A Baron Worth Loving: A Historical Regency Romance Book Read online

  A Baron Worth Loving

  A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL

  BRIDGET BARTON

  Copyright © 2020 by Bridget Barton

  All Rights Reserved.

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  Table of Contents

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  A Baron Worth Loving

  Introduction

  Growing up in a family with three older brothers, Nora Pembroke has a wild spirit, hard to tame. The moment she meets her brother’s childhood friend at the ball, the romantic feelings that she had for him start to revive. However, Nora can hardly imagine that the very handsome gentleman would fall in love with her after years of friendship. As if this were not enough, the same night, Gerard witnesses an embarrassing misunderstanding that makes an earthshaking change in Nora’s life. Will she cover up a scandal that might destroy her reputation? Will she manage to win Gerard’s heart, or her only wish to be loved will remain unfulfilled?

  Lord Gerard Colbourne is a kind and refined Baron. Since his father's death one year ago, he has been responsible for controlling their poor estates and being a guard of his mother and sister. Following his mother's advice to find a bride, Gerard attends a ball that will remain indelibly printed on his mind forever. Much to his surprise, he finds himself into a scheme of a ruse relationship to save his good friend’s younger sister. How far will Gerard go to rescue her? Will he protect Nora only for the sake of friendship, or will he realize that in her eyes, he has found more than what he bargained for?

  Over the course of their plan, a deep and tender affection is growing between Nora and Gerard. However, a series of unexpected events will lead to a social war between families, and another misunderstanding that threatens to keep them apart. What will Nora and Gerard sacrifice for their love? Will they endure all the obstacles that emerge, or will they be condemned to live in pain forever?

  Chapter 1

  Nora Pembroke ran her hand along the smooth, sun-warmed back of her mare and, closing her eyes, drew in a deep breath of the crisp air. It was January, the beginning of the London season and the parliamentary session, and by happenstance the weather had co-operated with an exhilarated day of clear, calm weather.

  The ground was still wet from the cold drizzle yesterday, and all the older folk shook their heads and informed Nora that it would turn grey again soon. But she and her three brothers had taken advantage of the beautiful day and the excitement pulsing through their veins to take their horses out for a ride through the nearby park.

  Nora opened her eyes and caught her oldest brother, still unmarried but ever imperious William, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well?” He smiled at her. “Have you been able to fully enjoy the day now that your eyes have closed in such a fashion, or do you require more loitering time?”

  “Ah, let her loiter,” the youngest, 21-year-old David, interjected with a wink. “We are all feeling the gaiety of London and the enjoyment of time stretching out in front of us. Why should not our little sister?”

  “She’s nineteen,” James intoned, the scholar in him coming forward to correct his brothers, but his eyes still carrying the mischievous Pembroke twinkle. “I hardly think we can call a young woman ‘little’ who has officially entered the public sphere and upon whom we can peg the hopes of the Pembroke estate.”

  “If I thought for a minute you could pin the hopes of any estate on my prowess,” Nora retorted, well used to keeping pace with her brothers’ teasing, “then I’m sure I should run now to America without looking back. Blessedly, however, my father had three sons, all born before his little angel, to shoulder the responsibilities due such men. You may study all the dreary things and go to all the dreary meetings, but I shall take my time closing my eyes and breathing in the London season in all its grandeur.”

  She leapt up then, with the ease that came from many years of horseback riding lessons and practice and balanced herself across the side-saddle as gracefully as she could manage. She arranged her riding habit, a close-cut, stylish scarlet affair that had been made fresh for the season per her mother’s request. It had a double-breasted jacket, a full skirt, and matching velvet hat pinned down over Nora’s soft brown curls.

  She had always thought herself rather diminutive on the social scene, being inordinately petite with brown hair and blue eyes and none of the shapely appeal of some of the prettier girls in her county. But sitting astride her mare with that cap tilted rakishly to one side and her posture stick straight in the saddle, Nora felt the confidence of knowing she and her three handsome brothers would draw just the right kind of attention riding through town.

  David rode up beside her, putting a finger to his top hat as though to mockingly greet a lady he had never met.

  “There is something about London that always seems to bring out your energy, Nora,” he teased. “Be careful that you are on your best behaviour, for Mother has many spies in this part of the city, and every move will be scrutinised and reported back, I assure you.”

  Nora sighed. “It is not that London brings out the energy in me,” she said with a smile. “It is that London stifles my energy, and without wide open fields upon which to race my horse and beautiful lakes in which to bathe, I am left to make a fool of myself in the public sphere.”

  The brothers laughed, but William’s eyes held a veiled concern.

  “Oh, brother,” Nora teased him, edging her horse out into the walkway so that her brothers fell into line beside her. “You needn’t look so dour. I am only teasing. I care about public attention as much as the next girl. I just have never had much skill at courting it. Please, don’t worry yourself.”

  “I do worry,” he answered her a little more soberly. “You know that you’ve a lot of freedom and privilege, Nora. Take care not to take it for granted.”

  “I don’t.” Nora felt a sting to her pride but corrected it almost at once. She knew that her brother meant well. Everyone meant well, guiding her in the right direction and trying to keep her acting as polite and elegant as her wealth and station required. But in her heart, she longed for the intangible things that rarely came to a woman in her position. She thought fleetingly of the box of paints she had not yet unpacked in her rooms back at their London house. She was never complete without them, and though she loved to paint and create there was always a feeling of sadness, longing associated with it. How she wanted to travel across the Channel to the wilds of Europe and see what other magnificent things there were to paint and experience. She fought this longing off as she always did. With a smile and a toss of her head. “Besides, I suspect you are all just worried that I shall be named a blue-stocking and cast out of polite society. And for that, we can only blame Father, who saw fit to educate his daughter as he did his boys.”

  James turned with a reproving frown. “We mustn’t blame Father. I’m sure he had good reason for his ch
oice.”

  Nora couldn’t hold back her laugh. “I know he had good reason, dear James. I was teasing. Of course, I’m grateful for the opportunities I have been given, and I should have you remember that the insult in particular was derived from a circumstance involving a group of women who used to meet with Dr Pope. And Pope is considered most proper now. I’m not sure why we are condemned for studying someone who is so well-regarded in the community.”

  David feigned a yawn, drawing it out with a touch of drama as he always did. “Are we really to speak of intellectual things on a day such as this? Look, up ahead are some fine ladies, and if we are to ride by them absorbed in conversation about a poet who was, even in his scandalous work, dreadfully sermonising, then I shall despair of having come to London at all.”

  At this he pasted a handsome smile on his face and, reaching up a hand, tipped his hat to the ladies as he had pretended to do to Nora earlier. All her brothers had the Pembroke blue eyes, and while William had sandy hair and James a sort of cross between red and blond, David had Nora’s blue eyes and dark hair, and when he raised his eyebrow to the women they nodded in response, hiding their blushes beneath their parasols.

  “You’re impossible,” Nora said.

  “What if you run into one of those ladies at one of the lovely balls we are to frequent this season?” William asked with an indulgent smile.

  “Why, I suppose I will be doubly recognised,” David retorted. “Don’t pretend you weren’t casting a gaze their way, brother.”

  William sighed. “I’m only saying that such bold behaviour will be somewhat startling in this particular part of London, and perhaps there are better ways to be recognised.”

  “Did you hear that, sister?” David asked with affected innocence, turning to look at Nora. “It seems to me that our brother is afraid I’ll be recognised for the wrong thing.” He put a gloved hand to his chin and pretended to think. “Let’s see, how could we make more of an impression in this sleepy little neighbourhood, do you think?”

  “David –” William began with a note of warning, but Nora only laughed, feeling the thrill of excitement she always felt at the mention of one of David’s schemes.

  “Race you to the fountain,” she said, before her brothers could cut her off.

  “It is an impropriety!” James exclaimed. But before the words were even fully out of his mouth Nora and David were off.

  The fountain was all the way on the other side of the park, down a trail that twisted twice through small copses of woods, went past a quiet little pond around which lovers were strolling serenely, and ended at the great stone monument covered over with fresh water.

  David’s horse was the quicker starter, but Nora knew from years of racing with her brothers that if the track was long enough her mare, surer-footed and a good deal better at distance, would take the race. She leaned in over the neck of the beast, nudging her along, and as she rode the faces on either side of her flashed by in various stages of surprise.

  While she saw a few people walking together point and laugh at the fun being had, the majority of the expressions, fleeting though they were, looked rather astonished and distressed. She could see how disapproving one particular group of matrons looked and, though she knew it would probably be best for her to take heed and slow her pace, she urged her horse on regardless.

  She was nearly to the fountain when she felt a sliding sensation on her head and then, in a rush, felt her hatpin escape and her little velvet cap fly off her head. She looked around, but it had rolled out of sight amongst the crowd and in the next moment she was at the fountain with David trailing just a few hoof beats behind.

  “You had a head start,” he complained, laughing as he did so.

  “I did not, and you know it. Your horse always leaps before mine anyway,” Nora protested, too breathless to laugh. She put a hand to her hair and felt with only mild display that all the carefully pinned curls had dislodged and were beginning to tumble down around her shoulders. She looked up and caught an older couple, arm-in-arm and walking by the fountain, gaze openly at her.

  She didn’t recognise them from the other seasons she’d spent in London, but from their dress and bearing they were clearly well-to-do, respectable folk. She put her hand up in a mock salute and smiled broadly. “Good day,” she said, barely holding back a giggle. The exhilaration of the ride was still pumping through her veins. The pair nodded serenely and, the next moment, turned away.

  David stifled a laugh. “Nora, everyone calls me the scandal waiting to happen, but you have far more of a direct manner than I. You won’t get away with such things forever.”

  “What fun would it be if I got away with it?” Nora slid off her horse and patted the mare gently along the neck. “You did well,” she whispered kindly to the creature, who nuzzled her gently in response. Then she turned and examined the trail behind them. “Did you see where my hat went?” she asked David.

  David rolled his eyes. “She beats me thoroughly in a race and then asks me if I managed to sight her headwear whilst she was tearing about the county? The gall of this girl.”

  William and James rode up just then at a respectable trot. William’s smile, though a bit scolding, had humour in it as well. “What am I going to do with you, Nora?” he asked.

  “Join in next time, I sincerely hope,” she retorted. She knew that, for all his bluster, William had a special place in his heart for his little sister. He was unfailingly kind to her and was always looking out for her best interest. She cocked her head in his direction now. “You didn’t happen to see my hat on your way here, did you?”

  Now he wasn’t even making an effort to hide his amusement. “No. Are you telling me it was lost during your decorous ride?”

  She shrugged and climbed back aboard her horse, pretending not to care. “’Tis no matter. What could come of it, anyway?”

  Chapter 2

  “Would you care to explain this?”

  Nora’s heart sank, not because of her mother’s sharp tone, not because of the way she met them at the door when the foursome returned from their ride, but because of what she was holding in her hand.

  “My hat.” She could hear more laughter in her brothers’ strained silence then she felt she would have if they had all guffawed in unison. She stepped in front of them. “How…fortunate.”

  Fanny Pembroke had already turned around in that way she had had since Nora’s childhood, walking down the hall with the confidence of a woman that knew her children would follow dutifully along behind without being asked. She spoke now over her shoulder as she walked, still not turning fully around, as Nora and her brothers stumbled to catch up, tossing aside their jackets and caps as they did so.

  “I’m glad that you see fit to use the word ‘fortunate’,” she said as she walked, “for in the rest of this conversation I don’t know that you’ll find a very useful place for such a word. There is absolutely nothing, aside from the retrieval of your foolishly misplaced article, that is fortunate about your behaviour today or what has resulted.”

  “So, you heard about the race through the park,” James said quietly, taking a seat across the room and crossing one leg over the other as his father always did. He opened a paper and sank behind it, clearly willing to let that moment of destruction rest as his voice in the matter.

  “James!” Nora exclaimed, betrayed.

  “Come now,” Fanny said, whirling around again with flashing eyes. “We shan’t blame James for saying something I already knew.” She was a short woman like Nora, although her hair was lighter and, even though she was older in age, she was clearly of that classically beautiful stock that had driven the Renaissance painters to the craft. She was attired now in dark silk, as she often was, not a wrinkle out of place, an old-fashioned wimple upon her frosted curls, pearls heavy against her throat. She was not a frenzied sort of woman. But when she felt her children had brought shame upon the house in any way, she was a force to be reckoned with. “Sit,” she said crispl
y.

  Nora knew that the instruction was only meant to be directed at her. The boys, although present for the activities, would not be held in any way responsible. James went ignored in the corner, William went to lean against the mantle, but David sat down crisply beside Nora in obvious solidarity. She smiled to herself but kept the amusement from her mother’s eye.