A Ravishing Lady For The Rebellious Marquess (Steamy Historical Regency Romance)

by Violet Hamers

  “He carried me all the way back because I’d sprained my ankle. That was the beginning. We carried on the hide-and-seek around our emotions for ten years, before he finally summoned up courage to declare his love for me. Of course, I had long since fallen for him as well but was just waiting for him to come forward.”

  They laughed at this point as Rose used a finger to swipe at her eyes.

  “Two years later he asked me to marry him and I said yes. Of course I wasn’t going to say no. I had turned down every other suitor in the hopes that he was going to be brave enough to ask me, damning the family feud. And then…” Her voice trailed off.

  “And then he brought you home to his mother who said no,” Rose said.

  “Exactly. She died not long after,” Lady Anna responded.

  “And still you stayed, hoping that you were going to finally get what you wanted,” Rose commented.

  “Well, I didn’t necessarily stay. I actually left him and came back,” Lady Anna responded.

  “Left him? Why? Wouldn’t that have been a perfect time for you both to quickly seal the deal now that the main opposition was gone?” Rose queried.

  “Well, I couldn’t bring myself initially to go against the dying wish of a lady for her son. And that was for him not to marry me,” Lady Anna said in response. “She really took that grudge to the grave with her, manipulating me in the process.”

  “So what made you come back after leaving? Did you begin hoping you were going to finally get what you wanted?”

  “No. I came back because I loved him. And no matter how hard I tried to run away from that, it kept staring me in the face,” Lady Anna corrected her.

  After a brief pause, Rose continued the line of questioning.

  “And your parents? What did they say when you told them? Didn’t your mother try to discourage you?” Rose asked.

  “Discourage me? It was my mother who taught me how to love, how to fight for love. She couldn’t very well turn around and discourage me. On the contrary, she encouraged me to follow my heart.”

  “And do you ever think you made the wrong choice?”

  “Well, there are times when I’ve doubted my decision to stay with him. We all have those moments from time to time. But what I’ve never doubted is my love for him,” Lady Anna declared.

  A tear escaped Rose’s eyes. This time she let it trace a path down her cheek.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Rose asked.

  “For the longest time, I didn’t see a way Lord Rockgonie and I could end up together peaceably. Still, we didn’t let that stop us. Now, you and the Marquess have been thrown into the mix and aren’t we fortunate that you are also willing to fight for your love. Somehow I think we are going to be fine this time around.”

  “So what are you doing?” Rose repeated her question.

  “I am going to continue doing what I have always done. And that is to stay by Lord Rockgonie’s side,” Lady Anna responded.

  Her love and resolve both stunned and encouraged Rose. In this battle of love, it was nice to know that she and Kenneth were not alone.

  A smile began spreading across her lips.

  We are going to be fine. We all are going to be all right in the end.

  She laughed as she realized that Lady Anna’s optimism was definitely infecting her as well. It was a good thing and so she embraced it.

  “So? How did you and Lord Walsrock meet?” Lady Anna asked.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kenneth paced in his study, mumbling to himself and pausing intermittently to address an unseen audience.

  He was practicing his speech as today was the presentation day.

  It had been a week since he had made his hurried escape from Lord Rockgonie’s manor on account of the Lord’s father’s arrival. It had also been a week since he’d last seen Rose.

  All was well, though, as they had taken a step back down to exchanging letters. Also, the deadline of four weeks given to him by the leaders of the uprising was only three weeks away, and it seemed he was about to get his bill through parliament.

  Through the influences of Lord Calbrook and Lord Rockgonie, his bill had gotten another day in the House, only this time there could be no other outcome but success. England’s peace depended on that.

  In the one week that had passed, he had completely revised the bill with Leonard’s assistance. Words that had irked the opposition before had been tempered down. Clauses that had created a backlash before had been restructured to take the sting out of them.

  The whole bill looked different from last time, but only careful observers would have realized that it was the same bill that was wearing different attire. The truth was, he had eventually admitted to himself that even though this was a bill that would benefit the poor, it still had to be signed in by the rich.

  There was no way the rich were going to sign in anything if they felt it threatened the perch on which their entitled feet rested. As a result, it was all about word play, charm, and charisma, which he was bringing to bear in this second outing.

  Make the bill appeal to them.

  He continued to pace and practice his speech, taking into account any and all eventualities he could fathom that would hinder the success of the reading today.

  “I beg your pardon, Lord Somerholm. That clause simply tries to hold the rich accountable for the livelihood of the servants under their employ. It is not a strategy to burden the rich with the needs of the poor,” he retorted to an invisible opponent.

  “Wonderful of you to ask, Lord Calbrook. Even the Good Book says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and that, ‘The worker is worthy of his wages.’ Creating better working conditions for our servants will only help to improve their efficiency in serving us better. It’s a win for everyone,” he retorted to another personality, this time an ally in his invisible audience.

  “I see. So improving working conditions also improves their efficiency in serving us? Where do I register my consent?”

  He spun on his heels to see his mother standing in the doorway, a smile on her face.

  “Mother!” he exclaimed as he walked over to kiss her hand. “Did you rest well?” he inquired.

  Before she could respond, he cut her off as he noticed what she was wearing.

  “Forget rest, where are you off to looking like a peerless paramour?” he teased.

  “Don’t patronize me, Son.” His mother blushed. Her age and experience at being charmed made her reaction the classiest thing he’d seen in a while.

  “Such effortless humility while you are out here looking like expensive jewelry. If I didn’t know better and saw you from afar, I definitely would have wondered who it was that approached,” he continued his teasing compliments.

  His mother laughed this time and swatted his shoulder affectionately.

  “I see your charms and wiles have in no way reduced, Son,” his mother responded. “Come, tell me now. Are you ready for a second presentation in the House today?”

  “How did you know?” he wondered, even though he already expected her exact response to his question.

  “How many times must I tell you, Son? I am the mistress of this manor. Nothing escapes my attention,” she responded alluringly, as he had anticipated.

  “Well, is one ever completely ready? I can only prepare my hardest and expect things to go according to plan,” he responded truthfully.

  “That’s the spirit. Not everything is within your control. Knowing which ones are and working on them while accepting the ones that aren’t, is a true mark of a wise gentleman.”

  “Spoken like one filled with wisdom,” he commented, causing her to smile again.

  She linked her hands with his and stared into his eyes.

  “Success is yours. Go forth and seize it. Your father and I are proud of you,” she said in all sincerity.

  “Father?” He snickered in response.

  He hadn’t had an encounter with his father since the
ir little spat that had occurred right here in this very study.

  It seemed they had both been making an effort to avoid each other and that arrangement had worked very well between them.

  Nothing else had been said about the disowning matter, so he had long since assumed that it was no longer a threat. Yet he continued to work like it was, using the energy to motivate himself into not giving up.

  It wasn’t like they hadn’t seen each other since then, seeing as they lived in the same house. There had just been an unspoken agreement not to cross each other’s paths.

  “Father is proud of me?” he chuckled.

  The Duchess sighed before proceeding to respond.

  “Yes. Your father is also proud of you. He does not care for the differences between you two. He does care what happens to you and was, in fact, the one who told me about the second reading of your bill today in parliament,” she admitted.

  “Excuse me? Father’s knows about my second reading?” he asked in shock. “How does he know about that?”

  “Your father exerted his power and influence in the House for many years, twisting and stringing it along according to his will. In fact, I suspect that most of the opposition I hear you’ve encountered is from those who hated your father’s sphere of control but could do nothing about it. Do you then think your father wouldn’t be aware if something like a second reading of your bill was occurring in the House? Some might even say orchestrated,” his mother winked.

  “Mother? What are you not telling me?” Kenneth said with raised eyebrows.

  “All right, I’ll tell you. When your friends started going around garnering support for a second reading of your bill, news got to your father. Some opposing Lords were getting ready to shut it down immediately but he stepped in and not only stopped their plans, but wielded enough clout to get you a second reading,” his mother confessed.

  Kenneth didn’t know exactly what to do with the information his mother had just given him.

  “Why did he do it?” he asked simply.

  “Well, I would like to think it was because I gave him grief as a result of the ongoing feud between you two.” His mother chuckled. “However, the truth is you are his son. No matter the ill you choose to think of your father, he still cares a lot about you.”

  Kenneth could only smile at the end of his mother’s speech.

  The truth was, he’d somehow known that today hadn’t been orchestrated by just Lord Calbrook and Lord Rockgonie. Not after the backlash he had received the last time. Someone infinitely more powerful and cunning had to have been involved in the background.

  “Well, I will have to get going now,” his mother announced. “As I said earlier, I wish you the best of luck today.” She reached forward and squeezed his hand.

  He nodded as she turned to leave, only to stop few paces away.

  “Pray tell, whatever happened to Lord Somerholm’s daughter?” she asked. “Or did you think I had forgotten?”

  He laughed out loud at his mother’s question. He hadn’t managed to escape her probing even after all this time.

  “Aren’t you late, Mother? Come let me walk you to the front door,” he offered, trying to change the subject.

  “I am a Duchess. You of all people should know I am never late,” she retorted.

  He held her hand and together they made their way to the front door, discussing any and every thing besides Lord Somerholm’s daughter.

  “Oh, just to let you know, your father is outside waiting for me in the carriage,” she announced as they approached the front door.

  Steeping outside, he pecked his mother on the cheek and let go of her hand.

  “Have a lovely time, Mother,” he smiled.

  As she walked toward the waiting carriage, he saw the Duke stick his neck out the window.

  The brief moment seemed to stretch on into eternity. Finally, he smiled at his father and to his utter amazement, his smile was returned.

  The Duchess got into the carriage and it began to pull away.

  “That was a lovely moment,” he heard Leonard say sarcastically behind him.

  “I see your new job is to materialize out of thin air and ruin my moments,” Kenneth responded, without turning to look back at his valet.

  “That is what I am here for, My Lord. If I don’t do it, who will?” Leonard teased.

  “Come now,” he said as the carriage went through the gateway and turned out of sight. “We have a reading to prepare for.”

  Two hours later, he was walking through the doors of parliament with a copy of his bill tucked underneath his arm.

  Lord Calbrook was walking beside him, engaged in another conversation with a fellow Lord.

  His ears picked up a part of the conversation and realized that his friend was still trying to canvass support for his bill even this close to the reading. He definitely was in Lord Calbrook’s debt.

  They walked into the chambers and it took a whole half hour for them to go through all the motions of saluting their fellow Lords and trying to settle down.

  With his eyes, he tried to locate the position of everyone who he felt would be influential to the outcome of this reading.

  Lord Calbrook was obviously going to be sitting beside him, meaning his friend would be in his direct line of sight when he took to the podium.

  Lord Rockgonie was sitting somewhere to his right. It would be nice to feel support coming from that angle when the time came.

  The Earl of Somerholm was sitting straight ahead, in front of him. It meant that he would have his back to Lord Somerholm and not have the opportunity to gauge his opponent’s reaction once the reading began. He didn’t think he had much to worry about, though, as he remembered he had stayed entirely quiet during the last episode.

  Of course, that was before he knew his daughter fancied me.

  He remembered what Rose had told him about the fight she’d had with her parent’s at the breakfast table.

  Will he still be in support of me?

  Sitting this far away from Rose’s father, he could not exactly decipher the look he was seeing on the man’s face. The only thing that was certain was that the Earl was looking straight back at him.

  Giving up, he turned and continued trying to ascertain the position of everyone else in the room.

  For some odd reason, he wasn’t as nervous as the last time around. A certain level calm was emanating from his insides.

  Still engrossed in his preparations, he simply noticed that the hall had quieted down. Lord Calbrook was on his feet and making an introduction for the second reading of Kenneth’s bill.

  By the time Lord Calbrook was done with his anecdotes, Kenneth simply stood and walked to the podium. It took a brief moment for him to settle his notes in front of him and begin his speech.

  He didn’t drop the ball this time. So powerful was his command of the moment that none could interfere, which was their usual manner. Even when disruptions were attempted, he talked on, serenading his audience with his voice and the content of his discourse.

  A few nods of approval from his allies and he knew he had succeeded in commanding the attention of the House.

  By the time he was done, there was nothing else that he could say which he hadn’t said already.

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He heard a Lord and one of his allies whisper to another, in reference to his and his father’s oratory skills.

  He smiled and awaited the debate that was sure to follow. No matter how powerful a speech, one Lord or another was bound to still rise to debate what had been said.

  It was the curse of the House.

  Soon enough, a Lord began to rise, to oppose the bill outright.

  “My Lords, I do not think…” he’d managed to say, before he was cut off by none other than the Earl of Somerholm.

  “Before any of us start thinking, it is only expedient to note that we all need more time to go over the contents of this bill, don’t you agree?” Lord Somerholm had said f
rom behind him, causing him to turn.

  Did Lord Somerholm just throw in his support for my bill?

  He turned to look at Lord Calbrook and Lord Rockgonie one after the other. Both had the same look of confusion on their faces like he had.

  “I’m of the opinion that we adjourn this reading till such a time when we all have been able to read this bill in its entirety. Will a week from now suffice, My Lords?” Lord Somerholm was saying.

  There was such a cacophony of answers that it was impossible to decipher what the consensus had been.