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Overview
Heiress Clarissa Studley yearns to be loved for more than her fortune. Warmhearted, but plain and shy, she wishes to marry, but has two firm rules: no rakes and no fortune-hunters — her father was both, and she’ll never forget the misery he caused.
So, when Race, Lord Randall, starts to pay Clarissa attention, she knows she must keep him at a distance. Attractive and charming he might be, Race’s reputation precedes him and she’s observed first hand his flirtatious ways with London society beauties. But Race sees a beauty in Clarissa that others cannot, and for the first time in his life, he is truly in love. And when a rival for Clarissa's affections appears — a handsome, wounded war hero, heir to his great-aunt’s fortune — Race becomes desperate as Clarissa seems tempted to make a safer, tamer choice.
Can Race convince Clarissa that his love is true and that she can trust him with her heart? And can Clarissa put aside her unhappy past, and follow her heart, despite the risk of loving a rake?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780593549681 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/21/2024 |
| Series: | The Brides of Bellaire Gardens , #3 |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 43,408 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.13(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.86(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Prologue
Studley Park Manor
Hampshire, England
1806
Don't wiggle around like that, child," Nanny said. "You want to look nice on your birthday, don't you? The more you wriggle the longer it will take."
Clarissa Studley did her best to keep still, but it was very hard. It was her birthday.
"Mama said that now I'm seven I'm a young lady."
"Well, behave like one, and let me finish this hair," Nanny said severely, unwinding another long rag and setting it aside.
Clarissa's hair was a trial, Nanny often said. It was plain brown and straight, and a little bit bushy, and if she wanted any hint of a curl, she had to sleep with rags, which wasn't very comfortable, but was necessary if she wanted ringlets. And ringlets were essential if she wanted to look pretty, Mama said.
And today of all days, Clarissa wanted to look pretty.
Mama had ordered her a new dress, pink and white, to match Mama's new dress-also pink and white-Clarissa's favorite colors. The only difference was that Clarissa's dress had shiny pink satin bows sewn around the hem.
Mama had also bought her a pair of new shoes, white kidskin slippers with a cluster of tiny pink velvet roses on each toe. Clarissa loved them, but she hadn't been allowed to wear them yet. "Not until your birthday," Nanny had told her. "And never outside."
"There, that's it, you can move now," Nanny announced when she had fastened the last pink satin bow in Clarissa's hair. There were three, and they matched those on her dress exactly. "Don't you look nice?"
Clarissa gazed at her reflection in the looking glass, twirling happily this way and that, watching the bows dance as she moved. She felt like a princess.
"Your mama wants to see you downstairs," Nanny told her, and then added, "She has a surprise for you."
"What kind of a surprise?" Clarissa asked eagerly. She already knew Mama had ordered a special dinner, with all Clarissa's favorite food-wonderful smells had been coming from the kitchen all the previous day-and there was a splendid pink and white cake with her name iced in an elegant script. And tiny icing rosebuds.
And now, another surprise.
Nanny laughed. "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, now, would it? Now run along-no, walk, don't run. You're a young lady now."
Clarissa walked carefully downstairs. The new shoes were a little tight, but she didn't mind. They would stretch, Nanny said. She was a growing girl.
She had just reached the landing when she heard the sound of carriage wheels out front. Who could that be? They didn't get many visitors. Was this Mama's surprise?
"I won't be long," a man's voice said.
"Papa!" she shrieked happily, and ran down the remaining stairs. Papa hardly ever visited, but here he was, on her birthday. He must be Mama's surprise.
Papa handed his hat to Maddox, the butler, just as Clarissa bounded down the last step and rushed to greet him. "Oh, Papa, Papa, you came!" He made no move to embrace her-Papa never embraced people-so she hugged him around the legs.
"What the devil! Get your sticky hands off me." He bent and pried her fingers open and pushed her back. "And look, you've crushed my trousers, you wretched brat."
"My hands aren't sticky, Papa, truly they're not. I just washed them. I'm sorry about the wrinkles." She tried to smooth them out but he shoved her roughly away and raised his voice.
"Will somebody remove this brat?" And then to her he said, "Get to the nursery, child, where you belong."
"But it's my birthday, Papa."
Ignoring her, he strode to the room they called "Papa's office" even though he hardly ever used it. Clarissa followed, saying uncertainly, "I thought you'd come to celebrate it."
He searched through some papers in one of the desk drawers. "Celebrate what?" he said impatiently.
"My birthday. I'm seven."
He snorted. "Expect me to celebrate that? Commiserate, more like."
Clarissa didn't know what commiserate meant, but it didn't sound good. "I've got a new dress," she said in a small voice. "And pretty new shoes, Papa-see?" She showed him.
He didn't even glance at her. "Waste of money. Nothing will ever make you look pretty."
Clarissa swallowed.
Mama said from the doorway, "She's just a child, Bartleby. Must you be so harsh? It's her birthday."
He snorted again. "What's to celebrate? A useless girl child, and plain as a stick."
Mama came forward and took Clarissa's hand. "I'm sorry, Bartleby. I have tried and tried for a son, and I've failed you, I know. But it's not the child's fault."
"There's nothing of me in that child."
Mama gasped. "Bartleby! I swear to you I never ever-"
"I know that, you stupid woman. Who'd have you? If it wasn't for the money-Ah, here it is." He pulled a document out of the drawer, folded it and slipped it into his pocket. He turned, glanced at the two of them standing side by side in their matching dresses and made a scornful noise. "Look at you-both as ugly and useless as each other. Now get out of my way, I have a party to get to."
Clarissa glanced up at her mother. Mama's mouth quivered. She stretched out a hand to him. "Take me with you. Please, Bartleby, I haven't been away from this house for years."
Papa snorted again. "Take you? To a stylish ton party? Don't be ridiculous! As well take a barnyard sow to a soirée. Now, out of my way, woman." He brushed roughly past Mama, snatched his hat from Maddox, climbed into the waiting carriage and drove off.
Mama stood as if frozen. "A barnyard sow," she whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Clarissa squeezed her mother's hand. "I think you look lovely, Mama."
But Mama just shook her head. "There's a present for you in the library, Clarissa. I'm going to bed. I have a headache." She turned and climbed the stairs slowly, as if every bone in her body ached.
Clarissa watched, wishing she knew what to do. Mama was always like this after Papa had been home.
After a while she went into the library. She found a wrapped box on the table under the window. In it was a doll, a beautiful doll with golden hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a dress that matched Clarissa's, even down to the tiny pink bows around the hem of the dress, and the little white slippers with tiny roses on the toes.
Clarissa stared at the doll. Golden hair in perfect ringlets. Blue eyes. Clarissa's hair was plain dull brown and her eyes weren't even a proper color; they were a strange greenish brown, that sometimes looked green and sometimes brown.
The doll was beautiful. Clarissa wasn't. She looked just like Mama, everybody said so.
A useless girl child, and plain as a stick . . . both as ugly and useless as each other.
She put the doll back in the box and went outside. It didn't matter if she got her shoes dirty now. Her birthday was over.
Chapter One
London 1818
Clarissa Studley sat in the summerhouse, gazing out through windows blurry with rain. It had been raining all night and the garden was soaked, the air filled with the fragrance of rich earth and drenched flowers. If only she could make a perfume as magical as that . . .
She sighed. The paper in front of her was still blank. She'd come out to the summerhouse in the garden, intending to pen her regular weekly letter to her old nanny, who lived retired in the country, but her mind simply wouldn't settle to it.
It was the morning after her sister's wedding to Leo, Lord Salcott, and Clarissa had passed a sleepless night.
She and her sister would no longer be together-not in the same way-ever again. Of course, they'd see each other frequently: when she returned from her honeymoon, Izzy would live in Leo's house, which was just across the garden.
But at the end of the season, Izzy and Leo would go to live on Leo's country estate in Hampshire, and then who knew how often Clarissa would see her sister? Oh, she was sure they would invite her to come with them, but Clarissa had no intention of playing gooseberry in her beloved sister's marriage.
No, face facts. From now on she was essentially on her own. Of course there was old Lady Scattergood, Leo's aunt, with whom she currently lived, and Mrs. Price-Jones, the chaperone Leo had hired for her, and Betty, her maidservant, whom she'd known from childhood. But fond as she was of them, they weren't the same as a sister.
So, her old life was over and a new way of going forward had to be embraced.
Embraced? Accepted, anyway.
No, she told herself firmly, embraced was the word. If she had learned one thing in her life it was that if you wanted something to happen, there was no point in sitting around wishing and hoping and dreaming. Because nobody would do it for you. You had to make things happen yourself.
She had made Papa accept, however reluctantly and resentfully, that Izzy was her sister and would live with her. And it had changed her life.
And when they'd come to London after Papa's death, she and Izzy had made Leo, her guardian, accept Izzy's entry into society along with Clarissa, despite Izzy's illegitimacy and his vigorous opposition. And look how well that had turned out-Leo had fallen in love with Izzy and had married her. So now Clarissa needed to work out what she wanted and try to make it happen.
But what did she want? She twirled her pen meditatively and gazed out of the rain-spattered window and the saturated garden.
First and foremost she wanted a family-children. Not just one child, either. She didn't want any child of hers to be as lonely as she'd been before she'd found Izzy. That had been providential, but purely accidental.
And of course, to have children she needed a husband. Up to now, she'd been waiting for a desirable husband to present himself-but so far no likely candidates had. The fortune hunters kept coming. So she needed to take a more active role.
The idea of husband-hunting repelled her slightly-she'd cringed, observing the blatant tactics used by some of the pushy, matchmaking mamas and their ambitious daughters. She wasn't ambitious in that way: she just wanted her own chance at happiness.
But what sort of husband did she want? She thought for a minute, dipped her pen into the ink and wrote a heading-Desirable Husbandly Qualities-and underlined it.
Then she drew a decorative border around the heading.
Then some flowers along the border.
Stop procrastinating, she told herself sternly. She dipped her pen in the inkwell again and added the first criterion: 1) A man as unlike Papa as possible.
That went without saying. But she needed to be more positive. Qualities. What next?
2) Handsome. She looked at it, then crossed it out. She wasn't even pretty, so it would be rather hypocritical to demand good looks in a husband. Besides, Papa had been handsome, dangerously so. So . . . 2) Handsome. Attractive. And then she added to me, and then added, and interesting.
3) Fidelity. Really, that should be number one-she wanted a man who would be faithful to her. Unlike Papa, who had repeatedly broken Mama's heart with his blatant affairs. But the list was in no particular order.
She glanced out at the wind tossing the branches of the trees, and considered their neighbor, Lord Tarrant, and how he adored his three little tree-climbing daughters. Yes, that was another really important quality.
4) Kindness, especially to children. Because she dearly wanted children and wanted them to have a kind and affectionate father. Which was, when she thought about it, covered in number one. But this was a specific quality, whereas number one was general.
And then she thought of Lady Scattergood's little dogs and how the first time she'd seen the first chink in her brother-in-law's hard exterior was when he'd been so gentle with little Biddy, who'd been abused and injured and was so frightened. To number four she added, and animals.
What else? A gust of wind sent a flurry of raindrops spattering against the glass of the summerhouse. She snuggled back in her chair. It was so cozy in here when it rained. She and Izzy had spent many happy hours here, reading, writing letters or just talking. Perhaps she could have a summerhouse of her own after she was married. Assuming she married a man who paid attention to her, who listened to her views and respected them.
5) Respects me.
Paid attention to her, not her fortune.
That thought prompted the next on her list. 6) No fortune hunters. That was crucial. Papa had married Mama for her money, and the minute they were married he stopped being charming and attentive-and later, once he realized her fortune came with strings and trustees and was not wholly his to spend as he liked, he had become downright nasty.
Clarissa had inherited that same fortune. Grandfather Iverley had set it up that way-from mother to child, with only a limited amount going to the husband-and her trustees would control it until she married.
What happened after that? Would it be the same for her as it was for Mama? She had no idea. She made a mental note to find out exactly what the terms of her inheritance were. She wouldn't deceive any potential husband. And if the conditions put off someone then it would show they cared more about the money than her.
Thinking of Papa, she made a seventh notation: 7) No rakes. It really should have gone under Fidelity, but rakes were the kind of men who were habitually unfaithful, and she doubted one could change.
Was that all? She regarded her list critically.
There was one quality missing, the most important one. But it wasn't something you could put on a shopping list like this. Nevertheless it was what she wanted in a husband, so she wrote it down: 8) Love.
Then she crossed it off. 8) Love.
It wasn't possible to make love happen. And as long as she could remember, Mama had told her that her life would be easier if she never expected love, that women like them-plain and plump and dull, and of undistinguished birth-weren't the kind of women that a gentleman could love.
Papa, too, had said the same-repeatedly-and though Clarissa tried hard not to believe him, a small niggling voice deep inside her kept popping up to remind her: Plain as a stick. Ugly and useless. If it wasn't for the money . . .
