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 allherfault.
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-twenty 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 armswerecovered 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.