Lady Violet and the Dukes' Blazing Hearts: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Read online

  Lady Violet and the Dukes' Blazing Hearts

  Hedley J Huntt

  Published by Hedley J Huntt, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  LADY VIOLET AND THE DUKES' BLAZING HEARTS

  First edition. December 12, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Hedley J Huntt.

  Written by Hedley J Huntt.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  A Thank You Gift

  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

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  But there’s More...

  Thank You

  About the Author

  A Thank You Gift

  Thank you very much for purchasing my book.

  It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to support my beginning!

  As a Thank You Gift, I have written a full length novel for you, called

  “The Heiress of Epsom: Her Lady’s Heart”.

  It’s only available to the ones who have downloaded my book and you can get your own free copy by tapping this link here

  Once more, I am really thankful for your love and support.

  Hedley J. Huntt

  Chapter 1

  Violet looked out to the lake, quietly contemplating what the summer might bring. There was nothing more she liked than being here for the entire summer. The lake sparkled beautifully in the sunlight. The moonlight danced across the flowers like a woman with nowhere to be and no man to answer to.

  Standing here, her bare feet soaking in the shallowest end of the lake with her shoes on the bank and the hem of her dress soaked with crystal skies, nothing else mattered but the single moment she had here. It happened like this every summer. She would come here for the summer with her father – the Count MacDaughan – and her cousin, Kathleen. Of course, it wouldn’t be proper for others not to accompany her; her aunt, Marion, and Laura, her maid, always came as well. Well, her aunt only came if Kathleen was coming.

  This year, for the fourth or fifth year, Kathleen had decided not to come. It had been a wonderful relief to hear that.

  “Lady Violet!”

  Her name echoed across the flowers and leaves. She sighed, pulling her gaze away from the gardens in front of her. As she scanned the area behind her, her dress twirling around her legs as she spun to face the large mansion, she saw absolutely no one.

  She didn’t dare ask who was there. She knew that voice. It was Laura. The woman knew she loved having her alone time in the woods. Violet sometimes wondered if she was sent by her father to keep her from getting into trouble and staying in the woods for many hours on end.

  “Lady Violet.”

  The words echoed again, and she took a deep breath. Summer fun always ended when her father had something up his sleeves. She wondered what it would be this time that ruined her fun.

  “Lady Violet. Can you hear me or are you stuck in the lake?”

  “I hear you, Laura. What brings you to the lake?”

  She refused to leave the lake, just in case it wasn’t something serious that needed her attention.

  Laura didn’t answer immediately, and Violet raised an eyebrow. She didn’t know if this was good or bad. If it was a good thing, why didn’t Laura say something? If it was something bad, what kind of news could be so bad that she couldn’t find the words in a few moments?

  “Laura?”

  Violet pursed her lips. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “What do have to say?”

  “Your father would like to see you in his office,” Laura responded as simply as she knew how. “Ma’am, he said it was urgent.”

  “Alright. I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

  With that, Violet sighed. Laura gave her a soft curtsy before leaving her in the lake.

  It didn’t take long for Violet to trudge herself out of the lake. Staying in the shallow area could make that easy enough to do. However, drying her skirt off was another matter. It may have been a nice fabric, but that made it hard to wring out without creating wrinkles.

  She sighed. Today simply wasn’t going to be a good day for her. She decided not to worry about wringing the skirt out. Instead, she put her stockings on as best she could before putting on her shoes. The delicate boots had laces that came halfway up her calves and a tongue that wouldn’t stay in place. Sometimes she wondered why she continued to wear these after so many struggles to put them on. Regardless, once they were all laced up, she hurried inside, leaving her brocaded jacket on the ground.

  The run to the house was not as hard as one may have expected. She had done this many times before, in shoes that were much harder to walk in. The path between the lake and the house had been trampled down, worn in enough that she could run it in these boots. Even though the branches at the base of the path dug at her skirt and tore holes in the fabric, she could make it to the house much faster by taking this path than by taking the well-trodden, proper path that her father would rather she use.

  By the time she got to the house, the wet part of her skirt was in rags. Muttering under her breath about the thorns and branches, she went in through a servants’ entrance. If she could avoid being seen by the majority of the servants, she could perhaps change her dress before her father realised she had ruined her newest dress.

  “Violet!”

  She was caught; her dad’s voice echoed through the halls, despite her best attempts to stay out of his sight. She sighed. This was going to be an interesting day.

  “Where have you been? What happened to your dress? We only bought this one last week.”

  She turned around to face him as he spoke. The Count, her father, wasn’t the gentlest person in the world. There were times she would have rather lost a dress than ruined it because a lost dress could be replaced for cheaper than repairing a skirt most of the time. Today, she felt she would have rather lost the dress.

  “I’ve been to the lake. The quickest route back has thorns and branches on the ground around the path.” She didn’t bother trying to hide it.

  “My apologies.” She gave a small curtsy to her father, hoping he would appreciate that she was owning up to her mistakes.

  “Oh ... well, enough with that.”

  He glossed right over the issue, which surprised Violet. She came out of the curtsy, her lips pursed again. What could be so important her father didn’t care about issuing a short lecture about appreciating the finer dresses and at least having the decency to wear an older dres
s to the lake?

  “What is going on, Father?”

  She frowned a little, trying to put the pieces together in her head. However, she knew that she had to be missing something. The pieces didn’t quite connect. Something else had to have happened, something she was unaware of.

  “We have reason to celebrate, Violet. For the first time in a few years, your cousin Kathleen will be able to join us here for part of the summer. Your aunt, of course, will be accompanying her. Both will be staying for the rest of the summer.” His smile widened, and Violet’s stomach dropped.

  “They’ve missed half the summer. Few parties will be held.”

  She attempted to reason with her father, even though this had gone horribly wrong in the past. “Why do they want to come out now?”

  “They don’t care about the parties, Violet.” He didn’t bother to sugar-coat it.

  “They’re coming out so that you can spend some time with Kathleen. You cannot ignore them, and I will not tell them they cannot come. They’ll be arriving in two days.”

  “Father, please. That’s the night of the summer’s half ball.” Violet frowned. “I do not want to worry about having them here when I plan to be elsewhere.”

  “I told them this, and they are fine with not seeing you until the next morning.”

  Her father had a counter argument for everything.

  “I do not want to argue this anymore, Violet. There is nothing you can say or do which will change my mind. Kathleen has been looking forward to seeing you but has been unable to do so because of her health.”

  “Her health has been just fine when we have gone to see them.”

  Violet folded her arms in front of her chest.

  “I do not see why I have to throw away the rest of my summer to fit her whims.”

  “Violet, we have talked about this. Now, stop complaining about seeing your cousin.”

  He took in a deep breath.

  “I do not get to see my sister often enough to hear this from you as often as you make a deal of seeing Kathleen. There is no reason for you to be so obstinate!”

  “She is the dullest creature I could ever spend time with, Father.” She did not bother to hide her disdain.

  “She barely has any grasp on the latest culture or the latest fashion. All she wants to do is sit and stare at the gardens. Then, she has the gall to ask about nature, which is a silly thing to ask a lady about.” Violet sighed again.

  “’Tis not so silly of her to ask about the gardens. You helped put the gardens together and helped plan them out.” Her father attempted one more time to get her to see reason.

  “I do not think you feel so bitterly about her, but rather that she does not share your interests.”

  “Father, ’tis enough. I do not want to see Kathleen.” Violet didn’t know what else to say about it.

  “Can you tell them I do not feel well? That I came down unexpectedly with cholera?” She did not want to have to worry about what Kathleen thought about her.

  “Why are you so insistent on getting out of this?” He questioned her intentions as she knew he would.

  “She insulates herself from much of the community here, and I do not think there is a reason behind it. I think she simply does not want to interact with the others.”

  Violet attempted to put her reasoning into words. It did not fall easily from her lips, but then again, when was she ever good with her words?

  “Regardless of whether she wants to talk to people other than you or not, I want you to take her under your wing.” Her father left her with those words echoing in the air.

  Violet attempted to say something more, but nothing came out. She couldn’t find a way to get the words out, nor did she know what she would say if she could get the words out. How would she tell her dad that she didn’t want Kathleen around not only because she was incredibly dull, but because Kathleen only ever wanted to hang out with her, in a way her father would understand? Was there a way to say that without sounding callous?

  She didn’t think she wanted an answer.

  Regardless, her father had left, and she wasn’t going to be getting an answer. She sighed, walking up to her room. She may as well fix her dress, or get it fixed for her. If Kathleen was insistent on coming to see how she was doing, then she would insist on making sure she had better things to do than hang out with her cousin. If she was going to be here all summer, she had excuses to answer other invites she may not have answered otherwise.

  She’d have a busy couple of days ahead of her. To fill the rest of the summer with parties, soirees, and balls, she would have to act fast. Spots would be filling up, and one evening left without anything to do would surely result in having to catch up with dreaded cousin Kathleen.

  As she entered her room, she looked around the familiar stone walls and the floor. The closet door stood open, just as she had left it. There was nothing new to the room, and that’s how she wanted it. Walking through the room, she listened as her heeled boots clicked softly against the polished stones. It was the picture of everything she could have asked for.

  Minus the rags of her skirt, that she was now leaving on the floor as she tripped on them every few feet. She’d get that all cleaned up, of course, but that would have to wait until she could bend without having to worry about her skirt coming up too high in the back. The hoop underneath made it hard to bend without either falling over or showing everything.

  Chapter 2

  Count MacDaughan called for Violet again two hours later. She sighed, setting her ruined dress on the bed. She had managed to convince the seamstress to give her the leftover fabric from making the dress, just in case something like this happened. Only now did she realise that she had no idea what she was doing. She had completely shredded the bottom of her dress in the thorns and branches, and she’d only made it worse trying to fix it with the needle and thread the seamstress had hesitantly given her.

  She set everything down on the bed before heading to see what her father wanted of her this time. Was it not enough to tell her that Kathleen and Marion were coming for the rest of the summer? Was it not enough to force her to spend time with Kathleen when they were children?

  She didn’t know when the interests had diverged, but she knew it hadn’t been a recent development. Kathleen had never been her favourite person to spend time with, even though Kathleen claimed the time she spent with Violet was her favourite part of the summer.

  “Yes, Father?”

  She finally made it to her father’s room, and there was not a lot there for her. He was sitting at his writing desk, a candle flickering as the sun began to set.

  “Take a seat, Violet.”

  He motioned with his pen for her to sit on the free seat on the other side of the room. She did so, curious but also half-afraid.

  “You ruined another dress today.”

  “Yes. We discussed this already.”

  She frowned. Where was this going, and what importance did it have to the conversation she had thought was coming?

  “Is this going somewhere, or am I correct in thinking this was supposed to be a conversation about Kathleen and Aunt Marion coming to visit?”

  “Both, Violet.” Her father put his pen down and interlocked his fingers. Then, he rested his chin on top of his fingers.

  “What am I going to do with you? You cannot sew. You refuse to learn how to cook. I will not be around forever to make sure you get what you need.”

  “And if you were to die before I married?” She didn’t hesitate to throw that out.

  “I would inherit all your money. You know this.”

  “Some people would not like to see you come into all this money. Technically, my brother-in-law would inherit it all unless I specifically leave instructions for it to go to you – which I have. This notwithstanding, you cannot rely on the fact that I have a lot of money to get you through life, Violet. There will come a time, perhaps not years from now, where you will need to support yourself.”

&n
bsp; Her father launched into a lecture. He did this more often now, especially since she had not had any suitor come calling in a year.

  “Father, I will marry before you die. There is no reason for you to worry about me.”

  She mainly said this to help relieve his worry. There were no suitors in sight, and she doubted she would have a chance to marry before her father passed on; his health had not been doing well, and she knew that was part of the reason he had been here so often, despite keeping her in the city for the party season.

  “You have not had a suitor come by in a year, Violet. You have scared all of the men away, and I do not know what else to do with you. There’s nothing to say but that you have done your job in ensuring that you will have to take care of yourself sometime in the future. If you cannot secure at least a suitor by the end of the summer, then I will have you put into a school for women and have you learn these skills. I wish Marion had been able to teach them to you when you were younger, but I had no desire to put up with your strong will. I see I was wrong to do such a thing.”

  Her father sighed, shaking his head. “If you will not learn by the might of your own will, I will break it.”

  “I will not attend a school until I must.” Violet coldly shrugged the suggestion away. She did not like how many schools taught, forcing their pupils to sit there for hours on end and recite things, memorising it all as the teacher gave it to them. It didn’t seem right to her. “If I must learn a skill, allow me to apprentice for a seamstress.”

  “If you apprentice for a seamstress, you will only learn one skill.” Her father frowned. “I wish you to be able to see more of the world before deciding on what you want to apprentice in. You must allow yourself to explore.”

  “I want to learn to sew, Father. It has never been something Aunt Marion was very good at.” She frowned deeply. “That is why I never learned from her when I was younger.”

  “If you had said something, Violet, I could have arranged for something more.” He gave her a deep look.