A Husband for Hartwell (The Lords of Bucknall Club Book 1) Read online

  A Husband for Hartwell

  The Lords of Bucknall Club

  J.A. Rock

  Lisa Henry

  A Husband for Hartwell

  Copyright © 2021 by J.A. Rock and Lisa Henry.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  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 any actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Susie Selva.

  Cover Art by Mitxeran.

  Acknowledgments

  With thanks to our beta readers, Bridget, Amy, Mia, and Heather.

  About A Husband for Hartwell

  He must marry, or risk his fortune.

  The whole of London Society has long assumed Lord William Hartwell will marry his childhood best friend, Lady Rebecca Warrington. After two Seasons, Hartwell remains quite content with bachelorhood—his parents do not. When Hartwell learns they intend to cut his purse strings unless he makes a match this Season, he resigns himself to a marriage of convenience with Becca, and yet he can't help but be drawn to her younger brother, Warry.

  He must marry, or risk his sister's ruin.

  The Viscount "Warry" Warrington is used to being viewed as the tagalong little brother. Now a grown man about to enter his second Season, Warry is desperate to be seen. When Lord Balfour, a handsome older peer, takes Warry under his wing, Warry thinks his dream is finally coming true. Until Balfour reveals his true intent—to make public a letter that will destroy Becca's reputation, unless Warry agrees to marry him.

  Time is running out for both of them.

  When an injury forces Warry to recover at Hartwell House, the two succumb to a secret flirtation. But Warry's sudden announcement of his engagement to Balfour drives Hartwell near mad with jealousy—and right into Becca's arms. With the clock ticking for Warry to save his sister, will Hartwell discover the truth of Warry's feelings before it's too late?

  A Husband for Hartwell is the first book in the Lords of Bucknall Club series, where the Regency meets m/m romance.

  Contents

  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

  Afterword

  An Excerpt from A Case for Christmas

  About J.A. Rock

  About Lisa Henry

  Also by J.A. Rock and Lisa Henry

  Also by J.A. Rock

  Also by Lisa Henry

  In 1783, the Marriage Act Amendment was introduced in England to allow marriages between same-sex couples. This was done to strengthen the law of primogeniture and to encourage childless unions in younger sons and daughters of the peerage, as an excess of lesser heirs might prove burdensome to a thinly spread inheritance.

  Chapter 1

  William Hartwell, arguably London’s most eligible bachelor and certainly London’s most melancholy marquess, was not entirely surprised to find a frog down the back of his shirt.

  Perhaps he should have been. Nobody had put a frog down his shirt in a very long time. But once he’d shot to his feet, tugging his shirt free from his trousers in a flurry of panic, he heard Lady Rebecca Warrington’s musical laugh behind him.

  “Gentle!” she chided. “It is not the frog’s fault. It is mine. I couldn’t resist.”

  He turned to face his truest friend. As he did, the frog slid down his back and out the bottom of his shirt. It sat for a moment on the grass, its vocal sac inflating and deflating, and then it hopped away.

  “Whatever possessed you?” he asked brusquely, seating himself again with what he hoped was a modicum of dignity.

  She gazed at him for a long moment, the light catching in her golden curls. Hartwell could not read her expression. The early spring grass was warm under his palms, reigniting his irritation at the unseasonably sunny day. What right had the weather to be so fair when his mood was so foul? From several feet behind them came a cough, which only rendered Hartwell’s countenance darker. He missed his childhood days when he and Becca could sit on her lawn without a chaperone.

  “I could not stand to see your long face,” she replied at last. Her cream-coloured afternoon dress had a grass stain near one knee, and her shawl lay discarded nearby.

  “Put your shawl on. You’ll catch cold.”

  “William Hartwell.” Her low, lovely voice had sharpened significantly. “Do not harry me as though I am a child and you are my nursemaid. I am your oldest friend and confidante. I have been assaulting you with frogs since we were in leading strings, and I implore you to tell me what’s wrong. Is it what my father said?”

  It most certainly was, and her acuity pierced between his ribs with a keenness that lingered.

  William, Marquess of Hartwell, was three-and-twenty years old and the only son of the Duke of Ancaster. He was more than aware that his dark eyes, chiselled features, artfully tumbled black curls and tall, muscular body—not to mention his vast wealth—attracted not only the, wholly welcome, attention of other sons of the nobility, but the sharp interest of aristocratic daughters and their parents. He was also aware that his parents were growing impatient for him to marry. He’d managed to fend off his mother’s unsubtle hints last Season, but now they weren’t so much hints as a battering ram taken to his—if his mother was to be believed—incomparably thick skull. The Hartwells needed an heir. Which meant William Hartwell, an only son, needed a wife.

  Of course, Becca’s parents would think him the logical choice for their daughter. His own parents thought the same. Their families had teased them about their future wedding throughout the whole of their childhood, prompting squeals of “Ugh!” and “Never!” from both. And yet, hearing the suggestion spoken aloud by Earl Warrington in utter seriousness had made everything feel so horribly real. Hartwell hadn’t fully realised until Earl Warrington’s rant last night that he and Becca were in danger of souring like milk left out too long. Or perhaps he’d always known but had done his best to ignore it.

  “It is not the worst idea I’ve heard, William,” Becca said softly. “I’ve no wish to marry, but if I must, I’d rather it be to you than to…well, anyone who made conversation with me last Season. Or the Season before.”

  He made no answer.

  “There are worse fates, one supposes, than signing the paper and satisfying our families.” She gave a wry twist of her mouth. “And in our future home, we will be as we are now. Friends. Frog catchers. Free to pursue our own lives as long as we employ some measure of discretion.”

  “What about an heir?”

  “We will say we cannot conceive.”

  “That’s not fair to you. They will say it is you who cannot conceive. Your reputation will be stained, and your parents will hire a physician to poke and prod you…I cannot bear it. The very idea makes me ill.”

  “I am willing to be poked and prodded if it means I keep some scrap of freed
om.”

  “Do not speak that way, Becca. It is a fantasy world you live in. I am an only son. If we marry, we must have children—it is the only reason my father is pushing for a match! And if we have children, then our lives—”

  “Are over,” she finished with a sigh. “How strange that the man who thinks the solution is to bill himself an eligible parti indefinitely, letting half a dozen young ladies and gentlemen dangle after him without a thought for their feelings—”

  “It is not my fault they dangle.”

  “—would call me a creature of fancy.”

  “I do think of their feelings.”

  “Just not as often as you think of your own,” she said, not unkindly. She placed a hand on his arm. “If we did have children, I should think they’d at least be handsome.”

  He heard the grin in her voice, and in spite of himself, he offered a shadow of a smile as well. “They would be handsome.”

  “There you are,” she whispered, letting her hand fall away. “I’ve missed you.”

  He made himself face her directly. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a great brooding donkey.”

  “You mean an ass.”

  “Be a lady.”

  A smile lit her beautiful face. “Never.”

  He smiled too, fully this time. Becca could always cheer him up. And truly, a life as her husband would not be any gruelling punishment. He wanted to spend each day with her as it was. It was simply that—

  Her gaze had shifted to something behind him. “Warry! Where are you off to?”

  Hartwell glanced over his shoulder and spotted Becca’s younger brother, Joseph Warrington, skulking across the lawn. Warry had always been a skulker. And a tattler, and a gabster, and a damn bloody nuisance. As children, the only thing that could draw a truce between himself and Becca in their war of frogs and dried leaves down the backs of dresses and shirts, bonnet thievery, and cravat unknotting was to join forces to push her obnoxious younger brother into the frog pond or encourage him to climb a tree, promising they’d join him and then leave him stranded and bellowing at them in the branches.

  Yet Warry had grown into such a serious young man of late. Hartwell could no more imagine the stony-faced lad trotting after them on their adventures, prattling animatedly about different types of ploughs and the workings of horses’ digestive systems, than he could imagine himself light and free enough to grab a handful of leaves and stuff them down the back of Becca’s dress.

  “N’where,” Warry mumbled. He dragged his fingers through his wheat-coloured hair. At nineteen, he was quite handsome, apart from his recent dourness. He was tall and slender and well made, as were all of the Warrington brood. He wasn’t as striking as Becca, but he was handsome, with fine features, eyes the colour of a summer sky after rain, and a wide, generous mouth. “Got errands.”

  “Speak up,” Becca urged.

  Warry sighed. “I have errands,” he enunciated as slowly and carefully as though Becca were deaf.

  “You’re supposed to be chaperoning us.”

  “Annie’s here.” Warry jerked his head toward Becca’s maid, who was standing several yards away, her hands clasped in front of her.

  Hartwell’s mood was further dampened. “We are watched with more scrutiny than babes,” he muttered.

  Warry’s gaze found his for a moment, but Hartwell couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and the strangeness of the look made his stomach jump a bit.

  “He is probably going to see his new friend Lord Balfour,” Becca said knowingly, shimmying her shoulders slowly and catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she grinned at her brother.

  Warry’s gaze hardened, though his cheeks turned pink. “It is none of your concern.”

  “So you are going to see Balfour! What is it today? Will he teach you to drink as a man does? To spit as a man does? To prattle on endlessly about horribly dull subjects, on which you have no real knowledge, and to dismiss any contribution a woman tries to make to your conversation because her brains are very obviously made of crinoline, and her only worth is in how many sons she can produce?”

  “I’m not going to see Lord Balfour today.” Warry stared at her for a long moment. “And it is rude of you to think so badly of him.”

  Then he turned and stalked away.

  Becca snorted softly. “Between the two of you, I feel like I am forever in the presence of sulking children. Do let me see you smile again soon, Hartwell, or I shall frog you relentlessly.”

  The implication that he himself might resemble the damnable brat in behaviour was nearly enough to wipe the sullenness from Hartwell’s face. Warry had barely spoken to him since their families had arrived in London in preparation for the Season, and Hartwell had even attempted to joke with him at the Gilmore rout, though, he recalled with a slight hint of shame, the joke had perhaps not been made in the friendliest spirit. And they hadn’t spoken often last year either—Hartwell and Becca had been busy avoiding entanglements with overeager potential matches, and Hartwell had barely seen the younger Warrington—though he could still recall teasing Warry over tea and Warry responding with laughter. He had missed Warry’s laughter more than he cared to admit.

  The young man who had just stormed past him without a word looked as though he’d never laughed in his life.

  Hartwell wrapped his arms loosely around his knees. “He has been so disagreeable of late.”

  “He does not like to leave the country in winter, and we arrived in Town this year just after Christmas.”

  “You think that is it?”

  “Who can say?” Becca’s voice held a note of sadness. “We were everything to one another, not so long ago. Now, I speak, and I can immediately feel him close some invisible door on me.”

  “Why do you tease him so about Balfour? Is it not fortunate that he has found a friend? He had always preferred the company of farmyard animals and books to people. He’s never had close friends.”

  “He’s always had us.”

  “We pushed him into ponds.”

  “I can’t stand Balfour,” Becca admitted. “He looks like a great wax sculpture. He fancies himself Warry’s mentor, and yet he teaches my brother nothing of use. I am sure of it.”

  “Well, you do know everything.”

  “I do!” Becca agreed readily. “The whole world should listen to me.”

  Very slowly, Hartwell reached behind him, the movement subtle enough not to draw any attention from his companion, who was still staring after her younger brother.

  He picked up a handful of leaves.

  Her shriek of surprise as they went down her back was enough to make him laugh, genuinely laugh. And when she pounced on him, he pulled her over and they tumbled together on the grass. Not even Annie’s series of increasingly disapproving coughs could stop him from reaching out to pinch Becca’s arm while she yelped and tried to kick his shin. He lay there for a moment, staring into the most familiar eyes in all the world, and tried the words out in his mind: Lady Rebecca Hartwell. My wife.

  Joseph, the Viscount Warrington, hated William Hartwell. His loathing had simmered in him the entire afternoon, mercifully distracting him from his nerves regarding that night, as he studiously avoided going back to the house until he could be sure Hartwell had left. It was quite a turn-up for the books because not that long ago, he could recall quite liking the fellow and being happy to find himself in his company—even if it was only as Becca’s tagalong younger brother and the target of all their mischief. But over the course of last Season—Warry’s first—he had found himself, at first, mildly irritated by Hartwell’s presence, then annoyed by it, and now, following Hartwell’s cruelty toward him at the Gilmore rout, downright infuriated by it. It did not help that Warry mostly only saw him these days when he was supposed to be chaperoning Becca so that she and Hartwell couldn’t do anything scandalous. Unless shoving frogs down someone’s shirt was some sort of obscure French method of lovemaking that Warry was entirely ignorant of—and to be fair, he
would be—he hardly thought his parents had anything to concern themselves about on that score. Sometimes he thought Becca and Hartwell were more brother and sister than Becca and himself. For all that, though, Warry did have a brotherly duty to Becca, as well as a duty to the entire Warrington name, and this entire dreadful mess was his fault to begin with. Which was why he found himself out of doors hours after the household had gone to bed, at midnight, alone, in the rookery of St. Giles.

  Or, to be more precise, not alone. He was almost certain he’d been followed since leaving Oxford Street and was quite sure the fellows following him weren’t doing so out of an abundance of care for his welfare. He was sure to end up in the pages of a newspaper, in an article that finished by stating that the details of his funeral arrangements were to follow. He straightened his shoulders, thinking of what Lord Balfour would say about his letting an overactive imagination get the better of him. He wished he were Lord Balfour right now. Confident, unafraid, and claiming the world as his own with every elegant stride he took through it.

  A flash of heat went through Warry at the recollection of the imposing figure Balfour cut. Why a nonpareil such as Balfour had deigned to take a trembling mouse like Warry under his wing was beyond him, but he was grateful for the turn of fortune that had thrown Balfour and himself together. Why, just yesterday, Balfour had observed that Warry seemed not quite the thing and had asked what was the matter. The concern in his dark eyes had almost convinced Warry to spill the whole sordid tale. Balfour would quite likely have found a solution that didn’t involve Warry wandering St. Giles alone in the dead of night. But Warry had been too ashamed of what he’d got himself into to confide in the fellow whose good opinion he sought above all others.