Hazelhurst: A Regency Romance (Families of Dorset Book 4)

  Hazelhurst

  A Regency Romance

  Martha Keyes

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Other titles by Martha Keyes

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Hazelhurst: A Regency Romance © 2020 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: January 2020

  1

  Ashworth Place, Dorset, England April 1814

  Lady Anne Haywood fiddled with the silver wedding band underneath her white glove, her eyes glazed over as she stared blankly in front of her. Her brows were drawn together, and her dark, wavy hair tied back in a simple bun, just as it had been for days. She had been too anxious to sit for her normal toilette—an elegant coiffure would hardly be set off to advantage by the dark rings under her brown eyes or the gray pallor of her normally porcelain skin. Her dress hung more loosely on her arms and waist, the result of days of hardly eating.

  The way she looked, Anthony would hardly recognize his wife if he were to return in this moment.

  If he were to return at all.

  She shut her eyes. She couldn't think such things. She had to remain hopeful.

  Approaching footsteps sounded in the corridor, and she straightened, clasping her hands together and looking toward the door with eyes which darted nervously.

  It opened, and her brother, William, Viscount of Ashworth, appeared, hat in his hands and a grim set to his square jaw.

  She stood, looking a question at him, and he grimaced, shaking his head with apology written in his eyes and the frowning lines of his face.

  Anne took her lips between her teeth and tried to swallow the nausea back down. They hadn't found Anthony.

  William stepped toward her and took her hand in his, helping her to sit down on the settee behind her. "I am so very sorry, Anne." He sat down beside her, setting his hat next to him and angling his knees toward her. He kept her hand in his, squeezing it lightly.

  "I am afraid I have worse news still."

  She tried to take a small, steadying breath, keeping her eyes on her hand. She didn't trust herself to look William in the eye. What worse news could he have?

  He took in a breath of his own, and Anne could feel his reluctance in the way he watched her, in the low and slow way he spoke. "The Bow Street Runner was unable to find him, but he was able to piece together enough information that a few things have become evident."

  Anne closed her eyes, her free hand clutching at her skirts. She hardly knew what to prepare herself for. Her husband had been gone more than three weeks. Disappeared without a word. Was he dead? Is that what William had come to tell her? That she was a widow before she had been married even three months?

  "It seems that Anthony Haywood is known by another name."

  There was a pause, and Anne's brow furrowed even more deeply. What did he mean? His hesitation didn't bode well, but she couldn’t tell what his words implied. She wished he would deliver the news quickly, whatever it was. The suspense was unbearable.

  William shifted in his seat. "The Runner traced him to Sussex, using the painting you provided to ask people whether they recognized him. Many did, but all insisted that he was called Nicholas— Nicholas Hackett—and that they hadn't seen him in months. The parish register shows his birth and christening records there."

  William set his other hand on top of Anne's, which lay trembling in his hand. "Anne," he said, his voice so gentle that it made her wince in anticipation, "there are records in a parish in London showing that Nicholas Hackett married two years ago."

  Anne stilled. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she looked up at William, her lips parting wordlessly as she searched his face. His mouth was drawn into a hard, thin line, his eyes deeply pained.

  She shut her eyes and shook her head quickly, disentangling her hands from her brother's and standing.

  There had to be another explanation.

  William had never taken to Anthony. He had tried more than once to persuade Anne against the match, gently at first and then more firmly as time went on, resulting in the greatest row the siblings had ever had. And though he had apologized and made an effort to act with civility and good nature toward Anthony once Anne had made it clear that they intended to wed, things had been strained with William ever since.

  "You never liked him," Anne said, unable to stifle a bit of accusation from her tone. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, fists clenched.

  William sighed. "I shan't deny that. But, Anne, surely you cannot think that I would fabricate such a tale as this? To put you through such misery simply over a matter of personal preference?" He shook his head. "You are my sister, Anne. I love you dearly, and it pains me more than you can imagine to be the bearer of such news."

  "It isn't possible," Anne said, turning away from him, her head shaking from side to side slowly. She put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes.

  This was only a nightmare. She would awaken shortly to find Anthony beside her, sound asleep, with one arm draped over his forehead and his dark, straight hair mussed, as it always was when he slept.

  William let out a gush of air. "I am afraid there isn't room for any doubt, Anne. The Runner spoke with his wife, whom it appears he left in a similar fashion a year or so ago."

  Anne swallowed painfully, her hand flying to her mouth to stop the nausea which pulsed through her. His wife?

  Anne was his wife.

  "Her name is Louisa Hackett," William said. "She confirmed that she married Nicholas two years ago."

  Anne closed her eyes for a moment and took in a large, shaky breath. She wouldn't go into hysterics, she wouldn't faint in front of William. But with her mind aflutter, she needed to know one thing.

  "Do you mean," she said, straightening and looking William in the eye, "that I am not, and never was, married?"

  William's mouth drew into another pained grimace. It was answer enough for Anne, but he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, anyway. "Not in the eyes of the law or the church, I fear."

  Her throat constricted, and she inclined her head once. "Thank you," she said, managing to keep her voice level. "I should like to be alone now, if you please." She turned away from him, hoping he would take it as a dismissal, since she felt her handle on her emotions fraying with each passing second.

  William didn't move, though, and she knew without even looking at him that he was debating with
himself over his best course of action.

  "Please," she said shakily. "Go."

  "As you wish," William said softly.

  Anne listened, hearing him rise from the settee and then step toward her, only to pause again and stride out of the room. The door made a small thud as it closed.

  She stood, rooted to the spot, her chest rising and falling more rapidly as the seconds passed, her hands trembling. The room swayed in front of her, and she put a hand out to the shelves of books lining the wall to stabilize her. Her nostrils flared and her chin began to tremble before she crumpled into a heap on the floor, bringing two books down with her as she put her head in her hands and cried.

  Ingleburn Park, Dorset, England - July 1814

  "And all the money gone with him." Lord Purbeck slammed a fist onto the desk in the large library of Ingleburn Park. and Anne winced.

  It was not the first time her father had lamented the disappearance of Anne's husband, Anthony.

  No, Nicholas. His name was Nicholas Hackett.

  She hardly knew how to refer to him anymore. He had never been her husband in a legal sense. She knew that now.

  In the two months since William's visit, there had been many such encounters with her father. Anne stood in no doubt of where her father placed the blame for the situation. It would always lie on Anne's shoulders, for she had pleaded with him to countenance the match, had made the case to her father that his fortune more than made up for his lack of title; that it qualified him to marry the daughter of an earl.

  And miraculously, her father had relented.

  But there had been no fortune. It had all been part of the deception, and Lord Purbeck was unlikely to let Anne forget it for years to come.

  "Humiliation such as our family has never known!" Her father's lips were turned down in disgust, and his eyes bored into her as she sat motionless in her chair, waiting for this storm to pass and grant her a reprieve until it built up again in a few days' time.

  She did not cower in front of her father, for she was well used to his blustering, and she had her own stubborn streak underneath the complacency she presented. But she kept her eyes trained on the row of books behind him, for she hated the way her father looked when he was in a rage.

  He exhaled sharply. "Well," he said in a lighter tone, straightening a paper on his desk, "perhaps we shall come about despite it all."

  Anne's eyes whipped over to him. This was not the usual ending to such interviews. But she knew better than to speak.

  "I have arranged an advantageous match for you, Anne—a way for you to make amends to this family for the mud you have dragged us through." He stared at her severely, and she clutched her hands together in her lap, willing herself to show a calm she was far from feeling.

  The idea of marriage brought on a fresh wave of anxiety—particularly the thought of a match arranged by her father. He wouldn't hesitate for a moment to auction her off to the highest bidder—not with the financial straits the family was in, and not when her own arrangements had ended so disastrously.

  Her mind jumped for a moment to the faces of various gentlemen she knew to be widowed or unmarried and possessing significant fortunes. But she brushed away the thought. It hardly mattered. In a moment, her father would reveal the identity of her future husband—her first real husband, she thought with a swallow—and she wouldn't fight him on it.

  She hadn't the energy. And she knew better than to think such a course would bear any fruit. What would she be arguing for? Another love match?

  No. Better to marry someone she disliked than to risk her heart again when it was still reeling from her last marriage—or last attempt at marriage.

  "Tobias Cosgrove," her father said, pulling out his snuff box and flicking open the lid carelessly, as though he were revealing something as humdrum as the time.

  Anne's brows snapped together.

  "Tobias Cosgrove?" she repeated blankly.

  He was neither titled nor wealthy, at least to her knowledge. He was merely the son of Mr. and Mrs. Cosgrove, neighbors of Ashworth Place where William and his wife Kate lived.

  Her father nodded, looking at her through narrowed eyes. "And very grateful you should be, for it isn't every gentleman would take another man's"—he put a hand up, and Anne felt her cheeks flame. "Well, never mind that," he said. "Suffice it to say that it is a stroke of good fortune I never looked to have. With the success of Cosgrove's most recent investment, they stand in a position to make quite a difference in our fortunes, to say nothing of the advantage of an alliance between the families of Ashworth Place and Hazelhurst."

  Anne was only half-listening. She had grown up with Isabel and Cecilia Cosgrove, but her knowledge of their elder brother was limited, off as he had been at school for so much of her life.

  The little she did know made it hard to believe such a man would agree to marriage at all without significant coercion. His good nature was obvious to anyone who had spent more than a few moments in his company, but it was accompanied by a frivolousness that characterized more than a few determined bachelors of Anne's acquaintance.

  She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. At least he would not browbeat her. Indeed, marriage with someone as lighthearted and frivolous as Tobias Cosgrove might be the best she could hope for.

  "I trust we are of one accord, Anne," her father said, still watching her with a severity that made her anxious to leave Ingleburn Park and her father's inescapable temper. She could withstand his anger—indeed she would much rather it be directed at her than at her mother—but it wore her down to confront him so often.

  She nodded.

  "Good," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. "He will be calling upon you this Thursday. I hope you will show him the civility and gratitude he deserves." He nodded toward the door of the library. "You may go."

  She rose from her chair and made a small curtsy to her father, who waved her away with a dismissive hand gesture.

  She pulled the door closed gently behind her, knowing how her father's volatile temper could flare up again at something as insignificant as an unexpected noise.

  Taking in a deep breath, she walked down the thick carpet of the corridor and up the well-worn stairs. She was coming to dislike her childhood home intensely, riddled as it now was with reminders of her most difficult moments. It had been more difficult than she had anticipated to move home after her marriage had evaporated in an instant, but surely it would not have been easier to stay in the home she had shared with him, even if it did belong to her.

  She had been so terrified of being accidentally referred to or introduced as Lady Anne Haywood that she had avoided social interaction entirely for the last two months. She was Lady Anne Vincent again.

  Apparently, though, she would soon be Lady Anne Cosgrove.

  She tapped lightly on the door of the parlor which adjoined her mother's room. Her mother had been her saving grace through everything that had happened—a calm, sympathetic presence; someone who was familiar with heartache and unmet expectations.

  Anne opened the door enough to peek her head into the room. Her mother sat in the wingback chair, a book open in her hands as she looked to Anne with the warm smile she reserved for her children. Her face was lined—a mixture of smile lines around her eyes and the sorrowful lines on her forehead that almost three decades of marriage to an authoritarian husband had chiseled there.

  "Come in, my dear," she said, extending a hand to welcome her.

  The weight of the interaction with her father melted at the sight of her mother's kind smile, and she sat on the floor in front of her, just as she had often done as a child, when her mother would run her fingers through Anne's hair and sing to her.

  Anne breathed in her mother's violet scent and rested her head on her mother's knee. "Did Father tell you?" she asked.

  "Tell me what, my dear?"

  Anne sighed deeply, letting her shoulders relax even further to counteract the anxiety that crept in at the thought
of the future. "I am to be married."

  Her mother's hand stopped, her fingertips resting against the crown of Anne's head.

  "To Tobias Cosgrove," Anne said.

  There was a pause before her mother's hand dropped to Anne's shoulder. "No, he did not tell me."

  Anne might have guessed. Her father never did tell her mother anything. Whether that was the result of his unapologetic disinterest or the result of the distance her mother kept from him, Anne wasn't sure.

  "I cannot claim to know Tobias Cosgrove very well," her mother said, stroking her hair once again, "or precisely what type of husband he might be, but I do think him far preferable to the man I feared your father might choose."

  Lord Granworth. Anne suppressed a shudder. Yes, Tobias Cosgrove was decidedly better than Lord Granworth whose squat but self-assured strut and the disquieting way he raked his hungry eyes over every woman sent a shudder through Anne.

  "Yes," Anne said on a sigh, "I should be grateful, I'm sure."

  Her mother placed her hands upon Anne's shoulders, turning her toward her. "You have known more than your fair share of pain, Anne. Perhaps Tobias Cosgrove is precisely the type of husband you need—one to help you remember the joys of life and how to laugh away your sorrow." She touched a hand to the small curl that hung in front of Anne's ear, too short to reach to her bun. "And who knows but what you might come to care for one another deeply in time?"

  Anne turned away, a catch in her throat and a burning in her eyes. "I don't wish for that, Mama." She shut her eyes and inhaled. "I only want to live in peace—neither adored nor despised, neither adoring nor despising."