A Bride for the Betrayed Earl: A Historical Regency Romance Book
Bridget Barton
Introduction
When Hunter Bentley, the Earl of Addison, returns from Scotland, it is to find that the love of his life has married another. On a mission of mercy to see his beloved father through his final days in the country he loved, Hunter is unaware that the woman he was set to marry, feeling neglected by his absence, has accepted a proposal of marriage from the Duke of Galcross. Still, Lady Felicity Morgan was always a little spoiled and a little ambitious.
Weeks later, Emmeline Fitzgerald suffers the worst humiliation of her life. Just months after the death of her beloved father, the man she is set to marry publicly announces his engagement to another. Feeling all eyes on her, Emmeline almost turns to run, but her dignity is saved by none other than the Earl of Addison. Within days the Earl, a man she barely knows, makes her a most unusual proposal; a marriage of convenience. He is looking for a wife so that he might produce an heir to his title and estate. She needs a husband of means to save her, her mother, and sister from financial ruin when her second cousin, Kent Fitzgerald, finally inherits her father’s estate some months after his passing.
Finding they have more in common than they could have imagined, can Hunter and Emmeline find the path to true love? Or will the constant interference from Felicity and Kent Fitzgerald drive a wedge between them?
Chapter 1
The journey down from Scotland to Buckinghamshire seemed to be taking forever. By the time they had made it only as far south as Lancashire, Hunter Bentley had taken the decision that each stop ought to last two nights in order to rest his horses properly. And yet, even though the decision was his and his alone, Hunter could not help feeling as if the world was holding him back somehow, keeping him from Addison Hall and his life and his love.
Hunter had spent the last six months staying in a much-neglected family property just outside Edinburgh. It was a private residence, not forming part of the great estate of Addison, and one which had not been lived in since Hunter’s father had been but a young boy who had stayed there with his maternal grandparents.
William and Rosemary Moss had had but one child, a daughter, who had grown into a great beauty and, following a single meeting with Hunter’s grandfather, had been courted for marriage. Without sons, the home of William and Rosemary Moss had fallen into a genteel decline when they had departed the world, and their daughter had lived happily in England as the Countess of Addison.
However, Hunter’s father had never forgotten the time he’d spent in the home of his mother as a child. With his own father much away at court in those days, he and his mother had often travelled to Edinburgh, and he had spent many of his summers in the beautiful little village just outside.
“As you know, Hunter, I do not have much time left.” His father had raised the subject in as plain a fashion as he had raised every subject for as long as Hunter could remember.
The old Earl was a matter-of-fact sort of man, very plainspoken, and Hunter had always attributed it to his maternal Scottish roots.
“Father, I wish you would not speak so. Just because the physician tells you such does not make it a fact.” Hunter could not bear to even think about his father’s passing, never mind speak about it.
But Harrington Bentley had been ill for so long that there really could be no denying it. Hunter knew, of course, that their trusted old physician was right in what he said; Harrington Bentley did not have long, a matter of months at most.
“My dear boy, it is time to face the thing head-on, no shirking, no hiding. There is much to prepare you for in your duties as Earl, and I would not be doing my duty if I chose to ignore what is undoubtedly going to be my imminent passing. In doing so, I should be selfish on more than one count. I should be denying us both the joy and the sadness of these final months, and I would be remiss in not passing on all which I know I must pass on to you.”
It had seemed to Hunter that in no time at all his father’s face had grown as grey as his hair, and his mighty frame had been diminished, lain waste by the dreadful disease which seemed to be almost devouring him.
“Father, I would do anything that you wish me to do; I would even listen to all of this and act as if I believe it,” Hunter said but knew that his words were nothing more than the lines of an actor spoken in the middle of the play. He knew his father spoke the truth.
“Then I would ask something very great of you, my dear boy.”
“There is nothing you could ask of me that would be too great, pray tell me what is it?”
“I would wish you to take me to the place I used to think of as home.”
“Home?” Hunter had been momentarily confused and looked about the great drawing room of Addison Hall where his father had been propped up comfortably in an armchair, surrounded by soft pillows and wrapped in many warm blankets.
“Not Addison Hall, Hunter. It is home, of course, and has been home to many generations of Bentleys. But I am speaking of a different place, a place where I spent a good deal of my childhood.”
“You mean in Scotland, Father?” Hunter said a little incredulously. “But surely you have not been there for many years.”
“It is true to say that I have not been inside that old manor house since before you were born, my dear boy. But now, in my last months, I seem unable to stop thinking about it. I should like to be reminded of the happy times I spent there at the beginning of my life. I should like to spend some happy times there now that my life is drawing to its end.”
“But Father, it is such a great distance,” Hunter said, his mind reeling as he wondered quite how he would get his father from the south of England all the way up to Edinburgh.
“And it would be my last journey; I have no doubt. I realize that once I have left Addison Hall, there will be no coming back for me. I am afraid that you would make the return journey alone.”
“But Father, your health is so low, I cannot think that a journey of so many days would be of any benefit to you. Really, I would beg you to reconsider.”
“I know that the journey will not be an easy one, Hunter, but it would have its reward at the end. It is where I wish to be, and it is there I wish to die.”
“Then I shall find some way to arrange it, Father.” Hunter had felt desolate at that moment.