The Ladies’ Secrets: A Historical Regency Romance Box Set

by Ayles, Abby

  Louisa stood by the piano, obviously being quiet and simply observing.

  Regina was at the opposite end of the piano. Standing by her, his hands on her shoulders, was a very tall and dark man with flashing blue eyes.

  That must have been the Duke of Whitefern, Natalie surmised. He had a face that she could not decipher but his hands on Regina’s shoulders spoke volumes. This woman is mine, they seemed to say, as if daring anyone to object to it.

  Regina for her part seemed quite ready to lean back into him. Natalie had never seen Regina so much as comfortable around a man, never mind as wholly ready to put herself into his hands as she did with this one.

  Lord and Lady Morrison stood off to the side, quiet with serious faces.

  Bridget stood in the center. Just a little behind her was another woman in a black dress. That was a rather daring move, to wear a traditionally mourning color.

  Natalie did not quite recognize the woman, but she felt as though she had seen her before. Perhaps a long time ago?

  It seemed that everyone was in the middle of discussing something. They all looked up as the three of them entered.

  “Bridget,” Elizabeth said, dashing over to their eldest sister at once. “You must hear what Natalie has to say.”

  “I have asked your sister for the honor of her hand,” Lord Ridgecleff said. “She has graciously accepted.”

  “It seems that your sisters were serious in their endeavors,” the Duke of Whitefern murmured. Natalie could hear him, but it seemed as though his words were directed only to Regina. Regina’s lips quirked upwards into a smile.

  “That is marvelous,” Bridget said. She sounded incredibly relieved. “Then all four of you are engaged.”

  “I have made it known to the ballroom,” Natalie said. “But I have not said when the engagement happened. I thought we ought to let everyone assume it had happened some time ago.”

  “Yes, that is wise,” Bridget said. “We can only afford one engagement happening on this evening, at least in the eyes of the public.”

  “I apologize,” Regina blurted out. “We did not mean to steal attention from anyone.”

  “Blame me,” the Duke of Whitefern said. “I’m afraid I am the selfish one. I could not wait another moment.”

  The possessive note in his voice stirred up more jealousy in Natalie. What had Regina done to get such a handsome man, and of such means, to desire her so much that he would propose to her and hang the consequences?

  She wanted a man to speak of her in such a fashion. Where had she gone wrong?

  “No, no, my darling, you have no need to apologize,” Bridget said. She smiled warmly at Regina.

  Natalie wanted to strike something.

  Bridget looked at everyone assembled. “We shall have to tell Father, of course,” she said. “And then we shall have to plan out the weddings. Elizabeth, you may have yours first since yours will be technically announced first.”

  “My father will wish for me to have some time learning how to run the estate before marriage anyhow,” Lord Ridgecleff said. “But I do beg that Miss Natalie be allowed to accompany me home. My father must meet her.”

  “Certainly. Louisa can be your escort.” Bridget looked over at Louisa. “If you have no objections.”

  “None. Those of you who are now assembled may be considered as family,” Louisa added, “and so I might tell you that my engagement is to Mr. Fairchild.

  “We cannot marry until his aunt dies, for she has set her sights upon him marrying a lady with a title.” Louisa looked over at Lord Ridgecleff. “If I may impose upon you to invite him, I would be most grateful. We do not get nearly enough time together.”

  Natalie wanted to protest that they just spent a month together at Mr. Denny’s estate while Mr. Denny was courting Elizabeth and Louisa served as the escort. But that would not do.

  And it was true that Louisa and Mr. Fairchild could not so much as speak to one another at balls. They never saw one another in public. And they could rarely meet up at a mutual friend’s for dinner lest people catch wind of it happening too often.

  “Certainly.” Lord Ridgecleff gave her a small bow. “I would welcome the opportunity to get to know one of my future brothers-in-law.”

  “I thank you,” Louisa said, inclining her head.

  “Then preparations may begin for Elizabeth’s wedding,” Bridget said, “while Natalie accompanies Lord Ridgecleff to his estate with Louisa. Regina, perhaps a month after Elizabeth, you can wed?”

  “I care not,” Regina said.

  “Even tomorrow is too long to wait, if you ask me,” the Duke of Whitefern teased. “A month or a day makes no difference to one who is impatient. I have no objections.”

  Regina murmured something quietly to him. Natalie could not hear all of it, but she thought she caught the name ‘Oberon’.

  Oberon was the king of the fairies. What on earth would give Regina cause to mention him?

  Unless, perhaps, it was a pet name. Natalie wanted to scream. Her younger sister and her fiancé were so in love with one another that they had pet names?

  Meanwhile she was marrying a man she had just met and suspected would not suit her? It was horribly unfair.

  “It seems that we are all settled then,” Bridget said. She smiled, tension seeming to leak out of her bit by bit. “Three marriages, each a month apart, no one can fault us for that. And of course, Louisa, you shall have your marriage whenever it becomes possible.”

  “What of yours?” Natalie asked. Only three marriages meant that Bridget was not getting married. What of her husband? She had said she would choose tonight.

  “Natalie, you remember our childhood friend Lady Dunhill?” Bridget asked.

  She indicated the woman in black behind her.

  It seemed to Natalie to be a change of subject but she went along with it. So that was why the woman was so familiar to her.

  “Yes, I remember. But it has been so long, I did not recognize you at first. That is, I knew I must recognize you, but from where I did not know.”

  “That is quite all right,” Lady Dunhill said. “We were all so much younger then.”

  Now that she knew, Natalie could see the more mature and outlined features of the girl who had been Bridget’s dearest friend. The only one besides family who had been there when they had gotten the news of Mother’s death.

  “And please, call me Lady Cora. Or even Miss Cora, if it suits you,” Lady Dunhill continued. “Being called Lady Dunhill reminds me far too much of my mother for my tastes.”

  “Lady Cora has invited me to join her on a trip to the Continent,” Bridget said. “And I have accepted.

  “I thought that it would take me away from the impending scandal. Having one more marriage would, I think, perhaps be too much.”

  There was something in Bridget’s tone and in the way that Lady Cora was looking at her that sparked something in Natalie’s brain. Oh, she realized. That made sense.

  “I expect that your trip will take quite a long time,” she said.

  Bridget looked at her, and Natalie saw that Bridget knew that she now knew. “Yes. I suspect that it might.”

  Lord Morrison cleared his throat. “And now we come to the reason that my wife and I have come to attend you.”

  Everyone looked over at them. Natalie had quite forgotten that they were even there.

  “Your father lost his fortune and his land in a game against Lord Pettifer,” Lord Morrison reminded them. “Well, in a game of loo just a short while ago, Lord Pettifer lost all of your holdings that he had won from your father.

  “He lost a great deal besides that. But it seems that all of it was gifted back to you. I was informed that the player who won would like everything to be given to you.

  “So you have your land and titles back, as well as your fortunes, and a great deal more besides.”

  That was too much.

  Natalie fainted.

  Chapter 11

  One instant, she felt her
stomach heave and the room spin. All was blackness.

  The next, she was lying on a chaise and someone was carefully moving some smelling salts beneath her nose.

  Natalie blinked up to see Louisa standing there, looking rather concerned. “Are you all right?”

  She sat up, horribly embarrassed. She had fainted like a foolish girl who laced her corset too tight. As though she was lacking backbone.

  Her face burned and she forced herself to stand. The room swayed a little, but she forced herself to keep standing. “I am quite all right, thank you, Louisa.”

  The others were all gathered around, talking over one another about the news. Only Regina was silent, watching it all with her wide, dark brown eyes.

  “If any one of you wishes to break off your engagement,” Lord Morrison began.

  “As if we could even if we wanted to,” Elizabeth retorted. “What are you, half-witted? To break off an engagement after it has been so obviously announced? We should be called flighty at best and quite a lot of other things at worst.”

  “This only frees me up even more to go to the Continent,” Bridget said. She looked over at Lady Cora. “I will not be swayed from what I want. Not this time.”

  “Shocking as it may seem,” the Duke of Whitefern drawled, “I’m quite in love with my intended. I have absolutely no intention of letting her go.”

  Regina said nothing but gave him such a look of gratefulness and surprised pleasure that Natalie’s breath was taken away. She wanted a love like that.

  “My engagement was taken care of long before all of this was planned,” Louisa said. “In saying that, however, I know that Mr. Fairchild will be quite glad that there is no scandal to mar our happy day.”

  “If you think I’m going to expose myself to ridicule and give up a man who I finally like,” Elizabeth added, “You all can eat your hats.”

  “There is no need for such behavior, Elizabeth,” Bridget reprimanded her.

  Elizabeth opened her mouth, and then closed it, looking contrite.

  Natalie felt sick. If all of her sisters had disavowed their intended husbands once they were free of the impending scandal that would have been one thing. But they were all standing by them.

  Regina’s intended husband was going so far as to openly declare his love for her. And Elizabeth, the least romantic of all of them, was as good as daring anyone to a fistfight if they tried to end her engagement.

  That left only Natalie.

  Only she out of all of her sisters was not marrying for love. Only she was the one stuck. The others were happy to continue on and marry.

  But she could not back out of the engagement now. It would make her look horribly flighty. Already, as Bridget had pointed out, people were saying she was too flirtatious. This would terribly damage her reputation, to be engaged one moment and to break it off the next.

  “I’m afraid that my pressing matter still stands,” Lord Ridgecleff said. “And so, if your sister allows it, I shall continue on as we planned before. It is up to her to break it off, of course.”

  Everyone looked over at her.

  She would look awful if she broke it off and left Lord Ridgecleff in the lurch. And he was still the heir to an earldom. He was also still handsome. She could make something of this, could she not?

  “No,” she said. “I see no reason to break off the engagement. Besides, we had already begun letting people know out in the ball. It should cause much more confusion if we then were to disavow it.”

  Lord Ridgecleff was visibly relieved. Natalie tried to give him an encouraging smile.

  Inside, however, she felt as though her intestines were strangling one another. Regina was happy. Elizabeth was happy. Louisa would soon be happy. And even Bridget, in her unconventional way, was about to become happy.

  It left only Natalie out in the cold.

  She wanted to scream and rail. She wanted to collapse and cry. But she could do neither of these things. She had to see this out, now, if only to save her reputation. At the end of the day, a reputation was all that a woman had.

  “Then it is settled,” Bridget said. She smiled at all of them. “It seems that we all have a bright future before us.”

  Yes, Natalie thought. For the rest of you, anyway.

  Chapter 12

  John had never felt such panic in his life as when Lord Morrison announced that the Hartfield women had their fortune and land back.

  Natalie no longer needed him. None of them did. Yes, they had begun to let people know as they walked through the ballroom together but that could be remedied quickly enough.

  Not without total harm, but still. They could pass it off as a misunderstanding. Or perhaps claim that it was a different redhead that Lord Ridgecleff was seen with. After all, they had been masked.

  The point was that he still needed a bride. But Natalie no longer needed a groom. Was he about to be left in the lurch with only a few hours left to find a willing bride?

  Luckily, Natalie had stood by him. For an agonizing moment that had seemed to stretch on forever he had watched her. Waiting.

  Her fainting at the news of the money returning to her family, and scandal therefore being averted, had not encouraged him.

  It could have been shock, of course. But Natalie did not strike him as the kind of girl who showed her shock easily. He rather suspected it was despair.

  What had he done wrong? How had he made her unhappy with the idea of marrying him now that the cloud of scandal was no longer above her head?

  But when that agonizing moment of paralyzed limbo was over, she had said no. She had said that she would not break off the engagement.

  John’s heart had almost beat out of his chest. Thank God, thank God!

  Yet he saw the look in Natalie’s eyes. He saw the way that she looked at her sisters, all happy and in love.

  She was not happy at the idea of marrying him. John felt his stomach sink. Many women would be content enough with marrying a man of such high standing.

  Not Natalie, it seemed. Something of his personality had thrown her off and she did not wish to marry him. But duty and honor, most likely, compelled her to.

  Those were good enough traits. Perhaps…well, it was almost too much to hope for, but perhaps in time she would come to care for him.

  He should have ordered her to break off the engagement. He should have told her that since she did not love him, barely knew him, and no longer needed him, she should end it.

  But he was selfish. He could not turn away his chance at securing his inheritance. He would not. Even had he been able to end the engagement himself, which he could not, he would not have.

  Only a woman could break off an engagement. The man was the one who had done the asking and so it was expected that he should hold true. Just as a gift could not be given and then taken away, so could a man not offer a woman her future and then take it back from her.

  A woman, however, could end an engagement. It was a risky thing and not to be undertaken lightly. It was usually done when the man in question had fallen from grace, either by scandal or loss of income or something of that sort.

  A gift that was initially accepted could be given back, and so could an engagement. But even if he had been able to end things, he couldn’t have. He needed that inheritance, for himself and for Edward’s sake. His brother would be desperately unhappy as the earl, John knew.

  He was not all that keen on some aspects of Natalie’s personality either. A little bitterness crept into his thoughts. Did she think she was the only one not at all satisfied with this hasty arrangement?

  But needs must and he was sticking by this. He would find a way to make it work and hopefully Natalie would as well.

  He just had to have faith in that. It would all work out, if only he had patience. Or so he kept telling himself.

  But then he looked at the youngest sister and her fiancé. They were both of them so clearly in love. She looked at him like he was her king and he gazed at her as if she had hung t
he moon.

  The two middle sisters did not have their intended husbands with them but looked happy nonetheless. The younger one was practically singing her joy.

  And the eldest was making plans to go to the Continent with her lady friend. It very well explained the gulf in Bridget’s eyes when he had looked at her. There was a reason, he now knew, why no man had been able to secure her hand.

  It was a tough draught to swallow, watching their happiness. Knowing that his own was far from secure. But he would make it work, somehow.

  He had to.

  Chapter 13

  Natalie hardly slept that night.

  Her sisters were all filling each other in and making plans for the future. They were rejoicing over their return to respectability. Yet Natalie tossed and turned. She was unable to completely mask her own frustration.

  Not that she begrudged their good fortune. She had seen Father in order for Lord Ridgecleff to ask for his blessing. It was the first time that Father had any color in his cheeks in a month.

  “It seems four of my daughters are to be wed,” Father had said. “And to such respectable men.”

  “If it is possible, sir, I should be honored to take your daughter and a companion of your choosing to my home of Mountbank,” Lord Ridgecleff had said.

  “Of course, of course, so that you might introduce her to your family.” Father had nodded affably. “I hope you shall understand my not coming just yet. I must see to this Duke of Whitefern my other daughter Regina is marrying first.”

  Standing there listening to it all, as if she were goods to be bartered for—it had made her almost sick.

  It would have been different had she actually wanted to marry Lord Ridgecleff. Nothing should have made her feel happier than to know that her father approved of a man that Natalie loved.

  But now, to be sent off like a package…it made her stomach turn.

  The joy of her sisters whispering to one another in the dark only made it worse. They were all happy except for her.