Proud Mary Read online

  A GEORGIAN HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  Roxton Family Saga—Book 5

  LUCINDA BRANT

  SMASHWORDS LICENSE

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should obtain your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Please purchase only authorized editions; do not encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of an author’s rights.

  LICENSE & COPYRIGHT

  A Sprigleaf ebook

  Published by Sprigleaf Pty Ltd at Smashwords

  www.sprigleaf.com

  This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Resemblance to persons, businesses, companies, events, or locales, past or present, is entirely coincidental.

  Proud Mary: A Georgian Historical Romance

  Copyright © 2017 Lucinda Brant

  Edited by Martha Stites & Rob Van De Laak

  Art, design and formatting by Sprigleaf

  All rights reserved.

  Except for brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, no part of this ebook may be reproduced in any printed or electronic form without prior permission from the publisher.

  Sprigleaf triple-leaf design is a trademark belonging to Sprigleaf

  Georgian couple silhouette is a trademark belonging to Lucinda Brant

  “Cotswold Harebell” fleuron design by Sprigleaf

  ISBN 9780987073877

  DEDICATION

  for

  Marguerite & Wendy

  With special thanks to Caz, Karen, Marcy, Mari, Marguerite, Mirella, and Séona—for your eagle-eyes and sage advice.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  License

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Family Tree

  Beginning

  Chapter Links

  Behind-The-Scenes

  Bonus Preview

  About Lucinda Brant

  Lucinda Brant Books

  Lucinda Brant Audiobooks

  Jewels Anthology

  CHAPTER LINKS

  Part 1: The Ghost

  Part 2: The Family

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Epilogue

  FAMILY TREE

  If your eReader does not support enlarging this image, view the Proud Mary family tree at lucindabrant.com

  PART ONE: THE GHOST

  ONE

  GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AUTUMN, 1777

  MR. CHRISTOPHER BRYCE sat at his desk in the steward’s office reading a letter. As was his practice after riding across to Abbeywood Farm from his estate in the next vale, he had removed his frock coat and hung it on a peg behind the door. His assistant always kept the room too warm. Sitting in his shirtsleeves was preferable to watching the thin little man huddled at the end of the desk shivering with cold.

  Unconsciously, he raked long fingers through his untidy curls and felt the hair ribbon come loose between his fingers. Without taking his gaze from the letter, he pulled his shoulder-length hair back to his nape and retied the crumpled piece of black silk. His stock, like the hair ribbon, was also crumpled, the folds of linen wrapped loosely about his strong neck. And while he had scraped the soles of his jockey boots clean to enter the house via the servant’s entrance, the leather was splashed with the mud and filth of having led his mount through to the stables. The mare had thrown a shoe.

  But it was not this misadventure which could be blamed for his want of dress. Squire Bryce always appeared to have dressed in haste, grabbing whatever garments were to hand, and never to have glanced in a looking glass before greeting the world. Disheveled was a word that often tripped off the tongues of the local gentry matriarchs. Had he been any other farmer in the district, he would not have come under such scrutiny. But he was not like any other squire—far from it. He was master of a Jacobean manor house—a local landmark in fact—Brycecomb Hall, and owned several prosperous cloth mills. Also, he had recently—eight years was considered yesterday to the inhabitants of this sleepy pocket of the Cotswolds—returned from more than a decade of living abroad. Most vital of all, he was unmarried.

  It was of little concern to the parents of unmarried daughters that Mr. Bryce was approaching forty, or that upon first acquaintance he proved a disappointment. It was not that he lacked a profile worthy of immortalization in oils, because he was exceedingly handsome. He had a fine nose, a determined chin, and a pair of damp brown eyes that had something of the lost-puppy look about them. And his auburn curls were so thick they were the envy of many a female. Maidens had upon occasion gone weak at the knees at the sight of him. This was particularly so when he was astride his horse, hair wind-tussled, long muscular legs shown to advantage in soft leather riding breeches that looked to have been applied by a painter rather than his tailor. Mamas reprimanded daughters for their unladylike gawking, yet secretly sighed at what might have been, had they been their daughter’s age.

  It was not Christopher Bryce’s looks, but his lack of engagement with his neighbors, most particularly their eligible females, that was cause for disappointment. That he was handsome and unmarried only made his detachment that much more palpable. He was impervious to the attentions of even the most charming of hostesses, who did their best but failed to ignite the Squire’s interest in their unmarried female relatives. He was not disagreeable, but he was not agreeable, either. He might smile and politely reply to any enquiry put to him, but he made no attempt to further the conversation, which was concluded before it began. It was not what the local gentry was used to in a squire of Brycecomb Hall.

  Henry Bryce, the present squire’s father, had been the most congenial of fellows, and when his wife was alive, many routs, shoots, and social gatherings were held at the Jacobean manor. Those old enough to have been acquainted with the Bryces and to have attended such events, also knew that their only child had been, in his youth, just as sociable as his elderly parents. But all those years living on the other side of the Channel amongst foreign types had changed the son.

  Christopher Bryce had spent so many years in foreign climes his neighbors had expected him to return to the vale with a wealth of stories about the people he had encountered, and the places he had visited. But Mr. Bryce neither offered, nor provided when prompted, any anecdotes about his travels. It was as if he had never been anywhere beyond Stroud, and even then he only ventured to town on market days. His topics of conversation remained decidedly provincial. This satisfied his fellow farmers, but dissatisfied their wives, their sons, and most certainly their daughters who craved a little excitement in their daily routines. It was left to fertile imaginations to wonder at what sort of life Squire Bryce had led far from the vale that he had no wish to discuss any part of it.

  And imagine they did, in whispered conversation when he happened to pass them in the village street astride his mount, acknowledging them with a nod but never stopping. Or when he quietly slid onto the family pew for Sunday service, neither looking left nor right, the vicar pausing mid-sentence at the collective sly glance of the congregation in Squire Bryce’s direction. Even the vicar’s wife was heard to remark to a clutch of female parishioners, as Mr. Bryce strode away setting his tricorne in place, that the squire was an enigma. His sartorial efforts left much to be desired, but watching him in motion was something to behold. He was the arresting sum of his extraordinary parts. Every female eagerly nodded in agreement, pulse racing.

 
For it was when he was animate that Christopher Bryce’s true masculine beauty became apparent. The village’s female inhabitants confidently put their finger on precisely what it was about the squire’s movements that set him apart from his fellows—it had everything to do with the way in which he carried himself. He did not amble or lope like a youth, and he certainly did not trudge or plod. Nor did he slouch or shove his hands in the pockets of his frock coat. He moved with an elegance and ease which was unhurried, upright, and unselfconscious. It underscored the years spent among foreigners; as did the fact he no longer spoke in the Cotswold vernacular of his youth.

  Christopher Bryce might pretend to remain insensible to the effect his clothes, his person, his time abroad, and his deportment had on his neighbors, particularly the females, but he was acutely aware of the consequences his decisions and actions had on others. Thus he may have had the appearance of being wholly absorbed in the letter in front of him, but he had heard the raised voices on the other side of the office door, had a fair idea what the commotion was about, and knew his assistant was sufficiently distracted by it to have left off his arithmetical reckonings.

  The little man’s quill remained poised over the inkwell.

  “You had best invite her in, Mr. Deed,” Christopher said without looking up.

  “Who, sir?”

  “Lady Mary.”

  Mr. Timothy Deed was skeptical. Not only because he had not discerned Lady Mary’s voice amongst the din, but because in his two years employed in this household, the mistress had never visited the steward’s office. If her imperious little ladyship wished to speak to Mr. Bryce, she summoned him to her drawing room, which was right and proper. She certainly did not trespass into the servants’ domain, nor raise her voice in ill-lit corridors. Thus Mr. Deed hesitated to do as he was told and voiced his surprise.

  “Lady Mary, sir? Here? Why?”

  “We will find that out when you open the door and let her in.” When there was silence after this flat reply, the Squire lifted his gaze to his assistant’s quizzical look. He offered an explanation. “Perhaps you forget that John Twisell, Jethro Tanner, and the Blandfords had until today to accept their altered circumstances?”

  At the mention of four servants who had been at Abbeywood since before the death of its owner, Sir Gerald Cavendish, Mr. Deed’s eyebrows shot up in understanding.

  “None have accepted?”

  “There are still a few hours left in the day. But given the hubbub, that would seem to be so.”

  Mr. Deed’s eyebrows came down and he ground his teeth. “Then they are not only lazy but fools!”

  “But given false hope perhaps…?”

  Mr. Deed’s gaze darted to the door. Though there seemed to be an angry mob gathered outside, he still could not hear the voice of the mistress of the house.

  “By her ladyship…?”

  Christopher Bryce did not answer the question, but his silence said everything. He set aside the letter, and took from the small pile beside the standish one with its seal intact. It was from His Grace the most noble Duke of Roxton, the same correspondent who had written to him and whose letter he had been reading. This letter was addressed to Lady Mary Cavendish. He was very sure no two letters could be so different in tone and content, and he itched to toss this unopened correspondence to the flames in the grate. He did not. Instead he tucked it out of sight under his letter from the Duke, shook his thoughts free of that nobleman and looked at his assistant to find him staring at him. He hoped his features did not give away his thoughts, when he said evenly,

  “The door, Mr. Deed.”

  Timothy Deed nodded, quickly set his quill in the ink pot, and scraped back his chair. Pulling on the points of his plain knitted waistcoat as he crossed the room, he squared his shoulders at the door, as if steeling himself for what and whom lay beyond, then wrenched it open.

  A blast of cold air made him take a step back, so did the clamor of a cluster of squabbling servants. The noise ceased almost immediately, replaced by the silence of fearful expectation as to what would happen now that Squire Bryce had been roused, and without one of them with the good manners and courage to scratch at his door to seek an audience. It said as much about the Squire as it did about them when everyone in the room, bar one, took a step back when Mr. Bryce’s smooth baritone was heard from deep within the room.

  “Mr. Deed! Do not keep her ladyship waiting.”

  It was then that the assistant noticed the Lady Mary, the only one in the room to stand her ground. She was regarding him in silent expectation that he would instantly shift out of her way without the need to speak, which he did, and with a bow. And after she had passed into the room, neither looking right nor left, Mr. Deed regained enough of his composure to order the clutch of silent downcast servants not to linger, and to get about their business. And he did this with an imperious wave of a thin hand before shutting the door in their faces.

  Christopher was on his feet before the Lady Mary swept across to his desk with a firm tread, hands clasped in front of her gauze apron, chin level with the floor. He wondered how many hours she had spent arguing with herself as to whether she should summon him to her, or she go to him. And by her mulish look, taking the monumental step of coming to him had been an internal struggle of epic proportions.

  After all—and he knew she believed this implicitly—it was not the right and proper action for the mistress of the house, the daughter of an earl no less, to cross the household divide that separated master from servant. There was a correct order to life. Everything and everyone had a proper place. And Lady Mary’s proper place was at its apex amongst the nobility—those who governed and gave orders. Everyone else—Mr. Christopher Bryce of Brycecomb Hall included—belonged to the periphery of this elegant and dazzling world, out of sight and out of mind until wanted and called.

  And because Christopher Bryce did not doubt Lady Mary’s expectation that those who lived on the periphery would come when called was as natural to her as breathing, he was prepared to give her ignorance of a more enlightened worldview some latitude. After all, he did not think her inherently intolerant or unkind. It was just the way she had been raised by her noble parents, a rigid upbringing reinforced as wife of a pompous self-important bigot. But that did not mean he would conform to type or allow her to interfere in his decisions. Far from it. What her ladyship needed, and he was only too willing to provide, was to have her outlook given a shake now and again.

  But he was wise to the fact it was not one of his little shakes that had brought her to his door on this day, but something that must have greatly upset her. And so he had Mr. Deed fetch her a chair and waited for her to sit upon it. But she ignored his offer and the chair and came right up to the front of his desk, saying without preamble,

  “Is it true you have dismissed four more of the household servants?”

  “No, my lady. I did not dismiss them.”

  “Oh?! I thought…” Her shoulders relaxed and she let out a sigh of relief without realizing it. “Then there has been a misunderstanding. The Blandfords say they were given notice and so too, old Jack Twisell, and the Tanner boy.”

  “They should not have bothered you. Won’t you sit, my lady?”

  Again she ignored his offer, and so he and his assistant remained on their feet.

  “They did not, Mr. Bryce. They rightly spoke to Mrs. Keble, and when she was unable to find a suitable resolution, she brought the matter to me, which was the right thing for her to do.”

  Christopher’s eyebrows rose slightly at mention of the housekeeper. He suspected Susanna Keble of inciting the servants against him whenever an opportunity presented itself. The woman had a misplaced confidence in her authority. Mrs. Keble was under the delusion that her illicit affair with Sir Gerald—of which he was well aware, but was certain Lady Mary was not—and the fact Lady Mary would not hear a word against her, gave her special status and privileges at Abbeywood. He had quickly disabused her of this notion. She had eve
n tried to seduce him, but he was deliberately blind to her tawdry attempts. He would not have been male had he not noticed she was pretty, but it was a brittle prettiness that hid a cold heart and a calculating disposition. She was cunning enough to hide her below-stairs machinations to undermine his authority, and in his presence was always biddable. Mrs. Keble’s days were also numbered in this household.

  “Mrs. Keble had no right to bother you, my lady,” he replied evenly. “I am sorry, but in this matter there are no alternatives to discuss. I cannot be persuaded to change my mind.”

  Lady Mary blinked at him in surprise, and then she surprised him.

  “Why would you think I came here to persuade you otherwise, Mr. Bryce? I never expect to be consulted on matters that are considered important. I never have in the past. My opinions have rarely been sought, and I don’t single you out in this.”

  Though I had hoped—indeed when I first met you I had thought—you were different… said the voice in her head. She quickly shook herself free of wishful thinking and continued.

  “So when you say you will not change your mind, I accept that as a given. Sir Gerald never consulted me—he told me. As you are telling me now. But that does not mean, just because I cannot do anything about it, I do not have an opinion, or feelings, or wish for a different outcome.”

  This speech was met with silence from both men, who were unable or unwilling to add to her observations because there was nothing to add to the truth. Yet, her final comment did elicit a response from Christopher, who said quietly,

  “If it will ease your mind, my lady, I have not turned them out, friendless and penniless. They have employment and shelter elsewhere.”

  “Employment and shelter—elsewhere?” she repeated. “But… The Blandfords have been at Abbeywood since before I came here as a bride. Does not loyalty count for something?”