Chapter One
Cheltenham, England, 1818
“Goodbye, thank you for coming. We have both been truly touched by your kindness.”
Ophelia was wooden as she spoke to the guests taking their leave after the funeral and the wake. She offered brief smiles, trying to tamp down the lump in her throat and stop the tingling of her eyes. She’d already cried enough to fill a lake that week; she didn’t need to cry anymore. Her eyes were dry and itchy, with the tell-tale redness around her eyelids that betrayed how she had spent most of her days.
“Goodbye, Miss Townsend. Take care of yourself.”
The latest guests took their leave, turning and stepping out beyond the door of the house. Ophelia stood numbly in the doorway, waving with her black mourning shawl around her shoulders. There should be another standing there beside her, completing the business of the formal goodbyes, but Gertrude was in a fearful state.
“Are they gone?” her stepmother’s voice called from the sitting room as soon as Ophelia closed the door.
“Yes, they are gone.” Slowly, Ophelia followed Gertrude’s voice and walked into the sitting room.
Sitting near to the fireplace, Gertrude was half bent over, with a handkerchief screwed up in her hand. She dabbed at her cheeks occasionally, trying to dry her tears.
“Here, use this one. Yours is sodden.” Ophelia offered her another handkerchief and Gertrude thanked her kindly for it. Sitting straight and sniffing, in an attempt to stop her tears, Gertrude pushed the dark black locks of her hair back from her face. She had pulled on a few loose tendrils that hung down from her updo, hiding the redness of her cheeks behind those locks for most of the evening.
“What a miserable day.” Gertrude heartily blew her nose into the handkerchief, urging Ophelia to retreat and choose another chair in the room.
She sat down in the fine rococo settee, remembering the day her father had bought it. He had been so pleased they could afford something so fine. It had been one of the earliest of many such fine purchases since.
“How miserable funerals are!” Gertrude wailed.
“Well, they cannot be joyous affairs, can they?” Ophelia muttered quietly.
“This is not the time for your dryness, Ophelia,” Gertrude reminded her.
“My apologies. It is my way of coping.” She averted her eyes and stared into the fire, knowing if she continued to stare at her stepmother as she cried, it would not be long before she teared up again. “I didn’t think he would leave us so soon.”
In emphasis to her words, Gertrude blew her nose again, so harshly that Ophelia jumped in her seat. It had hardly escaped her notice that in the last ten years her father had been married to Gertrude, the lady lacked some refineries, but it did not bother Ophelia. Gertrude had been devoted to her father, and that was all that had ever mattered.
“Neither… did I.” Gertrude’s breath hitched in her words before she bent forward and wiped away more of her tears. “I suppose I should say the funeral was beautiful. It is what people say, is it not? The flowers were a good choice, Ophelia. You arranged everything perfectly.”
“Thank you.” Ophelia kept her eyes on the fire as she spoke, not wanting to look away from the dancing flames.
It didn’t seem to matter that the responsibility of arranging the funeral should have fallen to her father’s wife as there was no male relative. Gertrude had been in no fit state to handle it, and her lack of understanding when it came to money had meant that if a funeral was to happen at all, Ophelia would be the one to deal with it.
She had found it strangely calming, making the preparations to say goodbye to her father. It didn’t help with the pain, though. Nothing would.
“We should retire for the night.” Gertrude stood to her feet and gestured to the room around them. “The staff will clean up in here when we are gone.”
Ophelia nodded softly. Born to a merchant, the youngest of five sons of a viscount,, her family had not had much money when she had first entered the world. It meant she had been raised without much help in the way of staff. When her father had made his fortune in the merchant business, the staff and the fine things had arrived, but Ophelia’s habits were just the same. She’d often tidy the house, trying to help the staff in any way that she could. More than once had Gertrude told her she was too wealthy to do such things, but Ophelia would do it anyway.
But tonight was different. She did not have the energy or the heart to tidy.
“Maybe retiring early to bed is a good idea.” Ophelia nodded with the words and stood to her feet. She took one of the candles that had kept them company and led the way out of the room, with Gertrude following behind her.
On the stairs, Gertrude tried to return her handkerchief to Ophelia, but she refused, insisting her stepmother should keep it. She had plenty herself in her bedchamber, and she had no wish to touch the soiled handkerchief now.
“This house seems empty without him already,” Gertrude declared as she reached the top of the stairs, pausing and looking down the steps. Ophelia paused too, following her stepmother’s gaze. “I keep expecting his strong stride to come round the corner of the corridor, or for his deep laughter to echo through these walls.”
“I know.” Ophelia smiled at the description, for it was the very same thing she pictured. Her father had been fond of jesting, as well as pursuing his athletic life. There was hardly a day that he and Ophelia had not gone riding together. Since the sudden illness that had taken him so quickly, however, she hadn’t been riding. “I wish his laugh was still here.”
“Well, we must find a way to cope, Ophelia, mustn’t we?” Gertrude forced a smile and turned to face her. Her grey eyes were as red as Ophelia’s own. “We will miss your father, but we have each other. We will have a comfortable life here too, with the house and the money. We will be quite safe; I am sure of it.”
Damn the money.
Ophelia would have happily been rid of the money just to have her father back, but she could see it gave her stepmother comfort, so she kept any wry comments to herself.
“We will, Gertrude.”
“Indeed. Soon enough, I don’t doubt you will leave me too.” She reached toward Ophelia and brushed a lock of her brown hair behind her ear. “I must accept that.”
“I will leave? Gertrude, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh, Ophelia, you are a young woman now. Your father would not wish you to stay here with me forever. No, you will have a family of your own someday. Come, let us retire. We can talk of such things another day. Another minute here, and I fear I will start crying again.” Gertrude hurried down the corridor with the words, hastening to her room.
Ophelia could not follow at such a quick pace. She ambled slowly to her chamber with the one candle. Rather than calling for her maid, she undressed herself, wanting to be alone as she thought of Gertrude’s words and how much she missed her father. Sitting before her bureau and the mirror placed upon it, she stared at her reflection.
Light brown hair fell in loose waves past her shoulders, and her blue eyes were bold in her face, rather too big in her own opinion. It made the evidence that she had been crying all the more noticeable on her prominent cheekbones.
“She expects me to marry?” Ophelia whispered, as though her reflection would offer up an interesting reply.
It struck her what Gertrude had assumed of their futures. She had talked of staying here, in this house, and Ophelia leaving. Not once had Ophelia ever thought of leaving this house, even when she married.
As the candle burned down and her reflection became more indistinct, merely shadows and smoke in the mirror, Ophelia thought of her father. She recalled one of the last days she had spent with him, riding together across the open parklands of Cheltenham. She thought of his laugh, the way he smiled, and the way he had a habit of seeing what she was thinking, even without her having to utter a word.
“You will be happy, won’t you, sweetheart?” This question had caught her off guard on their last ride.
“Do I not look happy, Father?” She had laughed, thinking it an odd thing to say, then pulled a face, making her father chuckle.
“I mean, if anything were to ever happen to me.” With these words, he’d pulled his steed to a stop, turning to face her. “You will live your life to the fullest and find a family of your own. Promise me that?”
She hadn’t promised him, though. She had simply kept asking him why he had asked such an absurd question, for he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Thinking back, she realised her father might have already started to feel ill. He’d just kept the secret to himself.
“I promise, Father.” Ophelia whispered the words aloud, as if he could hear her. “I promise you to find that life, and maybe even a family. I will be happy, as you wished me to be.” Then she blew out the candle as another tear came.
Chapter Two
London, England
“Watch out!”
Elliot ignored the warning, for he had already seen the blade coming. Diving back, he avoided the lunge of his friend, Harrison, and struck out with his own rapier blade. Fortunately, it was blunted, and the blade landed firmly on the padded chest of Harrison, who froze and looked at Elliot with raised eyebrows.
“Would you stop winning, please? It’s getting rather tiresome.” Harrison breathed heavily, winded after their exercise. Elliot laughed and released his friend, stepping away.
“Tiresome for you, you mean?” he said with a smirk, watching as Harrison threatened to come at him with the rapier blade again. “I rather enjoy winning at the moment. It is one of the few releases I have. Come, again.”
“I may need a short break first.”
“You are fitter than you give yourself credit for.”
“Well, if you say so—woah!” Harrison was taken aback as Elliot began their next bout.
Yes, at least this is a moment away from the troubles of the world.
They were fencing in the ballroom of his Mayfair townhouse—hardly a fitting place for the sport, but it suited the task well, being such a large room. At the edge of the room was the steward, holding up lemonade for the two of them on a silver tray and wincing every time they came a little too close to each other.
Elliot lunged forward as Harrison scurried back, like a mouse fleeing a cat.
“Fight, don’t flee, Harrison,” Elliot pleaded, trying to draw his friend into the match.
“Remind me to tell you that the next time you are fighting an opponent much taller than you.”
“I am hardly that tall!” Elliot laughed, though he caught sight of himself in the vast windows of the ballroom as he said the words, revealing the truth. He was tall, taller than most men he met, and poor Harrison who was of average height often found himself on the run in such challenges as this.
“I hope I never truly wrong you in any way,” Harrison called as he parried with Elliot, the swords clashing and the metal ringing out in the air around them. “I wouldn’t stand a chance in a real duel.”
“Of course you would.” Elliot thought much of Harrison’s skill. It was simply that as Elliot had been touring the continent for the last three years, he had learned new methods and techniques from masters in Italy and France. Such techniques made him not only an adept fighter, but one that could surprise his opponent.
With this in mind, he pretended to bring his rapier down on his friend’s leg. Harrison jumped out of the way, veering back so far that he opened his arm wide and revealed the target of his chest. Elliot placed the blunted tip of his blade at Harrison’s padded chest, breathing heavily as they both fell still.
“Well, you win again.” Harrison chuckled and brushed the blade away with a gloved hand. “No more, now. I need some rest. A chance to breathe would be nice.”
“As you wish.” Elliot stepped back and placed his sword in the makeshift rack that had been brought through by his steward. “You can breathe easily too now, Mr Jacobson. As you can see, we are both uninjured.” He walked toward the steward, who proffered forward the silver tray carrying the lemonade with a sigh of relief.
“You have me on tenterhooks, Your Grace, with all this fighting. It happens every day at present.” The older man seemed to tremble, quite unused to seeing so much swordplay within these walls.
“My apologies, but I assure you, we are merely having fun. You may return to your papers now if you like. I will call you if we need anything else.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” With these words, Mr Jacobson left. As the door closed behind him, Harrison’s soft chuckle filled the room.
Elliot turned to look at his friend, noting the blond hair on his head was dampened with sweat and sticking up at odd angles.
“You’re giving that poor man the fright of his life.” Harrison sat in the nearest chair he could find at the end of the room, leaning on his sword for support. “Can’t say I blame him.”
“It is merely that he is not used to seeing such sport in this house,” Elliot explained as he poured out a glass of lemonade and took it to his friend. “My mother and father didn’t do such things. They occupied their time with throwing balls and hosting dinner parties. Mr Jacobson’s responsibilities as the steward, overseeing our tenants and so forth, quickly changed. They used him like a dog’s body.” He grimaced at the memory of coming back from one of his travels to see Jacobson being ordered around like a boy collecting firewood. “I will not treat him the same.”
“I suppose Jacobson and the rest of your staff have seen many changes since you have returned to take over the dukedom.” Harrison’s eyes darted about the ballroom as if he was surveying those changes. “What do you make of it? Being a duke?”
Elliot bought time before he answered by taking a hefty gulp of lemonade. Once settled, he took a seat beside his friend, thinking carefully before he began.
“I have had to let most of the staff go, Harrison.” His words made his friend sit forward.
“Wait… I know you said the finances were bad, but is it truly so dire as this?”
“It is,” Elliot murmured carefully. He knew he did not have to swear Harrison to secrecy on this matter, he would already keep it to himself. The two of them had met many years ago at Oxford when they attended university and had been the closest of friends since. No secret had been betrayed between them, and Elliot knew there never would be. “I have given the staff excellent references and wished them well. I wish I could keep them on, but I cannot.”
“Something tells me we should be drinking something stronger than lemonade for this,” Harrison gulped from his glass as he spoke.
“It costs money,” Elliot reminded his friend, and took a sip from his own glass.
“Go on, then. Tell me all, my friend.”
Elliot nodded before continuing on. “The death tax is extortionate. When they had their accident…” Elliot paused, still trying to judge how he felt about his parents’ carriage accident that had taken both of their lives.
They had never been loving parents, nor particularly present, but it was still an awful tragedy that made him sad. He had caught himself wanting to cry on more than one occasion, but then he remembered the lack of love they showed him and the mess they had left behind for him to sort out.
“I thought the estates were safe, but I was wrong. While the death tax may be a heavy levy, the financial situation is worse than I thought.”
“How so?” Harrison encouraged him on with a wave of his hand.
“My mother and father were quite… spectacular spenders. They spent money everywhere, it seems—everything they had and more. They have borrowed from banks, and one specific lender that hardly seems particularly legal.” He shuddered at the thought of what he’d found in his father’s papers. “In short, they have nearly bankrupted the family. Clearly, they thought they could go on as they were. They had no idea of what danger they were in, nor how close they had come to living on the streets.”
“Now that burden is passed to you and your sister.” Harrison breathed in sharply, so much so that he hissed between his teeth.
“Just so. Things will have to change.” Elliot looked around the ballroom. He didn’t have the heart to say his fears were one of the reasons he invited Harrison over most mornings to practice their fencing. It was the one escape he was afforded, to distract himself from the danger that lurked at the door of the house.
Debtor’s prison.
“And your sister? Life will change for her, too. You have to tell her, Elliot. This isn’t a secret that can be kept from her.”
“I know. She already knows the situation is not wonderful, but I have yet to tell her the full extent.” Elliot returned his gaze to his friend, seeing the pained expression on Harrison’s face. “I vowed when I heard of my parents’ death to come back and care for her in the way they never did. What care can I offer now, Harrison? Without a penny to my name.”
Harrison had no words of comfort to offer, but he clapped Elliot on the shoulder in silent support.
***
“Grace, do sit down for five minutes, I beg of you,” Elliot pleaded with her. His sister was so caught up in her excitement that she hopped on the other side of the room, then turned in a quick circle.
“Do you not think it is beautiful, Elliot? Oh, I think it is stunning!”
The last dress their mother had ordered for Grace had just been delivered by the modiste. Covered in ruffles and ribbons, it was an over-the-top display of wealth. Even the silk was embroidered in such a way that announced money.
Money we do not have.
“Yes, it is beautiful, but I am trying to be serious here,” Elliot pleaded.
At once, the smile vanished from Grace’s face. She lowered the dress to the box beside her and gave the box to her maid, who curtsied and hurried out of the room.
“Oh dear. I do not like serious, Elliot. He’s rather miserable.” Her words sounded like she was younger than she really was at six and ten. Elliot thought that Grace sometimes held onto the innocence of childhood.
He couldn’t blame her for it. He had often wondered if it was her way of drawing attention from their parents who were not able to give them much love at all. Elliot had coped in quite a different way, by ignoring his parents as they did him and running off to the continent.
“Please, Grace, bear with my misery for now. It is important.” He held out a pleading hand toward her. She hurried across the room, bobbing on her toes as a child might, until she reached his side of the room and sat down in a high-backed chair.
“What is it you wish to speak of?” she asked. She had dark eyes, a brown so deep it was almost black, just like his own—though where hers often sparkled with excitement, Elliot knew his own had an intensity.
Apparently, that intense gaze was with him now, as she stopped fidgeting in her chair and her smile wavered.
“What is it, Elliot?”
He checked that the maid had closed the door behind her as she left before he leaned forward and took his sister’s hand. “I hinted to you the other day that the situation our parents had left us in was one that was less than ideal.”
“I remember.” She nodded, quite calm now.
“I have been talking to the solicitor about the death tax, and our parents’ lenders.”
“Lenders?” Grace repeated the word, her body stiffening before she glanced back to the box that carried the dress. Without uttering a word, she gestured to it.
“Yes. I have reason to believe that most purchases our parents have made over the past few months have been made entirely through borrowing.”
“Oh.” Grace’s breath hitched. She blinked a few times, as if fighting tears, but to her credit, she didn’t let them come. “So, what does this mean for you and me, Elliot?”
“It means we are in heavy debt.” His words made her spine crumple, in much the same way as his own had done. “We owe money to many people. One bank has called in a loan, and we must find money from somewhere. In the meantime, we will have to economise. Any extra expenses must be cut. You understand?” He made his voice soft, not wanting to scare her, but pleading with her to see why he was doing this.
“Yes, of course I do.” She laid her other hand over his. For a moment, she didn’t seem so young, but quite like a grown-up woman. “Which expenses will have to be cut?”
“Many. Some of our staff have been dismissed, many of the regular outgoings on food have been slashed to come from cheaper sources, and…” He paused, holding his sister’s gaze before he uttered the next words. “And I’m afraid your pianoforte and singing lessons will have to be paused for now.”
“I see.” She chewed her lip. There was the sign of those tears again, and she was back to appearing like a child in front of him. “Yes, of course, if you think it necessary.”
“I’m sorry, Grace, truly. If I knew of a better way out of this mess, I would take it. I do not want your life to be impacted by the mistakes our parents have made, but at the present time, I see no other way than to cut our expenses.”
“I understand, Elliot.” She gave him a smile, though its forced nature was obvious. “We must do what we can, mustn’t we?” The smile vanished. “Why did our parents leave this mess for us?”
“I wish I knew.” Elliot sighed, fearing he knew the truth. It wasn’t that their parents had been intentionally cruel, wishing to leave them without a shilling to their name. But the truth was, they had not cared. They had enjoyed their lavish lifestyle a little too much and they did not see any reason to economise, even as they bankrupted the dukedom.
As Elliot looked at his sister, he realised the danger it posed to her life. Yesterday, she was a young woman, soon to be announced to the ton, with the possibility of a fine marriage, a comfortable life, and money to her name. Today, she had no such prospects.
We are more likely to end up on the street than in good marriages.
“I promise to find us a way out of this, Grace. I promise you that.”
“You do?”
“I do. Trust me with this.” He held her hand tightly.
Their parents had already betrayed her by not leaving her with a dowry. Elliot was prepared to do anything to get it back.
“Surrendering to a Fiery Lady” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!
After the death of her father, Miss Ophelia Townsend, discovers his fortune has been left to her, much to the dismay of her vicious stepmother, Gertrude. While Gertrude wants the money, and is trying to force her into marrying her nephew, the ravishing Ophelia is too headstrong to bear being controlled and refuses to marry a known rogue. Therefore, when she meets the captivating Duke of Northmore, she sees an opportunity… As the sizzling attraction between them is undeniable and with everything at stake, Ophelia places all her trust in her arrangement with Elliot.
Can the tempting Duke be her answer to escaping this forced marriage?
Elliot Fillmore, the Duke of Northmore, is facing financial ruin. His late parents have left him in a debt so large, it seems there is only one way to solve his problems; find a lady with a good dowry to marry. The plan is not so simple, though, for the ton whisper of him and the gossip separates him from any eligible woman. Thus, when he sees the tantalising Ophelia for the first time, he is afraid she will stay away from him, until she proposes a devilish arrangement…
He was not looking for trouble, but what will he do when it finds him?
On a journey together, Ophelia and Elliot find themselves thrust into each other’s path. Determined to do anything to escape a forced marriage, the arrangement with Elliot seems like a perfect option for Ophelia. However, what starts as attraction, burns deeper into something neither of them is prepared for… With Gertrude hovering, determined not to let go of the fortune, they have to decide if their lustful affair is worth the gamble. After all, can a scandalous plan turn into a lifetime of love or will it go down in flames of despair?
“Surrendering to a Fiery Lady” is a historical romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
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