by Regina Darcy
“A daughter ought to have the right to choose her own husband,” Honora said daringly. “Do you not agree?”
Michael looked up at the canopy of the four-poster bed upon which he reclined. His colouring was vastly improved from what it had been that night when he had lain on the carpet in a pool of his own blood. His valet had shaved him and washed him, and he was now, even in his nightshirt, restored to some of his customary vigour.
“Within reason,” he said, after a pause. “I would not be open for any child to marry someone that was unworthy of them. Speaking of parents and marriage. Are your parents they still insisting that you wed the Duke?”
“Lady Eleanor invited them to come here, and they have been here since you have been ill.”
“Your parents are here? I must meet them, but not like this, not as an invalid.”
“You will meet them,” Honora assured him, easing him back down so that he could rest. “They have been in the room and they have seen you.”
“They have seen me? They must think very poorly of me as I am now.”
“On the contrary, my lord, they think very highly of you. Once they learned of all that you have done, and furthermore, of what the Duke did, they have found themselves in your debt.”
“Oh?” the Marquess watched her expression very carefully. There was something in her manner, something . . . not exactly smugness, but something which betokened satisfaction for reasons which were unknown to the Marquess. “That sounds more promising. What, exactly, did they say?”
“I told them everything,” Honora said. “They were deeply troubled by the truth that my father would not previously have acknowledged. My mother remonstrated with him for insisting that I marry where I did not wish to do so.” There was admiration in Lady Honora’s voice. “She was quite . . . passionate. She has never spoken so to my father. And he—he apologised to her! I believe he will not be so dismissive of her in the future.”
“A man ought not to be dismissive of his wife,” the Marquess said with a seriousness that was uncommon for him. “He ought to love and cherish her, as well as placing value in her opinions.”
“I agree,” Honora replied her eyes beaming with joy. The Marquess smiled back at her and she felt her heart melt. She would truly never tire of gazing at his handsome face.
“Do your parents agree with your sentiments?”
“I do not know and I do not intend to ask them,” she said. “My father agreed that, after this dreadful experience with the Duke, I ought to be allowed to marry where I please. I intend to do so.”
The Marquess raised an eyebrow and sat up.
“You do?”
“I do.”
“Is that your answer?” he asked, smiling.
She looked back at him in confusion.
“My answer?”
“To my proposal of marriage. If you intend to marry according to your own will, surely I may be permitted to press my suit before you cut a swath through all the eligible bachelors in London,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
Honora’s cheeks coloured pink. She started tugging a lock of her raven hair as silence descended between them. Finally she found her voice.
“I am not interested in the bachelors of London. I am not interested in London at all. I quite like a country home, I find,” she said.
“Such as Dennington?”
“Very much like Dennington,” she replied demurely. “But I do have conditions for marriage.”
What on earth could her conditions be? Had he not already proven his love for her? Could she doubt his intentions?
“What conditions?” he asked with a frown.
“As I have told you before, I do not believe that a woman should be defenceless. I will only marry if my husband will teach me to use a sword.”
She was not prepared for the look of delight that transformed the Marquess’ face.
“Do you mean it? You truly wish to learn how to wield a sword? It is not plaything, I can tell you. We would have to have one specially made to suit you. It takes strength and dexterity and a willingness to practice.”
“You will teach me my lord?”
“Call me Michael,” he whispered as he leaned in forward and caressed a wayward tendril of hair.
“Michael,” she said, breathlessly.
“Yes I will, but only if you marry me, my beloved Honora,” he responded, bent forward and captured her plump lips with his in a searing kiss that told her everything she needed to know.
When the Westings entered the sickroom to visit Michael, they were at first alarmed to see that their daughter was in his arms. For an invalid, the Marquess appeared to have a firm embrace.
The Earl coughed.
Michael looked over Honora’s shoulder and saw his future father-in-law standing in the doorway, irate.
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” he said. “I . . . am enamoured with your daughter and we have agreed to marry. She assures me that this meets with your approval.”
“Much good it would do me if we did not approve,” the Earl said gruffly.
Lady Hestia moved past her husband.
“I am delighted to finally meet you with your eyes open,” she said frankly. “We have barely been able to pry our daughter from your side. I trust that you will be as steadfast unto her as she has been to you?”
“Mama!” Honora protested. “Surely Lord Dennington has already demonstrated his devotion.”
“You have told me so,” Lady Hestia said. “But he has been unconscious this entire time and I would hear his promise from his own lips. Do you not agree?” she demanded of her husband.
“As long as Lord Dennington pleases Honora and isn’t a wife-murderer,” the Earl said, “He has my blessing.”
“I am not a wife murderer,” Michael said gravely, although a twinkle in his eyes revealed that the discourse, although unusual, was highly amusing.
“And he pleases me,” Honora finished.
“Well, then, I believe we may announce the engagement,” the Earl said.
“I have already sent the announcement,” Lady Hestia interjected. “I spoke with Honora last night and she assured me that Lord Dennington would marry her.”
“You are very sure of me, my lady,” Michael said mirth colouring his features.
“Yes, I am,” his fiancée answered. “I saw no reason to wait. If your answers today displeased me, I would simply cancel the newspaper announcement.”
Her father’s face fell.
“I beg you, Honora, not twice! Once was enough. Twice would put me in my grave.”
“Rest assured, my lord,” Michael said, “I have wanted to marry your daughter from the moment I met her. It took me some time to realise that what I feel for her is the reason that bards write songs and poets write poetry. It is the reason for our existence. We shall marry, her and me, and we shall have a family that will be a credit to her courage. I hope that both our future sons and daughters have their share of her remarkable spirit.”
The Earl’s features softened. “I hope so as well,” he said, gazing upon his daughter, his affection visible.
***
When, a year later, the Earl and Lady Hestia returned to Dennington Manor to be introduced to their newborn grandson, it was too early to tell whether he had inherited his mother’s character. He had blue eyes, but whether they were the blue eyes of a newborn or of his mother, no one could say. He had his father’s black hair, a thick mass of curls that sprang forth from his scalp. He cried loudly when he was hungry, and slept at length.
The Earl of Winterhaven remarked that his grandson was very much like any other baby.
“Indeed, he is not!” his daughter, her child in her arms, argued. “He is already remarkable.”
“Of course he is,” Lady Hestia agreed.
The Marquess and the Earl shared a long-suffering glance. Both men were sure that the babe would grow into a fine young man, even if, at this time of the child’s life, he gave little indication of any ext
raordinary traits.
But to his mother and grandmother, there had never been such a baby. He had a mother who was an expert swordswoman and a father who adored his wife even more than he valued the prized Dennington sword with which he had defended the woman who was now the Marchioness of Dennington. How many children could boast of such a heritage? To think that none of this would have happened but for the daring escape of a headstrong woman.
THE END
Mistaken for a Cyprian
Copyright © Regina Darcy 2020
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.
For queries, comments or feedback please use the following contact details:
reginadarcy.cleanandwholesomeromance.com
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Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
ONE
Miss Phoebe Connolly gazed out the window of the stagecoach as the English scenery went by.
It was summer, and after more than a month of travel by ship and horse, it was pleasant to be looking at something other than the water. But while Phoebe could allow herself to be diverted from unappealing thoughts by the sight of beauty and nature, her sister was less readily appeased.
Phoebe stole a side glance at her twin and looked away; it seemed that Prudence had been nothing but angry ever since they had learned that they were to be sent from their school in the south of France to their new guardian’s home in London.
“It is a very pretty countryside landscape,” Phoebe ventured, hoping to entice her sister to look out the window.
“How could Papa do such a thing!?” Prudence exclaimed.
She burst forth in the complaint that had occupied her thoughts since they had learned of their father, the Baron of Bractonby’s death. And because she was Prudence and not one to counterfeit her feelings, her voice was laden with anger.
But it was not anger born out of grief which consumed nineteen-year-old Prudence Connolly, no it was anger that she and her twin sister had been snatched away from the only home they had known in 14 years.
The Baron, who despite his flaws as a man and husband had loved his wife, could not endure seeing her image so clearly impressed upon the features of not one but two identical five-year-old daughters.
The liberties of his lifestyle led his associates to believe that he had sent the girls away because he intended to resume his former life as a man of lascivious habits and promiscuous pairings, which indeed he had done.
But Phoebe, who tried to see the best in everyone, even an errant, absent father, stubbornly held to her view that he had not called for them to join him in England because he could not bear to be reminded of the loss of their dear Mama.
“He could not help dying, Prudence dear,” Phoebe reminded her sister.
“Of course he could have done,” Prudence retorted crossly. “He could have lived a more circumspect life which did not include consorting with the likes of women from whom he would contract the French disease.”
Phoebe winced.
Prudence, despite all her years in the boarding school, had proven immune to the refining veneer, which the teachers had endeavoured to impress upon all their pupils. Young ladies ought not to even know of the existence of such indelicate conditions, but Prudence not only knew that such maladies existed but had discovered that Papa had expired from one of them.
“Because of that,” Prudence went on, “we must leave our home in France and travel to England, which is entirely foreign to us, to be taken under the guardianship of a man to whom we have never been introduced. This Christopher Ambrose, I have learned, is a stranger to the standards of propriety and is, in fact, a rakehell of renown.”
Phoebe sighed and continued to look out of her window. The scenery outside the carriage revealed a countryside ripe in the bloom of summer. Phoebe wished that she had her paints with her and a canvas. How pleasant it would be to paint such lovely trees, she thought.
“Phe, did you not hear me? I speak of the Earl of Henton, to whom Papa entrusted guardianship of us.”
“Yes, Prue, but perhaps he will have very little to do with us and we shall get along well enough. A—a rakehell,” Phoebe stumbled over the word, which conveyed an image of a moustache-faced European with knowing eyes and an excess of vices which could not even be named, so abominable were they, “is not likely to seek the company of two such as we are, fresh from school and decidedly inexperienced in the ways of the world. Perhaps he will send us to school,” she said hopefully.
“We are nineteen years of age, Phe. He will not send us to school. He will choose husbands for us. Doubtless dissolute men of his ilk who are seeking brides among the aristocracy, or to pay off their debts, so that they may escape their creditors. Such men are not gentlemen, they are purveyors of vice. The Earl may marry us off as he wishes; perhaps he owes a favour, or gambling debts, to some particularly vile man, an older man, I shouldn’t wonder, who wants a young wife to imbue his waning manhood with vigour so that he may achieve an heir and—”
“Prudence!” Phoebe was aghast by her sister’s word. “I cannot think where you contrive such opinions. We are not heiresses, as you very well know, and if we had any hopes of bringing a rich dowry to a marriage, it would have to be substantially augmented by the Earl. Which he is certainly not obliged to do. As far marrying us off, why—we do not even know the gentleman and we cannot foist our lack of knowledge upon him as if our ignorance must make him ignoble.”
Prudence heaved an exasperated sigh, her bosom still consumed with rage for the various things which might happen as a result of the unknown and unmet Earl’s assumed lack of moral character.
“Phoebe, you are my sister and dearer to me than anyone in the entire world, but you are of such a kind nature that you assume others to be the same. I am your older sister and I must be vigilant in looking out for you.”
“Prue,” Phoebe said, a smile turning up the corners of her lips, “you are but ten minutes older than I.”
“Nonetheless,” Prudence insisted, “I am the elder and I am looking out for your wellbeing. Should this, this—this rogue of an Earl force either of us to do something which is either forbidden to our will or forbidden to our conscience, we shall flee.”
“And go where?”
“We shall take our belongings and sell them and we shall open a school for girls.”
Phoebe stared at her with a raised eyebrow.
“As we shall be the instructors, we shan’t need to hire any staff, so we shall save money there. We shall find a building which will serve us as a school, someplace in the country so that we shall not be troubled by the city derelicts who prey upon the helpless. But it must be near the city as well, for we shall draw our students from among the best families and they are all in London during this time.”
“What shall we teach them?” Phoebe asked faintly. She was not a bluestocking and although she enjoyed reading poetry and novels as well as music and sketching and painting, she could not presume to be qualified to instruct.
“Why, you shall teach the girls watercolours, of course, and poetry and music. I shall teach them mathematics and science and riding. We shall both teach them French.”
“I . . . this seems a very bold sort of a plan.”
“Desperate measures call for boldness, Phe. I have already begun to inquire about a suitable property. It’s quite an expensive business and for a mom
ent I was somewhat daunted, but then I reviewed our assets.”
“Our what?”
“Our assets. We have Mama’s jewellery; you remember that Papa settled it upon us when we turned twelve. I daresay he did so because he feared that he would otherwise lose it at cards. But Mama’s jewellery is of quite good quality. A little old-fashioned perhaps, but with the quality of the gems, we should have no trouble at all in finding a buyer.”
“I should hate having to sell Mama’s belongings,” Phoebe said tearfully. “It’s all we have of her.”
“Oh, we would each keep one piece of jewellery, certainly, as a remembrance of her and of our affection for her. We shall not sell everything.”
“Perhaps the Earl will be a kind guardian and we will not be forced into marriage and we shall not have to sell anything,” Phoebe suggested hopefully.
“I fear he is a villain,” Prudence replied without hesitation.
“How can you be so certain when we have never even met him?”
“Phe, Papa only knew men of dubious character. He never went to church; he spent his time in the company of drunkards and Cyprians. Naturally, his choice of a guardian for us would have come from this base pool of candidates. We must face the truth and be ready to act accordingly.
Phoebe sighed. Perhaps Prudence was correct in her estimation. They were not the same.
Phoebe, who knew that she preferred to view the world as a place where wonderful things might happen at any moment. She could not fault Prudence for being cross with Papa, who had spent his living recklessly rather than providing for the future of his daughters, but she refused to believe that he had not provided a safe-haven for them upon his death.