The Heiress in Disguise: A Historical Regency Romance Novel, page 1
The Heiress in Disguise
A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
ABIGAIL AGAR
Copyright © 2024 by Abigail Agar
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
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The Heiress in Disguise
Introduction
Prologue
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
Two Months Later
Epilogue
Beneath the Beastly Duke's Mask
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
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The Heiress in Disguise
Introduction
Angelique de Bourbon-Spencer has been born in the world of privilege, but her life has been a masquerade of servitude since the tragic demise of her parents. Reduced to a servant's role in her aunt and uncle's household, she endures a degrading treatment from her step-siblings. In the shadowy corners of a lavish ballroom in London though, Angelique's fate takes an unexpected turn when her eyes meet those of a mysterious masked gentleman.
As if things were not complicated enough, Angelique finds herself romantically torn between two different men… How could it be though that they do not feel all that different?
Antoine Beauchamp-Fitzalans, Marquess of Exeter, returns to London after years abroad, only to uncover his childhood friend Angelique's startling secret life as a servant. Determined to assist her, he disguises himself as a mysterious masked gentleman, moving freely among the gentry, while also posing as a discreet servant from the neighboring estate. To expose her relatives' transgressions, Antoine must keep his true identity hidden, all the while earning Angelique's trust in this high-stakes dance of deception and loyalty.
Could this heartfelt aid turn into something much deeper?
As they wade through the challenges caused by their respective disguises and the nefarious actions of Angelique's relatives, their connection deepens. Their secret and disguised romance stands on a very delicate balance, but can they unravel the web of secrets and emerge victorious against the internal and external shadows that threaten to consume them?
Prologue
“Angelique, do stay away from the river!”
Eight-year-old Angelique longed to ignore the admonition of her governess. Molly was kind and fair and Angelique liked her very much, but she could also be insufferably dull at times, and Angelique did not enjoy that about her. She was eight years old now, after all, and she didn’t need a governess watching over her every move. She had been to the river countless times. There were no dangers here that she wasn’t equal to.
“My parents allow me to play by the river,” she said.
“Your parents aren’t at home,” Molly pointed out.
“But they’ll return home from their travels later today, and you can ask them then,” Angelique said. “They’ll tell you it’s all right for me to play by the water as long as I’m not on my own. You’ll see. They don’t mind at all.”
“You’re going to get muddy.”
“Nobody minds that either,” Angelique said with a laugh. “Father says children are supposed to get muddy from time to time!”
Molly sighed. “I suppose he has the right to say it,” she said. “But I hope for both of our sakes that you’re right, Angelique, because I would hate for your parents to get home and see you covered in mud and be unhappy about it.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Angelique assured her. “They’ll be nothing but pleased to see me, Molly. Mother and Father dote upon me, you know that. They’re going to bring me a present from their travels! Father promised that they would.”
“Perhaps that’s them now,” Molly said, turning toward the sound of a carriage coming up the path toward the front of the estate.
“Oh!” Angelique turned, the river utterly forgotten. “They weren’t supposed to arrive home until this evening! They’re early! They must have been so eager to see me that they hastened their journey home.”
“Perhaps,” Molly agreed.
But Angelique frowned. She could see now who was disembarking from the carriage, and it wasn’t her mother and father. Instead, she was looking at her least favorite aunt, her father’s younger sister. Aunt Wilhelmina had dark hair and a stern expression that never seemed to waver, no matter what was going on around her.
She was followed out of the carriage, by her husband, Uncle Clive, and by Angelique’s three cousins, Marcus, Gwyneth, and Grace. Both of the elder cousins were stuck-up, and Angelique found them difficult to get along with, so she took a small measure of satisfaction in seeing that they were staring up at the house with something like awe.
They had been here countless times, of course, and they always managed to act as if it didn’t impress them very much to be in the home of the Marquess of Somerset. They tended to act as if it was all beneath them. But Angelique knew that what she was seeing right now was their true response, saved for a moment when they didn’t know she could see them.
“Perhaps they don’t realize that Mother and Father aren’t at home,” she said to Molly.
“We ought to go inform them,” Molly said. “Come along, Angelique.”
Angelique wished that she could stay by the river—she had no desire to socialize with her cousins—but she knew that would be a losing battle. There was no chance of Molly allowing her to stay here on her own. She trotted back toward the house alongside her governess.
“Well, this is hardly appropriate,” Aunt Wilhelmina said as they approached. “Just look at you, Angelique. Your gown is filthy,” she tutted.
Angelique looked down at the gown she wore. She saw no filth. She hadn’t even gone all the way down to the water, so she hadn’t gotten mud on her gown. She had no idea what Aunt Wilhelmina was referring to.
But then, it was very like her aunt to find fault in something about Angelique. She had always seemed determined to prove that her own children were more satisfactory than Angelique was—especially Gwyneth, who was also eight years old.
“You’d better come inside,” Aunt Wilhelmina said. “We have some things to discuss, Angelique.”
“My parents aren’t home from their travels yet,” Angelique said. “Perhaps we should wait until they return.” She didn’t want to end her day on the grounds just yet, and she was sure that if she went inside, Aunt Wilhelmina wouldn’t allow her to come back out.
“Your parents won’t be coming home,” Aunt Wilhelmina said briskly. “There was an accident, dear.”
“You’re not going to tell her like that, Wilhelmina, are you?” That was Uncle Clive, speaking up for the first time. He was a quiet man, usually content to allow his wife to do the talking for the both of them in social situations. Angelique couldn’t say why it disturbed her so that he had chosen this moment to speak, but she knew that it did.
“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling suddenly chilled, although the weather hadn’t changed. “Of course my parents will come home. They’ll always come back to me.”
“I’m afraid not, dear,” Aunt Wilhelmina said. “We’ve just received word that they were killed in a carriage accident on the way home.”
Angelique felt the world spin slowly around her. She sank to her knees.
“I’m so sorry, Angelique,” Uncle Clive said quietly.
No. They were wrong. There had been a mistake. This was a nightmare. Something. It couldn’t be true that her parents had been killed. They couldn’t be gone, just like that.
They promised they would always come back to me.
“Bring our things inside, please,” Aunt Wilhelmina directed the footmen. “We’ll be staying here now—someone has to raise young Angelique.”
“Don’t worry,” Uncle Clive said, resting a hand briefly on the top of her head. “We’ll be here for you.”
But Angelique couldn’t even think.
She knelt on the ground, watching in shock as the footmen carried her aunt and uncle’s things into the house.
Mother, Father… where are you?
***
Time seemed to pass in a fog. At some point, Angelique realized that she was inside, though she wasn’t sure if someone had brought her in or if she had come on her own. She was in the sitting room, which was sometimes full of people and sometimes empty. People spoke to her, but she didn’t answer them, and eventually they all went away.
Aunt Wilhelmina and her family, on the other hand, did not go away. Angelique had hoped, at first, that she had misunderstood their intentions and that they didn’t really mean to stay, but it was clear now that they weren’t going anywhere. Aunt Wilhelmina and Uncle Clive had moved into her parents’ rooms, and Marcus, Gwyneth, and Grace had taken rooms of their own.
Angelique hadn’t left the sitting room in what must have been days, so she wasn’t sure which rooms they were in, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were in the house. She ached for them to leave, but it seemed there was no chance of that happening.
At least for now she had the sitting room to herself. Someone had lit a fire and she sat watching it burn, wishing that she could simply do this for the rest of her days—that she would never be called upon to move from this spot or to speak to anyone again.
“I’m so sorry, Angelique.”
The voice was familiar, and for the first time since all this had happened, it wasn’t the voice of someone unwelcome to her. It was enough to lift her out of the fog of her shocked grief, and she looked up at the familiar face. “Antoine.”
It was so strange to see her eleven-year-old neighbor now, in the midst of all this. She had always admired him, but their relationship had been more like that of a brother and a sister. Ordinarily, though, the sight of him would have set butterflies off in the pit of her stomach. Right now, all she could feel was a quiet sense of comfort—at least someone she liked was here.
He sat down beside her. “They say you haven’t moved from this spot,” he said softly. “They say you’ve had nothing to eat.”
“Who says?”
“The staff,” he said. He held out a sandwich. “Would you eat this?”
She took it and bit into it mechanically. It tasted like sawdust, but she knew he was right—she did need to eat. She chewed the sandwich slowly. “I thought perhaps my aunt and uncle might have been the ones to tell you I hadn’t eaten,” she said.
He frowned. “Yes, I would have expected that too,” he said. “I suppose they’re so caught up in their grief that they aren’t noticing things properly.”
“I think they’re more caught up in the fact that they’ve finally been able to move into Somerset Manor,” Angelique said darkly. “Aunt Wilhelmina has always wanted this house. I’ll bet she was thrilled when she heard my mother and father had died.”
“Oh, Angelique,” Antoine said sadly, but he didn’t argue with her, and Angelique supposed he thought she was right and simply didn’t wish to say so.
“Have you seen them?” she asked Antoine.
“Yes,” he said. “My parents are with them now, but I was given permission to come and talk to you. I thought perhaps you could use a friend right now.”
“I don’t have anyone,” Angelique whispered.
“You do,” he corrected her. “You’ll always have me. I know this is awful, Angelique, and I’m so sorry that it’s happening, but I’ll be here for you. My whole family will be here for you. You know that your parents and mine were always good friends.”
“I wish that I could come and live with your family, instead of being cared for by my aunt and uncle,” Angelique said wistfully. “I would be so much happier there. It would be almost like…”
She trailed off. What she’d been thinking was that it would be almost like having her own parents back. But she couldn’t speak the words, because that would be an acknowledgement that they were really gone. It would be the first time she’d said it aloud, and she couldn’t help feeling as though speaking the words would make it real, somehow. As long as she didn’t say it, there was a chance it wasn’t true.
Antoine seemed to understand without her having to say it. “I know,” he said. “I know that would be better for you, and I wish it was something we could do. But they are your family, Angelique. They care for you a great deal.”
Angelique didn’t think so, somehow, but she didn’t want to argue with him, so she said nothing.
“Just know that we’ll be here for you,” Antoine assured her. “You’re like family to us. My parents will always care for you, and so will I. You’re not alone. I know it might feel that way right now, but you’re not. And your parents will live on inside you.
Every time you look in a looking glass, you’ll see your mother’s face—more and more as you grow older and look more like her. And every time you laugh, you’ll remember your father’s wonderful sense of humor and how he could always make everyone around him smile.
Tears filled Angelique’s eyes.
She hadn’t cried since she’d heard the news, and it felt good to let the tears out now. It was a release. She buried her face in her hands and wept for everything she had lost.
Her parents were really gone. They were never coming back. From now on, this would be her life. Sharing the house that had once been a home, with the aunt and uncle she so struggled to get along with, and cousins she could hardly tolerate.
And as she cried, Antoine remained steadfastly by her side, loyal and unmoving, a harbor in the sea of her despair.
Chapter 1
Fourteen Years Later
Angelique struggled up the stairs, balancing a breakfast tray on each arm. This was her second trip—she had brought the first two trays on her first journey up the stairs—and the usual morning anxiety was beginning to set in.
It was always a struggle to make sure that everything would be warm when it was delivered to the proper person. Delivering five breakfasts all at once was an onerous task, and because Aunt Wilhelmina had dismissed so many of the staff in order to save money, there was no one available to help Angelique do it.
At least no one would complain if Grace’s food was a bit cold. It made Angelique feel sad to slight her youngest cousin like that—Angelique herself was the only person in the house who was treated with more disdain and disrespect than Grace, and she did feel as if the two of them ought to be allies.
If she’d had her choice, she would have delivered Grace’s breakfast first of all of them, to make sure it was the freshest. But the choice did not belong to her. Very few choices did, anymore.
It helped that Uncle Clive was away in London, as he so often was. At least no deliveries had to be made to him. She picked up one of the trays she’d placed on the table in the hall and made her way to Aunt Wilhelmina’s room.
Her aunt was sitting up in bed, waiting to be served. “You took your time,” she said crossly.
“I’m sorry,” Angelique said contritely. She wasn’t late at all, but there was nothing to be gained by arguing. Aunt Wilhelmina took pleasure in scolding Angelique and the happier her aunt was, the more peaceful Angelique’s life would be. It was just good sense to allow her to say what she liked and get away as quickly as she could.
“I ask very little of you, Ella,” Aunt Wilhelmina said, and Angelique flinched inwardly, as she always did, at the unwanted nickname. She knew her aunt had taken to calling her Ella in order to make her sound plain and ordinary, like the servant Aunt Wilhelmina wanted her to be instead of the daughter of a marquess.
