Working Man, Society Bride. Mary Nichols

      “Can I tempt you to a boat trip, my lady?”

      Lucy became aware of a man in a rowing boat pulling toward her, but she was so mesmerized that she felt no fear. A few more deft strokes with the oars and he had drawn up by the bank beside her. She knew who he was, of course, had known almost from the beginning, and the strange thing was that she wasn’t at all surprised.

      “How did you know I would be here?”

      “I didn’t. I simply hoped you would be.”

      His hand was outstretched. She could reach out and take it and seal her own fate, or she could turn and run and her fate would still be sealed—in another way. The choice was hers. She took the hand.

      

      Working Man, Society Bride

      Harlequin^®Historical

      MARY NICHOLS

      Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.

      Mary Nichols

      Working Man, Society Bride

      TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

       AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

      Available from Harlequin^®Historical and MARY NICHOLS

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      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter One

      July 1844

      After waiting outside the station for twenty minutes while a train from another line passed through, the train from London drew into Leicester and hissed to a halt. The Countess of Luffenham and her daughter, Lady Lucinda Vernley, waited until a porter came along to open the door before stepping down on to the platform.

      Lucy was glad to leave the sticky heat of the carriage and breathe fresh air again. She would have liked to open the window as soon as they left London, but her mother forbade it on the grounds that they would be choked on the smoke and covered in black smuts, which they would never be able to clean off their clothes. And as their clothes had cost the Earl a pretty penny, they would have to put up with the heat. And so, for six interminable hours, they had sat and cooked.

      Mama did not like travelling by train and would have much preferred to go by coach, but that would have taken even longer and necessitated changing the horses every dozen or so miles and staying at least one night somewhere on the road. The Earl, for all his apparent wealth, was a careful man and begrudged the cost when they could travel first class by rail and reach London inside a day. When his wife had mildly pointed out that they still had to be taken to the railhead by carriage and fetched again on their return, he had given her a lecture on the economics of using his own horses for a short ride and railways for a longer trip, and she had fallen silent. Arguing with the Earl was something she was not prepared to do.

      ‘Good afternoon, my lady,’ the porter said, touching his cap and taking her small valise from her to carry it out to the waiting carriage. ‘Shall the wagon be coming for your luggage?’

      ‘Yes. You will find everything labelled. See that it is all loaded properly. The last time we travelled a hatbox was lost and it took days for it to be found and returned to me.’

      ‘I was very sorry about that, my lady. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

      They swept past the luggage van where two porters were busy disgorging boxes, trunks, portmanteaux and hatboxes on to the platform. They looked up from their task to watch the ladies go. The Countess, who did not deign to notice them, walked past, looking straight ahead, her back ramrod straight. She was dressed in a gown of some silky, striped material in three shades of brown: chocolate, amber and coffee. Her hat, trimmed with feathers, flowers and loops of ribbon, echoed these colours. Her daughter was in deep pink, the bodice of her gown closely fitting, its voluminous skirt arranged in tiers each trimmed with matching lace. She wore a short cape and a tiny bonnet set on the back of her pretty head. They were followed by a maid in dove grey.