Amberley Chronicles Boxset I: The Impostor Debutante My Last Marchioness the Sister Quest (Amberley Chronicles Boxsets Book 1)

by May Burnett

  “But surely …?” Sir Mortimer began, and broke off. Celia was glad he did not expose their doubts on the child’s parentage at this moment. There was already enough bad news about her family for any one day.

  “Most likely his mother is very attached to him,” Alphonse said smoothly, covering Sir Mortimer’s pause. “Do you have any idea where they went?”

  “With Robertson’s connections among his former skipper friends there’s a chance they could slip out by ship, for all we know they are already at sea,” the magistrate explained. “We are doing our best, but there are only so many men available, and the number of ships in this harbour is too great to police with complete effectiveness.”

  Sir Mortimer, Alphonse and Celia expressed their gratitude for the rapid solution of the crime, and, less sincerely, their complete confidence in a swift capture of the culprit. The busy official then took his leave.

  Sir Mortimer mopped his brow. “Do you realize this child – Simeon Conway – is going to inherit Conway Manor, unless my brother William can be found? Two heirs of unknown location and one not even a blood relative!” He sighed. “How is Peter doing?”

  “As before,” Alphonse said briefly. “How does the new situation affect our own prospects? We no longer have to marry in Scotland, I take it.”

  “No, a Special License ought to do, since Peter is in no position to contest anything. But if he should die, it will be frowned upon if his daughter marries right away.”

  “I have already had one marriage celebrated in emergency conditions, while my father was dying,” Alphonse said ruefully. “How strangely fate repeats its patterns.”

  “But we are different people, and don’t have to do what others expect. Let’s see if he recovers, and if not, I will marry you anyway, in as big or small a ceremony as you like, whatever people may say.” Celia had hardly finished her little speech before Alphonse caught her in another hug and gave her a passionate kiss.

  At its conclusion she looked around for her uncle, all flushed, but Sir Mortimer had discreetly slipped away.

  Epilogue

  July 1823

  The anniversary of Alphonse and Celia’s wedding in London coincided almost exactly with the baptism of their first son, young Etienne James de Ville-Deuxtours, and her own birthday. These three events were to be jointly celebrated with the most splendid house party and ball their castle had seen since the time of the ancien régime.

  Alphonse had protested his wife’s grandiose plans, expecting Celia to still be weak and frail four weeks after the confinement, but when the time came he had to admit that his fears were unfounded. Besides, Celia did not have to expend much physical energy. She had long since reorganised his household so that it ran with clockwork efficiency. Her slightest word was law, and instantly executed. Alphonse even fancied that some of his retainers were afraid of the red-haired English Marquise. Nothing escaped her eagle eye.

  He was standing on the parapets, holding little Monique up in his arms so that she could see the first of many elegant carriages due to arrive over the next two days. Mme Fourrier was hovering close by, ready to take the child back to the nursery. His daughter was still tiny for her two years, and thin, no matter how much she ate. But she was no longer considered sickly, and had learned to talk and walk earlier than most children.

  “Papa,” Monique said, “I want a horse.”

  “When you are older,” Alphonse promised, trying not to worry at the prospect. “You and Etienne will be able to ride out together.”

  He felt rather than heard Celia come up behind them, and turned. She held out her arms, and Monique tumbled into them, certain of being securely caught. “It is time to go receive our guests,” Celia said, kissing the little girl before handing her to Mme Fourrier. “We’ll come to the nursery later, poppet.”

  As the nurse carried the child away, the Marquis and Marquise walked down the broad marble staircase side by side. Celia, accounted one of the most elegant ladies in France, was wearing a gown of shimmering blue silk that mirrored her eyes, accented the small waist, and made her red hair even more vivid than usual.

  Alphonse wanted to ask if she was happy, but there was no time, and no need, really. With Celia, you always knew where you stood.

  Such as now. “Minerva! Henry!” Celia cried, hugging their friends without regard to her extravagant gown. She drew back, and looked quizzically at Minerva’s waist line. “You came when you are so close to your time? I did not realize.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this ball for the world,” Minerva said with a broad smile. “Once the child is here I will not travel, until he or she is old enough to come also. I promised that to my future children when George and Marianne were gone so long, last year.”

  “They are arriving tomorrow,” Celia said, “with Verena. My uncle is already here, you will see him at dinner, as well as my grandmother and the dowager Marquise. The Marquise is so grateful for little Etienne’s birth, she has not said a single word of criticism since his arrival. I hope it lasts.”

  “The sapphires we brought with us should help to sweeten her temper,” Beecham said with a smile. “I finally got the owner to sell them back to your family, though the price was even higher than we expected.”

  “You have actually brought them? My mother will be overjoyed if she can wear them at our ball. But I haven’t yet sent you the money. I hope you did not use your own funds for the purchase, Henry.”

  “They are to be a present from me to your mother,” Celia explained, “since she gave them up for your education, Alphonse, and I have reason to be grateful at the result.”

  “James and Charlotte’s coach was right behind us,” Minerva said, before Alphonse could properly react to Celia’s generous gesture. Later would do – when they were private. “They should be here any moment. Your castle is wonderful, Alphonse. Like history itself, solidified in stone. But why is your family name Deuxtours, meaning two towers, when I counted eight?”

  “The name is even older than this castle,” Alphonse said. “It comes from the family’s original place in the Swiss Alps, now just a picturesque ruin. I will show you the dungeons later on, if you like history – not all of our family’s past is particularly pleasant. Yet standing here in this place my own ancestors built so many centuries ago, despite Revolution and war, gives me a sense of hope for the future.”

  “Is it true that you are building a brewery nearby?” Beecham asked Celia. “I cannot help wondering if there is enough demand for beer and ale in a region which produces some of the best wines in France.”

  “Variety is the spice of life,” Celia said. “We imported some barrels by sea, and easily sold the contents at local fairs. It’s not as though the French had never made or enjoyed beer before. Enough people will like it to make the venture profitable. Besides, it provides much-needed employment.”

  “And the French aristocrats and burghers do not think less of you?” Minerva asked, a little enviously.

  “Oh, everyone knows that the English are eccentric. I can get away with far more as a rich foreigner, than I ever could in my own country. And if anybody cavils, well, in my position I simply do not have to care.” Celia’s eyes gleamed mischievously.

  “How is your father?” Henry Beecham asked her.

  “As before, unfortunately. He still does not recognize me, or dress himself. At least he can no longer gamble.” A team of experienced nurses looked after Peter Conway in a comfortable apartment in one of the castle’s bulky towers, where she could keep an eye on them. To Alphonse and Celia’s secret relief, Mrs. Conway, her lover and young son had never been found.

  “And how is life as an M.P.?” Alphonse asked Henry. “I read about your anti-slavery speech. It was so impassioned even the French papers carried excerpts. That cannot have pleased Jennifer and her husband.”

  “Jennifer is still not speaking to us, but I hear she has persuaded Bartholomew to switch to less reprehensible cargos,” Beecham replied. “It gives me hope that we
can dissuade others as well. Social condemnation seems to work far better than moral appeals.”

  “Good luck.” Alphonse decided to send a large anonymous donation to the Society for the Eradication of Slavery. After all, if fate had been less benevolent, Celia or he – or even worse, their children - might have been born into such a dire fate.

  Instead, they were among fortune’s favourites, for no other reason than blind luck. He glanced over at Celia, standing at the foot of the staircase. Surely no other lady had ever graced the ancient castle as well as she did.

  James, who had come in with Charlotte, tore him out of his contemplation with a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Hello - no need to ask how you are. I have never seen you look so happy, not even when we were boys.”

  “We knew nothing then,” Alphonse said dismissively. “Until you find your love, and have a child to worry over, you have no notion what life is all about.”

  James and Charlotte exchanged a smile. “Quite right,” Charlotte agreed. “And every new generation has to find that out anew, the poor dears.” Her eyes wandered to the twins, entering by the front door with their long-suffering nanny.

  “Nothing we can do about it,” James said practically. “But it should be entertaining to see if our children can manage it better than we have.”

  Alphonse felt a momentary twinge of alarm, but quickly dismissed it. This was a time for celebration. With any luck, his children’s romantic entanglements could wait for a couple of decades.

  He pulled his friends towards Celia. At this moment, all was right in his world. You could not reasonably ask for more than that.

  The End

  The Sister Quest

  The Amberley Chronicles

  May Burnett

  Chapter 1

  April 1823

  “I hear you bought a town house in Mayfair,” the Hon. James Ellsworthy said to his friend and partner Jonathan Durwent. “Can it be that you are finally thinking of marriage?”

  They had met for lunch in the Green Falcon, a recently established tavern in the City. Since their joint investments were growing prosperously, they had taken care of business before the end of the second course, and immediately moved on to more personal concerns.

  “Incredible as it seems, we are getting on for thirty, Jonathan. You told me once that this was the age when you intended to found a family. I expected you to fall in love and overthrow all that careful planning long before this, but perhaps your single-minded devotion to business has not given you occasion to meet many young ladies?”

  “Oh, I meet quite enough of them,” Jonathan replied with a slight grimace, before tasting the white wine they had ordered. “Quite decent quality, this. No, I am regularly invited to the houses of business associates. Shipping families, mostly, but also manufacturers, building investors, and such-like. They parade their well-dowered daughters before me, and some are very pretty, even beautiful.”

  “Yet none has taken your eye? You must be very exacting.”

  “The thing is,” Jonathan confided, spearing a piece of roast duck with his fork, “I want a lady. I already have wealth enough, and intend to increase it at least threefold by the time I’m done. A marriage is not unlike a merger,” he ignored James’s sceptical look, “and if I bring money to it, my wife should bring connections and blue blood, to give our future children the best of both worlds.”

  “Ah - hence the townhouse in Mayfair. You intend to move in the first circles, once you’re married? I’m not sure it is worth the cost and effort, but of course I will help in any way I can. I have offered often enough to put you up for membership in Brooks, although right now the waiting list is long -”

  “I thank you, but if some of your less broad-minded fellow members blackballed me for being in trade, that would defeat the purpose. I already have a Club, and for our next lunch it will be my pleasure to invite you there.”

  James raised his brows. “You always used to call gentlemen’s clubs a waste of time and money. Clearly your life is already entering a new phase. Tell me more about this Club of yours. Who put you up for it?”

  “Nobody – I am one of the founding members, and a major investor. The Charybdis Club is brand new. It caters to men of distinction in all ways of life – rich businessmen, but also newspaper owners, writers, officers; we even have two successful actors. We are aiming to offer exquisite food, commodious rooms for members from out of town, a large and comfortable library, and everything else that you can think of. The premises are in Westminster.”

  “I gather you also drafted the prospectus? I look forward to seeing it. Maybe I should put down Roger’s name for your club. He’ll be going to Eton, like all the boys in our family, but when he grows up it might do him good to mix with a more varied crowd.”

  “You cannot possibly know what a five-year-old will want when he grows up. And if your son should inherit the earldom from your brother, he might well turn his nose up at the Charybdis.”

  “If Roger does that, Charlotte and I would have completely failed in his education. I sincerely hope he won’t inherit George’s title. There are many years yet for him and Marianne to produce a boy of their own.”

  “Still, after two girls, one wonders. Remember how many couples tend to have only boys, or only girls.”

  “I prefer not to wonder about it,” James said firmly. “Let’s go back to your own plans.” He drank some wine. “As you say, not bad, but not a patch on the vintage Alphonse sent me from his own vineyards recently.“

  “I hope he and Celia are well?” Jonathan asked, diverted by the mention of their mutual friend from Oxford days.

  “Yes, both children are growing apace, and Celia is planning to open a second brewery in France before the end of the year. I expect that in ten years’ time, she’ll have built a commercial empire, not unlike your own efforts here in England.”

  “It sounds like a most successful merger – her money and business sense, and her husband’s title and ancient name. That is exactly what I am aiming for, myself.”

  “Apart from being a lady, what other qualities are you looking for in a wife?”

  “Well, she should be healthy, and reasonably good-looking. Since children are the whole point of the exercise, I want to know that she is able to have them, inasmuch as one can.”

  James shook his head. “You can’t know, unless you marry a widow who already has children. Even then, she might not be able to have yours.”

  “I realise that, but I want the odds to be as high as possible. Therefore she ought to be no older than twenty-five. Also, she should not bore me. That’s all, really.”

  “Very cold-blooded,” James commented. “I foresee no particular difficulty. Society is full of well-born maidens who fulfil all your criteria, and your large fortune and that house in Mayfair are strong inducements.”

  “I intend to purchase a country estate as well.”

  “Even better. I have just had a thought – George and Marianne are planning a house party in Amberley in late June. If by that time you have a particular lady in your sights, they would surely be most willing to invite you, and her family, to give you a chance to fix your interest with the girl in idyllic surroundings.”

  “It sounds delightful. Yes, by then I should have identified a likely candidate. And it gives me time to tie up some loose ends in the meantime.”

  “Loose ends? Such as other –er – entanglements?” Jonathan had had a long-running discreet affair with an older widowed lady, but James had no idea if that was still going on. His friend certainly could afford to keep a mistress, as so many rich young men did, but if so, he had never flaunted her. “When you marry, or even while you court a young lady, it would be best to break off any previous relationships. Charlotte would kill me if I took a mistress.”

  “That was not the kind of loose end I meant,” Jonathan protested. “There is nothing of that sort that would take more than a few hours to take care of. No, the issue I need to resolve before concentrat
ing on my courtship concerns my family.”

  “You have never mentioned any living family except your sister Emily. Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, but it was a letter from Emily that started the whole thing… It’s too bad that my parents are deceased, I would like to have a word with them.” Jonathan’s expression was grim. “Before my father obtained his living in his early forties, he was a mere curate, and desperately poor. My mother had not brought him any dowry. There were four children born before me, who all died before they reached the age of three. My mother seems to have had very bad luck with her children. Of at least eight born, only Emily and I survived to adulthood.”

  “I am sorry to hear this. It must have been hard on them.” Did Jonathan himself look a little pale, and thinner than usual? No wonder, in view of the endless hours he worked. James would ensure that his friend had plentiful rest and healthful exercise during the month-long house party at Amberley.

  Jonathan went on, oblivious to James’s concern. “My mother died some three years ago, and my father about a year later. Since she lives so much closer and I was busy in the city, Emily was the one to dissolve the vicarage household, give away the clothes and furniture, that sort of thing.”

  Jonathan chewed and swallowed a strawberry before going on. “When Emily went through our father’s meagre belongings, she came across an old diary of our mother’s, at the bottom of her ancient hope chest. She took it home with other family papers, and a few weeks ago she finally thought to read it.”