“I think of them as smaller versions of you, Aunt Agatha. Really, whenever somebody leads them into mischief, I can always be guaranteed to know who that person is.”
“In the years since you became a Countess, my dear, you have become quite impossible.” Lady Barton said haughtily.
“I know, it is hereditary.” She smiled broadly as the twins broke free and began to run back down the lawn once again.
“It is all right, I shall go.” Lady Barton said, rising to her feet with relish; as much as she complained, she adored every minute of the time she spent with her great, great nieces.
“She really is quite a woman, your Aunt Agatha.” Jonathan said as they watched her disappear down the lawn in hot pursuit of the tearaway twins.
“She is quite wonderful, is she not?”
“And you are quite wonderful, my love, but in a different way.” Jonathan smiled at her, his bright blue eyes twinkling in the sunshine.
“I love you, Jonathan.”
“And I love you.” He said and then frowned. “I have heard a little news from Lord Radley this last week that may be of interest to you.”
“Oh yes?”
“I believe, after so many long and lonely years, that Lord Charles Wilby is finally to marry.”
“Who?” Felicia said and chuckled.
“Do you not remember the name?” Jonathan said, wheedling.
“The name is familiar, but I cannot draw a face to mind, I am afraid.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Really, after five years do you have any doubts?” She leaned sideways in her chair until her head rested on his shoulder.
“How could I ever have any doubts about you. My wife, my lover, my best friend in all this world.”
“And I have no doubts in my mind or my heart, Jonathan. You are the only man I could ever love, and I know we shall always be happy.”
“And I know it too, my beautiful, wonderful wife.”
The End
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Turn the page for the first three chapters of my latest Regency Romance full-length novel with an intriguing mystery…
The Duke’s Heartbreaking Secret
By Kate Carteret
Chapter One
Anabelle’s heart was beating so fast she could hardly catch her breath. Leopold stared down at her angrily and she was sure this time she would not be able to escape him.
“Please, you must release my arm, Cousin Leopold.” She said in hopes of reminding him of their familial connection. “Please. This is not right.”
“How dare you tell me what is and what is not right when you live under my roof!” He said, the strain of keeping his voice below a shout making the veins on his temples pulse visibly.
“What you are trying to do is wrong. I have come here for your help, not this. I beg that you would release me.”
“And you expect my help just like that, do you?” He said, his lips curled back into an ugly sneer and his pale blue eyes narrowed until they were almost closed.
“You are a married man, Sir.” Anabelle tried a different path. “It is not right.”
“You will not instruct me! You will not interfere in how it is I choose to conduct my marriage.” He looked so angry that Anabelle could hardly imagine how he could even contemplate his amorous thoughts; the two states surely did not fit together.
“I will scream.” She said and glared at him with every ounce of courage she had left in her body. “And I can hear Fenella and the children, so you can be sure they will hear me.” Anabelle was so tired that her fatigue was giving her a reckless edge.
She knew that she was risking harm. Leopold was, without a doubt, the sort of man who would not think twice about striking her. But he was also the sort of man who would not think twice about ruining her just so that he might take what he wanted.
Anabelle decided that she would rather be struck if there was no other way out for her. If this was what life was to be, she would defy it at every opportunity, come what may.
“I will scream.” She said again and opened her mouth to draw in a great breath.
Leopold Adlington immediately let go of her arm but did not step away from her as she would have liked.
He had her cornered in the library of Brockett House, the fine country home of the Adlington family. But as fine as the house was, it was not so large that a fulsome scream would not be heard all over it. Indeed, with a wife as nosy as Leopold’s, a scream could be no other than thoroughly investigated.
Leopold took a step closer and, despite no longer holding her, his warm breath and large red face were oppressive. Anabelle turned her face away.
“You will have to learn that nothing in this life is free.” Leopold took a hold of her chin and forced her head back around so that she was staring into his sneering face once more.
“I realised that much when you laid claim to my sixty pounds a year.” Anabelle held her ground, despite fearing what the next few moments of her life might bring.
“And you think that is enough to live under my roof, do you? To be protected from the world?”
“If I am protected from the world, then it is fear I have found in this house. The world does not protect me from you, Cousin.”
“At least you understand that much.” He said and stepped away from her.
Anabelle closed her eyes for a moment in relief. It was over for now, although she knew this was just a temporary reprieve.
Anabelle Brock had lived in Brockett House for three months, ever since her father had died. She had been raised well, and in some privilege, but that privilege had been waning in the years since her mother had died.
Anabelle had been forced to look on helplessly as her father, a kind and sensitive man, had tried to outrun his deep grief, losing himself in gambling and strong liquor. Even now she could not think of her father’s face without the heartbreak of remembering the regret that clouded his eyes during his final illness; the knowledge that there was no longer any time left for him on the earth to put things right, to claw back some of his old wealth and leave his only child well provided for.
But she had soothed him; she would be well looked after by his cousin Leopold at Brockett House. She might even keep a little place in society and find a reasonable marriage, if not a very fine one. And that was how a loving daughter had sent her heartbroken father to the hereafter.
Whatever he had done, he had done to ease the pain. Benedict Brock had never set out to hurt his daughter, even if that was the horrible reality in the end.
“Perhaps I should find lodgings, Leopold.” Anabelle said when the silence between them became almost oppressive.
She did not like such silences in that house, for they spoke loudly of new plans being made, new ways to cause upset and humiliation. If only she had known Leopold’s character fully when her father had died, she would never have gone there. She was a clever woman, a bright woman, and she would have thought of something.
“Lodgings?” Leopold scoffed as his skin returned to its normal pasty paleness. “With what? How do you mean to pay for such lodgings?”
“With my sixty pounds a year.” Anabelle was still clinging hard to her defiance; in that moment, defiance was all she had left that she could call her own.
“What rat-infested hell do you intend to live in?”
“If I am gone from here, I hardly think it is any of your concern where I choose to live. I am one-and-twenty and you a
re not my guardian.
“I will not release your sixty pounds.”
“But it is mine. It is all I have left of my father’s money.”
“For you to lose sixty pounds a year will be as nothing in comparison with what I have lost.” His face, large and round, was becoming pink again. He so easily gave into his anger that Anabelle had wondered if he would simply fall down dead from it one day. She had even hoped for it. “You forget, Anabelle, that your father’s estate should have come to me. If he had not gambled it away whilst too drunk to stand, that is.”
“Please do not talk about my father in that way. He was a good man.”
“He was a pathetic man. He gambled away what was mine.”
“Yours? Yes, yours because he had no son. But morally, no. You never associated with my father whilst he was alive. You joined the county in looking down on him. I am glad it is all gone, Leopold. You do not deserve it.” Anabelle was furious.
How dare a man who would molest his own cousin say such vile things about her father? She did not care if he struck her now. If he did, she would fight him. She would bite his hands and scratch his face. She would take every feeling of pain and fear she had swallowed down in the last months and let it be her strength. She would use it to her advantage and let the consequences go to the devil.
“You will not leave this house.” Leopold was curiously calm. “I am owed that sixty pounds a year whether you stay or go, and you shall not have it. And the best of luck finding an attorney who will work for you for nothing.” He laughed cruelly. “They would not even let you in through the doorway. You will be a gutter rat living on the street with only the clothes on your back.”
“I hate you.” Anabelle said with feeling. “You are an evil man, Leopold Adlington.”
“You will hate me all the more when Fenella is away next week visiting her sister.” He licked his lips in so obvious a manner it was clearly done for her benefit. “And if you think my servants will run to your aid, you will learn otherwise. You may scream all you want next week, Anabelle Brock, for this is my house and you will do as I say. Perhaps, when you are broken in properly, you will learn to keep that forked tongue of yours steady in the future.” He leaned in towards her, his tongue still roaming across wet lips.
Anabelle, sickened to her very core, drew in a breath to give her strength, pushed him roughly out of the way, and tore across the library.
With her cousin in pursuit, she opened the door and ran out into the hallway before he had a chance to pull her back.
Still ready to scream, Anabelle ran for the stairs. She lifted the hem of her gown so as not to trip and pounded up the stairs as if Lucifer himself were chasing her, and she did not stop running until she was inside the dreary little chamber that her cousin’s wife had begrudgingly set aside for her.
She grabbed the hard-wooden chair from the little writing desk and wedged it up against the door handle before leaning forward, almost bent double as she fought hard to regain control of her breathing.
Anabelle tried to listen for any sound outside in the corridor but could hear nothing over the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears and her deep breaths.
In the end, she took the poker from the fireplace and sat on her bed, facing the door and ready to do bloody battle if she must.
As far as she could see it, Anabelle had nothing left to lose. She could feel the beginnings of tears, but she closed her eyes tightly. Angrily. She would not let them fall, they could not help her now.
She had cried all the tears she would ever cry when her father had died. Tears had been appropriate then. The passing of a beloved father had been all the pain she could stand. But sadness was one thing. Survival was quite another and tears had no place there.
If Anabelle Brock was to survive this unjust world, anger and sense would help her; tears and self-pity would not.
Leopold was the very worst of men. He was one who could look at any situation and see where best he might take advantage. She knew well that his threat to keep her sixty pounds a year was not an idle one. She knew even better that he had spoken true when he said that her struggle to see justice done would be a pointless one.
In her very bones, Anabelle knew she could not stay at Brockett House. Certainly, she must be gone before the nosy, spiteful, pointy-faced Fenella and her spoiled boys left the county to visit her sister. As hateful as the woman was, she had proved to be a silent, unwitting guardian. Without her there, Anabelle feared the very worst kind of ruination. The sort of ruination that a roof over one’s head would never make up for.
Without her sixty pounds a year, Anabelle truly had nothing. Even with it, her hopes of clean and decent lodgings in a respectable place were almost nothing.
As she sat on her bed staring almost unblinkingly at the door handle, Anabelle realised that her only hope was to take on some form of work. The sort of work which came with a roof over one’s head.
She did not have enough physical skill to become a servant, and neither did she want to. But her father had seen to it that her education had been extensive and thorough and Anabelle knew that she could put it to use now. Anything to save herself.
So, she would become a governess. She would find a way out of that hateful house and walk down into Forton. There was an employment registry there, the same registry where her father had found their last housemaid.
But any employment registry would surely offer all manner of opportunities, not just service. Middle class families used the registries to find staff of all kinds and she was certain that finding suitable staff to train their children was no different.
Life would be very different now. Everything she had known before was gone, turned to dust, and Anabelle knew that she would have to adapt to survive. And if she had not narrowly escaped her cousin in the last moments, the very idea of embarking on such a wild plan for her life would have frightened Anabelle terribly. But she had suffered at her cousin’s hands and the plan did not seem as wild as it ought to have done.
She looked around the room, thinking how she was about to say goodbye to her surroundings and any kind of certainty for the second time in recent history. But this time she would feel no sadness. The cold little room with pale green paint peeling from every corner was not a place she would miss. Even as a governess, her circumstances would not be too greatly reduced from those her family had offered her at Brockett House.
The fire grate was empty, as it so often was, and her candles had not been replaced. Fenella went out of her way to let Anabelle know that she would have given her a room below stairs if she could have done so.
Well, Fenella’s reward would be a lifetime spent as Leopold Adlington’s wife. That would be punishment enough for any woman, Anabelle was sure of it.
And, just days hence, none of it would be Anabelle’s concern. She would be gone from that place with her few belongings and her virtue intact. She would work hard and look to the future then.
For now, all she could think of was escape. She could not concentrate on where it was life might take her after she ran. To run was the thing. To be gone was all that mattered. Whatever came after that, Anabelle would deal with it then.
As long as she could find her way out of the ugly red-brick manor house in the Hertfordshire countryside, away from the hateful occupants, she would have accomplished much.
Anabelle was going to outrun her fear. She was going to outrun her sorrow. She was going to run because she must. She was going to run with no guarantee that her next home would be any safer than this one.
Because what else could she do?
Chapter Two
“This tea is cold, Mavis. Take the pot away and bring it back fresh. And hot!” Although her tone was level enough, Constance Newfield’s words were likely designed to impress.
But impressed he was not. Giles Saville, the Duke of Westward, had never spoken to his own servants in such a way. He had no need to, for they were an exceptional staff, many of whom had been with his fami
ly since he was a child.
It was likely that Constance Newfield had no real cause for complaint either. She had touched the back of a slim, pale hand against the fine bone china and declared the contents to be cold. For his part, Giles would have preferred her to keep that little hand on the pot a while longer if she really wanted to impress him.
But he showed none of it on his face. Giles simply sat impassively watching as the red-faced young maid, mortified to the very core of her being, curtsied and apologized all at once before lifting the undoubtedly hot teapot and scurrying from the room.
“She will not be long.” Constance said and smiled demurely at the Duke.
If only she realised that there was nothing demure in the little piece of theatre she had just staged single-handedly. It was crass and so very middle class. And how he would have loved to point that out to her. How gratifying it would be to see her father, the Baron, almost swallow his own teeth at the idea he was thought of as anything other than aristocratic.
And Giles supposed the man was a minor part of the aristocracy, by the letter of the laws of such things. He was Lord Newfield, a wealthy man who reveled in his title. But there was something about the man which tried a little too hard to strive for more and it made him somewhat tedious company at times. Not to mention the fact that such constant striving had certainly had an effect on the man’s daughter.
Giles almost laughed when he thought how he might very easily marry the woman. Despite her ambitions, she was clever enough to know that Giles had no special feelings for her. But like so many of her standing, which was good but always aiming to be better, Constance Newfield did not care.
Of all the ladies Giles had met over the years, Constance was the first who seemed to silently understand the idea of the unspoken contract. She would provide an heir and a spare and turn a blind eye to however it was the Duke chose to spend his time. In return, she would be a Duchess, wanting for nothing and elevating her father’s status to some degree.
“And how is your sister of late, Your Grace?” Lord Newfield said to fill the silence whilst they waited for the pointlessly refreshed pot of tea to arrive.
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