A Husband for Hartwell (The Lords of Bucknall Club Book 1)

by J. A. Rock

  Hartwell regarded his father curiously. He felt oddly uninvested in his father’s decision and at peace with whatever it was. He also felt quite proud of cornering the man and forcing him to make a choice. Either way, James would be Duke of Ancaster. Whether he would be the next one or the one after that was up to the current duke, and entirely out of Hartwell’s hands.

  “Good Lord,” his father repeated at last. He turned his mouth down unhappily. “Well, you are quite decided, I see.”

  “Quite,” Hartwell agreed.

  “Then marry him,” Ancaster said shortly, and Hartwell warmed to see the grudging respect in his father’s eyes. “Marry him and be happy.”

  Hartwell swelled with pride. “And Ancaster?” he asked.

  His father snorted. “Get out, William. Get out, and don’t come back until I’ve yelled at the servants for a while.”

  “He’s not going to yell at the servants,” the duchess said airily. She leaned down the table and clasped Hartwell’s wrist. Her eyes sparkled. “I wouldn’t allow it.”

  And the wink she gave Hartwell promised that she wouldn’t allow him to be disowned either, and that everything, eventually, was going to be just fine between him and his father.

  “Well, Hartwell, you’ve picked a fine day for a picnic,” Gale declared sardonically. “It is far too cold to sit near any body of water, even one so stagnant as this. Why has Lady Rebecca cast aside her shawl? I always counted her among the few people of sense I have known.”

  “Stop your grumbling,” Hartwell ordered. “I invited you along because I require some advice.”

  “Advice?”

  Hartwell lowered his voice and said in Gale’s ear, “I mean to propose to Warry.”

  Gale appeared not at all surprised. “What on earth do you need my advice for? I would sooner dive into that frigid, stagnant water than I would propose to anyone.”

  “Perhaps not your advice, then, but your support.” Hartwell surveyed the grassy expanse and the green-brown pond full of lily pads around them. “This is where we used to play as children.”

  “Good Lord, Hartwell. You rash-minded disciple of that rake Slyfeel. You brought Warry to the very pond you used to throw him into, and you expect to romance him here? My advice is not to do it.”

  Hartwell ignored that statement. “I am only afraid, now that the moment is here, that he will not have me.”

  “He has no choice, my friend. If that makes you feel any better.”

  “It does not,” Hartwell said sharply. “Do not say that. He has a choice. I will make sure he knows he has one.”

  Gale shrugged, watching Becca and Warry shake out the blanket at the side of the pond. “Does she know?”

  “Not yet. Although I’m certain she suspects. I must set things right with her before I make my proposal to Warry.”

  “If I had known what a show I would be getting, I would not have grumbled so about being invited. I think you a fool, Hartwell. But you are, quite literally, the only person I have ever born any love for, so I will do my best to speak words of encouragement instead of derision.”

  “You exaggerate.” Hartwell glanced at him. “You love Clarissa, Ann-Marie, Cordelia, Helene, and Eugenie—”

  “Eugenie? Who the devil is Eugenie?”

  Hartwell rolled his eyes but humoured him. “Your youngest sister.”

  “You cannot be serious? Hartwell, my life was nightmare enough when I thought I had only four. Now you tell me I have five?”

  “You know precisely how many sisters you have. You know their ages and their likes and dislikes, and you buy them sweets on the regular. You do not fool me.”

  “Lower your voice, man! If people find out, I will be in greater disgrace than your Warry.”

  “Then I suppose you also do not wish for me to thank you.”

  “Thank me for what service, pray tell?

  “Why did you start looking into Balfour’s finances in the first place? And why did you brave the first ball of the Season to uncover his attempted manipulations of the stock exchange?” Hartwell inquired casually.

  Gale would not look at him. “Anyone could see there was something wrong with the man. I merely did a bit of digging.”

  “Because you knew I loved Warry.” Hartwell rendered it a statement, not a question.

  Gale did not answer, but Hartwell could swear he saw the man’s lips twitch with what might have been a smile or a grimace.

  “Thank you for taking the case.”

  “For pity’s sake, I have told you, do not call it a case! Go. Go and apologize to Lady Rebecca and then go propose to that dull little wisp you wish to call husband. Leave me here to become chilled to the point of death.”

  Hartwell grinned and walked over to the blanket. His heart was going a bit fast, but he was otherwise surprisingly steady, considering the circumstances. Warry was hunting in the picnic basket for something, and Hartwell approached Becca. “Would you walk with me for a moment?”

  He thought she might refuse, but then she stepped toward him, and they began a circuit around the pond.

  “I do not know what apology I could make,” he said, “that would not fall terribly short of what the circumstances require.”

  “Why don’t you start with any apology at all?” Becca suggested.

  “I am sorry.” Hartwell spoke with complete sincerity. “Nothing feels so terrible as being at odds with you. I never did think ill of you. You will always be the person I admire most in the world.”

  “Such flattery.”

  “It is the truth.”

  She turned to him. “I am sorry as well. To hurt you in retaliation for you hurting me did not help the situation.”

  “Are we to be friends again?”

  “I suppose it would be best to declare ourselves so. Seeing as we will be family soon.”

  Hartwell attempted to school his face. “Why do you say that?”

  Becca’s lips curved briefly. “Because you keep looking at my brother as though you mean to sweep him into your arms and carry him to the altar right now. And because the letter you sent me was not so cryptic as you might have liked to think.”

  “May I ask him?”

  She laughed. “You do not need my permission.”

  “But it would mean very much to me.”

  Her smile faded. She quickened her pace and so did he.

  “You must not hurt him, William.”

  “I never will.”

  “You must not act out of guilt or to preserve his reputation.”

  “I do not. I swear, Becca. I love him.”

  She sighed. A moment later, she stumbled slightly, then bent down. “The heel of this shoe,” she complained, adjusting it beneath the hem of her dress. “It wobbles so.” She straightened. “Very well. You have my permission to ask.”

  “I am, and will forever be, grateful. You are an angel, truly.”

  “Doing it a bit too brown, William. Have you told your parents?”

  He nodded. “The result could have been worse. Are your parents…Are they very angry? About Warry? About us?”

  She let out a slow breath. “They are handling things well, considering. They have heard the rumours, but they are not seeking your blood. And they have been gentle with Warry thus far.”

  “That is good.”

  “I have distracted them somewhat from Warry’s shame by declaring that I will never marry. They are…Well, my mother is…trying to come to terms with it.”

  “I saw you dancing the other night with Miss Emily Pearson…” He lifted both his voice and his brows suggestively.

  She gave him a most unimpressed stare.

  “I will admit, I wondered…when you finally declared yourself willing to submit to your parents’ wishes and marry me…why not marry instead a woman you have a fondness for? Even if it was done out of expediency, wouldn’t it still be better to marry someone you could come to love one day?”

  She stopped walking, and he did too. “Of course I thought of t
hat. But it seemed, until recently, too painful to consider even feigning affection for any woman but Miss Lilley. I know you must think what I feel for her is calf love, but—”

  “I may not have read the letter, Becca, but I know you. And I assure you, calf love is the very last thing I was thinking.”

  She laughed, but it trailed off into a solemnity he didn’t know what to make of. “If I cannot marry the woman I love because she is a commoner, then I wish to marry no woman. Nor any man, either, though I’ll allow that you came close, William. With you, there could be no expectation that I would love you in that way. Marrying you seemed the closest thing to not marrying at all.”

  “I am flattered.”

  She snorted, pulling her shawl around her. “Warry asked yesterday if I am ever scared. Of course I am. I do know what people will say about me, about my eternal spinsterhood. And it will hurt, I’m sure, at times. But I cannot live a lie. I will not live one. And besides…” She cast a sly glance at Hartwell. “I am thinking of travel.”

  “Of travel?”

  “Yes. To the Continent. If I am to be a spinster, then I am obligated to travel, am I not?”

  “Are you?” he asked, confused.

  “Yes,” Becca said airily. “But of course it would be scandalous to travel unaccompanied. I shall have to hire a companion. A lady of good reputation and modest demeanour.” Her mouth twitched. “Perhaps even one already known and thought well of by my parents. Someone who has previously been in their trusted employ.”

  “Becca, you sly thing!” Hartwell exclaimed admiringly. “I shall expect detailed letters from you so Warry and I might get a map and plot your and Miss Lilley’s course across Europe.”

  Becca smiled. “I should expect nothing less.”

  They had nearly completed their circuit of the pond, and Hartwell’s heart stuttered at the sight of Warry sitting on the blanket, the breeze ruffling his hair.

  Hartwell did not realise he had stopped moving. He was not aware of anything except Warry until a moment later when his shirt was pulled back and something wet and wriggling dropped down his back. He shouted, whirling.

  Becca grinned at him.

  “Dash it, Becca!” He tugged his shirt loose to free the frog, catching it in hand and then setting it gently by the pond’s edge. She must have picked the creature up when she feigned to repair the heel of her shoe.

  “Now I will consider us even.”

  Hartwell tried, over the course of the few steps to the picnic area, to compose himself. His cheeks were hot, and it seemed he could still feel the frog hopping about in his shirt.

  “Lady Rebecca,” Gale called as they drew near. “Will you not come over here with me and help feed these damnably stale seed cakes to the pigeons?”

  “I do not even like you,” Becca protested.

  “Nobody does,” Gale assured her. “But these birds look quite hungry.”

  Hartwell shook his head as his two dearest friends wandered to a spot several yards away—and yet, he noticed, not entirely out of earshot—where pigeons flocked. He knelt beside Warry on the blanket, which had been placed so near the edge of the pond that it felt damp under his knees. “I had hoped it would not be so chilly today.” He cursed himself at once for bringing up the weather. He had far more important things to speak of.

  Warry made no answer and would not quite look at Hartwell, which was disconcerting.

  “It was not your fault,” Hartwell said at last. “What Balfour did to you.”

  Warry tensed visibly, but Hartwell pushed on. “Becca and I were quite shocked by your story last night. And perhaps we made it sound as though we blamed you. I want you to know that it was not your fault. That you are not ruined. That things will be…will be all right.”

  “Hartwell,” Warry said carefully, perhaps a bit bitterly. Hartwell missed ‘Willam.’ “I am in no need of reassurances. You offered me many last night, which was kind of you, but I am not some fragile thing. I will be fine on my own.”

  On his own? Hartwell would be damned first.

  “Be that as it may, I want to make sure you understand that you are under no obligation to answer my next question with a yes.”

  Now Warry did turn to him, his tousled hair hanging just over his widening eyes. Hartwell rose and drew Warry with him, taking both of Warry’s hands in his.

  “In the light of day, the things I said last night have not lost their shape. I care for you deeply, Warry. I cannot imagine loving anyone as I love you. I should like a chance to prove to you that I am better than I have thus far shown myself to be. I wish to live my life by your side, to protect you as best I can from ever being hurt, and to cherish you each day, now and for all the future.”

  Warry’s gaze softened, though Hartwell could not identify the precise emotion it held. Perhaps because it held so many at once: hope, delight, caution, amusement. “What is your question?” Warry asked with a dryness of tone that would have made Gale proud.

  Hartwell snorted but studied him with such adoration that he could see the depth of his own feeling begin to echo in Warry’s expression. “Will you marry me?”

  As Warry stared back at him, Hartwell could not help noticing that Gale and Becca were edging closer. Eavesdropping. He hoped he was not about to be humiliated before both of them.

  “That depends,” Warry said thoughtfully, and Hartwell braced himself. “Will you love me when I am old?”

  “Of course.” Hartwell’s brow furrowed.

  “Good answer,” Gale murmured behind him. Hartwell did not recall asking his friend to interfere, but perhaps this was what counted in Gale’s mind as being supportive.

  Warry asked, “Will you love me no matter how much time I spend talking about goats’ digestive systems?”

  Hartwell opened his mouth to say yes, absolutely, but Gale whispered, “I would negotiate it down to horses. Goats have four stomachs to be nattered on about, but horses only have the one.”

  Hartwell said loudly, “I will listen to any description, of any length, of any organ inside any animal. And I will love you more with every word you speak on the subject.”

  “Hartwell, that is rash,” Gale warned.

  Warry was struggling increasingly to hide his smile. “Will you love me always, no matter what I put you through?”

  “Nothing you could do would sway me from loving you,” Hartwell promised.

  “Well in that case…” Warry shoved him firmly, and Hartwell toppled backward into the pond.

  He rose up, sputtering and circling his arms to keep himself afloat. The water was damnably chilly, but Warry, curse the wretch, laughed with such pure delight it seemed to warm the very air around them.

  “Then my answer is yes!” Warry announced. He stuck out his hand to Hartwell. “Come. I will rescue you.”

  Hartwell coughed out a bit of water and reached up to grip Warry’s hand. As soon as he grasped it, he gave a mighty tug and pulled Warry into the water with him. Warry splashed and flailed, laughing so hard that Hartwell feared he would drown from inhaling water. He pulled Warry close to him, aware they were making quite a scene.

  Telling himself they were hidden from spectators by the reeds lining the pond, he pressed a quick kiss to Warry’s lips.

  “You see,” Hartwell said. “You are a terrible imp, and I love you all the more for it.” He hauled them both back onto the grass, Warry still breathless with laughter as he peered up at Hartwell. “My husband,” Hartwell whispered.

  Warry stopped laughing then and returned Hartwell’s gaze, every bit of him alive, the way Hartwell remembered him. Water dripped from his hair, caught in his eyelashes, beaded in the bow of his lips. “Yes,” Warry said. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”

  Hartwell stole another kiss. When he drew back, Warry’s eyes were wide.

  “We shall have no more scandals, shall we?” he asked hopefully.

  “None,” Hartwell agreed. “We shall be dull and staid and boring forevermore. Whoever the next scandal of the Seaso
n belongs to, it shall not be ours.”

  “Oh, good,” Warry said, his brilliant smile reappearing. “I do like the sound of that.” He traced his fingers across Hartwell’s palm and gave a thoughtful hum. “Whose, do you suppose, the scandal shall be?”

  Hartwell only shrugged, and then leaned in to kiss his Warry again.

  Afterword

  Thank you so much for reading A Husband for Hartwell. We hope that you enjoyed it. We would very much appreciate it if you could take a few moments to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or on your social media platform of choice.

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  Keep reading for a an excerpt from A Case for Christmas, the next book in the series.

  An Excerpt from A Case for Christmas

  The Harringdon ball was every bit as horrid as Gale had been imagining. Clarissa quickly found a couple of her friends, and they’d gone to get punch. Another sister of his, Maryanne—Hartwell insisted she was Anne-Marie, but Gale had his doubts—was in attendance, though she had come with some cousins and an aunt who was acting as her chaperone. Gale found himself stranded on the outskirts of the Harringdons’ drawing room, trying to look as though he were casually taking in his surroundings rather than preparing to be executed. But his palms sweated, and the air in the room felt very thick. And what a room it was. As though somebody had taken the most ostentatious aspects of Oriental and Gothic design and beat them together with a broken whisk. He did not know whether he was in more danger of having the ghost of a murdered bride beseech him to bring her killer to justice or of tripping and impaling himself on a truly egregious amount of bamboo. He was earning glances from people who’d never had a glance to spare for him before. He’d hoped the sheer sternness of his visage would be enough to deter anyone from speaking to him, but one by one, Society’s finest were darting in and taking bites of him, as though he were a wounded beast marked for death by a thousand cuts.

  Lord Abel wished to know details of his confrontation with Lord Balfour—Gale thought it prudent to keep those details to himself as they would compromise his friend William Hartwell and the sulky little addle-pate Hartwell had wed not even a week ago, Joseph Warrington. Mrs. Crayston claimed her neighbour had been acting suspiciously, and asked if he might stop by on the morrow to investigate. Miss Karina Bellborough said he must be very brave to go around confronting jewel thieves and forgers. And Lord Thurston wondered in a low voice whether making people disappear—as opposed to finding them—was a service Gale offered.