Jo Brown - The Dutiful Daughter

She Must Marry for Duty

Sophia Meriweather will—if all goes as it should—marry the heir to her father’s estate. If she’s to secure her family’s future, Sophia must put her would-be groom’s best friend from her mind. But keeping the darkly handsome widower and his two young children out of her heart is proving nearly impossible.

Charles Winthrop, Lord Northbridge, doesn’t believe in love. Lovely Sophia may have charmed his normally silent children, but, for a man of honor and duty, she was a wife he dared not wish for. Yet nothing is as simple as it seems—especially when it comes to matters of the heart….

Sophia was overtaken by her reaction to the earl.

Had she lost her mind? Not only was it assumed she would marry another man, but Lord Northbridge remained in mourning for his late wife. She should help him become closer with his children, not closer to her.

“Can we play draughts?” his son asked, pointing to an upper shelf. “I see a board right up there.”

“Of course,” Sophia said. “I will bring it over to the table, and we will set it up there.”

Michael ran away, calling to his sister to come and play the game with him.

Sophia rose on tiptoe to take down the board and the round draughts. Her hand bumped into Lord Northbridge’s as he reached for the board, too.

“I can get it,” she said.

“I know you can, but allow me to do so in an effort to atone for my son’s intrusion.”

“There is nothing to atone for.”

“For him or for me?” His low voice was almost as warm as his touch.

“Neither of you.”

“I am glad to hear that.…”

JO ANN BROWN

has published more than one hundred titles under a variety of pen names since selling her first book in 1987. A former military officer, she enjoys telling stories, taking pictures and traveling. She has taught creative writing for more than twenty years and is always excited when one of her students sells a project. She has been married for more than thirty years and has three children and two spoiled cats. Currently she lives in Nevada. Her books have been translated into almost a dozen languages and sold on every continent except Antarctica. She enjoys hearing from her readers. Drop her a note at www.joannbrownbooks.com.

The Dutiful Daughter

Jo Ann Brown

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Everlasting joy shall be upon their head:

they shall obtain gladness and joy;

and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

—Isaiah 51:11

For Regina Scott

A dear friend whose books always delight me.

Thanks for answering all my questions!

I’m sure there are more to come.

And, as always, for Bill.

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

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

Meriweather Hall, Sanctuary Bay, North Yorkshire

September 1816

“He is here? Now?” Sophia Meriweather stared at Ogden, the family’s butler, in dismay.

Ogden nodded, his silvery hair catching the light from the book-room window. Even though he had been in service in the house since her father was a boy, the butler was not bent with age. His black livery was perfect, as always, but she noticed the slightest quiver in his fingers. And why not? Everything was going to change from this moment forward.

That was not quite true. Everything had changed when Sophia’s father took his last breath without a male heir. Without a brother or even a nephew. Only a distant cousin several times removed who had never visited Meriweather Hall on its promontory overlooking Sanctuary Bay. A distant cousin named Edmund Herriott who now possessed the title of Lord Meriweather and held claim to the estate and all it contained.

Including the previous lord’s older daughter.

Not that she was property, but it was assumed by her mother and sister and by the residents of the nearby village that Sophia Meriweather would do her final, most important duty to her father and marry the new baron and give him a male heir to keep an unbroken line at the estate.

Sophia slowly rose from the rosewood desk in the book-room. If she did not marry the new lord, she and her mother and sister would be relegated to the dower cottage where nobody had lived for more than thirty years. Her fingers curled on the edge of the desk. Papa had assured her that once the war was over, they would travel to the places on the Continent that he had visited on his grand tour before the French Revolution and Napoleon’s wars.

But her father was dead, and she was expected to marry a man she had never met.

Sophia raised her chin. She had promised Papa before he died that she would take care of Mama, her sister, Catherine, and Meriweather Hall. That was a promise she must keep. Therefore she would present Meriweather Hall in its best light and at its most welcoming. It did not matter that the new baron had not had the forethought to send a messenger ahead to alert them to his arrival so early in the day. Learning to live with how the new Lord Meriweather handled his household was something they must do.

Affixing a smile, she said, “Thank you, Ogden. I trust you had him escorted to the formal parlor.”

The barons of Meriweather Hall had received guests in that room since the manor house was built in the 16th century. But the new Lord Meriweather is no guest. She silenced that perfidious thought. She had known this day was coming, and she had prayed to be prepared for it. Now she must trust God would help her be.

“They are waiting for you there, Miss Meriweather.” Ogden’s voice was calm.

Hers was not, because it squeaked when she asked, “They?”

“Lord Meriweather has not traveled here alone.” The butler’s face was placid. Only that faint tremble in his fingers revealed that he was as on edge as she was.

Sophia squared her shoulders. Greeting the baron and his traveling companions was her duty. Mother still was not receiving because she remained in mourning.

“Where is Catherine?” she asked, for she had not seen her younger sister that morning.

“Miss Catherine is in her private chambers. Shall I let her know of Lord Meriweather’s arrival?”

“Do so, and have rooms aired for the baron and his guests.” She added as the butler turned to obey, “Ogden, my mother need not be bothered now. I will inform her of Lord Meriweather’s arrival after I have greeted him and his companions.”

“As you wish, Miss Meriweather. But if she asks...”

“Tell her the truth that I have made arrangements for the baron and our—his other guests.” She hoped she would not speak unwisely in the presence of the new baron. Meriweather Hall was no longer her home. It belonged to a man who was setting foot in it for the very first time today.

Sophia took a steadying breath as she walked into the corridor that lead to the front of the house and the formal parlor. A few lamps had been lit to fight back the gray dreariness of the rainy September morning. She did not need light to wind her way past tables and cabinets and the pictures that were lost in the shadows. She knew each inch of the house, because except for a single visit to London for the Season, she had spent every night beneath its roof.

She heard the men’s voices before she reached the formal parlor. The sound, deep and resonant, seemed out of place in the house. One man chuckled, and she wondered if she had heard a male laugh in Meriweather Hall since her father took ill.