Under the Seductive Lady's Charm: A Historical Regency Romance Book Read online

  Under the Seductive Lady's Charm

  A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL

  HENRIETTA HARDING

  Copyright © 2019 by Henrietta Harding

  All Rights Reserved.

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  Table of Contents

  Under the Seductive Lady's Charm

  Table of Contents

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  Under the Seductive Lady's Charm

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  The Irresistible Allure of a Lady Spy

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

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  Under the Seductive Lady's Charm

  Introduction

  Miss Charlotte Browne’s life turns upside down when she finds out that her brother died in the war. She had been clinging to the hope of moving with him upon his return, but now that misfortune hit her hard she will have to find her own way in the world. Or maybe not? A coincidental meeting with an old childhood friend will bring a new choice. Charlotte is a fierce woman who doesn’t like to be pitied. But when faced with an offer from Miss Amanda Easterly, will she risk it all and take it?

  Graham Easterly is a heartbroken man. The last thing he needed in his life is having Charlotte live with them, after his sister’s invitation. But his irritation is bound to turn to indignation when he finds out that Charlotte will be Amanda’s maid. He has returned to England from the war, full of nightmares and unable to dismiss the guilt he still feels about the death of his wife and child, to be confronted with his sister’s spoiled behavior. Will Charlotte’s presence in the house help him find inner peace or will it start a new fire inside him?

  Charlotte’s role also proves to be harder than she thought. Will she be able to overcome the obstacles that Amanda sets trying to ruin her reputation? Graham must also face his own demons, which might prove to be more than he can bear. But the tension between them is undeniable. Will Charlotte be the one to heal his wounds or will he stay in the dark forever? Can his broken heart beat again?

  Chapter 1

  The vicarage in Dallington was a pleasant sort of place if one liked screaming children and having no space for one’s own thoughts. Charlotte sat outside in a crude swing that Mr. Wilson, the current vicar, had fashioned. Her feet swung back and forth, sweeping the grass to and fro.

  Charlotte Browne had lived in this place for most of her life. Her father had been the previous vicar and although he had died four years earlier, thankfully Charlotte had been allowed to stay as a tenant of the current vicar and his wife.

  The downside to that was that she spent a good deal of time helping Mrs. Wilson attend to her brood. As much as Charlotte longed to have children, she prayed fervently that they would not be the same sort as the vicar’s offspring. She could hear the children howling about some perceived injustice even as she sat outside.

  She looked down at the letter. News had been slow to trickle in after the battle at Waterloo. In her hand she held the fate of her beloved brother Charles. It was one she had feared would come when the papers announced the end of the war but no word had come from her brother.

  He was gone, dead on a battlefield somewhere. News of his death had finally trickled down to her, almost as if by happenstance. A tear rolled down her cheek as she promised her brother that she had not forgotten him as it seemed so many had.

  Charlotte held the small clutch of letters she had received, including the last that informed her that her brother’s body was on the way home. That letter had been a bittersweet surprise. She had assumed her brother, a soldier of no great rank, would be left on the battlefield as so many others had. It was a kindness that she thought the lord himself must have visited on her.

  “Charlotte.” Mrs. Wilson came bustling out of the house, a towel held between her well-worn hands. “Are you well? It has been some time since you stepped outside and I feared perhaps you had caught that sickness that Roger had the other day.”

  With a forced smile, Charlotte shook her head. “I assure you that I am not ill. I was just reading the letter again.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Wilson said with a frown. “Have you given any thoughts as to what you will do now?” The woman’s voice was kind as she came to stand beside the swing and look down at Charlotte with sad brown eyes.

  Charlotte’s brow wrinkled as she thought about the question. She had done little but think of that question since she had received the letter confirming her brother’s death. If she was more truthful, Charlotte might have said that she had thought of what she should do with herself long before the news arrived.

  “I have thought about it. I just cannot seem to come up with any conclusions.” She looked up at Mrs. Wilson with a sigh. “You and the vicar have been most kind to me, but I cannot in good conscience stay on here without a stipend from my brother to cover my costs.”

  Mrs. Wilson reminded her, “You do quite a bit around here to earn your keep, but a smart girl like you has other avenues. You could probably find a good job as a governess.”

  Charlotte knew that Mrs. Wilson was trying to console her and be kind, but they both knew that the vicar did not earn enough to afford another mouth to feed. “I do not even know how to begin.”

  Whatever Mrs. Wilson might have replied was lost in a deluge of wails as the woman’s two-year-old daughter came tumbling out of the back door. The indistinguishable babble of the child was of no use in deciphering why she was crying. Mrs. Wilson hurried over to the child and scooped her up.

  “Now, now Dot, what is the matter?” Mrs. Wilson bounced the baby girl up and down on her hip.

  Dot waved a hand still quite chubby with baby fat toward the door. Charlotte suggested, “Think Roger grabbed her doll again?”

  “It is likely.” Mrs. Wilson placed a kiss on Dot’s blonde hair.

  Charlotte gave Mrs. Wilson a smile. “I shall see if I can find him. He’s likely hid himself, thinking he will get in trouble.” She turned and went into the house. The Wilsons’ ten-year-old son Josh was sitting at the kitchen table working on what appeared to be schoolwork.

  Josh looked up as Charlotte came over to him. “Roger’s hiding in the linen closet,” he confided to her in a whisper.

  Charlotte gave Josh a pat on the back and went to find the mischievous Roger. The boy meant no harm. He merely liked causing a bit of a ruckus to get some attention. It was difficult to garner focused attention from the middle of a brood of six children in the Wilson family.

  That being said Charlotte, despite her love of chi
ldren, held no deep affection for the Wilson children. They were unruly and determinedly dirty despite all of Charlotte’s efforts to help Mrs. Wilson with them. Charlotte felt a little guilt at the irritation that she felt towards them.

  Perhaps she was not cut out for this mothering business. Charlotte thought of other children she had been around who did not fill her with such agitation. The Wilson children were their own special brand.

  “Roger,” Charlotte called as she neared the linen closet. “Where oh where could Roger be?”

  There was a lilting laugh from the closet and Charlotte opened the door to find Roger hiding his face as if the grown-up could not see him if he could not see Charlotte. “Found you,” Charlotte called in a sing-song voice.

  Roger peeked up at her through his hands and gave her a grin showing the gap where his first tooth had recently fallen out. “You always find me,” he complained, but not enough to stop grinning at her.

  “That is because you laugh a lot.” Charlotte held out her hand and helped the boy up.

  He scuffed the floor with his foot. “Can’t help if it’s funny.”

  “Where is your sister’s doll?” Charlotte noticed the doll was not in the closet where Roger had been.

  He shrugged. “I threw it.”

  “You should go and find it then.” Charlotte tried to keep the irritation out of her voice as Roger dashed from the room. She sighed heavily. All she really wanted to do was take a nap, but she heard one of the children scream and she trudged toward the uproar.

  The other three children seemed to be lost in mirth, punctuated by ear-splitting shrieks as they dashed up and down the stairs. “Stop that or you will fall,” Charlotte said as she caught sight of the children.

  The children burst into giggles and all took off in different directions, up the stairs and out of the front door.

  Charlotte leaned against the railing at the base of the stairs. She turned on her heel and went out the back door. The room that she shared with two of the children was no place of solitude. Charlotte walked the path toward the gardener’s shed.

  There had not been a dedicated gardener in some time and the chores were left to Charlotte and the oldest children mostly. The inside of the shed was dark and inviting. Charlotte shut herself inside and sank down on a little stool that was set to one side near a workbench.

  Ever since Charlotte’s father had died, the only thing that kept her going was the idea that when her brother returned, she would move with him away from here. Her dream of an escape died with Charles, and Charlotte had only this shed, a shed that was not even hers by rights. She allowed herself to cry quietly, but she would not let herself wallow. After a few moments of weakness, she drew in a shaky breath and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

  She would go and see the children. Charlotte left the shed and her grief there. It would do no good to allow it to take over. She had things to do.

  Mrs. Wilson was waiting for her at the back door. “There you are,” she said with quiet concern. “I have given some thought to your predicament.”

  “That is kind of you.” Charlotte slipped past the woman into the house.

  Dot, now reunited with her ragged doll, toddled towards the table where Josh still sat working. Mrs. Wilson shut the door behind Charlotte. She put her arm around Charlotte’s shoulders and guided her toward the kitchen.

  When they were alone in the kitchen, or as alone as anyone can be with so many children underfoot, Mrs. Wilson ventured, “I do think that you should apply as a governess. I know you tend to dismiss the idea, but a position in one of those grand houses would be a stable life for a young lady such as yourself.”

  By young ladies such as Charlotte, Mrs. Wilson meant unmarried, childless, and without family. Oh, ladies such as herself had very few options and Charlotte was all too aware of it.

  “Again, you are kind, but I have no idea where I would start in finding such a position. Dallington is a small village with few families that fit your description and even less with children that might benefit from a governess.” Charlotte sighed with frustration, but she softened her exasperation with a smile. “I am sorry to sound like such a… well, I do not know what I sound like really.”

  Mrs. Wilson gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You sound like a girl who needs some help.” She released Charlotte’s shoulder and stepped over to a basket of vegetables from the garden. As she picked up a carrot to rinse, she said, “You could try Lord Easterly.”

  Charlotte shook her head and clasped her hands together. “Why would he help me?”

  “Your father and he were close. Were you not close to his daughter? Surely that counts for something.” Mrs. Wilson gave Charlotte an encouraging smile.

  As good as Mrs. Wilson’s intentions might be, Charlotte held no true hope that Lord Easterly, Earl of Atcham, would consider that enough of a bond to aid a destitute girl. “I have not seen or spoken to any member of the Easterly family in years.” Charlotte looked down at her feet.

  She could remember quite clearly the last time she saw Lord Easterly. He had been at her father’s funeral. Not since that day had she seen the Earl of Atcham or his sister Amanda. Charlotte shook her head and laughed. “I doubt they would even remember me.”

  “What is the worst that could happen? Is it that they could simply refuse? You will still be no worse off in that situation, so it seems to me that you have most everything to gain.” Mrs. Wilson sighed. “Do not give up on something before you actually attempt it.”

  Charlotte smiled. “That would make a very good topic for church.”

  “I might just pass that along to my husband,” Mrs. Wilson said with a smile of her own.

  Charlotte thought for a moment. “I suppose I could try. Right now though, I have to focus on my brother and how to handle his funeral.”

  “There was a little set aside for that, was there not?” Mrs. Wilson asked the question as she turned back toward the vegetables she was washing in preparation for the meal.

  Charlotte frowned and gave a little nod of her head. “There was a stipend for it. It should cover most things. I received it with the letter that told me his body was coming home.”

  “I cannot imagine,” Mrs. Wilson said in a soft voice. “You will bury him here in the cemetery?”

  Charlotte heaved a sigh. “He shall have a place beside my father and mother. Charles would want that.”

  Mrs. Wilson nodded her acceptance of Charlotte’s words. “I never met him, but he must have been a brave man.”

  “He was. After father died, Charles stayed in the army because he wanted to make a good living to send money to me.” Charlotte pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “I wonder sometimes if he is really dead. Maybe they are wrong and he is still out there somewhere.”

  Mrs. Wilson set a fresh bowl of vegetables on the table in front of Charlotte. “I think those sorts of thoughts are normal. Without a body, it is bound to cross one’s mind. But you know that he would be here if he were not dead. Surely you do know that?”

  “Of course,” Charlotte said as she helped Mrs. Wilson begin chopping up the vegetables to go in the day’s meal.

  As they worked, they fell into a companionable silence, leaving Charlotte to her own thoughts. She followed those thoughts all the way back to her childhood when she and Amanda Easterly were tutored together by Amanda’s governess and Charlotte’s own father. Charlotte felt a pang of lonesomeness at the thought of her old friend.

  Too much time had passed for Charlotte to simply show up with some self-held belief that she was somehow worthy of Amanda’s benefit. There was no way she could bring herself to throw herself on the mercy of Amanda or the Earl of Atcham. It was far too likely that they would simply banish her without a thought, and it would be inexcusably rude to push herself on them so.

  Charlotte was many things, but she was not rude. She had always sought to make her father proud by being every bit the lady that he had proclaimed her mother to be. Charlotte could
not very well dishonour her mother in such a way now.