His Candlemas Hope
By Marly Mathews
A Regency Holiday Romance
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2016 by Marly Mathews
www.marlymathews.com
Cover Design by Melody Simmons from Ebookindiecovers
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All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”
Romeo and Juliet, SHAKESPEARE
Gloucestershire, England, 1824
“There is no hope for you, sister mine. No gentleman of breeding and fortune will ever want a mousy little creature like you. You are truly pathetic. You always have been the ugliest sister.”
Her youngest sister’s spiteful words echoed through Miss Hope Fortescue’s mind. They forever dogged her. Mocking her. Crippling her. They had been spoken in the heat of the moment, and yet there was no escaping them. They were only words. Nonetheless, they had cut her deeply like the lashes of a whip. Deep down in her heart of hearts, she believed those hateful words. She feared them the way she feared water.
She sat curled up in a chair in her small bedchamber, focusing her eyes on the book she held in her hands. She was reading a German copy of The Swiss Family Robinson.
Pushing her spectacles up, she jumped and dropped her book at the sound of someone furiously pounding on her door. The warmth of the West Indies slipped away, and she was back in her humdrum little bedroom at Elysium Hall.
Her calico cat, Ariel, meowed, and looked lazily over at her. Stretched across the foot of her bed, her tail raised up and down in that leisurely way it usually did.
Gathering her scattered wits, Hope jumped up, attempted to smooth down her wrinkled dress, and checked to see how much of her hair had come loose from the tidy bun she had put it into earlier that day. She was dressed plainly in an olive green pinafore dress and under the sleeveless dress she wore a white Irish linen collared shirt. Her hair was always an unruly mess. No matter how hard she tried to keep it neat, it seemed to have a mind of its own.
“Oh, Hope, dear, I have a package for you. It just arrived from Blessing Hall.” Her youngest sister, Desdemona Fortescue, spoke in that singsong way of hers that she used whenever she wanted to be particularly irritating.
Her heart froze. What could it be? It couldn’t be something from Fanny. Fanny tried drawing Hope out of the safe little world she liked to live in for years now. They were cousins, but they had never been particularly close. The last few years had altered that relationship a bit. After Hope’s father died, her mother had been forced to move them out of their manor house in Devonshire, and bring them back to the County of her birth, Gloucestershire.
Elysium Hall glittered more than Ashburton Abbey had, and they had more servants here but she sorely missed everything and everyone that she had left behind. Well, maybe not everyone. She knew of one man she could go without seeing for the rest of her life.
“Are you going to get off your arse and open the door? I should have let the footman bring it up, but my curiosity got the better of me.”
Ariel’s ears turned to the side. “I know, I am not too thrilled with her either,” Hope whispered, sighing heavily. Her cat loved her sister about as much as Hope did. Ariel sniffed the air, and her cute little pink nose wrinkled, and she raised her lips in a grimace. She jumped down from the bed, and snaked her body around Hope’s legs, putting herself in a protective stance.
Sighing heavily, Hope opened the door to regard her youngest sister. Desdemona was clearly the beauty of the family, and she knew it. She never failed to point it out to everyone, some listened. Most didn’t. Her annoying way of flaunting her loveliness had earned her some haters. Her Aunt Phoebe told her once that pride in one’s appearance was unbecoming, and Desi had laughed and said that only ugly old spinsters said that. Their mother, Elizabeth, never reproved Desi. She indulged her to excess, and it showed plainly in Desi’s affected mannerisms. It was shame she had turned out to be such a little brat. Desi had been a sweet girl once, not so long ago.
“Desi, just give me the package and fly off and bother someone else with your wicked tongue.”
“But why? Bothering you is so much more fun. I delight in your reactions. You give a better performance than anyone else in the house,” Desi exclaimed, her lively brown eyes widening innocently. “I already opened it. It is a frock for you to wear tonight. At first, I believed this was one of our rich cousin’s castaways, although this one is actually pretty.” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t ever recall seeing Fanny wearing it before. I do not think it’s a hand me down. I think she bought it especially for you.” Her eyes filled with rage. “She shouldn’t have done that. If she was going to spoil anyone, it should have been me. You won’t do it justice, Hope. It is more my color anyway, and besides, I don’t even know why she invited you to the ball. No gentleman ever asks you to dance. You only end up sitting with all of the old maids and widows, looking like a lost little dairymaid. I would say waif, but you are too fat for that. How big is your arse going to get anyway? I suppose you need the practice though, that is the only place you will have to sit in a few more years. You and Miss Duffy can sit together and watch all of us lovely ladies, as we dance and glide around the dance floor with the men who adore us hanging on our every word,” she sighed dramatically. “I shall have to simply suffer through it, and wear one of my other many gowns. Perhaps, I shall wear my white muslin one, with the blue trimmings. I look positively exquisite in it. Unlike you, well, you always look frightful no matter what you wear. But what can one expect with that terrible mousy brown hair of yours, and those awful green eyes?”
Their uncle, Christian Blessing, 9th Earl of Painswick, known to most as Colonel Blessing, was generous with his clothing allowance. None of them wanted for pretty frocks, and it seemed as if Desi had the most out of all of them. Desi shouldn’t have been allowed to go to balls yet, as Hope deemed her too young at the age of fifteen.
“Are you done?” Hope asked tiredly, taking the package from her sister.
“No, I am not done. Why don’t I come in and see if you can fit into it? Your maid is going to have to pull your corset tight, and you shall
have to really suck in your belly. You won’t be able to breathe freely for the entire night. Fanny is a bit slimmer than you. Your hips and breasts are bigger than hers. I hope she somehow found out your measurements because if she used her own, you won’t have a hope of being able to wear it. I don’t think you are going to fit, and you don’t have to worry about putting any extra padding on your bum…you have more than enough to spare,” she said, her lips curling in disdain.
Hope desperately wanted to slap Desi, and held back. Violence wasn’t the way. It wasn’t her way.
Ariel arched her back, and let out a low terrifying grumble that actually sounded more like a dog growling than a cat.
“Control your wicked little kitty,” Desi said, looking fearfully down at Ariel. “Filthy little beast, and this house is filled with far too many of the buggers. Between cats and dogs, this house is run by the animals. Wretched little creatures.”
Hope didn’t believe a word that Desi said. Her sister might be a great many things but she did like animals. Hope had caught her sneaking treats to the family pets on more than one occasion. Ariel, however, was a fickle cat, and belonged to Hope more so than anyone else in the house.
“You are done, then,” Hope said wearily, slamming her bedroom door in her sister’s face and locking it. Clutching the package tightly to her chest, she sank weakly against the door. Crouching down, she ran her hand lightly across Ariel’s back, and she happily purred. Sauntering away from her, Ariel jumped into the chair that Hope had recently vacated, curled herself into a tight ball, and did what Ariel did best, fell back asleep. Listening to Desi attempting to open her bedchamber door, made a smile crawl across Hope’s face.
“Let me in,” Desi cried, no doubt with that perpetual pout of hers, “I want to see the look on your face when you realize that that gorgeous frock doesn’t fit! And then, I can have a good long laugh at you, and take the dress and wear it tonight, and be the belle of the ball!”
Horrid, horrid girl.
She groaned. Oh, what she would give to escape Desi’s constant belittling, if for only one day. She kept praying that one day her old sister would return and replace the vapid little thing that haunted these halls right now.
The only person in the family aside from Hope that ever told Desi that she had too much to say was their Uncle Christian, and his visits had been fewer than she would have liked in the last few months. Now that he was back in top form, she suspected…no, she hoped that they would see more of him.
“I am going to tell Mama on you,” Desi wailed. The shrieking sound of it set Hope’s teeth on edge.
“Go ahead, Desi. She won’t care,” Hope answered loudly. And then, under her breath, “She never listens to you, anyway. She hardly listens to any of us. She isn’t like Papa. He was more maternal than she. She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body.”
That was the problem with their mother. Elizabeth Fortescue was either indifferent or indulgent. Thankfully, she never listened to Desi if she screamed her head off about not being allowed into Hope’s bedchamber. As the eldest child, Hope had at least one honor, and that was her own space. She could take all of the other abuse thrown at her because she knew she had one room in the house that was her safe haven. It was small, and a bit cramped—but it was hers.
All hers.
Placing the brown paper package on her bed, she opened it up. It wasn’t hard, as her sister’s grubby little paws had already been into it. She fingered the sage green silk ball gown.
There was a pattern of flowers embroidered on the gown that descended from the left side of the waist, climbing all the way to the hemline. The waist was dropped a bit on it, but the neckline was still of the plunging variety, and would display her charms quite nicely. She held the dress up to her body, and walked over to stare at herself in the mirror. She liked drawing attention to her bosom. It took the focus off of her other less shining attributes.
Her jade green eyes looked even greener, as the lovely shade of the frock accented them brilliantly. Sucking in a breath, she attempted to suck in her curves. Her blasted sister was probably right. It would be a miracle if she could fit herself into the dress.
Oh, God. It was beautiful. It quite simply stole her breath. No wonder Desi coveted it. And, she had to admit, her sister would look like a fairy princess in it.
Hope had never had such a fine gown before. The fact that Desi had been absolutely seething with jealousy, made her feel lighthearted. She felt like skipping around her bedchamber. She could wear her cameo on a green ribbon with it, and dress her hair with the matching bandeaux that Fanny had been nice enough to include, along with a pair of new elbow length gloves that were also tucked away with the dress. Her matching cameo earrings would also complement it.
She hadn’t planned on attending the ball. How could she stay away now? She would have to go, there was simply no way around it.
“Oh, Fanny. What have you done? I pray I don’t regret tonight,” she whispered. “I feel as if something magical is about to happen.”
Chapter Two
Gilbert ‘Lucky’ Jones, 1st Earl of Langford, was annoyed.
His starched cravat mocked him, and he felt like taking the foul thing off, and pitching it into the fire that kept his bedchamber warm. Oh, how he felt like blowing up something. If only Colonel Blessing had a gang of ruthless poachers for him and Tiny to fight. He hadn’t had any fun as of late. Maybe he had to take himself back to Wiltshire and find a Lovett lass to marry. They always had a nose for trouble, and trouble was just what he felt like at the moment. He knew he shouldn’t feel so ungrateful.
The New Year had brought him many blessings. Shortly after Felix had gotten word that he had been created an earl therefore raising his rank up from baron, Gil had also received word that he, too, had been created an earl. Apparently, their heroic exploits the first time around hadn’t completely reached the ear of the king, and once they had, the king had decided to promote them in rank. He was now styled Lord Langford. He had only gotten used to hearing people call him Lord Prescott, and now, he had to get used to Lord Langford. He had written to his family to tell them of his momentous news, but he doubted he would receive a reply. They didn’t really care about the world that he inhabited now. They didn’t really care about him.
Many would call him an upstart, and in a way, he probably was. There were numerous lords in the ton that had started out with humble beginnings. Some had been sheep farmers, and some like him, had been soldiers. His family wasn’t respected, but he hoped that given time, he could amass the sort of respect that other noble families in England commanded.
“Bloody hell, I will hate to see you go, mate,” Felix ‘Tiny’ Grey-Blessing, 1st Earl Blessing said, watching as Lucky fiddled with his cravat.
“I ought to have gone to one of those wretched gents in London that you pay to show you how to tie these blasted things in the latest knots. I guess I will have to go with the knot I always use. The one that Clarence taught me.”
“You need to hire yourself a proper valet,” Felix teased. “Then, you shan’t have to worry about all of this fuss and bother. They do everything for you—it makes for the quiet and serene life.”
“No. I do not have to hire a blasted valet. I haven’t settled down like you. I am still a wandering soul, and I like doing things for myself,” he lowered his voice, “Even if those things annoy the bloody hell out of me sometimes.”
“Lucky, you need to settle down someday,” Felix said, sighing.
“Speak for yourself, mate. You were completely opposed to the entire idea of the bonds of matrimony until you were reunited with Lady Blessing, and while I understand why you fell under her bewitching spell, I cannot say that the same thing will ever happen to me. I…” he sighed heavily, and then continued, “no one seems to want me, Felix, and I won’t force my attentions upon a woman that doesn’t want them.”
“Bollocks. There is a woman for you out there, mate. You just haven’t met her yet. If you are s
till beating yourself up over the former Miss Ruby Massey, you need to let that go. You lost her. Move on. Go to this ball to celebrate Candlemas, and show all of the ladies in Gloucestershire how bloody handsome you are. You are still the best looking one out all of the Angels of Death. Show them that the 1st Earl of Langford, is a man not to be trifled with. Show them what a handsome and delightfully witty fellow you are.”
Lucky snorted. “According to you, I am. I don’t think that’s true, Felix. No matter. I have been such a mug. As for Ruby Massey, I never had her. So I suppose you could say that I haven’t lost her. There wasn’t even a chance that I could have had someone as fine as she.” He felt like having a good sulk. Ruby Massey had been far out of his reach. He was far beneath her touch. He never should have dangled after her. He had made such a cake of himself, and he felt a fit of the blue devils coming on. As he was dressed now, he looked like a swell of the first stare, and he hated it. He looked like a bloody little dandy.
Once, while in London, another man had called him a Jessamy. The offensive man hadn’t appreciated it much when Gil had drawn his cork, and left the fellow sprawled on King’s Street, screaming, “You broke my nose, you bloody cretin!”
“She was a fine lassie. She is now the Duke of Camblesforth’s fine duchess. Come now, Lucky. Pluck up, mate, and forge ahead. It won’t do to continue looking back.”
“Some nickname, eh? I might have been lucky during the wars, but that good fortune seems to have left me now.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You are right. I am wallowing. I need to lift myself out of my high dudgeon at least long enough to enjoy the ball. I shall leave upon the morrow, and I will be safely back in London. Partying away, drinking to excess, and warming myself with the fine ladies to be found on King’s Street. I have decided once I return to London to either rent a townhouse or buy one. I am done with staying at houses that do not belong to me.”
“So you will be settling down, then,” Felix surmised. “I am happy to hear it!”
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