Charity

by Deneane Clark

  REVIEWERS ARE CHARMED BY DENEANE CLARK

  “Clark’s offshoot from Grace is just as sprightly, enchanting and fun as its predecessor and will be adored by marriage-of-convenience fans. Clark hits all the right notes as her likable characters play out their sweet love story.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Faith

  “The cast is strong led by a spunky female who prefers being a spinster on the shelf rather than finding a husband, let alone forced to marry a wastrel whom she loves. Readers will enjoy Deneane Clark’s lighthearted historical frolic.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews on Faith

  “Nicely written and with a bunch of lively characters, debut author Clark’s tale engages the reader in a merry chase between a charming English lord and a spirited young woman in the game of matrimony.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Grace is a sparkling debut by a talented new author. The characters are eminently likeable, the plot rapidly paced, the dialogue catchy and the action sometimes moving and always captivating . . . If you like romance with lots of sexual tension, a pursued hero becoming the pursuer, and deep emotions masquerading as antagonism in a heroine, you’ll love Trevor and Grace . . . and Grace.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The cast, especially the lead couple, make for a fine Regency romance as Trevor chases after Grace, who seems immune to his charm.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Grace begins with a bang and the pace never lets up. It is an easy read, with smooth-flowing action and believable characters.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  FIRST IMPRESSIONS

  “Charity and Mercy Ackerly, I’d like to present you to Lachlan Kimball, the Marquess of Asheburton.”

  Both girls executed halfhearted curtsies. Mercy nodded briefly in Lachlan’s direction before turning her full attention and a dauntingly bright smile on her hero, the Duke of Blackthorne. Charity, though, was focused on Lachlan. Unusually focused. She took a step closer, peering at his polite smile, which was rapidly fading.

  “Your teeth are beautiful,” she said in an accusatory tone.

  Startled by her odd statement, Lachlan raised an eyebrow. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t suppose you have an unsightly wart or a disfiguring scar?” She scanned the rest of his face and then actually reached for one of his hands, as though she intended to inspect it, before she remembered herself and snatched back her arm. “Guess not,” she muttered, tossed him an irritated look, and walked away.

  Other Leisure books by Deneane Clark:

  FAITH

  GRACE

  DENEANE

  CLARK

  Charity

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  December 2010

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2010 by Deneane Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4285-1125-5

  E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0940-5

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  For every teacher, coach, administrator and school counselor with whom I have ever, during my education or that of my children, been associated, especially:

  • Elizabeth Lamulle, who taught me and taught me and taught me how to type. I think of you, and thank you, every time I place my fingers on a keyboard.

  • Joseph Buccaran, my high school principal, who managed to make high school both rewarding and fun . . . a giant accomplishment, dwarfed only by his many others.

  • Jane Parrish and Brenda Keeling, two of my children’s elementary school teachers who beautifully engaged my daughter, my son, and me when it mattered the most.

  And for a very special woman named Connie Lee Campbell, who is both the strongest and the kindest person I have ever known. I can’t tell you how many times you helped me at the very moment I needed it most. You are a gift to the world.

  I cannot thank any of you enough.

  One

  Pelthamshire, 1802

  Patience?”

  “Mm?”

  Charity Ackerly plunked down on the blanket next to her fourteen-year-old sister and looked up, her little brow furrowed with concern. “What does ‘homely’ mean?”

  Patience stopped sorting stockings into matching colors and sizes, and peered at her closely. “Why do you ask?” Her tone was cautious. Charity was the most volatile of all her sisters, which sometimes seemed odd, given the girl’s fragile beginnings. Patience recalled in vivid detail the day her twin sisters came into the world, although that was five years past and she hadn’t been called in until late in the delivery.

  Amity had been born first, surprisingly small to the mind of the midwife from the village who cleaned and tended the newborn, but apparently healthy and whole. She was just wrapping the baby to place in her mother’s arms when she heard Marie Ackerly gasp in sudden renewed pain. Quickly she’d knelt and placed a hand on her patient’s belly and then ducked her head beneath the blanket. She’d emerged, white-faced. “Find someone to send for the doctor . . . quickly!” she commanded the girl she’d brought from the village to help.

  Frightened by the midwife’s tone of voice, the young woman scurried off, no questions asked, and found the ten-year-old Patience playing with her two young sisters in one of the large rambling country manor’s bedrooms. “Run,” she’d said, “as fast as you can to the village for the doctor. This baby is bad.”

  So Patience had run, her heart in her throat and tears streaming down her face, unable to do more than stammer something about her mama having a “bad baby” when she arrived. The doctor, well-acquainted with the growing Ackerly family, put Patience in his carriage and drove her home. Once there, he’d disappeared into her mother’s bedroom and did not reappear for hours.

  The household went from a worried uproar to a tense, still silence. Even Grace and Faith, only five and three years old at that point, were oddly quiet. Bingham Ackerly, who seldom drank more than a single brandy at a time, was well into a bottle.

  When Dr. Pettishaw finally reappeared through the bedroom doorway, the first person to whom he spoke was not Bingham, who surged to his feet, but Patience, who stared up at him with round, frightened gray eyes. He knelt in front of her chair so that he could look her in the face and said, “Your mama is doing well, Patience. You were a very brave girl to come and get me so quickly. She is tired but fine. I promise.”

  Patience nodded, bit her lip, and looked down at the floor so he wouldn’t see her tears.

  Hiding a smile at her little-girl bravado, Dr. Pettishaw stood and reached out to shake Bingham’s hand. “And you, sir, have two rather small but beautiful new daughters.”

  Relief blossomed on Bingham’s face. He started to go to his wife’s bedside but was brought up short as he registered what the doctor said. “Two?”

  “Yes, two. Twins!”
Pettishaw chuckled. “The second baby had to fight her way into the world, but she made it. A bit scraggly looking, but strong for all that. Go and see all your girls.”

  Charity, as it turned out, the younger, smaller twin, was not quite finished fighting. Amity filled out and thrived, a peaceful easy infant, which was fortunate indeed, for Charity both needed and demanded much of Marie Ackerly’s attention. She did not eat well, did not sleep well, and was frighteningly prone to illness. Time and time again they thought they were on the brink of losing her, but she always managed to fight her way back to health.

  By the time the twins were a year old, Charity finally matched Amity in development. They were inseparable. Their mother was often heard to fondly declare that one couldn’t live without the other, and that Amity had shared a measure of her own good health so that her sister could catch up.

  The twins looked so much alike that even family members had difficulty distinguishing one from the other by sight. They remained smaller than the other village children their age. After spending their first year without any hair at all, they suddenly both grew a thick mop of unruly strawberry blonde curls. Their eyes were wide and of an odd shade somewhere between blue and green, and within hours of the first time their faces were exposed to the sun they developed a smattering of freckles across their cheeks and noses. That, however, was where the similarities ended. They were polar opposites in personality.

  Amity was the embodiment of her name: friendly, happy, kind, serene. Charity, on the other hand, having fought her way into the world, seemed bent on enjoying every single corner of it, and woe to anyone who sought to curb her enthusiasm or determination. From a very young age she displayed a fiery temper that became legendary, and she had seemed the most affected by their mother’s death three years ago.

  Because of this temper, it was with understandable trepidation that Patience sought to understand what had prompted Charity’s rather odd question.

  “Robert Benton said his mama told Mrs. Ingram at the apothecary that, with my temper, it’s too bad I’m such a homely little thing.” Charity wrinkled her nose. “I was going to kick him when he said it, but I didn’t know what ‘homely’ meant so I told him to wait while I came to ask you.”

  Patience carefully suppressed the urge to laugh. “Robert is waiting for you to decide whether or not you will kick him?”

  Charity nodded and rubbed her freckled nose, leaving a smudge of dirt across the bridge.

  Patience eyed her sister, garbed in a dress that no longer fit Faith but into which Charity had not yet quite grown. The six Ackerly girls weren’t always turned out in the best frocks, but as long as they were all decently covered Patience counted it a good day. Although they were certainly not poor, Bingham Ackerly was often so involved in his scholarly pursuits that he failed to notice it had been a while since he’d last paid the butcher or collected the rents from his various properties. Patience had learned long ago to practice frugality even during the more prosperous times, and the younger girls found their own ways, often preferring comfort to fashion. Grace seldom wore anything other than hand-me-downs from the Beldon brothers on the next estate, and while Charity was content to dress in female clothing, it seldom saw a full day without becoming smudged or torn. Three-year-old Mercy, curled up and napping on the blanket beside Patience, was barefoot.

  She struggled to keep the expression on her face pleasant. Most of the villagers were friendly and understanding, but there were a few, like Robert’s mother, who were more vocal about their disapproval of Bingham Ackerly for entrusting the care of the younger children to his eldest daughter. “You go tell Robert that ‘homely’ can have a great many meanings, but in your case it must mean that you look like you come from a home where you are very, very much loved.”

  Charity’s tiny face cleared, and she smiled brightly as she stood and began to run back to her playmate. She stopped in her tracks, thought a moment, and then returned to throw her dirt-streaked arms around Patience’s neck. “I’m glad I’m homely,” she said. “And I wouldn’t have minded being homely at all, even if it were something bad. I was only going to kick him for Amity’s sake, because she looks like me and I won’t let anyone say anything bad about her.” And off Charity ran, shouting Robert’s name as she disappeared.

  Patience returned to sorting socks and smiled at the cheerful sound of her sisters playing with their friends, her irritation with Mrs. Benton entirely forgotten.

  Ashton, Scotland

  “Gregory?”

  The older gentleman seated on the other side of the single-room cabin looked up from his writing, his bushy white eyebrows raised in inquiry. “Yes, my young lord?”

  The boy with the perpetually serious expression was paying little attention to the book Gregory had given him to read. Instead, he was strumming his fingers on the rough-hewn table, an oddly adult gesture for a ten-year-old boy. The learned old man hid a fond smile.

  “What does ‘homely’ mean?”

  Gregory set down his quill. “Well, that depends upon the context in which it was used.” He searched his brain, trying to recall if there were any passages in Homer’s Iliad that dealt with someone being described as “homely.” None came to mind. “Why do you ask?”

  “Papa took me with him to the village this morning, and while I waited for him outside the blacksmith’s shop, I heard two women talking.” His brow furrowed over a pair of large, startling gray eyes. “They said it was fortunate the next Marquess of Asheburton would not be quite as homely as the current one, unless I died and Lewiston lived to inherit.”

  Gregory pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Those ladies were unkind, Lachlan. They meant that your father and your younger brother are not very attractive, which has little to do with one’s ability to be either a good or a bad lord. The idea of judging a marquess by his attractiveness, well . . . it’s ludicrous.”

  Lachlan’s brow cleared at the explanation, but the expression in his silvery eyes remained troubled. “I don’t think my father is a very good lord, Gregory,” he said haltingly.

  “Why do you say that?” The retired vicar kept his voice carefully neutral. He very much wanted Lachlan to come to independent conclusions about his family. It would never do to lead the boy to form a negative opinion of the people who were raising him; he himself was only here to ensure Lachlan had every opportunity to grow up with all the tools he needed to someday be a proper marquess.

  The boy glanced around the small, neat cottage. “Our home—the keep—is not well-tended, the servants never stay for very long, and the villagers don’t like us.”

  Gregory nodded. “All could be signs that your father is not managing well, but do you think he is a good man, my boy?”

  The fledgling marquess thought a moment and then nodded firmly. “I do.”

  “Well, in that case, perhaps you can learn to help him manage what will one day belong to you.”

  Gregory watched the boy carefully for a response.

  After another moment’s consideration, Lachlan turned back to his reading. “Perhaps,” he murmured.

  Two

  London, 1814

  Mercy Ackerly leaned over the banister and watched the two men disappear into the study with her brother-in-law. She sighed with happy adoration and turned back to her seventeen-year-old twin siblings. “Sebastian came to the wedding with some man I’ve never seen instead of bringing another woman.”

  “ ‘Another’ woman?” Charity laughed aloud. “You mean a woman other than you? You’re only fourteen—not even a woman yourself, much less one with whom Blackthorne would consider being seen.”

  Mercy glared at her. “I’m nearly fifteen,” she corrected hotly. “And, besides, Sebastian is going to marry me.”

  Charity rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to retort, but Amity spoke up, doing her best to keep her sisters from arguing on Faith’s wedding day. “You said he came with a man you’ve never seen?”

  Mercy waved a dismissive
hand in the air. “Tall, dark, powerful. The usual. Doesn’t Trevor have any short, ugly friends?” The three girls pushed away from the railing on the landing and continued their descent to the first floor.

  “Maybe this mysterious new man has bad teeth or something,” said Charity, her eyes glinting with fun. “Let’s wait here in the foyer for them to come out. That way, Trevor will have to introduce us, and we can inspect the new person for flaws.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! These men are peers of the realm, not boys from the village.” Amity pointed a stern finger at her twin. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t you dare ruin Faith’s wedding,” she warned.

  Charity gave her a look of exaggerated innocence. “I’m just going to get to know him. It’ll make the poor man feel welcome. After all, he’s amongst strangers.” She sighed with an air of mock tragedy. “He probably feels lost and alone.”

  They stopped outside the closed study doors. Mercy stared longingly at the panels of polished mahogany, wishing they’d open so she could see her beloved duke, and Charity linked arms with her. “Let’s walk up and down the hall. It will look like we were just strolling by, having a harmless little chat, when they come out.”

  Amity shook her head and backed away. “I’ll just go see if Grace and Faith need any help. I’d rather not be anywhere near here when those doors open.”

  Inside the study, the hapless victims of Charity and Mercy’s intended ambush were having a comfortable conversation with their host, Trevor Caldwell, the Earl of Huntwick, who had just finished explaining the necessity for the day’s rather hasty wedding. “So you see, since Faith has compromised poor Gareth quite beyond recall, the only possible solution was for her to make an honest man of him.”

  “I thought Faith’s debut might go a bit more smoothly than Grace’s,” remarked Sebastian, who was both the Duke of Blackthorne and Trevor’s best friend. “She seemed more logical and less headstrong than the other Ackerly girls we met.”