Merely a Marriage Read online

  RAVES FOR THE NOVELS

  OF JO BEVERLEY

  “A beguiling love story.”

  —Booklist

  “A fabulous, intelligent tale.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “One of the most masterful writers of Regency romance.”

  —Romantic Times (top pick)

  “With wit and humor, Jo Beverley provides a wonderful eighteenth-century romance.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A delightful, intricately plotted, and sexy romp.”

  —Library Journal

  “A well-crafted story and an ultimately very satisfying romance.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “[Beverley] has truly brought to life a fascinating, glittering, and sometimes dangerous world.”

  —Mary Jo Putney

  “Wickedly delicious. Jo Beverley weaves a spell of sensual delight with her usual grace and flair.”

  —Teresa Medeiros

  “Beverley’s brilliantly drawn protagonists shine in a story that puts equal emphasis on intrigue and love.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Also by Jo Beverley

  available from New American Library

  REGENCY HISTORICALS (1811–1820)

  The Viscount Needs a Wife

  Too Dangerous for a Lady

  A Shocking Delight

  Lady Beware

  To Rescue a Rogue

  The Rogue’s Return

  Skylark

  St. Raven

  Hazard

  Forbidden Magic

  “The Demon’s Mistress” in

  In Praise of Younger Men

  The Devil’s Heiress

  The Dragon’s Bride

  Three Heroes

  (Omnibus Edition)

  GEORGIAN HISTORICALS (1760s)

  Seduction in Silk

  An Unlikely Countess

  The Secret Duke

  The Secret Wedding

  A Lady’s Secret

  A Most Unsuitable Man

  Winter Fire

  Devilish

  Secrets of the Night

  Something Wicked

  My Lady Notorious

  MEDIEVAL ROMANCES

  Lord of Midnight

  Dark Champion

  Lord of My Heart

  CLASSIC REGENCY ROMANCES

  Lovers and Ladies (Omnibus Edition)

  Lord Wraybourne’s Betrothed

  The Stanforth Secrets

  The Stolen Bride

  Emily and the Dark Angel

  ANTHOLOGIES

  “The Raven and the Rose” in Chalice of Roses

  (also available as an e-novella)

  “The Dragon and the Virgin Princess” in Dragon Lovers

  (also available as an e-novella)

  “The Trouble with Heroes” in Irresistible Forces

  (also available as an e-novella)

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Jo Beverley

  Excerpt from The Viscount Needs a Wife copyright © 2016 by Jo Beverley

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK and BERKLEY are registered trademarks and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780399583544

  First Edition: June 2017

  Cover art by Gregg Gulbronson

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

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  Contents

  Raves for the Novels of Jo Beverley

  Also by Jo Beverley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from The Viscount Needs A Wife

  With many thanks to Charlie,

  who has been my inscrutable muse for the last thirty-two years;

  and to the WordWenches and RomEx for all their invaluable support and camaraderie;

  and finally,

  to all of you who offered me love and support on my journey here and beyond.

  Chapter 1

  November 1817

  The family parlor at Boxstall Priory was an intimate space amid grandeur, furnished for comfort rather than fashion, and easily warmed by one crackling fire. The room held many happy memories for the Boxstall family, but on this rainy November day it was a scene of discord.

  A young man and woman had surged to their feet and now stood nose to nose.

  “If you’re so sure that making a marriage is nothing,” the Earl of Langton snarled, “then you do it.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Lady Ariana Boxstall took a step back from her brother.

  “No more outrageous than you ordering me to marry.”

  “I didn’t order you, Norris. I explained why it was necessary.”

  “Ha! Talking about it as if it were no greater matter than choosing a new pair of boots.”

  Both were tall, with curling amber-colored hair. Their mother formed an audience of one, observing with concern from a chair near the fire. The world openly wondered how such a tiny lady had produced two such strapping children, but so it was.

  Norris, Lord Langton, was a Corinthian—a gentleman dedicated to the sporting life—and, at six foot two, built for it. He was famous for his daredevil ways.

  Lady Ariana Boxstall was made along more feminine lines, for which she was grateful, but she almost matched him in height. She was sometimes described as an Amazon, or even called Hippolyta, which she deeply disliked. Her name was a variant of Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace, and she was beginning to think she should have taken a more peaceful approach.

  It might have been a mistake to put the matter to her brother as soon as he arrived to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Anxiety had been building in her for two weeks, however, ever since the shocking death of Princess Charlotte in childbirth had plunged the nation into mourning. Ariana and her mother wore black, and Norris sported a black cravat and armband. The Windsor funeral had occurred on the previous Wednesday and the bells of Saint Ethelburga’s had tolled across the valley at the same hour.

  Ariana had wept for the young mother and all who loved her. Everyone worried about the succession to the throne, for the princess had been the Regent’s only child. It had been a more direct succession that had given Ariana sleepless nights. Norris’s death without a son would trigger disaster, so he must marry, and soon.

  “Here’s an idea,” he said, his sudden mildness a warning. “You prove to me that it’s an easy business and I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll marry?” Ariana asked warily.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “But how can I prove it?”

  “You go first. If you marry before the end of the year, I’ll wed before the end of January. There’s no shortage of women eager to wear a countess’s coronet.”

  Suddenly breathless, Ariana turned to their mother. “Mama?”

  “You did say it was a simple matter to choose a marriage partner, dear.”

  “For him! As he’s just admitted, he could pick a plum off the tree whenever he wanted.”

  “But I don’t fancy any of the plums, Mama,” Norris said, “and I’m only twenty-three. The likelihood of my dying soon is small as a shrimp.”

  “I certainly hope so, dear.”

  Ariana faced her brother, who clearly hadn’t grasped the key point. “Princess Charlotte was two years younger than you.”

  “I’m not about to endure childbirth!”

  “But you engage in any number of risky activities.”

  “And have hardly ever suffered a scratch.”

  “Yet! Remember the Merryhews.”

  His brow wrinkled. “What about them? Lady Carsheld died of a carriage accident, but she was gone fifty. The old marquess was, well, old. Roger Merryhew died young, but he was in the war.”

  “You’ve forgotten Jermyn Merryhew!” Ariana reminded him. “He would have been marquess when his father died instead of that distant relative who crept in to take everything.”

  “There wasn’t much to take.”

  “Stop harping on irrelevancies! The point is, Jermyn dillydallied about marrying, assuming he’d live to a good age, and then popped off from eating bad shellfish.”

  “I don’t like shellfish.”

  “As a result,” Ariana persisted, “my friend Hermione lost her home. If Jermyn had done as he ought and married and had a son, all would have been well.”

  “If, if, if! If I had younger brothers, you wouldn’t be raking me over the coals.” Then he looked uncomfortably at his mother.

  “Don’t be crestfallen, dear. I would have welcomed more children, but God did not provide. In this case we must trust in his benevolence.”

  “We should be able to trust in Norris’s good sense.”

  “Then we should be able to trust your willingness to sacrifice in the cause.”

  Her brother’s triumphant smirk made Ariana want to hit him, which wasn’t unusual. Only eighteen months lay between them, but she was the older and he the male and heir. There’d been rivalry between them all their lives. Typical of Norris to extend it into a matter of life and death.

  Mother and brother were now both looking at her.

  “It’s not up to me,” she protested. “Only you can produce the necessary heir, Norris. Can you truly bear the thought of Uncle Paul succeeding you? Can you? He’d evict Mama from her home, and then loot Boxstall of everything of value to throw away at the gaming tables. He might even find a way to break the entail and sell it entire.”

  “That might be the best outcome,” Lady Langton said sadly. “I could abide our home belonging to another, but I would very much dislike to see it pillaged.”

  Ariana hurried to sit beside her and take her into her arms. “Neither will happen, Mama. I promise. We only need Norris to marry.”

  “Which now lies in your hands,” her brother said, arms folded.

  Ariana knew the signs. He was generally of an amiable disposition, but he could be intolerably stubborn. Tears wouldn’t move him, and she’d hate to try them. He heeded their mother, however, so Ariana decided to leave the field to her. She rose, saying, “I will leave you to come to your senses,” and made as dignified an exit as she could when tears of fear and frustration threatened.

  She paused in the corridor to blow her nose. How could her brother be so blind? Boxstall was so beautiful and full of treasures, but above all, it was their home. This part of the upstairs corridor was open to the hall below, with its gleaming wooden floor and walls loaded with paintings purchased by her ancestors, every picture an old friend.

  Many were of little significance or value, but there were a Poussin, a Rembrandt, and a Rubens. She and her father had sometimes talked of turning one or two rooms into galleries in order to show off the best pieces.

  Thought of her father turned her steps toward the library, their favorite haunt. Neither Norris nor her mother was bookish, so that had been their special place. Once she’d closed the door behind her, she was surrounded by the comforting scent and presence of books, but also by the ambience of sadness that had haunted the room for her since her father’s death two years ago.

  From her earliest years she’d spent time here with him exploring the wonderful world of books. He’d purchased some specifically for the illustrations that would please a child, but as she’d grown, she’d become his true companion on the literary explorations he’d so loved.

  Papa had never had the slightest desire to travel and had even resented his times in London attending Parliament. However, when he’d visited London, he’d always returned with a carriage full of books on foreign lands and he and she had plunged into new journeys.

  His particular treasures were always works about foreign parts in the past—Greece, Persia, India, and recently Egypt. He especially liked books that contained illustrations that reconstructed ruins in their glory days.

  “See,” he would say to her as they explored new acquisitions. “If we traveled to Greece, we could only see crumbling ruins, but here we can visit Athens in all its grandeur.”

  If he couldn’t find a drawn reconstruction, he’d commission one. Some he’d had hung in frames around the house, but he’d displayed others here in a specially made glass-topped case.

  Ariana went to it now to change the picture—a daily ritual she’d taken over when her father died. She looked through the folio, chose a print of the temple of Apollo in Corinth, and exchanged it for the one in the case.

  Had that temple ever looked like that? Had the priests and worshippers been exactly as shown? It didn’t matter. Her father had found all ruins sad and distressing. He’d spoken of rebuilding medieval Boxstall Priory from the mossy remnants of stone walls, but it had always been too challenging a project. Instead he’d planted trees to screen it from view.

  She sadly turned the large globe on which they’d traced their travels, and stroked a hand along the map table, where they’d spread charts to mark a particular journey. She’d not had the heart to do that since he’d been gone. In truth, she’d abandoned most of their shared explorations and concentrated on the Egyptian ones, for they were the ones that had most captured her imagination.

  They had all the volumes to date of the Description de l’Égypte, written by French scholars who’d accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian campaigns. Her father had commissioned a monumental pedestal stand able to hold one of the twelve volumes open, and the rest closed beneath. Each book was a yard tall and three-quarters of a yard wide, but packed with wonderful illustrations and descriptions.

  There were more volumes to come, but each was expensive and she wasn’t sure Norris would purchase them. If not, she would. Her portion was ample. Suddenly it hit her that if her brother died without a son, she’d lose not only her home but access to this library. In fact, the library would cease to be.

  Until this moment the imagined loss had been of the earldom’s houses and estates. She’d accepted that the contents would also go, but not the books. This wonderful collection would be shipped off to an auction house and scatt ered to the wind. The Description de l’Égypte would be the first to go, because it would command a high price. Each volume had been printed in a limited edition of one thousand copies.

  She clutched the open volume on the pedestal as if to hold it down. Could she claim these books as her own? If she said the Description de l’Égypte had been a gift to her, could anyone deny it? Her mother would support her.

  She could seek legal advice. . . .

  No, she must do more than that. She had to protect everything—the house, the estate, the art, and the contents of this library—and not just for herself. Everything must survive for future generations. That meant Norris must marry and fill a nursery with boys.

  She hadn’t expected such fierce resistance, but that couldn’t weaken her resolve. She left the library to go up to her room and plan.

  • • •

  “What’s the matter now?” asked her lady’s maid, Ethel Burgis, putting aside the stocking she’d been mending by the fire.

  “Norris,” Ariana said.

  “Ah.”

  Ethel was more of a companion than a maid and dressed accordingly. Her black gown was made of fine cloth and she wore no apron, nor a cap on her wiry black hair. She played the servant well enough when she and Ariana were in company, but they’d been together since girlhood, and in private they were equals and friends.

  Twenty-four years ago, Ethel had been christened in the local church, Saint Ethelburga’s, and, uniquely in the parish, been given the saint’s name. Nellie Burgis had chosen sensible names for her other seven children—all sons, six of whom were still alive—but when finally bearing a daughter in her forty-third year, she’d credited the saint with the miracle and named the baby accordingly.

  Ethelburga Burgis had immediately become Ethel, thank heavens, but even the full name didn’t seem to distress Ethel. Little distressed Ethel. All the Burgises were tall, and when Ethel, the twelve-year-old kitchen maid, had shown signs of following the family pattern, she’d been trained to be Ariana’s maid. Now she was an inch taller than Ariana, which served the purpose of making Ariana’s height less striking, and she was of larger build as well.

  Ethel wasn’t fat, but she had much the same build as her sturdy brothers and could probably have done the same hard quarry work if she’d had to. As it was, she’d learned the skills of a lady’s maid and the manners to go with them, and she and Ariana were close companions. Ethel had little interest in books, but she was a well of placid common sense, too often expressed in proverbs and sayings. “All storms must pass,” she said now.