The Marquess and the Runaway Lady Read online

  Wick stopped dancing, a sort of primal anger running through his veins. What sort of woman would cheat her own niece out of her fortune? And treat her like less than a servant in the meantime?

  “Believe me, Lady Louisa,” he said, breathing hard as he pulled her closer to him. Until their bodies met fully together. His hardness to her softness. Their curves perfectly matching the other’s dips. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and you will be surrounded in London by suitors—and not just because of your fortune and title.”

  Lady Louisa’s eyes were still focused on the folds of his cravat. “Will you be one of them?”

  “You won’t need me,” he assured her, stepping back. Touching her was too tempting. “There are plenty of other eligible young men who will appreciate your charms. But first, we must take you to your uncle. There will be less gossip if you are staying with a family member, and he should know who your trustees are and how to reach them. Surely, they cannot be aware how you are being treated by your aunt. No man or woman of conscience would have allowed it.”

  “Will...will you help me?”

  He knew better than to give rash promises, but her countenance was so open and trusting that he couldn’t help himself. “I will.”

  Author Note

  I am delighted to introduce you to the Marquess of Cheswick and the Stringham family. They are quite the most delightful and quirky bunch of characters that I have ever penned. They live in Hampford Castle and have an animal menagerie. The story is set in 1810 before there were formal zoos in England.

  The menagerie was inspired by the animals kept at Chiswick House by the sixth Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish (1790–1858). It is believed from archive receipts that his menagerie included an elephant, a giraffe (called a “camel leopard”), cockatoos, gold and silver pheasants, a monkey, a llama, elks, emus, kangaroos, ostriches, a Neapolitan pig, goats, an Indian bull and his spouse, a coatimundi and a blood-sucking ichneumon.

  The Marchioness of Hastings asked the Duke of Devonshire what animal he would like her to send from India. Cavendish reportedly quipped, “Nothing smaller than an elephant.” And she did. On May 17, 1828, Sir Walter Scott wrote in his diary that “the scene was dignified by the presence of an immense elephant, who under the charge of a groom wandered up and down, giving an air of Asiatic pageantry to the entertainment.” Sadi the elephant also performed a number of parlor tricks according to The London Saturday Journal (November 1839): taking her cape off a peg and putting it on, kneeling down and giving rides, and cleaning her own house with a broom or scrubbing brush.

  The animals in the menagerie are tame compared to the Stringham sisters!

  SAMANTHA HASTINGS

  The Marquess and the Runaway Lady

  Samantha Hastings met her husband in a turkey sandwich line. They live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she spends most of her time reading, having tea parties and chasing her kids. She has degrees from Brigham Young University, University of North Texas and University of Reading (UK). She’s the author of The Last Word, The Invention of Sophie Carter, A Royal Christmas Quandary, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, Jane Austen Trivia, The Duchess Contract, Secret of the Sonnets and A Novel Disguise. She also writes cozy murder mysteries under Samantha Larsen.

  Learn more at her website: SamanthaHastings.com

  Connect with Samantha on social media:

  Twitter: @HastingSamantha

  Instagram: @SamanthaHastingsAuthor

  Facebook: SamanthaHastingsAuthor

  The Marquess and the Runaway Lady

  is Samantha Hastings’s debut title

  for Harlequin Historical.

  Look out for more books from Samantha Hastings coming soon.

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com.

  To Violet

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I want to thank my family for all of their support: Jon, Andrew, Alivia, Isaac and Violet. I am so blessed to have parents who tell everyone they meet about my books. I am grateful for my sisters, Michelle Martin and Stacy Moon. They are always my first readers and loudest cheerleaders. I owe a huge thanks to my agent, Jen Nadol. She tirelessly champions both me and my work. And finally, to the incredible publishing staff who created this beautiful final product. I was lucky enough not to have one but two editors! Thank you so much, Bryony Green and Soraya Bouazzaoui, for helping me make my book the best it can be.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from His Maddening Matchmaker by Virginia Heath

  Chapter One

  England, 1810

  Louisa didn’t expect gifts on her twenty-first birthday. Her aunt and uncle had never given her a present in the ten and a half years she had been their ward. If she ever complained about her threadbare dresses, or the lack of fire in her room, Aunt Rockingham would explain that it was all her fault.

  Lady Louisa Bracken was the only child of the Fourth and deceased Earl of Rockingham. His younger brother, Alfred, had become the Fifth Earl of Rockingham and had brought with him his wife and four sons. She had been left in their care, and her mother’s fortune, which Louisa was to inherit, had been entrusted to three trustees. A yearly stipend was paid to her uncle for Louisa’s upkeep.

  Aunt Rockingham protested that this allowance barely kept her niece in gloves, and would rage for days at a time at Louisa’s selfish father, who hadn’t trusted his only brother to care for the financial interests of his niece. Strangely enough, Aunt Rockingham herself dressed in the finest of silks and muslins. And had a pair of gloves dyed to match every gown. She also never missed a London season, claiming that she must be there for Uncle Rockingham to take his seat in Parliament.

  Every time Louisa begged to go her aunt claimed that there simply wasn’t enough money for such an expensive endeavour.

  Pulling on her stocking, Louisa felt her big toe go straight through. With a humourless laugh, she thought that she had to be the poorest heiress in all of England. She didn’t even have a maid to help her dress. And the maids had finer clothing than she did. Louisa had never once seen a darn in a servant’s stocking, or a tear in their clothing.

  She took out the needle that she always kept stuck in the hem of her skirt and deftly repaired the new hole in her stocking.

  It was all going to change today. Louisa was finally one-and-tw
enty years of age and she could now take possession of her fortune. Buttoning up her gown, she determined she would no longer be under her aunt’s thumb. With her inheritance she would go to London, be presented to the Queen—as her mother had been—and find a suitable match of her own.

  She wouldn’t even miss her home, Greystone Hall. She had loved it as a child, but in the last few years it had begun to feel like a prison. Her aunt would only let her attend church, never the local assemblies. Not that it mattered... Louisa didn’t know how to dance. Her aunt had insisted that she could not afford to employ a governess for Louisa, let alone a dancing master. She’d dismissed Louisa’s former governess the day after her father’s funeral.

  Pulling on boots that were too small and pinched, Louisa sighed. What sort of match would she make when she didn’t even know how to behave like a young lady?

  Louisa found her aunt in the newly refurbished blue drawing room, writing letters at her desk. Her aunt was a formidable woman of middling years. She had a distinguished face with a black mole on the side of her cheek. Today, she was wearing a lovely day gown of jaconet, with a necklace of three strands of pearls. Her cap did not fully hide her greying black hair.

  How long Louisa had wished to please this woman! To change her behaviour and earn her aunt’s elusive approval. But it didn’t matter how agreeable, effacing or obedient she was, Aunt Rockingham did not love her. Nor even like her. There must be something wrong with her, thought Louisa, that not even her closest relatives could abide her.

  ‘Hello, Aunt,’ Louisa began, feeling the blood rushing to her face. ‘I was hoping to talk to you today.’

  Her aunt’s countenance tightened into an expression of annoyance. ‘I am very busy writing letters at this moment. Perhaps I will be able to find time for you later this morning.’

  ‘Today I am of age,’ Louisa continued, clutching the sides of her gown with both hands to steel her courage. ‘Now that I am possessed of my inheritance I wish to go to London. Immediately.’

  Her aunt snorted, shaking her head. ‘Oh, you silly girl. You couldn’t possibly go to London without me. Poor Barnabas has lost a fortune, due to unscrupulous card sharps, so there’s no money for you to go. Besides, a young lady of birth must have a chaperone to attend parties, and I find that I am much too weary this year to take you. You will simply have to wait until next year. Or perhaps the year after.’

  Louisa’s shoulders drooped, but she was not going to give up yet. ‘I am sure one of my trustees has a wife who could be my chaperone and present me to the Queen.’

  ‘But they are not your guardians.’

  ‘I am one-and-twenty, ma’am. I do not need a guardian any longer.’

  Aunt Rockingham set down her pen. Her mouth pinched into a fine line. ‘I agree that you are quite old enough to make your own choices. But your late father’s will does not allow you to touch your inheritance until you are five-and-twenty years old or married to someone with your guardian’s approval.’

  Four more years?

  Louisa’s stomach dropped in dismay. She could have lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum like a small child—kicking and screaming. She could not endure being locked up in her own home for four more years, with an aunt who didn’t like her and an uncle who ignored her very existence.

  ‘But I am already old to be a debutante. Most young ladies are presented at court when they are seventeen. I fear I am losing all my chances.’

  ‘I hadn’t wanted to mention this to you,’ her aunt said, frowning. ‘But you are an ill-favoured, extremely freckled young woman. It would be highly unlikely, even if I did take you to London, for you to find a suitable husband. It would be a waste of time and money.’

  Touching her hot cheeks, Louisa felt her heart drop as she wondered if her aunt’s words could be true. Her hair was like the red of leaves in autumn. Her eyes the same green as moss. But her face and arms were covered in freckles. Tiny reddish-brown blemishes.

  Glancing down, she knew that she was tall and skinny. At least compared to her aunt. What if she was ugly? Was her unprepossessing appearance the reason why her aunt could never feel affection for her?

  Louisa gulped, trying to hold in the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. ‘Then I am to stay home for another four years?’

  ‘Let me be frank with you, Louisa,’ her aunt said, giving her niece a withering stare. ‘I had hoped that Barnabas could be brought up to scratch before now. But he insists that he is too young to marry yet, and there are his debts that must be repaid. So you’ll have to wait another year or two. Then you will be married. After the ceremony you will be presented to the Queen of England as Barnabas’s wife.’

  Barnabas was her eldest cousin and heir to the earldom. He was a stocky and sullen young man who was several inches shorter than her. Like his mother, he had a distinguished black mole on his face, but it was on his chin. His only notable accomplishments so far were being sent down from both Eton and Oxford. Barnabas ate too much. Drank too much. Gambled too much. If the maids were to be believed—and Louisa thought they were—he had a lascivious eye and wandering hands. He was five years her senior and the last man in the world she would ever want to marry. Her entire body shivered in revulsion from just thinking of it. She could not be his wife.

  Louisa shook her head slowly, her heart sinking further. ‘I don’t blame my cousin for not wishing to marry me. I don’t want to marry him either.’

  ‘Of course Barnabas wishes to marry you,’ her aunt said in a scolding tone. ‘He simply isn’t ready to do so yet.’

  ‘But Aunt—’

  ‘Louisa!’ she said, in a high shrill voice. ‘I am done with discussing the matter. You had best go and see if Mrs Barker has any mending for you to do. I can’t have you underneath my feet all day. You’ve already wasted half of my morning, and I have important correspondence to write.’

  Shoulders slumped, Louisa left the parlour and went to the kitchens to find the housekeeper. When she opened the door, she saw the entire staff were lined up They all began to wish her a happy birthday and the cook, Mrs Hatch, held out a small cake that was decorated with a delicate white swan on top.

  Louisa couldn’t help but smile as tears fell down her cheeks. Mrs Barker and the rest of the staff had not forgotten her birthday. They loved her even if she was ugly.

  ‘Thank you! Oh, thank you!’ Louisa said, accepting the cake from the cook. ‘I have never seen a more beautifully decorated cake. I am the luckiest young lady in the world! Come, we must all have a piece of it together.’

  ‘We can’t eat with you, my lady,’ the butler, Mr Meadows, insisted. ‘It wouldn’t be proper.’

  She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘Oh, please do join me. Or I shall have to eat this marvellous cake by myself, and that would be such a sad thing on my birthday.’

  Mrs Hatch had a merry red face and she cut the cake into perfectly even slices and gave Louisa the first one. Louisa took a bite and it was like tasting heaven—sweet, buttery and light. Her aunt rarely let her partake of anything sweet. She insisted that it was to preserve Louisa’s figure.

  She took another bite of cake, but this time it tasted like ash. She forced herself to swallow it and then played with her fork, unable to eat any more.

  ‘Am I truly ugly?’ she blurted out.

  Mrs Hatch dropped the knife she was holding and it clattered on the table top. ‘Why would ye ask such a thing, my lady?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Mrs Barker said, patting Louisa’s shoulder with her bony hand. She was an extremely slender elderly woman, with fine features and soft white hair. ‘You’re a beauty, just like your mother was.’

  Louisa could feel a blush coming on. Her red hair and light complexion were unfortunately prone to blushes.

  She glanced down at the slice of cake on her plate. ‘My aunt said that I was ill-favoured and would not be able to find a sui
table husband. She insists that I marry my cousin Barnabas. Only he doesn’t want to marry me yet...so I have to wait a few more years.’

  ‘Don’t marry that lecher, my lady!’ said Lily, a pretty blonde maid a year or two younger than Louisa. She squeezed Louisa’s wrist. ‘He ain’t worthy of you.’

  ‘The old witch just wants your fortune for her son,’ said Goodman. He was a bald, gruff elderly man who had been head groom under her father, but now was relegated to a lowlier position in the stables.

  Louisa clutched at her throat. It felt as hot as her face. She had no family who loved her or would help her.

  ‘I don’t want to marry Barnabas. He’s a dreadful person. Only, I don’t know what to do. Or who to ask for help. I don’t even know the names of my trustees. My mother’s only brother is a vicar in Somerset, but I’ve never been in contact with their family... And look at me. No one would believe I was a lady or an heiress.’

  ‘Right,’ said Mrs Barker, pointing a bony finger at her. ‘First things first. You’ll need a new dress. There’s a bit of material left from the curtains in the blue parlour.’

  ‘I can sew it. But I’ll need new boots,’ Louisa added. Her toes were starting to feel numb in her too-tight ones.

  ‘Mine have grown too small, if you don’t mind having second-hand,’ Lily offered. ‘Mrs Barker has already purchased a new pair for me.’

  Louisa patted the maid’s hand. ‘I would be most grateful.’

  Mrs Hatch touched the end of Louisa’s nose. ‘And I’ve trimmed a straw bonnet that would look very fetching on ye.’

  ‘Lady Rockingham has so many pairs of gloves she wouldn’t notice if one went astray,’ offered Miss Talley. She was her aunt’s lady’s maid, and a handsome middle-aged woman with a trim figure and lovely auburn hair.

  Goodman cleared his throat. ‘I could take the gig and drive you to your uncle’s vicarage in Somerset, my lady. I’m not allowed to drive the carriage any more... Me not being fancy enough for the Countess.’