Kathryn Caskie
Authors: Love Is in the Heir
RAVE REVIEWS FOR
KATHRYN CASKIE AND HER NOVELS
A LADY’S GUIDE TO RAKES
“Four and a half stars! Top pick! Caskie’s latest is a winner: a delectable, sensual romp, refreshingly told and cleverly crafted.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine
“Will have you laughing out loud and wishing for it never to end . . . One great adventure that no reader should miss out on.”
—RomanceReaderatHeart.com
“Delightful latest novel in the Featherton sisters’ saga. The writing is well done, well researched . . . a very entertaining read . . . Caskie scores big with this latest entry!”
—HistoricalRomanceWriters.com
“Daring . . . a fast poolside read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Readers will enjoy this fine historical romance.”
—TheBestReviews.com
LADY IN WAITING
“Four and a half stars! Top pick! Caskie’s unique wit sparkles . . . and her clever plotting shines.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine
“A charming love story with plenty of witty dialogue and warmth. Don’t miss it.”
—Rendezvous
“A delightfully original heroine . . . matches wits with a sinfully sexy hero . . . Sweet, frothy, and laughter-laced.”
—Booklist
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
“A solid cast . . . a fine read . . . Readers will appre-ciate this delightful matchmaking story.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Clever, frothy, and funny—an enthralling read!”
—
E
loisa
J
ames,
USA Today
bestselling author
“With delightfully original . . . beautifully matched protagonists . . . amusing supporting characters . . . and clever, tartly humorous writing, Caskie’s debut romance is witty and wonderful.”
—Booklist
A Lady’s Guide to Rakes
Lady in Waiting
Rules of Engagement
Copyright © 2006 by Kathryn Caskie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
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Cover art by John Paul
Typography by David Gath
Book design by Giorgetta Bell McRee
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First eBook Edition: December 2008
ISBN: 978-0-446-55379-7
For Melanie Murray, who took a chance and made my grandest dream a reality.
Contents
This book could not have been written without the sage advice, support, and assistance of:
Jenny Bent, my incredible agent, whose vision and belief in my work transformed my career.
Author and friend Sophia Nash, who came up with the title for this book—one that totally trumped my original “Comedy of Heirs.”
The lovely Hannah Heglund, who was my visual inspiration for Miss Hannah Chillton.
Nancy Mayers, whose patience and breadth of Regency-era knowledge is truly amazing.
Deborah Barnhart, Denise McInerney, and Pam Palmer Poulsen, who were always there for me.
And a special thank you to my family, who put up with my writing schedule and didn’t take the documentary
Super Size Me
too seriously.
Kirkwell Abbey Churchyard
Devon, England
T
he Earl of Devonsfield was having a bad heir day. And now his eternity looked equally bleak.
He removed his beaver hat, then lifted his freshly curled wig to scratch his bald head with ragged, chewed fingernails. “Well, what say you, Pinkerton, can it be done?”
His manservant, who was as clever as he was shrewd, was a lean, hawkish-looking gent, who at the moment was dangling precariously from a rowan branch high above the mausoleum. “I fear the reverend’s man is correct, my lord; there is no way, at least none I can see, to add a second level to the crypt without compromising the existing structure.”
This did not please the earl, who had hoped for an altogether more positive answer, but during his long life he’d learned that adaptation was necessary for one’s own survival. “Then we have no other choice. We shall have to expand
outward
. Surely, with the right inducement”—the portly lord retrieved the single surname from the quartet of headstones beside him—“
the Anatoles
could be persuaded to move their family plot across the way.”
Pinkerton glanced down at the earl. The expression on his long face made it clear that he was dubious about a favorable outcome. Still, he was nothing if not loyal. “I shall contact the family to determine your plan’s viability, my lord.”
With hat and wig in hand, Lord Devonsfield walked through the dried grass that poked up through the crisp, withered leaves alongside his family’s crypt.
He sighed wistfully as he ran his pudgy fingers along its marble wall. This was just his sort of horrid luck—after two hundred years, the Devonsfield mausoleum was full, just when his own time on earth was at an end.
It was his brother’s fault, of course. Even after Lord Devonsfield’s entire remaining family was killed in a dreadful accident last month—both of his sons—there was still one space left and, damn it all, it had been meant for
him
. But then his brother, Thelonius, nearly ten years his junior, unexplainably expired while sitting atop his chamber pot, thereby claiming the last eternal resting place in the family crypt.
“My lord, may I descend from the tree now?” Pinkerton, habitually dressed from hat to boot in ebony, nervously straddled a thick branch.
“What? Oh, certainly. We’re finished here.” The earl flicked his wrist dismissively and waved his man down. “Though while we are on the subject of trees, will you explain your concern about my family tree—more specifically the branch where my
heir
might be found? It has been a month since the accident, and still you have not located the heir to the Devonsfield earldom.”
Pinkerton cautiously settled his feet to a lower branch, bouncing a bit to test its soundness. “Oh, no sir, I know exactly where to find your heir. The gentleman resides in Cornwall. He is your late second cousin’s son.”
The earl’s mouth fell open in disbelief. He scurried to the base of the rowan tree and rapped at its trunk with his cane. “Devil take you, Pinkerton. Why haven’t you informed me until now?” Lord Devonsfield peered up through the branches. “I must speak with him at once. What is the man’s name?”
Pinkerton lowered himself to the ground, then brushed the bark shreds from his breeches. “I do not know . . . exactly. For I must inform you that your heir is—”
“What—a Whig? An invalid? A madman?” The earl sucked in a breath. “He’s not . . .
a wastrel
?”
“No, my lord. He’s a . . . twin.”
“A twin? Is that all? What in blazes does that matter?” The earl huffed his frustration. “Determining which twin is heir is not half so difficult. It is simply a matter of knowing which child was born first.”
“That’s just it, my lord.” Pinkerton peered down his hawkish nose at the earl, his eyes clouded with worry. “As preposterous as it might seem, no one knows which boy is firstborn. Even the parish baptismal records are unclear on this point.”
“The hell you say.” The earl slumped against the tree’s trunk.
“From what I’ve been able to learn, theirs was a difficult birth, with a goodly amount of blood. Their mother did not survive, and since the boys had no hope of inheriting anything of consequence, their distraught father, your cousin, made no effort to name one twin or the other firstborn.”
“Oh, good heavens.” Lord Devonsfield wrung his pale hands. “Do you know what this means? Why, I dare not think what the House of Lords will do should I die without an heir—which of course I shall within the year, for you yourself heard the physician. I am not a well man.”
“Actually, my lord, the physician only said that spending your days obsessing over death will see you to an early grave,” Pinkerton muttered, but the earl paid his comment no heed. He knew the truth of it, what his physicians were
really
saying but sought to keep from him.
“One of the twins
must be
acknowledged as firstborn.” The earl bit at his thumbnail as he paced back and forth between the tilted and crumbling gravestones. “We simply must find a way to see this oversight corrected.”
“Indeed we must, my lord, for if no legal heir can be determined, upon your passing, the Devonsfield earldom will revert to the Crown.”
The earl wished he could somehow stuff those blasphemous words back into Pinkerton’s mouth and force him to recant ever saying them. But what he stated was true, and there was no way that truth could be ignored.
“I cannot allow the earldom to be lost. You know I cannot.” The earl stood upright. His mission was clear. “We’ve not a moment to lose. Pinkerton, see that my portmanteau is packed. We must away to Cornwall—
tonight
!”
The Lizard
Cornwall, England
Griffin St. Albans adjusted the aperture of his telescope by the golden rays of the setting sun. The cliff above Kennymare Cove was the perfect spot for measuring the constellations on what promised to be the clearest night sky all month.
He bent and eased his eye to the lens, meaning to check his settings, when suddenly a falcon, riding the warm sea air, swooped straight at him and clipped his shoulder. Griffin’s feet rolled across the gravel, sending pebbles plunging over the cliff’s edge. He slipped and fell hard to the ground, his back slamming down against the short, wind-shorn grass.
A faint feminine voice sailed out from under the cliff’s lip. “Is someone up there?”
Griffin sat up, startled. He rose and warily peered over the rocky ledge. There, clinging to the wall, was a young woman stretching out her arm to reach a beribboned hat caught on a protruding root. His foot accidentally sent another bit of gravel her way.
She glanced up with the sharpest look of annoyance in her eyes. “Do take care not to pummel me with pebbles, sir. As you can see, the wind is strong this day, and my foothold is precarious enough as it is.”
Good Lord, she could fall to her death at any moment!
Griffin flattened himself onto his stomach, inched to the edge of the cliff, and reached out a hand. “Take hold. I can pull you up.”
“Take hold? Are you mad? Without my bonnet? Not likely. My brother paid two guineas for it.
Two
. And you can be sure he’ll not do that ever again.” She stretched out her hand, straining for the hat, but it remained just beyond her fingertips. “Blast!”
“Let the gentleman help you, dear,” called an old, twig-thin woman who was looking up at them from the lower cliff trail.
The rounder matron beside her cupped her hand to her brow and looked up at the girl struggling to reach the hat. “Viola is right, dove. Take his hand. Perhaps your bonnet will be easier to reach from above.”
The dark-haired young woman peered down at the two women, then turned her pale blue eyes up at Griffin, considering. “It seems I must trust you not to drop me into the sea.”
“Take my hand, miss. You have naught to fear. My back is strong.”
She glanced down at the waves crashing upon the jagged rocks far below. “That may be, sir, but ’tis not your
back
I worry about.” Despite her biting comment, the woman lifted her left hand and clutched his wrist with a grasp so firm that a lesser man might have been put to shame.
Griffin wrapped his fingers tightly around her wrist. “I’ve got you. Let go of the rock.”
“Only if you promise to retrieve my hat before it blows into the ocean.” Her eyes conveyed her complete seriousness.