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Enjoy the first chapter of BROOKE: WAGERS GONE AWRY
Conundrums of the Misses Culpepper Book One
Would you sacrifice everything to save your family?
Even your virtue?
Brooke Culpepper resigned herself to spinsterhood when she turned down the only marriage proposal she’d likely ever receive to care for her sister and cousins. After her father dies, a distant cousin inherits the estate, becoming their guardian, but he permits Brooke to act in his stead.
Heath, Earl of Ravensdale detests the countryside and is none too pleased to discover five young women call the dairy farm he won, and intends to sell, their home.
Desperate, pauper poor, and with nowhere to go, Brooke proposes a wager. Heath's stakes? The farm. Hers? Her virtue. The land holds no interest for Heath, but Brooke definitely does, and he accepts her challenge. Will they both live to regret their impulsiveness?
Caution: This book contains one stern lord with a dark secret he wants kept at all cost, a beautiful spinster smarter than the average man, an endearing, portly Welsh Corgi known to pee on gentlemen's boots, and a passel of well-meaning sisters and cousins who find themselves in one conundrum after the other.
Read the first installment of the Conundrums of the Misses Culpepper historical Regency romance series for a romping, emotional, and romantic adventure you won't want to put down.
Even when most prudently considered, and with the noblest of intentions,
one who wagers with chance oft finds oneself empty-handed.
~Wisdom and Advice - The Genteel Lady’s Guide to Practical Living
Esherton Green,
Near Acton, Cheshire, England
Early April 1822
Was I born under an evil star or cursed from my first breath?
Brooke Culpepper suppressed the urge to shake her fist at the heavens and berate The Almighty aloud. The devil boasted better luck than she. My God, now two more cows struggled to regain their strength?
She slid Richard Mabry, Esherton Green’s steward-turned-overseer, a worried glance from beneath her lashes as she chewed her lower lip and paced before the unsatisfactory fire in the study’s hearth. The soothing aroma of wood smoke, combined with linseed oil, old leather, and the faintest trace of Papa’s pipe tobacco, bathed the room. The scents reminded her of happier times but did little to calm her frayed nerves.
Sensible gray woolen skirts swishing about her ankles, she whirled to make the return trip across the once-bright green and gold Axminster carpet, now so threadbare, the oak floor peeked through in numerous places. Her scuffed half-boots fared little better, and she hid a wince when the scrap of leather she’d used to cover the hole in her left sole this morning slipped loose again.
From his comfortable spot in a worn and faded wingback chair, Freddy, her aged Welsh corgi, observed her progress with soulful brown eyes, his muzzle propped on stubby paws. Two ancient tabbies lay curled so tightly together on the cracked leather sofa that determining where one ended and the other began was difficult.
What was she to do? Brooke clamped her lip harder and winced.
Should she venture to the barn to see the cows herself?
What good would that do? She knew little of doctoring cattle and so left the animals’ care in Mr. Mabry’s capable hands. Her strength lay in the financial administration of the dairy farm and her ability to stretch a shilling as thin as gossamer.
She cast a glance at the bay window and, despite the fire, rubbed her arms against the chill creeping along her spine. A frenzied wind whipped the lilac branches and scraped the rain-splattered panes. The tempest threatening since dawn had finally unleashed its full fury, and the fierce winds battering the house gave the day a peculiar, eerie feeling—as if portending something ominous.
At least Mabry and the other hands had managed to get the cattle tucked away before the gale hit. The herd of fifty—no, sixty, counting the newborn calves—chewed their cud and weathered the storm inside the old, but sturdy, barns.
As she peered through the blurry pane, a shingle ripped loose from the farthest outbuilding—a retired stone dovecote. After the wind tossed the slat around for a few moments, the wood twirled to the ground, where it flipped end over end before wedging beneath a gangly shrub. Two more shingles hurled to the earth, this time from one of the barns.
Flimflam and goose-butt feathers.
Brooke tamped down a heavy sigh. Each structure on the estate, including the house, needed some sort of repair or replacement: roofs, shutters, stalls, floors, stairs, doors, siding...dozens of items required fixing, and she could seldom muster the funds to go about it properly.
“Another pair of cows struggling, you say, Mr. Mabry?”
Concern etched on his weathered features, Mabry wiped rain droplets from his face as water pooled at his muddy feet.
“Yes, Miss Brooke. The four calves born this mornin’ fare well, but two of the cows, one a first-calf heifer, aren’t standin’ yet. And there’s one weak from birthin’ her calf yesterday.” His troubled gaze strayed to the window. “Two more ladies are in labor. I best return to the barn. They seemed fine when I left, but I’d as soon be nearby.”
Brooke nodded once. “Yes, we mustn’t take any chances.”
The herd had already been reduced to a minimum by disease and sales to make ends meet. She needed every shilling the cows’ milk brought. Losing another, let alone two or three good breeders...
No, I won’t think of it.
She stopped pacing and forced a cheerful smile. Nonetheless, from the skeptical look Mabry speedily masked, his thoughts ran parallel to hers—one reason she put her trust in the man. Honest and intelligent, he’d worked alongside her to restore the beleaguered herd and farm after Papa died. Their existence, their livelihood, everyone at Esherton’s future depended on the estate flourishing once more.