Chapter 1

 

“Wherein we meet the players, each of whom dream of entirely different characters.”

It was March, and a cold damp night pressed against the windows of the handsome house on Cheyne Walk. At four am it might have been supposed that every soul in Chelsea was asleep, quiet as it was. Yet at number sixteen, some hardy creatures were awake still, despite a convivial evening of society, wine, music and lively discussion. In secluded corners sleepier and more philosophical conversations still drifted, but even here the sound of soft breathing, and the occasional snore was all that disturbed the darkness.

Miss Selina Darling, whose father owned number sixteen, looked around the place with a sigh. It had been a wonderful party. The ever-popular Bertie Darling’s parties generally were, but this one had been especially entertaining. Clearing up afterwards was not so much fun but then you couldn’t have one without the other.

With a fond smile she looked down at the twin sofas in their elegant sitting room. On one side Kit Kendall sprawled. He was an emerging poet of increasing renown though he looked rakish and rather dissolute from this angle. His eyes were closed, and Selina admired the sweep of long dark eyelashes against his pale skin. A beautiful man by anyone’s standards. Beside him, the painter, Jack Mills snored, his head pillowed on his arms. He’d spent most of the evening arguing with Kit about the true nature of art and trying to persuade the man to sit for him.

On the opposite sofa three more artists. Rupert Drake was catching flies, his head in his sister Lizzie’s lap. She made a lovely picture in repose, her dark hair spilling out over the blue velvet of the settee. Beside her, and bearing Rupert’s feet in his lap, Erasmus Ponsonby was one of the few still awake, his nose buried in a book. A big blond chap of perhaps thirty-five with the ruddy complexion of a man who enjoyed being out of doors, he was a handsome, friendly giant. He glanced up and gave Selina a weary smile.

“Fabulous party, darling,” he said, setting down his book and stretching out his long limbs. Erasmus was a large man and Selina suppressed her anxiety at seeing him and the Drake siblings on the elegant settee. The slender legs of the piece seemed unlikely to support Erasmus’s bulk. “Did your father enjoy it?”

Selina gave a snort. “He disappeared around midnight, so I think we can assume so,” she replied, her tone dry. She bent and picked up a rather lovely green satin slipper, looking around for its partner to no avail. Who had come wearing green? She couldn’t remember now. So many glamourous ladies had passed through the house last night.

“Is Dasher still here?”

Selina reached for a candle and got to her knees, craning her neck to look under first one settee, then the other. “No,” she said, her voice a little muffled. She sighed as no slipper revealed itself and sat upright. “She went an hour or so ago.”

“And left Kit here?” Erasmus said, a considering tone to his voice.

She smiled at him and got to her feet. “That one will never go the way you want it to, Ras, darling. They like each other very much, but Kit is looking for his one true love, and I’m not sure Dolly will ever settle down forever. No matter how much you wish she would.”

Erasmus sighed, and Selina cast him a look of sympathy. The fellow had a romantic heart and wanted to see everyone happily paired off. He never missed an opportunity to matchmake.

“And what of you, lovely Luna?” he asked, using her pet name. Her father also called her Luna, or moon, as that was the meaning of her name. “No handsome prince to sweep you off your feet tonight?”

“Alas, no,” she replied, shaking her head as she got to her feet. “I fear my requirements are too numerous and complex to be met. I am resigned to be a scandalous lady with a string of handsome young lovers to my name. It seems to suit Mrs Dashton well enough.” She said the words lightly. Erasmus knew her well enough to know it was not what she truly wished for, though it seemed to be a fate that grew ever closer. Men were such a disappointment overall.

Erasmus sat forward, intrigued, and Selina cursed herself for saying anything. He was forever casting eligible men before her as it was. “What is it you want then?” he asked. “How does this paragon of masculinity present himself?”

She snorted and went to sit on the arm of the settee beside him before thinking better of it. Instead she bent and pushed a dozen empty wine glasses to one side of the coffee table and perched on that instead. “Let me see,” she said, ticking each item off on her fingers. If Erasmus was going to play matchmaker – and there was certainly no stopping him - he may as well have something to go on. “He would need to be open minded and not in any way impede my freedom. I couldn’t bear to marry a man who would forever dictate who I would see and where I could go.”

“Naturally,” Erasmus replied, sitting back in his seat and nodding. “So perhaps a creative sort who would encourage your love of the arts.”

“Perhaps,” she said, considering the idea with a frown. “I don’t care if he has a fortune or not, though being penniless does not appeal, yet he must also be solid and dependable. No feckless painter or poet, no matter how romantic. I have no taste for starving in a gloomy garret. No offense.”

“None taken,” Erasmus said, his voice grave, though his lips twitched just a little.

Selina nodded and carried on with her list. “I want someone who will also be a friend and companion, not just a lover. Not someone who will spend all our money on paint and canvases without a thought for my feelings or lock himself away for months at a time while he communes with his muse. He must also be utterly faithful,” she added, her voice stern as Erasmus’s thick blonde eyebrows drew together. “That one is not negotiable.”

“Quite right, darling.”

“I want someone who is strong yet can be soft. Intelligent and sure of himself, with a romantic streak of course. A man who can bend and adapt and enjoy the unexpected but who will always be there when I need him. He must love art and poetry and reading and having fun, oh and be a good father to our children. The type of man who would get down on the floor and play with them without fearing he looked foolish.”

“A paragon indeed,” Erasmus said, his tone considering.

Selina let out a sigh. “I know it,” she replied. “I’m not six and twenty years and still unmarried for no reason, you know.” She cast him a wry smile and he held out his hand to her. Selina held her own out and he pressed a soft kiss to her fingers. “I will think on it, lovely Luna. He must exist somewhere. I will not rest until you are happy. To love and be loved is the only goal in life to my mind.”

“Big softy,” she said, affection for the big man in her words.

He didn’t deny it and just squeezed her fingers. “Go to bed, sweet. Forget tidying now. The mess will be here in the morning still.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Selina gave him a rueful smile and he laughed, a good, rich sound that made her smile widen further.

“I’ll help you, and Lizzie and Rupert will too. We’ll aide you in casting these good-for-nothing creatures out into the cruel morning, I promise.”

“And who will cast you out?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at him, an amused tone to her voice.

“Oh,” Erasmus replied, pressing a theatrical hand to his chest as though he’d been struck by an arrow. “That hurt, darling.”

“Absurd creature,” she said, laughing at his dramatics. “Very well, I shall go to bed. Though I have no idea who or what may lurk in the house now. There seem to be bodies everywhere.”

“Lock your door,” Erasmus said, nodding. He wasn’t joking this time and Selina bent to kiss his forehead.

“I will. Goodnight, Ras.”

“Goodnight, darling girl. Sweet dreams.”

***

Lord Fitzwilliam Lancaster, fifth Marquess of Henshaw, regarded himself in the looking glass with a critical air. It was not vanity that made him inspect his reflection, but rather a need to ensure that he’d done the best he could. His hair was dark and thick and neatly cut. No rakish Brutus style for the marquess. Simplicity, neatness, a lack of fuss and ornamentation, these were ideals for a man who disliked ostentation. Wearing a garish waistcoat or tying his cravat in some complex manner was anathema to Will who preferred to be discreet rather than noticed.

“That will be all, Button, thank you,” he said, satisfied that he could make no improvements about his person.

“Very good, my lord.”

Button bowed, a little stiffly, and left his master alone. Will suspected the damp air, after a night of heavy rain, was making the fellow’s arthritis act up. Not that Button would admit he had arthritis. The cool, wet spring weather, combined with the dizzying number of steps at Castle Hadley in Dorset would be a challenge for a man far younger than he, however.

Will knew he ought to raise the matter of his retirement, but Button gave him a sense of security. The man had been his father’s valet for many decades, and though only in Will’s service for a matter of months, he seemed to know a great deal about the business of being a marquess and often soothed away Will’s doubts with a quiet word of assurance. He always did it with such subtlety it never even sounded like advice. A valet would never dare give opinions to his master of course, yet Button did, in a roundabout way. Will was neither so high in the instep nor so dense that he couldn’t see it for it was however, and he was grateful.

The past months had been filled with numerous highs and low, his emotions battered on all sides, leaving him feeling older, greyer and rather less confident than he’d been before.

It had begun with the unexpected death of his older brother Hugh, the Earl of Dreighton. That had been a terrible shock. Hugh was only forty-two, though his years of overindulging had left him fat and florid. Despite his doctor’s advice to follow a lowering diet and to avoid over excitement, he had done nothing of the sort. He’d continued to eat and drink as if each meal was his last … until it was.

His death had shocked Will deeply. Not that they had ever been friends. Hugh was an overbearing bully and had always been his father’s son and heir, while he and his younger brother Ben were merely spares. While their sire indulged Hugh at every turn, he ignored them. Ben had distinguished himself by being as scandalous as possible. Before his recent marriage he’d been known as a womaniser and rakehell of the first order, therefore earning his father’s pride as a man the old marquess would swear was a chip off the old block.

Will, instinctively feared notoriety. The thought of people talking about him for whatever reason was enough to make him break out in a sweat, a sick sensation roiling in his guts.

So Will had set about earning his father’s respect by being the steady one and learning all he could about the running of the estates. His father and brothers may spend money like it was going out of fashion, but Will planned, and economised. He followed the rules of society, never deviating from those rules which made a gentleman, a gentleman. Yet all he had earned himself was a lack of interest from his father who thought him a dull dog, and contempt from his older brother. He and his youngest brother Ben had always rubbed along though he knew Ben thought him a prig all the same.

Perhaps he was right?

So, when Hugh died, for a few brief days, Will had been Earl of Dreighton. His father who had been bedridden for years followed him to the grave in short order, making Will, Marquess of Henshaw.

For as long as Will could remember he had coveted both titles. Unlike many who might admit the same, it was not to give him power or superiority, so he could lord it over those who were not his equal. He simply wanted to do the job as it ought to be done as he knew it must to be done. It was a job, in his mind, a responsibility that should be a burden.

It was a burden that both his father and elder brother had shirked their entire lives. Yet thousands of people relied upon the running of his many and vast estates, and he felt the weight of their lives in his hands. He would be everything that a man of his rank should be. Honesty and integrity would be the foundation upon which he built his legacy. There would be no opera singers, no dancing girls, no gambling, whoring, or dissipation. The family name would lose its notoriety, the scandalous stories that his siblings and sire had fed the gossip mills buried under the weight of his reputation as a man of moral strength and unimpeachable honour.

It was his destiny to restore the polish to a name too many years tarnished, and he would allow nothing to divert him.

***

It was mid-afternoon when Will’s younger brother’s carriage arrived at Castle Hadley. Lord Ben Lancaster jumped down from the carriage sending Will a grin before turning to help his wife down. Dinah was a glamourous creature, far too beautiful for any man’s peace of mind to Will’s way of thinking though he respected her. At first, it had horrified him to hear of Ben’s marriage to a woman who had no family to speak of and was far from good ton.

His sensibilities had been further worked upon when his younger brother had become ever more notorious by setting up a gaming hall, of all things! The knowledge had caused Will many sleepless nights. It sat ill with his intentions for the future, but the deaths of his father and elder brother were still fresh in his mind. Ben’s life was his own to live, he had decided after days of agonising soul searching, and as Will was genuinely fond of him, he knew cutting him from his life was something he could never do. Besides which part of being the honest and moral man he hoped to be he ought to lead by example rather than censure others for behaviour which he could not control.

Will greeted both with genuine pleasure. He’d not seen Ben since the funerals of Hugh and their father, and he looked forward to a more convivial time getting to know a man he’d seen little of in recent years.

“Dinah, you are looking radiant as ever,” Will said, smiling. The words were not flattery either. His brother had confided that Dinah was with child, and the woman seemed to glow with it. That the two of them couldn’t be happier was obvious and Will suppressed a surprising pang of jealousy. He had put in a deal of thought into finding himself a wife of late and seeing Ben and Dinah’s obvious happiness only made him feel restless.

“Good to see you, Will,” Ben said, shaking his hand with warmth. “I must I call you Henshaw now?”

Will snorted and rolled his eyes. “As if you would, even if I demanded it,” he retorted as Ben slapped him on the back and laughed.

“Well, I know what a stickler you are for the rules, brother mine.”

Ben winked, and Will shook his head. He wouldn’t rise to Ben’s baiting, he’d been looking forward to seeing him too much, besides, he was a big enough man not be slighted by his brother’s teasing. An image of himself as the benevolent head of a large and happy family filled his mind for a moment and pleased him so much that he cast both Ben and his wife a warm smile.

“I’m so glad you both came. I want you to know you are always welcome here whenever you wish to come.”

Ben paused and returned his smile with equal warmth. “Thank you, Will. That means a lot, to both of us.”

Suffused with a sense of immense well-being, Will led them both into the huge and sprawling building that was Castle Hadley.