by Mary Balogh
Dear Reader,
Between 1985 and 1998, I wrote more than thirty Signet Regency romances, most of which have long been out of print. Many of you have been asking me about them and hunting for them, and, in some cases, paying high prices for second-hand copies to complete your collections of my books. I have been touched by your interest. I am delighted that these books are going to be available as e-books with lovely new covers and very affordable prices.
If you have read any of my more recent books, The Bedwyn saga, the SIMPLY quartet, the Huxtable series, the Survivors’ Club series, for example, you may wish to discover if my writing has changed in the course of the past 30 years or if my view of life and love and romance remains essentially the same. Whatever you decide, I do hope you will enjoy being able to read these books at last.
Mary Balogh
www.marybalogh.com
“A Certain Magic” Copyright © 1991 by Mary Balogh
A CERTAIN MAGIC
First Ebook edition February 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944654-91-7
All rights reserved. No part of the Ebook may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and Class Ebook Editions, Ltd., the publisher of the Ebook. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Praise for Mary Balogh
“Balogh is today’s superstar heir to the marvelous legacy of Georgette Heyer (except a lot steamier)!” – New York Times Bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips
“With her brilliant, beautiful and emotionally intense writing Mary Balogh sets the gold standard in historical romance.” – New York Times Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“When it comes to historical romance, Mary Balogh is one of my favorites!” — New York Times Bestselling author Eloisa James
“One of the best!” – New York Times Bestselling author Julia Quinn
“Mary Balogh has the gift of making a relationship seem utterly real and utterly compelling.”– New York Times Bestselling author Mary Jo Putney
“Winning, witty, and engaging…fulfilled all of my romantic fantasies.” – New York Times Bestselling author Teresa Medeiros
A Certain Magic
Mary Balogh
Class Ebook Editions, Ltd.
New York, NY
Table of Contents
Cover
Dear Reader Letter
Copyright Page
Praise for Mary Balogh
Title Page
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
Sign Up Page
Author Biography
Also by Mary Balogh
Chapter 1
WHEN a plain but elegant town carriage drew up outside Number Eight, Portman Square, late on the morning of a cloudy April day, it was obvious that it was expected. The doors of the house opened immediately, and a manservant descended the steps in order to throw back the door of the carriage and set down the steps.
A gentleman of early middle years, dressed with impeccable correctness for morning, hovered inside the doorway, but would not demean himself by stepping outside onto the steps. He clasped his hands behind him and frowned. From the lines on his forehead and the creases that ran from his sharp nose to his chin, it appeared that such an expression was not uncommon with him.
A lady set a gloved hand in that of the manservant and accepted his assistance to descend the steps. She smiled at him.
“Thank you, Muggins,” she said. “And how do you do? You have recovered from your attack of gout? I trust Mrs. Muggins is well?”
She smoothed out the folds of her elegant carriage dress as she continued to smile. She listened to the servant’s reply as if she had a genuine interest in his words.
“And pleased I am to see you, Mrs. Penhallow, ma’am,” Muggins made so bold as to add, “and pleased Mrs. Muggins will be, too. ”
“Muggins!” the gentleman called from inside the doorway. “You will not keep my sister talking on the public street, if you please.”
The lady looked toward the doorway and smiled afresh. She walked quickly up the steps, both hands held out before her. She was considerably younger than her brother—no girl, it was true, but not yet approaching middle years. Her large, soft dark eyes and good-humored mouth suggested that she was unlike him in other ways, as well.
“Bruce,” she said, taking his hands in both of hers and turning her cheek for his kiss. “I came as soon as I read your letter.”
“The mails are not what they used to be,” he grumbled. “I wrote four days ago. I shall stay here and see that Muggins and your coachman lift down your baggage carefully. It would be too mortifying if they set some of it down on the pavement for all the world to see, as they are sure to do if they think I am not watching.”
“But I am staying in Cavendish Square,” she said. “I arrived yesterday, too late to call here. Had you forgotten that Web had a house in town?”
Her brother frowned as he turned from the door. “Not staying here?” he said. “When I wrote to tell you particularly that Phoebe has need of you? You will just have to move your baggage here today, Alice. There is no point in keeping two establishments open in town, anyway. A dreadful waste of money. I shall arrange it.”
“You must not provoke yourself,” Mrs. Alice Penhallow said briskly, removing her bonnet and kid gloves. “You forget that Web left me a comfortable fortune along with the house, Bruce. And as for Phoebe having need of me, that is why I have come. I am entirely at her disposal during the days. I shall spend the nights in my own home. How are the children?”
“Spotty,” he said, “and feverish. And peevish. Amanda is to be kept away from them for fear that she will take the infection and not be able to continue with her come-out after all. Imagine what a waste of money that would prove to be after I have taken this house and removed my whole family here for the Season at considerable expense. And Jarvis arrived four days ago—just one hour after I sent a letter on the way to you—sent down from Oxford, though it was on an utterly unjust charge, as I shall explain to someone in no uncertain terms when Phoebe has calmed down and I can see to my own affairs again.”
Alice took his arm and patted it soothingly. “Poor Phoebe must be hagged,” she said. “I shall help her with the nursing of the children, and she will be as cheerful as ever in no time at all, you will see. Now, are we to stand in the hallway all morning, or is there somewhere else we should go?”
“Mrs. Muggins was instructed to bring tea to the morning room,” he said, leading the way to the stairs. His tone was aggrieved. “But if you completed your journey yesterday, Alice, and have merely driven from Cavendish Square this morning, then I daresay you have had tea already.”
“With my breakfast,” she said. “Three hours ago. Another cup now will be very welcome, Bruce. Persuade Phoebe to join me, do. She will be able to tell me exactly what the state of affairs in the sickroom is so that I will be abl
e to make an intelligent contribution as a nurse for the rest of the day.”
“Have you had the measles?” he asked. “I was not at all sure. You had better not go into the nursery if you have not, you know, for measles can be fatal to an adult, so I have heard.”
Alice laughed. “When I was a child,” she said. “Go and fetch Phoebe.”
She expected to find her sister-in-law on the verge of nervous collapse after the ordeals of the past week, during which her two younger children had come down with measles. Phoebe had always liked to view herself as a woman of frail constitution from as far back as Alice could remember. But the agitated manner and abstracted air with which she greeted the new arrival in the morning room had another cause.
It seemed that the sick children were not the mother’s chief worry. Her main concern was that she would be neither available nor in the best spirits to shepherd her daughter around to the dizzying number of balls and routs and concerts that a young lady making her come-out was expected to attend.
“For I must make the sacrifice, like it or not, Alice,” she explained fretfully, leaning forward in her chair and speaking in her usual breathless voice, as if she were confiding the most scandalous of secrets. “Even if my poor darlings are at death’s door, I must sacrifice my maternal instincts for my dearest Amanda. She must not be the last of the young ladies on the dangle for husbands this year to find one. Imagine the disgrace to your brother, Alice.”
Alice understood perfectly why she had been summoned. Not that she had been in any doubt from the moment she had broken the seal on her brother’s letter when it arrived in Bath. She had sighed then and sat down to pen her regrets to several friends who were expecting her company at various entertainments over the coming weeks. And she had known, as she set her maid to packing her trunks for a stay of a few weeks in London, that she must not expect any social pleasures to attach themselves to her stay.
Only one self-indulgence she would insist on, she had decided. She would stay in her own house. It would be a haven of sanity to which she could retire every evening. Being nine-and-twenty years old and a widow of somewhat more than comfortable means had its definite advantages even though she had not for one moment wished poor Web in his grave during the nine years of their marriage.
“Lady Jersey herself smiled most graciously at Amanda two evenings ago at Lord Maitland’s ball,” Phoebe was saying. “I would not be surprised at all, Alice, to find that we will have vouchers for Almack’s before the month is out.”
“Whom did you bring with you as a companion?” Bruce asked, his voice an accusation. “And never tell me you brought that Mrs. Potter, Alice. Her husband used to be in business.”
“And needs her presence in Bath far more than I need it here,” Alice said soothingly. “I brought my maid with me—Penelope, you know. And very excited she is, too, to be in London. She could scarce keep her nose from touching the glass of the window as we drove to Cavendish Square. But I brought no companion, Bruce. I do not need one.”
“Oh, my dear,” her sister-in-law said, shocked. “You cannot stay alone in London. It is not done.”
“It is, by me,” Alice said, setting down her cup and saucer on the table beside her.
“You do not care at all what people may say about my allowing such scandalous behavior in my sister, I suppose,” Bruce said irritably.
“Not at all,” Alice agreed.
“Mr. Westhaven danced the opening set of country dances with Amanda at the Maitland ball,” Phoebe said. “We were very obliged to him, Alice. He quite brought her into fashion. Her card filled up with no trouble at all once he was seen to lead her out.”
“Piers?” Alice said. “At a ball? How funny. I cannot quite imagine Piers at anything so formal. He is still in town, then?”
“Oh, yes,” her sister-in-law said, leaning so far forward she was almost out of her chair, “and will be for the Season, I daresay. They say he is dangling after a wife, Alice, And high time, too, him being heir now to Lord Berringer of Bingamen Hall in Bedfordshire. It is only right that he take another wife. He has worn the willow for poor Mrs. Westhaven for almost nine years. The thought has crossed my mind that perhaps he, fancies dear Amanda, but I think he is perhaps a little old. Do you?”
“Piers?” Alice said. “And Amanda? Oh, yes, Phoebe, I think he is certainly too old. Amanda is barely eighteen. Piers is thirty-six.”
“Of course,” her sister-in-law said, her eyes thoughtful, “it would be a splendid match for her. Everyone is wondering whom he will choose. It would be a great coup for your brother if we could land Mr. Westhaven.”
Alice stood up. “It is time I saw Richard and Mary,” she said, “since it was for their sakes I came. Take me to them, Phoebe. If they have been sick for a week, I suppose they are on the mend already, are they?”
“Oh, dear, no,” their fond mother assured her. “Mary favors me, you know. She is very delicate. Dr. Plaidy feared for her life and still pays daily visits to her bedside. And Dickie’s fever will not come down if you cannot keep him quiet, Alice, especially now that Jarvis is home. Dickie worships Jarvis, you know.”
Alice ascended the stairs behind her sister-in-law, resigned to a day spent in a study sickroom with two peevish patients.
Piers, she thought. Piers and Amanda. Oh, no, never in a million Sundays. He would devour the poor girl for breakfast.
Piers attending London balls during the Season? And dancing? Piers looking around him for a new bride?
She shook off the strange images that the thoughts aroused and smiled as Phoebe opened the door into the darkened nursery.
***
Alice was writing a letter the following morning in the small library that her husband had used as his study whenever they were in town. She was informing Andrea Potter that the situation at Portman Square was not by any means as desperate as it had been made to seem in her brother’s letter. Mary merely needed someone to sit with her and sympathize with her and listen to her complaints. Richard, though still spotty, was roaring back to health and merely needed activity.
The day before, after Phoebe had taken Amanda on an afternoon of visiting, and Bruce, in great relief, had taken himself off to one of his clubs, she had pulled back some of the heavy curtains in the nursery and even opened a window despite Mary’s complaints and Richard’s sniggering claim that his mama would have the vapors. And having ascertained from the doctor that neither child was any longer infectious and from Jarvis that he had had the measles years before anyway, she had allowed the older brother to visit the younger on condition that he did not entertain Richard with all the details of the escapade that had resulted in his being sent down from Oxford.
He had told her, with great enthusiasm and righteous indignation at the harshness of the punishment, that he and three cronies had smuggled two females of doubtful virtue into their dormitory and been caught when one of the females had proved to be an inveterate giggler. All four young men had been sent down for the rest of the year.
Alice did not confide any of those details to her Bath friend. She folded the letter and got to her feet, intending to order the carriage to take her to Portman Square for the rest of the day. But a brief tap on the door forestalled her. She looked up to find, not her manservant bowing with deference before divulging his message, but a cheerfully smiling London gentleman.
He was fashionably dressed, from the slightly disheveled cut of his fair hair to the white tassels on his Hessian boots. Yet he wore his clothes with an easy, almost careless air. He appeared equally unabsorbed by his tall, muscular frame and handsome face. He was a gentleman past his youth and yet clearly in his prime. He had opened the door himself and entered the library unannounced.
“Allie!” he said, coming purposefully toward her with outstretched arms. “Why did you not write to say you were coming?” He enfolded her in a hearty hug and kissed her on the cheek before releasing her.
“Piers,” she said, laughing up at him. “Looking the co
mplete town gentleman.”
He held his arms out to the sides and looked down at himself in some amusement. “Splendid, am I not?” he said. “But do you not think the haircut the coup de grace, Allie? I was persuaded that I would be quite top-of-the-trees with it styled this way. It is called a Brutus, by the way. And before you think to frown and wonder why I do not comb it more neatly, I beg leave to inform you that it is meant to be disheveled. It is fashionable thus.”
She laughed again. “I am rendered quite speechless with admiration,” she said.
“And so you should be.” He took both her hands in his own and squeezed them. “Why did you not write to me?”
”I came away in a hurry,” she said, “Bruce wrote, and nothing would do but I must come immediately or sooner if at all possible. Besides, you have your own life and do not need to be forever at my beck and call.”
“What?” he said. “I am supposed to show no interest at all when my dearest friend comes to town? Shall we sit?”
“For a few minutes,” she said, taking a wing chair facing into the room and watching him settle his long limbs into a chair beside her. “I promised to be in Portman Square before luncheon.”
“The children are ill,” he said. “Your sister-in-law told me so several days ago, though she did not mention that Bruce had sent for you. And so you have been summoned as nurse because a mother and father and older sister and brother and a houseful of servants including a nurse employed for the job are not enough. Allie, you are being put upon again.”
“Never say so,” she said with a smile. “What else are single aunts for?”
“For getting on with their own lives, that is what,” he said.
"I was coming down to Bath to visit you after Christmas, you know, but those infernal relatives of mine decided to get themselves lolled both together and catapulted me into the dizzying position of being heir to a bona fide baron. I had to go into Bedfordshire to pay homage to his lordship instead of going to Bath.”