Page 1 of The Marquess of Temptation
Chapter One
"Never marry for love, Hestia. Love only works in fairy tales."
This was the sage advice that Hestia Stockbow's mother, Georgina, imparted to her almost daily, for the whole of her childhood.
"Love won't heat your home," Georgina would grumble mid-winter, when a damp chill permeated their small, stone cottage on the Cornish coast. "Or put food in your children's bellies. Do you understand me?"
Hestia would nod solemnly, taking in every word, whilst her mother worked furiously at the bellows, trying to get a flame to catch hold in the kitchen stove. Georgina Stockbow was a beautiful woman, her exquisite face topped by an abundance of golden curls, which Hestia adored brushing with the mother-of-pearl comb that Georgina kept on her dressing table. The comb was the final vestige of Georgina's previous life, and Hestia knew to handle it with the utmost care and respect.
Her mother had grown up as the only daughter of a Viscount and by all accounts had been adored by her parents. On cold evenings, when her father was away, Hestia's mother would regale her with tales of all the dresses and toys that she had owned when she was a girl. She made her previous life sound like a fairy tale; filled with large houses, glamorous people, elegant carriages and balls that went on until the wee hours of the morning. Unlike the story books that Hestia devoured, however, Georgina's fairy tale had ended when she fell in love.
"Now my life is just hard work, an aching back and a husband that's gone more than he's home," she would grumble, shooing Hestia away to bed. Poor Hestia, who was rather serious for such a cheerful looking child, took her mother's words to heart, and where other children feared the dark or goblins and ghouls, Hestia feared meeting Prince Charming, falling in love and being consigned to a life of drudgery.
Being a rather astute child, Hestia noted that while her mother loudly and frequently protested that love was the most abominable thing known to man, she promptly forgot this the moment her father walked through the door. David Stockbow was a most handsome man; over six foot tall, with a shock of black hair, he always cut a dashing figure in his impeccable breeches and boots. Hestia would watch, with a rather detached amusement, as her mother would momentarily feign annoyance with him, for having left them for so long, before quickly falling under his spell, as he wooed her with the spoils of his travels. Silks, mink, and sometimes jewels would be placed on the kitchen table, like an offering for an olden day Empress, for her mother to inspect. Georgina would squeal with delight, fling her arms around her husband's neck and order Hestia outside to play for a few hours. Depending on the length of her father's stay, Hestia would end up spending rather a lot of time in the great outdoors, which she did not mind - but she did find it bothersome when he chose to return in winter.
Inevitably, when her father returned to sea, Hestia would be summoned back inside the confines of Rose Cottage to help her mother decide which of her father's gifts should be brought to the pawn shop in Truro first. Once everything that could be pawned was gone, Georgina would dress Hestia in her Sunday best and frog-march her through the countryside to pay Lady Bedford a visit.
"He's away again?" the old woman would say, with a sigh that wracked her whole body, when Hestia and her mother were ushered into the drawing room.
"You know I hate to ask..." Georgina would whisper.
"I do."
And so did Hestia. She knew from her mother's slumped shoulders and the deepness of the marionette lines, which dragged her smile into a frown, that asking Lady Bedford for help was almost as soul destroying an act as falling in love.
"I'll fetch my purse," Lady Bedford would sigh, before pointedly adding, "Your poor mother was right about him."
"I know," Georgina would whisper.
That Lady Bedford knew Georgina from her past life was a source of endless fascination for Hestia. Sometimes, when her mother was struck down with her mysterious, unknown ailment, Hestia was shipped off to Bedford Hall, to be looked after by her Grandmother's old friend.
"Tell me about my Grandmama," she would beg and Lady Bedford would duly oblige. The Viscount and Viscountess Havisham had adored their only daughter, nearly more than their only son. Which was unthinkable really, for girls were little more than a pretty accessory, designed to complement the male off-spring.
"They were heartbroken when your mother ran off with that scoundrel," Lady Bedford never referred to Hestia's father by name, preferring to Christen him with new monikers like; that scoundrel, that reprobate, that pirate. "Your Grandfather insisted that she be cut off, though when I found out that you were living just outside Truro, your Grandmother often wrote to me, asking for news of you both."
"What did you tell her about me?" Hestia would ask, with wide eyes.
"That you were perfectly perfect," Lady Bedford would smile, "Even if you were born out of scandal..."
Lady Bedford detested scandal. Her own sister, Mrs Actrol, had brought great shame on her family by becoming a Bluestocking author. Hestia, in turn, adored Mrs Actrol, who when she visited, said things which made Lady Bedford cluck her tongue in disapproval. As the years went on and Hestia's mother spent more time in bed, afflicted by a mysterious illness that left her pale and wan, Hestia spent more and more time at Bedford Hall, reading aloud to Lady Bedford or walking one of her many King Charles Cavaliers.
"Lord Bedford detests dogs, he can't bear to be in the same room as them."
If Hestia thought it was rather strange that Lord Bedford's wife had thusly surrounded herself with no less than eight of the creatures, she kept it to herself. She had become much wiser about marriage as she grew; her own parents' tempestuous relationship had near ended since war was declared with Napoleon and her father had taken to sea. Not to fight for a noble cause, her mother would point out with annoyance, rather to plunder the ports of war stricken countries. Before he had left for, what was to be the last time in their marriage, Hestia had overheard her mother reading aloud from the paper.
"Do you see this David? My cousin Amelia has married a Marquess - Lord Delaney. What a sensible girl she always was and now she has married a man with means."
"You were never sensible, my love," Hestia's father had crooned in return, though rather than give a giddy laugh to his flirting, like she usually did, Hestia's mother had emitted a small sob. "No, I don't suppose I was."
By the time that Hestia turned sixteen, her mother had wasted away to skin and bone, and spent most of her days in bed. Hestia kept up her visits to Lady Bedford, both for the comfort that the warmth of Bedford Hall brought, and the few coins that the Lady of the house would slip into her palm as she was leaving. The few coins bought food and firewood, but what her mother needed more than either fuel or food, was a physician. One night, when her mother's breathing became shallow and erratic, Hestia penned a missive to the current Viscount Havisham of Kent, begging for funds to help his ailing sibling.
He arrived a fortnight later, a tall man with a shock of blond hair like his sister's. His face was awash with disapproval as he surveyed the small, stone cottage where his sister had raised his niece.
"I shan't pay a penny for her treatment," he said by way of greeting when Hestia opened the door, "She brought poverty on herself by marrying that cur, and the scandal sent my parents to an early grave. I won't pay for anything, do you hear me?"
"You won't have to spend a penny my Lord, for we buried her only yesterday," Hestia duly intoned, before shutting the door on the only member of her mother's family that she had ever laid eyes on.
Somebody, Hestia wasn't sure who, managed to get in contact with her father. He returned a month after Georgina's death, to fetch Hestia from Bedford Hall, where Lady Bedford had insisted she stay. He was unrecognisable from the man she had known; his hair was no longer black but grey, and his handsome face was concealed by a bushy beard that resembled Bedlam straw.
