A Scandalous Match for the Marquess
Author
Christine Merrill
Reads
15.5K
Chapters
22
Scandal and spice and all things nice…in this atmospheric Regency romance. From one scandal straight into the arms of another! Felicity Morgan has written a lurid gothic novel and all of London is clamoring for the sequel! But her mortified family have sent her to the countryside in disgrace! Felicity is relieved to be free of her parents' relentless matchmaking — until she learns her host has a marquess in mind for her… Reclusive widower Martin Howell, Marquess of Woodley, has no interest in entertaining rebellious Felicity, but she is bringing lightness to his gloomy estate…and his brooding heart. They bond over their determination to remain unwed…until a kiss brings them to the brink of another scandal!
Chapter One
Felicity Morgan had never planned to be a disgrace.
When she’d had her come-out, five years ago, her mother had warned of the weakening effect that champagne and moonlight might have on a girl’s resolve, and she took them both in moderation. Likewise, she did not put too much stock in the compliments of gentleman, and none at all in the suggestions of rakes.
In many ways Felicity was a very sensible girl. But in others she kept her head firmly in the clouds.
When men spoke to her, they often came away thinking that she had no interest in hearing what they had to say. It was not scepticism or boredom. Just a lack of interest, as if she was listening to another conversation more fascinating than anything they could offer. She seemed just as happy to be sitting alone at the side of the room as she was when someone paid court to her and was unwilling or unable to share her attention with any one gentleman long enough to earn a proposal from him.
There was nothing wrong with her looks. She had fine eyes, a sweet smile and an enviable figure. Nor was her dress out of step with the current fashion. Her parents provided a generous allowance to outfit her in new designs, year after year.
But the Seasons had passed without a proposal of any kind. Her father was losing patience and her own mother hinted that a bit of scandal might do her some good. If she unbent a trifle and allowed some small lapses in judgement it might give the fellows encouragement.
It was clear that if something did not change she was headed for genteel spinsterhood. In her opinion that was no bad thing. It was not that she didn’t like men. As a group, she found them fascinating, mysterious, and alien in their thoughts and actions. She wanted to study them from a safe distance.
But after watching her parents together Felicity had come to believe that marriage was no guarantee of happiness. Her father was a demanding man with a short temper. With her attempts to placate him her mother seemed to grow smaller and quieter and more miserable with each passing year.
But many unmarried ladies of her acquaintance seemed quite content with their lot. They had friends and interests and were, overall, happier than their married sisters. There was no reason to think that she would not be the same if everyone would give up on the idea of her marrying and leave her alone with her thoughts.
For she did have thoughts. Plans, as well. With the implementation of them her future would be sorted and a successful and happy life alone all but guaranteed. If she could have kept her intentions a secret from her parents for just a few more months she’d have earned enough to set up housekeeping on her own and could have lived quite comfortably for the rest of her life.
But it was not to be. Her parents had discovered her secret and declared it so scandalous, so horrifying, so far out of bounds as to render her a public embarrassment. Her mother had wept, and her father had confiscated the money she’d saved for the future. Then he had announced that she was banished from his house. She was not to set foot in London until she came to her senses, or until a suitable man could be found to marry her and mould her into the docile and obedient woman society expected her to be.
The second prospect was highly unlikely. They had already established that no one in town wanted her. Now they were sending her to Shropshire to stay with a friend of her grandmother, the widowed sister of a duke. Felicity doubted that husbands lay thick on the ground in the village of Vicar’s Hill, even if her infamy had not carried that far.
Of course, the chances were even worse that she would come to her senses.
She smiled at the thought. Her father might disagree, but there was nothing nonsensical about her aspirations. Once she was out of sight of her parents she would carry on as she had been doing. If her chaperon, Lady Ophelia Winterbottom, could be persuaded to give her a trifle more freedom than she’d had in London she might continue to do just as she wished. If not then she would simply have to find a way around the old woman. But in the end she would have her way.
The long and bumpy ride on the mail coach from London, which her father had said would curb her stubbornness, had only strengthened her resolve. If she ever meant to get out from under the collective thumb of her family she would not allow herself to be contained or curtailed or transformed from a downtrodden girl into a resigned woman. She would break free.
She would view this trip as an adventure and a chance to reinvent herself as the independent spirit she wanted to be. Travel was supposed to broaden the mind. A trip to a remote English village was not the same as floating down a canal in Venice. But it was better than nothing.
And it would all begin in a few miles, when she reached her destination.
She stared out through the coach window and ahead, eyes firmly fixed on the horizon and the bright future that she was sure lay beyond it.
Without warning, the carriage stopped. And when she looked at where she actually was her hopes fell. The countryside where they were sitting did not look like a bright future. It looked identical to the last dozen empty miles. There was no quaint town full of cheerful people to welcome her. There was nothing at all.
‘Vicar’s Hill,’ the driver called over the jingling of harnesses and the stamping of horses impatient to get on their way.
‘Are you sure?’ she said doubtfully, staring out of the window at the empty road around them and off towards a horizon that held nothing but trees. ‘I do not see a village.’
‘Vicar’s Hill corner,’ the driver corrected, taking her bags down from the top of the coach and dropping them at the side of the road. ‘That is as close as we come.’
Then he dropped a small mail bag next to the stone mile marker and stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to exit the coach and join her luggage.
‘There is supposed to be someone to meet me,’ she said, refusing to budge. ‘They are not here yet.’
‘That is none of my concern,’ he said, opening the door and gesturing to the muddy road.
She had expected a carriage, or a wagon, driven by a ruddy-cheeked servant of kindly old Ophelia to greet her and help her to the house. But, as it so often did, her imagination did not correspond with the facts.
‘What am I to do?’ she asked, staring off into the distance and then back to the coachman.
‘Wait,’ he suggested. ‘Or walk. Your choice, miss.’
She got down from the carriage, her travelling boots squelching as she stepped onto the wet earth of the road. ‘Is there a house?’ she asked. ‘A village? A farm of some kind where I can ask for assistance?’
There had to be a sign of civilisation somewhere near, else he wouldn’t have stopped.
He shrugged and gestured up the road. ‘Whatever there is lies that way.’
She glanced at her baggage, which sat in a pile beside the road, looking as forlorn as she felt.
Without waiting for an answer he took his seat again, reaching for the reins to signal the horses.
‘You can’t just leave me here,’ she said, staring up at him.
‘I am sorry, miss,’ he said as the horses started off. ‘I’ve a schedule to keep. Someone will come along in time to get the mail, I’m sure. They’ll take care of you as well.’
And then he was rolling away, the wheels of the coach splattering her with mud as he left her behind.
She stared up the road until the horses and carriage disappeared around a bend. Then she looked around her at the T-shaped junction she’d been abandoned on, and the sack of mail that ranked ahead of her in importance to the villagers. How long would it be before someone came for it? And what was she to do in the meantime?
There was no point in going back, for she’d been there already, and no point in going forward, for the driver would have let her out farther down the road if that was her direction.
The only choice was the road to the left, which must be the way to the village. She sat on her trunks and waited for nearly half an hour, hoping that the problem would solve itself. Then she gave up and set off walking, leaving all but a small valise behind to be collected by the servants once she had made someone aware of her presence.
After a mile, her skirts and shoes were heavy with mud, and she seemed no closer to her destination than she had been. There was no change in the scenery. The countryside rolled out on either side of her as far as she could see. She was tired and thirsty and regretting the one case she had chosen to carry, which seemed to grow heavier with each step.
It was bad enough that she had been banished from London and exiled to this distant spot, expected to repent of her misdeeds. The least Lady Ophelia could have done was to send someone for her. She had not expected to be treated as if she did not matter at all.
She stopped and sat on her bag to rest and contemplated tears. She had not cried thus far, even when Father had shouted at her. Crying would not have made him relent, nor would he have believed her tears a sign of repentance.
They would not do her any good now, either. They would leave her more parched than she already was, and they really did not fit her current mood. She was not so much sad as she was annoyed by this latest turn of events.
What she had wanted to do, from the very start, was to scream at the injustice of it all. If she had been a man, or even a boy, the strictures of society would not have been as rigid and no one would have thought twice about what she had done. Some might have even considered it an achievement.
But because she was a girl her parents had thought it scandalous and sent her away. And now here she was, alone. She got up, ready to stomp off towards the village in disgust, only to find that her feet were sunk deep in a muddy rut. As she pulled them free she lost first one shoe and then the other, leaving her stocking-footed in the puddle.
It was all too much—the final straw to break the back of her burdened patience. She opened her mouth, took in a great breath, and screamed out her rage and frustration into the empty countryside.
From a group of trees to her right there came a whirring of wings as a flock of birds took to the sky in alarm, followed by the solidly masculine sound of cursing. Then, as if from nowhere, a huge man loomed up out of the thicket and lurched towards her. By the scowl on his face, the set of his broad shoulders and the way he stomped as he walked, she could tell he was angry.
She sat down on her bag again, hurrying to empty her shoes of water and get them back on her feet in case she needed to run, keeping one eye on the man as he approached. He was dressed in worn leather breeches and the sort of loose, many-pocketed coat worn by gamekeepers or poachers. The straw hat he was wearing was missing a piece of its brim, as if a horse or some other large animal had taken a bite from it.
She had probably interrupted some nefarious behaviour with her scream. What other reason would this ruffian have to be alone in the middle of nowhere? And now he was enraged and coming to punish her in ways that she could hardly imagine.
But that did not stop her from trying, for she had an incredibly good imagination. She could already feel those large hands clasping her shoulders, shaking her into submission...
He would want her to submit to something, she was sure. Despite his rough clothing, he was a handsome brute in the rough way of literary villains, whose vices never seemed to show in their faces. Dark hair curled from beneath the unfortunate hat and equally dark eyes blazed from underneath his knitted brows. His sharp cheekbones were covered with a day’s stubble that would make any forced kisses feel rough against a lady’s soft skin. She shivered at the thought.
And now he was towering over her, hands on hips, as if waiting for an explanation.
‘Hello,’ she said cautiously, regretting her earlier outburst.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he said, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the sun to get a better look at her.
‘I am looking for the dower house at Woodley Hall,’ she said, clambering over the valise to keep it between them. ‘I came on the mail coach. Someone was supposed to meet me, but they did not arrive.’
‘You couldn’t have,’ he said firmly, denying the obvious. ‘There is no coach on Tuesday.’
‘It is Wednesday,’ she said, equally firmly.
He counted on his fingers, muttering under his breath. ‘Sunday mutton, Monday chicken, last night beef, which made it Tuesday.’ He looked up at her, surprised. ‘You are right. It is Wednesday. But you had no reason to scream about it and scare the birds.’
‘I had every reason in the world,’ she said. ‘I do not give a fig for what the birds think—unless they can fly me out of this mud hole and back to London. Or perhaps they can get my luggage—which is still sitting at the junction with the mail...’
Her words faded away as she looked at him again, standing tall and threatening beside her. She should not have admitted where she’d come from, nor that she had left her baggage unguarded. If he was a poacher, as she suspected, he might now be thinking of rifling through her things for valuables.
But he made no move to do so. He was still staring at her and still annoyed. She took another step away.
‘You still should not have screamed,’ he said in a brusque tone. ‘I was worried that someone was in true danger, not just being foolish.’
‘I am not being foolish,’ she insisted, though she did feel so now that he mentioned it. ‘I was overcome with frustration. It has been a long and trying week.’ Then she smiled hopefully. ‘But if you could send to the house for someone to collect me and my things...?’
He was still frowning.
‘Or perhaps you could simply tell me how much farther I must walk,’ she said, giving up. ‘And then I’ll just be on my way, shall I? I won’t bother you any further.’
Seconds ticked by and he stared at her in silence, probably wondering where to dispose of her body after he’d made an end of her. But then, just as she was preparing to run, she heard the sound of wagon wheels and the jingle of harnesses growing closer. A cart appeared around the next curve in the road.
‘Miss Morgan!’ the wagon driver called, speeding up as he saw her answering wave.
‘Here!’ she called, and stumbled up the road to meet him. When she arrived at the wagon’s side she looked back at the stranger on the road. ‘No need to bother. Someone has come to get me, after all.’
‘If you are all right, then...’ he said, as if he had meant to help her all along. Then he glanced back towards the trees he had come from.
‘Quite all right, thank you,’ she replied, relieved that they were no longer alone together.
‘I’ll just be going back to my hide,’ he replied, backing away from her.
‘Be my guest,’ she said, giving him a wary look as he disappeared back into the brush.
Before the servant could get down to help her she had climbed up into the safety of the wagon. As he apologised for the delay and prepared to collect her luggage, she stared at the retreating back of the mysterious man from the woods, wondering if she would see him again. Perhaps when she got to the dower house she could enquire about him and his odd behaviour. For, really, what else was there to do in the country but speculate about the neighbours?
If there was no story to be told then she would simply have to write her own.
She smiled as the driver set off towards the dower house, content that the fantasy version of her encounter would be even more interesting than the truth.
He had forgotten the day. Again.
Martin Howell sat in the little shed he’d erected, staring out through the slitted windows towards the road and the retreating wagon. It was Wednesday, and Aunt Ophelia had asked him to be at the crossroads an hour ago to greet Miss Morgan from London and escort her to the dower house. It was a simple request—the sort any idiot could have managed. And yet he had bungled it.
He had only meant to spend a little of his morning in the wild, gathering his thoughts. But, as it often did, time had got away from him. All of a sudden it had been half past two in the afternoon and he had not given a thought to the fact that the mail coach arrived at two, and he was on foot and in no condition to receive guests.
If she hadn’t screamed he’d not have noticed her at all and she’d have been left to walk all the way to the house. But the bullfinch nest he had been observing had shown its first signs of activity and he’d been distracted. The female had left it for little more than an hour, and through his spyglass he had been able to see four tiny heads, beaks tipped to the sky, waiting for the mother’s return.
He took another look now, and closed his eyes briefly to fix the image in his mind. Then he set the spyglass aside, took up a sketchbook and drew what he had seen with hurried strokes of his pencil. It was lucky that he had an excellent memory for such things. Drawing live birds was difficult, as they tended to hop around and take wing at the slightest disturbance.
Other naturalists resorted to snares and taxidermy if they wished to draw their subjects. But he did not see the point of killing a thing to study it better. He’d seen far too much of death to surround himself with it now.
Without meaning to, he increased his pressure on the pencil and the lead cracked, spoiling the line. He reached for a penknife to sharpen it again.
Really, it was lucky that the birds had come back at all after Miss Morgan’s tantrum on the road. But none of that would have happened if he had been where he should have been at the appointed time.
His servants had remembered, even if he had not. Mrs Spang, the housekeeper, had probably sent the wagon to find her, hoping that the coach was late. Peters, the footman driving it, would have guessed his dilemma and taken the blame for his error. The staff knew his faults too well, and looked out for him when he got preoccupied and forgot things.
Aunt Ophelia would hear of his absence and make apologies for him as well. She had to do that far too often. He must get hold of himself...
He gathered up the spyglass and sketchbook and put them in the rucksack he’d brought, along with the remains of his lunch. Then he set off towards the main house to try to make amends for his carelessness. It was disconcerting, this feeling of being untethered from time, having to distinguish its passing by remembering the evening meals, which did not vary from week to week.
That was another thing which he supposed should worry him. It probably bored the cook, preparing the same seven meals over and over again. But not as much as approving any change bothered him. When the staff had first come to him with the task he had taken one look at the final menu penned by his dear Emma, which had still been sitting on the morning room desk, and had lacked the heart to replace it. Three years later it remained there, a perpetual reminder that the house no longer had a mistress.
If he could not manage his own life, what was he supposed to do with Miss Morgan? Technically, she was under Aunt Ophelia’s care, and not his. But he was the head of the family here, and Ophelia would expect him to put on a cravat and a proper coat and welcome her to the property at dinner tonight.
He hoped he would not be expected to entertain her further. He had not heard what she had done to get herself sent down from London, but after seeing her he had his suspicions. She was a comely thing, with tendrils of shiny dark hair escaping from under her bonnet. She had large, dark eyes, and a very kissable mouth. A face like that could be a man’s undoing...
If she was here and not on her way to the altar, the man had not been the one to come undone. He hoped Ophelia was up to the task of keeping the girl in line until a proper husband could be found for her. Or until the results of her indiscretion could be delivered and handed over to some farmer or villager to be raised quietly.
Such discreet births happened often enough, he was sure. Just never on his property. The fact that one of his tenants might be forced to raise her mistake was annoying. There had been nothing repentant about her when he had met her just now. She’d treated him as though she were his better, not someone in disgrace and dependent on his charity to minimise her shame.
But it was rather judgmental of him to ascribe all the blame to her. More than enough of it lay with the sort of men who sowed wild oats with abandon, taking advantage of proper young ladies who were often raised ignorant of where a dalliance might lead and of how hard it was to resist, once passions were inflamed.
His own wife, God rest her soul, had proved to him that women had urges, much the same as men had. Was it really justice to punish this girl for succumbing to her desires, when the man leading her to temptation had got off scot-free?
It was even possible that she had been promised marriage, only to be abandoned when her pursuer had got what he wanted from her. If this was the truth he felt more sympathy, for he knew what it was to be young and in love and to be bitterly disappointed when life did not turn out as planned.
He had arrived at the hall now, and put the thought to the back of his mind as he kicked the dirt from his boots. Then he walked in through the front door, hazarding a glance in the long mirror of the main hall and wincing at his own appearance.
He looked like a bumpkin. No wonder Miss Morgan had treated him as she had. She had probably assumed he was some sort of vagrant, living rough on the estate.
And he had done nothing to dissuade such thoughts, arguing the days of the week with her and forgetting to make a proper introduction. He had been spending so much time alone with his own thoughts that he was incapable of holding a civil conversation.
He rubbed his unshaven cheek. Standards had grown slack in the three years since he had left the city, but his current state of dishevelment was unsatisfactory, even for him. He would likely be expected at Ophelia’s for supper, where he must apologise for his earlier behaviour. It was too much to hope that Miss Morgan would not recognise him as the man she had met on the road. But after a bath and a shave she might at least think that rough fellow had been an aberration and not his true self.
With that plan in place, he started up the stairs to his rooms, ready to make amends.
