Loving a Fearless Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Book
Abigail Agar
Introduction
Penelope is beginning her season in London as an underdog. She will compete for the attention of marriageable gentlemen along with beautiful girls with flawless beauty while she has a large scar marring hers.
Nash met Penelope years ago and experienced an instant connection with her. Defying the odds, Nash and Penelope meet and connect again.
But Penelope's cousin Henry works relentlessly to break them up. He is fearful his secret will become common knowledge if she marries Nash because Henry will no longer have leverage over her.
As the only son and heir to the Duke of Somerset, Henry's future depends on the course of this relationship, a relationship he is determined to end.
Chapter 1
Penelope Balfour stood facing the mirror and looked at the eighth ball gown she had tried on today. The modiste her mother Cecilia used had made all eight gowns with an eye toward Penelope’s hourglass figure.
Madame Leduc had raved endlessly about Penelope’s chestnut brown hair and her warm brown eyes. She showed Penelope and Cecilia how well Penelope could wear both pastels and jewel tones. Something not a lot of girls could do.
Cecilia was pleased. Penelope looked beautiful in every gown. Cecilia would take them all, on Penelope’s approval of course.
But Penelope still stood facing the mirror looking at the eighth ball gown she tried on today seeing nothing but the scar on her face. The first seven gowns she tried on she barely noticed either. She would start her first season in two weeks, and all she could think about was her scar.
Penelope had had the scar for four years. Her mother and her older brother, Edward told her they were so used to it they never noticed it anymore. But everyone else noticed it. How could they not? It ran along her hairline from her temple to the bottom of her ear on the left side of her face.
It was most visible next to her ear where the unpleasant white line didn’t have her hair to hide it. She had to wear her hair in the same style day in and day out to help cover it. Her hair swept to the side and in a style where it draped loosely down and forward to cover the unpleasant left side of her face. At least her hair looked good that way.
If she blushed pink, her scar turned a light red, having a life of its own. If she were angry, it turned a deep purplish red. If she cried, it turned dark red. She could no more control it than she could control the blinking of her eyelids.
Cecilia looked at her. “Well, Penelope. How do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” Penelope said.
Cecilia let out a sigh of relief. “Yes. Madame Leduc certainly knows her way around the colour palette. We’ll take this one also, Madame.”
Madame Leduc beamed. “Penelope, you are so lucky you can wear almost any colour. I will finish alterations before your first ball. Let me get the fabric swatches.”
Cecilia looked at Penelope, trying to read her thoughts. “Shall we take the swatches to the cobbler? Or go to get matching ribbons? Gloves? Hats?”
Penelope gave her mother a small smile. Her energy was sapped. She needed so much strength just to go out of the townhouse door and into the questioning glances on London’s streets.
“Tomorrow, Mother?”
“Of course,” Cecilia said. “Let’s go home and have some tea.”
Cecilia, Edward, and Penelope shared a townhouse in London with Cecilia’s brother, Avery Stanton, the Duke of Somerset, and Avery’s son, Henry. Tragically, Cecilia’s husband, Albert, had died suddenly. That was when Avery took in Cecilia’s family.
All, including Avery, were happy with the arrangement. He was admired for the kind gesture, and he liked the admiration. If it weren’t for Avery’s wayward son, Henry, it would be perfect.
Henry was a tall, handsome man with a mean streak. Penelope tried to come up with something that softened the word ‘mean’, but she couldn’t. It seemed such an awful thing to say about her cousin. Menacing, sinister, and disruptive all came to mind, but she somehow always returned to mean. The word fit best. Just looking into Henry’s eyes made Penelope shiver.
Penelope stayed as far away from Henry as she could. Not always an easy thing to do. For a reason Penelope never understood, Henry found pleasure trying to get under her skin.
After arriving home from the modiste, Penelope went up to her bedchamber for a rest. She lay in bed looking up at the fabric that made a canopy overhead. Why was she so tired? And melancholy?
Penelope was about to start her first and hopefully last season. She, as well as all girls her age, had dreamed of this since they were small. Balls, musicals, the theater, rides through the park with gentlemen looking for a wife. All fun.
But the thing that had plagued her for the past four years plagued her now. Her scar. She would be in a crowded ballroom hoping for dance partners – dance partners who would not end up running in the opposite direction when they saw her. The girls would whisper while looking back at her every so often to see if the scar was still there. Did they think it might disappear? She wasn’t sure she was strong enough for the rejection.
Penelope sighed and turned to her side. No wonder she was tired. The season would be very long, she feared.
After her rest, Penelope found Cecilia in the parlour with the fabric colour swatches on her lap.
“Hello, Mother,” she said with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel.