Arranged Marriage

Gillian Hawser

Description

A story of courage and independence, The Arranged Marriage focuses on Perpetua Mordaunt, the diffident, shy and plain daughter of the Duke of Staplefield. It is the duty of all daughters to marry, but even knowing this Perpetua is horrified when she is forced by her father and narcissistic mother into a marriage with a man she hardly knows to save the family fortune and reputation. Trapped, unable to get her confident and beautiful siblings to understand her distress, the only option that appears open to her is to become a governess so after the last words fade from the ceremony, she runs away to Bath.Here she is directed to The Registry where she hopes to obtain a position. Rejected, desperate, she is rescued by a Mrs Lumley and her beloved daughter, Dora, who wishes for Dora to obtain some town polish. Petty blossoms under the adoring society - but when she sees her husband at a party, she realises not all problems can be run away from.

Sujets

• Historical romance

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800465787
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Gillian Hawser

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover illustration by Katie Ponder

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ISBN 9781800465787

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This book is dedicated to my children;
Peregrine, Elliot and Clemency
and to my grandchildren;
Elodie, Carys, Jagger, Hunter, Noah, Tom and Joe.
They bring unmitigated joy into my life.


Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Níne
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
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Fíve


Chapter One



Wakeham Park, as befitted a great mansion and the principal seat of the Dukes of Staplefield, had had a long and illustrious history. There had been a house on the site as early as 1178, although nothing now remained of this original building. In the sixteenth century, Sir Hampden Mordaunt, in celebration of his creation as a baronet, replaced the medieval hall house erected by his maternal great-grandfather with a beamed and panelled residence. He named it Wakeham Hall. During the following 150 years the family grew in stature, becoming the recipients of many honours and titles, so that by the beginning of the eighteenth century it was clear that the Tudor house, even with its additions, was completely inadequate for the needs of a ducal family.
In 1722, however, an event occurred that was to change the face of Wakeham for ever. The fourth duke, who at forty and enjoying excellent health had been expected to last for many years to come, died most suddenly. His death was a blow in a family renowned for its longevity. In addition, at the start of 1721, realising that time was marching on and he had no son, His Grace had married. Lamentably, at the time of her husband’s untimely death his young and beautiful duchess had not yet presented her lord with any pledges of her affection. Thus all his titles and estates passed from this branch of the family to his second cousin, Gideon Mordaunt.
The new duke was only twenty-four when, most unexpectedly, he came into his fortune. He was a man who, unlike his forebears, was not an inveterate sportsman, rather his interests lay in the field of artistic endeavour; he was conspicuous for his interest in every aspect of painting, sculpture, music, theatre, literature, but, more importantly for Wakeham, he also possessed an abounding and as yet unfulfilled passion for architecture.
Gideon Mordaunt was a man of enormous energy, vision and a particular flair for detail. He made the restoration of Wakeham, and its transformation into a residence suited to one of England’s premier dukes, his life’s work. He was not familiar with the estates, indeed he had not stayed in the house above half a dozen times and never for more than a few days. As he had not been expected to inherit, it had not been thought necessary for him to do more than be included when the entire family assembled under the Wakeham roof. The immediate Mordaunt relatives numbered 200, so when he had visited the house he had not been accorded any special privileges.
His first deed, however, on coming into his inheritance, was to learn all that he could about his estates. In this he was aided by an astute brain and an ability to listen carefully, surmise accurately and take appropriate decisions. He was also blessed with a shrewd capacity for appointing the correct people for a particular task. Looking discerningly at his house and grounds he immediately summoned the Palladian architect Leoni and the garden designer Capability Brown. To Leoni he gave the responsibility of extensively rebuilding the house on classical lines and to the tender care of Capability Brown he gave his beloved gardens. These two fine craftsmen were inspired choices, who took their commissions very seriously, and the house and gardens that rose from their designs were generally credited with being some of the finest that the eighteenth century produced.
The house was approached by a long drive that meandered through undulating woods and lawns carefully executed by Capability to appear as if they had been extant for centuries. On turning a corner out of the woods the visitor had his first breathtaking view of the house. It was built around a central porticoed front which was flanked by two colonnaded wings. At the rear of the house Leoni’s 400-feet facade faced Capability Brown’s park; this juxtaposition of house, parks and terraces was regarded as one of their most successful schemes. There were those protagonists, although not many, it must be admitted, who were heard to put forward a preference for the parks at Stourhead House. But it was generally agreed that the gardens at Wakeham were superior.
The fifth duke’s obsession with his house had not ended with the outside, for he had been equally concerned to make the interior as beautiful as his gardens. To this end he toured Europe; he brought back paintings from Holland and Italy, porcelain and tapestries from France. The saloon, an imposing room ninety feet in length, was decorated using designs copied from Inigo Jones. In spite of its size, its embellishment had been accomplished with a quiet delicacy. Studded bosses and spiral pendants surrounded ceiling rondels, painted by Rose and Zucchi. These designs were echoed in the patterns on the specially woven Axminster carpet which covered the entire poplar floor. On the days when the duke saw fit to open Wakeham to visitors, guests were seen to gasp at the intricacy of the complementary designs on ceiling and floor.
However, it was commonly accepted that the real glory of Wakeham lay in its library. This unique room was all that now remained of Sir Hampden’s sixteenth-century house and had been specially kept by Leoni and the duke. The original fifteenth-century panelling remained untouched, although the duke, who in addition to his other proclivities was particularly partial to wood carving, had brought in Grinling Gibbons, requesting him to extensively decorate the shelves with designs of his own choice. Wooden music, fruit and images representing the four seasons blossomed from the master’s dexterous hands. The library ran the entire length of the west front of the house. Its windows overlooked the home park, enabling glimpses of panoramic vistas of gardens stretching down as far as a small Chinese bridge which enticingly spanned the ornamental water and had been positioned thus by Capability, precisely to enhance the aspects of this celebrated room.
On a particularly fine November afternoon, wintry sunshine filtered through those same windows, shedding its pale light on Gibbons’ art, giving his angels trumpets of gold and making his sheaves of corn invitingly ripe. The bookshelves which had been enhanced by these carvings covered the three remaining sides of the room; they housed the immense collection of classical literature amassed by the sixth duke. He was of an entirely different temperament from his father, although perhaps equally obsessive, a scholarly individual who loved old books and ancient objects more than anything; he spent half of his life collecting and the other half lovingly cataloguing his cherished archive. His mind being of an orderly disposition, he hated to be short of any particular volume, thus he spent much time and energy tracking down various missing specimens. The resulting collection was now accepted as one of the most comprehensive ever assembled in private hands.
The library contained only one occupant, who sat idly leafing through a volume of Horace, his long legs stretched out in front of the tiny fire which burnt in the grate. He was a tall man, dressed somewhat casually for riding in buckskins and top boots, his well-cut coat showing to advantage his broad shoulders and strong arms. He was still strikingly handsome, and only the black hair slightly tinged with grey and the harsh lines on his face showed that he was approaching fifty. His eyes were surprising; under heavy dark brows they were a remarkable deep blue, the colour changing from almost black when he was in a rage, to a bright blue when something amused him.
The eighth Duke of Staplefield was not renowned for either his patience or his even temperedness, and as he awaited his eldest daughter his displeasure was beginning to show. Throwing down Hora