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DESPERATE DAUGHTERS
A BLUESTOCKING BELLES COLLECTION WITH FRIENDS
ALINA K. FIELD
ELLA QUINN
MARY LANCASTER
MEARA PLATT
BLUESTOCKING BELLES:
CAROLINE WARFIELD
ELIZABETH ELLEN CARTER
JUDE KNIGHT
RUE ALLYN
SHERRY EWING
CONTENTS
Lady Dorothea’s Curate
Caroline Warfield
Lady Dorothea’s Curate
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
About Caroline Warfield
Concerto
By Mary Lancaster
Concerto
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About Mary Lancaster
The Butler and the Bluestocking
Rue Allyn
The Butler and the Bluestocking
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About Rue Allyn
The Four-to-One Fancy
By Elizabeth Ellen Carter
The Four-to-One Fancy
The Four-to-One Fancy
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
About Elizabeth Ellen Carter
Lord Cuckoo Comes Home
Jude Knight
Lord Cuckoo Comes Home
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
About Jude Knight
I’ll Always Be Yours
Ella Quinn
I’ll Always Be Yours
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
About Ella Quinn
Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match
Alina K. Field
Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
About Alina K. Field
A Duke for Josefina
by Meara Platt
A Duke for Josefina
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
About Meara Platt
A Countess To Remember
Sherry Ewing
A Countess to Remember
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
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About Sherry Ewing
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Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved to the individual authors as named.
© Carol Lynn Roddy, writing as Caroline Warfield
© Elizabeth Ellen Carter
© Judith Anne Knighton, writing as Jude Knight
© Susan C. Charnley, writing as Rue Allyn
© Sherry Ewing
© Ella Quinn
© Mary J. Kozlowski, writing as Alina K. Field
© Mary Lancaster
© Myra Platt, writing as Meara Platt
Desperate Daughters is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author of that part, except for including brief quotations in a review. Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents, or persons—living or dead—are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
Cover Design by Jude Knight
ePub: ISBN: 979-8-9855874-0-1
Mobi ASIN : B09LTHWR3B
Print ISBN: 979-8-9855874-1-8
LADY DOROTHEA’S CURATE
CAROLINE WARFIELD
Lady Dorothea’s Curate
By Caroline Warfield
* * *
Employed at a hotel, Lady Dorothea Bigglesworth has no use for a title. It would only invite scorn, or, worse, pity. Plain Miss Doro Bigglesworth suited her fine.
Ben Clarke dedicated his life to helping the neediest. It gave his life meaning. He tended to forget the younger son of a viscount went by “Honorable.”
Neither saw the need to mention it to the other, until they were formally introduced—in a ballroom in York. Shocked.
CHAPTER 1
High Harrogate, December 1816
One look at dear Mr. Clark, the curate’s, harried expression, and Doro knew she was right to brave the frightful weather. The Hampton Hotel only permitted her one half-day from work each week. She used the time to assist at Pilgrim’s Rest—the rough mission attached to Harrogate’s only place of worship, a tiny chapel of ease—so called because it existed to “ease” the burden of travel to St. John’s parish in Knaresborough for services. Pilgrim’s Rest counted on her. More to the point, its leader depended on her, and she never wanted to disappoint him. She quickly hung her damp cloak and bonnet on a peg by the door and deposited her bun
dle on the rough table near the hearth.
“Miss Bigglesworth, thank goodness you’re here!” Mr. Clarke, the curate responsible for the chapel and the mission attached to it, called from the far corner, where a narrow table and some benches had been set up.
Her stepmother would chastise her for failing to correct him, but no one here knew she should be styled Lady Dorothea or that her late father was the Earl of Seahaven, not that it did her family any good now. Frankly, she would rather the people of Harrogate and of Pilgrim’s Rest never found out, not as long as she earned her bread toiling in a hotel. It would only bring down judgement or, worse, pity, and Doro was proud of her work.
She watched the curate help an elderly man in thin coat and shabby trousers to a seat. As always, she was touched by the young man’s gentleness with their “guests” as he insisted on calling those who sought his help.
“Shall I set out the mid-day meal?” Doro asked, glancing around the room. She counted eight guests including two children with sad eyes, many fewer guests than they had in warmer weather. She saw no sign of Mrs. Grigg, the vicarage housekeeper, who usually had a warm meal ready before Doro arrived.
The building Mr. Clarke named Pilgrim’s Rest had once been a stable, but he insisted that it was being put to better use since he had neither horse nor carriage. It had been cleaned, painted and swept. Doro suspected he did the work himself. Rugs covered the brick floor, and a well-maintained hearth kept the place warm enough.
Mr. Clarke’s smile of approval warmed Doro even more. “If you would, please, Miss Bigglesworth. Mrs. Grigg did not feel able to come out in this fierce weather.”
Mrs. Grigg regularly complained of pains. She also complained of extra work, the guests whom she insisted were not pilgrims but beggars, and “Mr. Clarke’s foolish notions.” The curate, for his part, just as regularly reminded her that the poor had maladies the same as the well-off folk who flocked to Harrogate to take the waters. They hoped, he insisted, just as fiercely for relief.
Doro stayed out of the fray. She might have pointed out the truly wealthy preferred the fashionable spas in Bath or Cheltenham, never Harrogate. She knew that, as long as some of the chalybeate and sulphur springs in Harrogate lay out in the open, free for all who could walk or ride to them, both High and Low Harrogate would continue to attract the low and middling classes. Fine families come on hard times, professional folk, and rising gentry kept hotels in business, but the poor had to fend for themselves. Pilgrim’s Rest could at least provide a warm meal once a day. Doro suspected the curate provided a bit more when he could.
Doro found two crocks near the hearth. She lifted the lid on one, pleased to see it well filled. If the other held as much, there would be plenty for all, even Mr. Clarke, who was known to do without. A delicious aroma rose from the broth. Mrs. Grigg might disapprove of the mission, but she took pride in her cooking. The soup she sent would be excellent. Assuming donations had been good this week, it would be filling as well. Doro filled the iron cauldron on its hook over the fire and began warming the soup.
She hummed as she laid out bowls and spoons. She opened the bundle she brought, bread still warm from the kitchens of the Hampton, and laid it on a platter. They had no butter, but she doubted the guests would care.
“You bring music as well as bread,” Mr. Clarke said, his smile warming Doro down to her toes.
“It gives me joy to be here,” she answered and was rewarded with a flicker of heat in his deep brown eyes that sent echoing heat creeping up her neck. She had to shake herself to keep from staring.
You have no business ogling the man, Doro Bigglesworth. You’re well and surely on the shelf, and have nothing to offer a man. Your family needs your earnings in any case, she reminded herself, dragging her eyes away.
She sliced the bread with care, all too aware that her foolish reaction to Mr. Clarke left her hands shaking. There would be enough to feed their guests and more to wrap in scraps of cloth for them to take with them. The young mother of the two little ones seated across the table watching Doro with solemn eyes would be grateful for it as the day stretched on.
“Have you come far?” she asked them.
“We walked ten mile yesterday,” the older one, a boy told her proudly.
“How wonderful!”
“Had to,” the boy said, taking a slice of bread and sniffing it with an ecstatic expression.
“Granda had to take the waters. Mam pulled him in th’cart,” the boy’s little sister added.
Doro prayed the spa waters helped the old man. Glancing back to where he sat, she doubted it would. Most of those who passed through The Hampton Hotel left looking just as they did when they arrived.
“Going on home now Mrs. Hopkins?” Ben Clarke watched the woman tuck a coverlet around the old man in the dog cart, carefully storing a keg of water from the famous spring and the bread Miss Bigglesworth had wrapped for them. He was gratified to see the Hopkins woman’s color had improved with a good meal, though it appeared to have done little for her father.
Thank God for Miss Bigglesworth and the hotel kitchens!
The handful of other guests had already wandered back to the Stray, Harrogate’s common enclosure, where, he suspected, they spent their day sitting under the trees near one of the springs.
The morning’s sleet had cleared, and the sun peeked between the clouds. He wafted a prayer of gratitude for that as well, as he ran a hand over the head of the Hopkins boy who had leaned against him.
“Aye, Mr. Clarke,” the boy’s mother said. “We’ll make good time now as you’ve fed us so well.” Her sad smile spoke of courage and strength. She will need it, he thought watching them make their way to the road.
“Do you think they can make it home before dark?” Doro Bigglesworth had come up beside him, shutting the door to Pilgrim’s Rest.
“Perhaps. Perhaps the Lord will supply them with help along the way. Did you finish tidying up?”
“I rinsed Mrs. Grigg’s crocks at the well and left them on the table,” she told him.
“Excellent. I’ll fetch them for her later.” He bowed to her and offered his arm. “May I accompany you home, Miss Bigglesworth?”
As he expected, she dipped into a curtsy as graceful as that of any duchess. The formal ritual had become something of a game with them.
After enjoying her assistance for several months, Ben had begun escorting her back to The Hampton Hotel every week. Five times; today would be six. He knew the precise number because he treasured each one. He had offered to escort her from the beginning, of course, like the gentleman he was, but she demurred. He would look around after seeing to the guests, and she would be gone. He couldn’t say precisely what changed, but he looked up one day to meet her intense gaze, and, when he offered, she accepted his escort. Lately, he no sooner left her at her lodging on Wednesday afternoon, than he began looking forward to the following one. The pleasure of her company had become Ben’s one indulgence, one he couldn’t bring himself to forgo.
Glimpses of sun warmed what had begun as a dreary December day when they reached the road. “Shall we stay to the road or wander through the parkland?” he asked.
“My dear Mr. Clarke, are you asking me to stray through The Stray with you?” An impish grin accompanied the silly pun, though local lore would have it that the name derived from folks doing precisely that from the time the land surrounding the springs was pulled from the Forest of Knaresborough and set aside for the use of all.
He grinned back. “Shall we?” A familiar flicker of guilt fluttered through him as soon as he said it, but he chased it away. Surely, he did penance six days a week. He could enjoy this small pleasure on one of them.
The woman who had become the light of his life sobered. “It will take less time if we keep to the road. I don’t want to keep you from your work,” she said. Her earnest face and respect meant more to him than he could say. But at her words, his heart sank. He had hoped…
Just then the clouds moved
off, sun glistened off the trees in The Stray, and her eyes gleamed. She was teasing! He felt a smile rise from his heart to bloom on his face. “That sun is calling to us, Miss Bigglesworth. How can we refuse the invitation when such an afternoon will be scarce now that winter approaches?”