What a Spinster Wants

  The Spinster Chronicles

  Book Six

  REBECCA CONNOLLY

  Also by

  Rebecca Connolly

  The Arrangements:

  An Arrangement of Sorts

  Married to the Marquess

  Secrets of a Spinster

  The Dangers of Doing Good

  The Burdens of a Bachelor

  A Bride Worth Taking

  A Wager Worth Making

  A Gerrard Family Christmas

  The London League:

  The Lady and the Gent

  A Rogue About Town

  A Tip of the Cap

  By Hook or by Rook

  Fall from Trace

  The Spinster Chronicles:

  The Merry Lives of Spinsters

  The Spinster and I

  Spinster and Spice

  My Fair Spinster

  God Rest Ye Merry Spinster

  Coming Soon

  Spinster Ever After

  Also from Phase Publishing

  Emily Daniels:

  Devlin’s Daughter

  Lucia’s Lament

  A Song for a Soldier

  Grace Donovan:

  Saint’s Ride

  Laura Beers:

  Saving Shadow

  A Peculiar Courtship

  To Love a Spy

  Tiffany Dominguez:

  The Eidolon

  Ferrell Hornsby:

  If We’re Breathing, We’re Serving

  Text copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art by Tugboat Design

  http://www.tugboatdesign.net

  All rights reserved. Published by Phase Publishing, LLC. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Phase Publishing, LLC first ebook edition

  May 2020

  ISBN 978-1-952103-10-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020906427

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

  Acknowledgements

  To beloved Scotland in all her rich, wild beauties. I first fell in love with you over a decade ago, when the magic of your beauty bestowed itself in an almost heavenly fashion I will never forget. That love only deepens as time passes and my visits increase. Please adopt me. I will beg.

  And to the Cheesecake Factory for being the site of this series’ birth. Also because cheesecake rules. Seriously, though. Sláinte!

  Want to hear about future releases and upcoming events for Rebecca Connolly?

  Sign up for the monthly Wit and Whimsy at:

  www.rebeccaconnolly.com

  Index

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  London, 1818

  “Are you sure about this, mistress?”

  Lady Edith Leveson exhaled a painfully slow breath and turned from the dirty window of her drawing room, lowering the hand she had been waving. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, thinking hard before speaking her thoughts aloud.

  “No. No, Owen, I am not sure. Not at all, in fact.”

  The burly man folded his arms, his common clothing doing nothing to establish his role as butler. Or footman. Or whatever position he had in her household.

  What little could be considered hers in the household.

  “Then why, mistress, would ye agree to receive them?” Owen demanded, his brogue somehow more pronounced than usual when he was irritated. “Ye’ve made yer wishes aboot living quietly known enough to us, an’ if I’m understanding things aright…”

  “You were listening to the conversation?” Edith queried with interest as she interrupted him.

  Owen wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed by the accusation. “I listen to every conversation that goes on here. Habit, and one I’m no’ likely to abandon just yet.”

  Edith’s smile faded as she nodded with reluctant understanding, memories of the last few years flashing and darting through her mind with breathtaking agony. She would have been lost if not for Owen, and his determination to come with her from Scotland for the wedding. When her family had insisted that he return with them to Inverness, he’d resigned his position with them to join Edith’s new household.

  However brief her marriage had been, Owen had never given her any indication that he wished to return to Scotland.

  “Yer family gave you no reason to return to them,” he’d once said. “Ye might as well remain while ye can.”

  And remain she had. They both had.

  Owen had been more father and brother to her than her own father and brother had, and she wouldn’t have considered him staff if he hadn’t insisted on it. Something about having his pride and knowing his place.

  If it would keep him listening to her conversations and protecting her from all possible harm, she’d let him have whatever position he wanted.

  “So, you also ken what was said between myself and Lieutenant Henshaw,” Edith said with a stern look.

  Owen only nodded. “Aye. Seems a fair thing; I’d be obliged if ye’d agree to it.”

  Edith exhaled roughly, shaking her head. “I feel pitied, Owen. I didna come to London for its condescension, ye ken.”

  “I dinna think Miss Georgiana Allen or Miss Isabella Lambert are the pitying kind, mistress.” Owen moved further into the room and glanced out the window, where the carriage could still be seen in the distance. “Nor the lieutenant, mind.”

  That might have been true, but offers of friendship and an almost adoptive sibling role seemed too fortuitous for a poor widow without connections in London. Whatever Lieutenant Henshaw had told her, the idea that her brother, Lachlan, had asked him to take care of her here was laughable.

  Lachlan had no care for Edith. He’d proven that all too well.

  “If ye feel so, mistress, I ask again: why receive them?”

  Edith sank onto the divan near her, an embarrassing cloud of dust rising from it as she did. “I couldn’t help it, Owen. It’s been an age since I’ve had friends. I thought perhaps it might make my situation more bearable, and…”

  She couldn’t bear to finish the thought, not even to the person she trusted most on the earth.

  And if things got worse, she did not want to endure it alone.

  Chapter One

  One must take every advantage offered at a ball. There is nothing to compare with such an occasion of stunning presentation, of intriguing conversation, and of various ways and means to avoid being engaged in any social intercourse, let alone an interminable dance, with a particular person one might prefer to keep at a certain distance. A ball is a lovely thing, indeed.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 15 August 1816

  Lady Edith Leveson sat on the faded brocade of her couch, seething as she stared stonily out of the filthy windows of her London townhome. She couldn’t tell if her face was devoid of color or shining with an excess of it, but she knew her c
omplexion was currently altered, and not favorably. But when the alternative was to release her currently clenched fingers and let them give in to the impulse to scratch the eyes out of the man sitting in the straight-back chair next to her, an altered complexion would have to do. After all, the devil in the chair was holding her purse strings and insulting her in the same breath with which he propositioned her. It was not an unusual tactic for him, only the most blatant.

  She flicked her eyes back to him, her stomach curling uncomfortably within her.

  “Naturally, as you bear such an unfortunate label, I will not lower myself to the disastrous depths of marrying you,” Sir Reginald was saying, his tight features pulling tighter still with an attempt at a placating smile. “However, I see no reason why this untoward tendency of mine to find such filthy Highland leftovers to be a delicacy of marvelously attractive prospects truly should not avail itself in less legally binding ways.” He wet his lips once, then again, his narrowing eyes travelling the length of her.

  Shapeless garment that her dress was, it apparently was not unappealing enough. All that work for nothing. Simms would be so disappointed.

  Edith kept her expression, color changing as it might have been, free from further reaction.

  “I do not think that would be wise, Sir Reginald.”

  A crease formed in his brow, then faded quickly as he folded his hands across his lap.

  “I would be more than generous, Lady Edith, when we come to an arrangement in this regard. And you, as I am sure you are aware, are in no position to be particular, should you wish to have any place or position in Society. I control your future and reputation.”

  “I know,” Edith murmured as a wave of nausea washed over her.

  “You live on my stipend,” he reminded her. “I own this house. I could cast you out in a moment, strip you of all your funds, and see to it that every door in Society would be barred to you. Would you really like to chance what you think would be wise against what I could offer? And what I can take away?”

  “I know verra well the limitations of my finances, thank you, Sir Reginald,” Edith snapped, her brogue rolling out, as it tended to with her temper. “And the power given you by the law and your cousin’s inheritance. You do not, however, have authority over my free will.”

  “Yet.” Sir Reginald smirked, not at all put off by her reaction. “But the time will come, my dear, when you will choose to do what I request, and that will be a day of great victory for me.”

  Edith sank her teeth into the flesh of her tongue, the sharp pain bringing tears to her eyes as she glared at her life’s jailer, villain, and threat. If only the Almighty had endowed her with the power to take life at will, she could be free of her shackles at this moment.

  Alas, she was not so blessed, and the druids in her family line had not transferred their abilities through the generations. No power from on high, no gifts from her heritage. Nothing but the wit in her mind and a law that crippled her freedom.

  And the plan she would begin this evening, if this creature would only leave her in peace.

  “I do hope that you will begin to show yourself in Society, Lady Edith,” Sir Reginald told her as he pushed his wiry frame to his feet. “It would be a shame for you to be so confined as to be without friends or connections.”

  Edith found herself flinching at the edge to his tone, the sneer she could hear as well as see. She wasn’t without friends or connections, but for her present situation, she might as well have been. Sir Reginald controlled everything in her life but her friends, and if he knew who her friends were or what their connections were, he would have found a way to intervene.

  To ruin it all.

  He had done it before.

  She managed to contain her disgust long enough for Sir Reginald to bow and leave the tatty drawing room, not even waiting for her to rise and bid him farewell, as he usually expected her to do. When he had gone, Edith sank back against the couch and covered her face, her hands trembling slightly.

  “I’d off him if ye’d let me, mistress.”

  Edith exhaled a laugh and glanced over at the large, hulking Scot in the doorway. “I’d let ye, if we wouldna have to flee from the law.”

  “We?” Owen raised a brow at her, folding his arms. “There’d be no need to include yerself in the affair, mistress. I’d desert my post at yer side and take matters into my own hands, leaving you innocent as a wee babe.”

  “Well, that would hardly do for me,” Edith informed him, sitting forward with a sad smile. “I’d be lost without you, Owen, so this entire conversation is moot.”

  Owen grunted softly. “If only himself were moot.”

  Edith smirked at the wry comment. That undoubtedly would have cleared things up for her, if not several other people, as well.

  Her late husband’s cousin was the heir to all holdings, though the only one of real value was the estate in Hertfordshire. Reginald possessed all the same narcissism and arrogance that Archie had been known for, but without any hope of the same charm, and he was hellbent on claiming every advantage the legacy had to offer. Including the wife of its last holder.

  His desires had pushed her out of Haidh Park, just as she’d begun to make the place feel like home, and now he had followed her to London. Her already diminished finances, thanks to Archie’s vice-like will and ruthless solicitors, were tightened further still by Reginald, which he loved throwing around her neck like a noose.

  The house she lived in, ramshackle and rough as it was, belonged to him, every square inch; it was by his wishes that she wasn’t out on the streets, as he frequently reminded her. He was quite content in the townhouse he’d had for years, and it suited him to have her in his debt.

  Months of searching for available homes she could afford in London had proved to Edith just how pitiful her finances were.

  She couldn’t afford anything.

  There was nothing of her dowry to be spoken of, her father hadn’t made any provisions for her, and with virtually nothing to her own name, all that Edith could claim were a few dresses, her grandmother’s pearl combs, and the thoughts in her head.

  Everything that she had brought to her marriage was still everything she had. The only thing she had gained in her widowhood were her friends. And they knew nothing of this.

  Yet.

  Edith rubbed at her brow, sighing heavily. She would have to tell them soon. The secrets that had been her constant companions for the last few years would not be kept secret for long, now that Sir Reginald had come to London.

  There was no telling how they would respond to the news. She had no fear of upsetting any of them, more a fear of them raining down chaos upon London itself.

  Charlotte Wright alone could be horrifying.

  It was one of the things that Edith loved most about her, and the rest of the Spinsters.

  Although now that she thought of it, only Charlotte was truly a spinster now. The others had married, and some had started families. The Spinster Chronicles still circulated as regularly as they ever did, and with just as much popularity, but the unifying aspect of spinsterhood was waning fast.

  Edith had never qualified in that way, being a widow instead of a spinster, but the others hadn’t seen that as an impediment. Apparently, being married for the course of one day wasn’t long enough to truly be considered wedded in their minds.

  If they only knew.

  She shook her head now, straightening and smoothing her skirts. She had nothing to lose anymore and worrying wouldn’t solve anything. Bravery and boldness had never been the hallmark of Lady Edith MacDougal, especially when she’d married and become Lady Edith Leveson. Still, they would need to be her constant companions now. She would never survive her plan if she turned retreating and wilting, as she once had done.

  She could never be that again.

  “Mistress,” Owen prodded from the doorway. “The time?”

  “I know.” Edith rose without grace or airs and faced Owen with resignation. “Am
I daft to be getting on with this, Owen? Tell me truly.”

  Owen shrugged his burly shoulders, his expression not changing. “There’s a verra fine line between daft and daring, mistress. Given what cards ye’ve been dealt, I’d say ye’d be daft to do otherwise.”

  There wasn’t much hope or encouragement in his voice, but there was a certainty that steeled her spine and lifted her chin. “Verra true. I’ll just go up and let Simms flick me out for the evening. If you would have word sent to Lord and Lady Ingram, they have offered to fetch me, so I would not have to use my own carriage.”

  “We don’t have a carriage,” Owen grunted.

  A wry smile slid across Edith’s lips.

  “Rather a convenient offering, then, wouldn’t you agree?”

  She swept past him and made her way up the stairs, craning her neck back and forth, the strain of the interview with Sir Reginald making itself known in a profound way.

  It would lend itself to a headache later, which could be a convenient excuse to leave the Martins’ ball when it all became too much. Provided Grace and Aubrey could be convinced to quit the gathering. They were far and away more social than she would ever be, and this was widely rumored to be the last important gathering before the Season began. It would be the place to be for those fond of such affairs.