My Cynical Marquess ~ Lords of Reluctance Book 1

Chapter One

Fate had not been kind over the last year to the young woman sitting amongst the late spring flowers. The golden rays of the early morning sun shone down on her bent head, picking up the bronzed highlights laced intermittently throughout her chestnut curls. Her tan and white English foxhound ran with reckless abandonment, darting in and out of the hedgerows bordering the meadow as she chased an unsuspecting rabbit. Not that the dog would actually catch the poor thing, she never did, to her it was just a game.

Oblivious to her pet's antics, she sat reading the novel she held in her hands. Her unusual violet eyes scanned the pages hungrily, the words leaping off the page in lyrical brilliance. Sighing, she let the novel slip from her grasp as she lay down on the rich green pasture and stared at the azure blue sky. Oh, how she would love to see her own work in print. The many pages of prose she composed whenever she needed to escape into a fantasy world of her own creation.

"Artemis!" she called to her pet as she brought herself reluctantly back to reality. "Come, we must go back to the cottage, Mrs Woods shall be wondering if we have gotten ourselves lost."

Not wanting to abandon her game, Artemis came trotting over with a suitably chagrined expression in her brown eyes, if that were even possible. She followed her mistress as they made their way through the yellow and white wild flowers that dotted the landscape until they reached a charming thatched cottage nestled into a small gully. They walked down a well-trodden path lined with lavender bushes that scented the air with a clean, crisp fragrance, toward a simple whitewashed door that opened almost immediately.

A small, slender woman stood on the threshold. She patted her almost white hair and smoothed her simple, white muslin apron with a disconcerted expression on her countenance as if she did not know what to do with her hands.

"Oh, Miss Grace," she cried. "I have been waiting for you to come home. The squire has arrived, and he does not look happy."

"Oh, dear, I wonder what he wants now," Grace replied, a frown marring her brow. Although, she did know, it was the same conversation she always had with him.

She followed the housekeeper into a sparsely furnished parlour. Completely out of place within the pretty periwinkle blue and white room, stood Squire Pembroke, a most unwelcome visitor at the best of times. Judging by the expression on his ruddy face, things did not bode well for Miss Grace Preston. She just wished he would go away and leave her alone.

What a picture he thought he portrayed. His valet had tied his olive-green cravat in an overcomplicated manner and his olive green coat fit snuggly across his broad shoulders. If his buff coloured breeches strained against his thighs and puce waistcoat threatened to burst its buttons, surely it was a testament to his cook, roast beef, and trifle.

Grace stiffened as he cleared his throat, a raspy, brusque sound guaranteed to grate on nerves less robust than hers. Putting all her effort into straightening her spine, she tilted her chin in challenge and looked him square in the eye, bracing herself for what she knew would come.

"My dear Miss Preston ..." He moved closer to her still rigid form. "My dear Grace, surely we are past such formalities are we not. I am the most patient of men, I wish for you to announce the date of our wedding."

"I have not said yes to you squire," she replied. "A fact you seem to have conveniently forgotten."

He bristled with indignation. "You are over the year of mourning your dear parents. Surely, there is nothing to stand in our way. You are over twenty-one are you not?" he asked.

"That is true, sir," she said. "Nevertheless, I must decline your gracious offer." That ought to mollify the pompous prig, she decided.

"I have been patient beyond all reckoning. I wish to set the date, if you do not set it. I shall set it for us." His eyes gleamed with the knowledge Grace would have to agree with his logic.