Cecilia (The Families 0f Dorset Book 3)

by Martha Keyes

  He reared back, staring at her in mock horror. "That sounds more like a threat than a promise."He narrowed his eyes. "I trust you have not acquired any morbid notions from Letty's tales about the murderous widow Lady Rebecca?"

  Cecilia wagged her eyebrows at him. "If I answered you, it would spoil the entertainment entirely."

  He threw his head back and laughed heartily.

  No, life at Cecilia's side would decidedly not be boring.

  Epilogue

  Montreuil, France 1817

  Cecilia stepped down from the carriage onto the dirt road, her gloved hand held within her husband's. He met her eyes with a smile—the smile she could never help but return, even three years later.

  She steadied the bonnet on her head and looked to the large iron gate, black and rusted, which stood between them and the row of towering trees lining the drive.

  Jacques, too, was looking down the lane, and Cecilia could see the mist of memory which clouded his eyes.

  "Maman! Aide-moi, Maman!"

  Their three-year-old daughter's hand hovered in the air from the door of the carriage.

  "Viens, Caroline," said Jacques, turning to her and putting out his arms in an invitation for her to jump.

  She squatted down with an elated grin and jumped, giggling as he began tickling her immediately.

  Cecilia watched with a contented smile, putting a hand to her stomach. It had only started to round.

  "Where are we, Papa?" Caroline said, her forehead wrinkled.

  Jacques took in a breath and set her down on the ground. "This is where Papa and Grandpapa lived, many years ago."

  "And you, too, Mama?"

  Cecilia smiled and shook her head. "This is my first time here, too, Caro."

  Caroline looked at the gate and up at the trees, then squinted down the lane. "But there is no house."

  Jacques chuckled, sharing a glance of enjoyment with Cecilia. "There is! Let me show you."

  He nodded at the coachman, and stepped toward the gate, opening it with a creak that made Cecilia clench her teeth and Caroline cover her ears.

  "It sounds as though it hasn't been opened in years," Jacques said.

  "Perhaps it hasn't," said Cecilia.

  Jacques put out his hands, offering one to Cecilia and one to Caroline, and together they walked down the lane to the place where Jacques had spent much of his childhood.

  "How does it feel?" Cecilia said as they approached the imposing seat of the Comté de Montreuil. Vines covered most of the facade.

  "Very strange," said Jacques in a slow, thoughtful tone.

  "Do you wish to leave?" Cecilia said, concerned. She hadn't been sure how her husband would react to seeing the place he had left so long ago, with its memories of an entirely different life.

  He turned to her and exhaled, shaking his head and smiling. "No." He squeezed her hand in his, even as Caroline broke away to approach the mysterious house. "I want you to know where I came from."

  She pulled him toward her, putting a hand behind his neck and bringing him in for a kiss. "Show me everything."

  He stroked her cheek with his thumb, putting his forehead against hers. "I want her to know, too. I want her to understand."

  Cecilia looked to Caroline, who was pulling the leaves apart to see what lay behind. "Then show us everything."

  He looked at their daughter with a frown. "I don't want her to be ashamed of where her father came from."

  Cecilia smiled at him. "Does she look ashamed?"

  His half-smile appeared. Caroline was running toward them, bursting with excitement. "A door, Papa! A door!"

  "If you are not ashamed, Jacques," Cecilia said, intertwining her fingers in his, "then she will not be ashamed."

  "And you?" he said.

  Cecilia brought their clasped hands to her lips and kissed his fingers. "How could I ever be ashamed of the man who taught me how to love? How to live in my own skin?"

  She shook her head, looking intently into his eyes. "Show me everything, Jacques."

  * * *

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  Hazelhurst: A Regency Romance

  Chapter One

  Ashworth Place, Dorset, England April 1814

  Lady Anne Haywood fiddled with the silver wedding band underneath her white glove, her eyes glazed over as she stared blankly in front of her. Her brows were drawn together, and her dark, wavy hair tied back in a simple bun, just as it had been for days. She had been too anxious to sit for her normal toilette—an elegant coiffure would hardly be set off to advantage by the dark rings under her brown eyes or the gray pallor of her normally porcelain skin. Her dress hung more loosely on her arms and waist, the result of days of hardly eating.

  The way she looked, Anthony would hardly recognize his wife if he were to return in this moment.

  If he were to return at all.

  She shut her eyes. She couldn't think such things. She had to remain hopeful.

  Approaching footsteps sounded in the corridor, and she straightened, clasping her hands together and looking toward the door with eyes which darted nervously.

  It opened, and her brother, William, Viscount of Ashworth, appeared, hat in his hands and a grim set to his square jaw.

  She stood, looking a question at him, and he grimaced, shaking his head with apology written in his eyes and the frowning lines of his face.

  Anne took her lips between her teeth and tried to swallow the nausea back down. They hadn't found Anthony.

  William stepped toward her and took her hand in his, helping her to sit down on the settee behind her. "I am so very sorry, Anne." He sat down beside her, setting his hat next to him and angling his knees toward her. He kept her hand in his, squeezing it lightly.

  "I am afraid I have worse news still."

  She tried to take a small, steadying breath, keeping her eyes on her hand. She didn't trust herself to look William in the eye. What worse news could he have?

  He took in a breath of his own, and Anne could feel his reluctance in the way he watched her, in the low and slow way he spoke. "The Bow Street Runner was unable to find him, but he was able to piece together enough information that a few things have become evident."

  Anne closed her eyes, her free hand clutching at her skirts. She hardly knew what to prepare herself for. Her husband had been gone more than three weeks. Disappeared without a word. Was he dead? Is that what William had come to tell her? That she was a widow before she had been married even three months?

  "It seems that Anthony Haywood is known by another name."

  There was a pause, and Anne's brow furrowed even more deeply. What did he mean? His hesitation didn't bode well, but she couldn’t tell what his words implied. She wished he would deliver the news quickly, whatever it was. The suspense was unbearable.

  William shifted in his seat. "The Runner traced him to Sussex, using the painting you provided to ask people whether they recognized him. Many did, but all insisted that he was called Nicholas— Nicholas Hackett—and that they hadn't seen him in months. The parish register shows his birth and christening records there."

  William set his other hand on top of Anne's, which lay trembling in his hand. "Anne," he said, his voice so gentle that it made her wince in anticipation, "there are records in a parish in London showing that Nicholas Hackett married two years ago."

  Anne stilled. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she looked up at William, her lips parting wordlessly as she searched his face. His mouth was drawn into a hard, thin line, his eyes deeply pained.

  She shut her eyes and shook her head quickly, disentangling her hands from her brother's and standing.

  There had to be another explanation. />
  William had never taken to Anthony. He had tried more than once to persuade Anne against the match, gently at first and then more firmly as time went on, resulting in the greatest row the siblings had ever had. And though he had apologized and made an effort to act with civility and good nature toward Anthony once Anne had made it clear that they intended to wed, things had been strained with William ever since.

  "You never liked him," Anne said, unable to stifle a bit of accusation from her tone. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, fists clenched.

  William sighed. "I shan't deny that. But, Anne, surely you cannot think that I would fabricate such a tale as this? To put you through such misery simply over a matter of personal preference?" He shook his head. "You are my sister, Anne. I love you dearly, and it pains me more than you can imagine to be the bearer of such news."

  "It isn't possible," Anne said, turning away from him, her head shaking from side to side slowly. She put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes.

  This was only a nightmare. She would awaken shortly to find Anthony beside her, sound asleep, with one arm draped over his forehead and his dark, straight hair mussed, as it always was when he slept.

  William let out a gush of air. "I am afraid there isn't room for any doubt, Anne. The Runner spoke with his wife, whom it appears he left in a similar fashion a year or so ago."

  Anne swallowed painfully, her hand flying to her mouth to stop the nausea which pulsed through her. His wife?

  Anne was his wife.

  "Her name is Louisa Hackett," William said. "She confirmed that she married Nicholas two years ago."

  Anne closed her eyes for a moment and took in a large, shaky breath. She wouldn't go into hysterics, she wouldn't faint in front of William. But with her mind aflutter, she needed to know one thing.

  "Do you mean," she said, straightening and looking William in the eye, "that I am not, and never was, married?"

  William's mouth drew into another pained grimace. It was answer enough for Anne, but he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, anyway. "Not in the eyes of the law or the church, I fear."

  Her throat constricted, and she inclined her head once. "Thank you," she said, managing to keep her voice level. "I should like to be alone now, if you please." She turned away from him, hoping he would take it as a dismissal, since she felt her handle on her emotions fraying with each passing second.

  William didn't move, though, and she knew without even looking at him that he was debating with himself over his best course of action.

  "Please," she said shakily. "Go."

  "As you wish," William said softly.

  Anne listened, hearing him rise from the settee and then step toward her, only to pause again and stride out of the room. The door made a small thud as it closed.

  She stood, rooted to the spot, her chest rising and falling more rapidly as the seconds passed, her hands trembling. The room swayed in front of her, and she put a hand out to the shelves of books lining the wall to stabilize her. Her nostrils flared and her chin began to tremble before she crumpled into a heap on the floor, bringing two books down with her as she put her head in her hands and cried.

  * * *

  Ingleburn Park, Dorset, England - July 1814

  "And all the money gone with him." Lord Purbeck slammed a fist onto the desk in the large library of Ingleburn Park. and Anne winced.

  It was not the first time her father had lamented the disappearance of Anne's husband, Anthony.

  No, Nicholas. His name was Nicholas Hackett.

  She hardly knew how to refer to him anymore. He had never been her husband in a legal sense. She knew that now.

  In the two months since William's visit, there had been many such encounters with her father. Anne stood in no doubt of where her father placed the blame for the situation. It would always lie on Anne's shoulders, for she had pleaded with him to countenance the match, had made the case to her father that his fortune more than made up for his lack of title; that it qualified him to marry the daughter of an earl.

  And miraculously, her father had relented.

  But there had been no fortune. It had all been part of the deception, and Lord Purbeck was unlikely to let Anne forget it for years to come.

  "Humiliation such as our family has never known!" Her father's lips were turned down in disgust, and his eyes bored into her as she sat motionless in her chair, waiting for this storm to pass and grant her a reprieve until it built up again in a few days' time.

  She did not cower in front of her father, for she was well used to his blustering, and she had her own stubborn streak underneath the complacency she presented. But she kept her eyes trained on the row of books behind him, for she hated the way her father looked when he was in a rage.

  He exhaled sharply. "Well," he said in a lighter tone, straightening a paper on his desk, "perhaps we shall come about despite it all."

  Anne's eyes whipped over to him. This was not the usual ending to such interviews. But she knew better than to speak.

  "I have arranged an advantageous match for you, Anne—a way for you to make amends to this family for the mud you have dragged us through." He stared at her severely, and she clutched her hands together in her lap, willing herself to show a calm she was far from feeling.

  The idea of marriage brought on a fresh wave of anxiety—particularly the thought of a match arranged by her father. He wouldn't hesitate for a moment to auction her off to the highest bidder—not with the financial straits the family was in, and not when her own arrangements had ended so disastrously.

  Her mind jumped for a moment to the faces of various gentlemen she knew to be widowed or unmarried and possessing significant fortunes. But she brushed away the thought. It hardly mattered. In a moment, her father would reveal the identity of her future husband—her first real husband, she thought with a swallow—and she wouldn't fight him on it.

  She hadn't the energy. And she knew better than to think such a course would bear any fruit. What would she be arguing for? Another love match?

  No. Better to marry someone she disliked than to risk her heart again when it was still reeling from her last marriage—or last attempt at marriage.

  "Tobias Cosgrove," her father said, pulling out his snuff box and flicking open the lid carelessly, as though he were revealing something as humdrum as the time.

  Anne's brows snapped together.

  "Tobias Cosgrove?" she repeated blankly.

  He was neither titled nor wealthy, at least to her knowledge. He was merely the son of Mr. and Mrs. Cosgrove, neighbors of Ashworth Place where William and his wife Kate lived.

  Her father nodded, looking at her through narrowed eyes. "And very grateful you should be, for it isn't every gentleman would take another man's"—he put a hand up, and Anne felt her cheeks flame. "Well, never mind that," he said. "Suffice it to say that it is a stroke of good fortune I never looked to have. With the success of Cosgrove's most recent investment, they stand in a position to make quite a difference in our fortunes, to say nothing of the advantage of an alliance between the families of Ashworth Place and Hazelhurst."

  Anne was only half-listening. She had grown up with Isabel and Cecilia Cosgrove, but her knowledge of their elder brother was limited, off as he had been at school for so much of her life.

  The little she did know made it hard to believe such a man would agree to marriage at all without significant coercion. His good nature was obvious to anyone who had spent more than a few moments in his company, but it was accompanied by a frivolousness that characterized more than a few determined bachelors of Anne's acquaintance.

  She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. At least he would not browbeat her. Indeed, marriage with someone as lighthearted and frivolous as Tobias Cosgrove might be the best she could hope for.

  "I trust we are of one accord, Anne," her father said, still watching her with a severity that made her anxious to leave Ingleburn Park and her father's inescapable temper. She could withstand his anger—inde
ed she would much rather it be directed at her than at her mother—but it wore her down to confront him so often.

  She nodded.

  "Good," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. "He will be calling upon you this Thursday. I hope you will show him the civility and gratitude he deserves." He nodded toward the door of the library. "You may go."

  She rose from her chair and made a small curtsy to her father, who waved her away with a dismissive hand gesture.

  She pulled the door closed gently behind her, knowing how her father's volatile temper could flare up again at something as insignificant as an unexpected noise.

  Taking in a deep breath, she walked down the thick carpet of the corridor and up the well-worn stairs. She was coming to dislike her childhood home intensely, riddled as it now was with reminders of her most difficult moments. It had been more difficult than she had anticipated to move home after her marriage had evaporated in an instant, but surely it would not have been easier to stay in the home she had shared with him, even if it did belong to her.

  She had been so terrified of being accidentally referred to or introduced as Lady Anne Haywood that she had avoided social interaction entirely for the last two months. She was Lady Anne Vincent again.

  Apparently, though, she would soon be Lady Anne Cosgrove.

  She tapped lightly on the door of the parlor which adjoined her mother's room. Her mother had been her saving grace through everything that had happened—a calm, sympathetic presence; someone who was familiar with heartache and unmet expectations.

  Anne opened the door enough to peek her head into the room. Her mother sat in the wingback chair, a book open in her hands as she looked to Anne with the warm smile she reserved for her children. Her face was lined—a mixture of smile lines around her eyes and the sorrowful lines on her forehead that almost three decades of marriage to an authoritarian husband had chiseled there.