Page 1 of How to Seduce a Viscount
Chapter One
Little Albury in the Surrey Hills, Late January 1827
Lucien Parkhurst, the ton’s newest viscount, was a self-proclaimed chionophile and a consummate lover of all things winter. His recently acquired neighbours in Little Albury would not take issue with that moniker. On any given day, while they were sensibly tucked up in their country homes and cottages, the young viscount could be found striding about the environs of the Surrey Hills in his greatcoat and muffler, head bare, the wind having its way with the dark waves of his hair. When he wasn’t striding, he was riding a great black horse named for the Celtic warrior, Vercingetorix who, for the sake of efficiency, answered to Vere.
Tonight, though, the gravity of the chill weather had sent even the redoubtable Vere to his warm stall in the stables and his master indoors along with the rest of Little Albury. The only difference being that while the other residents were scanning the skies with grim worry, Lucien scanned them with growing hope.
He’d been watching the grey clouds all afternoon for signs of that most blessed—and in Surrey most rare—occurrence, snow. If there was to be snow at all in these parts, better known fortheir chalk downs, it would be here in the hills where elevation gave snow a fighting chance.
Luce stood at the bank of long-arced cathedral windows of Tillingbourne Abbey’s library and looked hopefully out into the darkness. The windowpanes were cold in testament to the weather but the fire at his back filled the room with a comfortable heat. There were lamps enough for reading long into a late hibernal evening—the kind of quiet night that was perfect for snow.
There was nothing quite like going to sleep amid a soft snowfall and waking up to the ground covered in pillows of white. Nothing like a morning spent out of doors, strapping on snowshoes and being the first to tramp across acres of pristine whiteness.
Nor was there anything like a snowy evening for reflection. Snow forced one to stay inside with one’s own thoughts. These days he had plenty of those. He’d come to winter at Tillingbourne in large part to sort those very thoughts. To figure out who he might become—a question, that for various reasons, needed answering in the next six months. This might indeed be his last chance to shape his identity. To plot his own course in life, as opposed to the course plotted for him by others.
‘Your brandy, my lord.’ A footman entered and set a tumbler beside the armchair at the fire—Rowley, Luce thought his name was. He’d been learning all the staff’s names since he’d come back from his brother’s Christmastide wedding in Wales.
‘Thank you, Rowley.’ Luce smiled his appreciation from across the room. ‘I won’t be needing anything else tonight.’
Everything in those two sentences felt foreign to him. The words, the giving of an order, responding to the title ‘my lord’ as if he’d been born to it, which he hadn’t. The title was his by mere happenstance, plucked at random by the King from the pile of gifts that were the monarch’s to give. Now, he had a title, anestate and the expectation that, if he wanted to keep these things in perpetuity, he would marry before the year was out.
That year had begun in July when the title had been bestowed on him. He had six months left. His other two brothers had already married and satisfied the monarch’s terms. Their titles were safe now, as long as they produced a son to inherit.
Luce rubbed at his eyes. He was feeling the pressure. He didn’t want to disappoint his grandfather who’d had a hand in arranging the titles. He didn’t want to disappoint the local community. If he chose to be the viscount in truth, he needed to marry. It hardly made sense, nor did it seem fair to the local community, to invest himself in the role of Viscount Waring only to have his legacy erased upon his death. And yet, if not for those considerations, he’d not be seeking a wife on his own accord. He’d not planned to marry for himself, not for a long while.
Although now that he was considering marriage, the conditions were not conducive. Winter was not ideal wife-hunting season. London was depleted of company and people in the countryside were separated by miles of road and bad weather. A man was limited to the prospects in his immediate vicinity.
In Little Albury, those prospects bordered on dismal. It wasn’t for the lack of Little Albury’s interest. There were women aplenty who had made it clear they wouldn’t mind helping his matrimonial cause to the altar. It was for a lack ofhisinterest.
He simply couldn’t see himself with any of them. Not with the quiet, doe-eyed Clara Benton, granddaughter of an earl, nor the squire’s daughter, Arabella Malmsby, who was vivacious to a fault. Nor any of the daughters of the local gentry who aspired to the ranks of the peerage.
Vivacious or quiet, they were all the same once one got past the outer trimmings. They would all make a steady wife whowould exist competently and unobtrusively in the background of his life—well maybe not Arabella, but the rest certainly would.
All of them were unobjectionable choices. He wanted more. His brothers had both made love matches. Why shouldn’t he aspire to the same? This was one way in which he did not wish to differentiate himself from the family.
He may have to wait until spring and a journey to London. It would be cutting it fine on the deadline. He’d only have a few weeks to find a bride and convince her to marry before July, which might be harder to do in reality than in theory. Tillingbourne Abbey was very much a work in progress in terms of being ready to bring a bride home. All except the library. He’d restored that first.
Luce glanced towards the long library table where he spent hours researching and writing about various subjects. His latest botanical treatise had been published last spring. His current work was a memoir for his grandfather. It was meant to be a gift for his eighty-ninth birthday in April. When Luce wasn’t writing he was decoding ciphers for that grandfather who, even at his advanced age, kept a very active hand in the darker edges of the diplomatic world.
Luce supposed he could apply those same research skills to his bridal hunt. He could spend the winter poring through Debrett’s and sending letters of enquiry in advance of the Season to fathers of eligible daughters. He could engage his mother for suggestions. He could compile a heavily curated list. But all that seemed rather counterintuitive to the point of making a love match or something close to it. The Parkhursts were famous for such matches and his brothers’ recent marriages had solidified the generational trend.
The recent duress he felt to follow suit was just another example of the self-imposed pressure he struggled with tobalance his own sense of independence with his devout loyalty to the family, to his brothers.
His whole life had been a battle between the fervent yearning to belong, as his brothers belonged, and his own desire to step outside the family circle. For him to be recognised for himself as a scholar in his own right. Something that was deuced hard to do when one was a member of the Four Horsemen and the youngest of four brothers, three of whom had already carved out dashing reputations before he’d even reached puberty. Much of his road in life so far had been strongly pre-determined.
Luce made his way to the waiting brandy and his chair, set at an angle to take in both the warmth of the fire and the view of the outdoors. He sank into the chair with a pleasant sigh, reminding himself that even within those pre-ordained parameters, he had carved something of his own niche as a scholar. A lover of languages and of women—he’d upheld the family reputation on that last one admirably and if it hadn’t been for the current situation, he might have continued in that vein.
He’d been in no matrimonial hurry before the title. There’d been no succession to secure and no inheritance to protect. In fact, being unmarried was a benefit in his and his brothers’ line of work as the Four Horsemen—Britain’s covert answer to diplomatic situations gone awry. He lived an uncertain and dangerous life. Six months ago, all that had changed. It still felt as if it were a dream—a bad one.
The Horsemen had been sent to apprehend a saboteur at the Wapping Docks who was intent on blowing up a ship loaded with privately sponsored money and arms bound for the Greek war of independence. They’d been successful in their mission at the price of losing their brother, Stepan. His body had never been recovered from the water. Either he was missing, or he was…dead.
Luce took a long swallow of brandy, letting it burn his throat, his thoughts. It was still too hard to think that word, let alone say it out loud. But what else was there to think? It had been six months with no word, no body. The reality of that jarred him anew when he woke every day. Another day without Stepan. Another day of coping with the knowledge that Stepan was gone for today. For tomorrow. For ever. For the rest of the mornings of Luce’s life. Of which, God willing, there’d be many but one never knew. Stepan was proof of that. A Horseman’s life was uncertain and complicated.
Luce raised his glass to the flames in a toast. ‘To you, brother, wherever you are.’
Stepan had no idea of what he’d set in motion the night he’d disappeared under the waters or of the consequences—public, private and personal.
To the public eye, the king had awarded the three brothers titles in gratitude for their bravery and service to their country while subtly thrusting them onto the marriage mart without their consent.
