Page 1 of The Beast of Beswick
Chapter One
England, 1819
Her pulse drumming at a fierce clip, Lady Astrid Everleigh burst through the front doors of her uncle’s country estate in Southend. The flashy coach in the drive was as unmistakable as its owner—the arrogant and deeply persistent Earl of Beaumont. A sickening feeling leached into her as she scanned the foyer. No one would meet her eyes, not the butler, not the footmen, not even her uncle Reginald whose pallid cheekbones had gone an ugly shade of puce.
“You were s-supposed to be at the market,” he sputtered in surprise.
“What have you done, Uncle?” she demanded, flinging off her cloak. “Did you arrange this without my knowledge or consent?”
Her uncle’s color heightened. “Now, see here,” he blustered, “it’s demmed high time your sister marry, and you know it—”
Not tohim. Never to him.
The pit of sickness in Astrid’s stomach deepened at the thought of sweet, innocent Isobel in the clutches of such a man. The Earl of Beaumont was scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as Astrid was concerned, even if he was now a peer of the realm.
Throttling the ugly memories his name alone conjured, Astrid turned away from her uncle to her ashen lady’s maid, who had appeared upon hearing her voice. “Where are they, Agatha?”
“In the morning salon, my lady. With the viscountess.”
Astrid’s heart plummeted at the sight of the closed doors. Aunt Mildred’s chaperonage would be questionable to say the least. “How long have they been in there?”
“Not five minutes, my lady.”
A blink of an eye and yet enough time for her sweet sister to be thoroughly compromised. Isobel was barely sixteen. She’d been an unexpected and much welcomed surprise to their parents, and Astrid had always been protective. To her, Isobel was still a child, no matter their uncle’s declaration of her being ready to wed. She hadn’t even had a proper Season yet, and already he wanted to marry her off to the highest bidder.
To a liar and a lecher, no less.
Edmund Cain had inherited the earldom from his uncle a handful of years ago. Though a title made him eligible to most, he was still the heartless brute who’d destroyed Astrid’s reputation without a qualm during her first—and only—Season, when she’d had theaudacityto turn down his suit. He’d retaliated with a horrible lie about her lack of virtue, and her entire future had crumbled.
When their parents were taken by illness a year later, she and Isobel had gone into the care of their only living relatives in England. After the year of mourning, Astrid had decided any money left to her would be better saved for Isobel’s coming out. She was the daughter of a viscount, and when the time came, Isobel deserved her due.
But that was before her uncle had gotten his hands on their inheritance. Most of it was gone, except for specific, unreleased funds, which would come to them only upon marriage or the age of twenty-six. Astrid was one year away, and Isobel was a decade away, unless a marriage came first, which clearly was the goal here. But now, eight years after her parents’ deaths, the girls were nearly destitute, or so her uncle claimed.
Destitute enough to seek a connection with an utterly unsuitable earl? If money was in question, it was a certainty. Uncle Reginald would sell his own soul if he could get a farthing for it.
“Lord Beaumont is a peer now,” her uncle said, drawing her attention. “He’s not the man you knew.”
“A leopard cannot change its spots.”
“Now see here, Astrid,” he said, blocking her path. “It is done. Lord Beaumont has pledged—”
“You will stay a far step from me, Uncle. And I don’t care what that man has promised; he will never—” Astrid broke off, the threat as empty as the power she held…which was none.
Without a husband of her own, the truth was that as their guardian, if her uncle wished to marry Isobel off to a pox-marked pauper, he could, and there would be nothing either of them could do about it. Such was the place of a woman in their world.
Astrid switched tactics, turning toward him, her voice softening. “Uncle Reggie, be reasonable. Isobel hasn’t even had a Season yet. Perhaps she can make an even better match, one with greater reward.” She let the suggestion hang in the air, knowing the promise of coin would make her uncle salivate.
The viscount thinned his lips. “Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow.”
“Spoken by the rooster who has nothing to lose,” Astrid said under her breath, though her stomach churned. Had he already made a settlement with Beaumont?
Reasonable discussion was clearly getting her nowhere.
Shooting a look of pure loathing at her uncle, she darted around him to the salon doors and shoved them open, searching for her sister.
Isobel’s face was pinched and her spine rigid. With fear or shock, Astrid did not know. Thankfully, her sister sat on the sofa, hands clasped in her lap while Beaumont stood a short distance away. Not far enough away in Astrid’s opinion. No one else was in the room. Gracious, where on earth was her aunt?
“I thought I told you I wished to be alone, Everleigh,” Beaumont said over his shoulder, annoyance flashing in his eyes for a second before he realized that it wasn’t her uncle who had barged in. “Ah, it’s the spinster. Have you come to congratulate us?” he drawled, satisfaction creeping over his deceptively handsome features. “I assume you’ve heard that I intend to court your sister.”
