Miss Lacey's Last Fling (A Regency Romance) Read online

  MISS LACEY'S LAST FLING

  by Candice Hern

  A Regency Romance

  Miss Lacey's Last Fling

  Copyright 2011 by Candice Hern

  All rights reserved. No part of this text may be used or reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, or decompiled in any manner whatsoever, whether electronic or mechanical, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the author is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

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  This is a work of fiction. With the exception of real historical figures and events that may be mentioned, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Cover art: Detail of "Bridal Dress" from Ackermann's Repository of Arts, November 1816. Collection of the author

  Chapter 1

  Devonshire, April 1817

  "What are all those trunks and bandboxes doing in the front hall? What is happening?"

  Ursula, Lady Walgrave, swept into the library in the regal way she had adopted since marrying Lord Geoffrey Walgrave. She came to a halt in the middle of the room, stabbed the point of her parasol into the thick Turkish carpet, and glared down at her father. Sir Edmund Lacey sat behind the big oak desk looking thoroughly bewildered at the mountain of papers and ledgers before him, unmoved by his daughter's grand entrance.

  "Well?" Ursula prompted. She kept one kid-gloved finger on the knob handle of her parasol, not quite leaning onto it like a walking stick, but rather striking an elegant pose.

  Sir Edmund looked up and blinked. "Eh? What's that?"

  Ursula sighed theatrically. "The baggage, Papa. In the front hall. Whose is it?"

  "Oh. I suppose it must be Rosie's."

  "Rosie's?"

  Ursula appeared to notice her eldest sister for the first time. Rosalind Lacey stood in the corner of the room, near the window, where the morning sun poured in thick and bright directly upon her, illuminating the brown velvet of her pelisse so that it shone like polished bronze. She did not believe for one minute that Ursula had not known she was there. Since her elevation to the wife of a local baron three years earlier, however, Lady Walgrave gave little notice to her spinster sister. Except, of course, when Rosie was needed—to help nurse a sick child, or to help write out invitations in her elegant hand, or to even out the numbers at a dinner party whenever an extra female was needed at the last moment.

  Ursula eyed Rosie up and down, taking in her traveling clothes with disapproval. Whether her sister objected to the fact that she was dressed for travel, or simply to the unfashionable cut of her pelisse, Rosie could not have said.

  "I do not understand," Ursula said. "Surely, you are not going anywhere."

  Rosie smiled at her sister's confident tone and was about to respond when Papa spoke up.

  "She's going to London," he said in the same tone of utter disbelief he had been using since Rosie had shown him Aunt Fanny's letter.

  "She's not," Ursula said. "She can't be." She stared at Rosie. "You can't be."

  Rosie smiled. "I am."

  "But... but that is ridiculous," Ursula said. "Why on earth would you be going to London? There is nothing for you in town. I cannot imagine what you must be thinking. You've never needed to go before, when Pamela and I— Oh. Oh, no. Do not tell me you are going for the Season?"

  "Well, I suppose the Season will be in full swing when I arrive," Rosie said, "so I daresay I shall be there for it."

  "But you cannot! Papa, tell her she cannot."

  "I see no reason to do so," her father said. "I confess, the announcement has surprised me as much as you, Ursula, but I do not know why Rosie should not be allowed to go. She is old enough to do as she pleases." His diffident tone lacked the conviction of his words. He ran agitated fingers through his thick, gray hair, heedless of the tousled disarray he created.

  Papa had been thoroughly abashed by Rosie's announcement that she was going to London. Nevertheless, he never once suggested she should not go, bless his heart.

  "That is just the problem," Ursula said. "She is too old." She turned and cast her disdainful glance upon Rosie once again. "Surely you do not mean to try your luck at the Marriage Mart. Not at your age. You will only succeed in making yourself, and your family, look ridiculous. We shall be the laughingstock of the ton. I am sure Walgrave would be most displeased."

  Rosie had long ago suppressed the persistent desire to pinch her sister's head off. Of all the family, Ursula had always been the one most concerned with appearances, with propriety, with rank and form and proper behavior. Before she had left the schoolroom, she had been able to recite without error the entire female order of precedence, from Queen all the way down to wife of a burgess. Though she had never dared say so in front of their father, Ursula's siblings had been made to understand the unfortunate circumstance of being the children of no greater personage than a minor baronet.

  Rosie was not the only member of the family who had breathed a sigh of relief when Ursula had managed to bring Lord Walgrave up to scratch.

  But even Ursula's sharp tongue would not deter Rosie from her purpose. She was going to London, and she could think of nothing at the moment that would be allowed to stop her.

  "Have no fear, Ursula," she said. "I have no intention of setting myself up to find a husband. I am more aware than you might imagine of the pointlessness of such an endeavor."

  "Then there is no need for you to leave at all," Ursula said, "is there?"

  "To be sure, there is no need. But there is desire. I wish to go, that is all. A bit of a holiday, if you will."

  Ursula clicked her tongue and tapped her toe impatiently. "How utterly ridiculous. I repeat, there is nothing for you in town, my dear."

  "Perhaps," Rosie said. "But I wish to go, nevertheless. I'd like to go to the opera and the galleries and the Tower and—oh, so many things. With you and Pamela married and Thomas finished at university and the twins away at Harrow, there is only Papa to look after. And with you so close by, he should be fine. He has agreed—have you not, Papa?—to struggle along without me for a while."

  "So I have," he said, a tentative smile touching his lips. "And a struggle it shall be, I assure you. I confess I had not realized how much you do for us here at Wycombe, my dear. Indeed, I feel quite ashamed that I have so neglected my own duties and left them to you." He closed the ledger he'd been studying and rose from his chair behind the desk. "Yes, Ursula, Rosie shall have her holiday, and well deserved it will be. I set aside money for each of you girls to have a Season in town. But after your mother died"—he paused and sighed wistfully as he always did when he spoke of his late wife—"Rosie took on so many of her duties that we could never seem to spare her. And, I am ashamed to admit, it never even occurred to me that she might want a Season." He shook his head and clucked his tongue. "We have been horribly unfair to your sister, Ursula. Of course she shall have her Season in town, late though it may be."

  He walked around the desk and over to the corner where Rosie stood, and took both her hands in his. "And if you happen to come home with a handsome young lord on your arm who wishes to be your husband, then he shall be welcome, my dear. I do not know
what your sister can be thinking, but you are not too old to find a husband. You are only four and twenty, after all."

  "Six and twenty," Rosie said.

  "Really?" Her father looked at her quizzically. "Good heavens, how time has slipped away from me. Even so, you are not too old. And you are very pretty, my dear. So like your mother."

  "Papa." This was not a topic Rosie wished to pursue. She did indeed strongly resemble her mother, and her father had always thought his wife the most beautiful woman in the world. But he had gazed upon his wife with eyes blinded by love. Rosie's mother had not in fact been a beauty. At best, she would have been considered handsome. And Rosie had inherited her thick brown hair, her long nose, her deep-set hazel eyes, her wide mouth, and her tall, angular figure. Rosie was no beauty, either.

  "Yes, my dear," her father said, "you are pretty enough to draw any man's attention. Perhaps you will upstage your sister and bring home a duke, eh?"

  "Papa!" Rosie smiled at his outrageous suggestion. "I have no intention of bringing home a duke, or any other man, for that matter. I have told you, I am not interested in finding a husband." It was too late for that, though not for the reasons Ursula or their father may have thought.

  "Then I really see no justification for you to leave Wycombe," Ursula said. "I have my own family to look after and can spare little time to oversee matters here. Besides, I cannot imagine you would find London to your liking at all, Rosie. You will either be bored or scandalized. You are much too prim and straight-laced for high society."

  Rosie bit back a smile as she considered how she planned to burst out of those tight laces once she got to London. Before it was too late.

  "And where did you plan to stay?" Ursula continued. "I had not heard that Lady Hartwell planned a trip to town, as she did with both Pamela and me. Who would act as your chaperone?"

  "I will be staying with Aunt Fanny." Rosie steeled herself for the outburst that would surely follow.

  "What!" Ursula's face grew dangerously crimson. "You cannot mean it. Aunt Fanny! Papa, say it is not so."

  "I'm afraid it is so." Papa walked over to the desk and rifled through the pile of papers until he located his sister's letter. "See here. She has written to invite Rosie to stay for a few months."

  This was too much for Ursula, and she finally dropped her elegant pose and sank into the nearest chair. "Aunt Fanny." She shook her head in disbelief. "We are doomed."

  Their father's older sister was the black sheep of his conservative family, having demonstrated a wild streak in her youth which had not abated, even as she settled into her senior years. She had been the subject of gossip for decades, and had grown rather notorious for her parties, her gambling, and most of all for her string of lovers. It was even said that she had once had a brief affair with the Prince of Wales, somewhere between his alliances with Mrs. Fitzherbert and Lady Jersey. Rosie could think of no one more appropriate to help her loosen those tight laces that had bound her for so long.

  Aunt Fanny, otherwise known as Lady Parkhurst, had visited Wycombe Hall two or three times over the years—brief stops on her way to some infamous house party or other. She would sweep in with her French gowns and stylish hats and haughty manner, oblivious to the fact that she was never invited and not made especially welcome by her brother. His obvious disapproval made no difference to Aunt Fanny. As children, they had all been wide-eyed with fascination each time their aunt made an appearance. As they got older and better understood the stories about her, most of them found her behavior shocking and wanted nothing to do with her.

  Though she still felt a trifle skittish at the prospect of meeting Aunt Fanny again, Rosie secretly admired her, not so much for any of the wild things she was rumored to have done, but for having the courage to live her life exactly as she pleased.

  And now Rosie, too, wanted to do as she pleased. Oh, nothing as shocking or improper as Aunt Fanny's escapades. Rosie's desires were simpler, not so daring. Even so, she needed to gain courage to do them, and who better to teach her such courage than Aunt Fanny? Assuming her resolution remained firm and she did not crumple at the formidable woman's feet.

  But Rosie had no fear of losing her resolve. It was now or never.

  "We are doomed," Ursula repeated. "If Rosie goes about with Aunt Fanny, heaven only knows what sort of scrape she may fall into."

  "I am not a child, Ursula."

  Ursula gave her a condescending look. "Not in years, certainly. But I am a married woman and know more about these things. You are an innocent, Rosie, and may easily be led into all sorts of folly. Your reputation may be ruined completely. Oh, Papa! How could you countenance such a thing? The woman may be your sister, but you know what she is. Dear Lord, we shall none of us be able to show our faces in town again."

  Rosie laughed. "I don't think it is as bad as that."

  "Yes, it is," Ursula said. "Aunt Fanny, for God's sake. We are doomed."

  * * *

  "And now we embark upon yet another Season." Maxwell Davenant sank back languidly against the soft cushions of the settee and expelled a sigh of pure ennui. "What a bore."

  "An uninspiring prospect, indeed," his hostess said. "All those balls and routs and card parties and such. Nothing of the least interest to keep a person occupied."

  Max slanted a glance toward Frances, Lady Parkhurst, to find a smug grin on her face. "You mock me, madam."

  "How can I not, when you insist on making such foolish remarks? Boredom, indeed!"

  But Max was, in fact, bored. He was thirty-six and this would be his eighteenth Season—half his life spent doing the same thing year after year. This year would be no different from the year before or the year before that. Or from the next year.

  If there was a next year.

  His hand crept up to his waistcoat pocket and fingered the edge of parchment tucked within. Freddie had known what Max meant. Freddie had been bored, had said precisely that in his suicide note. Throughout the year since his friend's death, Max had come to the conclusion that Freddie Moresby had had the right of it: make an exit at his own time, before ennui and age slowly sucked the life out of him.

  "Surely you do not find the same old rounds thrilling from year to year, Fanny. After all, you're—" He paused before he said something he should not.

  "I'm what? So old I can remember more Seasons than Methuselah? Well, so I can, but I do not recall ever being bored. Since Basil died, of course, nothing has been quite as enjoyable to me as it once was." She sighed dramatically and placed a hand upon her cheek. "But I go on."

  "You do, indeed," Max said, unaffected by her feigned melancholy. Though only a scant year or two in front of seventy, Fanny Parkhurst was still a vibrant and attractive woman. She'd been his father's mistress and he a callow youth when they'd first met, and they had remained friends ever since. He spent many an evening in her drawing room, which was often filled with a diverse and lively assortment of wits and beaux. During the afternoons, however, she was at home to no one but himself and a few others.

  "I trust Lord Eldridge," he said, referring to Fanny's latest cicisbeo, "does not bore you, my dear?"

  "He does not, you impudent puppy, as if it were any of your business. Nevertheless, I suspect I shall indeed find this Season horribly pedestrian. Did I not tell you that my niece is coming to town?"

  "Your niece? Good Lord, Fanny, do not tell me you are to be the girl's chaperone?"

  "Apparently so."

  Max gave a crack of laughter. "Oh, surely not, Fanny. No one could seriously imagine you in the role of duenna. Ha! It is too ridiculous." He laughed at her look of mock outrage, but soon enough, her own laughter joined his. Fanny, better than anyone, would appreciate the sheer absurdity of Lady Parkhurst as chaperone to any respectable young lady.

  "Stop laughing, you horrid boy," she said. "It is not a source of amusement for me, I assure you. I certainly have no wish to play chaperone to anyone, but most especially not to this young woman."

  "Oh?" Max's int
erest was piqued. "And why not? Who is she?"

  "Rosalind Lacey, the eldest daughter of my younger brother, Edmund."

  "Sir Edmund Lacey? The one you always called the driest limb on the family tree?"

  "The very one," Fanny said. "A duller, more tedious man I have seldom met. And yet somehow that dry old stick managed to sprout several new twigs. Six children! Three girls, three boys. Why is it that all the dull ones manage to procreate so easily?"

  Max did not comment. Fanny had had only one child of her own—he discounted the old rumors of a by-blow from an earlier alliance, or even a half-sibling from her many years with his own father— and that child had contracted influenza during his last term at Oxford and died shortly afterward. How it must gall Fanny to know that her own wit and liveliness would not live on in another, while her tiresome brother had managed to produce six insipid offspring.

  "Of course," she said, "his poor wife died many years back, leaving him alone with all those children." She shuddered visibly.

  "And so now Sir Edmund will start sending his wretched motherless girls to you so that you may launch them into Society?"

  "Well now, that is one of the curious things about this whole business," she said. "The two younger girls have already been fired off and married. Came to town in their own time and avoided me like the pox, for which, frankly, I was quite thankful. Led about by some Devonshire neighbor, the respectable Lady Something-or-other. But now it's the eldest girl, the most irksome of the lot, who is coming to stay. And Edmund did not ask me to take her in. Goodness, he hasn't written three words to me in years. No, it was Rosalind herself who wrote, asking if she might visit."

  "And charitable soul that you are, you found it difficult to refuse such a direct request, no doubt."

  "Well, what was I to do?" Fanny gave a decidedly Gallic shrug. "The troublesome creature appealed to my worst instincts. She actually said she wanted to, and I quote, 'experience all that London has to offer.' She could think of no better guide to the most amusing entertainments than her dear Aunt Fanny."