The Honourable Earl

“Do you come often to Chelmsford?” he asked.

“Occasionally, when I need something I cannot buy in the village.”

“Which village?”

He was flirting with her. She ought not to be talking to him at all, but they were unlikely to meet again, so where was the harm? She stopped at the door of the library. “Here we are. Thank you for your escort, sir.”

He bowed, which was not easy considering he was holding an umbrella, and it made her laugh. “You should laugh all the time. It lights up your eyes.”

“Sir, you are too forward.”

He sighed. “It was ever thus with me. Shall we meet again?”

“That, sir, is in the hands of Providence.”

“Then I hope Providence will be kind to me.”

The Honourable Earl

Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARY NICHOLS,

born in Singapore, came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown children and four grand-children.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Prologue

1753

T he rambling old vicarage was eerily quiet, but then it was five o’clock in the morning and eight-year-old Lydia, watching by the window, saw the first flush of pink on the horizon above the marshes and knew it would soon be dawn. There was a thick mist above the ground and the trees in the coppice on her left appeared to be growing in the air and the rooftops in the village of Colston to her right seemed to be floating without walls to support them. Nearer the house the stables were solid enough and the ground beneath her window, though damp, was becoming more visible as the light strengthened.

Perhaps he would not go. Perhaps friendship had prevailed and nothing untoward would happen. Perhaps Freddie, her beloved brother, and his great friend, Lord Ralph Latimer, had made up their quarrel and there would be no duel. She could not imagine anything terrible enough to make the two young men hate each other. And yet, earlier that evening when she had found Freddie in the bookroom, cleaning their father’s pistols, and had asked him what he was doing, he had been grim and angry.

‘It is time you were in bed and asleep, Lydia,’ he had said. ‘I must do what I must do.’

‘But what must you do?’

‘Nothing. Go to bed. If Father catches you here, he will be angry.’

‘He will be angry if he sees you with those pistols. You know he never allows anyone to touch them.’

‘They will be back in their case before he misses them.’ He had paused to peer into her face. ‘Unless you tell him.’

‘Oh, no, Freddie, I would never do that. But why are you so angry?’

‘I am not angry. At least, I am not angry with you, but I shall be if you do not go upstairs this minute and forget you ever saw me.’

‘But guns are dangerous things, you might be killed.’

‘So if I am, honour will be satisfied.’

It was then she realised that he meant to fight a duel. Mistress Grey, her teacher and mentor, was a great reader of romantic fiction in which duels frequently featured and she often left her books lying about. Lydia had devoured them as she did all manner of reading matter, her curiosity about everything insatiable. Sometimes there were reports of duels in the newspapers which she had been forbidden to read. But forbidding Lydia to do something was tantamount to an invitation and she read them clandestinely after they had been sent to the kitchen to be used to light the fires.

‘But who has doubted your honour?’

‘Ralph,’ he had said morosely.

‘But he is your best friend. You have always done everything together—you are even together at Cambridge. How can you fight him?’

‘I have no choice. He has insulted me. And…’ He stopped, as if remembering his listener was only an eight-year-old. ‘Now go to bed and not a word to anyone or I’ll have your hide.’ And when she smiled at this empty threat, had added, ‘I mean it, Lydia. It is not a jest.’

She had crept to her room and undressed, slipping into bed beside the five-year-old Annabelle, but she could not sleep. She knew that Freddie was impulsive and headstrong, as she was herself, or so Mistress Grey told her often enough, but surely he would not put his life at risk or shoot Ralph? Ralph was the son of the Earl of Blackwater; there would be a terrible outcry if anything happened to him. She would not even begin to think of the possibility that it might be Freddie who came off worse. And duelling had been outlawed, hadn’t it? She must do something. But what? Freddie had forbidden her to tell their father and, in any case, she would do nothing that would get him into trouble. She could tell Susan or Margaret, her older sisters, but they would certainly go to their father with the tale, and she could not worry her mother with it. After all, the two young men might come to their senses if someone were to jolt them into seeing the foolishness of their ways. And, lying sleepless in her bed, it seemed to her that she was the only one who could do it.

She had dressed in the dimity dress she had worn that day, tied her thick brown hair back with a ribbon and seated herself on the deep window ledge of her bedroom to wait for Freddie to make a move, praying that he would not, but fearing the worst.

She heard a sound below her window and looked down to see Robert Dent, another of Freddie’s friends, riding up to the house. He stopped beneath her brother’s window and threw a handful of gravel at it. A moment later Freddie’s head appeared in the aperture. ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ he hissed. ‘Go round to the stable.’

In less than a minute she heard the door of her brother’s room being opened and shut very softly. She crept to her own door and, as soon as she heard the front door open and close, grabbed a cloak from her closet and hurried downstairs. She had never saddled her pony herself, but she had watched the groom do it often enough and felt sure she could manage it. She had to be quick because she was not exactly sure where the duel was to take place.

In her haste she stumbled over her father’s walking stick which he had propped against the wall in the hall. She stopped to pick it up and replace it, then reached for the door latch.

‘Lydia! Where do you think you are going?’

She froze as her father, with a dressing gown over his nightshirt and his grey hair awry, came down the stairs behind her. Slowly she turned to face him. ‘I…I thought…I thought I heard a fox in the hen run.’

‘I hear nothing. And you are dressed.’ He grabbed her arm and almost dragged her into the room he used for a study, where he kept his books and composed his sermons. ‘Now, you will come in here and tell me what this is all about.’

‘But I can’t,’ she wailed. ‘It is not my secret.’

‘Oh, then it must be Freddie’s. Only Frederick would be irresponsible enough to drag you into one of his scrapes.’

‘He didn’t drag me in—’

‘Where is he?’

She hung her head and did not answer.

‘He has left the house, hasn’t he? I was sure it was the sound of horses that woke me. Where has he gone? It is only just after five o’clock.’

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Papa, I must go to him, I really must. Please do not ask me why.’

Her reply in no way reassured him and he looked about him as if the contents of the book-lined room would give him his answer. She suddenly became aware that Freddie had left the cupboard open where the pistols were usually kept and the empty shelf seemed to stare out at them accusingly. She tried to move across to shut the cupboard door at the same moment her father saw it.

‘My God! What has the silly fool been up to?’ He swung round to Lydia. ‘You know, don’t you? You know where he has gone?’

She was truly frightened by the steely look in his eye and backed away a little. ‘No, Papa, that was why I wanted to follow him. To stop him. Now it is too late. He is gone. Oh, Papa, he is going to fight Ralph Latimer.’

‘Back to bed,’ he commanded. ‘I will deal with this.’

‘But you don’t know where he has gone.’

‘I can guess. Now back to bed. We will talk about it when I return.’

She turned wearily to go back to her room, knowing that when he did come back she would be in for a scolding and probably punishment; her father could be very severe when he chose, but that would be nothing to what would happen to Freddie. Papa was always scolding Freddie over something or other and threatening to take him away from University and send him into the army ‘to make a man of him’, he said. Mama had always argued him out of it, but now… Losing her beloved brother was something she did not dare think about.

She curled up in her bed beside the still-sleeping Annabelle, and waited.

She must have fallen asleep because it was bright day when she woke and five-year-old Annabelle was gone. The house was silent as the grave; she could not hear even the servants going about their business. Nor had Janet, the maid who looked after all the girls, brought her hot water as she usually did. She rose and went to the window. The sun was high and Partridge, who was both groom and driver when they took the carriage out, was leading her father’s cob into the stable. And Freddie’s horse stood nearby, still saddled.

She dressed hurriedly without bothering to wash and dashed down the stairs. At the entrance to the morning room she stopped suddenly. Her mother and two older sisters were sitting in a group, looking up at Freddie. The two girls were weeping loudly and Freddie looked as though he had seen a ghost. His face was almost transparent and his blue eyes, usually so bright with mischief, were dull and lifeless. She turned from her siblings to her mother and drew in her breath in shock. Her mother was staring up at her brother as if she did not recognise her son. Her face was chalky white with two high spots of colour on her cheeks and her hands were kneading a lace handkerchief, tearing it to shreds.

‘What has happened?’ Lydia asked.

‘Lydia. Come here.’ Her mother held out one hand to her and she went to kneel at her mother’s feet and put her head in her lap. ‘Lydia, you must be very brave. We have lost our prop, the centrepiece of our lives, our dearest, most faithful…’ She paused, as if wondering how to put what had happened into words, and then, deciding there was no way to soften the blow, added, ‘Lydia, your poor papa is dead.’

Lydia tilted her head up to her mother. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t. I thought it was Lord Latimer…’ She swung round to her brother. ‘You said…’

‘Papa came,’ he said. ‘Ralph shot him.’

Lydia scrambled angrily to her feet and faced her brother. ‘Then why didn’t you shoot him back? I’ll do it if you won’t. Papa…’ She collapsed in a heap, sobbing out her grief. ‘It’s my fault. I told him and he went after you. I let him go.’

‘You could not have stopped him, any more than you could have stopped me.’

‘And this is what your wickedness has brought us to,’ her mother said bitterly, addressing Freddie. ‘You have been going wild for months, you and that young man from the Hall, and this is the result. I dread to think what his lordship will have to say on the matter—’

‘He has no cause for complaint,’ Freddie said heatedly. ‘It was his son who fired the shot, not me. It is not his family cast into mourning.’

‘Will he be prosecuted?’ Margaret stopped crying and scrubbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

‘Who is there to prosecute him?’ her mother put in bitterly. ‘His father is the Lord of the Manor and a justice. It will be hushed up as an accident and it were better it were, because duelling is illegal and Freddie was not blameless in the matter—’

‘Mama!’ Freddie protested.

‘Oh, what is to become of us?’ her mother wailed. ‘Without your papa…’

‘Mama, I think you should lie down and I will send for Dr Dunsden to give you something to help you sleep,’ Susan said, taking charge of the situation. ‘Later, there will be arrangements to make.’

At that moment, they heard a horse galloping up to the house and then a loud knocking on the door. Lydia, only half aware of what was going on around her, heard the maid go to the door and a few moments later came to announce the Earl of Blackwater.

‘God, he wasted no time,’ Freddie muttered, as the Earl made his way into the room, dressed in a riding coat and buckskin breeches tucked into polished riding boots. He was wearing a short brown wig and, except for his drawn countenance and bleak eyes, anyone would think he was out for a morning hack. He stopped just inside the door and surveyed the tableau.

‘Anne, we must talk.’

‘Yes,’ she answered dully while the girls looked from one to the other taken aback by his familiar mode of addressing her. ‘But can it not wait? My husband is hardly—’

‘I know. I am sorry, but send the girls away. There are things to resolve…’

‘Like this living—’

‘God! Do you take me for an unfeeling monster? I did not mean that and you know it. Duelling is illegal. The boys have broken the law and as a result a man has been killed, and he not one of the protagonists, which might have made it excusable.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she cried. ‘How can you come here, when your son has deprived me of my husband…?’ And she began to weep, losing all the dignity she had been trying so hard to maintain. Lydia went to her and threw her arms about her. ‘Mama, Mama, don’t cry.’ And she too burst into noisy tears.

‘Susan, take your sisters away,’ his lordship said. ‘Your mother and I and Freddie will decide what is to be done.’

Susan prised Lydia from her mother. ‘Come, Lydia, we must find Annabelle and John. Goodness knows what mischief they will be up to while we have been in here. They are both too young to understand, but we must try and explain.’ She led her away, followed by the still-tearful Margaret.

Lydia never knew what was said by the three who were left behind. The only thing her mind fastened on was that on the day she lost her papa, she also lost her beloved older brother. He did not even wait for the funeral, but was gone that night.

‘It is for the best,’ her mother told her when she asked why. ‘His lordship cannot ignore the fact that the law was broken—’

‘By his son,’ Lydia put in. ‘Not Freddie.’

‘They were both at fault and Ralph has been banished too. His lordship has sent his only son and heir into exile. And now we must both go on with our lives without them.’

‘You sound as if you are sorry for the Earl.’

‘I am. It was not his fault.’ She took Lydia’s hand and tried to draw her closer, but Lydia resisted, too angry to draw comfort from her mother. Or give it either.

‘No, it was his Ralph’s. Freddie didn’t want to fight him, I know he didn’t.’

‘Now, Lydia,’ her mother said patiently. ‘We will have no more talk of fault or blame or anything else of that nature, do you understand?’

She nodded, but she did not understand. She might say nothing in front of her mother, but she would never forgive Ralph Latimer for what he had done. Never. Never. Never.

Chapter One

March 1763

T he Victory Ball, to celebrate the end of the seven years of war which had been waged between half the countries of Europe and which had now come to an end, was going to be the biggest occasion the little port and market town of Malden had seen for years, even though there were many who said it was not a victory but a shameful compromise. Anne had decided she would attend with her daughters, Lydia and Annabelle. Finding suitable gowns for all three was going to be a problem, but Anne found an old trunk in the attic, which contained gowns she had worn years before in their more affluent days, and brought it down to her boudoir.

From it she drew a sack-backed pale pink silk which had yards and yards of good material in it. ‘The colour will suit Annabelle,’ she said, pulling it from its protective covering of thin cotton. ‘And here is another that will remake.’ She delved into the trunk again and pulled out a yellow watered silk with panels of darker figured brocade. She held it up against Lydia’s slim figure. ‘Yes, perfect for your dark colouring. I wore it when I was your age, the first time I met your papa. It has kept very well, though it is very out of fashion. We will remake them both.’

‘What about you, Mama?’ Lydia asked.

‘Oh, my grey and lilac stripe will do very nicely. After all, I am only going to escort you and at my age it would not do to go looking like a peacock, would it?’

Anne was by no means old and she was still very beautiful in Lydia’s eyes. If it had not been for her large family and lack of wealth she might have remarried, except that she always said she had no wish to do so. ‘I am content as I am,’ she said, when anyone suggested such a thing. Lydia wondered how true that might be but knew it would do no good to question her. Instead she smiled and spoke about how they would remake the gowns.

Annabelle could hardly contain her excitement as she and Lydia set to work unpicking the old garments while their mother searched through copies of the Ladies’ Magazine for suitable patterns. ‘Oh, I am so looking forward to it,’ she said, eyes shining. ‘My first ball. I cannot wait.’

Lydia smiled indulgently. ‘No doubt you expect every young man there to fall at your feet.’

‘Oh, do you think they will? Oh, Lydia, would it not be wonderful if we could both find husbands there?’

‘There is plenty of time for that. And we are unlikely to meet anyone of consequence. It is only the Assembly Rooms after all, and everyone knows everyone hereabouts.’

‘There might be someone new to the town—surely, now the war is over, the officers will be coming back home.’

‘You are too impatient, Annabelle,’ Lydia said. ‘Why, you are only fifteen.’

‘Sixteen next month,’ her sister corrected her. ‘And you are eighteen. It is time you thought about marriage, for you should marry before me.’

‘I am in no hurry.’

‘You may not be,’ their mother put in, as they sat side by side over their needlework, their dark heads almost touching. ‘But most young ladies are married by nineteen. To delay longer will make everyone think you too particular or that there is something wrong with you. And I will not have that. You are comely and intelligent and I have brought you up to your proper duties. It is time to be thinking seriously of whom you might marry.’

‘I have not met anyone I think I should like, Mama, and I would rather earn my living than jump too hastily into marriage.’

‘Earn your living! My goodness, I never heard anything so outlandish. Why, your grandfather was a baronet and he would turn in his grave, if he could hear you. We are not of that class, Lydia, even if we are poor…’

‘Are we poor?’ Lydia asked, in surprise.

Her mother sighed. ‘I had hoped it would not come to this, but now I think I must tell you.’

‘Tell me what, Mama? Oh, do not look so stern. Have I done something wrong?’

‘No, dearest. But we have been living off the income from investments ever since your papa was taken from us so suddenly. There was never a great deal, but stocks have gone down and I have had to encroach on the capital. It is dwindling at an alarming rate. There will be no dowry for you, I am afraid. You must make as good a marriage as you can without one. It is not what I had hoped for you…’

Lydia was shocked; she had not known things were as bad as that. Her mother was always so cheerful and practical, though she abhorred what she called extravagance. It was no wonder, if they had so little money. And yet she had never stinted her children of anything they really needed. What a struggle it must have been for her!

‘Oh, Mama, why did you not say? We could have recouped, eaten a little more cheaply, bought fewer ribbons and lace. Done without the chaise.’

‘And have everyone pointing the finger and ruining your chances of finding any sort of marriage where you might be comfortable. Poverty is not something to advertise, Lydia. It gives quite the wrong impression.’

‘You mean I must find a husband soon?’

Anne sighed. ‘I am afraid so. A professional gentleman perhaps, or a younger son, or someone like Sir Arthur Thomas-Smith, who has been married before and is looking for a second wife and would not be particular as to a dowry.’

‘Oh, Mama!’ Lydia was horrified at the thought. ‘He is old. And fat. And he has three daughters already.’

‘But he is rich enough to indulge you in anything you might want. He might be persuaded to give Annabelle a dowry and help with John’s schooling…’

‘Mama, surely things are not as bad as that?’

‘Dearest, I am afraid it is beginning to look very bleak indeed. We are fortunate that his lordship has allowed us to live here…’

Ever since the tragedy, when a new incumbent had been appointed and moved into the rectory, they had lived in the dower house on the Earl’s estate, which had been standing empty since his mother died a year or two before. Lydia’s feelings on accepting help from the Earl of Blackwater were ambivalent. Her pride against taking charity from the father of the man who had killed her beloved papa did battle with the conviction that he should be made to pay and anything they had from him was little enough compensation for their loss. Her mother saw it differently. She was grateful. Grateful!

Lydia’s hate had not diminished over the years but she had learned to control it, to put on a cheerful face and live in the same small village without exploding every time someone mentioned his lordship’s name, or she saw him smiling and chatting to the congregation after church on a Sunday. He was well liked and some even sympathised with him at the loss of his son and the protracted illness of his wife brought on, so it was said, by the tragedy. As if his loss was the greater.

Why, he could send his son funds to keep him in luxury wherever he was, but she had lost her papa and her brother might as well be dead as well for all the news they had of him. They certainly could not afford to send him money. Ten long years he had been gone and she still missed him. She missed her older sisters too.

At the time of the tragedy, Susan had been betrothed to the son of the recently knighted Sir Godfrey Mallard who lived in Lancashire, where the family had interests in cotton spinning. The marriage contract had already been signed by both fathers, otherwise the groom might very well have backed out of it, but on the grounds that Lancashire was a long way from Essex and news of the duel was unlikely to reach there, Sir Godfrey had allowed the wedding to go ahead a year later, though he discouraged his new daughter-in-law from visiting her old home more often than was absolutely necessary for appearances’ sake.

As for Margaret, she had been betrothed to a young captain in the Hussars, but when he had been killed in the war, had eschewed marriage to anyone else and had gone to Hertfordshire to be schoolmistress to the children of the Duke of Grafton. Somehow working for the duke was acceptable employment in her mother’s eyes. It meant Lydia was the eldest still at home and now they had become so poor she must sacrifice herself for the sake of the rest of the family and marry money. But Sir Arthur…!