Seducing Mr. Heywood Read online

  “You won’t die, Charles, not yet.” Lewis Alcott assured his patient as he checked the large bump, the size of a goose egg, at the back of Charles’s skull. Lewis laughed.

  “It may be vastly amusing to you, Lewis.” Charles Heywood grimaced as his friend touched the grotesque swelling. “But it is hardly cause for such raucous laughter.”

  “Tell me again how you came to be the object of the beauteous widow’s wrath, Charles,” Lewis urged, a wicked gleam showing through his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  Charles glared at the burly, sandy-haired physician, who looked more like a coachman or a farm laborer than the excellent surgeon he was in truth. “I knew that I would regret detailing those unfortunate circumstances to you! I do hope you have the discretion to keep this embarrassing business to yourself.”

  Lewis adjusted his eyeglasses. “I never betray a patient’s confidences, Charles, you know that.” He continued to grin, nonetheless, enjoying the vicar’s discomfiture, for all that he was a good friend. Jovial Lewis could not resist teasing, and he especially could not resist teasing the more sober-tempered Charles Heywood.

  Charles groaned, running his long fingers through his tousled hair, a nervous habit from childhood that he had never overcome. “How can I ever apologize? Lady Sophia will not want to see my face again.”

  “Ah, but, Charles,” Lewis teased, “it is such a nice, handsome face. Rumor has it that the wicked baroness is partial to handsome faces.”

  “Most unchristian of you, Lewis, those remarks. Very uncharitable, unworthy in a man of your profession. Lady Sophia is hardly wicked, and as for your allusion to her…er…habits—” Charles shook his head, unable to go on, then groaned at the discomfort the slight movement caused him. He might not have cracked his skull, as Lewis had assured him, but it certainly felt as though he had.

  “At any rate,” Lewis continued blithely, “you shall have to face the lovely Lady Sophia again. You are now, per the will of your late mentor, Baron Rowley, the legal guardian to her two sons. You have become part of the family.” He squeezed his good friend’s shoulder in close, comradely fashion and chuckled, ignoring the murderous glare the vicar sent his way.

  Chapter Two

  I tell you truly and sincerely, that I shall judge of your parts by your speaking gracefully or ungracefully. If you have parts, you will never be at rest till you have brought yourself to a habit of speaking most gracefully, for that is in your power.

  —Lord Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, 1774

  Lady Sophia’s breakfast of eggs and ham lay cold and congealed on the delicate blue tracery of the Wedgwood plate. She took a tentative sip of lukewarm China tea and frowned, pondering her future. Her grim future; she would rusticate forever at Rowley Hall in the wilds of north Yorkshire, which was not at all as she had planned.

  The baron’s death was not unexpected; he’d been ailing for a long time. The Rowleys were not a long-lived family, and all of his cousins had died years before. No, the surprise had been the defection of her lover, Sir Isaac Rebow. The betting books at White’s and Brooks’ had been overturned. Overturned as she had been overturned, bested by a slip of a country girl, Isaac’s young ward, Mary. He had fallen madly, inappropriately in love and had cast Sophia aside without a moment’s hesitation. Isaac and she had been together a very long time. She swallowed. The strong black tea was bitter in her mouth.

  She had wanted Isaac Rebow as she had never wanted any of her three husbands. Her father, a dissolute earl addicted to gambling, had traded her youth and beauty three times for money. The first husband spent more time with his horses than he did with his bride, a blessing, for when he was with her, he was a crude and brutal sort; how ironic that one of his cosseted horses had given him the coup de grace. He’d died with his boots on, hunting the fox unto eternity.

  Her second husband, though not brutish, was phlegmatic and sickly. He had taken it into his head to visit one of his country estates in Scotland during February and had caught cold and died within a fortnight. They’d been married scarcely two months. She’d had little time, with either match, to provide her husband with an heir.

  The third time around the Marriage Mart, men were looking askance at her. Though Sophia was more beautiful at eighteen than she had been at fifteen, prospective husbands were not forming a queue to become husband number three. Only dear George, Baron Rowley, had been brave enough to risk the curse. His long-barren wife had recently died, and George was desperate to secure an heir. He was the last of his line, a line that went back to the time of the first King Harry.

  A deal was struck: an heir, perhaps two, and Sophia would be free. Wise old George recognized Sophia’s robust health and fertility. He settled a yearly sum on her errant father, pronounced that he would be unwelcome in their home, and concluded a generous financial arrangement for Sophia, payable upon production of said heirs to the Rowley name and fortune.

  Dear George! He’d understood her so well. After the birth of their sons he was content in Yorkshire, while she dazzled the ton in London with her beauty, wealth, and elegance, finding virile young men to amuse her. Though she did not have the number of lovers that the ton attributed to her, she found that her wild reputation grew no matter what she did or did not do in fact. Her beauty was a magnet for gossip and lies; much as it drew men, it also drew malicious rumors. Society enjoyed painting her as a frivolous lightskirt.

  Scurrilous on-dits were out of her control. It was the way of the beau monde. Sophia preferred to ignore the rumors than to waste her time denying them. If it amused the beau monde to label her promiscuous, no protest from her could alter that fiction.

  It was an extremely satisfactory marital arrangement, hers and the baron’s. It worried her that George would hear, and perhaps heed, the gossip, but he never chastised her behavior, save to suggest that she should visit the boys more often than was her wont. That she had ignored her sons these last few years—though she visited them regularly when they were toddlers—brought her twinges of guilt and discomfort. She no longer had a husband who insisted on controlling her behavior, much less one who abused her, but she had been remiss in her maternal duties. She had become mired in an endless round of pleasure, a dizzying tune she called, from country house to town, spa, and back again, and she told herself she was content.

  Until she met Isaac and suddenly, unexpectedly, wanted something more. For the first time ever in her young life, she wondered what it would be like to be the wife of a man she passionately loved, someone she, herself, had chosen. To be, perhaps, Lady Isaac Rebow. After George died, she’d been so certain it would happen. Everyone had thought so! Until that country chit, all big dark eyes and in the full bloom of youth, had appeared on the scene.

  How the ton had laughed! It was so very amusing, such rich fodder for on-dits! The worldly Lady Sophia trumped by a mere country girl. It had been unbearable. Her world had come tumbling down like the fragile house of cards it was. Isaac had become remote, untouchable. She could not persuade him to come back to her bed. Her practiced charms, her honeyed tongue, had failed her. Sophia could not return now to London after Isaac’s public spurning. How could she ever hold her head high again?

  She was condemned to spend the rest of her life in north Yorkshire, at Rowley Hall. She had no friends or acquaintances in the immediate area and little knowledge of tiny, rustic Rowley Village. In her heart she harbored the bitter knowledge that London’s on-dits had traveled north by the fastest stagecoach route, so that, even here at the edge of nowhere, all moor and high country, people smirked and laughed at the rare bumblebroth Lady Sophia Rowley had made of her life. Too many husbands, rumors of many lovers, and no love ever in her life, not really, despite the gossip of those who believed they knew the story of her life and loves. No one knew her; and, most of the time, she had to acknowledge that she barely knew herself.

  How could she bear it?

  Charles Heywood sat in a comfortable leather wing chair in his cluttered study, his bo
oted feet resting on a worn oak desk, scribbling notes for his Sunday sermon. He was borrowing heavily from a sermon one of his tutors at Cambridge had delivered on the same topic. He was aware of this borrowing, plagiarism by any other standard. At the end of his text, he’d scrawled, guiltily, “I am a thief!” He was finding it difficult to think of new sermon topics these days, ever since that humiliating incident with Lady Sophia, the baron’s widow. She had been much on his mind of late, to the detriment of his living at St. Mortrud’s.

  The third son, after three girls, of a land-rich viscount with holdings in Ulswater and Kendal in the Lake Country, Charles was fated from birth for the church. His elder brother, as heir, managed the family estate; the second son was following a glorious career in the army. His sisters were all suitably and happily married. Every year brought yet another niece or nephew, or both. The Heywoods were a fertile family.

  Did he have a clerical calling? No matter; he was bookish and did well at his studies, unlike his two male siblings. It was as good an option for him as any other. He’d had no objection to the church, and the living at Rowley Village was pleasant, the duties hardly onerous. Lord Rowley had been a kindly mentor to Charles, and he had spent more time at the Hall than at the vicarage, playing whist, sipping brandy, and enjoying the use of the excellent library and well-stocked stables. His curate, Mr. Duncan, saw to the efficient running of the little church and was always ready to take vespers, evensong, or matins, when Charles was otherwise occupied at the Hall. It was a most satisfactory arrangement.

  Though it was not a requirement of his office, Charles was celibate by choice. Fornication for fornication’s sake had never much appealed to him, perhaps because he was a romantic by nature. His present state of agitation was exacerbated by the fact that he had fallen immediately and impossibly in love with the unobtainable Lady Sophia the day he first saw her portrait in the baron’s drawing room. She was a goddess, indeed, the woman of his dreams. The artist, famed for his many paintings of Emma Hamilton, had been partial to beautiful faces and perfection of form. He’d emerged from semi-retirement to paint this one last portrait, as a favor to the baron.

  George Rowley had chuckled heartily, watching the play of emotions over the young man’s expressive face. “Everyone falls in love with Sophia, Charles! You are neither the first, nor will you be the last.” The baron had not been offended by Charles’s blatant admiration of his lovely wife; indeed, he had seemed inordinately pleased.

  Rowley was an amazing old gentleman. He’d been frank with Charles that he and Lady Sophia weren’t a love match. George’s first wife, Lucy, was the only true love of his life. He was very fond of Sophia, but not in love with her. She had gone her way, as he had gone his. His goal in their marriage was to secure two sons, and she’d fulfilled her part of the bargain in short order. John and William were two fine lads, eleven and ten respectively, now at Eton for their schooling.

  Yes, George Rowley had been very frank about how things stood between him and his wife, but not frank enough to enlighten Charles as to the contents of his last will and testament. It had been as much a surprise to Charles as to Lady Sophia that he was named legal guardian to John and William Rowley. With no living male relatives, the baron had had to choose a man to serve as guardian. A woman, even if she was the boys’ mother, did not count. Charles understood that; it was simply that he had not been forewarned.

  Neither, obviously, had Sophia been forewarned. Charles had to speak to her regarding the boys. And That Other Thing that he owed to old George, that George had refused outright to discuss with him, to the end of his life. He’d gone to Rowley Hall that fateful afternoon to address both issues with Lady Rowley, but the disastrous scene with the lovely Sophia had precluded any discussions.

  Now he had to steel himself to see her again. The woman’s exquisite blond beauty rendered him almost speechless—he, whose eloquent sermons were always much praised at university and in the pulpit—and how could he begin to apologize for his clumsiness? He had torn her dress; how uncouth, how unutterably crude! How could she stomach the sight of him?

  He’d become a dithering oaf in front of the one woman he wanted to please and impress above all others. He was shallow, worthless, a sham of a man. Perhaps the best resolution of his troubles would be to find a nice woman and marry her, as his sisters had been teasing, to marry and leave this blighted spot of Yorkshire for good.

  His father had an unentailed parcel of property near Rydal Water that was Charles’s for the asking; his favorite sister was eager to introduce him to her young sister-in-law; and there was a neighboring peer’s daughter of whom his father was quite fond. Perhaps he, the parson, should allow himself to be led by the nose toward that infamous mousetrap. And, far better to marry than to burn, according to St. Paul. He was certainly burning now, no doubt about it, if his fevered dreams of a long-limbed, buxom, blond enchantress were any indication. He had glimpsed the moon goddess’s breasts through her liqueur-soaked chemise, and he would never be the same again.

  Chapter Three

  Real friendship is a slow grower; and never thrives, unless ingrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.

  —Lord Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, 1774

  Lady Sophia was restless. Rustication was not all it was made out to be; the infernal quiet of the countryside was driving her mad. It was bad enough during the day, but the nights were worse. How could she sleep when it was so quiet? She was used to the clatter of carriage wheels over cobbled streets, the noises of social activity and occasional fistfights, footpads running through alleyways, the sound of the watch calling the hours. This quiet and boredom was like a kind of death.

  She had expected the boredom, that time would pass slowly in her exile, but had not anticipated the tediousness of a constant stream of tiresome visitors, ostensibly her late husband George’s friends and neighbors. In truth, they were all gossips and scandalmongers, verifying her lack of mourning costume and coming to ferret out the details of her ill-fated liaison with Sir Isaac.

  ’Twas a truth she’d not pondered overmuch, but bad news did indeed travel fast, per the familiar saying, as fast as the traveling chariots and Royal Mail coaches from London to Leeds.

  Yesterday it had been the turn of a Mrs. Ramsbotham and her two simpering, spotty daughters, Drusilla and Annabelle. While the young country girls ogled the light green clocked stockings visible under the vandyked hem of Sophia’s high-necked dark green challis walking dress, the mother had rained question after personal question upon her. How rude! Sophia had managed to turn the conversation to fashion, raising her skirts so that the girls could have a better look at the unusual stockings that seemed to fascinate them so.

  The impulsive gesture had shut Mrs. Ramsbotham’s gaping mouth for the nonce, as Sophia chatted merrily about Madame Gruyon’s exclusive London dressmaking establishment. It was a place the Ramsbothams would see only in their dreams, never in actuality. The modiste had standards—not just anyone could ply her custom at Madame Gruyon’s Conduit Street shop.

  It was becoming harder and harder to keep herself in check these days. The tale of her impulsively raised skirts would guarantee the Ramsbothams entrée wherever gossip about Sophia Rowley was the main course. Should she be concerned with the unfavorable impression she was continuing to make upon her neighbors and her staff, Sophia wondered? She frequently lost her temper, and the household was learning to keep out of the way, especially when these black humors were upon her.

  She knew she should forswear the rough oaths she was lately wont to utter, but found herself unable to restrain her vocal outbursts. Clearly, she was out of control. This was uncouth, unladylike behavior to a fault, more befitting the worst of guttersnipes, and she rued her actions even as she continued to behave badly. Her London reputation was largely false, but this she alone knew. Ruefully, she acknowledged that her irrational behavior could do naught but augment the widely held opinion.

  The only member of her staff w
ho managed to retain his aplomb was the stiff-rumped butler, Bentley or Brownley, or whatever his name was. Nothing, it seemed, fazed that man, not even The Scene in the drawing room over a week ago. As if seeing one’s employer upon the floor in a most ungainly manner, her dress torn to shreds, whilst a man sprawled unconscious nearby, was the most normal of events! Yet the butler had quickly taken matters in hand. Sophia did not as a rule think much about the behavior of servants, but she conceded that the butler seemed most admirable, for a servant.

  As to that other man…She could not stop thinking about the too-handsome Charles Heywood, vicar of St. Mortrud’s and friend to her late husband. He had obviously wormed his way into George’s great good heart. What else had George given him, besides the guardianship of his two sons? She caught herself. Their two sons. Yes, theirs. Hers. Her two sons. That other worry was uppermost in her tangled thoughts these days. John and William would be home on school holiday from Eton soon. What was she to do with them? She hardly knew her own boys, having last seen them when they were toddlers.

  John and William were scarce a year apart. She had done her duty well by George Rowley; he’d no cause to complain. She remembered how motherhood had taken her by surprise. She’d loved her babies. They’d been so soft of skin, helpless, dependent on her for all their needs. She’d actually nursed John for several months, until her morning sickness with William had interfered. She remembered, out of the hazy blue of long-buried memories, how she’d hated handing her sweet little son over to the wet nurse for his nourishment. Maternal feelings—yes, she’d once had them; there was no question in her mind about that. And, all of a sudden, with no warning, they seemed to be returning.