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Chapter One
The wet grass beneath her horse’s hooves was slick with frost. It took a skilled rider to sit side-saddle and not overbalance the steed, sending both rider and horse into a painful tumble.
Lenora Temple was a skilled rider. She revelled in the cold, damp air. Ringlets formed about her face, dripping beads of moisture across her skin. It was good to be home, back in England where good King’s English fell upon ears grown inured to foreign gabble. It was good to be where one could read street signs without a phrase book in hand.
What was not good was the weather. The Year of Our Lord, 1816, had been one of the coldest in recent memory. They had just returned from a year in France where the weather, far from being sunny, was miserably damp and chill. Her father, Sir Francis, had caught a croupy cough more than once from wandering in musty archives and among gravestones where he attempted to take rubbings despite the nearly perpetual misty rain.
Sir Francis was still writing the interminable book. But her older twin sisters, Claudia and Elodie, were having a double wedding. The family had come home to witness this momentous event. Scheduled for this very day, February 14, 1817, guests were already gathering in the little chapel just outside Bath, where the event was to take place.
Her brother, August, just older than herself, rode up alongside her. “We’re going to be late!” he shouted into the wind of their passing and the thunder of their horses’ hooves. “You won’t have time to dress.”
“I’m dressed,” Lenora shouted back. “And I can see the chapel from here.”
She neck-reined her horse, a spirited dapple mare accustomed to her mistress’s fits and starts. The dappled beauty turned into the abrupt change of course, missing scarcely a hoof beat and managing the slippery footing as easily as a skater on the frozen Thames.
Neck and neck, sister and brother thundered down to the chapel. “At least go in the side door,” August hissed at her.
But his plea fell on deaf ears. Lenora strode up to the double doors at the front entrance to the church and flung them wide.
The chapel was filled to bursting with guests. Claudia and Elodie were already at the altar. They stared at Lenora, eyes wide with shock. Realizing her mistake, Lenora pulled herself together and walked down the aisle to the family pew. She trailed grass bits, leaves, and a strong aroma of horse with her as she gathered her dignity and sidled across several pairs of toes before reaching her place.
Someone in the audience laughed. It was a man; she could tell that much from the hearty guffaw, but she could not locate the owner from the sound.
“Just wait till we get home!” her mother whispered angrily. “How dare you disturb your sisters’ wedding in this fashion.”
“Good morning to you, too, Mother,” Lenora whispered back. “I had a lovely ride, and my sisters both look beautiful.”
Indeed, they did. Gowned in pale, ice blue, their veils caught up at the sides with bunches of violets, their long, brown curls hung down their backs. They carried bouquets of violets, and knots of violets adorned the flounces of their skirts.
Accustomed to Lenora’s ability to cause disturbances, they returned to saying their vows. Lenora slunk down in her seat, pretending indifference to the contrast in her appearance when compared to the other guests.
***
The wedding breakfast was held in the ballroom of the Temple family’s estate. Marie-Belle, Lenora’s mother, had sent her youngest child to her room to “become more appropriately attired and do wash off the horse.”
Lenora had quickly scrambled out of her riding habit, sponged her face, hands, and arms with rose water, and accepted help from her tutoress, Summer Tunstall.
It was not Summer’s usual habit to act as Lenora’s lady’s maid, but both realized that expediency far outweighed protocol. “I am mortified,” Summer scolded. “I have been kept on to instruct you in proper behaviour befitting a young lady. Your performance today is so far from appropriate; I shan’t wonder if I am turned off forthwith.”
“I am sorry, Miss Tunstall,” Lenora said repentantly. “I had not thought of it in that light. August directed me to use the side door, but I wanted to make an entrance.”
“You did that right enough,” Summer snapped, smoothing Lenora’s soft brown locks into an artful knot of curls on top of her head. “There. That will have to do. There is not time to do a full comb out and styling. We shall simply hope that the ribbons will hold it all in place.”
“Thank you,” Lenora said, grabbing up her fan, which would also serve as a dance card. “I’d best fly, lest Mother become even more angry than she already is.”
Lenora hurried as much as was possible in low heels and petticoats. Thank goodness the silhouette this year was simple gored skirts, narrow at the bust and wide at the bottom, without any cumbersome train!
She went immediately to the head table and bobbed a quick curtsey to her sisters and their husbands. “I am so sorry,” she said, genuinely contrite. “I did not mean to interrupt anything. As one, the twins inclined their beautiful heads. “Think nothing of it,” Claudia said.
“We’ve grown accustomed to such outbursts from you,” Elodie corroborated. “It would scarcely be a family event without one.”
“Then I’m forgiven?” Lenora asked hopefully.
“Yes,” her sisters said in chorus, both inclining their heads to precisely the same angle.
“But I have not forgiven you,” her mother said, coming up behind her. “Come along. You shall sit with me. It is to be hoped that my watchful eye can keep you out of trouble.”
Lenora sighed, gave her mother a resentful side-eyed glance, and followed her. Once seated, she said, “Is this necessary? I am nearly of an age to govern myself.”
“Your age is not in question,” Belle-Marie said. “Your ability to govern yourself, however, is. Whatever were you thinking to make such a spectacle of yourself.”
Lenora considered her actions for a moment. What had been her intention? She had not given it a great deal of thought. “Well, I thought that the front door would be the quickest way inside. I wanted my sisters to know that I was there and that I supported them.”
“It never occurred to you that dramatically shifting the audience’s focus from your sisters to you that you might detract from their day?”
“No,” Lenora admitted in a very small voice. “I am sorry.”
“Good. Perhaps being sorry will keep you from future folly. Nearly all of your cousins and friends have discovered matrimonial bliss. You should be thinking about your prospects. You might think that living wild and free will help you attain your goals. But I can assure you, it will not. I, myself, once entertained such thoughts. But I found, to my sorrow, that I should have listened to my parents. That is water long under the bridge. I hope to save you from a similar fate.”
Marie-Belle then got up from the table and made her way towards the refreshments. Lenora gaped, open-mouthed, staring after her mother. Whatever had she meant by that?
Leanora saw her brother slip out the side door. He had probably gone to smoke, but Lenora took advantage of her mother’s distraction and followed August. He seemed to be speaking with someone, and she stopped to see if she could determine who it might be.
“Come on out, Lenora,” August called. “I know you are there. I think this is someone you will want to see.”
She slipped out of the shrubbery where she had sought to conceal herself and approached her brother. “Dorian de Clare!” she exclaimed with delight. “How good it is to see you! It has been far too long.”
“Enchante,” Dorian said, extending a hand to her.
She placed her fingers in his, and he bowed low over it, air kissing just above the knuckles of her glove.
The gesture made her feel very grown up and every inch a lady. “I am very glad to see you as well, Miss Temple. I think we last met at Lady B’s spring festival ball. How did you find France?”
“It is nice enough, I suppose,” Lenora replied. “But I found it dismally boring. Father was busy with his new book and his research. Mother and I were hoping to visit the seashore and perhaps walk around in the classical ruins. But the weather was dreadful the whole time we were there.”
“That was quite a dramatic entrance you made.” Dorian grinned at her, his handsome mouth curving up to reveal perfect teeth while his eyes crinkled at the corners. “It quite reminds me of our old escapades.”
“You! It was you who laughed,” Lenora exclaimed.
“I simply could not help myself,” Dorian said. “It was such a Lenora kind of thing to do.”
“Oh, you!” she responded, pouting. “I was going for drama, not humour.”
“Then you should have taken time to change out of your riding habit and to have brushed the twigs from your hair. You made quite a Guy of yourself.”
“Me? I did not laugh out loud during a solemn gathering.” Lenora stuck her nose in the air, in pretended haughtiness.
“I am sorry,” Dorian said. “You cut such a figure I could not help myself.”
“I’m glad someone enjoyed it,” Lenora said, relaxing her face into genuine regret. “I think my sisters have forgiven me, but I am in a vat of hot water with Mother. August told me I should go in the side door, but I did not listen.”
“Nothing new about that,” Dorian said, smiling at her. “I remember all the scrapes the three of us used to get into together.”
“You must visit more often,” Lenora said. “I have quite missed our fun.”
Dorian sighed. “If I can get away from the hospital. I am on the board these days, you know.”
“Are you really?” Lenora exclaimed. “Congratulations! That is quite a feather in your cap. With that said, do call on us as often as you can.”
“I will,” Dorian promised. “But you had best go on inside before you are in more trouble.”
Lenora laughed, turned, and went inside. She found Summer Tunstall, her tutoress, standing on the sidelines, watching the dancers.
“How much of a snit is your mother in?” Miss Tunstall asked.
Lenora sighed, feeling the pleasant glow she had felt while talking to Dorian fade away. “More than usual, I think. She has not set a penalty for my behaviour, which means it will be creative and severe.”
“Very likely, you are correct,” Miss Tunstall returned. “Striding into the chapel wearing a riding habit and stained with grass! Really, Lenora, you could scarcely have been more outrageous.”
Lenora hung her head. “That’s what everyone has been telling me. Truly, I did not mean it to be an insult to my sisters.”
“Are you sure you are not jealous of them?” Miss Tunstall asked. “Perhaps enough to make a disaster of their wedding?”
“Oh, goodness, no!” Lenora exclaimed. “I am happy for them. But it is lonely now that most of my friends are wed. I have no one to go about with to have fun. Mother seems to be in quite a hurry for me to become betrothed now that my sisters are off her hands.”
“Perhaps that would not be such a bad thing,” Summer said. “I let my chances slip by me until working as a governess or companion was my only choice. It is not a bad life, but it is uncertain.”
Lenora sighed. “Then I suppose I should go to London for the spring season. The little season here at Bath is not a bad place to meet people, but London has far greater opportunities.”
Across the ballroom, a handsome stranger entered from the hall. This event was unusual in and of itself because Lenora knew most of the neighbours. She whispered to Miss Tunstall, “Who is that? He is so handsome! I am beyond words. I do hope someone will introduce us immediately!”
Miss Tunstall gave her a withering look. “Have I taught you nothing? He is handsome, but handsome is as handsome does. You should consult your parents and brother before setting your cap for a stranger, however comely.”
Lenora sighed as if complying. But she felt her cheeks grow hot as if she were blushing, and she could scarcely take her eyes away from the handsome stranger.
OFFER: A BRAND NEW SERIES AND 2 FREEBIES FOR YOU!
Grab my new series, "Regency Hearts Entwined", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!
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