From Wallflower to Countess. Janice Preston
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‘Well, Mama? Will you arrange a marriage for me?’
Lady Katherine sighed. ‘How I can have given birth to an unromantic soul like you, my darling, I have no idea. Even your dear Papa, God rest his soul, was more romantic, and that is not saying a great deal.’
Felicity pondered this observation of her late father’s character. She had watched her parents’ marriage: her mother, hopelessly besotted; her father, benignly indulgent of his wife—as long as she did not interfere with his pleasures. Her mother had been deeply hurt by her father’s careless neglect and by his affaires. And now, as for her mother’s new husband... Felicity clamped down her stewing resentment. It seemed it was the way of aristocratic gentlemen—to pursue their own pleasures, including other women, without regard for the pain it caused.
‘Now, who is there?’ Lady Katherine tapped one finger against her perfect Cupid’s bow. ‘There’s young Avon. You’ve always been close, and he is heir to the duke.’
‘No! I beg your pardon, Mama, but I should prefer an older man. Not only is Dominic younger than me, he is like a brother. I could never marry him, even if he were ready to settle down, which he is not. No, I do not want young, or handsome, or popular. I want ordinary.’
I cannot marry a man I might fall in love with. I will not risk that.
She could not delude herself that her husband would love her. If neither Mama nor Emma, with all their beauty, could engender such feelings in the men they had loved, what chance did Felicity have?
Felicity watched as her mother visibly swallowed her disappointment. ‘Well, it all sounds most unsatisfactory. However, I am sure you know your own mind, Felicity. You always have been an odd girl. Not like my poor, dear Emma...’ The all-too-ready tears brimmed over, spilling down Lady Katherine’s smooth cheeks. She heaved a sigh, raising a hand to her chest as it swelled. ‘Very well, Felicity. I shall consult with the duke. He will surely know of someone. I shall write to him immediately.’
The Duke of Cheriton—Cousin Leo—was Felicity’s joint guardian, together with her mother, until such time as she married or reached the age of thirty, whichever came sooner.
Felicity must hope he would find some pleasant, unremarkable gentleman with whom she might be content.
‘Stan. Good to see you.’
Leo Beauchamp, Duke of Cheriton, clasped the hand of Richard Durant, Earl of Stanton, in a firm grip as they met in the elegant hall at Fernley Park in the County of Hampshire, Richard’s family seat.
‘Your Grace,’ Richard said, grinning, fully aware Leo hated his friends to stand on ceremony. ‘Have you come up from Cheriton today?’
‘No. Bath, as a matter of fact.’
Richard raised his brows. ‘Bath? I had not thought you were in your dotage quite yet, old chap.’
Leo cuffed Richard playfully on the ear. ‘Enough of your cheek, pup,’ he said, although he was only seven years older. ‘I was not there to partake of the waters.’
‘Care to enlighten me as to why you went there?’
‘I was summoned by my cousin Baverstock’s widow on family business.’
Richard knit his brow. ‘Baverstock? Oh, yes...quite the beauty, his widow, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yes, she was...is... She remarried in April. Farlowe.’
Richard whistled. ‘Went to welcome him into the family, did you?’
Leo snorted. ‘Hardly. I tried to warn her off, but she was as determined to have him as he was to secure her. Her income alone will be enough to allow him to live like a nabob.’
‘Fortunate fellow, falling on his feet like that. I could wish Charles such luck. Mayhap a wealthy widow would remove him from my back.’
Charles Durant, a distant cousin, was Richard’s heir, and regularly applied to Richard to settle his debts. Richard thrust aside his momentary qualm at the thought of Charles ever inheriting the title and the estates. He was fit and healthy and had every intention of living a long time.
A footman opened the salon door as they approached and they dropped the subject as they joined Richard’s other guests—gathered for the first evening of a shooting party. It was an all-male event, as Richard’s mother was away from home, visiting an old friend.
The messenger arrived as dusk fell on the second day of the shoot. The weather had remained fine, the birds were plentiful, and beaters and shooters alike were happily exhausted after a successful day. The news of the death of Lord Craven—an old school friend of Richard’s—in a fall whilst out hunting shook them all but, for Richard, it was particularly painful, resurrecting the dark, agonising time when his older brother, Adam, had been killed in a shooting accident sixteen years before. Richard had been away at school at the time and, poignantly, it had been Craven who had comforted him when he heard the news.
He had returned home to find his parents changed beyond recognition: his father almost mad with grief, scarcely eating or sleeping, and his mother bitter and withdrawn. His parents had barely communicated with each other or with him. Richard had inherited the earldom at the tender age of seventeen, after his father had followed Adam into the grave and, since then, it seemed to Richard that his mother’s only interest in him was as a means to secure the succession of the title.
Many an argument had raged over his refusal to contemplate marriage to protect the title and estates, but he had held fast. He was one of the most accomplished sportsmen in the ton. He led a full and active life and was universally admired and feted for his prowess on a horse, his precision with the ribbons, his expertise with an épée, his shooting skills, and even his invincibility in the ring. He was in no hurry to don leg shackles. The only obstacle to his contentment was his mother’s persistent harassment about the risks he took, and her refusal to retire to the dower house until there was a new mistress to run Fernley Park.
But now...Craven’s death made Richard question his stand. If he did nothing, might his mother’s great fear of Charles laying waste to the estates be realized?
The atmosphere after dinner that evening was sombre. Most of his guests settled down to play cards after dinner, but Richard declined to join them, in no mood to play the convivial host. He wandered into the library, where he found Leo, alone, pushing chess pieces around a board in a desultory manner.
‘Care for a game?’
Richard shrugged, and pulled up a chair. Preoccupied and uneasy, he found it nigh on impossible to concentrate on the game, his thoughts dominated by his mother’s diatribes about sporting activities and premature death.
He moved his bishop and cursed under his breath as Leo swooped with his knight to seize the piece. He looked up to meet Leo’s quizzical gaze.
‘Things on your mind, Stan?’
‘Craven; hard to believe, isn’t it?’
‘Sad business. It must bring back unpleasant memories for you.’
‘It does.’
Leo had been a close friend of Adam’s and a frequent visitor to Fernley Park during his youth. He had supported Richard through those lonely years after his father’s death, having experienced for himself the pressures of inheriting such power and wealth at an early age. They had been friends ever since.
Richard reached for a bishop, hesitated, then withdrew his hand. Moving it would expose his queen.