!” Emmeline said. Her thoughts enveloped her. She imagined a reason as to exactly why he had come to their humble village instead of some city; he wanted to meet women of a more non-material nature, who had lived in luxury less than those he was used to. This golden-hearted Lord wanted the company of humble ladies, polite and plain in attitude despite soft and lovely appearances. In her mind, they were already a perfect fit.
“Well, we already have the heir to an earldom. Not that I’ve seen you pay any attention to Lord Blackwood,” Mrs. Knight said, sounding sour. Emmeline paid her no head.
“Oh dear,” Emmeline sighed, fanning herself, “a Peer.” Distantly, the music swelled and descended into silence as the band prepared itself for the next song.
A hand fell softly on her shoulder and rested there for a moment before jerking off as if it had been burnt. It tore Emmeline from her thoughts, and she stared into the stern face of Lord Blackwood. “My apologies, Miss Knight. I simply wanted your attention.”
“Apologies for what?” She looked at his hand, held carefully at his side, then back at her shoulder. He looked about as surprised as she did—perhaps at his own boldness.
“Oh. There is no need for apologies, Lord Blackwood. How may I assist you?”
“I would like to ask your company for this final dance of the evening, if it would please you.”
“Hmm? Oh, of course,” she replied with a dreamy lopsided grin. Lord Blackwood’s eyebrows furrowed at her distance.
“Thank you, Miss Knight.” He held out his hand and she placed hers in it. He looked down at their joined hands and breathed in deeply before leading her to the dance floor.
The band began to play. This song was one that they had clearly been saving, for it was the lightest tune of the evening. It seemed to lift Emmeline’s spirits even higher, even as she was not fully present for it. In mind if not in body, she was with her imagined Count de Coligny, living her dearest fantasy. If Lord Blackwood held her hand a little tighter than was considered polite, or caressed the underside of her glove
d wrist with his thumb for a brief, blissful moment, she did not notice. Nothing could distract her from her daydreams. Her very own fairy tale had just begun.
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BONUS CHAPTER 2:
THE DUKE’S SON TO THE RESCUE
ONE
Unlike everyone else in the village of Walsing, Battington, Charlotte Smith was wishing that it would rain. She had no desire to ruin the village fair, which would take place the following day, but a cool, soaking rain would mean that the work she was doing would have to be postponed.
The vast acreage of Walsingham Hall, where she and her parents lived and worked, demanded long days of labour spent tending to flowers, trimming bushes and hedges, tending the fruit trees in the orchard and the vegetables in the kitchen garden. She was toiling, under the sun, during a day when the rest of England was enjoying the warmest July that anyone could remember.
For Charlotte, this meant another day drenched with perspiration in the only dress she owned. Her parents had work clothes and Sunday best clothes, but for Charlotte there was only this one dress; a worn, faded frock which had once, long before she owned it, had a pink and white flowered skirt with a pink bodice. Now, the colours were washed out and the flowers like real blooms, had long since faded away.
What would happen, she wondered drearily, as she continued trimming the bushes that bordered the gazebo on the hall grounds, when the dress was too tattered to wear in public?
Would her parents purchase cloth so that she could make a new one, or would they, once again, acquire a garment left by another dead woman for Charlotte to wear? She wiped her brow. With a deep sigh she looked up at the estate.
She had overheard her mother saying that his lordship, Jonathan, Lord Davenport, the Marquess of Marsfield, was home from the American colonies. His father, the Duke of Battington was tremendously pleased with his safe return and the festivities were partly to celebrate this. The Marquess would be taking part in the horse race which was scheduled for the second day of the fair.
Charlotte recalled seeing his lordship when he was a child. She couldn’t recall the earlier years of her life; for some reason, she had no recollection of anything that had happened before she was ten years of age. But one of her earliest memories was meeting his lordship. He had been with his tutor, a kindly old man who was leading him about the meadows near the house, teaching him about the wild plants. Charlotte watched in silence as the tutor introduced his lordship to each plant as if he were making its acquaintance. The tutor told him the plants name in Latin, the name it was known by, when it had been planted and how long it bloomed. They had caught her observing them. Her memory of it was as clear as the day.
Seven years earlier
“Hello little girl,” the tutor said with a smile. “Do you like flowers?”
Charlotte nodded silently.
“Well, we are playing a game,” the tutor continued. “It’s called name that flower.”
Charlotte looked at the man and then back at the boy, who was smiling tentatively at her. The old man bent down and pointed at a nearby blossom.
“Can you name this flower?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
Bolstered by the almost imperceptible nod of the boy, Charlotte found the courage to answer.
“It is honeysuckle. the flower has a lovely smell and grows from a bulb like a daffodil’.”
The tutor looked pleasantly surprised, “Do you know its Latin name?”
“No Miss,” Charlotte replied shyly. “But I do know they are extremely soft. Especially if you touch the leaves underneath.”
The tutor and the young lord bent over and did just that. His lordship gave her an admiring look as if she’d discovered something miraculous.
“You are quite the botanist,” the tutor said, chuckling. “The Latin name,” he’d told Charlotte, “is Lonicera caprifolium.”
The rest of the afternoon passed by in a flurry, as Charlotte joined the pair in their discovery of the plant life in the garden. Before Lord Davenport and his tutor left for the day, each had thanked Charlotte for her contribution to their lesson.
After they left, Charlotte stood wistfully wishing that her life was full of flowers, plants and lovely walks in the garden. She did not see the slap coming. Just the stars as the pain shot through her face.
“You sneaking little ingrate!” her father shouted.
He started to beat Charlotte with a stick cut from a tree.
“Never intrude upon the gentry again! You are a commoner!” he bellowed, “and don’t you dare forget it.”
The next day, when his lordship and his tutor came out to continue their lesson, Charlotte had been on the other side of the grounds, pulling up weeds.
Charlotte shook her head, trying to shake off both the pain of the past and the present. The memory of that day was burned permanently in her mind. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Booths were being set up about the grounds for the local vendors to sell their wares, and the estate staff hurried in and out of the elegant house delivering messages from the Duchess who would be presenting the prizes to the winners of the various contests. On a day when the anticipation in the village was so tangible, Charlotte felt as if she was the only person in Walsing who had little to look forward to except more drudgery. Despite the fact that the other gardeners were also working on the estate, the cheerfulness with which they went about their task, was not rubbing off on Charlotte.
She heard the sound of hooves drumming a steady rhythm upon the expanse of the beautifully manicured lawns. Raising her head above the crown of the foliage she was tending, she saw Davenport mounted on a splendid black horse. She knew nothing of horsemanship, but during the seven years that she’d been living in the estate grounds, she’d observed many riders and it was obvious that Lord Davenport was born to the saddle. He sat with his back straight and his hands light but firm on the reins. The horse was spirited, that was apparent, but it obeyed him without question.
She watched as the bright sunlight struck Davenport, turning his blond hair an even brighter shade of gold. With his fair colouring, white ruffled shirt and tan breeches, the sable steed was the perfect foil for his handsome appearance.
What was it like, she wondered as she watched him over the hedge, to be dressed as he was, in clean, fashionable clothes; to sit astride a horse that could take him anywhere he wanted to go, and to enjoy his life? What was it like…
A stick, coming through the air, struck her neck. It hadn’t fallen, she realised. It had been aimed at her birthmark, the red, horseshoe-shaped mark on the neck that had been there as long as she could remember. She was ashamed of it and wished that she could cover it up with a shawl or a wide collar, but her parents forbade her to conceal the mark. It was God’s punishment, they told her, because she was a wicked child and she must let it be visible so that everyone who saw it would know that she was to be avoided.
“You worthless, lazy slattern!” Her father came closer, his deeply-lined face revealing the bitterness he felt at his lot in life. “Back to work! Those hedges need trimming before the fair begins, and you’ll get them done, if you’re obliged to stay out here all night, do you hear me?” He was carrying the branch from which he’d stripped the stick.
When she didn’t answer, he raised the stick. “Do you hear me, child?” his voice thundered.
“I hear you.” she burst out. “Why shouldn’t I go? Everyone in the village is looking forward to the fair but me.”
“Be grateful that you have a roof over your miserable head and food in your wretched body,” he told her. “Fairs aren’t for the likes of you. You’re lowborn, put on this earth to work until you die.”
“But even the other commoners are going,” she argued.
She saw the stick descending and then felt it on her back. Even as she felt the pain, she gritted her teeth, trying to prevent herself from crying out. She would not give him the satisfaction. Instead, she took two steps backwards, so she was no longer within reach.
Nowadays, that’s all it took to make him stop. He was no youngster to be running after her all over the estate grounds. He spared her one last furious gaze before stamping away. Sighing deeply, Charlotte closed her eyes and made the same prayer she had been praying as far as she could remember.
“Father, hear my prayer. I beg you, take me away from this life of drudgery, hurt, anger and pain. You have said to those who believe in you:
‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’
Please Father, I am asking, I am seeking. Do not let me live and die in this misery. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, amen.”
As she finished her prayer, she felt much restored. Swiftly she went back to work.
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KEEP IN TOUCH!
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Regency LORDS Series
1. Mesmerising a Duke
2. Winning the Viscount Heart
3. Bewitching the Viscount
4. The Duke’s Secret Desire
Regency TALES Series
1. An Earl for the desperate bride
2. The Earl and the girl from the Abbey
3. A Governess for the faithless Duke
4. A Duke’s son to the rescue
5. Captivated by the Earl