Chapter 1
August 12, 1851. Walkhurst Manor, Kent.
Seated behind the desk in the manor’s library-cum-study, Christopher Cynster leaned back, raised his hands, and ran his fingers through his thick locks in frustrated resignation. After a moment of staring unseeing at the desktop, he lowered his hands and muttered, “Apparently, I require a wife.”
There was no one else present to hear the admission—a lowering one given how long it had taken him to reach it, to jettison all self-deception and face that sobering reality.
About him, the large house lay quiet, basking in the warmth of the summer afternoon. The windows to either side of the desk stood open; he could hear bees humming and birds twittering in the bushes and borders surrounding the old stone walls. Other than the staff, evidenced by the occasional sound from the rear of the house or outside, there was no one else in residence; Christopher’s parents were gadding about the Americas, his younger brother, Gregory, was visiting friends in the Peak District, and his sister, Therese, was busily managing her husband, her children, and her own household in Lincolnshire.
Christopher fixed his gaze on the various reports arrayed before him. He picked up a pencil and tapped the end on the corner of the leather-bound blotter.
If Gregory and Therese could see him now…
If they learned of his reluctant conclusion, they would laugh themselves into stitches, then Therese would set about arranging a wife for him, while Gregory would grin and look on.
He spent a moment tendering heartfelt thanks that both his siblings were far away.
That would allow him to work out a strategy to rectify the issue on his own—without interference.
As Vane and Patience Cynster’s eldest son, while his parents were away, he had stepped into the role he’d been trained all his life to fill; he’d sat and stood at his father’s right hand for so many years that managing the estate was all but instinctive.
Being the eldest son, he would, eventually, inherit the manor estate; from his earliest years, he’d understood that it would be his responsibility to ensure the continuing prosperity of all his grandfather and father had amassed and brought into being, not only in Kent but also through investments elsewhere. Vane Cynster had a flair for managing crops of all kinds, and Christopher had inherited the knack; he was confident in his ability to continue in his father’s footsteps.
Yet being the eldest son and therefore the senior representative of his branch of the family presently in England had also meant he hadn’t been able to slide out of attending the family’s annual summer gathering at Somersham Place, the principal residence of the Duke of St. Ives. The current duke, known as Devil, was his father’s cousin and closest friend, and Devil’s duchess, Honoria, was Christopher’s mother’s bosom-bow. Although this year—for the first time in his life—Christopher would have preferred not to attend, Honoria’s invitation-cum-summons had been couched in such a way as to make not appearing impossible.
Aside from all else, his grandmother, Horatia, his grandfather, George, and his great-aunt, Helena, would have been shocked if he hadn’t shown his face.
So he’d gone and whiled away the day in the bosom of the wider Cynster clan and, as usual, had spent most of his time consorting with his cousinly peers—with Sebastian, Michael, Marcus, Lucilla, Prudence, and their spouses. This year, that group had also included Louisa and her husband, Drake Varisey.
Other than a few of the recently added spouses, Christopher had known the members of that group literally all of their lives. He’d even known Drake and Antonia, Sebastian’s wife, from their earliest years. Yet now…he was very definitely the odd man out.
The only one unwed.
Not that the others had so much as alluded to that, for which he’d been grateful, but their elders hadn’t been anywhere near as reticent; virtually every one of them had arched a brow and inquired when he was going to bestir himself and find a wife.
He’d smiled and avoided answering the question. Previously, he would have concocted some faintly jocular reply, gently suggesting they should lay aside any expectation of seeing him front the altar, but this year, all such glib assertiveness had deserted him.
Something had changed. Over the past year, some part of his psyche he hadn’t known he possessed had awakened, stirred, and stretched and now actively wanted the sort of future his peers had secured—one with a spouse by his side and a family of his own.
Until now, he’d assumed he wouldn’t marry—that, along with Pru, he would be one of the two in their group who would happily face the future unwed. He’d seen himself as the bachelor uncle to his siblings’ children—the one overseeing the family finances, to be ultimately succeeded by his brother’s son.
To his mind, there had been no reason for him to marry—no need to risk love and the complications it brought, the emotional vulnerabilities it entailed.
With her adamantine refusal to consider marrying, Pru had been, he’d thought, of the same mind, and if she, a female, could hold firm against the inevitable pressures brought to bear by their parents, aunts, and grandparents, then so could he.
But then Pru had traveled to Ireland and changed her mind. Or Deaglan Fitzgerald, Earl of Glengarah, had changed it for her… No; Christopher knew that not even Glengarah had the power to sway Pru once she’d made up her mind.
Pru had met her fate in Glengarah—she’d accepted that and, with what had appeared to be clear-sighted alacrity, had embraced the future Fate had placed before her.
Christopher had danced at Pru’s wedding and had left feeling just a little betrayed.
Not by Pru but by Fate—by Fate’s intervention that had led to Pru finding happiness and what was patently her true place and, by contrast, throwing into stark relief the restless, dissatisfied yearning that had, by then, sunk its claws into his soul.
On returning from Ireland, he’d attempted to reclaim the life he’d once found satisfying. He’d thrown himself into socializing with his friends and had attended several early-summer shooting parties in the north.
Nothing he’d done had eased the yawning emptiness inside him; if anything, it had grown.
Grown more distracting. More compelling.
In late July, he’d returned to London to celebrate his birthday with his parents and siblings, then had waved his parents off on their journey to America before coming down to Kent to take up the reins at the manor. After settling into the familiar rhythms of summer in the country, he’d reluctantly headed to Somersham.
He’d returned late last night. Now, brooding over his hours at the Place, on all he’d seen and felt, he had to admit that the spur that had finally punctured his resistance to matrimony had come in the form of very small people.
He’d watched Thomas, Lucilla’s husband, chasing their twin daughters, Chloe and Christina, both squealing and shrieking, around the lawns. The laughter in Thomas’s eyes and the sheer joy in his face as he’d caught one, then the other, lifting them high to yet more ear-splitting squeals, had clutched at and squeezed Christopher’s heart.
Meanwhile, Lucilla had stood proudly rocking her and Thomas’s weeks-old son, Manachan. She’d been chatting to Niniver, Marcus’s wife, who had been holding their son, Richard—until the proud papa had relieved her of the burden of the sturdy six-month-old boy. Yet given they’d been at the ducal estate, pride of place in the baby stakes had gone to Sylvester Gyles Cynster, born a few weeks before Manachan to Antonia and Sebastian and therefore destined, eventually, to inherit the dukedom.