Read the book: «Counting on a Countess: The most outrageous Regency romance of 2019 that fans of Vanity Fair and Poldark will adore»

Chapter 1

London, England

1817

Though he had been the Earl of Blakemere for nearly six months, Christopher Ellingsworth rarely entertained sober or virtuous guests in his bachelor lodgings. Today was no exception.

Kit lounged on a sofa in his parlor, a glass of wine in his hand. Warm, indolent pleasure made his limbs and eyelids heavy. His other hand beat time on the back of the sofa as Jeanette plinked out a merry tune on the pianoforte and the unlikely named Bijou pirouetted around the chamber and twirled brightly colored scarves.

“Bravo, my dears,” he murmured as the melody and performance came to a stop.

“Another, my lord?” Bijou asked breathlessly. Her French accent wavered, revealing she was more likely born in Leeds, not Lyon, but it hardly mattered. She wasn’t in Kit’s rooms to provide lengthy discussion about the philosophy of Voltaire. He’d brought them home from the Royal Opera last night—or rather, very early this morning—and they had been such good company, he hadn’t sent them away. It was nearly dusk, and he contemplated with anticipation what the night had in store for him.

“Come and join me,” he said, patting his thigh.

“Which of us shall join you?” Jeanette asked.

“Both of you,” Kit replied magnanimously.

The two women giggled before fluttering over to where he sprawled. Bijou perched on his outstretched leg while Jeanette snuggled beneath his arm. They were silky and fragrant and lively—precisely what Kit wanted.

Bijou’s fingers trailed up his torso and dipped beneath the neckline of his open shirt. Agreeable curls of pleasure blossomed on his skin wherever she touched. “I thought earls weren’t supposed to have muscles,” she said with a playful pout.

“His lordship was a soldier,” Jeanette noted, her fingers toying with his hair. “He’s had to become very hard, you know.”

“I’m much harder in peacetime.” Kit grinned lazily as the two women twittered.

“Shall we put that to the test?” Jeanette nipped at his earlobe.

Before he could answer, a smart rap sounded at the parlor door. He frowned. His staff knew not to bother him when he entertained.

“Go away,” he called.

Yet the door opened anyway and his butler’s apologetic face appeared. The servant didn’t so much as glance at the two opera dancers draped over Kit. “Apologies, my lord. I told the gentleman you weren’t to be disturbed, but he insisted you had an appointment.” He held up a calling card.

Kit disentangled himself from Jeanette and motioned for the butler to approach. Taking the card from the servant, he glanced at the name.

Herbert K. Flowers, Esq.

The Law Offices of Corran and Flowers

Lincoln’s Inn Fields

“Damn,” Kit swore softly. He had a vague recollection of a letter from Flowers, requesting to meet at Kit’s earliest convenience, as the solicitor had a matter of some urgency to discuss. “Send him in.”

“Yes, my lord.” The butler bowed before hurrying away.

Bijou plucked the card from Kit’s hand and squinted at the writing. “What’s this mean?”

“It means that this Mr. Flowers deals with tedious and exhausting matters all day,” he answered.

She made a face. “How horrid.”

“Exactly.” Surely whatever this Flowers wanted, it would be dull and require the kind of serious, thoughtful consideration Kit avoided as much as possible.

Another knock sounded at the door, and after receiving Kit’s permission to enter, the butler stepped inside.

“Mr. Herbert Flowers, Esquire,” the butler intoned.

A hale, middle-aged man in well-tailored clothing entered the room carrying a leather portfolio. “My lord, thank you for . . .” Flowers’s steps slowed and his polite smile flickered as his gaze fell on Jeanette and Bijou. Face reddening, he coughed into his fist. “Forgive me, my lord, but it would perhaps be best if we conducted our meeting in private. The concerns are of a . . . delicate and confidential manner.”

Kit sighed. He did not, however, sit up. “Ladies, if you would be so kind as to await me upstairs.”

The women swayed to their feet and ambled past the solicitor, trailing perfume and laughter as they exited the chamber.

Kit waved Flowers toward a nearby chair. “Care for a drink? I might be able to cajole the cook into preparing something edible.”

“Your consideration is appreciated, my lord,” the solicitor said quickly. “But once we conclude our business, I am bound for home, where my wife and supper await me.”

“I suppose you could eat both,” Kit offered after taking a sip of wine. “Or take all of them to bed.”

Flowers’s cheeks blazed. “Ah . . . well . . . yes.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we might address the matter at hand.” Smoothing a hand down his waistcoat, he said with gravity, “I understand you were an intimate of the late Lord Somerby.”

A throb of grief squeezed Kit’s heart just hearing the old man’s name. “I first met him in Roliça in ’08.”

Flowers’s businesslike expression shifted into restrained melancholy. “The marquess had been an esteemed client of my firm for four decades. The news of his death was met with considerable sorrow.” The solicitor gazed at Kit with sympathy. “I imagine that you must also feel distress at the passing of your friend.”

Kit gave a wry half smile. “I keep expecting him to show up at my door and demand that I join him at his favorite chophouse. He never allowed me to beg off. Said my wenching and carousing could wait two hours.”

Flowers echoed Kit’s smile. “A forceful gentleman, Lord Somerby. It stands to reason that he served his country so admirably during the War.”

“No one said no to him,” Kit agreed. “Well,” he added with a self-deprecating shrug, “I tried. He had his ideas about troop movements and I had mine.”

“And that is precisely what he admired about you,” Flowers noted. “The marquess told me so, himself. Always had good things to say about ‘young Captain Ellingsworth.’ Courageous, he called you. A born tactician.”

Kit glanced away. “He was fulsome in his praise. I merely did my duty—nothing more.”

“With all due respect, my lord,” the solicitor ventured, “he was not the only man of influence with this opinion of you. His Majesty the Prince was much moved by Lord Somerby’s accounts of your heroism. You would not have been given an earldom if you had merely performed your responsibilities.”

Nothing in the parlor could hold Kit’s attention. He kept shifting his gaze from the paintings on the walls to the windows to the plaster friezes on the ceiling. “I suppose so.”

Sadly, the title was almost entirely decorative. It came with a middling estate at the very uppermost border of Northumberland—and hardly any income. Much as Kit appreciated the elevation of his status from marquess’s third son to earl, it had done little to alter the course of his life.

But he was grateful to Lord Somerby, just the same. Kit’s parents loved him dutifully, yet only Somerby had truly believed in him, even when Kit himself did not.

“So you and Lord Somerby were close,” Flowers noted.

Kit nodded. “He was a lieutenant general on the Peninsula for most of the War, so our paths crossed many times. He had a fondness for pastel de nata, and we’d have them in his tent, chasing them with strong whisky and talking about our favorite public houses back in London.” Kit smiled wryly. “We talked strategy, too, and the welfare of our men.”

Some of the senior officers Kit had met during his time in the army had been cruel or heartless, concerned only with upholstering themselves with glory. Not Lord Somerby. He remained steadfastly focused on the human cost of war.

“Did his lordship ever discuss marriage?” Flowers asked. “Specifically, yours?”

Kit frowned, the question catching him by surprise. “Occasionally.” In truth, Lord Somerby had often harangued Kit about taking a wife, particularly when discussion turned toward life after wartime.

“You need a woman,” Lord Somerby had often declared. “And not one of those actresses or demimondaines you insist on keeping company with. A proper wife. Someone who’s got the backbone and sense to keep you in line. A man’s got to have a woman of strength by his side.”

Once, Kit had dared to retort, “I don’t see you writing letters to an adored helpmeet.”

A look of such profound sorrow had crossed Lord Somerby’s face that Kit had immediately regretted his rash words. “I am married, my lad,” the older man had replied quietly. “She and the babe she carried were brought to the Lord. I’ll not replace Lizzie.”

Kit swallowed hard. Lord Somerby and his wife were together now.

“Why do you ask about marriage, Mr. Flowers?”

Instead of answering, the solicitor set his portfolio on the edge of a low table. “I do not want to take up too much of your time, my lord.” He opened the folder and removed several documents covered in tiny, precise handwriting. “It is regarding Lord Somerby’s demise that I requested a meeting with you today.”

Kit set his glass aside and sat up, unease plucking along the back of his neck. “You’re his executor.”

“Precisely so.” Flowers glanced at the papers in his hand. “This is a copy of his will, and it concerns you.”

“I cannot see how. We were not related by blood or marriage.” His mind churning, Kit rubbed at the stubble along his jaw.

“Perhaps not,” the solicitor allowed, “but Lord Somerby named you as one of his beneficiaries.”

“He what?” Kit demanded.

Flowers pulled a pair of spectacles from his coat’s inside pocket and set them on his nose. His eyes moved back and forth as he perused the will. “While it is true that the majority of his considerable fortune has gone to relatives, the marquess earmarked a portion for you upon his death. You are to receive an initial sum of ten thousand pounds and an annual allowance of one thousand pounds for fifty years.”

Kit’s heart seized before taking up a fast rhythm. “Surely not.”

The solicitor drew himself up. “I, myself, transcribed Lord Somerby’s words as he lay on his deathbed. There is no mistake, my lord. The money is yours, and should you decease before the fifty years has elapsed, then your issue shall be the recipient or recipients.”

“I . . .” Words had always been Kit’s ally. They were reliable and came to him easily. Yet now, they were nowhere to be found.

His pulse hammered as though he had just liberated a town from enemy forces. Was it true . . . ? Could he believe it?

His allowance as a third son was, at best, modest, and seldom lasted long. The selling of his commission had provided a small increase—but it was short-lived. Like many men of his class, he lived on credit. His rooms, his clothes, his wine. God only knew what he owed at the gaming hells. But he returned to them again and again, staking too much money on steep odds, praying for the win that would secure his dream. A dream he’d held close throughout the War and that kept him sane when the world had turned to mud and madness.

He’d never truly believed he could make it happen. Until now.

“The news is welcome, I wager,” Flowers said, glancing up over the rims of his spectacles.

“Quite welcome,” Kit answered softly. “I have . . . plans.”

He hoped those plans would chase away the darkness that haunted him ever since his return from Waterloo. Shadows lurked in silent corners and whispered to him in the quiet moments, joyless thoughts that brought him back to the hell of war and the omnipresence of death. He ran from pleasure to pleasure, trying to outpace the wraiths. If he could accomplish his one goal, he might not have to face those ghosts again.

As the War had ground on, his life consisting of boredom and battles, blood and loss, Kit had turned again and again to thoughts of a world where nothing existed but pleasure. Where every day was filled with happiness and beauty.

He’d always loved going to Vauxhall, with its pavilions, gardens, lights, and music—an unending parade of joy. What if he could create a place like that, a pleasure garden entirely of his own design? He’d oversee it, immersing himself not in the business of death but life.

It would be his. Finally.

“Show me what to sign.” He stood and paced around the chamber. “There’s got to be a pen around here. I’ll ring for one.”

“Hold a moment, my lord.” Flowers got to his feet.

The grave expression on the solicitor’s face froze Kit in place. His instincts had kept him alive on the battlefield for more years than he cared to remember. Those same instincts rang like a bell, resonating through him.

“There is a condition,” Flowers explained. “It’s rather unusual, but Lord Somerby was most insistent.”

“Tell me.”

The solicitor cleared his throat once more. “Lord Somerby was, as you are aware, a widower, and spoke most effusively about the holy state of matrimony.” He paused. “Might I suggest you have a drink of wine, my lord?”

Kit strode instead to a decanter of brandy perched on a small table. He poured a generous amount into a glass and drank it all down in one swallow. He felt the warm burn in his throat and the softening of reality’s sharp edges.

“What must I do to claim my bequest?” he demanded.

“As of today,” Flowers announced, “you have thirty days.”

Kit narrowed his eyes. “Thirty days to do what?”

“Wed,” the solicitor answered. “Then, and only then, will you receive your portion of Lord Somerby’s fortune. If you do not, then the money goes to the late marquess’s distant relative in Bermuda.” Flowers tried to smile, but it resembled a grimace.

Blood rushed from Kit’s head like deserters fleeing combat. The room tilted, but it had nothing to do with the brandy he’d consumed. “Good God damn.” He clutched the neck of the decanter as though it could support the weight of his shock.

The chamber righted itself, but Kit’s world had been completely upended. “It appears that I’m getting married.”

Staring into the narrow, dark alley, Tamsyn Pearce calculated her odds of surviving the next ten minutes and determined they weren’t good.

“Did you bring a firearm?” Nessa asked as she peered over Tamsyn’s shoulder.

“I have a knife in my garter,” Tamsyn answered.

Nessa clicked her tongue. “A blade won’t do much against a pistol.”

Straightening her spine, Tamsyn said in what she hoped was a confident tone, “I’ve learned a few things after eight years of smuggling—including how to avoid the dangerous end of a pistol.” She aimed a smile at her friend. “Haven’t been shot yet.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Nessa replied grimly.

Tamsyn shook her head. “A fine way to show your encouragement.”

Nessa attempted to look more cheerful, but the worry never left her eyes. She gently smoothed a hand down Tamsyn’s cheek. “Ah, my bird, forgive my worry. You’ve done so much for Newcombe, ever since you were but a child, and your poor mabmik and tas at God’s table.”

An old, familiar ache resounded in Tamsyn’s chest, even though it had been ten years. Her parents, Adam and Jane Pearce, had taken their pleasure boat out to sail along the rocky Cornish coast of their home, leaving fourteen-year-old Tamsyn behind to finish her schoolwork. They had not returned alive.

The barony had passed to Tamsyn’s uncle, Jory. But if the villagers of Newcombe had hoped to find in the new baron the same measure of concern for their welfare as his brother had demonstrated, they were bitterly disappointed. A poor fishing yield and strangling taxes decimated Newcombe’s livelihood. To Tamsyn, orphaned and adrift, there had been one audacious solution to the village’s plight.

But all that could come to an end if she couldn’t move this sodding shipment of brandy and lace. She’d journeyed all the way to London to help the village and if she failed, she imperiled over four hundred souls depending on her.

She glanced back into the alleyway. It smelled of copper and standing water, and shadows gathered thickly. Somewhere in that gloom, a tanner named Fuller kept a storefront, but that business was merely a pretense for a much more profitable enterprise.

“Can we be sure of this bloke?” Nessa pressed, giving words to Tamsyn’s own worries.

“He’s the best lead we’ve had in a fortnight.” Everyone else had fallen through. “Come on.” She stepped into the alley.

More than once, Tamsyn had evaded customs officers, running down the beach and hiding in caverns to lose her pursuers. She had learned how to fire a pistol and where to stick a man with her blade so that she dealt a punishing but not fatal wound. Every time a new shipment needed to be offloaded, she faced danger.

The fear that made her palms sweat had little to do with physical peril. So many relied on her. She couldn’t fail them.

Nessa’s nervous steps tapped behind her as she strode deeper into the alley, echoing her own rapid heartbeats. But Tamsyn vowed that she would brazen this out just as she’d done with everything else in her life.

She passed a man sleeping on the ground. He opened one eye as she went by and gave a grunt of surprise. Women of quality didn’t haunt shabby London alleys. Not for the first time, Tamsyn wondered if she ought to have changed her clothes before leaving Lady Daleford’s this morning. Too late to do anything about it now. She had to move forward.

Fuller’s shop front was little more than an awning-covered table strewn with hides in different stages of tanning. The reek of lime brought tears to Tamsyn’s eyes, and she heard Nessa gag quietly behind her. A jowly man in a heavy apron stood behind the table, warily watching Tamsyn’s approach.

He said with barely concealed disdain, “Looking for fine leathers, miss?”

Tamsyn fingered one hide, pretending to contemplate it. “Bill Conyer said you could help us.” In desperation, she’d gone to the docks to look for leads. Conyer, an out-of-work stevedore, had given her Fuller’s name and direction—though he’d had to be financially compensated for the information.

Fuller scowled. “Conyer don’t send no one to me for leather. Only . . .” His eyes widened. “But you’re a lady. Ladies don’t—”

“This one does,” Tamsyn interrupted. “Are you interested?”

“How do I know you ain’t playing?” Fuller demanded. “No ladies in this business.”

Tamsyn fingered the diaphanous fabric around her neck. “Chantilly lace. Fifty yards of it.” She calmly pulled a flask from her reticule and held it out. “This is a sample of my brandy. Five hundred gallons are sitting in Cornwall this very moment. I’m looking for the right buyer for both.”

Fuller glared at the flask but didn’t take it.

“Go on,” Tamsyn urged. She fought to keep her tone calm. It would scare Fuller off if she showed her desperation. “You’ll never taste anything finer.”

He snatched the container from her hand and took a drink. After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said with reluctant admiration, “That’s prime fuddle.”

Her heart rose, all the while she kept her expression calm.

“But I ain’t going to be your fence,” he added.

An icicle pierced her chest. “Why not?”

“On account of I don’t do dealings with gentry morts. Can’t trust ’em.”

“I assure you, I am most trustworthy. I have been in this line of work for nearly a decade and—”

“Then why don’t you got a fence?” Fuller demanded. “Why come crawling to me?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. How could she possibly explain? The smuggling operation ran through the family’s ancestral home, Chei Owr. Caverns beneath the house led directly to a cove, which was the perfect location to receive smuggled goods from a ship at anchor. Those same caverns served as the holding place for the brandy and lace, and they sat there until they were purchased by their fence, Ames Edmonds, who distributed the goods both in Cornwall and all over England.

It was a perfect system. Jory and his wife, Gwen, knew nothing about the smuggling operation, which was precisely how Tamsyn wanted it to stay.

Everything would have proceeded apace—if Jory hadn’t announced a month ago that he intended to sell the crumbling, neglected Chei Owr. He had every right to: he was Lord Shawe, and the manor house wasn’t entailed. He already had letters to agents in London, though no buyer had yet stepped forward.

Tamsyn’s horror at losing her home and last connection with her parents was doubled when she had received a hastily scrawled note from Ames stating that, with the possible sale of their base of operations, their partnership was over.

The latest shipment of brandy and lace had nowhere to go—and the village was in dire need of cash. Tamsyn had hurriedly concocted a plan wherein she and Nessa, acting as her maid, would travel to London under the guise of her finally having a Season. Her parents’ old friend Lady Daleford had offered her a place to stay and entrée into the city’s most elite gatherings. All the while, Tamsyn would undergo a frantic search for a new fence. Balls and soirees in the evening, haunting London’s seediest corners during the day.

There was one other component to her reason for being in London. But she hadn’t been pursuing it with the same dedication as the hunt for a buyer.

None of this could be relayed to Fuller, of course. The less he knew about her personally, the safer both of them would be. Hanging was always an option for smugglers. Or, given that she was of gentle birth, she’d likely be transported. Neither option was appealing.

“I fail to see what difference my motivations make,” Tamsyn answered coolly. “I have top-tier merchandise to move, and I’m giving you the option to buy it. We’ll both make out nicely.”

Fuller squinted at her as if she were tiny, illegible writing. He spat upon the ground. “If you was a bloke, I’d be singing a different tune. But you’re a mort.”

“I oversee an operation that successfully collects thousands of pounds’ worth of merchandise, from making connections with the ship’s captain to unloading the goods to its storage and sale,” Tamsyn noted, her words dry. “But I am not in control of my sex.”

“Ain’t my problem, Miss Lacy Drawers. Unless you want to show me what you got under them skirts.”

“Don’t you talk to her that way!” Nessa interjected hotly.

Tamsyn held up a placating hand. Fishermen and sailors had notoriously foul language, so she was well acquainted with salty words aimed at her person.

“If I did,” she said calmly, “would you buy my lace and brandy?”

Fuller grinned. “Naw. I just wanted to see how low a gentry mort would go.”

“Then we have nothing further to discuss.” Tamsyn turned away, feeling heaviness weighting down her limbs. With Nessa following, she moved toward the entrance to the alley, though she walked with deliberate slowness in case Fuller was merely trying to drive a hard bargain. She waited for him to call her back. He didn’t.

When she and Nessa emerged back onto the street, Tamsyn finally exhaled. She leaned against a brick wall and stared up at the greasy, gray London sky—so different from the bright blue that stretched over Cornwall.

“What do we do now?” Nessa practically wailed.

Tamsyn uncapped her flask and, after using her fichu to wipe off its mouth, swallowed a healthy mouthful of brandy. It burned a path through her body, strengthening her resolve.

“I have to find myself a husband,” she said.