Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
The Duke's Bride in Disguise
Fairfax Twins
Book One
Claudia Stone
Copyright © 2018
Claudia Stone
Copy Editing
E.C. Hamilton
For my twin, with love.
Prologue
London, 1798
Alastair Fairfax, Sixth Marquess of Havisham, was not afraid to admit that he loved his wife--even if it was most unfashionable to do so. What he was afraid to admit to—out loud at least—was that he loved her more than his three sons.
Oh, don't think that he did not adore the three strapping lads whom his wife, Adeline, had gifted him during the first decade of their marriage, for he did. It was just that when it came to their happiness, or the happiness of anyone else for that matter, Alastair could wholly admit that they were a secondary concern as compared to his wife.
Which was why, despite the recommendation of several physicians not to, Alastair agreed that he and Adeline would try for a fourth child—a girl. All that Adeline wanted in the world was a daughter, and who was Alastair to deny her such a thing?
After months of trying, which the marquess thoroughly enjoyed, the Marchioness of Havisham conceived, and thus began the unenjoyable portion of their mission. For nine months, Lord Havisham walked on eggshells; anytime his wife sneezed, coughed, or passed wind—not that he would admit that this was an act she was capable of—the marquess would suffer a fit of the vapours. For months, Adeline made sure to carry a bottle of smelling salts on her person, lest her husband fainted dead away.
At last, the day of the labour dawned and the marchioness was whisked away to her bedchamber, to be attended to by three of London's most eminent physicians, two laying in women, and an accoucheur for good luck. As the day wore into night, and back to day again, the marquess was struck by a realisation; he had been so consumed by his wife's happiness, that he had not even thought of his own. What would he do if Adeline, as many doctors had warned might happen, died during childbirth? The thought was too much to even contemplate, though as Adeline's labour pains continued into a third day, it was all that Alastair could think of.
Finally, after three bottles of brandy, several dozen cigars, and some work on Adeline's part, a babe was born. Alastair, who was never usually a man to do anything in a hurry, took the runners two at a time as he made his way upstairs to see his wife. His knock on her bedchamber door was answered by Dr Philips, who gave the marquess a rather strained look.
"Your wife is asleep," he whispered, as he slipped outside the door, "Her body is exhausted and she is very, very weak. I fear for her, my Lord, but if we pray and remain calm, God willing she might survive."
"And the babe?"
Again, Dr Philips looked most uncomfortable as he replied, "Is with the laying in woman, in the room yonder. She gave a few cries when she was born, which seemed to bolster your wife's spirits, but she too is very weak."
A girl. Thank goodness, after all that, it was a girl.
Alastair made his way into the room opposite his wife's chambers, where a small nursery had been prepared for the new baby. The room was dim, lit only by one candle, and silent as the grave.
"Hullo," Alastair whispered to the laying-in woman, who sat in the rocker in the corner clutching a bundle of blankets. "I've come to see my daughter."
"Oh, my Lord," the laying-in woman, who had been on her feet for the best part of three days, leapt back onto them at the sight of the marquess. "Forgive me, I wanted to hold the poor mite as she—as she—"
As she slipped from the world.
Alastair did not need the woman to finish the sentence, for he knew in his heart—and from the room's silence-- that his poor, dainty daughter had not lived.
All that work and Adeline's health had been sacrificed for nothing.
"Dr Philips bade me come in here," the woman continued, gibbering a little with nerves for she had never spoken to a marquess. "He was afraid it would kill her Ladyship, if she were to know that the poor, wee bairn was gone."
"Kill her?"
Alastair broke out into a clammy sweat at the thought that there was still a risk Adeline might expire, despite having survived the worst.
"Aye," the laying-in woman nodded fervently, her soft Scottish brogue not doing anything to take the sharpness from her words. "Her Ladyship is very weak, 'twould snuff her out like a candle if she heard."
Gracious; Alastair had not thought of that. The melancholia he felt at his daughter's demise, was replaced by an urgent need to do something—anything—to ensure his wife's continued health.
An idea came to him, so preposterous that initially he dismissed it. But then, the marquess caught sight of the unmoving, bundle of swaddled blankets in the laying-in woman's arms, and took such a fit of despair at the sight of them, that he knew he could not present this poor, sad sight to his wife.
"I will need you to fetch me another baby," he said, in as even a manner as he could muster.
"Beg pardon, my Lord?" the woman questioned, thinking that perhaps she had not understood him.
"I said," Alastair repeated, "That I will need you to fetch me another baby. I cannot tell my wife that her daughter did not live—as you said, the news will surely kill her."
"But, where am I supposed to fetch a baby from?" the laying in woman asked in confusion; the good people of Grosvenor Square were not likely to have any spare offspring lying about.
"The Foundling Hospital will be happy to give you one, for a bag of coin," Lord Fairfax replied evenly, "And there will be a bag of coin in it for you, of course."
The promise of money did not seem to sway the Scottish woman's doubts, for her face was still creased into a frown of worry. "And what about this poor lass?" she asked, looking down at the blankets in her arms.
"The hospital will, no doubt, have arrangements made for burying her," the marquess replied gently, sensing that this matter would take some great tact and diplomacy on his part. "And they will be happy to know that a poor, orphaned babe, with no future to speak of will go to a home where it will know only love and prosperity."
For a moment, Lord Fairfax feared that he may have overdone it, but then the midwife wiped a tear from her rheumy eyes and nodded.
"Aye," she said with a plaintive sigh, "It's God's work, if something good is borne from this tragedy—how much coin did you say, my Lord?"
"A bagful," the marquess replied with relief, "Come, follow me down the backstairs to the library and I will see you provided for."
And so, the arquess and the midwife disappeared downstairs to the library, where Lord Fairfax furnished Mrs McCafferty with two bags, heavy with coin, and strict instructions to fetch him a girl, no more than a day old, without any mention of his name.
Mrs McCafferty was not a hard-hearted woman, but throughout her career she had attended to thousands of women in labour. She knew that, unfortunately, a lot of babies did not live long after taking their first breath in this hard world. She also knew that London was brimming ov
er with orphans, and that to be given the chance to save a child from a future as an illiterate street-urchin was no less than a miracle.
And so, she set forth into the cold, drizzly London night, determined to save a poor, unwanted girl from the cruel life of a Blackguard child.
The Foundling Hospital, the bastion of charitable goodness that the Marquess of Havisham had directed Mrs McCafferty toward, would not do for tonight's purposes. Run by good Protestants, who were meticulous in their record-keeping, Mrs McCafferty knew that she would not be able to secret a baby from their clutches without first signing at least a dozen papers and revealing who her patron was. Instead, relying on gossip and rumours, she made her way toward Lambeth, to the Asylum for Orphaned Girls.
"Who's there?"
The door to the forbidding building was opened, after much banging on Mrs McCafferty's part, by a woman whose face was as hard and cracked as her voice. She held a candle in her hand as she peered out the half-open door into the night at the midwife.
"My master," Mrs McCafferty adopted the dignified tones of a high-ranking servant as she spoke, "Requires a newborn girl."
"Is that so?" the woman replied with disinterest, "If a newborn is what your master wants, then he may come along in the morning and fetch her himself."
The woman made to close the door upon Mrs McCafferty, but the wily Scotswoman stopped her with her booted foot.
"My master is willing to pay," she continued, allowing the bag of coin in her hand to clunk tantalisingly against the door. The merry jingle of money had a Benedictine effect upon the Asylum's matron, for she opened the door wide at once and bade Mrs McCafferty follow her inside.
"I need a newborn, or as near to newborn as you can give me," the midwife whispered, as she followed the Matron—Mrs Hannigan—down a long, echoing corridor.
"Give me a minute to think," Mrs Hannigan, who had consumed the best part of a bottle of gin before Mrs McCafferty's arrival, replied. Though her mind was quite addled with the drink, it had already fixed on what baby would do for her unexpected customer. The only problem was, that she did not quite trust the Scottish woman to go along with her plan.
"Stay here," she commanded, as she took the bundle of blankets from Mrs McCafferty's arms.
Mrs Hannigan disappeared into one of the asylum's smaller dormitories, which was lined with cribs holding sleeping babies.
Her newest arrivals were located at the end of the dormitory, just under the window. The light of the moon illuminated the two cribs she sought, and she noted with a grunt that some soft-hearted dolt had moved them closer together.
Twins; borne by an upper-class lady just that afternoon. Though the silly girl had seen fit to bleed to death afterwards, which was rather a shame, for Mrs Hannigan had hoped to extract a lot of coin from her.
It was easy to see, even in the soft moonlight, that the two babes in the cribs were as identical as identical could be. For a minute, Mrs Hannigan wondered as to the wisdom of her decision, but the memory of the money coupled with the howling winter wind outside the window, pushed all her doubts aside.
It was not like their paths would ever cross, she thought, as she swapped one baby out of the crib and replaced it with the poor, bundled babe in her arms.
It was rather like playing God, Mrs Hannigan thought with a hiccough, as she returned to the waiting midwife with the slumbering baby girl. One twin would live a life of prosperity, whilst the other twin would grow up to be nothing more than a maid. And never the twain would meet, she thought with a smile, as she handed the baby to Mrs McCafferty.
Chapter One
Lud, London was a dirty town, Ava Smith thought with disgust as she emptied the water from her bucket out onto the cobblestones of the alleyway behind Mr Hobbs' Circulating Library.
Though the hour was early, the inclement weather had already forced Ava into mopping the floors of the establishment twice, as scores of customers had dragged puddles of grey rainwater in with them from the dirty London street.
"Can't have the ladies staining their hems in our premises," she whispered to herself in a falsetto as she mimicked the patronising tones of Mr Hobbs' nephew Boris, who had lately become something of a thorn in Ava's side. His needling, persnickety way of dealing with her was made all the worse when she compared it to his Uncle's kind and gentle approach to his staff.
Unfortunately Mr Hobbs, whom Ava had worked for, for nearly a decade, was no longer the proprietor of the circulating library, having passed the business on to Boris when illness forced him into an early retirement in the country.
Hampshire. In her two and twenty years Ava had never left London, so she could only imagine the pastoral setting in which Mr Hobbs now lived. In her mind's eye she envisioned rolling, green hills dotted with forget-me-nots and populated by cows. Cows that did not soil the ground with great, stinking piles of dung; unlike the herds which were driven through London, on the way to Smithfield Market, did.
Ava stared down at her thick, practical boots, which alas had fallen victim to one of the many piles of cow and horse droppings which littered the roads, just that very morning. If she was rich, something she often liked to imagine she was, she would have been able to pay a crossing sweeper to clear a path for her, as she crossed the road at Piccadilly on her way to fetch Boris a pie. But, she was not rich, and despite the care she took, she had been forced to jump backwards, in order to avoid an oncoming carriage, and her boot had sunk deep into a pile of fresh, steaming dung.
Still, she reminded herself as she hurried back inside lest she be accused of dawdling, soon she would be leaving London, Boris and horse droppings behind forever.
And it was all thanks to Mr Hobbs, to whom she already owed so much.
At the age of twelve, having spent every day of her young life within its walls, the Asylum for Orphaned Girls had sent Ava out into the world to fend for herself. Like many of the other orphans, she had been indentured into a serving position with one of the Asylum's donors. Unlike the other orphans, Ava had been lucky enough to be sent to the home of Albert Percival Hobbs.
"My man, Percy, wanted a boy," was the first thing that Mr Hobbs had said to Ava, when she had arrived at his home, shaking with nerves.
"I did, I wanted a boy," a maudlin voice called from behind Mr Hobbs.
Ava had been struck dumb with fear at their words; were they going to send her away? If they did, she would have nowhere to go, for the Asylum would not take her back.
"If you wanted a boy, you should not have tried to find one in an orphanage for girls," Ava replied hotly, once she had found her voice. "You cannot blame me for your own foolishness."
No sooner were the words out of her mouth,than she had wanted to take them back. The white haired man standing before her had raised an eyebrow and, for a moment, Ava had braced herself for a belt from the back of his hand.
It did not come, instead, Mr Hobbs had chuckled deeply and turned to Percy with a smile.
"It seems our kitten has claws, Percy."
"I did not want a kitten either," the elderly servant had replied, with a sigh as long as a winter's night. "I wanted a boy. A lad to do the heavy, dirty work that I cannot. Still, she might do, she looks strong enough."
Which was, of course, a lie. Ava had left the Asylum half-starved as any London street-Arab; on her first day with Mr Hobbs, a strong breeze might have knocked her over if it had been that way inclined. Luckily Percy, who had never had much dealings with children, served her dinner portions as large as the ones he dished up for himself and Mr Hobbs, and within a month Ava had lost the haggard look from her face.
Ava's daily tasks in Mr Hobbs' had involved far less than what had been expected of her in the Asylum. In the mornings, she lit fires, filled coal scuttles, swept, mopped and washed any linens that required it. Her work in Mr Hobbs' living quarters was usually finished by lunchtime, and after she had eaten she would then make her way downstairs to the library.
Ava adored the Circulating Library, which
consisted of one large room filled with shelves of books, and off that, an elegantly appointed reading room, where patrons retired to read, chat or peruse the days' papers.
Mr Hobbs' presided over the counter, offering advice and recommendations to customers, whilst Philip—his assistant—fetched the books which were requested. The clientele of the library were a mixed bunch of gentry, artists, and intellectuals. Mr Hobbs' clients were attracted by the proprietors' reputation as an intellect and the vast and diverse range of his book collection.
Ava was responsible for dusting the shelves, sweeping and mopping the floor and ensuring that the reading room was spotlessly clean and cosy. Once Mr Hobbs closed the door at seven o'clock each evening, she would wash the panes of glass in the shop front's bow window, and help Mr Hobbs to clean his small office to the rear of the shop.
"Take it," he had offered one evening, as he had caught Ava gazing fondly at leather-bound volume discarded upon his desk.
"Oh, I cannot," she had hastily protested, flushing bright red at his words.
"I insist," Mr Hobbs had replied, smiling kindly at her over his half-moon spectacles and pushing the book toward her.
"But," Ava had stammered, "I cannot—I cannot--I cannot read."
"Cannot read?"
It had been the first and last time that Ava had witnessed Mr Hobbs in a temper. He had stood and begun to pace his office in agitation, before pausing and addressing her curtly.
"Why am I paying the Asylum ten pounds a year, if you cannot read?"
"I don't know, Mr Hobbs," Ava had replied truthfully; for she had never seen anything in the way Asylum had treated its orphans, which a donor might consider value for money.
"We must remedy this at once," Mr Hobbs had said, more to himself than to Ava. "Letters first and then we shall start with the classics."
"The classics?" Ava questioned curiously.
"Yes," her employer gave her a kind smile. "To begin your education, we will start with the Greeks and the Romans, for that is where it all began."
The Duke's Bride in Disguise (Fairfax Twins Book 1) Page 1
