Love by the Letters: A Regency Novella Trilogy

by Kelly Bowen

  John’s heart chose then to start thumping against his ribs. “Why?”

  “Because forty children cannot feed themselves. Because… because I should have long ago, but I didn’t want to intrude or imply that you needed my help. Nobody likes to be an object of charity, least of all a Waverly.” The marquess clasped his hands behind his back. “Bascomb said I had it all wrong, and that the gossips and tattlers took my silence for condemnation.”

  “Bascomb is correct.” Also more blunt than John had ever been able to be with the marquess. “The gossips and tattlers concluded that because I was no sort of cleric, you were ashamed of me.”

  The marquess glanced up sharply. “Have you taken leave of your senses, John?”

  “I repeat what a friendly curate has conveyed to me, and as an earl’s son, Mr.Palmer moves in lofty circles. He merely confirms what others have said. If the marquess takes no notice of Lord John’s foundling home, why should anybody else?”

  “Bloody idiots. Bloody, blasted idiots. I’ve half a mind… Would you entertain a parliamentary committee visit? Perhaps sit on that same committee in an ex officio capacity?”

  The marquess had never asked anything of John. He’d made threats and demands, but never requests.

  “What committee? I’m very busy here at St. Jerome’s, and I haven’t time for political frolics.”

  “A committee investigating the plight of homeless children. They starve and freeze in the streets, you know. Even cabinet ministers, a vastly hardnosed lot, can’t continue to ignore that spectacle winter after winter while the realm as a whole is both at peace and prospering.”

  “May I think about this?” May I discuss it with Ada? She’d see clearly whether this was a step forward or a stumble.

  “Of course, but I’d still like to make a donation.”

  An odd, blossoming sensation opened in John’s middle. “Can you spare a hundred pounds?”

  “Of course I can spare—why that sum?”

  “Because if you’re willing to write out a bank draft for that sum dated today, then I must ask you to accompany me to a certain solicitor’s office. You can tell me about your committee on the way.”

  The marquess donned his hat. “If I must jaunt across Town to get a moment of your time, so be it, but please assure me you’ll take the money. Bascomb said he’d disown me if I didn’t make that offer.”

  “I’ll take the money if you’ll stand up with Uncle when he says his vows.”

  “Clearly that outspoken young woman has been a significant influence on you.” The marquess moved toward the door, his stride jaunty. “I daresay she and I will get along famously.”

  “I daresay you had better exert yourself to that very end, sir.”

  “A final donation,” Mr. Carruthers said, sliding a sealed document across the desk to Ada. “Very last minute, but the donor himself verified the donation last week. That deed makes you the sole owner of Hopewell Grange in fee simple absolute. May I be the first to congratulate you on having met a significant challenge?”

  Ada stared at the florid script covering the paper before her, but the words made no sense. “I don’t understand. We came up short. You said so.”

  “You exceeded the necessary total by the end of the thirtieth day. A final donor accompanied Lord John to my office as I was finishing up my work, and produced a signed bank draft for another one hundred pounds. You exceeded the terms of the challenge by fifty pounds. The donor was very clear that your fundraising efforts motivated his generosity.”

  Who on earth would turn over a hundred pounds, much less accompany Lord John to the solicitor’s office?

  “Was it my Aunt Kitty?” Ada asked. “She would part with a hundred pounds to see me securely established on my own property.” Though lately, Kitty had been preoccupied, and she certainly hadn’t asked Ada for any details regarding the situation at St. Jerome’s.

  “I’m sure Lady Catherine cares for you a great deal, Miss Beauvais, but she did not supply the final donation. That sum came from the Marquess of Gandham, and he appeared prepared to furnish a much larger sum. Lord John refused anything more than the hundred pounds.”

  Oh, John. “He should have accepted every groat.”

  “Perhaps you can tell him that when you invite him for a tour of Hopewell Grange.” Mr. Carruthers wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were… twinkling? He was an attractive man, in a quiet, solicitor-ish way.

  “I’d like to invite my benefactor to the property, if you’d be so good as to inform me to whom I owe my thanks.”

  The cat, who had been sprawled in ginger splendor across the blotter, rose and ambled across papers to stretch an inquisitive nose in Ada’s direction.

  “I regret that I am not at liberty to disclose the identity of that person, Miss Beauvais. The benefactor owed you a debt, and that debt has been repaid. I wish you every joy as you take up residence in Surrey.”

  Ada should be feeling joy, but mostly she was bewildered. Perhaps the joy would come later, when she actually laid eyes on her property. Then too, nobody owed her anything approaching the sort of debt that was repaid with a prosperous estate.

  “She’s a friendly feline,” Ada said, stroking her hand over the cat’s head. “She looks standoffish and dignified, but she’s actually a good sort, isn’t she?”

  “Marigold is an estimable lady. When you take up residence at the Grange, I hope you find companions who can match her for wisdom and charm.”

  John had wisdom and charm. Also humor, generosity of spirit, fortitude, kindness, and excellent kisses. “Why did you wait nearly a week to inform me of my good fortune, Mr. Carruthers?”

  “I conferred first with your benefactor, then I spent some time preparing the requisite documents. I am also anticipating extended travel myself, Miss Beauvais, and preparations for my journey required my attention.”

  “So you won’t be on hand to introduce me to my staff at Hopewell Grange?” That bothered Ada. She’d accomplished the dream of a lifetime, and had nobody to celebrate it with her. Was she supposed to tool out to Surrey on her own? Announce herself? Write her own letters of introduction?

  “My relatives in India have been exhorting me to come home for years, Miss Beauvais. I dare not put them off any longer.”

  While Ada’s relatives tended to forget her. “Are you married, Mr. Carruthers?” He should be. He had that sort of dignity and self-possession. He was a relatively young man, and he had a lucrative profession.

  “I am not yet married. Travel to India might rectify that lonely state of affairs.”

  Gracious days, his smile was positively buccaneering. “I’ll wish you safe journey then,” Ada said. “And thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “The staff at the Grange is expecting you,” Mr. Carruthers replied, rising. “I’ve also sent letters to your new neighbors and the local vicar, though I left to you the task of notifying your family of your good fortune.” He passed Ada a packet of papers tied with a blue ribbon. “Those are the leaseholds, along with a letter of introduction to your steward, and a list of the people who now answer to you, from the butler and housekeeper to the tenants’ newest baby. The entire staff is looking forward to having an owner in residence, miss. You should be very happy at Hopewell Grange.”

  All quite lovely, but why wasn’t Ada happy now, when she held in her very hands the documents that proved her dream had come true?

  “Are you lonely?” Cora asked, peering over John’s arm at his latest attempt at a letter to Ada. “If you are lonely, I could be your friend. Henrietta says you can have as many friends as you please. She’s my friend, but so are Susan, and Mallory and James—even though he’s a boy—and Mary Helen, and Alma, and—”

  “I account it my very good fortune to be your headmaster, Cora, and I’m pleased you have so many friends.”

  “What are you writing?”

  My very first love letter. “I’m inviting Miss Ada to come see our quilts.”

  “They aren’t fin
ished yet. Mrs. MacHeath says genius cannot be rushed. Am I a genius?”

  Cora was a pest, the most delightful, dear, darling pest ever to destroy a man’s concentration. “Of course you are. All of my scholars are geniuses at St. Jerome’s. Right now, your brilliant conversation is distracting me from my assignment though.”

  She patted his arm. “If you got a ’signment, I have to leave you alone. That’s the rule. ‘Bye!”

  She scampered around the desk and pelted for the door, though she stopped short of the corridor. “Miss Ada. Good day. Headmaster wants you to see our quilts but they aren’t finished yet. I’m a genius.”

  “And possessed of such charming conversation too,” Miss Ada said, bending down to hug the child. “Shall we practice our curtsies?”

  Cora stood very tall, then held her skirts with one hand and bent precisely at the knees while dipping her chin.

  “Marvelously graceful,” Ada said, doing likewise. “I can tell you’ve been practicing.”

  “Mrs. MacHeath says I’m a new recruit. We have to practice. Headmaster has a ’signment. You have to leave him alone.”

  “I won’t be long,” Ada said, pulling off her gloves. “I’m only here to convey an invitation.”

  She was also, whether she knew it or not, showing off a blue velvet walking dress to very good advantage. Her reticule matched her gloves, both straw colored, and from beneath her hem a pair of green embroidered slippers had John’s imagination galloping off to picnic blankets and secluded woodlands.

  “Headmaster needs friends,” Cora said. “I am his friend, but you can be too. ‘Bye!” She trotted off, making noises that replicated the sound of shod hooves on cobblestones.

  “Our Cora has become quite lively,” Ada said. “While I find you at your desk in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Have you been naughty, Headmaster?”

  He wanted to be naughty, but he left the door open precisely to thwart that foolishness. “Miss Beauvais, a pleasure to see you. You are looking exceedingly well. I hope Mr. Carruthers has met with you?”

  She still bore the scent of lemon verbena, and John was still in love with her, more than ever. St. Jerome’s was coming to life in new and wonderful ways, thanks to the funds Ada Beauvais had raised, and while John delighted in those changes, he also realized that a part of him missed Ada and always would.

  “I met with Mr. Carruthers at the first of the week. He imparted very interesting news to me.”

  John dredged up a smile, though the news that Ada was moving out to Surrey, there to frolic with her butterflies and window seats, left him oddly bereft.

  “You are the proud owner of Hopewell Grange,” he said. “I am so pleased for you. My father took the homily you offered him to heart—Uncle Bascomb had delivered the same message in fact. Papa didn’t want me to feel beholden. He wanted my successes at St. Jerome’s to be entirely mine, though he’d failed to consider how his distance would look to others. Won’t you have a seat?”

  Won’t you please stay?

  “No,” she said, swishing across his office. “No, I will not have a seat. Why haven’t you asked me to read to the children?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She came a halt before him. “If Miss Deevers is sufficiently literate to read stories to the children, then so am I.”

  He recalled the feel of Ada in his arms, the press her of her lips to his. “You are very literate.” Also brilliant, determined, passionate, and so very dear. “If you have the time to read to the children, they would love a story from you when you find yourself in Town.”

  She whirled away and John nearly grabbed her by the wrist.

  “What am I to do with sixty-eight windows, my lord? That’s not including the half-windows at the back of the house that let light into my kitchens, nor the attic windows, which I’ve yet to count. I have only the one backside, and if I sat in a different window every day, I would make fewer than six circuits of my house in an entire year. That is a ridiculous waste of natural light.”

  “Ada?”

  “My park,” she went on, traversing the office in the opposite direction, “the grassy meadow immediately proximate to my house, measures nearly forty acres. I have my own pond—a whole pond—but am I to be the only person who goes wading there? Do I keep a coach and four simply for myself? I find the notion insupportable.”

  “But you dreamed of a home of your own, a place to call your own and do as you like. That’s a good dream, a fine dream. I want you to have your dream and be happy, Ada. I do.”

  She paused again, the desk between them. “Is that all you want?”

  “I want many things. I want the children to be healthy and happy. I want the staff to know they are appreciated. I want…”

  John had wanted his father’s notice, and more than that, his father’s respect. He had that now—he’d always had it—and still he was not content.

  “What do you want, John?”

  What marvelous blue eyes she had, so honest. “I want St. Jerome’s to thrive. I want to watch Cora grow up into a delightful, incorrigible, brilliant scamp of a young lady. I want all of London to know that with love, care, and determination, children discarded from the lowest ranks of society can mature into adults who carry themselves with pride and make a contribution we all benefit from.”

  “You are a better person than I am,” Ada said, coming around the desk to stroke her hand over his cravat. “I want you to have your dream, but I want to have mine too, and greedy woman that I am, dozens of windows and acres of grass won’t content me. I’ve seen Hopewell Grange. It’s lovely, but it’s not enough.”

  He took her hand in his, because when she caressed his chest like that, his thinking mind went straight to the happiest corner of perdition.

  “I can visit you in Surrey, Ada. It’s not so far. I’ll bring my sisters.” All three of them together might be enough to chaperone his wayward impulses, but only just.

  “The Muses are certainly welcome to call, but the problem is you, John Waverly. I want you.”

  “Me?”

  “And Cora, and Henrietta, and Mrs. MacHeath. I want St. Jerome’s, and I want Hopewell Grange.”

  Those two objectives were a good twenty miles distant.

  That was John’s last coherent thought before Ada kissed him, or he kissed her. Whoever started it, the kiss became a mutual expression of wonder, wishes, and desire, until John was braced against the desk, Ada bundled in close, and both of them were winded.

  “Ada, what are you saying?”

  “I am saying that I want all of my wishes to come true, and your wishes too, I hope. I want you, the children, and St. Jerome’s to share the Grange with me. I want us to be a family, to learn and laugh, and on fine days we can play cricket in the park, and Cora can climb trees and then—”

  “Yes,” John said. “Yes, yes, yes, to all of it, and especially to the part about being a family. My father wants a chance to make a better impression on you.”

  Ada wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest. “The marquess saved the day, John. Mr. Carruthers told me all about it. I owe the marquess a great deal.”

  John stroked her hair, toying with the thick tress that curled at her shoulder. “You gave the marques back his prodigal son, Ada. Papa and I hadn’t talked—really talked—for years. Because of you, we walked across half of London as if it was five minutes down to the corner pub. He must sit on a dozen committees, and one in particular deals with London’s homeless orphans. He asked my opinion.”

  “And you gave it to him, I hope. Your honest opinion.”

  “I did not mince my words, because I spoke to him the way I’d speak to you, without fear of judgment.”

  Oh, how he loved to hold her, to have her in his arms, to be in her company. And yet… the door was open, the children were soon to abandon the garden.

  “We have much to plan,” Ada said. “I want to show you the Grange. I have some ideas, but I’m sure you will have ideas
too.”

  John led her to the reading chairs, and resisted, barely, the temptation to sit with her in his lap. Time for that later—though not too much later. Ada held forth about dormitories and school rooms, a conservatory and a music room, while John’s head spun, and his heart danced the waltz.

  “Do you know,” Ada said, “when Mr. Carruthers put this challenge to me, I dreaded what lay before me, because I had to face a few old nightmares in order to reach for a dream.”

  “And?” John asked.

  “And making me let go of those nightmares is the best gift anybody could have given me, short of the gift I look forward to sharing with you.”

  She smiled such a smile, mysterious, pleased, a bit naughty. “Ada Beauvais, you tempt me to indiscretions.”

  “Good, because you tempt me to outright scandal.”

  He rose and closed the door. “Might I tempt you just a little bit more?”

  Ada arranged her skirts so the toes of her slippers peeked from beneath her hems, and John’s mouth went dry.

  “You may, but only a little.”

  Fortunately for John, little was a relative term.

  To My Dear Readers

  To my dear readers,

  I hope you enjoyed Ada and John’s story! I have some hard memories from elementary school (who doesn’t?) and writing this little tales helped me put those experiences in a more positive light. I have more happily ever afters due for publication in the coming months, including When a Duchess Says I Do (April 2, 2019), the second book in my Rogues to Riches series.

  Scholarly, taciturn Duncan Wentworth tried his hand at rescuing a damsel in distress once long ago, and he’s vowed he’ll never make that mistake again. Nonetheless, when he comes across Matilda Wakefield in the poacher-infested and far-from-enchanted woods of his estate, decency compels him to offer aid to a lady fallen on hard times. Matilda is whip-smart, she can read Duncan’s horrible penmanship, and when she wears his reading glasses, all Duncan can think about is naughty Latin poetry. Matilda, it must be said, is also out the business of rescuing lonely, reclusive scholars…. Or so she thinks. Order your copy of When a Duchess Says I Do! (And find an excerpt below.)