Lords to Be Enamored With: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  “My lord …” she started, trying to gather her courage.

  He stopped her. “Sebastian,” he said slowly. “My name is Sebastian, and you of all people have the right to use it.”

  She took a deep breath. “Sebastian,” she said, blushing. “I am flattered by your words. I truly am.” She halted, gazing at him. “But what Miss Drake said was true, however nastily she said it. I am a sick woman.”

  He nodded. “I know. I could tell by your reaction tonight, Charlotte.” He paused. “Tell me of it.”

  She took another deep breath. “It started with an accident,” she said slowly, her eyes glistening with tears. “A terrible accident, where I was thrown from my horse while riding. I could not walk for weeks, and I have never fully recovered from it.” She hesitated. “The symptoms come and go, but when I am in the grip of them, they consume me. Violent trembling, so that I can barely walk. I have trouble with my vision, as well.”

  He frowned. “You have consulted physicians, I assume?”

  She smiled wryly. “Many, over the four years since it happened. None could say what it was that afflicted me, nor had any idea how they could cure me of it.” She paused. “The most recent physician was consulted here, in London, at the start of the season. He told me that my symptoms are very similar to the king’s grandson, who is now bedridden. He believes that I shall slowly decline, in a similar manner … or worse.”

  He blinked rapidly. “Worse? What do you mean?”

  “I may die,” she said slowly. “While still young.” She took another deep breath. “And so, you see why I cannot entertain you – or anyone – in such a thing as love. I will only worsen, or die, and I cannot burden anyone with my malady. I am not strong enough and it would be a cruel fate indeed to place on a partner.”

  His frown deepened. “Who was the physician who made such a prognosis?”

  “Dr. Gibson,” she said slowly. “He has an excellent reputation, with rooms on Harley Street.”

  Sebastian nodded. “I have heard of him, but his methods are unconventional. While some sing his praises, others claim he is a charlatan.” He paused, staring at her. “I would not put such faith in his words, Charlotte.”

  “But don’t you see?” she burst out, her eyes wild. “It matters not what he says or does not say. I live with this, all the time. I know that I have worsened … although sometimes, I recover well. But always it returns. I shall never be free of it …”

  He stared at her, his green eyes fierce. “You cannot know that. Do you have a crystal ball, perhaps?” He sighed. “But either way, I do not care, can you not see that?”

  She blinked rapidly. “You don’t?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I do not. The only thing that I care about is having you by my side … for ever.”

  She gasped, blinking back tears again. How was it possible?

  “I cannot do it to you,” she said fiercely. “You might say now that you do not care, but later, once you have seen me under its grip, you will change your mind.” She paused. “It is ugly, and I suffer melancholy with it, often unable to leave my bed for days, if not weeks.”

  She stared at him, her chest heaving. The words were painful, almost as though they were sharp as they left her throat. She didn’t want to tell him this, the full reality of her malady. She had kept it private for so long that she almost felt violated in speaking of it to someone other than her family, even with a man as good as he.

  He shrugged. “Of course you would be melancholy with it,” he said slowly. “How could you not? It is not a defect in your character, Charlotte. It just means that you struggle with it.” He gazed at her. “Your sister told me tonight how brave you are, in the face of it.”

  “She did?”

  He nodded. “Both your brother and your sister defended you, like lions, against Miss Drake.” He paused. “They hold you in the highest esteem, Charlotte. And I must say, I agree with them. You are strong in battling this malady. You are never defeated. You always rise up again and take on life.”

  She blinked back tears. “I try. I try so hard. I was resolved to start a new life and do everything that I have denied myself for so long. The things that I love, like playing the piano, and painting.” She stared at him. “But then I relapsed when my beloved aunt died, and I found out that she suffered under an affliction as well.”

  He squeezed her hands again but didn’t say anything. It seemed he just wanted to listen to her, to let her speak. Now it was beginning to feel liberating, to talk of it with him. The embarrassment was fading away.

  “She had an admirer,” she said slowly. “I found letters from him to her, professing his love. But she never consented to be his wife, which is what he desired. Because she didn’t want to burden him with her affliction. She was being brave in denying herself something she wanted, to save him.”

  Sebastian frowned. “I do not see it that way at all. I think that your aunt denied herself a chance at happiness, and her admirer as well. Both unhappy because they were apart, and for what? Did he know of her condition?”

  Charlotte nodded. “He did. He told her he did not care about it.”

  Sebastian took a deep breath. “And yet she sacrificed their love.” He gazed at her steadily. “Do not do the same thing, Charlotte. I beseech you. I do not care about your malady – not even if you take to your bed for weeks, or you worsen, or die prematurely. I love you … all of you. Every part, even the dark side, which we all have.”

  The tears started flowing then, coursing down her cheeks. He let go of her hands, and gently touched her face, wiping them away.

  “It would be an honour,” he whispered fiercely. “To have you by my side, as my partner in life. In health … and in sickness, if life so decrees.”

  She sobbed. “But you will be a duke and must have a strong duchess.”

  “Look at me, Charlotte.” His voice was a hiss. “I will be a much better duke if I have a woman I actually love as my wife. Even if that woman is sickly.” He laughed, suddenly. “The tragedy would be marrying a woman I don’t love, for both of us. We would never be happy together, and I would turn bitter with it, knowing that my love is out in the world, and I cannot have her …”

  She sobbed again. “Is it true?”

  He nodded. “It is,” he said fiercely. “And if you consent to be my wife, we will make it work. Our family physician can help us. I am willing to do this, if you are willing to let me.”

  She stopped crying. Even though the night was still dark, and cold, she felt as though a light had entered her heart, illuminating everything. This man had run off into the night after her with no care of what other people thought. He had pulled her back from certain death with a strong and steady hand. He knew all there was to know about her – her darkest secret, that she had kept hidden for so long – and he was willing to take on the burden, because he loved her.

  He loved her still. Even knowing the worst of it.

  The truth of his words hit her violently. Aunt Eliza had been mistaken. She had sacrificed love for nothing. Because love was worth it all. It was worth all the pain and the uncertainty. It was worth everything.

  She gazed at him steadily. “You are a wonderful man. The best I have ever met.” She paused, looking him straight in the eye. “And I love you too. With all my heart. It would be an honour to be your wife.”

  He gripped her hands again, staring at her with such joy that she gasped. He pulled her to her feet so that they were standing facing each other on the bridge. The wind howled around them, but she barely felt it. The cold was gone and she was warm in the glow of his love.

  He leaned towards her, so close she could feel his breath. She closed her eyes, as he gathered her to him. Then his lips found hers, slow and gentle and sweet. The kiss warmed her further, and she felt like she had suddenly entered a dream. A dream that she never wanted to wake from.

  ***

  They walked side by side down the bridge. She kept glancing up at him, still not bel
ieving it was real. She almost had to pinch herself, to keep from thinking it was a dream.

  One of the worst nights of her life had suddenly become the best.

  “Happy, my love?” he whispered softly, gazing down at her. “Because you have made me the happiest man alive.”

  She took a deep breath. “I am so happy that I feel I could burst with it.” It was true. She had never felt so elated in her life. As if she could take on the world. “I still cannot believe that you love me.”

  “Believe it.” His voice was like a caress. “I have loved you almost from the moment I set eyes on you, when I collided with you on Bond Street. I could not stop thinking about you from that second on, and I do not believe that I shall ever stop.”

  She gazed up at him. “It will be hard, you know. Miss Drake, her mother and yours will not be pleased.”

  “What do I care of that?” he said, gazing down at her. “My father told me that I must find a suitable bride and I have found her. You are the daughter of an earl and he cannot find fault with that.” He paused. “All will be well, Charlotte. As soon as we get back to the ball, I will request a private audience with him and inform him of our plans.”

  He touched her arm tenderly, steering her down the street. She saw the drunkard who had scared her leaning against a lamppost, snoring loudly. He was unkempt and he stank, but she would forever remember him as some kind of guardian angel, guiding her at long last to her love.

  Chapter 28

  Alicia stared out through the open window at the garden below. She could see some wilting peonies, the last of the season, drooping in the garden bed, their pink heads bent almost in sorrow. In the distance was an oak tree, and beyond that a row of rose bushes with frosted white petals scattering on the ground like snowflakes.

  She sighed, pressing her face against the side of the window. She could hear the soft trickle from the water fountain in the middle of the garden, flowing over the statue of Venus. Behind her all was quiet. She had chosen the library because she knew it would be the one place that her mother would not search for her and she could be alone, in blessed peace. She glanced at the rows of books. She had never been much of a reader, but now she could see the attraction. It must be wonderful being able to lose yourself, for a little while, she thought. Perhaps if she were a reader the books might give her some respite from the relentless suffering of this world.

  She wiped away tears with the back of her hand, turning back to her contemplation of the garden. She heard loud footsteps and laughter from the rooms beyond, and the music from the orchestra, where the ball was still in full flight. She had been so looking forward to this evening. She had thought it would be a culmination of all her hard work. That she would have the marquis on her arm and he would finally see sense and announce their betrothal to the world. She had pictured the moment, in her mind, standing next to him, champagne glass in hand. Her moment of triumph.

  She choked back a sob. Her moment of triumph was never going to happen. Instead, she was suffering the worst defeat of her life. All her mother’s grand plans to make her a duchess lay like ashes at her feet. The irony of it all was that she had never cared, deep down inside. She had never wanted to be shackled to a man who obviously didn’t care for her. It was her mother, always pushing her, telling her that she had to do it.

  Tears ran down her face again. None of them knew that, of course. Not the marquis, or Lady Charlotte Lumley, or her brother or sister. They all thought she was a scheming, conniving woman, who would stop at nothing to secure her prize. A woman who had decided to sacrifice another – publicly humiliate her – to secure it. A woman with no conscience, self-serving and shallow.

  She sighed, the tears running faster down her face. They all hated her, and she didn’t blame them. She would hate herself as well if she were them. It had backfired spectacularly. Her mother had pushed her to confront Lady Charlotte, thinking it would finally discredit her in the marquis’s eyes, when all it had done was push him closer to her.

  She choked back another sob. Her mother would never let her forget it, how close they had been, and how she had let the marquis slip through her fingers. She would harass her and harangue her. Lady Hastings wasn’t a person who took defeat well.

  Alicia stared down at the garden. This was to be her life from now on. A failure, who couldn’t help her family. A social pariah, who would be looked on fearfully, because of the chaos she had caused. She had only one goal in life, to secure a future duke, and now it had been taken from her. She was a broken woman. But it had been coming for a long time.

  She had been eight years old and walking in the grounds of their country manor. Her nanny followed at a distance. She was wearing a new pink dress and white pinafore, and her golden hair had been curled into long ringlets, secured with pink ribbons. She felt like one of her dolls that stood on her cupboard. Stiff, as though she were barely able to walk, let alone run.

  She glanced back at the nanny. The woman had sat down on a wrought iron garden seat and taken out her bible. Alicia knew she would be reading the scriptures and wouldn’t glance at her again until it was time to go back inside for afternoon tea.

  She walked quickly away, hiding behind a corner. When she knew she wouldn’t be seen, she carefully untied her ribbons, throwing them, watching the wind catch them and drag them away. Then she undid her pinafore, throwing it on the ground. Finally, she wriggled out of her petticoat.

  At last. She was free, dressed only in her gown. She could run as fast as her legs could carry her over the lawn. She could do four cartwheels in a row, if she wanted to. She breathed in the air, exhilarated.

  Suddenly, a shadow loomed over her. She glanced up, fearfully.

  It was her mother, standing over her, her face full of thunder.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she hissed, grabbing her roughly by the arm. “You slatternly girl! Taking off your petticoat, and your pinafore. Throwing your ribbons away!”

  Her eyes had filled with tears. “Please, Mama. You are hurting me!”

  Her mother leaned into her face. “I will hurt you more for doing such a thing!” Her mother’s chest heaved. “You are an insolent girl, wild and defiant. You know what happens to little girls who don’t do what they are supposed to?”

  Alicia’s eyes had widened in fear.

  “I’ll tell you what happens,” her mother said slowly. “The bogeyman will come at night, just when you are falling asleep, and drag you away, into his lair.” Her voice was booming into her ear. “You must never be so defiant again. Are we clear?”

  She was crying, piteously. “Yes, Mama! I will never disobey you again. Only please, don’t let the bogeyman take me!”

  But it still hadn’t been enough for her mother. She had been dragged, crying, into the house. She had been whipped with a bramble stick until blood ran down her legs. She had screamed for mercy, but her mother had been relentless. Thirty whips precisely.

  She had never been defiant again. She had never run free or cartwheeled across the lawn. She had sat still, watching, and done everything she had been told.

  But that had also been the beginning of it. Where she had felt herself cracking, like an egg against a bowl. A breaking, of something, inside her …

  Her eyes blurred with tears, thinking of that little girl as she stared at the drooping flowers again. They were like her – past their bloom, wilting, almost gone. She was sick of her life. She was sick of everything. How wonderful it must be to be able to close one’s eyes and drift away, she thought fiercely. If only for a little while.

  ***

  Percy wandered down the unfamiliar hallways frowning. She had to be in one of these rooms. He had seen her leave hurriedly and take a back staircase towards this wing of the house. It was silent and deserted. No revellers darkened its floors. He could just hear the sound of music from the ball in the distance and soft laughter drifting through the walls.