Kitabı oku: «The Wolfe's Mate»
Dear Reader,
When I began to write historical romances, I chose the Regency period for several reasons. I had always enjoyed Georgette Heyer’s novels—still among the best—and had spent part of my youth working at Newstead Abbey, the home of Lord Byron, one of the Regency’s most colorful characters. It involved me in reading many of the original letters and papers of a dynamic era in English history.
Later on when I researched even further into the period, I discovered that nothing I could invent was more exciting—or outrageous—than what had actually happened! What could be more natural, then, than to write a Regency romance and send it to Mills and Boon in England? It was accepted and that started me on a new career.
Like Georgette Heyer I try to create fiction out of and around fact for the enjoyment and entertainment of myself and my readers. It is often forgotten that the Regency men had equally powerful wives, mothers and sisters—even if they had no public role—so I make my heroines able to match my heroes in their wit and courage.
Paula Marshall
Paula Marshall, married, with three children, has had a varied and interesting life. She began her career in a large library and ended it as a senior academic in charge of teaching history in a polytechnic. She has traveled widely, has been a swimming coach, embroiders, paints pictures and has appeared on quiz shows in Britain. She has always wanted to write, and likes her novels to be full of adventure and humor.
The Wolfe’s Mate
Paula Marshall
MILLS & BOON
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Contents
Prologue
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
Prologue
July 1815
‘Jilted!’ screeched Mrs Mitchell, throwing herself carefully backwards into the nearest comfortable chair. ‘That a child of mine should be left at the altar. Call him out, or horsewhip him, do, Mr Mitchell, it is all he deserves.’
‘Difficult,’ responded her husband drily, ‘seeing that his letter informs us that he was setting sail for France last night!’
His restraint was all the more remarkable because, until an hour ago, he had been loudly congratulating himself on getting rid of his stepdaughter to a husband who was, all things considered, above her touch, he being a peer of the realm, and she a merchant’s daughter and not very remarkable in the looks department.
His wife’s only response was to drum her heels on the ground and announce that she was about to faint—which she did with as much panache as Mrs Siddons performing on stage. Her two young daughters by Mr Mitchell stood helplessly on each side of her, sobbing loudly. Mrs Mitchell’s companion was wringing her hands, and exclaiming at intervals, ‘Oh, the wretch, the wretch.’
The only calm person in the room was the jilted young woman herself, nineteen-year-old Susanna Beverly, who coolly wrenched a feather from her mother’s fan. She held it briefly in the fire and then placed it under Mrs Mitchell’s nose to revive her.
Revive her it did. She started up, exclaiming loudly, ‘Oh, Susanna, how can you be so unmoved when he has ruined you? The news will be all about town by tonight—it will be the sensation of the Season.’
‘Really, Mother,’ replied Susanna, who was clinging on to her self-possession for dear life, after just having been made the spectacle of the Season as well as its sensation, ‘don’t exaggerate. He hasn’t seduced me, only left me at the altar.’
‘Oh, Mr Mitchell,’ shrieked her mother, sitting up at last, ‘pray tell her that he might just as well have done so. Nobody, but nobody, will ever marry a jilted girl! Oh, whatever did you say to drive him away?’
She sank back into the chair again to be comforted by her companion, ignoring Susanna’s quiet reply. ‘Nothing, Mother, nothing. Perhaps that was what drove him away.’ Only her iron will prevented her from behaving in the abandoned fashion of the rest of her family.
Her unnatural calm, however, annoyed her stepfather as well as her mother, however much it was enabling her not to shriek to the heavens at the insult which had been offered her. To arrive at the church, to wait for a bridegroom who had never turned up, and had sent a letter instead of himself—and what a letter!
‘I have changed my mind and have no wish to be married, but have decided to set out for France this evening instead. Convey my respects to Susanna with the hope that she will soon find a more suitable bridegroom than Francis Sylvester.’
It had been handed to her by the best man who, to do him justice, had looked most unhappy while carrying out this quite untraditional role.
Susanna had read it, and then handed it to her stepfather who had been there to give her away. He had read it, then flung it down with an oath, before shouting at the assembled congregation, ‘There will be no wedding. The bridegroom has deloped and is no longer in the country!’
‘Deloped!’ Mrs Mitchell had shrieked. ‘Whatever can you mean, Mr Mitchell?’
‘What I have just said,’ he had roared. ‘Lord Sylvester has cried off. Failed to fire his pistol, or fired it in the air, call it what you will. Come, Susanna and Mrs Mitchell, we must return home before we become more of a laughingstock than we already are.’
Numbly Susanna had obeyed him. Noisily, Mrs Mitchell had done the same, abusing her daughter whose fault she claimed it to be.
Susanna scarcely heard her. Until an hour ago she had been secure in the knowledge that a handsome young man with a title and a moderate fortune, with whom she had just enjoyed several happy summer months, was going to be her husband. She had to confess that she did not love him madly, but then, who did love their husbands madly—other than the heroines of Minerva Press novels?
Nor did she think that he had loved her madly. Nevertheless, they had dealt well together, although their interests differed greatly. Francis Sylvester’s life had revolved around Jackson’s Boxing Salon and various racecourses in the day, and the more swell of London’s gaming hells, where he was a moderate gambler, at night. Susanna’s time, on the other hand, was spent reading, playing the piano, and painting—she was quite a considerable artist. These differences had not troubled either of them for they were commonplace in the marriages of the ton.
This being so, she could not imagine why he had behaved in such a heartless fashion. He had had ample time to cry off during the months of their betrothal when to have done so would not have ruined her as completely as his leaving her at the altar would do.
For Susanna knew full well that what her mother had said was true: to be jilted in such a fashion meant social ruin. Was it her looks? She knew that they were not remarkable—other than her deep grey-blue eyes, that was, on which Francis had frequently complimented her. Her hair was an almost chestnut, her face an almost-perfect oval. Her nose and mouth, whilst not exactly distinguished, were not undistinguished, either.
Her height was neither short nor tall, but somewhere in between. Her carriage had often been called graceful. Susanna, however, knew full well that she was not a raving beauty in the fashionable style which her two half-sisters promised to be. Both of them were blonde, blue-eyed and slightly plump: ‘my two cherubs,’ her stepfather called them.
Nor was her fortune remarkable. Like herself, it might be described as comfortable, her father having died suddenly before he had been able to make it greater. Her stepfather, having daughters of his own to care for—and still hoping for a son—had not considered it his duty to enlarge it.
She straightened herself and held her head as high as she could. There was no use in repining. What was done, was done.
‘I am going to my room,’ she said. ‘Send Mary to me, Mother. I wish to change out of these clothes. They have become hateful to me.’
Even as she spoke, she saw by the expressions on her mother’s and stepfather’s faces that she had become hateful to them: a symbol of their disappointment. Not only had they lost an aristocratic son-in-law, but they were saddled with a daughter who had become unmarriageable.
As her mother said mournfully as soon as she was out of the room, ‘No one will marry her now, Mr Mitchell. Whatever is to become of her?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do not distress yourself further, my dear. Leave everything to me. I shall make suitable arrangements for her. We cannot have Charlotte and Caroline’s reputations muddied by her continued presence. I have great plans for them, as you know.’
His busy, cunning brain had been working out how to deal with this contretemps ever since he had read Francis Sylvester’s letter.
‘Now follow Miss Beverly’s example, my dear, and change out of your unsuitable bridal finery. Let us put this behind us. I shall speak to her in the morning.’
His tone was so firm that his wife immediately ceased her repining. Although he was usually indulgent towards her and all her three daughters, he invariably spoke to them as though they were recalcitrant clerks when he wished to make it plain that they must obey him immediately.
It was thus he addressed Susanna on the following morning when she arrived in his study in response to his request made over breakfast.
‘It is necessary, Miss Beverly, that we discuss your unfortunate situation immediately. It brooks of no delay. I shall expect to see you in my room at eleven of the clock precisely.’
He had never called her Miss Beverly before. Indeed, in the past few months his manner to her had been particularly affectionate, but there was nothing left of that when he spoke to her then, or later on, when she arrived to find him seated at his desk writing furiously.
Nor did he stand up when she entered, nor cease to write, until he flung his pen down and said, ‘This is a sad business, my dear. I was depending on this marriage to see you settled. I was prepared to find the money for your dowry, seeing that the match was such a splendid one, but, alas, now that your reputation has gone and you are unlikely to marry, such charity on my part is out of the question.’
Susanna listened to him in some bewilderment. She had always been under the impression that her father had left a large sum of money in a Trust for her which should have made it unnecessary for her stepfather to extend her any charity at all in the matter of a dowry.
And so she told him.
He smiled pityingly at her. ‘Dear child, that was a kind fib I told you and your mother. Your father left little—he made many unfortunate investments before his untimely death. The Trust was consequently worthless. I was willing to keep you and even give you the dowry your father would have left you when I hoped that you would make a good marriage—as you so nearly did.
‘But, alas, now that your reputation is blown—through no fault of yours, I freely allow—there is no point in me continuing this useful fiction. I have the unhappy task of informing you that, whilst I will assist you towards establishing yourself in a new life, I cannot afford to continue to provide you with either a large income or a dowry.’
Susanna was not to know that there was not a word of truth in what her stepfather was saying. It was he who had made the unfortunate investments, not her father. He had been stealing from the Trust to help to keep himself afloat ever since he had married Susanna’s mother and he now saw a splendid opportunity to annex the whole of it to himself.
His wife would suspect nothing, for her way of life would continue unchanged: Susanna would be the only sufferer.
‘I shall,’ he continued, ‘settle a small annual income on you, for I would not have my wife’s daughter left in penury. Indeed, no. What I have also done is write a letter to an elderly friend of mine, a Miss Stanton, who lives in Yorkshire. She has asked me to find her a companion and I shall have no hesitation in recommending you to her. She will give you a comfortable home in exchange for a few, easily performed, duties. You may even be fortunate enough to meet someone who, not knowing of your sad history, will offer for you.’
He smiled at her, saying in the kindest voice he could assume, ‘You see, my dear, I continue to have your best interests at heart.’
Susanna sat in stunned silence, her heart beating rapidly. ‘I had no notion,’ she began. ‘Had I been aware of my true position, I would have thanked you before now—as it is…’
Samuel Mitchell raised a proprietorial—and hypocritical—finger. ‘Think nothing of it, my dear. I was but doing my duty. I shall send off the letter immediately, but have no fear, I am sure that Miss Stanton will be only too happy to employ you. Until then, continue to enjoy your position in my home as one of my daughters.’
Susanna nodded her head numbly. She felt deprived of the power of speech. The day before yesterday, she had been the only child and heiress of a reasonably rich merchant of good family. Yesterday, she had been about to become Lady Sylvester. Today, she had been informed that she was a poverty-stricken orphan who was to be sent away to be an elderly lady’s companion—with all that that entailed. Running errands, walking the pug: someone who was neither a servant nor a gentlewoman, but something in-between.
Later, alone in her room, she began to question a little what her stepfather had just told her. Was it really true that her father had left her nothing? That the Trust had been false, nothing but a lying fiction? That she had been living for the past twelve years on her stepfather’s charity? Surely she and her mother would have been informed of that if such had been the case.
She made up her mind to visit the family solicitors to discover the truth. She would not tell Mr Mitchell of her intentions, merely say that she needed to take the air in the family carriage.
But her stepfather, knowing her strong and determined character, so like her late father’s, had foreseen that she might wish to do such a thing, and was able to prevent it by informing her mother that, until it was time for Susanna to travel to Yorkshire, it would be unwise for her to go out in public.
‘The female mind is so delicate,’ he said, ‘that it might, in such a situation as Susanna finds herself in, be inadvisable for her to venture out of doors. A brief period at home, before she makes the long journey to Yorkshire, will do her a power of good.’
‘If you say so,’ her mother said falteringly.
‘Oh, I do say so, Mrs Mitchell. After all, like you, I have her best interests at heart!’
It had been her mother who told Susanna of her stepfather’s decision.
Susanna had stared at her, more sure than ever that something was wrong. She had been about to refuse to obey any such ban and even considered telling her mother of her suspicion that Mr Mitchell had been lying about the Trust and her father’s not having left her anything.
Then she looked at her mother with newly opened eyes and knew that she would not believe that her husband was lying, would simply see Susanna as trouble-making and ungrateful towards a man who had graciously taken the place of her father ever since she had married Mr Mitchell.
Not only would Mr Mitchell make doubly sure that she was confined to the house, but she would make an enemy of them both, to no profit to herself. He would simply assert that the misery of being jilted had unhinged her mind—and she had no answer to that. She was helpless and knew it.
Susanna had taken her mother in her arms and kissed her childhood innocence goodbye. She would go to Yorkshire and try to make a new life there, far from the home which was no longer her home, and where she was not wanted.
Somehow, some day, God willing, she would try to repair the ruin which Francis Sylvester had made of her life…
Chapter One
1819
It had been one of Lady Leominster’s most successful balls, she afterwards boasted to her lord the next morning, who merely grunted and continued to read the Morning Post. His wife’s conversation was only wallpaper in the background of his busy life. It would never do to let her know how useful her balls and other entertainments were, she would only get above herself and, heaven knew, she was too much above herself as it was without his praise elevating her even further.
‘And even the Wolf, the Nabob himself, came—after refusing everyone else’s invitations, even Emily Exford’s.’
M’lord grunted again. This time in appreciation. He had spent a happy half-hour with Benjamin Wolfe, discussing the current state of England, gaining advice on where he might profitably invest his money as the post-war depression roared on, showing no signs of breaking.
‘Not a bad move, that,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘The feller seems both knowledgeable and helpful. Invite him to our next dinner.’
‘They say that he is looking for a wife.’
‘Shouldn’t have any difficulty finding one, my dear. With all that money.’
‘True, m’lord, but his birth? What of that? Does anyone know of his family?’
‘Well, I do, for one,’ said Lord Leominster, smiling because for once he knew of a piece of gossip which his wife didn’t. ‘Same family as the General of that name. Poor gentry—went to India and made his pile there, or so he says. Besides, money sweetens everything. It’s its own lineage, you know. Half the peerage goes back to nameless thrusters who received titles and consequence solely because of their newly gained riches—nothing wrong in that.’
Lord Leominster’s distant ancestor had been a pirate with Francis Drake and was the founder of the family’s wealth with loot wrested from Spanish treasure ships.
His wife shrugged and abandoned Ben Wolfe as a topic. ‘They say that Darlington is about to offer for Amelia Western—that should be a meeting of money, and no mistake. He was paying her the most marked attention last night.’
She received no answer. Lord Leominster was not interested in idle gossip for its own sake. Ben Wolfe, now, was different. Such creatures had their uses.
Lady Leominster was almost right. The previous evening, George Wychwood, Viscount Darlington, had offered for Miss Amelia Western and been accepted. He had spoken to her father and received his blessing earlier in the day and had come to Leominster House solely to propose to her.
As usual, she had that dowdy goody of hers in tow. Well, she wouldn’t be needing a duenna when she was his wife, as she surely would be soon, and the dowdy goody could be given her notice, move on either to be some old trot’s companion or to shepherd some other innocent young woman and make sure that the wolves didn’t get at her before the honest men did.
And speaking of wolves, wasn’t that Ben Wolfe in earnest conversation with their host? George Darlington frowned. He had mentioned Ben Wolfe’s name to his father, the Earl of Babbacombe, earlier that day, and the Earl had made a wry face and said, ‘You would do well to avoid him like the plague. His father was a wretch, and like father, like son, I always say—although there were rumours that he was not Charles Wolfe’s son at all, just some by-blow brought in when Wolfe’s own son died at birth. I thought that he had gone off to India—enlisted as a private in that skimble-skamble Company army. What can he be doing in decent society?’
Uninterested, George had shrugged. ‘Made a fortune there, they say. Became a Nabob, no less. Been put up for White’s and accepted.’
He had little time for his father’s follies and foibles, having too many of his own to worry about.
‘Money,’ said his father disgustedly. ‘Whitewashes everything.’
His tone was bitter. There were few to know that the Wychwood family was on its beam-ends and desperately needed the marriage which George was about to make. Lady Leominster had been wrong in her assumption that money was about to marry money.
Certainly George had no knowledge of how near his father was to drowning in the River Tick and, if he had, would have thought Ben Wolfe a useful man to ask for advice on matters financial, not someone to despise.
As it was, he passed him by and concentrated on looking for pretty Amelia, whom he found sitting in a corner, her companion by her side. He ignored the companion and asked Amelia to partner him in the next dance.
‘After that,’ he said, ‘I have something particular to say to you, if Miss—’ and he looked enquiringly at the companion ‘—will allow you to walk on the terrace with me—alone. It is most particular,’ he added with a meaningful smile.
‘Oh, Miss Beverly,’ said Amelia, ‘I’m sure that you will allow me to accompany George on the terrace alone if what he has to say to me is most particular. After all, we have known one another since childhood.’
Susanna, who had been Amelia Western’s companion and somewhat youthful duenna since her previous employer, Miss Stanton, had suddenly died, knew perfectly well what it was that George Darlington wished to say to her charge. She also knew that, although she and George had met several times, and even conversed, he would not have known her had he met her in the street. He had twice been told her name, but it had made no impression on him.
She rose to answer him and, as it chanced, stood on George’s left. He had Amelia on his right. At that very moment, Ben Wolfe, who was looking across the room at them, asked Lord Leominster, who had just been joined by his lady, ‘Is that George Darlington over there?’
It was Lady Leominster who answered him eagerly, ‘Oh, indeed.’ She leaned forward confidentially, saying, ‘He is speaking to Amelia Western, the great heiress. I am sure that he is about to propose to her tonight.’
‘He is?’ Ben looked at them again, and asked, apparently idly, ‘I see that he has two young ladies with him. Which is the heiress?’
Never loath to pass on information, Lady Leominster answered, ‘Oh, the young woman on his left.’
She was, of course, wrong—but then, she had never known her right from her left—but before Lord Leominster could open his mouth to correct her, she had seized Ben Wolfe’s arm and exclaimed, ‘Oh, do come and be introduced to Lady Camelford, she has two beautiful daughters, both unmarried, and both, I am assured, well endowed for marriage’—so the mistake went uncorrected.
She was never to know that her careless remark would profoundly alter the course of several lives.
Ben had no further opportunity to see George Darlington or his future bride together, but later in the evening, as he was about to leave, Miss Western suddenly came out of one of the ballrooms. He was able to step back and inspect her briefly at close range.
She was modestly dressed, to be sure, but in quiet good taste in a dress of plain cream silk. She sported no other jewellery than a string of small pearls around her neck. She was no great beauty, either, but that was true of many heiresses, and he could only commend those who were responsible for her appearance in not succumbing to the desire to deck her about with the King’s ransom which she undoubtedly owned.
Susanna, on her way back to the ballroom, was aware of his close scrutiny. She had seen him once or twice during the evening and his appearance had intrigued her. One of the other companions, to whom she had chatted while the musicians were playing and their charges were enjoying themselves in the dance, had told her who he was and that he was nicknamed the Wolf.
She thought that the name suited him. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a trim waist and narrow hips—in that, he was like many of the younger men present. But few had a face such as his. It was, she thought, a lived-in face, still tanned from the Indian sun, with a dominant jutting nose, a strong chin, a long firm mouth—and the coldest grey eyes which she had ever seen. His hair was jet-black, already slightly silvered although he was still in his early thirties.
Susanna had read that wolves bayed at the moon and that they were merciless with their prey. Well, the merciless bit fitted his face, so perhaps he bayed at the moon as well—although she couldn’t imagine it.
Her mouth turned up at the corners as she thought this and the action transformed her own apparently undistinguished face, giving it both charm and character, which Ben Wolfe registered for a fleeting moment before she passed him.
So that was the young woman who was going to revive Babbacombe’s flagging fortunes. He had seen prettier, but then, money gilded everything, even looks, as he knew only too well. He laughed soundlessly to himself. Oh, but Amelia Western’s fortune was never going to gild Lord Babbacombe’s empty coffers—as he would soon find out.
If Susanna could have read Ben Wolfe’s most secret thoughts she would have known exactly how accurate his nickname was and how much he was truly to be feared. As it was she returned to the ballroom feeling, not for the first time, cheated of life: a duenna soon to reach her last prayers, doomed to spinsterhood because of the callous behaviour of a careless young man.
Francis Sylvester had never returned to England. He had taken up residence in Naples and seemed set to stay there for life.
Susanna shivered, but not with cold. She wanted to be a child again, home in bed, all her life before her. After she had been jilted, everyone had praised her coolness, the courage with which she had faced life, but once she had ceased to be a nine days’ wonder she had been forgotten. When Miss Stanton died and she had returned to society as Amelia Western’s companion, there were few who remembered her.
She was perpetually doomed to sit at the back of the room, unconsidered and overlooked. She had visited her old home, but her mother and stepfather had made it plain that they had no wish for her company, even though the scandal surrounding her was long dead. There was no place for her there, now.
‘You’re quiet tonight, Miss Beverly, are you feeling a trifle overset?’ asked one of her fellow companions kindly.
‘Oh, no,’ replied Susanna briskly. She had made a resolution long ago never to repine, always to put a brave face on things. ‘It’s just that, sometimes, one does not feel in the mood for idle chatter.’
‘I know that feeling,’ said her friend softly. ‘You would prefer a quiet room and a good book, no doubt, to being here.’
And someone kind and charming to dance with, thought Susanna rebelliously, not simply to sit mumchance and watch other young women dance with kind and charming young men.
But she said nothing, merely smiled and watched Ben Wolfe bearded again by Lady Leominster and handed over to Charlotte Cavender, one of the Season’s crop of young beauties and young heiresses. For a big man who was rumoured to have few social graces he was a good dancer, remarkably light on his feet—as so many big men were, Susanna had already noticed.
She sometimes thought it a pity that her common sense, her understanding of the world and men and women, honed by her opportunities for ceaseless observation would never be put to good use.
Stop that! she told herself sternly, just at the moment that the patterns of the dance brought Ben Wolfe swinging past her. To her astonishment, he gave her a nod of the head and a small secret smile.
Now, whatever could that mean?
Probably nothing at all. He must have meant it for his partner, but she had gone by him before she had had time to receive it. Susanna watched him disappear into the crowd of dancers, and then she never saw him again.
It was a trick of the light, perhaps, or of her own brain which was demanding that someone acknowledge that she still lived other than as an appendage to Amelia, who, having been proposed to by young Darlington, would shortly not be needing her services any more.
Which would mean turning up at Miss Shanks’s Employment Bureau off Oxford Street to discover whether she had any suitable posts as governess, companion or duenna for which she might apply.
The prospect did not appeal.
Now, if only she were a young man, similarly placed, there were a thousand things she could do. Ship herself off to India, perhaps, and make a fortune—like Ben Wolfe, for example.
Drat the man! Why was he haunting her? She had never looked at a man other than in loathing since Francis’s betrayal and now she could not stop thinking about someone who, rumour said, was even more dubious than Francis.
And he wasn’t even good-looking and she hadn’t so much as spoken to him! She must be going mad with boredom—yes, that was it.
Fortunately, at this point, Amelia returned and said excitedly, ‘Oh, Miss Beverly, I feel so happy now that George has finally proposed. It will mean that once I’m married I shall be my own mistress, do as I please, go where I wish, and not be everlastingly told how a young lady ought to behave.’
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