Sacrificing the Untamed Lady Henrietta: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Read online

The rain must have washed his mourning down, enabling the Marquess to function—but barely. Whatever the reason, Ewan did not question this tentative rebirth. The servants worked tirelessly to make Ewan begin to feel more like the dashing lord they came to admire over the years. He looked in the mirror and he saw his dark eyes seemed less encumbered and his frame less turned in. He desperately needed a few pounds of flesh upon his cheeks, but he did not cringe so wholly as he had days earlier.

  I remain here, despite my private hopes that I, too, would be taken away. God has seen me through this and I will prevail, just as Father has said. I am a Clark. It is in my duty to carry forth.

  For the first time in twelve long months, Ewan had a dash of hope for the future.

  * * *

  “Ewan!” Prudence, the Duchess of Everly, gasped when he entered the dining hall. “My Son, you look wonderful!”

  He managed a small smile for her and walked to his allotted chair, at his father’s right. “Hello, Mother,” he said softly. “As do you.”

  He noted the sidelong look the Duchess cast toward his father, but whether it was due to her surprise or not, he could not be certain.

  “Indeed, Ewan,” the Duke nodded his approval. “You are in fine fettle today.”

  “I am reluctant to say it aloud,” Ewan murmured, sliding into his chair. “But I daresay I am feeling more like myself.”

  “Why are you hesitant to say?” Prudence tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “That is news for the angels to sing from the—”

  She abruptly stopped speaking and flushed a deep scarlet.

  “Oh, forgive me, darling,” she muttered, her eyes watering.

  “Nonsense, Mother.” He offered her another small beam. “In fact, I would like for you to forgive me. I have been incorrigible as of late. You have not deserved the harsh treatment I have bestowed upon you.” His words spilled out in a rush. He knew it was necessary, but it still burned to admit it. Again, his parents shared a look, and with this one, he felt an undercurrent of concern.

  “Ewan, you are our son,” Prudence told him gently. “One in great pain, no less. We never did fault you for your grief. It was to be expected. There is nothing for which to be forgiven.”

  “I concur.” The Duke patted his son’s hand resting on the table. “You must strike that idea from your mind.”

  Ewan exhaled slowly.

  “I am truly blessed to call you my parents.” He cupped his father’s hand on top of his. “I cannot imagine what I would have done if I had been alone in this world—”

  “You will never be alone in this world.” The Duke cleared his throat and looked at his wife again. This time, Prudence avoided his gaze.

  “Which brings us to another matter, Ewan.”

  “Does it?”

  “Phineas, perhaps now is not the time…” Prudence muttered quietly but the Duke only looked at her helplessly.

  “If not now, then when? It is done.”

  As he studied their faces, Ewan could feel his chest tightening.

  “What is it? Is there a problem in the duchy? Has something happened?”

  “No, no,” the Duke assured him. “All is well.”

  Ewan returned his hands to his lap. “Well? What is it?”

  “Darling, before we tell you, you must understand that we have been quite concerned for your health and happiness for some time,” Prudence jumped in as Phineas opened his mouth to speak.

  “Yes?”

  “We did all we could to bring you out of the pit of despair,” Phineas agreed. “You were too melancholic to hear reason. We were very concerned.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Ewan insisted. “But what is it you have done?”

  Silence. Ewan’s cautious sense of peace dwindling.

  “Father? Mother?”

  “We have arranged for you to be married.”

  Certainly, he had misheard the Duke’s words—surely his father wouldn’t be so cruel. Time stood still… The Marquess turned to peer across the table and saw both parents waiting for a response.

  “I assume you are jesting with me, testing the waters to see if I have reclaimed my good humor,” he said slowly, unable to comprehend what was happening.

  “Ewan, I assure you, if we had foreseen an end of your suffering, we would simply have allowed your grief to run its course.”

  “Instead you meddled in my personal affairs? You opted to replace my dead wife with one who breathes?” he growled—totally discombobulated. “What of my son? Have you found someone to replace him too?”

  “Ewan, it is nothing as you make it seem!” Prudence shot the Duke a concerned look. “A wife’s job is to care for her husband in his darkest hours. You need someone at your side, someone on whom you can lay your head and unburden your sorrow.”

  How was he to make sense of the blow just delivered?

  “You would engage a lady to be my in-bed doctor then?” he managed to gasp through his fury. “Perhaps it is not me who has taken leave of his senses—but you!”

  He rose from the table abruptly and shook his head vehemently.

  “I will not do it,” he snapped, spinning to leave. “Undo the engagement.”

  “We cannot do that, Ewan, and you know as much.”

  “I did not consent to this!” Ewan howled, pivoting back to look at them in disbelief. “How could you make such a decision without me?”

  “We knew precisely how you would react.” Phineas sighed. “Like this.”

  “And how was I meant to react, Father? Meekly? Jovially? Please, do tell me what I was meant to say or do, so I might do it. I would not wish for you to think me behaving inappropriately and find some other means to correct me.”

  “That is unfair, Ewan!” Phineas snapped. “We arranged this for your own good.”

  “And the good of the duchy...you worry about the Clark bloodline.”

  “As any man does,” Phineas retorted.

  “Ewan, you must not think that this was done in haste,” Prudence insisted, but the Marquess could not bear to look at her. She was every bit as complicit in the matter as her husband.

  “I will not see this through!” Ewan insisted.

  “If you do not, you will be besmirching the honor of this house,” Phineas told him flatly. “As you well know.”

  “It is you who besmirched our honor!”

  “If you choose to see it as such, so be it, but all the same, we will be regarded very poorly among our peers. I will not be about forever, Ewan, and one day, you will become the honorable duke. I presume you will do what is right not only for the duchy but for yourself.”

  Phineas rose and nodded to his wife. Prudence paused, looking from her husband to her son imploringly.

  “Do consider this, Ewan,” his mother murmured; he scoffed with disgust.

  “There is nothing to consider,” Ewan snapped. He stormed from the dining hall before the Duke or Duchess could call out.

  Chapter 4

  Oddly, the days following the General’s ominous words were uneasily calm in the Oliver household. When she dared, Henrietta glimpsed at her father, but he deliberately avoided speaking with her. A fact which both unnerved and pleased her.

  She reasoned that in just a few more days, she would receive the word she had been expecting. Her scheme was to steal away in the night and board a coach to London before anyone knew she was gone. If Henrietta had not been so distracted, she might have noticed that her mother was also anxious.

  “Mama, have the mails come through?” Henrietta flittered into the front room, her skirts fluttering behind her. She stopped abruptly when she saw her father also inside the salon; Seth hovering nearby as always.

  “Yes,” the General answered for Tabitha. “In fact, the mails have come, Henrietta.”

  He tossed a stack of papers upon the floor with the flick of his wrist, his face twisted in fury.

  “What harebrained thing have you done?” he demanded. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Henri
etta’s face paled—her father had found the letters intended for her eyes. As they stared at one another, she saw her dream slipping away.

  “Speak, girl! What have you done!”

  “I…I…I wrote the medical universities,” she sputtered. “And asked them to grant me admission.”

  To her horror, Seth began to guffaw, and Henrietta’s face flushed with humiliation. She wished he was not there, but she also knew the butler was the very least of her concerns.

  “You did what?” Aaron snarled, striding toward her. Henrietta flinched, worried he might strike her.

  “Dear Lord, Henny,” Tabitha whispered. “Why would you do something so…so…”

  She was stuck for words; Aaron spared no insult.

  “Foolhardy? Imbecilic?” he stated. “Ridiculous? Childish?”

  “I am none of those things, Father!” Henrietta howled. “I am intelligent enough to be a physician! I have read all about anatomy and—”

  “NONSENSE!” Aaron roared. “You are a woman. Your place is at home, not running amok in London.”

  “But Father,” Henrietta breathed. “You must understand—this is what I long to do!”

  “It will never happen!” Aaron snapped. He turned to Seth. “Who could possibly have put this in her head!” The question was clearly rhetorical, but Seth didn’t seem to notice.

  “No doubt that surgeon she has befriended in town, sir” he offered.

  “I was not inviting suggestions,” Aaron shot back, peeved that Seth would interrupt his fury.

  Henrietta’s mouth parted in shock. He knows I have seen Dr. Ranstandt? Has he followed me?

  “Although, now that you have mentioned it—which surgeon might that be?” Aaron posed his question directly at Seth and not his daughter.

  Henrietta could not have her father confronting the only man who had taken her pursuit of education even slightly seriously. And so, she maintained her protectiveness for the kind doctor. “There is no surgeon!”

  “Is this true, Henrietta?”

  “You have been seeing a man unchaperoned?” Tabitha choked. “I…I cannot imagine it!”

  “Because it is not so!” Henrietta turned to face the butler. “You lie! Before you tarnish a good name, where is your proof?”

  Seth calmly spoke, “Miss, it is not required that I show you proof of what you already know. I have given my honorable word to the General of what I have seen. I don’t understand how you can be so ungrateful.”

  Henrietta looked at him and then to her father who was still focused on his butler.

  “You will not speak to my daughter in such a fashion,” Aaron growled. Henrietta exhaled in relief. It was difficult to gauge who her father held in higher esteem at times and who would be censured.

  Aaron pointed to the door. “How easily it seems you forget your place. Now, off with you before I see you flogged for insubordination, Seth Booth, and do not expect a recommendation!”

  “But, sir, I was—”

  “Henrietta’s heart fluttered, a whirlwind of emotions coursing through her body. She doubted very much that her father was finished with his lecture, but she was grateful he had stepped forward to defend her. Or did he merely do it to show his authority?

  Aaron clenched his fists and spoke to the ceiling. “She is beyond control, yearning to do men’s work. Will my daughter wear pants next?”

  Seth cast Aaron one final imploring look. But the General had already returned his attention to Henrietta, his eyes flashing with anger

  “I have not forsaken you, girl,” he growled. “Sit down.”

  Henrietta watch Seth leave the room; she was tempted to do the same.

  “Sit!” the General snapped.

  “Now let us not overreact, Aaron,” Tabitha began to say but he gave her a warning look which silenced her at once.

  “Father, I—”

  “I will not hear one word out of you, Henrietta. This has gone on long enough. Your mother indulges your whimsy, but I will not stand for it. You have a finer chance of going to the moon than you do becoming a physician, do you understand me? If there is a man you have been consorting with, I will have his head, I swear it!”

  “There is no one!” Henrietta cried out, tears springing to her eyes. It seemed Dr. Ranstandt was her only friend; she would do anything to protect him.

  Even if I must lie to my father.

  “You remain standing? I will not tell you again to sit down.”

  Begrudgingly, she moved toward the settee, her head lowered. She tried desperately to read the pages scattered along the floor.

  Did one of the universities accept my proposal?

  “Henrietta, look at me.”

  She raised her head trying not to return his furious stare with a baleful one of her own.

  “I haven’t a clue how to reason with you. You have your nose stuck in books far too much for someone so lovely, someone with so much potential.”

  “It is true,” her mother agreed. “You could be the wife of a nobleman or—”

  “Tabitha!” the General snapped. “Quiet yourself!”

  “I have no interest in being anything but a physician,” Henrietta protested, she wondered why she even bothered to speak up. Her father did not care what she wanted. She was but a silly woman, incapable of being independent and university educated.

  “You will be married,” Aaron intoned. When Henrietta opened her mouth, her father held up his hand to silence her. “It is already arranged.”

  She gazed at her mother in shock. She felt the chill of betrayal.

  “Mama?”

  When Tabitha looked away, Henrietta realized that her mother had already been privy to her father’s intentions.

  “Do not speak to your mother when it is I who decides your future! I am the master of this house, despite your desire to ignore that. You will be wed in a month’s time, and I won’t hear anything else on the matter.”

  “To whom?” Henrietta saw her dream crumbling before her eyes. Convincing her father that she was destined to become university educated was a Herculean task; swaying a husband in her favor would certainly be impossible. No man would permit his wife to do such a thing.

  “Ewan, Marquess of Peterborough. He is a fine match for you, Henrietta.”

  “Oh Father…” She had to blink the tears away. Was she more frustrated or furious? She refused to let her father see weakness in her; she had striven for so long to be seen as strong and independent.

  “You must accept that this is best for you,” Aaron told her. “I will not allow—”

  A door slammed, the sound reverberated around them, and conversation halted.

  “It was merely Seth causing a scene.” Tabitha sighed. Aaron grunted and looked at Henrietta.

  “I will not allow any more petulance or argument from you, Henrietta. Do I make myself clear?”

  Defeated, she nodded and stared at the rug.

  “I wish to hear you speak the words aloud.”

  She didn’t even look up. “You will not receive any trouble from me, Father.”

  Aaron heard her proclamation lacked conviction. Tabitha interjected before he could utter the next word.

  “You see, Aaron? She is a good girl. She will marry the Marquess, and all will be well.”

  “We shall see,” Aaron spun off, leaving his wife and daughter behind. Devastated, Henrietta stared at her mother.

  “You knew about this, Mama?”

  “It is for the best, darling. Marrying a nobleman—it is the best you could aspire toward.”

  Henrietta did not see it as such, and she finally released tears. Her destiny lay on the arm of a man who would treat her as indifferently as her father. The best future was educating herself, becoming a physician and studying the sciences which she adored so dearly.

  “You must not cry, Henny,” Tabitha told her urgently. “The situation could be far worse.”

  Tabitha’s eyes darkened, possibly thinking of her own experience in marriage.

>   “Mama…”

  “I will have Molly fetch us some tea.”

  How easy it is for her to simply ignore all that is happening around us. How can she flit about when the world is falling apart?

  Her mother hurried from the room. Henrietta stooped to collect the mass of letters her father had thrown on the floor. If one of the universities had agreed to let her in, she could still go.