The Laird Takes a Bride
Page 32
According to Cook who had it from the butcher whose wife somehow seems to know everything that happens within a twenty-mile radius of Whitehaven, Brooke House is packed to capacity with guests along with, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Brooke as well as Katherine—your former playmate, you know, such a sweet, lively little girl she was!—who had her first Season and received many offers (highly understandable given the extent of her fortune) but came home without, evidently, any of them being accepted. Cook also says that the butcher’s wife told her that one of the custom officer’s children very nearly drowned yesterday. Bertram says he knows the boy and that he’d been told many times to stay away when the waves are rough. How very frightening for his people. Also Cook mentioned—
Now here, to be sure, was another great piece of luck. An unwed heiress practically on his doorstep! What could be more convenient?
To own the truth, Hugo hadn’t thought of Katherine in years. It was well over a decade since he’d last seen her. He had been thirteen at the time, and had come home from Eton for Father’s funeral. The Brookes, then, had lived next door, and more than once had little Kate—six years younger than himself, yet even so they’d been good friends—slipped between the line of bay trees separating their houses and come to console him.
He’d been grateful for her visits, for a hard time it was, very hard indeed: first the shock of Father’s sudden death, and then its painful aftermath, with his three siblings so little, still in leading strings, and Mama pregnant with Bertram.
Their man of business, Mr. Storridge, had laid it out plain: the late Anthony Penhallow, always more interested in science than in money, had left behind very little for his family aside from the modest sum of eight thousand pounds invested in the five percents and their big old house overlooking the wide sandy shore that gave way to the blue-green depths of the ocean.
If the remaining Penhallows practiced the strictest economy, Mr. Storridge had said in his dry, precise voice, they would manage to get by. Hugo had immediately declared his intention to withdraw from Eton and spare Mama the expense of his keeping there, but this she had, in her gentle way, forbidden.
Oh, my dear Hugo, she had said, smiling through the tears which seemed to flow almost continuously during those dark days, it was your papa’s dearest wish that you receive the same education he did. He was so very proud of you! And wasn’t it clever of him to pay your fees in advance? Almost—And here she had paused to hold back a pitiful sob—almost as if he knew something would happen to him.
Yes, Mama, he’d replied, school’s not a bad thing, but what about Gwennie, and the twins, and the baby? I’ll make the headmaster give you back the money. And I’ll find a job. I could become a sailor.
And a marvelous one you’d be, too, darling Hugo. I can just picture you climbing a rigging like a monkey! But you’re to keep on your path, go back to school, and not to worry about the children. Everything will be fine.
Somehow he had managed to swallow a great lump in his throat, and say, How will it, Mama?
It simply will, she had answered, confidently. And look, I’ve just today received a letter from dear Anthony’s cousin Henrietta Penhallow, with an invitation to spend the summer holiday with her and her grandson Gabriel in Bath. You and Gabriel will travel from school together. Isn’t that kind?
He would have infinitely rather have come home, but had only said, If it will save money, Mama, I’ll do it.
That’s my brave boy, she’d said, and at that moment he had felt that any sacrifice, large or small, was worth it, if it could but lighten her load. It was a feeling that had never left him, and now Hugo smiled a little, noticing with pleasure the familiar tang of salt air, and the faintest hint of the ocean’s restless breeze.
Not much further now.
With luck, he’d be home by dinnertime.
Whistling again, gently he pressed his heels into his horse’s sides, urging it to go just a little faster, and obligingly it picked up its pace.
Actually, by the time Katherine reluctantly made her way downstairs, there were only fifteen diablotins hidden in her armoire, as she had managed to quickly eat three more before Céleste had returned.
A light rain had begun to fall, and dusk was settling its mellow hand upon the streets, buildings, and gardens of Whitehaven, lingering softly upon the broad expanse of sand and sea, as Hugo came to the old stable that stood upon a corner of their property furthest from the beach. He dismounted and thrust the horse’s reins into the hand of the aged groom who had cautiously emerged from the stable, and was now staring in evident amazement at the master upon whom he’d not set eyes in quite some time.
“Hullo, Hoyt!” said Hugo amiably, “you’re looking exactly the same, I’m happy to see. Trust all is well?”
At the other’s dumbstruck nod, Hugo went on, “Splendid! I say, take care of this nag, will you? She’s held up wonderfully all the way here, bless her, and I’m no featherweight, am I? Well, I’m off to the house—hope I’m not too late for dinner. Good night, then.”
He had already unstrapped from the saddle his neat leather rucksack, and so, after a friendly nod to the still-speechless Hoyt, walked with eager steps toward the large, rambling old house which looked, even to his own affectionate eyes, considerably more dilapidated than he remembered. The reddish clay bricks with which it was constructed were crumbling in places, the sloping slate roof looked extremely weather-beaten, and several windows on the uppermost story had been clumsily boarded up.
He took this in, and went lightly up the front steps onto the wide, welcoming portico.
He was home at last.
From inside he could hear dogs barking—they’d doubtless heard him come onto the portico, and he took a moment to wonder if he would know any of them after all this while—along with odd screeching noises and then, not waiting to bang the old iron knocker, Hugo opened the door and let himself in, into the chilly, ill-lit entry hall, large and high-ceilinged, shabby and familiar, and quite possibly the nicest place on earth. As he dropped his rucksack onto a bench, a pack of mongrels, all unfamiliar, surged down one of the halls toward him, barking fiercely, even as a maidservant scuttled in from the kitchen passageway, looking alarmed and gasping out:
“Oh! Sir! Was you expected? I’ll just get the mistress, if you’ll wait here, please—”
“Not to worry, I’ll go to her,” answered Hugo over the cacophony of barks, yips, nails madly clicking on wood flooring, and loud hostile panting. “Are they all at dinner?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“What’s your name, then?”
“It’s Eliza, sir, but—”
“Quiet!” said Hugo to the dogs who, recognizing the genial tone of authority, instantly subsided and sat on their haunches, wagging their tails and casting up at him looks of servile adoration. He counted them. There were only five, after all, although from their collective volume one would have thought there were at least a dozen, and altogether a motley lot—one was missing an ear, another seemed to have the head of a poodle set upon the body of a dachshund, and still another had eyes of a milky opacity which suggested severe vision problems if not actual blindness.
Hugo patted the biggest of them, an enormous white and brown Great Dane whose front legs were noticeably crooked, and said to Eliza:
“Tell Robinson to set another place for me, would you? I’ll go in directly.”
“Oh, sir, but Robinson’s not here.”
“Egad, not dead, is he?” Hugo hoped not, as he had been very fond of their old butler; he’d loyally stayed on after Father had died, despite having his wages drastically reduced.
“Oh no, sir, he’s alive, but his palsy got so bad that the mistress pensioned him off, you see, and he’s living with his daughter Nancy and her family, up on Roper Street. Very happy he is, sir. Takes a pint every day at the pub, and sings in the choir on Sundays.”
Hugo was pulling off his greatcoat and hanging it on a peg. “Well, that’s excellent news. I’ll go see
him later this week. See here, Eliza, I’m hungry as a bear. Can you set a place for me?”
“To be sure I can, sir! But—but—if you’ll forgive me asking—who are you, sir?”
“Good God, didn’t my mother tell any of you I was coming? No wonder poor old Hoyt looked as if he’d seen a ghost!” He laughed. “Never mind. I’m the prodigal son, Eliza! The eldest, you know—Hugo.”
Eliza looked astonished. “Oh! Sir! You’re Mr. Hugo? We was all afeared you was dead!”
“Dead! Why?”
“Because the mistress said you’d been shot by a Frenchy, Mr. Hugo, and that you was laid up in your cousin’s house—and then there wasn’t any more letters from you! Cook says them French bullets have a special poison in them, sir, that drains the life right out of a person!”
Blast it all, he’d deliberately trivialized the nature of his illness when writing home, not wishing to worry them—and why hadn’t Mama received the letter he’d written from Gabriel’s house a fortnight ago, informing her that he was fine, and would soon be on his way? Well, he could allay their anxieties right now.
“I was shot,” he said to Eliza, “but it would take more than some beastly Frenchman to kill me, that’s for certain! Go on, now, and bring me some supper, that’s a good girl.”
She bobbed a curtsy and Hugo, favoring his left leg ever so slightly, went down the long dim hallway to the dining-parlor, the dogs trotting behind with the same pliant obedience the children of Hamelin were said to have displayed while following the Pied Piper. The oak-framed double doors to the dining-parlor had been left open and so Hugo strolled right in and paused just inside the threshold. “I say, I’m home.”
Five golden-blond heads swiveled in his direction, five pairs of wide blue eyes displayed shocked surprise, and then pandemonium erupted.
About the Author
LISA BERNE read her first Georgette Heyer book at fourteen, and was instantly captivated. Later, she was a graduate student, a teacher, and a grant writer—and is now an author of historical romance, with her first three books set in Regency-era Britain. She lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest.
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By Lisa Berne
The Penhallow Dynasty
The Laird Takes a Bride
You May Kiss the Bride
Coming Soon
The Bride Takes a Groom
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Bride Takes a Groom copyright © 2018 by Lisa Berne.
the laird takes a bride. Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Berne. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-245180-4
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-245181-1
Cover illustration by Anna Kmet
Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgments
An Excerpt from The Bride Takes a Groom Prologue
Chapter 1
About the Author
By Lisa Berne
Copyright
About the Publisher