An Independent Miss

by Becca St. John

  What’s love to do with anything? …

  Immersed in her herbal laboratory, Lady Felicity secretly yearns for a dashing, romantic love straight from a gothic novel. So when her brother’s houseguest, Lord Andover, presses her hands to his chest, and proposes, she is too stunned to take in his words of undying love. Words he surely spoke. Didn’t he? Oh, drat, she should have listened…

  Victims of misguided and inept medical men, Lord Andover’s father and brothers are in their graves, his mother lost to the apothecary’s opium. Desperate to save his mother, give her a will to live, he sets three goals: marry a sweet, soothing young lady, produce an heir and free his homes of herbalists and quacks. In return, he offers all that he is, all that he owns, except his beleaguered heart.

  Title, wealth, and good name are all a man need offer.

  AN INDEPENDENT MISS

  BY

  BECCA ST. JOHN

  AnIndependentMiss©2014 Martha E. Ferris

  All rights reserved

  Cover Art © 2014 Kelli Ann Morgan / Inspire Creative Services

  www.inspirecreativeservices.com

  Edited by

  Barb Wilson ~ http://www.editpartner.com

  Nancy D. Wall, Wordsmith ~ wordsmith1982@cableone.net

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 ~ THE GENTLEMAN

  CHAPTER 2 ~ EN GARDE

  CHAPTER 3 ~ A LADY’S SECRET

  CHAPTER 4 ~ OBSTACLES

  CHAPTER 5 ~ ONE IN EVERY FAMILY

  CHAPTER 6 ~ INDISCRETION

  CHAPTER 7 ~ CONSEQUENCES

  CHAPTER 8 ~ SEEKING CALM

  CHAPTER 9 ~ PLANS MADE

  CHAPTER 10 ~ SILHOUETTE KISS

  CHAPTER 11 ~ REVELATIONS

  CHAPTER 12 ~ MONTFORT ABBEY

  CHAPTER 13 ~ HAUNTED

  CHAPTER 14 ~ WAYLAID

  CHAPTER 15 ~ CHANGING GOALS

  CHAPTER 16 ~ THE TREE CLIMBER

  CHAPTER 17 ~ A PARENT’S COUNSEL

  CHAPTER 18 ~ MISGUIDED WORDS

  CHAPTER 19 ~ WEIGHTED REQUESTS

  CHAPTER 20 ~ DOUBTS

  CHAPTER 21 ~ ANOTHER MAN

  CHAPTER 22 ~ DUPLICITY

  CHAPTER 23 ~ WHAT OF LADY COMFREY?

  CHAPTER 1 ~ THE GENTLEMAN

  Lady Felicity Westhaven pushed through the tradesmen’s entrance of Ansley Park Manor, stripping off her work gloves and calling, “Humphrey!” though she needn’t have bothered. He stood in the vestibule, waiting, knowing, as he always did, precisely when someone would come through a door.

  Any door.

  It was unnerving.

  Felicity sighed. “Father said a gentleman is waiting to speak with me.”

  “Yes, Lady Felicity.” Humphrey took her gloves in one hand, held the other out, ready for her apron.

  “Don’t.” Felicity warned, at the infinitesimal rise of his nose as she handed over the offending garment. “I know I look a fright—” she brushed clumps of dirt from her skirt, “—but I am in the middle of a difficult concoction and do not have time for this consultation, let alone changing. Whoever it is will have to take me as he finds me.”

  Humphrey’s nostrils flared. She ignored it. “How is your lumbago, Humphrey? Any better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Are you using that salve I made up for you?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And Cook’s sister’s impetigo?”

  “Much better, thank you miss.” He almost hid his smile, but she caught it nonetheless.

  “Well then.” Felicity headed toward the study. “If I stayed neat and tidy, you would have very different answers for all those questions.”

  “Lord Redmond’s friend…”

  She spun before he could say more.

  “Oh!” She looked down at her rumpled dirty dress, much as Humphrey had. “Yes, of course, Thomas’s friends are visiting.”

  Oh, Lord, how could she have been so thoughtless? Her brother’s guests could be anywhere.

  “I believe they are outside, fencing.” She said, more to herself than to Humphrey, trying to remember if she’d seen them all out on the lawn or just Thomas and Lord Upton.

  So far, she’d managed to avoid seeing them when she worked in the stillroom or the greenhouses. It would be beyond embarrassing to run into them now. “I’ll slip into the study and out,” she assured Humphrey, “and be quick as a cricket. No one will see me.”

  Offering no time for protest, she hurried to the study, stepped through the doorway and glanced down the long length of the room. Her ‘Good morning’ halted, hands flailing as she fought the momentum of her forward stride.

  The gentleman stood at the far end of the room, his back to her, absently massaging a limb she knew should hurt like the devil. She’d seen the fall that injured that leg. A nasty tumble as the blind man, in a game of blind-man’s bluff with her younger siblings. The children did not play fair.

  Still, despite his injury, this gentleman was not a patient.

  Afraid to breathe, lest he hear her and turn around, she tiptoed backward and spun out of the room.

  Back pressed against the hall wall, she fought to stay upright.

  Ridiculous…

  She was being ridiculous.

  Nothing to be afraid of.

  She took a deep breath, stood tall, and straightened her skirts with a sharp flick. Sure quick movements had her old blue shawl neatly criss-crossed, like a milkmaid’s wrap, over her bosom. She lifted her chin. No reason to be missish. She was a grown woman of twenty, with responsibilities far beyond her age, a capable adult.

  She peeked around the doorframe for one more glimpse.

  A hand landed on her shoulder. Felicity shot back, knocking her younger sister Caro against the wall. Without apology or explanation, she shushed Caro as she propelled them both down the hall.

  “Who’s in there?” Caro hissed, despite Felicity’s command for quiet. “Who are you hiding from?”

  “Oh, Caro.” Felicity fought against her own foolishness. “You startled me.”

  Caro raised an eyebrow.

  “Really, you caught me off guard, that’s all.” Felicity smoothed her hair, found too many tendrils hanging loose and desperately tried to tuck them into place, while avoiding her sister’s eye. “Father told me someone waited to speak with me.”

  A gentleman, he had said and she thought ‘gentleman’ in the broadest sense. A man looking for a tonic, or a salve, or some such. Only this was not one of ‘those’ gentlemen and she was too unsettled, too flustered for being unsettled, to discuss it with Caro.

  “Bit strong, your reaction.” Caro argued, though she relaxed with her older sister’s explanation. “What is the matter with this one? A putrid boil you don’t want to face?”

  “Nothing like that.” Felicity twined arms with Caro. “Certainly not as interesting as you in your new travelling frock. Does this mean you are going? I thought you weren’t leaving until afternoon?” She led them further away from the study.

  “I’m traveling with the Downings. Beth sent a note around this morning. She wants to get back to Easton early. Last term and all.”

  “Ah, yes, our beloved Easton Academy for Young Women.” Felicity mocked with gravity. “Some do love it there.”

  “Some of us do,” Caro teased. “Just not you.”

  “Now, now,” Felicity objected. “I did my penance, no squirming out of it, though I can’t say it made a vast dif
ference to my life.”

  “That’s because you aren’t like the rest of us who abhor edifying literature and actually enjoy the niceties of the finishing process.”

  “I’m finished!”

  Caro laughed, her gaze prompting Felicity to look down at her practical muslin dress, rumpled from working in the stillroom.

  “There is that.” Felicity bit her lip.

  Caro bumped her side, hip to hip. “What?”

  Felicity hesitated, only to be bumped again. “What?” Caro pried.

  It was just too embarrassing to admit to Caro who, not even out in society, understood matters of the heart. Her younger sister knew what reciprocated love felt like. She would never understand unrequited, soul-destroying adoration.

  Caro crossed her arms, tapped her foot. Loudly. Loud enough someone could hear from another room.

  Finger to her lips, Felicity unwound the arm twined with Caro’s and pointed back toward the study door. Delightfully intrigued, Caro skipped to the opening, peered into the room. A breath later she pulled back, large blue eyes even larger and mouthed, “Is that who is waiting for you?”

  Forlorn, another glance at her dress, Felicity nodded. Caro rolled her eyes.

  “Is he ill?” Caro asked. “He’s been limping. Perhaps what you prescribed isn’t working.”

  Felicity shook her head. “I didn’t prescribe anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Close your mouth, Caro, it’s not becoming.” Felicity pulled her sister away from the door again, worried he might hear them. “He wouldn’t discuss his limbs with me, declined any conversation of a healing nature.”

  “But everyone talks to you about their aches and pains.”

  “Yes, they do. His conversation has been quite singular in that respect. Delightful, really.” They talked about books, they played chess, they laughed at the family’s antics. Like she was an ordinary young lady. Perfectly mundane. Far too wonderful. He terrified her.

  “A welcome respite, no doubt.”

  “Yes, I rather think so.” She doubted he even knew of her interest in the healing arts. She swallowed her fear, headed back toward the study.

  Caro stopped her. “You should change.”

  “No,” Felicity shook her head. “I’ve been too long already.” It wouldn’t matter. He was not the one adoring.

  Hand trembling, she gripped the doorframe, peeked one more time, as if something might have changed. It hadn’t. The Marquis of Andover, her brother’s friend and houseguest, a gentleman in the strictest top-of-the-tree sort of way, waited.

  Alone.

  Definitely alone. No one else there, just the Marquis, at the window, facing the gardens, hands clasped behind his back. The spring sun, so elusive of late, cast a halo about him. A trick of light. He was no pious saint. Not at all. He was a heathen god carved from granite, all sharp cheekbones and a dark slash of brow. Intimidating, even for a young lady not prone to intimidation—and that was before he smiled.

  She pulled back, slumped against the hall wall, hand to heart, and fought for calm; breathe in…breathe out… He is just a man…he is just a man…he is…

  Caro sidled up beside her. “You look beautiful and the dress isn’t bad, it’s just worn.”

  Sisters were good to have. “I never think about such things.”

  “I know,” Caro agreed. “You are too busy with your medicines. It’s rather good to see you wake up to it now.”

  “Caro, what am I going to do? I’m not a bit like you and Mama. You both know…well, you just know about things. About people.” She gestured at the length of her sister in her pretty spring outfit and new bonnet. “And you always look just right, so fashionable, slim and tall, both fair and fiery.”

  “Fiery?” Caro screwed up her face. “What, because we have red hair?”

  “Look at me,” Felicity groused. “Ordinary brown hair, brown eyes. Not even the tiniest hint of curl for redemption. All I can do is pull it back. And my skin?” She cringed. “A moment in the sun and I’m as brown as a nut.”

  “A moment in the sun and I’m as burnt as a hot coal,” Caro argued.

  “What about my eyes? They’re too large.”

  Caro stepped back. “What has come over you? I am calming Lady Calm herself? I’ve never seen you like this. People from five parishes choose you over a physician or apothecary. I swear the vicar is praying for your very soul over the idolatry you provoke, and you are worried about what you look like?”

  “Obviously, you never needed to notice before, so I will tell you what you have failed to see. You are beautiful, like a doe, gentle and quiet.”

  Felicity picked at her dress, wide enough to accommodate hips decidedly wider than her waist. “These current styles don’t suit me.”

  Caro threw up her hands. “That’s because you have a figure. Mother has always said some women look better undressed.”

  “Undressed?”

  Caro snickered, wickedly.

  Felicity gave her a shove and moaned. “That doesn’t help. It only makes me more nervous.”

  “Delicious. Felicity as a mortal, and a wet-behind-the-ears fledgling mortal at that.” Caro chuckled.

  Too distracted to listen, Felicity merely agreed “Perhaps,” frowning as she realized what she had just said.

  They stood quietly in the hallway.

  “Is he proposing?”

  Felicity’s head snapped up as she tamped down girlish notions. “No.” It was impossible, a foolish dream. “Of course not. He is committed to Lady Jane.” She shook her head as if words weren’t enough. “I’m sure of it.” She shook her head again, feeling a bit woozy. “No,” she repeated.

  She’d assumed he sought her company because she was the only quiet one in a boisterous family and on this, his first step out of mourning, he would need peace. The Redmond household was not a gentle first step.

  Caro was right, she just had to go in there and see what he wanted. It didn’t matter what she wore. No one would call her an incomparable, nor did he expect to see her as one. Hesitating in a doorway would not change that.

  With a deep breath she stepped off a veritable cliff, into the room, her stomach roiling as self-assurance plummeted, her confident self swept away in the fall, revealing an unfamiliar shy, vulnerable girl she never thought to be.

  “Lord Andover?”

  He turned to her, fit and handsome in buff trousers and a superfine jacket a rich shade of cobalt. His neatly knotted cravat, secured with a sapphire pin, complemented the coat. A glint of sun highlighted the ebony dark of his hair, perfect foil to cerulean eyes. Not that she could see those eyes with the sun at his back. But she knew them.

  “Lady Felicity.” He reached out both hands, naked of gloves, as were hers.

  Did he mean for her to take them? To touch, flesh to flesh? So casually? Heat blossomed in her cheeks as she crossed the room, hands clutched at her waist, uncertain of his intention in reaching for her like that. Jarred by that uncertainty.

  “Allow me this liberty.” He took her hands, eased them open, pressed them against his chest as he spoke in that deep, comforting voice of his. It poured over her, a warm waterfall of sound, as she stared, enthralled by the sight of her hands caught between the warmth of his body and the hardness of his palms.

  A thrilling, foreign intimacy, the steady thump of his heart, the vibration of his baritone. A language of the senses.

  Earthy heat radiated through his shirt, carried the scent of his cologne. She inhaled the spicy exotic fragrance and swallowed, afraid she might melt, right there, into a puddle at his feet. Grappling for security, she reminded herself she was a pragmatic, intelligent young lady, vastly more mature than most women her age and far beyond being carried away by bare skin. She knew the feel of flesh in a clinical, detached sort of way.

  But not like this. Nothing like this.

  Silence.

  Startled, she looked up. He finished whatever he was saying, watched her with a small smile.
<
br />   Oh Lord, she should have paid attention.

  “Will you?” He finally asked again, for she was certain he had already asked her once. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  She blinked, stunned. “Me?”

  His chuckle washed over her, as he freed one hand to brush a finger across her cheek. “Yes, you.”

  She swallowed again, just to be certain she could, as she tried to reign in the tumult of thoughts his words provoked.

  “Is this a prank?” She looked about for her brothers. Thomas for certain, possibly Edward, even Annabel, though a bit young, would be up to this sort of game. No one popped out from behind a settee. No suspicious lumps or toes peeked from where the curtains were gathered.

  “A prank?” He bent enough to look in her eyes. “This is no jest. Your father and I have been discussing the details all week.”

  And no one told her? As if she were some silly schoolgirl?

  “You are not here to visit Thomas?”

  Still clasped, Andover let their hands fall down between them, his thumb absently caressing her knuckles. It rippled through her into dark private places.

  “I arrived for a small house party with no particular aim other than friendly amusement.” He looked out toward the window before returning to her gaze. “Then I found you. Did you not notice my attention?”

  “You’ve been kind and polite.” And attentive.

  She never dared presume it meant anything to him, other than friendly camaraderie. He was to marry Lady Jane Townsend. Lady Jane herself had assured the whole of Easton Academy for Young Women that one day she would be Lady Andover. With Caro still at Easton, surely they would have heard the high drama if those expectations failed to reach fruition.

  Then again, there had been no mention of Lady Jane in the whole of Andover’s visit. Not even from Lord Upton, Andover’s closest friend and Lady Jane’s brother. He was visiting, as well, and one would expect him to say something if a betrothal was on the boards.

  “Would you like time to think about it?” he offered, his smile replaced with a knotted brow.