PoetsandPromises

Lucy
Muir

Blush sensuality level: This is a sweet romance (kisses
only, no sexual content).

Elisabeth Ashwood is quite content
with her quiet country life and has no desire to alter it, but she finds her
whole life changing when circumstances dictate that she agree to a betrothal to
the son of a family friend. Their reacquaintance, however, could only
charitably be described as perilous.

Lord Sherbourne, in an attempt to
gain favor with his betrothed, decides to introduce the studious Elisabeth to
Leigh Hunt, leader of the London literary set. Delighted, Elisabeth finds
herself frequently spending time with the morally ambiguous group, which includes
Mary and Percy Shelley, despite knowing it’s not considered an acceptable
milieu for a young woman of good family.

Having set herself on a path
certain to clash with societal mores, Elisabeth may have to fight to save both
her good character and her growing relationship with the dashing Lord
Sherbourne.

A
Blush®
Regency romance
from Ellora’s Cave

“Papa, I beg of you, do not ask this of me,” Elisabeth
Ashwood pleaded, her clear gray eyes beseeching. “You know I have no desire to
marry. I am happy here at Thornhill with you and Mama.”

Lord Ashwood leaned back in his chair and sighed, running
his hand over his thinning hair in a gesture of frustration. “Daughter, I know
you have been content here with us, as have we, but every woman must eventually
desire her own establishment. It is only natural.”

“But you know that I do not,” Elisabeth rejoined. “Here I
have everything I could desire in comforts and family, and I have Reverend
Fairacre and his wife to guide my studies and share my leisure. To marry
someone I do not even know…” Her voice trailed off as she contemplated being
uprooted from everything she had ever known to spend the rest of her life in
places and with people unfamiliar to her.

“You knew his father well from his visits here,” her father
reminded her, “and you must remember the son from your childhood.” The baron
gave another sigh at his daughter’s unrelenting expression. He folded his hands
together on his desk and spoke earnestly. “Elisabeth, I have informed you that
the
Dancing Lady
went down and the cargo I had invested so heavily in
went down with her. What I have not told you is the dire state in which it leaves
my finances. The truth is, daughter, unless I have an immediate infusion of
capital there may well be no home here for you to stay in. Thornhill will have
to be sold.”

Elisabeth mirrored her father’s previous action, running a
hand over her soft brown curls as she took in this new information. She should
have known her father would have tried to spare her from the worst of his
financial difficulties. But now that she knew, how could she refuse a plea to
help her father retain their family home—and her brother his inheritance?

Elisabeth knew that to all outward appearances her
reluctance was unreasonable. She was being offered marriage with a peer of
unblemished reputation and great fortune. But although marriage was the natural
conclusion to girlhood, Elisabeth had never desired it. As the eldest and only
child for fourteen years, Elisabeth had enjoyed an unconventional upbringing,
spending her days riding about the estate with her father and studying with a
well-educated governess whose own accomplishments had included Latin and Greek.
After the birth of her brother when she was fourteen years of age, the patterns
of her daily life had been too entrenched to change. When Elisabeth had grown
too old for a governess the vicar husband of her dearest friend, Jane Fairacre,
had continued to direct her studies. Elisabeth had been quietly content with
her simple country life and strongly attached to her family. She had met no
local gentleman she had ever considered marrying and did not wish to leave her
family and Thornhill to search for one through a London Season. Now she faced
the sudden loss of all that had constituted her life for four-and-twenty years!

“Could we not leave Thornhill to be rented and find a
smaller house in town until your finances improve?” Elisabeth pleaded in
desperation, turning back to her father. “Did you not have the cargo insured?
Is there nothing left?”

Apparently deciding the only way to reach his daughter was
to be brutally frank, Lord Ashwood spoke without mincing his words. “Elisabeth,
I have few hopes of ever being able to recover the amount I have lost. I took a
chance on that cargo. It was insured for enough to cover what I owe other
investors, but not enough to recoup my own losses. Had the
Dancing Lady
made port I should have doubled our fortunes. But now both ship and cargo lie
at the bottom of the sea and all we have is at risk.”

Elisabeth felt her last hopes vanishing. “Papa, perhaps I
might take a position as a governess or ladies companion,” she offered. “I know
I should be able to find one.”

“Daughter, you are not using the mind of which you are so
proud,” Lord Ashwood said, an edge of frustration creeping into his voice.
“Would you never have a home of your own? Would you be at the beck and call of
a person’s most unreasonable whim? And how would that save your brother’s
future? Would you have him lose his inheritance for want of your assistance?

“I know your mother and I ask a great deal of you,
Elisabeth,” her father added in a gentler tone. “But it is not as if similar bargains
are not made frequently in many families of distressed circumstance. And it is
not as though I am asking you to marry an old man, or one whose person you
would find objectionable. Lord Sherbourne has but thirty years and he is a
viscount.”

Elisabeth turned abruptly from her father as tears
threatened to spill from her eyes. Slowly, she walked to the study windows and
leaned against the heavy draperies, staring out at the bleak winter landscape.
The bare limbs of the elms etched stark patterns across the gray January sky
but even in its winter severity the scene touched her heart as no other could.
Thornhill was her home.

There was no choice, of course, she thought as she fought
back tears while she pretended to consider her decision as she gazed out the
window. In truth there was nothing to consider. Much as she hated the thought
of leaving her family, her good friends the Fairacres and the daily concerns
and duties that made her beloved home, she would have to agree. She would not
be the cause of her brother losing his inheritance or her mother losing her
home. She took a deep breath and resolutely turned to face her father, her back
straightening and her voice firm.

“Very well, Papa, I shall do as you ask,” she submitted.
“But must the marriage take place so soon? Although I remember his father well,
I have few memories of the present Lord Sherbourne. Might I not have some time
to become accustomed to the idea?” Elisabeth asked, thinking that any delay
would be good—who knew what might happen with the passing of time?

“Lord Sherbourne has already considered this,” Lord Ashwood
informed his daughter, sounding pleased to give proof of the prospective
groom’s considerate nature. “He asks that you go to London this February and
stay with his sister for six months. You will marry in August. It is a
thoughtful gesture, and will give you time to become acquainted before you are
wed.”

“Yes, Papa,” Elisabeth answered briefly. February. So soon.
Elisabeth felt tears threatening once again. “I must go tell Molly so that she
may review my wardrobe and have things ready,” she said to her father, wanting
to escape the study for the privacy of her bedchamber before they spilled over.

“Of course,” Baron Ashwood agreed, looking at his daughter
keenly. “Elisabeth,” he said quietly, “I know you have not had the inclination
to marry. Lady Ashwood and I were perhaps remiss in your upbringing. No doubt
we should have brought you out and introduced you into society beyond what is
to be found here. But you seemed content…

“I thank you for your brother.”

“Yes, Papa,” Elisabeth said, her voice breaking, and she
walked rapidly from her father’s study as the long-threatening tears began to
roll silently down her cheeks.

The bitter January wind funneled gusts of snow through the
streets, howling past chimneys and doors and causing passers-by to pull their
overgarments close about their bodies. But no hint of cold prevailed inside the
small sitting room on Curzon Street where a strong fire blazed in the hearth
and heavy curtains muffled the night sounds. Two gentlemen sat companionably on
either side of the fire, a bottle of Madeira on a table between them.

A change of wind direction caused the sitting room fire to
flare and sparks flew out past the tiles. Roused from a half sleep by the
flying embers, James Earlywine shifted his legs away from the fireplace and
reached for the half-empty bottle.

Richard Montfort Leslie Sherbourne, viscount, smiled lazily
at his friend from where he sat, legs stretched out comfortably in his chair
opposite the fire. “Now that you are awake enough to comprehend my tidings,
Earlywine, I have some news to impart.”

“Oh?” James inquired as he filled his glass and replaced the
bottle on the table.

“Yes, you must congratulate me. I am to be married come
summer.”

James’ blue eyes flew wide open, his sudden intake of breath
at the news causing him to sputter, sending a fine spray of golden droplets
over his white linen.

“Leg-shackled? To whom?” James asked when he caught his
breath. “You have only been back in London from India since this past November,
and I was not aware of any woman to whom you have been paying your addresses.”

“To Miss Elisabeth Ashwood, daughter of Baron Ashwood. The
baron was a close friend of my father’s.”

“But why? Do you know Miss Ashwood? You couldn’t, you have
been in India these past thirteen years.”

“I knew her as a child,” Lord Sherbourne explained, amused
at his friend’s shocked reaction to the unexpected announcement. “It is my duty
to marry and set up a nursery. I did not think it of importance when I had no
thought of succeeding to the title but that terrible accident… “ His voice
faltered as he recalled the day the news had finally reached India of the
carriage accident that had taken his father, brother and brother’s wife and child
from him. Regaining mastery over his emotions, he continued, “It has made it my
immediate duty as the remaining Sherbourne to wed and secure the line as well
as to take over the running of the estate. I have no desire to fence with
hopeful mamas through a Season here in town, nor any heart to flirt with their
equally hopeful daughters. Miss Ashwood is unmarried at four-and-twenty and
will likely be grateful and biddable, well past the giddy high spirits of
youth. Her father is in need of funds after a ship he had invested in heavily
was lost. Moreover, saving their fortune shows respect for the long friendship
between my father and hers.”

“Still, you have no idea what Miss Ashwood may be like after
thirteen years,” James protested. “There is a great deal of difference between
a child of ten and a woman of four-and-twenty. She might be anything. She might
be disagreeable or prune-faced or a complete ninny.”

“The baron sent her likeness,” Richard said, reaching for a
miniature lying on the end table next to his chair and tossing it to James.
“See for yourself.”

James caught the miniature neatly and leaned closer to the
firelight, studying the likeness carefully. It showed a woman past girlhood but
still young, with clear gray eyes and soft brown hair, a face with an
expression sweet yet serious. “She looks well enough,” James allowed, tossing
the miniature back to the viscount, “but it seems a dashed cold-blooded way to
go about finding a wife. You might yet meet someone for whom you will form a
tendre
,
and then what will you do if you are promised elsewhere?”

“You are a romantic, Earlywine,” Sherbourne commented as he
slid the miniature back in his waistcoat pocket. “But you are no example of the
benefits of romantic love as a basis for a good marriage. Or how is it you also
have reached a score and ten years without marrying? I seem to recall mention
of many ladies you claimed to have had the soft passion for in the letters I
received from you while I was in India. How is it you are married to none of
them?”

“Upon closer acquaintance I found I did not love them after
all,” James responded imperturbably. “You shall see, Sherbourne, it is not as
simple as you make it out to be. Love is an emotion, and they are not always
governable.”

“One’s emotions should always be governable.”

“I have found the tender emotions rarely are,” Earlywine
stated knowingly.

“I am practical, and at age four-and-twenty I trust Miss
Ashwood is also,” Sherbourne stated calmly. “We shall do well together.”

James shook his head doubtfully as he poured a last glass of
Madeira. With three sisters James was not as sanguine about years adding
practicality and seriousness to the character of women. In his experience, they
were likely to be up to starts of all sorts at any age.

“Do you plan to marry this summer without seeing her before
the nuptials?” he asked.

“No. Miss Ashwood is to come to town this February and stay
with my sister for some months,” Sherbourne elaborated. “That will allow us
time to become acquainted before we are wed in August, after which I shall
settle at Longwood.”

“That is a good plan,” James acknowledged. “I shall look
forward to becoming acquainted with her myself.”

“I had hoped you would say that,” Sherbourne said with a
smile. “I shall be depending upon your help. I have been gone from London these
thirteen years, and fear to find myself at sea once again amongst the ton.
Company society in India was a rather rough and hard living. I need someone to
guide me lest I go astray.”

“You may depend upon me,” James assured his friend.

“February! So soon! I shall miss you excessively!” Jane
Fairacre exclaimed, reaching for Elisabeth’s hand and holding it tightly.

“It is Lord Sherbourne’s wish that I leave soon and reside
at his sister’s until the marriage that we may become acquainted before the
marriage takes place.”

“It is not a bad plan,” Jane said comfortingly. “It is true
I wish it were not necessary for you to leave but my reasons are selfish, for I
shall miss our outings and our discussions, as will Mr. Fairacre.”

Elisabeth looked around the cozy rectory sitting room,
thinking how very much she would miss her friend. Jane had not yet been blessed
with children in her marriage and Elisabeth’s friendship with the vicar’s wife
had continued as close as it had been before Jane had married. How many
pleasant afternoons and evenings she had spent with her friend and Mr.
Fairacre, times filled with walks through the woods when the weather was fine,
reading together by the vicarage fire during storms and having spirited
discussions on topics from politics to art to religion whatever the weather.
Mr. Fairacre was no mean scholar and he had guided both his wife’s and
Elisabeth’s studies, adding many works of philosophy and politics to the
histories and biographies they had chosen for their reading. She would miss
their close friendship beyond description.