AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Summer, 1816, Mockingbird Square, Mayfair, London
Lord Ashley Linholm stepped out of his town house at Number Five Mockingbird Square. The square was one of London’s famous garden squares, set in exclusive Mayfair. Ash was headed for an address on the other side, beyond the garden, and he was feeling confident and relieved that he had finally made his decision.
He was twenty-seven years old and it had taken his brother Simon’s injury and long recovery to jog him into action. At the age of twenty-one, Simon had followed Ash into the army, only to find himself in the most decisive battle of the long war with France—Waterloo. While carrying a message from his superior officer into the fighting, Simon had been badly wounded. It echoed something that had happened to Ash, eight years earlier, and his brother’s close call had shocked him into action. Neither Ash nor Simon was married and there was no heir to the Crevitch estate, where their family had lived and ruled for over seven hundred years.
The Earl of Monkstead’s dwelling lay ahead of him, the grandest in this Georgian square that was known as a rare architectural jewel. The earl’s family had once privately owned this prime piece of real estate, until his grandfather, like so many forward thinking men in the 18th century, decided to turn it into a place for the wealthy and the well-bred to reside while they were in the capital. It had since become one of the most exclusive addresses in London.
Ash had visited Monkstead’s house only last week for a dinner party, and it was then that he had made the acquaintance of Miss Christina Beales.
She was young, barely twenty, and pretty in a fresh sort of way. She came from a good family, with connections, although she was not personally wealthy. She was also shy and quiet and biddable, and after one Season when she hadn’t really ‘taken’, she had been content to step aside for her younger cousins to have their turn. Ash was sure that Miss Beales would be grateful for his proposal, and he told himself she would not make a fuss when he set up a mistress, discreetly of course. And as long as he was polite and thoughtful, he could probably continue to do very much as he pleased.
He was no young, romantic youth, not anymore, and he didn’t want a starry-eyed debutante. Someone sensible, he thought, who didn’t expect her husband to declare undying love for her. Surely that was all one needed in a wife? Apart from an heir of course, because that was his main reason for shackling himself in marriage to a stranger. Once the deed was done, and the child on the way, they could both breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their respective lives.
Christina just happened to be Monkstead’s niece—a poorer side of the family the earl was currently assisting—which was why Ash was heading there now, to ask the earl’s permission. He was confident he would be given it. He was young and reasonably good looking, and he was rich with a pedigree that was long and aristocratic.
It was a perfect match.
From the rumours he had heard about Monkstead, the earl was rather keen on making perfect matches among his friends and neighbours. Even if he did not have one for himself. There were other rumours—a miserable marriage made when the earl was a young man, and his desire to spare others the fate that he had suffered. Ash counted himself an acquaintance of Monkstead, rather than a friend—he wasn’t sure the earl had many close friends—and he would never presume to ask about such personal matters. But nor did he believe every piece of gossip that circulated in the square.
Ash had sent a note ahead, requesting a meeting with his illustrious neighbour, and had been granted it. As he used the brass knocker on Monkstead’s front door, he smiled and told himself it was not arrogance to believe this morning would go just as he planned.
Forty minutes later Lord Ashley Linholm was walking back across the square with his hopes, if not exactly in ruins, then very much torn and shaken about.
He turned the conversation, which he admitted now had been an odd one, over in his mind.
“Not exactly a grande passione, I take it?” the earl said, with a mocking smile. He was a striking man, in his thirties, and wealthy beyond imagining.
“I doubt a marriage for love would be in anyone’s best interests,” Ash replied cynically, taking the glass of brandy from his host. They were in the earl’s study, the large windows looking out to the well-tended garden at the back of his town house.
The earl considered him with a frown. “Do you think not? Oh I agree that some love matches can be disastrous, but for you, Ashley, I think it is imperative.” He leaned forward seriously. “You would be miserable with a marriage of convenience. You need someone to keep you on your toes, and to come home to at night. You need a grande passione! I’m afraid that in those circumstances my niece would see very little of you if you walk her down the aisle.”
Ash hesitated, thrown by this defence of love. Everyone knew that the rich and titled married not for love but to further their own ambitions. He remembered again the gossip about the earl making a disastrous marriage and being prepared to go to any lengths to help others to avoid the same fate. He’d dismissed the rumour at the time, but now he wondered if it was indeed true.
“All the same,” Ash tried for a forceful note, “I am asking for your permission to approach her. You cannot say I would not be able to give her an enviable lifestyle, Monkstead? Surely you can have no objection there? She would live like a queen at Crevitch!”
There was no glimmer of answering laughter in those dark eyes. Ash had never thought of his neighbour as being a fanatic but now he wondered.
“No, but you will repent it,” the earl insisted, his gaze intent upon Ash. “Everyone knows of Lord Linholm, who sails through life without a care, never getting involved, never taking anything very seriously—”
“That isn’t true. I am taking your niece seriously, and my estate, and the need to—”
Monkstead held up his hand. “Let me finish, Ashley. I believe there is a deeper reason for you keeping a distance between yourself and the world. Your heart was once broken and you wish never to repeat the experience! Come, who was it? Who do you lay awake dreaming of at night, your blood running hot?” He must have seen something in Ash’s face, because now he smiled. “Ah, I see I was right. What was her name?”
Ash found he had stopped in the middle of the square and had been standing there for some time. A breeze ruffled his blond hair and stirred his perfectly tied neckcloth. Startled, he looked about, wondering if anyone in the adjacent town houses had noticed him staring into nothing. But the square was empty, and with a shaken laugh at his own stupidity, he set off again toward Number Five.
He knew now he should have told Monkstead that there was no lost love in his past, and that he was mistaken. That in fact he had been waiting his entire life for Christina
Beales and, contrary to what the earl thought, he intended to remain faithful to her for the rest of his life. He thought he could pull it off, but Monkstead was a tricky fellow and those dark eyes of his seemed to see right through Ash.
He’d felt vulnerable, exposed, and the truth had gushed out of him.
“Juliet Montgomery,” he said, and then gave a surprised laugh.
Monkstead smiled a knowing smile. “Ah, my friend, tell me about your Juliet.”
And as if he couldn’t help himself, as if those dark eyes had put a spell on him, Ash found himself doing just that.
“She was the daughter of one of our neighbours. Her mother ran off with an Italian count when she was in leading strings and her father never forgave the mother. Or the daughter. She was miserably unhappy at home and spent most of her time running wild in the woods. With me.”
“Did you kiss her, Ash?”
Mouths hot and passionate, her body arching against his, both of them beyond thought, beyond anything but the need to join . . .
“I don’t remember.”
The earl smiled again but to Ash’s relief didn’t refute his claim. “And have you seen her since?”
He had, from a distance. He had been in Taunton once, and caught a glimpse of her passing in a carriage. He’d known it was her despite the distance of years. And then the carriage had come to a stop and she had stepped down gracefully and he had almost called her name. Something had stopped him. He still wasn’t certain what it was—perhaps a warning not to reopen that particularly painful episode for his own self-preservation, although at the time he had told himself it was prudence and good sense.
