Chapter 1 #3
Molly Carter was in her room, reading quietly by the window and reflecting on how dull her life had become since her mother had been laid to rest months earlier.
She used to manage the Carter household in between calling on the neighbors with Mrs. Carter and sharing tea and biscuits with the vicar’s wife once a week.
Her mother had been an amusing companion, sharp of wit but forgetful of her possessions, which had kept Molly pleasantly occupied.
In their small country town, she had felt … useful.
Then she had come to live in the baron’s household.
It was all a bit of a muddle, her mother having named John Scott as the trustee of Molly’s inheritance.
Her mother had clearly intended the late baron, father to the current John Scott, but the solicitors had rather inconveniently misunderstood and turned her over to the son.
Molly had gone along with it, not quite certain where else she ought to go as an unmarried young lady in mourning for her beloved parent, deciding she should determine her future once she had time to collect her thoughts.
Which was how she had come to reside in London at the baron’s small town estate.
The late baron had been married to her aunt.
Despite the lack of progeny from that union, the baron’s second of three, Molly’s mother had maintained a correspondence with her sister’s widower, so Molly had learned from the reading of the will that she was to join the Scott household.
She supposed her mother had considered it the very best connection available to her, the Blackwood title being respected and endowed with considerable wealth.
Molly had not had much to occupy her since her arrival.
There had been the excitement of the coronation in July, of course, followed by a few weeks of strained relations within the Scott family as tempers rose without clear explanation, while Molly endeavored to remain unobtrusive amid the unrest, until the underlying causes were finally revealed.
Simon Scott had been accused of murder. Lord Blackwood had collapsed, and the dowager Lady Blackwood had succumbed to a laudanum overdose.
So it was that, for a short time, Molly had felt useful again, despite the somber circumstances, when she had been the only one entrusted with the baron’s care.
Fortunately, his health had gradually improved and the Scotts’ tempest had spent itself.
Unfortunately, Molly’s routine soon returned to one of idleness and the aggravation of her quarrels with Miss Dubois, which proved a poor substitute for purpose.
It was a blessing that Madeline had been visiting regularly during her own convalescence the past month.
But now that she had married Simon only a few nights earlier, and Simon had removed his belongings to Madeline’s family home next door, her visits had grown less frequent.
Molly supposed she ought to be grateful that she had, at least, integrated into the family after the disastrous October they had all endured. Yet it did little to dispel the growing unease she felt regarding her future.
Reading in her room, settled into an armchair facing the back garden, had become her habit of late. Remaining in her bedchamber and dispatching her maid on errands had proven an effective strategy for limiting Miss Dubois’s presence.
The sound of Miss Dubois’s bedchamber door opening was an unwelcome disruption. Her chaperon had returned, presumably having indulged herself in gossip below stairs. Appearing in Molly’s doorway, she lingered for several irritating moments before delivering an announcement with a smug expression.
“Ze guests from Italy … zey ’ave been in a dreadful accident! Ze carriage overturned!” Her companion appeared positively gratified to impart the sensational tidbit.
“What!”
“Ze trunks ’ave arrived, and zey ’ave sent a wagon to collect ze damaged carriage.
” Miss Dubois reveled in the drama of an accident that might easily have cost a life, but Molly knew her companion’s accounts were often exaggerated at best. Still, she could not suppress the question that escaped her.
“Is everyone all right?”
The servant shrugged, as though the answer were of no consequence, and flitted away.
Springing to her feet in alarm, Molly hurried downstairs, suddenly regretting her recent reclusiveness.
The contingent from Italy was arriving, and she would not be absent now.
Entering the family drawing room, she found the baron and Simon’s youngest brother, Nicholas, already present, waiting for their unexpected guests.
The current baron had been born of his father’s first marriage, while Simon and Nicholas were the products of the third, so the gulf in their ages spanned decades.
The late baron must have retained a remarkable vigor well into his fifties to sire sons with such disparity between them, and it was difficult to think of the three men as brothers in anything but name.
Molly was gratified to note that John Scott had color in his cheeks, and that the pouchy flesh that had once suggested a man aging before his time had receded, leaving him with a more composed and vigorous appearance.
He looked healthier in the afternoon light drifting in through the tall arched windows.
Certainly, the revelations of the previous month had added years back to his life, and without the dowager baroness present to foment petty insecurities, John was proving himself a generous and agreeable benefactor.
Nicholas lay sprawled nearby, his injured leg propped upon a stool and a morose expression settled upon his lean features, easily mistaken for sullenness. His dark hair fell forward in untidy waves, his blue eyes vivid against a still-sallow complexion.
He had forsaken spirits around the same time his eldest brother had collapsed, and the process had not been an easy one.
Nicholas had long neglected his health, becoming rake-thin and haggard by his mid-twenties, less than half the age of his oldest brother.
The two now formed a curious pair in their shared recovery, their fraternity more evident than when Molly had first arrived.
She suspected that sobriety had made Nicholas more keenly aware of the state of his injured leg, broken badly in his youth after a terrible fall, and that he was at last taking steps to strengthen it.
Despite the gloom that sometimes accompanied his abstinence, Molly found him far easier company than his former, inebriated self.
John greeted her with a restrained smile. “Simon will bring our guests in shortly to make introductions. There was an accident, so he is speaking with them and the coachmen in the mews, but their trunks have already been brought inside. They should join us momentarily.”
“Is everyone well?” Molly’s voice rose despite her effort to keep it steady, and she realized her nerves were still frayed from the trials of the previous month.
The household was only just emerging from a season of death and disorder, and the news of yet another mishap was unsettling.
It felt a grim coincidence that one of their carriages should overturn so soon after the dark events of October, which had claimed two lives under this very roof.
“I believe so,” John replied. “Simon is overseeing matters, and he mentioned no serious injuries.”
Molly took a seat upon the settee beside Nicholas and suppressed a huff of irritation when Claudette Dubois hurried in to claim a chair near the door, positioning herself with the air of a vigilant sentinel.
The woman’s presence made Molly feel like a girl in shortened skirts rather than a woman of five-and-twenty.
It was not long before Simon entered, escorting the men from Italy. Among them, to her surprise, was a towering Norseman. Molly suspected his identity at once, noting the resemblance to a certain acquaintance they had encountered the previous month.
Behind him came a tall, slender Italian dressed in the fashion of an artist, whom she assumed must be one of the friends. Next followed a younger man of medium height, with chestnut hair, lively brown eyes, and an expression of eager curiosity as he surveyed the room.
But it was the final gentleman to cross the threshold who unsettled Molly in a manner she had not anticipated, a sudden awareness quickening her pulse.
He stood as tall as his artistic companion, perhaps a full six feet, his dark hair falling in loose waves, black as ink.
Broad-shouldered yet spare of build, he possessed a strong, finely shaped jaw, darkened with the faint shadow of travel.
His eyes—dark, observant, and deeply set within an olive-toned face—conveyed a gravity that spoke of experience rather than ease, as though life had already exacted its share of demands upon him.
There was only one person he could be. Molly acknowledged, within the deeper recesses of her heart, that, to her quiet dismay, she was unsettlingly aware of the baron’s new heir, Marco Scott, the man who would take Simon’s place within their household.
She bit her lip in uneasy recognition. His proximity was bound to try her composure in the days ahead, for Marco Scott was temptation arrayed in the elegance of Italian tailoring.
Even so, she schooled herself to stillness, folding her hands together in her lap and fixing her attention upon her breath, which had grown shallow and erratic, her pulse betraying her calm with unwelcome insistence.
“Zooks!” she murmured, earning a puzzled glance from Nicholas as he struggled to his feet for the introductions.