by Norma Darcy
ALSO BY NORMA DARCY
THE REGENCY GENTLEMEN
A Gentleman and a Scoundrel
The Honourable Gentleman
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2013 Norma Darcy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477820896
ISBN-10: 1477820892
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Illustrated by Dana Ashton France
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912881
For Mum,
My inspiration and my best friend.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
Longfield Park, Hertfordshire. September 1817.
“AND ARE YOU AWARE,” demanded the Countess of Marcham in her most imperious tone, “that the whole county has been expecting you to make Lady Emily Holt an offer at any time these last two months?”
Her son, Robert Holkham, fourth Earl of Marcham, to whom this remark was addressed, did not immediately reply. As he was not completely decided if he was about to make Lady Emily Holt an offer, he was a little annoyed by his mother’s taxing him on the subject. He did not raise his eyes from a three-day-old copy of the Morning Post but pretended extreme interest in the announcements, his dark brows knitted together across the bridge of his nose.
“Horesham is getting married,” he said, yawning behind one well-manicured hand, and turned the page as if his mother hadn’t spoken.
The third occupant of the room was Mrs. Caroline Weir, Lord Marcham’s younger sister, known to all her friends and family as Caro. She gasped and widened her eyes. “Never say so! Michael Horesham? He is forty-five if he’s a day. Who is he to marry, pray? Never tell me he caught the beautiful widgeon at last?”
Lord Marcham glanced at her, amused. “I would be very much surprised if Michael gave two hoots if she is a widgeon or not. It is not her intelligence that has drawn his attention. She is what one might call ‘a prime article,’ an Incomparable, plump in all the right places and, most importantly, plump in the pocket.”
“And of course you have never been known to make a cake of yourself over a beauty with no brains,” remarked his sister.
“Oh, no, not I,” agreed the earl amiably, completely unperturbed by this comment.
“You always take into account a lady’s intelligence. You are well known as a man who likes to spend an evening poring over books and enthusing about the latest scientific discovery or the newest production of an opera that has been performed to great acclaim.”
He looked up from his paper and smiled sweetly at her. “I spend a lot of time at the opera.”
She choked on a laugh. “Not opera dancers, Robbie. That is something altogether different.”
His lips twitched but he asked, perfectly gravely, “Is it?”
She ignored this provocative remark and said in a wistful voice, “If I could but see you in love, Robbie, with a woman with a little common sense, a well-informed mind, and a modicum of beauty, I would be satisfied.”
“No more than a modicum of beauty?” he repeated in mock horror. “Dear Sister, you might be satisfied but I should not be!”
Lord Marcham was a man used to consorting with the most beautiful women in society. He was used to doing precisely as he wished. At the age of six and thirty, he had long since abandoned listening to the advice of his family, or anyone else for that matter. He was aware that his sister had only his best interests at heart, but he was reluctant to entertain such a discussion before their mother, who, once such a subject was broached, was wearyingly persistent in pursuing it. He’d been expected to marry at any time during the last fifteen years but had, instead, spent the time indulging in the same activities that attracted other well-off young gentleman of his circle. He was something of a rake. His reputation was such that his mother despaired of him ever choosing a wife. But his mother was not a woman to stand idly by while he chose to ignore what he owed to his father’s name. His duty was to marry and provide an heir, and she never let him forget it. He knew what was expected of him and had almost come to the conclusion that any well-bred young woman would do. If he could not have love, then why not marry the first eligible female he met and be done with it? And yet . . .
The thought of marrying for duty filled him with dread. Caroline’s own marriage had been a happy one. It had shown him the possibilities. He was an incurable romantic at heart and he wanted, if at all possible, to marry for love.
Caroline dimpled. “If she can then add to these qualities a gentleness of character and sweetness of disposition—”
“She sounds to me like a dead bore. Spare me, I beg of you.”
“Well, no one ever thought that Michael Horesham would marry—not at his age—not that he is so very old, but he has never before shown any interest in matrimony. There is hope for you yet, dearest.”
“I am relieved to hear it. To hear you, anyone would think that a person over forty has one foot in the grave.”
“Yes, and so you have,” she declared.
He smiled. “I’m not there yet; you must wait another few years for that.”
“But not so very many, Robbie.”
“Little cat,” he murmured.
Lord Marcham was a rather good-looking man, well built, with a fine pair of shoulders and a very attractive smile, which he had learned over the years could be used with devastating effect upon women when trying to escape their black books. If he was not precisely what one would call a Tulip of fashion, he was, nonetheless, elegantly dressed for the morning in pantaloons and a snugly fitting blue coat, highly polished Hessian boots, and a cravat of exquisitely tied linen. He was seated by the window in his mother’s dressing room as far away as he could get from the fierce heat of the fire, which was blazing even on this summer day in August.
Caroline smiled sweetly and picked up her fan. “But is Lord Horesham’s engagement a love match?”
“I think that extremely unlikely,” he said with bruising frankness.
“Then why should a man like him enter into wedlock at his age?”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Because he is so very ancient, and everyone knows that only young persons are capable of falling in love—isn’t that right?”
She playfully poked her tongue out at him. “I didn’t mean that—you know I didn’t.
You are deliberately putting words in my mouth to be provoking.”
“Depend upon it, a man of his age may expire halfway through the ceremony, after all,” he said and then added as he reached for his teacup, “not to mention the consummation.”
A glimmer of amusement stole into her eyes. “I meant only that a man who reaches five and forty without marrying is almost certainly happy with his own company. It would be an extraordinary woman indeed who could inspire such a man to love after all those years. You must own the truth of that.”
“Certainly it is unlikely. But not impossible,” he replied, wondering why after years of waiting in vain for just such an extraordinary woman to come into his own life, he was still entertaining any hope at all for Michael Horesham.
“And why would a young woman, half his age, choose him over any other agreeable young man of her acquaintance?”
“A fifty-thousand-pound fortune will inspire a great deal of love—or at least all the appearance of it.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “So cynical, Robbie? Speaking from experience?”
He grunted but said nothing in reply to this. Cynical was something of an understatement. Since the year he’d achieved his majority, he’d been prey to some of the most cunning and ambitious schemes to lure him into matrimony with women after little more than his money. Love, or the appearance of it, was very easy to fake when there was a fortune to be had. He had always hoped for a love match, but as the years went by, the chances of such a union seemed increasingly unlikely. He was well-off and personable, and he had little difficulty attracting women. What bothered him was that he might have been five and sixty with a bald head and a liking for raw onions and corsets, and still they would have pursued him. He was rich, and he was painfully aware that most women of his acquaintance—well, the respectable ones anyway—were as much in love with his purse as they were his person.
“I cannot imagine you falling prey to such a woman,” remarked his sister.
“Certainly not,” he agreed. “But then I am not Michael Horesham.”
“No indeed.”
The countess, who had been following this exchange with growing impatience, stamped her foot. “Oh, hang Michael Horesham! Didn’t anyone hear what I said?”
“Certainly, Mama,” her son replied coolly.
“Your latest flirtation has become the talk of the town and has given rise to the sort of conjecture that I deplore. I say again, the whole county is expecting an announcement at any moment.”
Lord Marcham set down his teacup, irritated at his mother’s continued interference in his affairs. He would marry when he chose to do so, not at the convenience of society—or of his mother, for that matter. “I don’t give a damn what the whole county expects,” he replied mildly.
“But I do,” retorted his mother, shifting herself on the sofa, where she lay amongst an impressive array of cushions and shawls. “You may have no care to the reputation of this family, but I can assure you that I do. And I will not stand by and watch you toy with the affections of a respectable girl. You have gone too far this time, Robert. Your addresses have been too marked—you have aroused expectation in the breast of that young woman and the neighborhood in general. And you may depend upon the girl’s dreadful mother having already ordered satin for the wedding. Your father put up with much from you, but this kind of behavior is not seemly in a Holkham.”
The earl cast aside the newspaper, stood up abruptly, and moved to the window to look out at the park beyond. It was a fine day, with the first hint of autumn in the air, and the rolling lawns were silvery with dew. He braced one hand high against the paintwork and watched a rider, his youngest sister, Harriet, who was just turned eighteen, trotting away from the house with a groom. He smiled faintly, knowing that as soon as she was out of sight of the house—and their mother—she would in all probability break into an unladylike gallop that would have the groom struggling to keep up with her.
“Who says I am toying?” he asked at last.
His mother shrieked and raised her smelling salts to her nose. “You don’t mean that you are serious about this girl?”
The earl shrugged again. “I must marry someone, you know.”
“Yes but . . . Lady Emily Holt? Her father’s estate is mortgaged to the hilt—surely you know that? He will bleed your coffers dry. Robert, pray be serious.”
“I was being serious.”
The countess gaped and was at a loss for words.
Lady Caroline took up where her mother left off. “Robbie, you are funning,” she declared, fanning herself vigorously, an unladylike sheen of sweat upon her brow from the excessive heat of the room. “What does Lady Emily Holt have that any other society beauty does not?”
“A meek temper,” he replied with the ghost of a laugh, still with his back to them, watching the riders until they disappeared into the trees. A quiet, mild-mannered woman who would obey his wishes and see to his every whim . . .
“A meek temper?” his sister repeated blankly.
Had his lordship turned around at that moment, Caroline would have seen the glint of amusement in his eyes and known that he was funning. As it were, she only heard his words and was concerned that he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
“Yes . . . a most desirable accomplishment for a woman.”
“And is that what you want from marriage?” she asked. “A mild and meek little mouse who won’t say boo to a goose?”
“Certainly it is. I do not wish to be harangued at every turn.”
Daughter and mother exchanged worried glances.
“And are you in love with her?” demanded the countess from behind her handkerchief.
The earl burst out laughing and turned around at last. “Not in the least, ma’am.”
The countess began to breathe more easily. If his heart were not engaged, then perhaps she could sway him from his choice. She had always hoped her eldest son would make a match of it with the daughter of one of her particular friends, a girl with a huge fortune, even if her figure was a little robust for modern tastes. She was something of a goose and not what one would precisely call clever, but her ladyship thought her son wouldn’t care overmuch about that. Lord Halchester’s daughter, Phoebe, was a splendid girl—a fine match for her son. “Then why choose this slip of a girl when Halchester’s daughter is worth eighty thousand pounds?” she asked. “When I think of all the heiresses you could have had in these last twenty years, beauties, too, some of them . . . and you choose Lady Emily Holt.”
“Because they would hate to live at Holme,” he replied, examining his fingernails.
“Hate to live at Holme Park?” repeated his mother. “Hate to live in one of the finest houses in the country?”
“Company there is rather thin, Mama, as you know full well. Lady Emily comes from that part of the world and knows what to expect. I would not take a society beauty to Holme and have her wasting away and constantly berating me to move back to London. The parties and pleasures of town no longer hold any appeal for me, and I require a wife who will be happy to live with me in the country. Lady Emily Holt is a respectable young woman and she will do well enough.”
His sister stood up and went to him, laying a hand on his arm.
“Are you sure, Robbie?”
“Certainly. How could I not be? She is an excellent female.”
“And will turn a blind eye to your infamous parties, all-night drinking, and mistresses?” asked his sister, lowering her voice so their mother wouldn’t be privy to their conversation.
He smiled sweetly. “My dear Caroline, I cannot imagine what you may mean.”
“Hmm,” she replied.
“I do not have a mistress, and I will wager that these days, I am very often in bed earlier than you are.”
“I’m sure you are,” she murmured, “but I’ll wager not alone.”
He smiled affably. “Perfectly alone, I assure you, and I prefer it that way. A man of my advanced years cannot c
ontend with too much excitement, you know.”
“What utter nonsense,” she declared.
“It is not nonsense. I thought you were always up with the latest on-dit, Caro, but it seems that you have not heard. I am retired.”
He watched in dismay as his sister choked on a laugh, clearly unwilling to believe him. Everyone he had told had reacted in the same way. Why was it so hard to believe? Year after year of empty, meaningless liaisons with lightskirts or bored widows had taken their toll. Oh yes, he’d amused himself greatly, and no doubt some men were envious of him, but there surely was more to life? He wanted someone he could laugh with, someone who understood him, someone who was entirely his. He knew that his friends and even Caroline didn’t understand it—he hardly understood it himself. All he knew was that he had grown tired of the role he played in public. Some mornings it was a trial to look at himself in the mirror: he didn’t like what he saw.
“Since when did a man of your kidney retire?” Caroline asked, amused.
He shrugged. “Since I realized that there are a great many days in my life spent far too foxed to achieve anything meaningful. Whole weeks have passed by that I can honestly say I do not remember a damned thing about. A life of idle dissipation, even for such a wastrel as me, ceases to hold any fascination after twenty years of it.”
“Gentlemen in your line do not retire,” she said firmly. “And you may think it is amusing to pull the wool over my eyes, Robbie, but I am not Sarah and not as green as you may think.”
He laughed and spread his hands. “It’s true.”
She gave him a knowing look. “And who was that blonde piece I saw you with last week if you are retired?”
He grinned ruefully. “I was merely making myself agreeable.”
“Hmm,” said his sister again, clearly believing it all a hum.
“I do not have a mistress,” he repeated, “and I have no immediate desire to change the situation. And really, Sister, it is most improper in you to speak to me of such things.”
“And is your heart still untouched after all these years?” she asked softly.
He smiled, his gray eyes twinkling. “Dear Caro, always the great romantic.”
