Woo'd in Haste
Authors: Sabrina Darby
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Regency, #General, #Collections & Anthologies
OO
’
D
IN
H
ASTE
A Taming Story
S
ABRINA
D
ARBY
For sisters everywhere
C
ONTENTS
An Excerpt from
Falling for Owen
by Jennifer Ryan
An Excerpt from
Good Girls Don’t Date Rock Stars
by Codi Gary
HAPTER
O
NE
A
man’s life can change in an instant. Lucian Dorlingsley, Viscount Asquith, heir to the Earl of Finleigh, had heard this aphorism many times, but until that particular August morning, he had never experienced such a profound moment. Not throughout his sheltered childhood at his familial estate. Or during the more arduous years at Harrow and Cambridge. Not even during the long continental tour from which he had just returned.
Yet here, in the sleepy town of Watersham, where he was stopping briefly with the Colburns on his way home, his life had been rocked down to his very essence.
“I’m in love, Reggie!” He paced the length of the veranda where they were enjoying an al fresco luncheon. The sky beyond was a cerulean blue and the weather, for once, that rare balance of very English sunshine (and he had now seen enough of the world to know that sunshine had a different quality in different places) tempered by a delicate breeze. In other words, the perfect day to fall in love.
His friend, the younger brother of the Duke of Orland, looked at him doubtfully, a cautious smirk on his lips.
“Who is she, then? A Parisian dancer from the opera? An Italian nymph? What paragon did you meet on your travels that has you so bound up in a paroxysm of amorous emotion?”
Reggie saw the world as one large jest, and on most occasions that was one of his charms. In fact, his boisterous manner was what made him so easy to be around. Often Luc could simply follow him about and be amused without having to put himself forward in any way. It was also, at this moment, the one thing Luc did not need. Not about a matter so serious.
“No, nothing so cliché as all that. I saw her here in the village this morning. I stopped by the apothecary and there she was.”
“And did you pledge your undying love to her?”
Luc shook his head, ignoring Reggie’s exaggerations and persistent humor for a confessional honesty. An honesty that he had with few others, including his sisters. But Reggie had been the foremost companion of his youth, his roommate at Harrow and later at Cambridge. At least for the one year that Reggie attended before he decided the pretense at study was a waste of his time. He’d been gallivanting about London ever since. Still, Luc said the words with shame. “I could hardly approach her.”
“I shall never understand how such a giant as yourself is one of the most painfully shy men that I know. One would think a Grand Tour would cure you of that.”
Europe had cured him in many ways. Out of the shadow of his gregarious father, away from the judgments of his usual society, he had been able to be more himself. But now he was back in England, and . . . this was not just any woman.
“Miss Mansfield, they called her,” he said instead. “Do you know her? Can she be mine?” Not that he had ever thought twice about marriage before this point. He was still young and most of his friends unattached. Yet the idea of such beauty being his . . . His own Botticelli. He looked expectantly at Reggie, but his friend’s usually round, smiling face looked aghast.
“What? Is she promised to someone already? Are you in love with her, Reggie? Or is Peter?” He tried to calm his sudden fears with levity. “Have I lost my heart to some untouchable?”
“Untouchable, perhaps,” Reggie choked out, taking a moment to twirl the long hair that fell over his forehead in sandy curls. “I didn’t realize Kate was back from Brighton. But listen, Luc, this one— Forget about her. She might be a success in London these last two seasons, but everyone in these parts knows her for the brat that she is.”
Brat? Luc couldn’t reconcile that word with the image that still lingered in his mind. Honey-blond hair framing a rosy-cheeked countenance. Eyes as blue as today’s perfect sky. A paragon of quiet English beauty, in fact.
“She seemed quite well liked. She had a charming smile and manner.
Brat
seems like an unfair epithet.”
“Not for Kate, but oh! Perhaps it was Bianca. Your Venus, was she fair or dark?”
“Fair.”
“Aha, the mystery is cleared,” Reggie said with a smile, slapping his knee. And then the smile faded. “I would be more than happy to introduce you to Bianca Mansfield, younger sister to the cursed Kate, but it wouldn’t matter in any event. In fact, her father would likely not let you near if he thought you a suitor.”
“She
is
taken.” Of course, she would be.
“Quite the opposite. It’s very clear, Luc, that you know nothing about the family. If you’d been in London these last two years instead of traveling across the continent, you would know all about Catherine.”
“It isn’t Catherine I want.”
“But Catherine is unmarried and refuses to allow her sister to have a season this year and upstage her in London.”
That sounded ridiculous, impossible, and positively Shakespearean.
“And their father allows this?”
“Mr. Mansfield has allowed Catherine her own way ever since their mother died. And his current wife seems to support the situation, as well. Not that Bianca has ever been seen to complain. In fact, as best I know, she couldn’t care less and is completely immersed in her books.”
Books. That little insight added slight shading, a rounded curve to his previous image of her. What kind of books did she prefer to read? Poetry? Minerva’s Press? Greek philosophy? His own preference was modern philosophy. Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Herr Kant. Not that he read every word of any given tract. He’d done quite enough of that during his rigorously classical education. No, now he preferred a looser approach, to simply catch the gist of an author’s argument. And really, when it was all about ideas, who needed to have all those extra words?
“How do you know this?”
“The servants, of course. I don’t know how your father thinks you’ll ever make a proper earl. You, my friend, are the embodiment of naïveté.”
A social reticence, Lucian would admit to, but naïveté was a different matter and the words rankled. Especially as Lucian had spent two years abroad gaining a continental education while Reggie had never once left England’s shores.
Yet, ultimately, the slur to his worldliness aside, Reggie had given much food for thought. Lucian sat down in his chair somewhat dejectedly. Naturally, when Cupid’s arrow finally struck, the object of his desire would be unattainable.
“I can still introduce you to her,” Reggie offered. “You never do know. Perhaps her father will be so impressed by your ancestry that he will risk strife in his own home.”
“T
homas Mansfield, that is not how gentlemen sit when they take tea!” Charlotte Smith scolded. Bianca sat up straighter herself at the governess’s strident tones. Not that there was anything wrong with her posture, at least at the moment. Lottie (Bianca had only been allowed to use that familiar name two years earlier) had ensured that over the last ten years.
“It’s how Father sits,” Thomas rebuffed. He was eight and, ever since recovering from the illness that kept him from attending Eton with his closest friend, he had been increasingly obstreperous. But he was still too weak to be sent off this quarter.
“If you wish to not be a laughingstock, you will learn basic manners.”
Wisely, Lottie had not addressed the issue of Bianca’s father, who was a country gentleman through and through, and very happy with his hunting and sport.
“Go on and read it. It is simply ink on paper and can hardly bite you.” This chastisement was in fact addressed to Bianca, and she looked down at the letter in her hands. While Bianca and Kate were not close, had not been since the day Bianca watched their mother die and been unable to do a thing to stop it from happening, Kate always sent regular letters when she was away from home. They were usually long, and fraught with details about clothing and society events, about people of whom Bianca knew nothing. As if she was taunting her with the life she refused to share.
Not that Bianca cared.
In fact, there were only three things in the world that she did care about: books, music, and Thomas. She had decided several years earlier, while still a child, that the rest of her family wasn’t worth worrying about, from her sister’s constant demands and histrionics to her father’s inability to refuse Kate anything.
Bianca was a fortress, not only physically, thanks to her sister’s decree that she could not enter society until Kate found a mate (the rhyme brought a small smile to Bianca’s lips), but also emotionally. No one and nothing could hurt her if she didn’t care.
Although she did feel deeply. When she read Mrs. Burney’s
Evelina
again for the fourteenth time, she still sighed over Lord Orville, preferred him in fact to all the heroes of Miss Austen’s works. Although Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth never failed to thrill and Captain Wentworth’s final speech to Anne was the epitome of romance.
Romance that Bianca would never experience. Unless perhaps this letter contained news of Kate having formed a tendre for some gentleman.
But no, Kate was far too happy flirting and flitting about to settle down just yet. And thus, at nineteen, Bianca was still stuck here at home.
Not that she would wish to leave Thomas’s side until he was completely mended and off to school. She did love him desperately. In some ways she was more a mother to him than a sister, as his own mother, her stepmother, was always off accompanying Kate, from London to Brighton to Bath and back to London. Henrietta had knowingly married a country gentleman but she refused to remain in the country herself.
With a sigh, Bianca unfolded the missive. The mere sight of the familiar script sent dread seeping down her body.
She skimmed the letter, only registering a few lines here and there.
The Season is over and next week we shall move to Brighton, where we are staying with our cousins, the Plimptons.
Their mother’s family. Bianca had only met them once as their mother had not been close with her siblings. However, she had never felt one of them. Kate, who had inherited her dark hair and eyes from that side of the family, had always seemed to fit in.