The Rivals of Rosennor Hall (Entangled Inheritance Book 3)

by Rebecca Connolly

  Entangled Inheritance

  Book Three

  by

  Rebecca Connolly

  Also from the

  Entangled Inheritance

  Series

  by Heather Chapman

  A Provision for Love (Book 1)

  by Sally Britton

  His Unexpected Heiress (Book 2)

  by Ashtyn Newbold

  An Unwelcome Suitor (Book 4)

  Copyright © 2019 Rebecca Connolly

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise; without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Front cover design by Amanda Conley

  Printed by Rebecca Connolly, in the United States of America.

  First printing edition 2019

  For Heather and Jen for being my cheerleaders, my therapists, my mentors, and, most of all, my friends. Thanks for the button moments, the hilarious videos, the hours of goodness, and the years of gloriousness ahead of us. This banter is for you, gals.

  And to Ross and Demelza, whose fiery relationship gives me so very much joy and inspiration.

  Want to hear about future releases and upcoming events for Rebecca Connolly?

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  www.rebeccaconnolly.com

  Index

  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

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER 1

  The will of one Sir Kentworth Jameson Edmund Howard-Dale ought not to have concerned Miss Sophia Alexandra Anson. A poor but sensible girl from Oxfordshire, she had completed her education and training in all of the fine accomplishments young ladies of the day were expected to possess. She had no prospects, no family, and no dowry to speak of.

  In fact, were it not for the cousin of her late father, she would not even have a home at the present. But Sophia was not prone to dramatics or flights of fancy, and the prospect of earning her living did not intimidate her.

  Receiving notice that she was needed in London straightaway due to the contents of the will of the aforementioned late Sir Kentworth Howard-Dale, a man whom she had never heard of, did intimidate her.

  Just a little.

  “Who was this man again?” Sophia asked her cousin and his wife, currently seated across from her in the rumbling carriage.

  Mr. Arthur heaved a sigh as he gave her a pitying look. “I don’t know, Sophia. A relation of your mother's, I believe, but he could just as easily have been a relation of ours. The Anson line is not a family tree, but a vine. We will reach London soon, and then you will have answers.”

  They had been over this time and again, but it didn’t settle Sophia any more this time than it had the others.

  She wrung her fingers, the edges of the worn gloves wearing further with the action. “I know, I apologize. I just… There isn’t anything I can imagine a distant relation leaving me that would be worth the journey from Geillis to London. Imagine coming all this way for a half-broken music box.”

  Mrs. Arthur laughed at the suggestion. “Or a particularly lovely tapestry with more moth than substance.”

  Sophia grinned at her as she rocked to and fro in the carriage. “Yes, exactly. Whatever would I do with that? I’m perfectly accustomed to having nothing to my name but good sense and my mother’s perfect nose. Try as Papa did, I did not have the respectable dowry he’d hoped. The family house was entailed to my odious cousin Crispin, and all my memories were reduced to filling a meager trunk with a broken handle. Do you think, perhaps, I have been indentured in this will?”

  “Really, Sophia…” Mr. Arthur shook his head with a heavy sigh. “One does not include human beings in a will and testament. Sir Kenworth Howard-Dale had no claim to your person, I can assure you.”

  “How do you know, cousin?” Sophia asked, giving the man a wry look. “You don’t even know how we are connected. What if my father’s substantial loans for one of his failed business ventures involved pawning off his only child as collateral?”

  Silence reigned in the carriage while Mr. Arthur considered Sophia soberly, his dark eyes steady on her. He was always looking at her as though there was something amusing about her, something that fascinated him, but something he did not quite comprehend. She wasn’t surprised; the Arthurs had only had sons, and while they were intelligent, they had all managed to marry soft-spoken, rather dull, but practically perfect wives.

  The poor man did not know what to do with an imperfect, intelligent, and outspoken female.

  Though he seemed to have done well enough in marrying one.

  “You’ve been reading again.” The words were not in any way disparaging, but said with resignation enough to make Sophia grin outright.

  He was always resigned to Sophia’s antics.

  “I have,” she admitted without shame. “It is your own fault, cousin. You leave your periodicals out and your study door open. I’ve already read through the library twice, and I must have something to stimulate my mind.”

  “I know, I know,” Mr. Arthur muttered, one side of his mouth lifting in a reluctant grin that wrinkled his cheek. “Novels would never do entirely for you. If only I had the money, I would send you abroad on such a tour as to fill that mind of yours with more education and experience than you could ever dream of.”

  Sophia smiled in fondness and delight at the thought, one of her unruly fair curls falling from beneath her bonnet, the curl beginning to loosen, as it always did. “If only I had a father with actual business sense. If only my mother’s dowry hadn’t been turned into debts. If only your sons made their fortunes early in life. If only, if only…” She shrugged, still smiling. “I am well familiar with ‘if only,’ sir. It has been a companion of mine for many years.”

  “Tosh,” Mrs. Arthur scolded with a bemused snort. “You are only three and twenty. You cannot even count many years.”

  “Many years in number, perhaps,” Sophia mused as she looked out of the carriage window, the countryside beginning to fade the closer to London they got. “But I believe I can safely say many years in experience.”

  It could have been worse, and Sophia knew it well. For all her father’s ruin, the extent of which was not fully known until his own death, Sophia hadn’t been ruined herself. With no money to her own name, and nothing left to her, there was nothing for the debt collectors to salvage. Her family home was seized as repayment, which was a most unfortunate discovery for Cousin Crispin, though she had heard he had managed to scrape a way out of prison and keep the house as well.

  She had a home to go to, and when her mother had passed barely a year later, she was not left without family. No poorhouse for her, and in that alone she would consider
herself most fortunate. She had been educated at the local school in Harleford with the other children, and her mother’s own experience with accomplishment and governesses had proven valuable in Sophia’s own education. Her father had encouraged her moderately scholarly interests, though he had warned her away from becoming a bluestocking often enough. But a keen mind, he had said, was not something to be wasted, no matter on whom it is bestowed.

  A keen mind wouldn’t exactly guarantee Sophia a future of any kind of stability, unless she went into the governess trade herself, but it did make her life a little less bleak. Options were available to her, should the need arise.

  Had the Arthurs been any less hospitable or generous, it might have already arisen.

  Thankfully, they were not, and it had not.

  Mrs. Arthur had repeatedly claimed over the years that she loved having Sophia as a companion, though Sophia was quite certain that she had been a miserable companion at fifteen. Gangly and shy, Sophia rarely even spoke to her mother in those days, but Mrs. Arthur had changed that, encouraged Sophia’s independent mind, and given her a warm place to grow into a young woman not nearly so far removed from Society as she might have been otherwise

  Not everyone would have looked so kindly upon a poor relation, but they had.

  She would never be able to thank them enough for that.

  Now they were accompanying her to London to see what bizarre twist of fate had given her any sort of recompense for such a life thus far.

  Sophia scoffed to herself, shaking her head. Recompense. As if fate owed her anything at all, or particularly gave rewards or punishment to various persons of its choosing.

  As if it would ever choose Sophia Anson for its rewards or care enough about her for punishment.

  “Have you ever been to London, Sophia?” Mrs. Arthur asked with some brightness, drawing her attention away from the window.

  Sophia smiled as faint memories assailed her. “I have, actually. We spent two or three years there when I was a child when Papa thought he would open a book shop. I learned to read in that shop, tucked away in a corner surrounded by shelves and shelves of books.”

  She trailed off, the fragrance of dusty, old books and her father’s scent of pipe tobacco and lemon suddenly wafting through her nostrils, eliciting a keen sense of longing for him. He had been an imaginative man, and a kind one. He’d always hugged her as though he could have lost her at any second, then tickled her sides until she squealed with glee. London was the happiest they’d been, she recalled, though it certainly hadn’t lasted all that long.

  Bristol had followed, and that had been the worst. Not that Berkshire had been all that pleasant, nor Cheshire, Dorset, or Bath.

  But she had been loved as a child, despite the mess of the lives of the Anson family, and that was a great deal more than many other people could boast, regardless of station.

  “Sophia? My lamb?”

  Sophia jerked and looked at Mrs. Arthur with wide eyes, dragged away from the cacophony of emotions that came with memories of her past. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  Mrs. Arthur’s mouth pinched with concern, her green eyes. “I asked if you were well, child. You’ve gone as pale as linen. Have you recollected knowing Sir Kentworth? Or are memories of your parents afflicting you?”

  Afflicting. Yes, at times it did feel as though her memories were an affliction upon her, but she was glad for it. A stiffer upbringing might have squashed her independent mind, and a looser one would have limited her educational opportunities. She had learned to think for herself, to leave sentimentality alone, and to move forward despite obstacles.

  Sophia Anson was not a fine lady of Society, but she was not lacking by comparison either.

  “The latter, I’m afraid,” she told her cousin’s wife with a fond smile. “It was rather unusual, after all, and to now have inherited something from a relation? I hadn’t thought I had relations at all apart from Crispin and yourself, sir.”

  Mr. Arthur scoffed loudly, shaking his head with a blustering sound. “Your father only had the family house for four years before he passed, it is hardly fair to have to pass it to that windbag of a cousin.”

  “James,” his wife scolded, her hand darting out to slap his. “He is your relation as well.”

  Mr. Arthur raised a brow at his wife. “All the more reason to describe him with the honesty due only to family. Crispin Anson has none of his father’s wisdom, nor his grandfather’s taste. He does not even bear his uncle’s good nature. Samuel might not have amounted to much by world standards, God rest his soul, but he was as good a man that ever lived in it.” He nodded to Sophia in acknowledgement, and she felt her throat tighten at it.

  “Thank you,” Sophia murmured in response. “At least Crispin was kind enough to allow Mama and me time to find a place for ourselves rather than sending us out to beg in the streets. There was some talk that he might do so, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Mr. Arthur grunted.

  Sophia smiled further still at this gruff but generous man before her. “It was only due to your kindness, sir, that we were spared that fate. You have my unending gratitude.”

  Uncomfortable with direct compliments, Mr. Arthur’s cheeks turned a ruddy shade and he looked out of the carriage window at the streets of London as they entered. “‘Twas only proper. The respectable thing to do, and my Christian duty. No thanks necessary.”

  “Perhaps not necessary,” Sophia pressed with a wink at Mrs. Arthur, who beamed at her husband’s response, “but well-deserved nonetheless. And if you think that all relations would have taken a poor cousin’s widow and child in, you have a misguided view of the world, Mr. Arthur.”

  His eyes returned to her, and there was a distinct softening to his manner that did not happen often, but touched Sophia’s heart each time. “My dear girl, if you believe I have somehow sacrificed something by bringing your late mother and yourself into my home and cared for you under my roof, you have a misguided view of life itself.”

  There was silence again as Sophia gaped, her eyes stinging with immediate tears, words impossible to express despite the urge to speak. It was all she could do to keep herself from blubbering and flinging herself across the carriage to hug this wonderful man that had come to mean so much to her over the last eight years. He had become father, uncle, advisor, tutor, and friend during her time with him, and while she could not remain with them forever, the thought of leaving them was more painful than she could express.

  She reached out a hand and he took it almost shyly, his cheeks still tinged with color. “Thank you, cousin,” she managed to say, her voice rough and hoarse.

  Mr. Arthur squeezed her hand and winked at her, his great throat working with some difficulty as well.

  Truly, for all her life had been, Sophia had been blessed indeed.

  “Now,” Mr. Arthur grunted loudly as he released her hand, “what shall you do with your tattered parasol you will inherit, hmm? Or perhaps a harpsichord?”

  “Bless you, Mr. Arthur, you are a rascal,” Mrs. Arthur laughed merrily, clapping her hands. “What would Sophia do with a harpsichord? She plays the harp itself, not that unwieldy instrument.”

  He gave his wife a bemused look. “Are you telling me, Mrs. Arthur, that you don’t believe our Sophia could learn to play such a thing?”

  “I am sure she could, but how do you propose we get an ancient harpsichord all the way back to our home in Geillis for her to learn on? And what if it needs repairs?”

  “How do you know it would be ancient? Sir Kentworth might have newly purchased it.”

  “A newly purchased harpsichord? Why in the world would he have that? Everyone who is anyone has a pianoforte, the harpsichord is almost never utilized now.”

  “Perhaps Sir Kentworth wasn’t anyone.”

  Sophia chuckled to herself as the Arthurs continued to banter about Sophia’s potential inheritance, their ideas growing more and more ridiculous. This was exactly what she needed. This
light and teasing energy that kept her from dwelling on possibilities too much. Too many questions had swirled in the week or so since the notice had come that she needed to come to London for Sir Kentworth’s will.

  Who was Sir Kentworth? What did he want with Sophia? What could have been so important a legacy that she had to come to London in person rather than simply receive her due via delivery?

  Why in the world would he have left her anything at all?

  There would be no answers until they arrived at the solicitor’s office, and they would have to stop at their lodgings first. They would not stay in London long, but there was no telling how long the business of the will could take. Thankfully, the Arthurs’ eldest son Frank had a spacious townhouse and had invited them to stay for as long as they needed.

  Frank had always been especially kind to Sophia, though he had left the family home before she had come to stay with them. His returns had been frequent, and she’d felt the same kinship with him that she had with the rest of the Arthur brothers.

  If they were not quite her brothers, they were favored cousins at the very least.

  There was some satisfaction in having four men of a certain strength and stature treat her so warmly, and with such a protective touch. If she were to ever marry, the poor man would likely need to pass muster with each of them in turn.

  Not that she anticipated marriage any time soon, if it ever happened. She had no dowry, after all, and unless a man married her for love, there would be no benefit in marrying her. As she did not know many men, and even fewer who were eligible, marrying for love was not entirely likely. Eventually she might manage a companionable marriage, but that would not be for a while yet.