Lyn Stone - The Substitute Countess

The way Jack had first seen her—face red with anger, eyes flashing, tight little chignon askew and one sleeve torn at the shoulder seam—had roused his protective instinct to the maximum. She needed him on a level that no woman ever had before.

He knew he would miss the women who welcomed him with open arms and merry laughter. This girl was not of their kind, however. Attaining regard from her would require more than he had offered the others. This time he would need to make irrevocable promises. Vows.

He only hoped he was up to the challenge. Given the fire he had seen in her, he figured she would be anything but boring.

Jack rarely met a woman he didn’t like, even the guileful ones with nefarious schemes to trap him. Now the shoe was on the other foot. He meant to marry her even should it require employing a bit of guile himself. She needed charming, and he could do that.

Sometimes love takes you by surprise. It might begin with a chance meeting, an unintended altercation or, in the case of Jack and Laurel, a reluctant good deed.

A man of honour does what he should, and Jack is no exception—even when it means abandoning a life of adventure to do the right thing. After all, he benefits too. Laurel provides the greatest adventure he has yet encountered when she grants him her hand in marriage and her trust.

However, trust proves more fragile than love when deception enters the mix. The question becomes whether nobility lies in the heart or in a name. They say no good deed goes unpunished. Come see if that’s so!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A painter of historical events, LYN STONEdecided to write about them. A canvas, however detailed, limits characters to only one moment in time. ‘If a picture’s worth a thousand words, the other ninety thousand have to show up somewhere!’ An avid reader, she admits, ‘At thirteen, I fell in love with Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff and became Catherine. Next year I fell for Rhett and became Scarlett. Then I fell for the hero I’d known most of my life and finally became myself.’

After living for four years in Europe, Lyn and her husband, Allen, settled into a log house in north Alabama that is crammed to the rafters with antiques, artefacts and the stuff of future tales.

A previous novel by the same author:

THE CAPTAIN AND THE WALLFLOWER

And in Mills & Boon ®Historical Undone! eBooks:

THE WIDOW AND THE RAKE

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for my brother and sister by marriage,

Irene and Charles Stone.

You two are great inspiration for writing love stories

because yours is so enduring.

I treasure the love, humour and camaraderie

we have shared over the years.

London

September, 1818

Jackson Worth tugged at his new neckcloth with an impatient finger. The damned thing choked him, its starch irritating his recently shaved throat. His newly acquired title chafed even more. He stood and began to pace.

What was he to do with an earldom that came with nothing but ominous responsibilities and no wealth to support them? Damn it all, he liked his life the way it was, with only himself to manage. Most of the time, that went rather well, and when it didn’t, only he suffered the consequences.

Jack winced when he realized that was too much like his father’s outlook had been. Frustrated by the very thought, he sat down again and began tapping on the smooth wooden arms of the chair.

“You’re certain there’s no one else in line for it?” he asked Mr. Hobson, who sat behind the solicitor’s desk. “I cannot afford this, you know. Every penny I owned, other than what is in my pocket at present, was tied up in my last shipping venture.” A disaster, as he had just explained. He’d had a few of those, but one lived and learned. Nothing risked, nothing gained—that was his motto. Rather, it had been his motto.

His only ship was lost, the insurance gone to pay survivors of the crew and his investors. Devil take it, he should have captained the damn thing himself. He would recoup, of course. He had done it before, but it would take time, travel and energy. Those were three things an earl would not be able to spare while keeping a sizable estate running and its people in check and well fed.

The solicitor smiled as he laid a page of the document on the desk and turned it so that Jack could see the content. “Rest assured, there has been a thorough investigation, sir. The former Earl of Elderidge instigated the search for a male heir before he died. Your lineage is well documented through church records, proof that your father and the late earl shared a greatgreat-grandfather who was fourth Earl of Elderidge.”

“No one ever informed me of this,” Jack grumbled.

“The connection was rather remote. Perhaps your father thought it of no significance. You were abroad when I finally located your mother’s lodgings in Plymouth—hence the message left there for you to contact me as soon as you arrived in England.”

“Had I known, I might have stayed in Amsterdam,” Jack muttered.

“A petition was offered on your behalf and the lords have already met. Letters of patent have been issued. You should be gazetted soon. The title and all that it entails are yours without question.”

“Mine, eh?” Jack sighed with resignation as he shifted in his chair. “With no funds to run the estate. So what did Elderidge do with his fortune? Gamble it away?”

“No,” the solicitor answered. “He willed it to his daughter.” A sly grin lifted the old man’s prodigious mustache. “Your very distant cousin, Lady Laurel, the earl’s only child.” Hobson sat back in his chair and fingered his mustache thoughtfully. “If I might suggest it, you should retrieve the girl from the convent where his lordship placed her, woo and wed her, and thereby solve your problem as well as hers.”

“A convent? The earl was Catholic? Is that not impossible?” Not that he cared. Jack asked only to delay long enough to consider the idea just proposed.

He had not thought to marry, especially not for money. Or even love, for that matter. He enjoyed the freedom to travel, do what he liked, whenever he liked, with whomever he liked, without any permanent ties. However, push had come to shove in a most disconcerting way. He might have to entertain the thought.

Mr. Hobson shook his head. “The earl was Church of England, of course. But his first wife was Catholic.”

His voice dropped to a near whisper. “She was a cyprian, as well, and his first mistress.”

Well, that brought Jack’s eyebrows up. “You don’t say!”

Hobson nodded. “One of the fashionably impure he got with child. He eloped with her. An outrage it was, too! She died giving birth and the earl remarried within the year. His new wife, a choice more suitable, wanted nothing to do with the baby born of his misalliance, so he placed it with the Sisters at Our Lady of Cambre, near the coast of Spain.”

“Why Spain, of all places?” Jack was intrigued. He, born of a naval officer and a merchant’s daughter, could hardly imagine life as a noble. Yet he simply could not understand how a man of any station could simply give up his firstborn and relegate her to a foreign country to be brought up by strangers. And leave her there while war raged around her.

Hobson continued, explaining the situation. “Lord Elderidge had visited Spain as a young man on his grand tour, I believe. There are a number of English convents there, set up after they were disbanded here centuries ago. English Catholics often send their daughters away to convent schools. In any event, she was sent to the Sisters of Cambre as an infant and they were provided generous contributions for her care. No doubt the earl believed the girl would take vows when she reached the proper age.”