Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1) Read online

  Lost in Love

  Louisa Cornell

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  Other Titles By

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Louisa Cornell

  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.

  Created with Vellum

  This book is dedicated to the young Pennsylvania airman who saw a photo of a pretty girl on his buddy’s desk while he and the buddy were serving in Germany together. Once he knew the girl was his buddy’s sister, he decided to write to her, a girl he’d never met. This book is also dedicated to the young Alabama belle who wrote back to the airman she had never met. They wrote to each other for a year. When the airman shipped home, he took a bus to Alabama to meet his pen pal. They met May 4th. They had one date. They married May 11th and were married forty years when the airman with the romance hero’s heart traveled ahead to wait for her. It is little wonder I believe in the romance of the written word. It is the entire reason I am here. This book is for you, Mama and Daddy. With all of my love.

  Chapter One

  Yorkshire – April, 1816

  “You are planning to murder me, aren’t you?”

  After a mere twenty years of life, Adelaide Formsby-Smythe was to die a no doubt horrible death for asking the wrong question. To be more precise, for asking a man the wrong question.

  Not the question about her imminent demise, which she had asked simply in jest. At least she hoped she had. Seated beside her on the high perch phaeton the man with the flashing green eyes, stiff shoulders, and grinding teeth, most definitely gave one pause.

  “Not at the moment,” he muttered.

  His answer did nothing to allay her concern for two reasons. One—he had not answered her original question, the one which had set this entire debacle of a conversation in motion. Two—he still had “the look.”

  She’d witnessed “the look” in the eyes of her four brothers many times over the years. The after-effects of “the look” seldom boded well for her. In the past, it had resulted in several unfortunate encounters with nettle patches, frogs, snakes, an extremely smelly goat (in her bedroom, no less), and an unpleasant roll down Breckneck Hill in an old ale barrel.

  The present situation differed entirely. Her brothers were basically harmless and, when pitted against her, inept at best. Thus, they posed no real threat. The Duke of Selridge, on the other hand, was neither harmless nor inept. Marcus Winfield, decorated hero of the Battle of Waterloo, presently gave her “the look” whilst delivering a detailed lecture on the position of the sun and the nature of the terrain—all because she had asked him a simple question.

  In hindsight, she had to agree no reasonably intelligent lady her age would have had the audacity to make such an inquiry of any man, let alone a duke. It was, of a certainty, one of the three most fatal questions a woman could ask. The first two being— “Do you love me?” and “Are you offering marriage?”

  Much as she enjoyed the indignant fire in those green eyes and the way his truly amazing mouth moved as he spoke, she couldn’t let him go on like this. Quite so, in for a penny, in for a pound. She’d received no response to the question of her murder. He’d obviously invoked a male’s proclivity to ignore questions he deemed frivolous or unworthy of response. As a dramatic death wasn’t in the offing, she would ask her original incendiary question again.

  “Well, Your Grace, are we lost?”

  “Miss Formsby-Smythe, have you been listening to me at all?” His exasperation was palpable.

  “To be perfectly honest, Your Grace, no. I seldom listen to men who splutter at me for making what any intelligent person would agree is a reasonable inquiry.” It pleased her to note her voice did not quiver at all.

  The vein in his temple pulsed rhythmically. Obviously, this was not the answer he wanted. He had not been a duke for long, but his ducal glare was already highly polished.

  “During the first hour of this farcical outing, you have chattered like a magpie on every conceivable topic—the weather, the scenery, the trees, the rocks and every blo— blessed bird we encountered.”

  “I like birds,” she said with her cheekiest grin. Hmm. Another unacceptable response. His current resemblance to a hawk eying a mangy mouse had her questioning her affection for winged creatures.

  He pulled the phaeton to a stop and turned, apparently to give her his full attention. Lucky her. “The second hour you sat like an old stump, not uttering a word, for which I thanked my lucky stars.”

  “I never —”

  “Of that I have no doubt. I am certain silence is not your normal state.”

  “Sir, you go too far.” Adelaide folded her arms across her chest and pointed her nose in the air only to have a feather from her bonnet flop over between her eyes.

  He fixed two iced over pools of stormy sea green on her face. Lord, she’d either freeze or drown in those eyes. Or both. “This little jaunt became ‘too far’ the minute we left the house.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake. I do apologize for offending your male sensibilities, Your Grace. I asked a perfectly understandable question. There is no need for you to get yourself into a state.” She flipped the errant feather back over the brim of her bonnet and searched the moors for something more interesting than his shiver inducing scrutiny.

  “A state. A state? I am a soldier. A major in His Majesty’s cavalry. I never get myself into a state,” he said very loftily for a man mad enough to spit. “I am a master strategist. I assure you I am completely aware of my surroundings, and I, therefore, always know exactly where I am. So, to answer your first question, no. We are not lost. I am still contemplating my response as to the question of murder.”

  “You might have said so earlier, before you became insulting and petulant.” Adelaide’s gaze was drawn to his face once more. Oh dear, the vein at his temple was still pulsing.

  “Insulting? What in God’s name did I say that was insulting?”

  He really is the outside of enough.

  “I was not ‘chattering like a magpie,’ as you so politely put it. I was merely attempting to be a pleasant companion. Frankly, Your Grace, I have sat on stumps that were better company than you. And the reason I had the utter temerity to ask if we were lost is because we have passed that outcropping of rock six times in the last hour.”

  “You counted?” He managed to sound both outraged and incredulous at the same time.

  “I had little else to do, sir. Your conversation, the scintillating series of grunts and nods that it
was, simply did not occupy my mind enough to prevent me from noticing we have been driving around in circles.”

  Marcus regarded the fuming young woman seated next to him. When he had courted her sister so assiduously, Adelaide Formsby-Smythe had merely been the younger sister. Much younger when one compared her twenty or so years to his practically ancient thirty. He would not have noticed her now, save for the fact she had handily delivered him a blistering set down. Very few of his closest friends and family would dare to do what this little chit had done. Astonishingly amusing actually.

  The poor girl had every right to cut up at him. His remarks had been unkind and worse, untrue. Oh, at first her ceaseless chatter had been annoying. His annoyance might have had more to do with the fact she had completely foiled his plan to outwit his mother’s romantic scheming. Rather than refuse the trip across the moors outright, as any normal young lady of breeding would have done; Miss Formsby-Smythe had the audacity not only to accept his invitation, but to enjoy every minute of the outing. Until now, that is.

  To an outsider, the moors were a barren, intemperate, unfriendly place. His entire purpose in withdrawing to the northern estate was for the distance it put between him and the rest of the world. He’d wanted nothing to do with God or man—the one having abandoned him and the other spouting platitudes about time healing all wounds. In the wilds of Yorkshire, he’d hoped to outrun them both.

  He had been most decidedly wrong. From man, he could run. From God, he could not. God was everywhere, it seemed. Even in Yorkshire. Especially in Yorkshire. It took a young woman a few years out of the schoolroom with the eyes of a child to remind him of it. For her, every mile—every new vista brought something exciting and wondrous to see. The smallest of things struck her as worthy of notice.

  “Look at that rock. It’s as if an errant bird has dropped a pebble onto the moor and a tree of granite grew from it. The moors do have trees, Your Grace. Trees of stone.”

  He’d made no response, but he grudgingly saw the sudden eruptions of rock dotting the landscape in a whole new way.

  A trio of otters playing chase across the flat rocks in a shallow streambed was greeted like old friends. To his utter amazement, her cheery “Hello. Aren’t you lovely?” was answered by all three sleek creatures standing on their back legs and chittering a reply before returning to their play.

  Of a long stretch of bog, with its mounds of sphagnum moss patched between solid ground and open water, she’d said, “It looks like the rug in my father’s study. All patchy and threadbare with little bits of plush here and there. Oh, but it smells infinitely better. It smells green. Deep, dark, forest green. How heavenly. I wish my father’s study smelled as sweet.”

  Green? Green had a smell? And not simply green—forest green. When she’d turned away to call to a covey of red grouse, he’d inhaled deeply. It did smell green, green like a forest, not like his mother’s gardens or the lawns at Winfield Park.

  She knew every plant and animal on the moors by name, and this was her first trip to Yorkshire. She had said so at the interminable dinner party last night. The one at which he’d sat there like the old stump whose company she preferred, if her earlier tirade was to be believed.

  Her identification of the cotton grass was easy. With its white wooly heads, it could hardly be named otherwise. How was it she knew the asphodel and yellow stars just beginning to peek out at the world? “Reminder flowers” she’d called them. “They’ve come out to remind us spring will come. As it always does.”

  She’d nearly overturned the carriage when she leapt to her feet and shielded her eyes with her hand to watch a pair of merlins wheeling across the sky. Even a sudden rainstorm of a few minutes’ duration did not deter her. “It’s like a child’s temper tantrum, don’t you think, Your Grace. Quickly fussed up and as quickly calmed down. How funny.”

  It struck him. She had opened his eyes to the Yorkshire of his youth. Truthfully, he hadn’t been annoyed by her “chatter.” He was at turns captivated and comforted by it. The lilting rise and fall of her conversation had soothed him as nothing had in a very long time. She soothed him.

  Ah! That is what irritated him. No longer the quiet, plain houseguest he was forced to court to honor his late brother’s promise, she’d become attractive. Very attractive. He was hard pressed to look away from her sparkling eyes and smiling Cupid’s bow mouth. It would be easier if the inane drivel he expected of a girl her age came out of that mouth. Damn. Why did she have to be so bright and kind and alluring?

  Get hold of yourself. It was best he put those tender stirrings to a quick and merciless death. A man like him had no right. He’d already destroyed two members of his family. He’d not take a chance on unleashing his unpredictable rages and cruel tongue on such an innocent. In spite of his mother’s hopes, no matter what the understanding between her and his brother, Marcus had changed his mind. This entire plan smacked of a fool’s errand, with him as the fool. He would not be proposing to this disturbing little wood sprite. She’d undoubtedly refuse him anyway.

  Indeed, whilst he’d sat immersed in his brown study, his already meager cachet with Miss Formsby-Smythe dwindled to nothing. Her tapping foot and magnificent scowl left it in no doubt. She was fed up and furious and in all likelihood had another stinging set down ready for him.

  He could not help it. The memory of the one she’d dealt him earlier made him smile.

  “Oh,” she huffed, crossing her arms beneath her shapely bosom and fixing her gaze on the ears of the matched pair of blacks in the traces. “Now you are laughing at me.”

  He pursed his lips in an effort to erase his smile. “I am not laughing at you, Miss Formsby-Smythe. There is nothing at all funny about this situation.”

  “On that, we are in total agreement, Your Grace. If you are such a master strategist, how is it you could not devise a single plan to thwart the efforts of my parents and your mother in forcing us to take this little ride in the country? We both know neither of us wanted to spend the afternoon with the other.”

  Something indefinable tinged her voice. It bothered him. Still, it wasn’t entirely his fault they had been forced to spend the last several hours tooling about the countryside in his new phaeton.

  “I assumed if you had not wanted to come, you would have pleaded a headache or some other female complaint. If you want a soldier to try and formulate a plan you must at least let him know it, Miss Formsby-Smythe.”

  What a horse’s arse of a response. It did have the desired effect, however, because she suddenly grew silent.

  For a few breaths, at least. “Need I remind you, you are no longer a soldier? You are a duke. You could have said no.”

  “My dear Miss Formsby-Smythe, you’ve met my mother. Napoleon himself could not tell my mother no.”

  She did not give voice to her amusement, but laughter shone in her eyes—luminous, intoxicating laughter.

  “And you do not need to remind me I am a duke. It is a fact of which I am painfully aware.”

  Damn.

  He had revealed too much. Something he was loathe to do. Especially to a creature with the allure and insight of Miss Formsby-Smythe. Even after six months, the pain of having lost his older brother to a sudden heart seizure waited like a bog on the moors, ready to drag him into a cold, dark place. He started the horses back onto the narrow cart path that crossed the bleak Yorkshire landscape of his vast northern estate.

  Blast.

  She had not meant to dredge up such memories. The past year had dealt him enough heartache for a lifetime. The wounds he’d received at Waterloo nearly killed him. As it was he had returned to England with a long scar marring his handsome face and a pronounced limp from a badly twisted leg. Add a broken engagement and the sudden death of his brother—life of late had not been terribly kind to Marcus Aurelius David Winfield. The injustice of it all reminded her of a bear baiting, life’s dogs nipping and chewing at him and him refusing to fall.

  “I am so terribly sorry about
Julius, Your Grace. He was a genuinely kind gentleman. I was so very fond of him.”

  It was an error in decorum to call the previous duke by his given name, in spite of her dear friendship with Julius. The man, who was Major Winfield until three months ago, appeared oblivious to her faux pas. Grief often made people oblivious to a great many things.

  “Thank you.” His voice uncharacteristically hoarse, he continued. “Julius was the best of brothers. He was my best friend. I cannot accustom myself to the idea he is gone.”

  The brave soldier, the powerful, sometimes-a-bit-arrogant aristocrat was in an instant terribly sad and very much alone. Adelaide could think of nothing appropriate to say.

  They rode along in a more comfortable silence. As they did, Adelaide grew a little ashamed. As easy as it was to lay the blame for this miserable excursion at her ambitious mama’s doorstep, it was also unfair.

  When all was said and done, Adelaide had been the one who’d accepted the duke’s tight-lipped invitation to take a ride in his phaeton. Once she had, she’d contrived to do all in her power to attract his notice.

  She’d dressed in her loveliest shell pink sprigged muslin dress. The muslin was meant to be a tribute to his military service. The war now over, most young ladies had returned to wearing gowns of French silk. The memory of those lost at Waterloo would not allow Adelaide to do so.

  Not that the duke noticed. She might have been wearing sackcloth and a purple turban for the few glances he threw her way. How unkind of her. Why should he care her rose-colored light velvet pelisse was of the latest stare? With its hussar-style black frog fasteners marching down the front and its embroidered hem brushing her ankles, it was the perfect complement to her dress. Her little half boots were fashionable as well as practical. The ensemble was completed by an abbreviated straw bonnet, decorated with a plain pink ribbon around the crest, a few wispy pink feathers and a jeweled dragonfly hatpin.