Beguiling the Baron Read online

  Table of Contents

  BEGUILING THE BARON

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  BEGUILING THE BARON

  ELIZABETH KEYSIAN

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  BEGUILING THE BARON

  Copyright©2019

  ELIZABETH KEYSIAN

  Cover Design by Syneca Featherstone

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-68291-877-7

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  I dedicate this book to

  two inspirational teachers at

  Chelmsford County High School for Girls,

  Mrs. Jean Greenwood and Mrs. Mackrill.

  Elizabeth Keysian is the monster you created, ladies.

  Thank you so much for doing so.

  Acknowledgments

  I am extremely grateful to Char Chaffin, my fantastic editor, for her encouragement and professionalism. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Soul Mate Publishing—I’m thrilled to be one of their authors. I’m eternally grateful to my long-suffering partner, Tim Robey, and the two very special author friends I met early on in my writing journey, Anna Albo and Shelley Iñón. Thank you so much for having faith in me! I’d like to make special mention of Eve Pendle, a fellow British author who has helped me improve and fine-tune my writing— thanks Eve! If you haven’t yet bought any of her books, I’d strongly encourage you to do so.

  I would also like to extend my heart-felt thanks to two fantastic writers of romance, Barbara Monajem and Ingrid Hahn, who beta read this book for me. Again, if you haven’t read their works, Dear Reader, you are seriously missing out.

  Prologue

  Selbury Poorhouse, Wiltshire, England

  Maundy Thursday, 1822

  The room was silent but for the breaths of childish concentration as Miss Galatea Wyndham’s pupils bent over their mending. It was a struggle to see in the poor light admitted by the small, high window, and Tia feared the sorry creatures would all have headaches by the end of the morning.

  What the poorhouse child needed was sunlight, exercise, fresh air—

  “Letter for you, Wyndham.” The beadle’s harsh voice broke the stillness as he thrust open the iron door and pushed the folded piece of paper at her. A letter? Her young pupils were forgotten as Tia turned it over in trembling fingers and saw the seal of the Duke of Finchingfield on the back.

  It had been broken, of course. The governor of the poorhouse had a great suspicion of letters. They made the inmates feel important, singling them out from the rest of the throng and giving them ideas above their station.

  There was another reason, even less justifiable: that Tia and her mama were gentlewomen, far more likely to receive money by post than anyone else. The beadle and governor didn’t approve of inmates being sent money either.

  It was usually confiscated.

  As she unfolded the missive, Tia prayed her friend Lucy Cranborne, now Duchess of Finchingfield, wouldn’t have been foolish enough to enclose any banknotes or drafts. Besides, even if she sent enough for the Wyndhams to buy themselves out of the poorhouse, where would they go? The sinking of Papa’s one remaining ship, with him on board, had left his family with so many bills, they were equally as likely to find themselves in debtors’ prison, once their creditors caught up with them.

  At least for now, their creditors knew there was no point in hounding them while they were in the poorhouse.

  My dearest Tia, Lucy had written, I will send you no coin, for fear of it getting lost.

  Tia let out a sigh of relief. Clever Lucy knew better than to trust the authorities. Or, indeed, the post.

  I know better than to offer you and your mama charity directly.

  True enough. Mrs. Sarah Wyndham, though failing in health since her beloved husband’s death, was too proud to accept handouts. She clung to the hope that a wealthy, distant relative to whom she had written would, at any moment, descend upon Selbury Poorhouse and whisk herself and Tia away to a palatial establishment in the country.

  Tia wrinkled her nose. The odor of overcooked cabbage had invaded the sewing room—or cell, as she preferred to call it. A watery stew was being prepared to accompany the paupers’ lunchtime dole of bread, and she heard the children’s stomachs rumbling in anticipation.

  Oh, for the smell of freshly cooked, butter-basted chicken, the comforting scent of a raised pie, the mouth-watering perfume of biscuits flavored with rosewater . . .

  She shook away the memories. It was too distressing to ponder what she used to have. She needed to think about the present.

  I have discovered a distant relative of yours, the letter went on, and have appealed to him to assist you. I can see no reason he should not. He is a widower, though yet young, keeps very much to himself, and has a vast former religious estate in dire need of a woman’s touch. You and your mama would be the perfect companions for him and for his daughter, Miss Mary (
Polly) Pelham, who, by my reckoning is aged about nine. I know how you love children.

  Tia laid the letter in her lap, her eyes too blurred with tears to continue reading. It had come at last. They were to be freed from this institution, more like a prison than a home. Though she could do much good here, particularly amongst the largely illiterate children, it would be infinitely preferable not to be an inmate herself. She scarcely dared hope, after so many miserable, cold, dark and comfortless months, that escape was truly at hand.

  Dashing the tears from her eyes, she checked the children were still absorbed in their tunic-mending and the darning of stockings. It wasn’t unknown for frustration to get the better of them from time to time and if she was not watching, a little girl might pull off another’s cap for a joke and be stabbed with a needle in reprisal.

  All seemed calm, so Tia returned to the letter that fluttered in her unsteady hands. A nine-year-old girl for company. The same age her sister Phoebe had been when the putrid sore throat had cut short her life.

  If all of this were to come to fruition, if Polly Pelham’s father were to take them, Tia vowed she’d love Polly like a sister, or even a daughter. At one-and-twenty, she was more than old enough to have begun a family of her own.

  But who exactly was Polly Pelham’s father? She’d heard the surname somewhere before, but could not recollect where, or when. She scanned the letter, and her eyes snagged on a name.

  Her blood ran cold. Henry Pelham, eighth Baron Ansford.

  The man some believed to have murdered his wife.

  Chapter 1

  Henry Pelham gripped the battlements on the top of his folly tower and fought against the nausea that assailed him. His knuckles whitened as he stared down, out-facing his demons as he had done every day for the past three years, unable to forget the sound of the falling body striking the rocks below.

  The wind tossed his long hair about his shoulders, and he gritted his teeth against the pelting rain, using the sting of it to stiffen his resolve, his own misery restitution for what his wife, the late Lady Mary Ansford, had suffered at his hands.

  Lifting his head and scanning the grounds of his medieval home, Foxleaze Abbey, Hal knew again the bitter defeat of her loss, the guilt of being left with a motherless child, and the shame of being held responsible for a tragedy whose repercussions had changed the course of his life forever.

  “My heart is dead,” he told the pitiless spirit that haunted his every thought. “I live only to create a fitting memorial to you, Mary, and to make sure Polly is strong enough to withstand the censures of Society.”

  This dictum, repeated each day as part of his penance, calmed him with its familiarity. Hal turned away, duty done, and stepped down into the body of the folly tower, out of the storm.

  The nausea was so intense, he could almost imagine the tower swayed in the wind, and he had to clutch at the rail as he made his way down the spiral staircase to the uppermost chamber, where a sputtering horn lantern did little to dispel the gloom.

  “Foul weather for spring,” he muttered to the restless spirit that dwelt there. “I’d not have them come while the roads are so rough. The month of May will be soon enough if they are to come at all.”

  Mary’s shade gave him no answer, but he knew, deep in the worthy corner of what remained of his heart, he’d accept the Wyndhams into his home. He neither needed nor wanted the company of these distant relations, but Polly needed them, and if he did the right thing by Polly, perhaps, finally, the memory of his dead wife would stop tormenting him.

  Somewhere beneath all the self-loathing, the black melancholy of his soul, he’d been surprised to discover a nugget of kindness lurking. Kindness had once motivated his political career, had been the guiding star of his universe, even though Mary had mocked him for it and told him it made him soft. His political adversaries would have called him anything but, though he doubted any of his stubborn determination to champion the oppressed remained.

  Even so, there had been enough generosity in his heart to extend a helping hand to his destitute cousins. They’d suffered grief of their own and needed the charity he was able to give.

  One of his few remaining friends, William Cranborne, Duke of Finchingfield, had used his skill with words to broker a deal between the two parties. Knowing Mrs. Sarah Wyndham to be a proud woman, the duke had promised to make sure she knew Hal wasn’t offering a handout, but employment. In exchange for this employment, they’d have a sizeable allowance, food, clothing, and a decent—if ancient—roof above their heads.

  The widowed Mrs. Wyndham had been persuaded to accept on the understanding both she and her unmarried daughter, Galatea, would educate Polly and make her fit for Society. Hal wanted Polly brought up in the strictest of regimes, for he planned to send her away to board at Miss Gates’ Academy for Young Ladies in Selbury, in the far south of the county.

  Polly would need to be tough, both inside and out, to cope with the stigma of having such notorious parents, the—allegedly—adulterous Lady Mary Ansford and her—allegedly—murderous husband.

  How quick Society had been to condemn.

  Hal picked up the most recent letter from Finchingfield and took it across to the lantern to re-examine its contents, but he was still distracted by bitterness. It seemed a man could lead a blameless, even laudable life, win the acclaim of his peers, and be the most admired nobleman in the West of England, but be deemed the very devil the moment something disastrous occurred in his personal life. Where was the sympathy, the understanding? Society had been so determined to blame him after Mary’s death, he hadn’t even bothered to refute the rumors. He’d simply told Society it could go hang and taken himself and Polly out of it.

  He returned his attention to the letter. So, it was all arranged. The Wyndhams would be coming toward the end of May. The duke, along with Hal’s steward Lynch, and his housekeeper, Mrs. Dunne, had attended to the details. Rather than allow his new family to spend any longer in that soul-destroying poorhouse than they needed to, Hal had provided money to set them up with accommodation in one of the better parts of Selbury, where they could hold their heads up high, rub shoulders with the ton if they cared to, and be comfortable in every way.

  When the Wyndhams eventually arrived at Foxleaze, they must be in full health and looks and be the picture of respectability. What little pride Hal had left demanded it—and he also firmly believed Polly would be more likely to take notice of a pair of smart, upright-looking females.

  But were they smart? Were they upright? He’d debated this question a long time and ultimately asked Finchingfield to not only inquire into their history but also appeal to his wife Lucy, for some idea of the character of the two ladies.

  This letter contained the answers to both his questions. Sarah Wyndham was reported as being unremarkable in any way, apart from too proud to accept charity. Her daughter, Galatea, had been a friend of Lucy’s for many years, since they’d attended Miss Gates’ Academy together as girls.

  This, in Hal’s book, was an excellent reference, as it was the selfsame school where he meant to send his daughter. Miss Gates had a reputation for ruling her pupils with a rod of iron, the perfect way of giving Polly the backbone she was going to need when she became part of the world beyond the walls of Foxleaze Abbey.

  Exactly what the Wyndhams would do with their time when Polly was sent off to school, he wasn’t certain. But so long as it didn’t impinge on him, and his activities, he didn’t really care.

  His eyes wandered once again to the final sentence in Finchingfield’s letter. It was the only thing about the entire arrangement that perturbed him and made him wonder if he wasn’t about to make the worst mistake of his life.

  Miss Galatea Wyndham, or Tia for short, is well-educated, openhearted, graceful, joyful and, so my wife tells me, beautiful both inside and out. Polly will love her. You will bot
h love her.

  He chewed on his lip, folded the letter away, and stared unblinkingly at the gray walls of his self-imposed prison.

  The last thing he wanted was to love anybody.

  Ever again.

  Chapter 2

  On a damp, unseasonably cold afternoon in late May, Tia and her mama arrived at Foxleaze Abbey. Despite the forbidding aspect created by the gloomy weather, Tia was delighted by the modern honey-colored facade of the building and professed herself fascinated by the medley of uneven roof lines and turrets behind it, proclaiming its more ancient past.

  So long as no ghostly nuns—or late baronesses—lurked in the crypts or corridors, she could be exceedingly happy in such a place. Compared to the poorhouse, it was heaven—there was so much space, so much architectural beauty, and such splendidly landscaped grounds.

  If only Polly Pelham proved to be an amenable child, and her father not nearly so peculiar—or dangerous—as rumor suggested, Tia decided she could grow to love the place in no time.

  A smartly dressed lady bobbed a curtsy as she and Mama entered the building. “Good day to you. I am Mrs. Dunne, Lord Ansford’s housekeeper. Please follow me.”

  In no time at all, their luggage had been brought inside and taken upstairs. “May I offer you refreshment or a brief tour of the house?” Mrs. Dunne inquired.

  Tia shot a hopeful look at her mama. “Oh, I should much prefer to see the house, for it seems the kind of place one might get lost in, so best start finding our way around immediately. Assuming you’re fit to wait a short while longer for your tea, Mama?”

  Hugely improved in both health and mind since their escape from the poorhouse, Mama nodded her agreement. “Is your master away at present?”

  Was that a flash of awareness staining the housekeeper’s cheeks? About what was she embarrassed?