Pursuing Lord Pascal (Dashing Widows #4)

Prologue

Woodley Park, Leicestershire, November 1828

T o a farmer, even winter’s dreary beginning had its purpose.

Or so Amy, Lady Mowbray, told herself as she stared out of the morning room window onto the landscape of her childhood. It was early on a gray day. Around her, the old house was blessedly quiet. That would change, once everyone was up.

Nash friends and family gathered to celebrate the christening of her brother Silas’s fourth child. The revels had extended late last night, but Amy, used to rising with the birds to tramp her fields at Warrington Court, couldn’t sleep.

So she didn’t expect the door to open and reveal Sally Cowan, Countess of Norwood. “Lady Mowbray, I didn’t think anyone else was awake.”

Amy didn’t know Sally well. Recently the attractive widow had become friends with her sister-in-law Morwenna. Morwenna mostly lived in seclusion in Portsmouth, but she and Sally both supported a charity for indigent naval widows.

“I don’t keep sophisticated hours, Lady Norwood.” Anything but. Lately the sheer predictability of her days had begun to pall.

When she was a girl, she’d become interested in scientific agriculture, and since then, the rhythms of planting and harvest had ruled her life. Her brief marriage seven years ago had caused barely a hiccup in the endless seasonal work.

“I don’t either.” Lady Norwood closed the door and ventured into the room. “I’m looking for something to read. I know Caro keeps the latest novels in here. I won’t disturb you.”

Amy rarely sought female company, although she loved her sister Helena who slept upstairs, no doubt blissfully, in her husband’s arms. But something about the bleak, lonely dawn left her dissatisfied with solitude. “No need to go. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Lady Norwood cast her a searching look, before a smile of startling charm lit her face. She wasn’t exactly pretty. Her long, thin nose had a definite kink, and her eyes and mouth were too large for her face, but she was dauntingly stylish. Next to her, Amy always felt a complete frump.

This morning was a case in point. Lady Norwood wore a filmy cream gown, trimmed with bands of satin ribbon, deep green to match her remarkable eyes. With her loosely gathered fair hair, she looked like the spirit of spring, even as the year moved into winter.

Whereas Amy had dredged a frock ten years out of date from the cupboard in the bedroom she always used at Woodley Park. She’d assumed at this hour, she wouldn’t run into any other guests. She was sharply conscious that the dress was faded and worn, and too loose for her. At twenty-five, she was slimmer than she’d been at sixteen.

“Thank you. I’d love a cup of tea. Morwenna speaks so fondly of you, Lady Mowbray. I was looking forward to this house party as a chance to get to know you.”

Amy crossed the room to the tray a footman had just brought in and poured two cups. “Please call me Amy. Lady Mowbray is my late husband’s mother.” Who lived in Brighton, and fussed over her ten pugs, and found little common ground with the practical young woman her son had married.

Lady Norwood turned something as mundane as accepting a cup and saucer into an act of breathtaking grace. Amy stifled an unworthy pang of envy. Not even her best friend—if she had one—would credit her with a shred of elegance. Somehow this morning, that seemed a shame.

“Very well, Amy. And you must call me Sally.” She sipped her tea as the door swung open.

“Morwenna,” Amy said in surprise, placing her tea on a side table and stepping forward to embrace her lovely, fragile sister-in-law. The body in her arms was so thin, Amy feared it might break if she wasn’t careful. “You’re up early.”

“You know I don’t sleep much these days.” The willowy brunette focused her large blue eyes on Sally and managed a smile. “Good morning, Sally.”

“Good morning, Morwenna.”

“Have some tea.” Amy filled another delicate Wedgwood cup. There were four on the tray. The footman must have guessed she’d have company. “I’m sorry you had a bad night. If it’s so difficult for you to see the family, you don’t have to come to these gatherings. Everyone would understand—although we’d miss you.”

Bitterness twisted Morwenna’s lips as she took her tea and sat on a brocade chaise longue near the fire. Although all three women were widows, only Morwenna wore mourning. The dense black emphasized her ghostly pallor. “I doubt it. I’m well aware that I’m a constant reminder of sorrow.”

Grief stabbed Amy. Sharp. Painful. Accepted, but unsoftened by time. “The sorrow is always there for us, whether you’re here or not.”

Robert Nash, Morwenna’s husband and Amy’s brother, had been lost at sea four years ago in a skirmish with pirates off the Brazilian coast. At first, because Robert had been such a larger-than-life character, everyone who loved him had held out hope of his survival. But as month followed month, the grim truth of his death became undeniable reality. When the navy had ordered him into the South Atlantic, Robert was newly married to this charming Cornish girl, who had since become a beloved member of the Nash family.

Morwenna cast her a sad smile—sad smiles were her stock in trade these days. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply his family had forgotten him. I know you haven’t—but you all have other concerns, other people to occupy you.”

Amy hid a wince. Because she didn’t. Not really. Her estate ran like clockwork, and her steward and staff were so well trained in her methods that they could manage without her, indefinitely if necessary.

Devil take this strange humor. Why on earth was she so discontented? Envying Sally’s style. Even envying Morwenna, who at least had known love before losing it.

Amy and her late husband had been good friends, despite the age difference, but the stark truth was that she’d married him to join him in his farming experiments. When Sir Wilfred Mowbray passed away five years ago, agriculture lost a great innovator. Amy had grieved over a man more mentor than husband.

Her marriage had been her choice, but on this dismal day, she couldn’t help thinking life should hold more than cattle breeding and crop rotation. And she’d never thought that before.

“Kerenza enjoys seeing her cousins.” Sally sat next to Morwenna. “I know you miss Robert, but you’re lucky to have a daughter to love.”

“Yes, she’s a darling. I wish Robert had known he had a child. She’s so like him.”

“And becoming more so,” Amy said. The whole family found a measure of consolation in Robert’s bright, pretty daughter.

“I would dearly have loved children,” Sally said in a muffled voice, her mobile features uncharacteristically somber. She placed her teacup on the tray, and Amy was distressed to see that her hand trembled. “But God didn’t see fit to bless me.”

“I’m sorry,” Morwenna said gently.

Sally shook her head. “Ten years of marriage, and no sign of a baby. Lord Norwood bore his disappointment bravely.”

But nevertheless made that disappointment felt, Amy guessed.

“You could marry again, Sally,” Morwenna said.

Amy saw Sally hide a shudder, confirming her vague impression that the Norwood marriage had been unhappy. She was curious, but even she, renowned for her tactlessness, couldn’t ask a woman she hardly knew for intimate details. More was the pity. She had an inkling she and Sally might end up friends.

“No, thank you. I’m too old to take a man’s orders, or change my ways to fit another person.”

Morwenna struggled for a real smile. Amy almost wished she wouldn’t. The effort involved made even someone watching feel tired. “But if you want children…”

Sally’s shrug didn’t mask her regret. “I have nieces and nephews. In fact, I’m going to bring my niece Meg out in London next season. I intend to dive into the social whirl and enjoy myself as much as a woman of my advanced years may.”

To Amy’s surprise, Morwenna gave a derisive snort that sounded like the vital girl Robert had married, rather than the wraith of recent years. “Only if your arthritis permits, you poor decrepit thing.”

Reluctant humor tugged at Sally’s lips. “Well, I’m no longer a giddy girl. Not that I had much chance to kick up my heels. My parents married me off at seventeen.”

“And now you’re only thirty,” Morwenna said, showing more spirit than Amy had seen in ages. “Why not have some fun?”

“You’re a great one to talk,” Amy said, before she remembered that Morwenna needed delicate handling.

Morwenna paled, and her animation faded. “It’s different for me.”

“No, it’s not,” Amy said, justifying her reputation for blundering in where angels feared to tread, but unable to stay quiet. “I loved my brother, but you’ve mourned him for four years. He wouldn’t want you moping around for the rest of your life. Why don’t you go to London with Sally?”

As Morwenna frowned over what she clearly considered an outlandish suggestion, Sally clapped her hands together with enthusiasm. “Why don’t you? I’d love a friend to go about with. Meg is a capable, sensible girl and won’t need me hovering.”

Morwenna glared at Amy. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You spend so much time stomping through your muddy fields that turnips are practically growing out of your hair—which, by the way, could do with some attention. As could your wardrobe.”

Amy backed away until her hips bumped into the windowsill. “We’re not talking about me.”

“Yes, we are.” Morwenna turned to Sally. “Amy could be really pretty if she made an effort and wore something apart from rags a beggar woman would disdain to put on her back.”

“That’s unfair,” Amy protested, even as she reluctantly admitted that her dress today might deserve the criticism.

“Is it?” Morwenna’s glance was scornful. “Did you find today’s monstrosity in the back of a cupboard? Or did you steal it from the housemaids before they could use it as a duster?”

Amy flushed and shot Morwenna an annoyed look. “I think I prefer you cowed and miserable.”

“You could come to London, too, Amy,” Sally said calmly. “I’d love to introduce you to my modiste and show you off at some parties. Morwenna’s right. You’re a pretty girl.”

Amy was already shaking her head. “I won’t fit into society.”

“How do you know?” Morwenna said.

“I had a season, and I didn’t take.” Amy decided to go on the attack. “Anyway, why should I break out of my comfortable little rut when you won’t?”

Morwenna’s chin set in unexpected stubbornness. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

Sally looked startled, then pleased. “So you’ll come?”

“Only if Amy does.”

Sally’s expression turned thoughtful. “I was talking to Fenella and Helena last night. They told me that once they came out of mourning for their first husbands, they formed a club called the Dashing Widows and set out to turn London on its ear.”

Amy had long been familiar with the story. Eight years ago, her sister Helena, her sister-in-law Caroline, and their dear friend Fenella had cast aside old sorrows and danced and flirted their way into happy marriages. “It wasn’t a club. It was more a…a pact.”

“Can’t we make such a pact?” Sally spread her hands. “I’m sure we three can be Dashing Widows, too, if we put our minds to it.”

“I’m not particularly dashing, and I’ve got nothing to wear,” Amy said, amazed at her spurt of disappointment. Perhaps her mood this morning hinted at a malaise deeper than temporary restlessness.

Sally stood in front of her and subjected her to a thorough and dispassionate examination. “You know, with the right clothes, and a bit more confidence, you could really shine.”

A painful blush heated Amy’s cheeks, and she shifted from one foot to the other. With her mop of tawny hair and dominating Nash nose, not to mention the fact that she’d always been far more interested in cattle than flirting, she’d never felt comfortable in society. She looked like her brother Silas, but unfortunately the quirky features that made him a draw for the ladies only turned her into an oddity. “I made a complete shambles of my season.”

Morwenna came to stand beside Sally and conducted her own inspection, just as comprehensive. “That was years ago, and you didn’t have Sally to help you.”

“And you,” Sally said.

Morwenna smiled. “And me.”

Morwenna looked more alive than she had since receiving the news of Robert’s death. Amy dearly loved her sister-in-law and couldn’t bear to think of her languishing in a dark pit of grief all her life. Amy had never been in love—although when she was fourteen, she’d harbored a violent fit of puppy love for Lord Pascal, widely considered London’s handsomest man. Which made her adolescent interest a complete joke, given the graceless ragamuffin she’d been.

But she knew about love. It surrounded her—Silas and Caro, Helena and Vernon, her parents who had died together ten years ago in a carriage accident outside Naples. She didn’t discount love’s power to create joy.

Morwenna had suffered enough. Now she deserved new happiness. If that meant that Amy had to hang up her farm boots and put on her dancing slippers, she’d do it.

“You’ll have your work cut out for you,” she said drily.

Sally frowned. “No more of that talk. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to dazzle the ton. We’ll tame that wild mane of hair and dress you in something bright that shows off your splendid figure. By heaven, you’ll be the toast of Mayfair.”

How extraordinary. Within minutes, she and Sally had gone from acquaintances to co-conspirators. At Warrington Court, Amy inhabited a largely masculine world. She wasn’t used to cozy chats with other women. Especially cozy chats about fripperies like clothes and hair.

“So we’re doing this?” She looked past Sally to Morwenna.

Amy was afraid of facing those critical crowds again, but also strangely excited. This felt like a new challenge, and she realized she badly needed one.

Morwenna straightened and met her eyes. Amy was used to seeing endless grief there. Now she caught a glimpse of something that looked like hope. If so, she didn’t care if the fashionable multitudes shunned her.

Anything was worth it, if Morwenna came back to life.

“Yes,” Morwenna said unhesitatingly.

Sally caught Amy and Morwenna’s hands and laughed. “Then I hereby declare the return of the Dashing Widows. Watch out, London. We’re on our way.”