Cecilia: A Regency Romance (Families of Dorset Book 3)

  Cecilia

  A Regency Romance

  Martha Keyes

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  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

  Epilogue

  Other titles by Martha Keyes

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Cecilia: A Regency Romance © 2019 by Martha Keyes. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover design by Martha Keyes.

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

  Martha Keyes

  http://www.marthakeyes.com

  First Printing: November 2019

  Author’s Note

  In Cecilia: A Regency Romance, you will encounter a character named Lady Caroline Lamb. Lady Caroline is a historical figure who lived and was very well known during the Regency Era. Though this book is a work of fiction, elements of it are based on the historical record. If you would like to learn more, please see the note at the end of the book.

  1

  Dover, England 1792

  Jacques Levesque hoisted a small, wooden chest from the Comte de Montreuil's ship cabin, hearing a slight tinkering inside as he settled it into his arms and began walking it to the wagon.

  The chest was heavy for its size, challenging the nine-year old's strength to its capacity. He knew what was inside—or he could guess, at least. Monsieur le Comte had fit every valuable he could inside the privately-chartered ship they had taken from Calais. And now it was Jacques’s job to ensure it was all transported to the nearby inn where they would spend the night.

  Jacques's eyes shifted around the port, curious and wary of this new land.

  England. He had heard of it time and again, but it was nothing like he had imagined—nothing like the glittering descriptions he had gleaned from Monsieur le Comte's friends in the snippets of conversation he had been able to catch around the Comte’s estate.

  All Jacques could see was distant green hills on one side and, on the other, flat blue ocean as far as the eye could see.

  The chaos of departing from the Comte's home in Montreuil had been acute, a culmination of the growing fear inside the household since the storming of the Tuileries and the anticipated collapse of the monarchy.

  Jacques was not sad to leave behind life in France, but he was very anxious and unsure of what to expect with Monsieur le Comte in England. Would he drink less heavily? Would he be less cruel? Or would he become even more cruel and demanding?

  "Jacques," said his father in an urgent voice. The Comte’s arm was draped over the shoulder of Jacques’s father, his face pale and lethargic. There was unmistakable worry in his father’s eyes.

  The journey across the Channel had been a rough one—and the Comte had been not only drunk but violently ill. Jacques’s own legs still felt wobbly on the sturdy ground of the port.

  "Continue loading Monsieur's things into the wagon," his father continued. "He is unwell, and I am going to accompany him to the inn. This man"— he used his head to indicate a French shipman who nodded and slipped a coin into his pocket —"will assist you and drive you to the inn once you have everything."

  Jacques nodded and set the chest down in the wagon with a grunt.

  His arms ached by the time everything was loaded and the wagon moving across the cobbled street. But aching or not, he would be obliged to help move everything from the wagon to the inn next.

  He sighed, but he knew better than to complain. His father had told him sternly that he was to do whatever was asked of him without a word and to keep perfect track of Monsieur's possessions, for it was only under such a condition that the Comte had agreed for Jacques to join them on the voyage.

  Jacques hoisted yet another chest into his arms, pressing forward to the carriage with an extra grunt of determination. He was eager to prove that it had not been a mistake to bring him along. He would ensure the safety of Monsieur’s belongings.

  The Comte would not trust his valuables anywhere but his own room—he had been clear that everything was to stay with him, and his paranoia would surely continue until they arrived in Dorset where he would be among family and could place it all under lock and key. Though they were relatives, apparently the Comte had never met the Broussards, and yet he seemed to trust them. The ways of the aristocracy were strange to Jacques.

  The yard of the inn was loud with animals and voices when the carriage bobbed in, and their arrival seemed hardly to be noticed. Jacques searched for the hired coach his father had accompanied Monsieur in and saw it across the yard.

  He peeked into the small, wooden chest he had just transported and quickly snapped it shut, the glinting of a ruby ring lingering in his vision. He lifted the chest into his arms and told the French shipman to remain in place until Jacques could receive instruction from his father and the Comte.

  He headed toward the inn door, asking one of the innservants in broken English where he could find the French monsieur.

  When Jacques arrived upstairs, it was to the sound of imperative voices speaking within the room he had been directed to. Opening the door slowly with his shoulder, he looked inside to see his father and an unfamiliar young gentleman, kneeling beside the prostrate form of the Comte.

  The young man rose quickly and turned for the door, his expression urgent and grave.

  "No," Jacques's father said in French, his shoulders slumping as he wiped his sweaty brow with a forearm. "It is too late."

  The young man stilled and nodded, eyeing the Comte with a frown. "I am sorry," he said in mediocre French. “We did all that we could. My name is Retsford. I am just two rooms down if you need anything."

  Jacques’s father offered no response, staring at the body in front of him with a stricken look in his eyes.

  The man Retsford opened the door, glancing at Jacques with a grimace before pushing past him.

  Jacques's father crossed himself and then let himself fall back into a sitting position, with his back against the wall as he ran his hands through his hair.

  "Father?" Jacques said hesitantly, setting down the chest.

  His father's head came up, and Jacques felt a flash of fear at the sight of his hopeless expression. His father motioned for him to come, and Jacques walked over, shooting a brief, sidelong glance at the motionless body on the floor. Why wasn't Monsieur on the bed where he could sleep comfortably? It would likely be hours before he awoke, if the amount he had drunk aboard the ship was any indication.

  "He is dead," his father said, a catch in his voice.

  Jacques's eyes widened, and he looked at the
form of the Comte, swallowing. There was something different about the Comte; something missing.

  But dead? Jacques had never seen death up close. Of course, his mother had died giving birth to him, but he didn’t remember that at all. His father was his only family.

  He felt mesmerized by the sight of the Comte, and yet he was afraid. How did death look so similar to and yet so different from sleeping?

  He looked to his father, fear taking an even greater hold at the sight of the dejection there. What would they do now? They didn't know a soul in all of England. Did this mean they would go back to France?

  He shivered. What would they do there without Monsieur le Comte to serve? They would be homeless, penniless. They already were penniless. The Comte was not a particularly generous master.

  Jacques thought of all the jewels and valuables sitting in the wagon, waiting to be brought upstairs to the Comte’s room. He thought of the ruby ring he had just seen. Surely the Comte wouldn't be upset if they had to use one small trinket to buy their passage back to Calais? Or a spot on the Diligence—or whatever it might be called in England—to London? One small trinket out of hundreds.

  "I saw a ruby ring, Papa," he said in a miserable voice, looking up at his father, whose face was covered by his hands. "Would that be enough to buy passage on the packet?"

  His father shook his head in his hands. "It is not ours, Jacques."

  Jacques felt a small stirring of hope. "Shall we stay in England, then?"

  His father shook his head again, and Jacques fell into a confused silence.

  A knock sounded at the door, and Jacques jumped up, moving to open the door a crack. His father didn’t stir.

  The French shipman stood outside, a question on his face.

  "The Monsieur's things," the man said. "Shall I bring them up?"

  Jacques looked at his father, who shook his head and then froze, an arrested expression in his eyes.

  Jacques waited. "Papa?"

  His father blinked twice and looked at Jacques. He nodded at him. “Have him bring them into the next room.”

  "Yes, please," said Jacques to the servant. “Into the room next door.”

  The man nodded and left.

  Jacques’s father stood and began pacing up and down the room next to the body of the Comte. His hand pulled nervously at his lips.

  "It could work," he said, stopping and staring at the papered wall. "No one would know." His gaze moved down to the body beside him, and he shook his head again, resuming his distracted pacing of the room.

  "Know what?" Jacques said.

  His father came over and kneeled in front of Jacques, putting a hand on each shoulder and looking him in the eye with a strange energy Jacques found disturbing.

  "It will not be easy, my son," his father said. "But you know how things work in noble households. Can you imagine yourself to be the son of a Comte instead of the son of a valet? Can you act the part of a noble?"

  Jacques swallowed and nodded.

  His father put a hand on Jacques's cheek. "God has given us an opportunity for a better life, thanks be to Him." He looked toward the window, his jaw tight and hard. "I will not waste it."

  2

  London, England 1813

  Cecilia Cosgrove clasped her gloved hands together, stealing a glance at the man and woman approaching the ballroom floor in front of her. Miss Bernard's and Lord Brockway's smiles as they broke arms and took their places in the set were uncomfortably intimate and caring—as if they were unaware that they were surrounded by people, lost in a world of their own.

  Cecilia's chin tipped upward.

  Their engagement still rankled.

  It was not that she begrudged either of them their happiness. But her pride had taken a blow when Lord Brockway's affection and attention had transferred to Miss Bernard, particularly after the warnings from Cecilia's sister Isabel that she would lose Lord Brockway if she wasn't careful.

  And she had lost him; lost the only man who had seen past her beauty to the other things she had to offer. It had frightened Cecilia at the time and made her uncomfortable—she had never felt so vulnerable or so inadequate. She was accustomed to men admiring her beauty, to flirting with them and piquing their interest while making sure to stay just out of reach—maddeningly so.

  But Lord Brockway had wanted more from her—more than her arch smiles and teasing comments. She could see now that she had not taken the right approach. She had tried harder to make him jealous when she should have given him an indication that she appreciated his attentions, however little she knew how to respond to them.

  She had taken his loyalty for granted, and he had taken it elsewhere.

  "A very good pair, those two," said Mary Holledge at her side. She glanced at Cecilia, who hoped that her blush would mask the heat creeping into her cheeks. She knew what Mary thought of the way she had handled things with Lord Brockway. And what was worse, she knew Mary was right.

  Mary disliked her—that was no secret—but Cecilia was grateful for her company all the same. Cecilia had hardly ever given a thought to Isabel's constant presence at balls and parties, but she had felt an unexpected loneliness since Isabel's engagement and marriage. It had forced upon her the humiliating realization of how few friends she had.

  Cecilia’s mother had told her not to mind that only gentlemen seemed to seek her out.

  "The other young women are all simply jealous, and for good reason, my love," Mrs. Cosgrove had said. "Who would wish to stand near you and be cast into the shade by your lovely face?"

  But Mary, with her candid ways and eagerness to put Cecilia in her place, had quickly put such a notion to rest. "Of course none of the other girls wish to stand near you when you have been so terribly rude and condescending to them."

  Mary suddenly straightened with a quick intake of breath, craning her neck to see over the large peacock feather in the matron’s cap in front of them. "He came! I have been waiting all season to see if he would come to town," Mary said.

  "Who?" Cecilia tore her eyes away from Lord Brockway.

  "The Frenchman," Mary said simply. "I have heard of him ‘til I am sick to death of his name, but I have never seen him with my own eyes.” She looked at Cecilia. “Le Vicomte de Moulinet. You know him, of course."

  Cecilia shook her head, then paused. The name was vaguely familiar.

  "I thought you might have,” said Mary, “for he is a cousin to your cousins. The Broussards—on their French side, of course."

  Cecilia watched the man entering the ballroom with his blue jacket and gray waistcoat, and her brows drew together. "Oh! I think this must be the Jacques that Letty is forever going on about. I hadn’t realized that he was titled."

  Or so handsome. She tilted her head to the side. "He doesn't look French. Nor does he dress like a Frenchman." She wondered how his eyes looked from a closer distance. Even from two dozen feet away, it was evident that they were a piercing color.

  "That is because he has lived in England most of his life, silly. He and his father were émigrés before the turn of the century." Mary sighed. "I doubted the reports I had heard—I have found that people tend to romanticize Frenchmen when they are only just passably good-looking—but I am afraid Lord Moulinet is every bit as handsome as I was given to believe."

  Cecilia thought so, too. And a French Viscount, no less. She was intrigued. She had never been courted by a Frenchman.

  As if following Cecilia's train of thought, Mary added, "Unfortunately, though, we must all content ourselves with admiring him from afar, as I understand he has no interest in courting."

  One of Cecilia's brows went up, and her smile built slowly. No interest in courting? She certainly must see if what Mary said was true.

  It would be easy enough to gain an introduction if he was truly related to her cousins, and it seemed that Mary had spoken correctly. Even now, Cecilia saw her mother as well as her Aunt Emily and cousin Letitia Broussard in conversation with Lord Moulinet.

&nbs
p; So they had finally agreed to bring Letty to town, had they? The girl would be ecstatic. Cecilia only hoped Letty wouldn't follow her around as she had often done over the years.

  Cecilia worked on a mental strategy for how she might be introduced to the Viscount without seeming too forward, and she was given the opportunity sooner than she had anticipated. Lord Moulinet and Letty joined the set forming on the ballroom floor, and Mary was asked soon after, leaving Cecilia to seek out the company of her aunt and mother. Normally, Cecilia would have been embarrassed to be left without a partner, but she was glad in this one instance, knowing that she would certainly meet the French Viscount once the set was over.

  "Aunt Emily," Cecilia said as she approached. "What a happy surprise! I had no idea that you would be coming to town, particularly so late in the season."

  "Yes, well," Aunt Emily replied as they embraced, "I finally gave in to Letty's pleas, though what came over me, I can't imagine! Giving up Symondsbury and the coast for London in May? But here we are! Ready to enjoy the least pleasant part of the season." She fanned her face, sending a playful wink at Cecilia, who laughed.

  "And with a visitor in your midst, no less!" Cecilia looked to Lord Moulinet, who was guiding Letty down the set with a kind expression likely meant to encourage her—she looked terribly uncertain of herself.

  Cecilia remembered the terror of dancing her own first set and simultaneously felt a pang of sympathy for Letty and a desire to give Lord Moulinet a partner more capable of doing justice to his own skill.