“Don’t be ridiculous!” Amity slipped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “We’re going to find a couple of lovely gentlemen with whom we’ll fall hopelessly in love, we’ll have our perfect double wedding, and they’ll build us quaint little country homes right here in Pelthamshire so that we never have to be away from one another or our family. Just like we’ve always planned.”
Charity gave both of her sisters a smile that only wobbled a little. “Yes. Just like we’ve always planned,” she echoed, but there was still a tiny shade of doubt in her voice.
Four
Scotland, 1815
Asheburton Keep, after a couple of hundred years of neglect and misuse, was once again a sight to behold. A jewel nestled in the emerald hills above the small Scottish village of Ashton, the ancient castle managed to be both intimidating and stunning. It was a far cry from the near ruin in which Lachlan had been raised.
Mounted on his favorite stallion, Apollo, aptly named for the god of the sun because of his glowing golden coat, the Marquess of Asheburton gazed across a small valley at the home he’d restored. So regal was his bearing, pride stamped into every inch of his powerful frame, one could easily have pictured him in full armor, preparing to storm the castle upon which he set his sights. It was time to think of the future.
Well pleased with the empire he’d created, Lachlan now longed for more. He wanted the laughter of children ringing through the hills surrounding the keep. His children. He would wait no longer.
Two years ago he had almost married, choosing a young girl from the village named Beth Gilweather, daughter of the blacksmith. She was a beautiful young woman with the coloring prominent in Ashton, pale hair and light eyes, but in her case her hair was the golden blonde of newly minted coins, and her eyes flashed a brilliant green that rivaled the emerald hillsides of Scotland. He’d fallen hard for her, but when he approached his parents with his intentions, his mother’s reaction had been instantaneous and negative.
“Out of the question! You will not marry a commoner from the village.”
He’d bitten back the retort that rose to his lips. It would not do to remind Lady Eloise Kimball that she was once a villager herself. Not when the stakes were so high. Instead, he’d looked to his father, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Perhaps if you traveled a bit first, my boy. Go to London, or Edinburgh. Meet women of your class.”
“I don’t consider Beth below my class, Father.”
“Then you’re a fool, Lachlan, who cannot see past her physical beauty and understand that she sees you as nothing more than a way to improve her circumstances. Especially now that both the keep and the village are prospering.” Lady Asheburton had folded her lips and stared at him. The marquess had looked as though he might speak, but Eloise placed a restraining hand atop his. He’d closed his mouth and given Lachlan a look of apology.
Without another word, Lachlan left the room. He’d stalked out to the stables, saddled Apollo, and rode to the village. When he saw Beth sitting outside her father’s shop, he’d reined in the stallion and swung down. He approached and knelt before her. “Marry me, Beth. Today.”
She laughed softly. “Lachlan, my goodness! You look like a thundercloud. A girl likes to be asked for her hand in marriage, not have it wrenched from her arm.”
He stood and ran a hand through his hair. He turned and looked back up the hill to the distant keep that overlooked the village. “I know,” he said. “My parents oppose the match, Beth.”
The blonde girl paled. “So if we marry . . .” She left the sentence unfinished and frowned. Such an eventuality apparently had never occurred to her.
“We could live anywhere—here in the village, or we could go to England if you like. I’m not afraid of hard work, and I’m sure I would be successful eventually.”
When he turned to face her, she pasted a supportive smile on her face. “Perhaps they’ll come around if we give them time.”
He tilted his head and studied her expression. His mother’s words rang through his head. Understand that she sees you as nothing more than a way to improve her circumstances.
Seeing his expression darken, she’d hastened to explain. “I don’t like the thought of our marriage dividing your family, my lord.” She laid a soft hand on his cheek and raised soft eyes to his. “I’ll marry you no matter what happens, Lachlan. But let’s give them some time to come around.” He didn’t respond, so she took his hand and began to draw him inside the cottage. “My father is in Edinburgh for two days,” she said with a coy little smile.
Lachlan flicked a glance up and down the street. Nobody was about. “Apollo,” he’d said, indicating his very visible stallion. He didn’t want to sully Beth’s reputation.
“Take him around back,” she suggested. When Lachlan still looked dubious, she laughed. “We’re engaged now, silly. There’s no reason for us to wait, is there?”
No longer able to resist the entrancing promise in her bright green eyes, he’d nodded and did as she suggested. They’d had a wonderful time. Three days later she broke off the engagement. He pressed her to learn why, but she never would say. It had thankfully killed all romantic instinct in him.
So that wedding had never happened. But another would. One that was practical, one that was all about need. His love for Beth had been a serious mistake. How could he love a woman and not tell her all truth as he knew it? And he couldn’t imagine Beth responding well to the truth of his parentage or to his onetime determination to abdicate his position as marquess. No, marriages were better things of convenience.
Apollo danced beneath him, bringing Lachlan back to the present. “Had enough of the view, have you?” With a smile, he urged the horse down the hill and across the wildflower-strewn glade at a gallop, only slowing when those hooves beat a sharp staccato on the bridge that had once crossed a moat. Now one could merely see the gentle indention of land circling the castle where the moat had been, and the lush grass grew right up to the surrounding walls.
Well pleased with his ride, Lachlan dismounted and handed over Apollo’s reins to a waiting groom. He crossed the courtyard to the massive doors of the main entrance, which stood open, allowing the breeze to carry indoors the intoxicating freshness of the mild spring day.
Unfortunately, the marquess’s pleasant morning ended the moment he stepped inside. Eloise Kimball’s shrill voice uncoiled and lashed him like a whip.
“I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought at all to getting us some decent help around here.”
Lachlan grimaced and bit back a sharp response. “Our servants are perfectly competent, Mother, and most of them are quite skilled.” He continued toward the stairs without glancing in her direction, anxious to escape to his chamber and change out of his dusty riding clothes.
“They most certainly are not,” retorted Eloise, her voice filled with indignation. She followed him up the stairs. “That valet of yours looks like a common criminal, and Cook is quite beyond the age at which one should be working. She barely manages to construct a palatable meal.”
“The fare may be simple, Mother, but it is good. Cook’s husband has become infirm, and I refuse to put her out of work when she is the sole provider in their family.”
“I don’t understand why you insist upon hiring only people from the village.”
“Ashton is their home, and I am their lord. We’ve discussed this many times. For too long the lords of this castle held themselves aloof from the people of the village and surrounding area.” He gave the older woman a stern look. “Do not forget your beginnings, Mother. You were once a villager yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” Without waiting for a response, he stepped inside the master chamber and closed the heavy oak door.
Summarily dismissed, Eloise stared at the solid panel of wood that stood between her and her infuriating eldest son. His ingratitude for the sacrifices she’d made for him stung. After all, had it not been for her quick thinking when his scoundrel of a father impre
gnated and abandoned her, he’d be nothing but a villager himself, and a bastard to boot.
She turned and walked slowly back down the hall, lost in the past. As a young woman, Eloise Gardner had been considered the most beautiful girl in the village. She was the only child of the richest merchant in town, and she could have had her pick of the men who came from miles around to court her. Or, more correctly, tried to court her. Eloise had looked at none of them. Her mother despaired and her father blustered, but she steadfastly refused to even consider anyone who came to the door of their modest home on the outskirts of the village. She turned up her pretty little nose at all of them, judging them nothing more than ill-mannered louts and instead insisting over and over that she wanted to go to London for a Season.
“Out of the question.” Her father refused to budge on the issue, and Eloise, at first cajoling and then tearful, had finally resorted to an angry little tantrum.
“Why not?” she’d demanded, when he first insisted they didn’t have the funds available for even a modest trip to the capital. “Am I not worth it?”
“Even if we could afford it, we don’t have the connections required to gain entrée into the social circles you seek, Eloise. We could purchase you the most beautiful gowns and obtain a fashionable address, but you still wouldn’t be invited to a single event. Not without a noble connection to sponsor you.”
Eloise had frowned and looked out the window. Her eyes settled on the keep that overlooked the village, crumbling away up on its hill. The Marquess of Asheburton, she knew, resided there, unmarried and alone. He never came into the village—was in fact rumored to be a complete recluse, never leaving the keep at all. There were rumors he suffered from periods of instability, black moods, and an irrationality long established in the Kimball family do to tragic consequences, but nobody in the village really knew if it was true. He was, however, a peer of the realm, and that was precisely what Eloise required. Her thoughts had turned speculative.
The very next day found her climbing the hill to the dilapidated old keep, picking her way carefully in her best frock and nicest shoes. “I’d like to see the Marquess of Asheburton,” she demanded when she reached the massive front doors. The dour-faced servant who answered her knock didn’t say a word, just opened the door wider and turned away. Eloise took that as an invitation to come inside.
The castle was as unkempt on the inside as it was without, and gloomy besides. The structure was built to withstand siege, and none of the lords of Asheburton had seen fit to modernize it since the middle ages, so there were no windows in the place. The only light filtered weakly in from arrow slits high up in the walls, supplemented by the occasional sputtering torch.
She followed the servant down a dank hallway until they reached a door which stood ajar. He indicated that she should go inside. Eloise did so and then stopped after a few steps, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Once they did, she looked around.
“You are . . . ?”
Startled, Eloise looked to her left. Seated in a corner of the room in a cracked leather chair was a nondescript balding man, rather younger than she’d imagined. She cleared her throat and turned to face him. “I am Eloise Gardner, my lord. F-from the village.” She curtsied prettily.
“Why are you here?”
There seemed no point in beating around the bush. Gathering her courage, she said, “I seek a Season in London, but don’t know of anyone who might sponsor me. I hoped you might do so, my lord.”
“London.” It was a statement, not a question, and Eloise waited for him to say something else. He seemed lost in thought. After a few moments, she began to wonder if he’d even heard of the city.
Just as she was about to offer explanation, he spoke again. “I’ve never been there. And I cannot sponsor you.”
Eloise’s face fell, and she looked down. She’d been so sure he would help once he saw how beautiful she was. It had always been thus.
Unbeknownst to her, Andrew Kimball had watched disappointment cloud the ravishing girl’s face. She’d obviously dressed her best for the arduous climb to the castle and yet managed to arrive looking fresh. Her hair was a light gold, and probably glowed when she wasn’t in such a dull setting, and even the dim light couldn’t hide the brilliant emeralds that were her eyes. For the first time ever, he felt the stirrings of desire.
“Why do you seek a Season, please?” he asked.
Eloise looked up, her eyes probing the shadows for a better look at her host’s face. She couldn’t read his expression and said, “I do not wish to marry beneath my station.”
Her bearing was indeed regal; almost haughty. Andrew rubbed his chin. “And what is your station?”
“My father is the most successful merchant in the village,” she explained.
Unfortunately, Andrew knew what her father had already tried to impress upon her: a merchant’s daughter, no matter her wealth, would never be accepted by the aristocracy. He sighed. “I cannot sponsor you,” he repeated.
Eloise curtsied. “Thank you, anyway,” she said, and turned to go.
“If you haven’t—” The marquess stopped midsentence, then continued in a rush, as though he had to force his words out quickly or not say them at all. “If you find yourself without a better alternative for wedlock, you might consider me.”
Eloise froze. “Consider . . . you?”
The man in the corner said nothing.
She thought about it for a bare second and then lifted her chin. Inside, she shuddered at the thought of marrying the odd, unattractive man with the thick loathsome Scottish accent. Certainly he was titled, but he had no apparent connections, his home was ghastly, and his appearance, from what she could tell, was less than desirable. “Thank you, my lord. I will give it some thought.” Carefully keeping the revulsion she felt from showing on her face, she curtsied again and left the room, walking swiftly down the hall and out the door.
Once she’d gained the open air, it was all she could do to keep from breaking into a run. She was far less careful on her way down the hill and, as a result, stepped on some loose rocks. Her ankle turned, and she fell, crying out in sudden shock and pain. Overwhelmed by the events of the morning, though she wasn’t seriously hurt, she sat on the side of the hill and cried. She cried for the death of all her hopes and dreams, for the knowledge that she would really never be anything more than the prettiest girl in the village, and for the futility she’d refused to accept in the first place. And then, when her tears dried up, she just sat, glaring up the hill at the old building from whence she had just come.
“Are you okay, miss?”
Surprised, wincing at the twinge in her ankle, Eloise scrambled to her feet and turned to face the person who had spoken, realizing as she did that the voice was male, cultured, and decidedly English. “I’m fine,” she said, and took a step back.
Her mouth fell open in shock. Coming toward her on the path was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. He was tall, very tall, with dark hair and flashing dark eyes, and his amiable smile revealed a row of the whitest, most perfect teeth she’d ever seen, made even more striking by his tanned face. He looked rugged and fit but every inch the aristocrat.
Suddenly, she was acutely aware that, despite how hard she had worked to obliterate all traces of her hated Scottish accent, she would never sound as cultured and sophisticated as this man. “I was just on my way home,” she managed to say, when she finally realized she was staring.
“You don’t live in that castle?” He pointed up the hill behind her.
Eloise shook her head. “The Marquess of Asheburton lives there. He’s . . . rather reclusive.”
“Too bad,” the stranger mused. “I was hoping to prevail upon him for hospitality. I’m in the area for a while, you see—taking a walking tour of Scotland, you might say.”
No wonder he looked so fit. Aloud she said, “And you are . . . ?”
He smiled, dazzling her again. His face transformed from one that was merely handsome into a visage
that was breathtaking. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Oliver Tremaine.” He held out a hand into which Eloise automatically placed her own, and he raised her wrist to his lips for a kiss. “My father is the Duke of Blackthorne.”
Her wrist still tingling, Eloise absorbed that bit of information, and her entire demeanor changed from cautious reticence to the calculating coquette. Oliver instantly noted the change and pressed his advantage. In no time they’d both agreed that the castle wasn’t at all a viable option. Instead Oliver agreed to accompany her home, and Eloise had promised that her father would be more than happy to welcome him.
She was right. Her father extended an invitation for Oliver to stay as long as he liked, and Oliver easily managed to charm all the members of her family. Eloise herself fell for him like a rock. It took him less than twenty-four hours to seduce her, and before the month was out she was pregnant. At first she didn’t realize why she felt so tired and ill, but by the time she’d missed her second monthly flux, she knew. When she fearfully told Oliver, he held her close, whispered promises that he would marry her, that everything would be just fine, and then he convinced her to go to sleep. Together, they would speak to her parents in the morning.
When she woke up, of course, he was gone—along with all the money in her father’s till.
Terrified and alone, Eloise didn’t waste any more time feeling sorry for herself. For the second time in her life she climbed the hill to Asheburton Keep. Presenting herself to the marquess she announced, “I’d like to accept your offer, my lord.”
Andrew Kimball had eyed her steadily. “Why?”
“I am with child.” She lifted her chin and bravely met his gaze.
“The father?”
“Gone.”
“And you’d like me to give the child my name. What if you bear a son? He would become the next Marquess of Asheburton.”
She nodded.
Charity Page 3
