In Honour Bound (Brides By Chance Regency Adventures Book 1) Read online

  IN HONOUR BOUND

  Brides By Chance Regency Adventures

  Book One

  Elizabeth Bailey

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  HEAR MORE FROM ELIZABETH BAILEY

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH BAILEY

  Chapter One

  Now that the moment was almost upon her, Isolde’s spirits drooped. A shiver shook her, not entirely attributable to the biting cold pervading the hired chaise.

  “He’ll hate me.”

  Mrs Quick clicked her tongue. “Now don’t be putting the cart before the horse, me dearie. It’s certain sure this de Baudresey fellow was fond enough of your poor papa, for the captain told you so.”

  “Yes, but that won’t make him fond of me,” Isolde argued.

  “It won’t signify. Many’s the time I’ve heard him say as you’d be safe as houses with the gentleman.”

  “I won’t be if he hates me.”

  “Why should he so?”

  “You know very well why, Madge. Because I’m not a proper young lady and I don’t want to be.”

  Mrs Quick sighed. “Then you’ll be after learning how. Besides, you’ve nowhere else to go, and that’s a fact.”

  This blunt reiteration of her dismal state did nothing to inspire Miss Cavanagh with confidence. Buoyed at first by the prospect of the adventure in travelling across the Channel to England, and in the knowledge of her future having been secured by Papa’s foresight, it was not long before doubt set in.

  The journey seemed interminable, and the ship lurched so badly that Isolde’s stomach threatened to regurgitate its contents. She remained on deck despite the inclement December wind, watching as the coastline gradually appeared, with all too much leisure to reflect upon her possible reception.

  What if this Thomas de Baudresey repudiated her? Despite Papa’s assurance, it was conceivable he might resent the intrusion into his household of a young girl with little knowledge of the customs obtaining amongst the gentry of England. Not that she wanted to know them. She would have to wear skirts all the time and curtsy. And there would be no danger of encountering an enemy soldier, so she’d have no use for her pistols or Papa’s sword, carefully wrapped in the bottom of her trunk. Such skills as she possessed would go to waste. Who would want her to kill a rabbit or chicken, let alone skin and disembowel it ready for the pot?

  The more she thought about it, the bleaker her prospects seemed. Already she missed the camaraderie of the camp, the cheery greetings from Papa’s men and the dependable assistance of the other women who followed the drum. She could hardly bear the thought of Christmas without the merry, if ungainly, dancing to Sergeant Randall’s fiddle, the competitions and raucous encouragement of the crowd as the champions wrestled for a prize, the smell of roasting chestnuts and succulent pig, the flowing ale and wine and, most poignant of all, Papa’s infectious laughter.

  There was no going back. She must make the best of it and learn a new way of life. No doubt the celebrations would be different, more staid and far less enjoyable.

  A little of her optimism revived as the ship approached Langer Point and turned into the estuary. She had come here once before, when her mother died and Papa had come to fetch her, taking time to visit his friend before they sailed. Isolde was only nine at the time, and the memory of Colonel Sir Thomas de Baudresey was vague. But the instant she set eyes on the dark walls of Langer Fort, a sense of déjà vu attacked her.

  Perhaps it would not be so bad. She was not altogether a stranger to the family. She had met the wife, though she could remember nothing about her. Her father had spoken with affection of his friend and mentor, who had been his colonel when Desmond Cavanagh was a mere lieutenant. He had told his daughter she would meet with nothing but kindness.

  As the vessel sailed into Harwich harbour, Isolde managed to hold on to belief. It lasted through the meal at The Duke’s Head, and the business of hiring the chaise. But the final leg proved her undoing. The closer they came to Bawdsey Grange, the more despondent she became.

  By the time the carriage took a turn through a pair of open wrought-iron gates and built up speed again as the horses dragged the vehicle down a long drive, Isolde’s heart was thrumming unevenly and her mouth felt dry. She clutched the reticule lying in her lap, feeling the stiff paper folded within that was all the passport she owned to have undertaken this journey.

  She felt Madge’s hand squeeze her arm.

  “Courage now, me dearie. It’ll be well, you’ll see.”

  Isolde’s lip trembled and her eyes pricked. “I wish you were staying with me, Madge.”

  “Well now, you know I can’t do that, Izzy, my pet. I’ve no claim on your people here, and my family are waiting on me besides.”

  “They’re not my people.” Isolde eyed the matron’s profile, unclear in the dim interior. “I could come with you to Ireland. Or at least as far as Cheshire. We could hunt out Mama’s family. They could take me. They ought to take me.”

  “Now you know that’s not possible, Izzy. Your papa told me they wouldn’t want to know you, not after the way your mama ran off with him.”

  The carriage was slowing. Isolde made one last effort to avert her fate, speaking fast and low. “I could live with you, Madge, couldn’t I? I’d work. I wouldn’t be a burden. You know what I can do; you’ve known me long enough.”

  “I have, and I know it wouldn’t be right. Will you be after coming down in the world? I’m not of your class. No, it won’t do, even could I offer it. As it is, I’ll be a beggar myself.”

  Isolde said no more. It was unfair to plague Madge. She had stayed far longer than her time only to take care of Isolde and bring her safe home. She’d have been long gone, if Captain Cavanagh had not begged her to stay and paid her way so she might chaperon his daughter, who was growing too fast to be permitted to roam alone among a company of soldiers. At least, that was the way it had started out, before Madge and Papa…

  The door opened, and the guard was revealed behind it.

  “This is the place, miss. Shall I help you down?”

  He let down the steps, and offered a hand to assist Isolde to alight. She would have preferred to jump down without assistance, but she supposed she had best start behaving as a young lady should. She took the hand and stepped out, her eyes rising to take in the façade of Bawdsey Grange.

  It rose above a set of wide stone stairs, with a pillared portico leading to a heavy front door. The house looked to be more sprawling than contained, rising only a couple of stories and spreading away to either side. Isolde breathed a little more easily. She had retained only a vague picture of a large, dark building, but although grey, the Grange was not the imposing mansion she had been imagining.

  As she trod up the steps, she half expected the front door to fly open, disgorging a flood of servants. It remained closed and uninviting and she was relieved that Madge was at her side. The coa
ch was staying for her, but she had promised to see her charge into the care of the de Baudresey family before taking leave.

  Isolde regarded the unresponsive door with a resurgence of the apprehension that had damped down with the business of exiting the coach and directing the guard to extract her luggage from the boot.

  “I suppose I better knock.”

  Taking matters into her own hands, Madge stepped up to a lever to one side and gave it a tug, sending a bell pealing within.

  The pitter-pat of her heartbeat increased as Isolde waited. It seemed an age before the door opened. A liveried footman appeared in the aperture. He directed an enquiring stare upon them, casting a look towards the coach.

  The dance in Isolde’s pulses abated, giving rise to irritation.

  “Pray do not stare at me in that horrid fashion as if I was a slug on a cabbage. I am here to see Sir Thomas de Baudresey.”

  The footman’s eyes widened, and his stare became even more austere. “If you mean Lord Alderton, miss —”

  “Lord Alderton? No, I mean Colonel Sir Thomas de Baudresey. This is his house, is it not?”

  The footman’s brows drew together. “Perhaps you are not aware, miss, that Sir Thomas was granted a barony a matter of three or four years ago. He took the title of Lord Alderton.”

  It was Isolde’s turn to stare. She glanced at Madge Quick, who met her eyes and grimaced, shrugging.

  “My father could not have known.” Isolde drew breath. “Well, it makes no odds if he is now a lord. He is the man I am here to see.”

  The footman’s regard became pitying. “Then I fear you have made a wasted journey, miss. Lord Alderton has been dead these two years.”

  A sense of unreality invaded Isolde’s mind. This could not be happening. If Sir Thomas — or Lord Alderton — had died, then she had no guardian at all. No guardian, no shelter and no future. Without thought, she spoke her mind aloud.

  “Heavens, what am I to do now?”

  Something of her dismay must have communicated to the footman, for he unbent a trifle.

  “Perhaps you could state your business to the present Lord Alderton, miss?”

  “The present Lord Alderton?”

  “Richard de Baudresey, miss. Sir Thomas’s son.”

  “I didn’t know he had a son.”

  “It’s not all you didn’t know,” murmured Madge.

  Evidently noting how Isolde was too disconcerted to know what to do, she took a hand, addressing the footman in a high-handed fashion.

  “Will you go and tell his lordship that Miss Cavanagh desires speech with him. And let us in, man! Will you be after leaving a lady on the doorstep? There must be room in a house this size for her to wait in comfort.”

  The footman looked taken aback, but he stood aside, gesturing for them to enter.

  Madge hesitated on the doorstep.

  “I’ve to see my charge safely received before I go, and I can see that may take a while. While you’re fetching the trunk and portmanteau, would you tell the coachman where he may go to rest the horses and bait?”

  “Certainly, madam.”

  The tone was repressive, but the footman slipped down the steps for a word with the coachman and guard, in which time Isolde stepped onto a chequered floor and took a moment to look around while she waited for the man’s return.

  A wide wooden staircase dominated the hall, leading up to a landing and branching off left and right to a gallery above. Doors led off either side, and Isolde glimpsed a green baize door at the back and the dark of a corridor behind the stairs. Two massive paintings of hunting scenes adorned panelled walls, and the excess of dark wood made the place dim in the dull winter afternoon. Candles were already alight in the wall sconces and a flaming candelabrum sat on a heavy oak table in a recess to one side.

  The silence was oppressive, the shadows disquieting. Isolde’s spirits plummeted.

  Chapter Two

  The faint tick of the library clock began to irritate, cutting into Richard’s concentration. His pen paused, hovering over the paper on the desk. His writing, neat and precise as ever, covered more than half the page already and the words expressed but a tithe of what he needed to say.

  With a sigh, he shifted the pen away from the sheet, careful to make no blots, and set it down in its cradle on the standish. Sinking back, he allowed his cramped muscles to relax against the leather-covered seat, and glanced at the clock above the mantel.

  Past three already? He’d meant to have this business off his chest today, but time was pressing and he had to visit Mama before dinner.

  He had known the letter was going to be difficult to write. He’d already ruined three sheets with earlier efforts, now shrivelled to ashes in the fire. He was still unsure if the present one would suffice. His lawyer had warned him to take care what he said, be wary just what he revealed. If he was to come out of this unscathed, Richard could not afford to botch it.

  He greeted a knock at the door as a welcome interruption.

  “Come.”

  The door opened and Richard recognised the stately figure of his butler.

  “Oh, it’s you, Topham. What is it?”

  The man approached the desk with his customary measured tread, a hint of trouble in his usually urbane countenance under the domed head, which these days sported very little hair.

  Richard’s heart sank. What now? Hadn’t he enough on his plate?

  “A young lady is asking for you, my lord.”

  “What young lady?”

  “A Miss Cavanagh, my lord.”

  Richard frowned in an effort of memory. “I don’t know anyone of that name.”

  “No, my lord, but I venture to think the name was well known to your honoured father.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, my lord. Fortunately, James had the sense to apprise me of the young lady’s arrival.”

  Vague recollection stirred in Richard’s mind. “I thought I heard a carriage. Who is this Miss Cavanagh and what does she want with me?”

  The butler gave his gentle cough, a sign that he had already vetted the lady’s credentials and found them acceptable. “That I cannot take it upon myself to say, my lord, for the young lady asked for your lordship’s late father. According to James, she was unaware of his having acquired the title, or of his demise. I conceived it to be my duty to question the young lady myself.”

  “And clearly decided that I ought to see her. Has she some claim upon me?”

  “I could not say, my lord. But when I learned the young lady’s identity, it struck me that his late lordship would desire you to receive her.”

  Richard eyed him, suspicion building in his head. This could not be the result of an indiscretion of his father’s, could it? Was he to be saddled with yet another embarrassment? “Well?”

  Topham’s features took on the austere expression he was wont to adopt whenever he considered Richard to have overstepped the mark. That was the worst of these retainers who had known one from birth. They took too many liberties, and one could neither snub them nor send them packing. And Topham was particularly prone to champion any suit of his father’s.

  “Captain Cavanagh, my lord, was a particular friend and protégé of his late lordship. I have often heard him speak of the man with affection.”

  Richard ignored the tone of reproof. “Was? Is the fellow dead then?”

  “So I understand, my lord. Miss Cavanagh is here, as she explained to me, under Captain Cavanagh’s direction.”

  Damnation, he was going to be saddled with some wench from his father’s past! Why else should the wretched fellow send the girl here? He damped down the rising annoyance. “I suppose I must see her then. Where is she?”

  On tenterhooks, Isolde knew not whether to be fearful or to give way to a strong desire to fall into hysterics. Her dismay had given way to a budding sense of ill-usage. Not only had she been parked in this bare, if neat, room, boasting little more than a couple of chairs and a small sofa, but she had been sub
jected to a catechism by an elderly individual whose austerity all but crushed her. Already she hated the place. And she was much inclined to resent the necessity to sue for mercy to this unknown son of Sir Thomas’s.

  Madge, who had occupied herself with examining what she could see of the grounds from the window which at least gave light into the room, had urged her to be calm.

  “It’s no manner of use putting yourself into a passion, Izzy. Wait until you see how the land lies.”

  But Isolde could see very well how it lay, and she wanted no part of it. How wretched that she’d been born a female, to be subject to the whim of strangers and obliged to behave in a fashion as dull as it was depressing.

  Pacing a large rug from end to end and back again, she was caught unawares when the door opened. She stopped dead and turned her eyes towards the doorway, unconsciously affording the man who entered a perfect opportunity to take in her state of mind.

  He did not appear to notice it, although a pair of keen eyes appraised Isolde as readily as she appraised him. She could not doubt his identity. Everything about him proclaimed the gentleman, and his air of ownership could not be mistaken.

  Dark hair, lush and worn long so it rested on his collar, framed features more striking than handsome. Isolde received an impression of strength coupled with neatness, of both garb and motion. He moved with grace as he came towards her, and gave a small bow.

  “Miss Cavanagh?”

  For a moment she did not speak, daunted by the formality of his manner. But he was not forbidding. A faint sense of relief crept through her and she gave it voice without thought. “You haven’t come to throw me out then?”

  His brows lifted. “Should I do so?”

  “Well, it’s true I have no claim upon you. Indeed, I can’t be sure your father would have welcomed me either, so why in the world should you?”

  One corner of his mouth quirked. “You are very frank.”

  Isolde was conscious of a sliver of warmth in the cold of her isolation. “I’ve never learned discretion. Not in conversation, I mean. We had no use for it in the camp.”