The Earl Who Dared to Love Again (Preview)

Chapter One

Evelyn had been counting the breaths between birdsong and the distant rumble of wheels, as though, if she kept her attention pinned to small, ordinary sounds, the larger silence would not swell and swallow her whole.

The garden at Hallmere Hall was not large but it was tucked behind high brick, sheltered from the street by clipped yew and a line of bare-limbed espaliered pear trees that looked, in winter, like careful handwriting against the sky. The air smelled of damp earth and last year’s roses.

Somewhere beyond the wall, a vendor called out, his voice fading and returning as he moved along the lane. Evelyn sat on the cold stone edge of the small fountain and watched the water tremble in its basin, dark as ink.

Her gloves were in her lap. The heel of one boot tapped, once, twice, as if her body were reminding her it could still move even while her mind stood quite still.

A month. Only one month since the church. The weight of mama’s arm trembling where it clung to mine. A month since we buried papa.

She had watched the mourners’ lips form sympathy, had heard the right words tumble out and all the while she had waited for some part of her to catch up, to understand that her father’s voice would not call her name again from the doorway, that his steps would not sound along the corridor, that his laughter was gone from the world.

She pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth and breathed through it.

“You’re freezing yourself, my lady.”

Nan’s voice came softly from behind her. Evelyn turned her head. Her maid stood at the French doors with a shawl over her arm, cheeks pink with the cold, black hair pinned up tight beneath the cap of her uniform. 

“I am not,” Evelyn said, and heard the frailty in her own voice.

Nan took a few steps into the garden and offered the shawl. “Your hands are near blue, my lady.”

Evelyn looked down and saw, with mild surprise, that Nan was right. She had not felt the cold so much as she had felt everything else. She let Nan drape the shawl around her shoulders. The wool smelled faintly of lavender from the linen press.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “whatever would we do without you?”

“I’m not going anywhere, my lady,” Nan said with her customary gentle smile.

“I know but you have no idea how reassuring it is to hear those words spoken aloud,” Evelyn said.

“If you’ll pardon me for speaking so, I lost my mother three years ago now. You may remember?”

“Of course,” Evelyn replied, patting the stone coping on which she sat, inviting company which she sorely needed.

Nan obliged.

“Well, I know it seems now that all the color has gone out of the world and nothing will ever be the same again. And nothing will. Everything changes … but the color does come back.”

Evelyn smiled sadly. “That is a lovely analogy, Nan. And it perfectly sums how I’ve been feeling. How long do you suppose until the color comes back?”

Nan’s answering smile had the warmth of the hug that their respective stations meant she could not give.

“I wish I could say, my lady,” she said.

Evelyn put her arms around the other woman and gave the hug her maid could not initiate, embracing her tightly.  Society dictated how servants and family should interact in an English house. Evelyn did not care for society’s views. Nan gave her a quiet moment, then said:

“Your lady mother asked after you.”

“I find that I want to say, tell her I am quite well, and continue my gray solitude. But if I have lost a father, she has lost a husband. I must remember that her world is gray as well.”

Nan did not move. She sat with her fingers folded, eyes fixed on the ground. “There’s … someone been calling, miss.”

“Who?” she asked.

Nan hesitated. “Mr. Fallow. The solicitor.”

Evelyn’s brows drew together. Mr. Fallow had attended the funeral, black-gloved and grave, and had spoken to her mother in low tones. Since then, there had been letters, sealed and carried up the stairs like small bombs. Whatever those letters contained, Evelyn had noticed the flood of well-wishers had slowed to a trickle over the last couple of weeks. And now had stopped entirely.

Does our grief bore our friends already? No, that is uncharitable. Then why do people stay away?

“Mama has always thrived in company,” Evelyn said, avoiding the subject of the great, dark crow that was the family solicitor, “I do wish more people would visit. In fact, I intend to make it so. I will write to all of mama’s friends, invite them to come for tea.”

A flicker of color appeared, as though a fog was lifting. It was always so when Evelyn set her mind to action. She began making points on an imaginary piece of paper.

“Not all at once. Ones and twos. Beginning with Mama’s nearest and dearest friends. The Montagues. Then the Gilmourtons. Actually, we should make it the Gilmourtons first, Lady Gwendoline can carry the conversation when Mama is not feeling up to it. Lady Gwendoline can carry a conversation with a statue!”

She looked to Nan but the maid’s face was tense. Evelyn felt the color slip away.

Don’t put off what you don’t want to face. Stand firm and face the enemy

She could hear her father’s gruff voice, forged in the heat of the battles he’d fought in his youth.

Every lesson was couched in military terms but I never knew a gentler man. Time to take Colonel Harcourt’s lesson.

“Is Mr. Fallow still here?” Evelyn asked, facing the enemy. 

“No, milady. He … he only just went.” Nan’s voice dropped. “I saw him step into his carriage. He did not look pleased.”

That sentence, in a house already too heavy with bad news, landed like a stone dropped into deep water. Evelyn wanted to hide away from it but would not let herself. She turned toward the house. Hallmere Hall, neat as a pin, familiar as her hands. She had the irrational thought that if she stayed outside long enough, the world might decide to reverse itself and place her father back inside the house. 

Brave heart, Evie my girl.

His voice was so real in her mind that she almost turned, almost thought he stood beside her. Solid and reassuring as only a daughter’s father could be.

“Well, I will not let Mama face the bad news alone. I’ve indulged myself enough I think.”

She began to walk toward the house, Nan followed a step behind, quiet as a shadow. The passage beyond the French doors smelled of beeswax and the faint, stale sweetness of funeral lilies that had been banished from the drawing room but seemed to have seeped into the plaster. Evelyn moved quickly along the corridor, her slippers whispering against the runner. 

The sitting room door was half ajar. A sliver of lamplight cut across the hall. Evelyn could hear the faint rasp of paper and, beneath it, something more telling. Lady Annette Harcourt’s breathing, quick and uneven, as though she had been running. Evelyn paused on the threshold.

Brave heart, Evie. Nothing was ever solved by running away.

Annette sat at the small writing table by the window, the winter light pale against the glass. Bills and letters were spread before her in a messy fan, like a hand of cards thrown down in a losing game. Her hair, usually pinned with elegant precision, had begun to loosen at the temples. She had an elegant, slender face with fair hair and pale, blue eyes. Evelyn’s coloring came from her father. Hazel eyes, lustrous brown hair and a heart-shaped face. The slight bend in the bridge of her nose was mirrored in her mother’s face. 

“Mama,” Evelyn said gently.

Annette’s head jerked up. 

“Evelyn.” Her voice snagged on the name.

“I saw Mr. Fallow leaving,” Evelyn said. “Has something happened?”

“Something has happened,” Annette said, eyes haunted. 

Evelyn’s pulse quickened. “Mama, you’re frightening me.”

Annette’s gaze dropped to the papers again.

“I thought … I thought it was …  manageable. That your father’s affairs might be … untidy, perhaps, but not … not this.”

Evelyn leaned forward. “Not what?”

Annette looked up. Her eyes were bright with tears she would not let fall. “Bankrupt,” she said, with brutal finality. “Hallmere is bankrupt.”

Evelyn stared at her. “That is impossible,” she said at last. “We are not … We cannot be bankrupt.”

Annette’s fingers clenched around the edge of the table. “Mr. Fallow says we are. The estate, what remains of it. The accounts. The investments.” 

Evelyn felt the room tip slightly, as though her chair had lost a leg. “Papa always said he was careful.”

“He said many things,” she replied, too quietly. “And I believed him. Fool that I am.”

“Mama, you are not a fool. And Papa would not have deliberately deceived us. He always protected us,” Evelyn said.

“No.” Annette lifted a hand, sharp, stopping Evelyn’s attempt at comfort. “Let me say it. Let me be angry. I am not allowed to be angry at the dead, but I am, Evelyn. I am. He has left us … this.” Her hand dropped onto the papers with a soft slap that made Evelyn flinch. “He made investments. Speculations.”

Evelyn’s voice came out raw. “What has Mr. Fallow said? What are we to do?”

“We will dismiss the servants,” she said, voice cold and hard.

Evelyn’s breath caught. “Dismiss them?”

“We cannot pay them,” Annette replied. “We can barely pay for coal. We are already in arrears.” She reached for a paper and held it up, her hand trembling. “Look. This is from the butcher. And this …” another sheet, “… the wine merchant. This is the … the roof repairs that your father put off and told me were settled.”

Evelyn looked at the writing, at the neat lines of accusation. Her mind scrambled for something solid. “But surely … surely there is income from the land. The tenants.”

Annette’s laugh came again, harsh now. “The tenants are not a purse you shake until coins fall out. You know that. And the lands are … encumbered. Mortgaged. Twice over, it seems. Your father borrowed against them and then borrowed again.” She dropped the paper as though it burned. “We have been living on borrowed time.”

Evelyn pressed her fingertips to her temple. A dull ache had begun there, spreading like a bruise.

“That cannot be,” she whispered, though she no longer believed herself.

Face reality. Brave heart.

Annette drew in a breath, and for a moment her face looked older than Evelyn had ever seen it. Grief had carved her into a sharper thing. “There is more.”

Evelyn’s eyes lifted. “More?”

Annette picked up a letter, the seal broken, the paper creased as though it had been crushed in a fist and smoothed again in shame. “Several invitations have been rescinded,” she said, each word clipped. “Lady Harrowgate sent a note this morning, apologetic, of course, dripping with sympathy and yet somehow managed to mention that she thinks it best we ‘rest’ this Season.”

Evelyn’s stomach tightened. “Rest,” she repeated.

Now it makes sense. Our situation is known and our friends are turning their backs.

“Josephine,” Evelyn said at once. “Has she been told?”

Annette’s gaze flickered. “Not yet.” Then, after a pause, she added, “But she will know soon enough. She already has. People are … whispering.”

Evelyn swallowed. “And Josephine’s …” She hesitated, because saying it aloud made it real. “Her courtship to Lord Trowbridge?”

Annette’s eyes closed briefly, as if she were bracing against a blow. “Lord Trowbridge proposed yesterday,” she said.

Evelyn leaned forward, hope igniting within her. “To Josephine?”

“No.” Annette opened her eyes and looked straight at her daughter. “To Miss Lyle. He will not marry into ruin.”

Evelyn felt a moment of shame that she had looked on her sister’s possible engagement purely as a financial solution. 

Evelyn’s mind flashed to Josephine, her bright laugh, her insistence on believing the best of people, her excitement when a new ribbon arrived, as though a small prettiness could be a promise of a beautiful life. The thought of that light being dimmed by shame and necessity made Evelyn feel suddenly fierce.

I will not allow this. I will not see Mama suffer any more and will not see Josephine suffer at all. It is time to go to war on this situation.

 

“Mama,” she said hoarsely. “I think I know what must be done. No, I will not prevaricate. I do know what must be done. Lord Hayer is the answer.”

Evelyn’s stomach tightened at the name. Lord Hayer was not an old man, not grotesque, not even particularly unhandsome, and yet something in him had always set her nerves on edge. His attention was too constant, his compliments too smooth, his gaze too intent on watching her reaction rather than speaking to her as though she were real.

“He has been persistent,” Evelyn said carefully, “and I think I can charm him so that the gossip does not land. He is wealthy.”

I am daughter of the Viscount of Hallmere. Of Colonel Harcourt of the 45th Middlesex Heavy Cavalry. I will do what must be done. I will make my father proud.

“He is not wealthy enough.” Lady Hallmere said, sharply, “I am sorry to be so blunt but that is the long and short of it.”

“You must make a rich match, Evelyn. Not merely a comfortable one. Not a respectable one. Rich. Powerful. Someone who can absorb our disgrace and make it irrelevant.”

Evelyn’s throat ached. She wanted to protest. She wanted to insist that love mattered, that goodness mattered, that surely there was some path that did not require her to place her hand into a stranger’s and call it salvation. But she saw, in her mother’s eyes, the shape of fear she had never seen there before, and something in Evelyn softened.

“I understand,” she said, though it felt like swallowing a stone.

“I must be sensible,” Evelyn whispered. “Practical. As Father would have been. We cannot afford dreams. Not now.”

Somewhere beyond this room, beyond this day, a man she had not met yet would shape her fate. Evelyn drew a breath, steadying herself, because there was nothing else to do.

Chapter Two

“You look thinner than last time I saw you. London doing you harm already?” Colin drawled as he lounged in his saddle.

He rode alongside Adrian Montford, providing a mirror image. Adrian was straight-backed in the saddle with a mane of black hair and a controlled, angular face with narrowed, storm-gray eyes. Colin was fair with a round face, quick to smile and sky-blue eyes. He rode like a sack of potatoes. Adrian was an extension of the elegant, glossy black mare he rode with the expertise of a born rider.

“London does me no more harm than any place of stone, smoke and damnable crowds of people. Give me woods and hills,” Adrian replied.

London was loud even when it pretended not to be, but here the noise was spread thin, diluted by space and movement.

The closest thing to the wild which this city can offer. Necessity brings me here and I must make the best of it.

“London does everyone harm,” Colin agreed. “It smells. It is cold and wet. Give me Venice.”

“Venice is very wet,” Adrian replied, drily.

“But only from beneath.” Colin laughed.

They rode on for a few moments in companionable silence. Other riders passed, ladies wrapped in fur, gentlemen upright and self-conscious, children perched stiffly on ponies under vigilant eyes. Hyde Park in winter had a restrained elegance, as though even pleasure here were obliged to behave.

Colin shifted in his saddle. “Venice was beautiful,” he said dreamily. “And Milan … ah, Milan. You should see what they are building there. Money everywhere, Adrian. It’s intoxicating.”

“I imagine bankers would agree.”

“Bankers agreed with me quite thoroughly,” Colin said. “Which is never a good sign.”

Adrian smiled faintly. “You’ve been gone a year and come back unchanged.”

“I resent that. I have learned three new card games and an entirely inappropriate drinking song in Italian.”

“Astonishing growth.”

Colin grinned and then, more thoughtful, asked, “And you? Still buried in ledgers and meetings?”

Adrian exhaled through his nose. “I’ve been in London a week and have already had cause to regret it twice.”

“Only twice? You’re improving.”

“I have meetings with Barclay & Sons tomorrow,” Adrian went on. “And Hawthorne before that. Rail interests. Shipping. The usual arguments disguised as opportunity.”

Colin whistled softly. “You never did know how to relax.”

“There is little value in pretending otherwise.”

Colin glanced at him again, sharper this time. “How are the girls?”

The question landed gently, but it landed. Adrian adjusted his grip on the reins, the leather warm from his gloves.

“Amy is determined to prove she can manage anything set before her,” he said. “Which means she refuses help even when she needs it. Sasha is quieter. Watchful. She notices everything.”

Colin smiled. “They sound like you.”

“That is not a comfort.”

“They must be grown now.”

“Too quickly.”

If only I could turn back time and have the years of their infancy over again. But that would mean the years of my marriage lived over.

He felt the stab of pain that came from being a father who wished more than anything to halt the progress of time. To freeze his children as they were, so that they would forever be his princesses. The park curved ahead of them, a broad sweep of path bordered by winter-browned grass. The familiar ache settled behind his sternum, the one that came when he thought of the girls not as children but as people already leaning away from him, reaching toward a world he could not shape for them.

“And Honora?” Colin asked.

Adrian’s mouth tightened, just slightly. “Tireless. Capable. She has done more than I ever intended her to.”

Colin nodded. “You’re fortunate to have her.”

“I am,” Adrian agreed. “Which is precisely the problem.”

Colin turned fully toward him now, interest sharpening. “That sounds ominous.”

Adrian considered the rhythm of the horse beneath him, the rise and fall grounding him as it always did. “Another reason I am in London,” he said finally, “is that I am considering marriage.”

Colin nearly dropped his reins.

“You … what?”

“Marriage,” Adrian repeated calmly. “Again.”

Colin stared. “Adrian. I thought you’d sworn off the notion entirely.”

“I swore off sentiment,” Adrian corrected. “Not sense.”

“Sense,” Colin echoed faintly. “You mean to tell me this is a practical decision?”

“Yes.”

Colin barked a laugh. “Of course it is.”

“My daughters require a mother’s influence,” Adrian said, ignoring the interruption. “And Honora cannot continue indefinitely in a role that was never meant to be hers.”

Colin’s expression softened. “I honestly did not think you would fall into that trap again.”

“Needs must. I step into the trap gladly to improve my daughters’ lives.”

I would not were it not for them. They need a mother. I do not need a wife. Not again. Not ever. 

“I do not envy you. I had hoped that Honora would not fulfill her ambition and drag you into the marital trap.”

Adrian shook his head. “She has shown her true colors. She cares nothing for the girls. She remains only out of my obligation to her.”

Colin looked at him askance. “Did something happen?”

Adrian spurred his horse ahead to avoid meeting his friend’s searching gaze. “Nothing except I have seen the light.”

Colin nudged his horse to match the speed of Adrian’s mount. “Well, I hope you will find true happiness this time. Not Honora’s cold calculation and not Victoria’s …”

“We will not speak of her,” Adrian said, forcefully. “And this marriage would be for necessity. Stability. Structure. Nothing more.”

Colin watched him for a long moment. “You say that as though it will make it true.”

Adrian met his gaze. “It will.”

They rode on, the moment passing but not forgotten. A sudden burst of laughter broke the air ahead of them, high, shrill, unchecked. Adrian’s attention snapped forward. A child, no more than four or five, was tearing across the grass, arms outstretched, his shrieks of delight aimed at a cluster of pigeons flapping into the air. His cap had slipped sideways, and there was no adult close enough to intercept him except a young man galloping along a bridle path. The two were moments away from a catastrophic collision, the boy screened from the rider’s sight by a row of hedges.

“God …” Colin began, seeing the danger.

Adrian did not think. He dug his heels in and surged forward, angling his horse with precision born of long habit. He closed the distance with the dashing child in a heartbeat, leaned low from the saddle, timing the motion with instinct rather than calculation, one arm shooting out. He caught the boy around the middle and hauled him upward in a single, fluid movement, the child’s weight light but startling in its suddenness. 

Adrian’s horse slowed at once, trained and responsive, and Adrian straightened, the boy held firmly against his chest. The pigeons scattered. The laughter stopped. The boy gasped, shock overtaking delight, and then began to tremble.