A Season For Romance: The Seldon Park Christmas Novellas, #5

Chapter One

Mid-December 1820

Suffolk

Allowing the curtain to fall closed, Lady Dinah Crestfield huddled deeper into the corner of the Duke of Ryfell’s ancient, rickety traveling coach.  Outside, the wind roared fiercely and whipped the snow into thick, white clouds around the vehicle, pushing it violently from side to side.  Her single, previously tepid brick had gone cold hours ago and night was nearly upon them again.  Dinah was cold and hungry and praying that the coach would stop soon for the evening, though she knew such a hope was likely in vain.  The duke had sent the oldest possible coach he owned – and the one with the worst possible springs – to fetch her from her home in Bedfordshire.  While the coach stopped long enough each day for the driver to procure a fresh team and for her to snatch something quick to eat, the duke had hardly provided anything close to luxury or comfort for her travels across the wilds of England in winter.

Then again, Dinah was to be a paid employee of the duke.  More if he was happy with her.  Happy with her.  If only she could be certain what that odd phrase meant.  Closing her eyes, she could still see the ad in the local paper that her caught her attention a month ago.

Duke seeks governess for his six children.  Must be intelligent, pretty, and willing to live on the coast of Norfolk year ‘round.

Must be of excellent, irreproachable character.

Must come alone.  A maid will be provided, if necessary.

Possible upgrade in position if duke is pleased with results.

Will cover all traveling expenses.

Possible upgrade in position if pleased.

Dinah hadn’t known what that odd phrase meant when she took the bold step of writing directly to the duke’s solicitor in London and inquiring about the advertised job.  She still didn’t know.  Then again, she hadn’t really cared back then either.  She was in desperate straights and could not exactly afford to be overly choosy.

Growing up, Dinah had known her father gambled.  A lot.  She hadn’t thought his vices mattered overmuch, however.  She had believed that her father was careful with his coin and never took foolish risks he could not afford.  After all, he was a prosperous viscount in the little village of Westbrook-on-Green.  His estate boasted more than a handful of tenants, a mill, and a well-appointed home in the form of Canton Hall.  While he had no son and his wife - Dinah’s mother - had passed away years ago while attempting to birth an heir, he still had a daughter he doted upon with pleasure.

Dinah was, as far as she knew, the apple of her father’s eye, and at least part of the reason why he made certain Canton Hall remained prosperous.  After all, she was a rather remarkable daughter, or so she had always believed.

That was what she had always been told, anyway.

To be fair, Dinah knew she was accounted to be extraordinarily lovely, a classic English beauty with thick, blonde curling hair and striking, china blue eyes framed by enviably lush, dark lashes.  Her figure was delightful – or so she had been told, as well – and her wit sparkling and merry.  She was known far and wide as The Beauty of Bedfordshire, and everyone had assumed she would marry well about her station.

That had, unfortunately, included her father.

For as luminescent as Dinah was in smaller, country gatherings, she lacked the true sophistication found in London debutantes.  Surprisingly Dinah’s single London Season had been fairly unremarkable with only a scant few mentions in the gossip rags, and she also hadn’t managed to garner even a single marriage proposal.  Much to her father’s chagrin as well.  Especially since he had banked heavily on the fact that Dinah would marry wealthy, well, and quickly.  By the time father and daughter returned home to Canton Hall for Christmastide after her failed Season, Dinah’s beloved father was massively in debt.  A wet, rainy fall had not helped matters, either.  Nor had a fire that had ripped through three tenant cottages over the summer.

By the time spring came around again, her father had landed in debtor’s prison.  All of Dinah’s pretty gowns and trinkets were gone, snatched away by his numerous creditors.  In fact, every single item in the Hall that wasn’t entailed had been sold to pay off debts.  That money still hadn’t been enough.  So Dinah had swallowed some of her pride and gone to work as a seamstress for a time, expecting that she might still marry well.  After all, she still had a roof over her head in the form of Canton Hall, and the foolish notion in her heart that somehow, someway, her beloved papa would make things right in the end.

Then summer had come, and Papa had fallen ill in prison, his debts still unpaid.  Fall arrived, cold and swift, and his health declined further.  Just before Christmastide the previous year, Dinah’s father had passed away, leaving lingering debts and no heir, save for a distant cousin.

An extremely wealthy distant cousin named Edward Marshton who had been only too happy to allow Dinah to remain at Canton Hall – not to mention pay off the remaining debts - as long as Dinah agreed to marry him after her period of mourning ended.  Dinah, of course, hadn’t thought the man serious.  She had laughed at him – actually laughed!  She cringed now when she remembered her past actions, how callously she had behaved towards Edward the first time they had met.  He had deserved better from her.  He was hardly the handsome sort, which was certainly not his fault.  And while obviously not hideous, he was just a bit on the plain side.  Not at all the sort of man Dinah had pictured herself wedded to back in those days.

When the following summer arrived, Edward had ventured to Westbrook-on-Green to take measure of his prospective bride.  Shortly thereafter, Edward had discovered Dinah kissing the son of a local baron beneath a tree.  Edward had been enraged and, looking back, Dinah understood rightly so.  She had promised herself to Edward, even though she never had any real intention of keeping that promise.  She had thought herself better than him, even though she no longer was.  Perhaps she had never been.

Dinah had assumed –again incorrectly – that once Edward laid eyes upon her, he would understand that she was far too pretty and too lively to be wed to a man like him.  Whether he was newly minted Viscount Gilrod and had paid off her family’s debts or not.

He hadn’t understood.  In fact, Edward had tossed the baron’s son off of what was now his land arse first and demanded that Dinah choose.  The handsome baron’s son or Edward himself.  Dinah had chosen the handsome baron’s son, which had been an extremely poor decision on her part.  Like father, like daughter, she supposed.  The wretched youth had no intention of marrying her.  He never had.  Now, neither did Edward.

Still, Edward must have felt something for Dinah, even if it was only pity, for he had been kind enough to grant her enough time to make other arrangements.  He had purchased subscriptions to the London papers in her name and was willing to provide her with a reference when she found employment.  However, he had been very clear that since she had chosen another over him, there would be no forgiveness for that betrayal from his quarter.  Dinah had made her choice, and it was not him.  Now she had to live with the consequences.

Edward had informed Dinah that he hadn’t expected her to love him.  He had, however, hoped that she might at least find him tolerable enough to lie with him and beget an heir or two.  After that?  She could have lived her life as she pleased.  She could have even taken a lover if she had so desired, so long as she was discreet.  After Edward had his heir, of course.  He simply hadn’t made his offer to Dinah at the very beginning for he had been hoping to judge her character.  Not to put too fine of a point on things, he said, but he had his doubts about her suitability as a wife as well.

For the first time ever, the realization had dawned on Dinah that not everyone believed her to be perfection incarnate.  That she, too, was being judged, just as she judged others.  And London-born Edward had not been at all certain he wanted a slightly provincial country miss as his bride, no matter how beautiful she was.

She had been an idiot, Dinah now realized.  Even after all she had been through – including her brief time as a seamstress – she still viewed herself as the Beauty of Bedfordshire and beyond reproach.  The prettiest girl in all the land, comparable to none.  Better than everyone she met, no matter their station in life.

Dinah had been a fool.  Worse, she had been an arrogant fool.

That was how she had come to stumble upon the duke’s ad in the Town Tattler, one of the more reputable London gossip sheets – and one that had never printed a single word about her in the past.  Dinah had written immediately to the duke’s solicitor with her qualifications – such as they were.  Then she had waited.

Dinah had been shocked when the solicitor replied just as quickly, saying that he thought she would suit the duke’s needs rather well.  The man was willing to make the arrangements for her travel immediately, which suited Edward rather well, too.  In the months between, he had taken a strong liking to Miss Lavina Appleton, the daughter of that same baron whose son had made all of those delightful – and yet still very empty in the end – promises to Dinah.  Edward also needed Dinah out of his house with all due haste if he was going to wed Miss Appleton as soon as possible.  And given that the baron’s daughter might already be increasing with Edward’s first child, immediately would be preferable.

For Dinah, the offer of employment from the duke seemed like the best possible solution for everyone – but especially her.  Well, at the time it had seemed so anyway.  Why, the man’s solicitor had even hinted that Dinah might become the nobleman’s bride someday, at least if the duke was pleased with her work with his children!  She!  Dinah Crestfield!  A duchess!  And there was still just enough of her old pride left within her that she very much wished to be a duchess, even one exiled to the drafty, cold far corner of England.  Well, wished it more than becoming a seamstress again, at any rate.

Not to mention that at two and twenty, Dinah’s best days were likely behind her.

Sooner rather than later, her beauty would begin to fade and other, far more biddable young ladies would fill the Marriage Mart.  Debutantes who had far more sophistication and man-hunting skills than Dinah ever would, as well.

Becoming the duchess to a doddering old duke in Norfolk really didn’t sound that bad in comparison.

After this wretched coach trip, however, Dinah was beginning to wonder if she would ever learn. For after three slow, torturous days on the road, she had come to the conclusion that the duke’s offer of employment was not all his solicitor had made it out to be.

Several days prior, the coach that had pulled up to the massive stone front of Canton Hall had been faded and warped, the gold