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  Praise for The Innkeeper’s Daughter

  “Schwarz launches her Gentleman Spy Mysteries series with an immersive and suspenseful Regency romance. The magnetic love scenes and enticing mystery will have readers eagerly anticipating the next installment.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “The Innkeeper’s Daughter is a sumptuous, sensual Regency romance that teases the senses and recalls the golden age of romance novels.”

  — Foreword Reviews

  “A gritty, steamy series opener full of dark twists and hot trysts.”

  — Grace Burrowes, New York Times bestselling author

  “From the brutal opening pages to the tenderest of love scenes, The Innkeeper’s Daughter took me on a ride of contradictory emotions. Sadistic villains paired with beautiful Regency details made this story unforgettable, but it is truly the characters who steal the show. Eliza is a delight, Sir Henry March has my heart, and our author, Bianca M. Schwarz, has me eagerly awaiting the next book.”

  — Amanda Linsmeier, author

  “Historically well-researched with enthralling characters and excellent storytelling. Absolutely wonderful.”

  — C. H. Armstrong, author of The Edge of Nowhere

  Copyright © 2021 Bianca M. Schwarz

  Cover and internal design © 2021 Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

  Cover Design: Michelle Halket

  Cover Image: Courtesy & Copyright Creative Market

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  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.

  Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd. www.centralavenuepublishing.com

  Published in Canada

  Printed in United States of America

  1. FICTION/Romance - Historical 2. FICTION/Historical

  THE GENTLEMAN’S DAUGHTER

  Trade Paperback: 978-1-77168-240-4

  Epub: 978-1-77168-241-1

  Mobi: 978-1-77168-242-8

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  To the artists in my life who taught me how to mix watercolors on a palette and expel excess water from a brush with the flick of my wrist.

  SETTING: LONDON AND BRIGHTON

  YEAR: 1823 (PROLOGUE: 1820)

  CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

  SIR HENRY MARCH (AGENT TO THE CROWN AND CONCERNED FATHER OF EMILY)

  ISABELLA CHANCELLOR (PAINTER)

  EMILY (HENRY’S DAUGHTER)

  BERTIE REDWICK (EMILY’S COUSIN)

  MRS. TIBBIT (HENRY’S HOUSEKEEPER)

  ROBERTS (HENRY’S GROOM)

  WILLIAM (FOOTMAN)

  THOMAS (FOOTMAN)

  LADY GREYSON (ANN; HENRY’S GODMOTHER; LIVES ON BROOK STREET)

  LADY BROCKHURST (SOCIETY WOMAN, MIDFORTIES)

  SARAH BROCKHURST (LADY BROCKHURST’S YOUNGER ELIGIBLE DAUGHTER)

  MRS. WILDER (LADY BROCKHURST’S OLDER ELIGIBLE DAUGHTER, A WIDOW)

  IMOGEN TUBBS (CHARGE OF THE HEDGLEYS, COUSIN OF LADY CAROLINE)

  LADY JANE CASTLERIGHT

  LADY CASTLERIGHT, COUNTESS OF WELD (JANE’S MOTHER)

  EARL OF WELD (JANE’S FATHER, ONE OF THE DUNGEON CLUB)

  GEORGE BRADSHORE, VISCOUNT RIDGEWORTH (ONE OF THE KNIGHTS, ISABELLA’S CHILDHOOD FRIEND)

  BARON OSTLEY (ONE OF THE KNIGHTS; HUSBAND OF EMILY’S MOTHER)

  EARL OF WARTHON (HEAD OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE SNAKE PIT, OWNER OF WARTHON CASTLE)

  ELIZA BROAD (HENRY’S FORMER MISTRESS)

  ALLEN STRATHEM (HENRY’S FRIEND)

  LADY KISTEL (FRIEND OF RUTH REDWICK)

  MARY (BARMAID AT THE RED LION IN BRIGHTON)

  BARONESS CHANCELLOR (LADY CHANCELLOR; LYDIA; ISABELLA’S MOTHER)

  MAXIMILIAN WARTHON, LORD DIDCOMB (“DIDDY”; EARL OF WARTHON’S GRANDSON/HEIR)

  SALLY (ISABELLA’S MAID AND FRIEND)

  MRS. CURTIS (LADY CHANCELLOR’S FRIEND, ISABELLA AND HER MOTHER ARE STAYING WITH HER)

  MRS. TWILL (WIDOW OF EDMOND TWILL, WRITER OF GUIDES)

  BARON TILLISTER (WIDOWER, SUITOR)

  MR. WICKHAM (RAKISH SUITOR)

  SQUIRE GARDENER (SUITOR)

  BEN SEDON (EMPLOYED AT WARTHON CASTLE AND LORD DIDCOMB’S FRIEND)

  LORD JENNINGS (CURRENT DUNGEON MASTER)

  PATSY, MARIE, JENNY (LADIES OF THE NIGHT BROUGHT TO THE ABBEY)

  RUTH REDWICK, PRUSSIAN PRINCESS/DOWAGER DUCHESS OF AVON

  (GROSSMAMA, HENRY’S GRANDMOTHER)

  MRS. BENNETT (HENRY’S HOUSEKEEPER AT HIS ESTATE NEAR BRIGHTON)

  PROLOGUE

  JANUARY 1820, HAMPSTEAD HEATH

  A GUNSHOT REVERBERATED DEEP WITHIN THE hillside and startled the servant in the sedan chair awake. The man jumped up, disoriented by the dark, cold night around him. But as soon as he remembered himself, he kicked his colleague, who slumbered under a heavy blanket next to the chair.

  “Something’s up, mate.”

  The other servant scrambled to his feet and straightened his wig just in time. Hurried footsteps sounded from inside the hill, and his partner opened the heavy iron door. Four elegantly dressed figures spilled out of the portal set into the hillside. They were all masked, and one roughly pulled the only woman of the group along with him.

  Another new arrival, completely dressed in black, motioned to the man holding the woman’s arm. “Take her away and make sure she talks to no one.”

  The man complied instantly, dragging the woman farther down the heath, where a coach waited by the side of the road. They got in, and the vehicle pulled away just as another gentleman emerged from the dark tunnel and stepped out into the open, leaning heavily on a carved ivory cane. He was bowed by age, but the mouth below the mask was harsh and unyielding. As the coach disappeared into the darkness, the old man ripped the mask off his face and threw it to the ground. Ignoring the servants, he fixed the other two gentlemen in a death stare, anger rolling off him in waves. “Let that be a lesson to you: arrogance leads to mistakes. March may act the fool, but do not underestimate him again. Astor is dead because he got careless.”

  He walked to the sedan chair and sank into it, some of the tension leaving his body. “As for you two, give me your rings and collect all the others. We won’t meet during the customary mourning period. I’ll send out the rings again when it’s time to elect the next dungeon master.”

  From their pinky fingers, both men removed gold rings depicting two snakes hissing at each other, and handed them to the old man. They then pulled off their masks and stashed them in their pockets, and the young man bent to pick up the old man’s from the ground. The one entirely in black stroked a weary hand over his face. He looked somber, even a little shaken, while the younger one trembled with barely contained anger. He was tall, powerfully built, and handsome; but there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I can’t wait to get my hands on the meddling fool’s bastard and show her that she’s indeed the whore she was born to be.”

  The old man turned his unsettlingly bright eyes on the young man and pointed his ivory cane at him. “You have yet to be elected dungeon master, and there are at least three ahead of you who want the honor! Do not embarrass me by doing something rash; you just saw where that will lead. In case it has escaped your notice, we did not achieve our goal tonight. March may well be able to prevent the scandal we need to discredit the reform bill. Besides, young Emily
March is only twelve and apparently still flat as a board. As far as I am informed, most of us still like our women to have tits and be old enough to appreciate what’s being done to them.”

  The young man, properly chastised, hung his head. “As you wish, grandfather. I apologize.”

  The old man’s eyes softened just a fraction. “Fiddlesticks, my boy.” He gestured for the two servants to lift the chair so they could depart, then turned to the man in black. “Tell Ostley it will be his responsibility to retrieve the March girl when the time comes. And if he succeeds, he’ll earn the right to be in the dungeon when she’s broken in.”

  “It shall be done, my lord.”

  Both men bowed as the sedan chair was lifted and the old man waved his cane in a dismissive salute.

  “It had better be. I will not tolerate any further mistakes. The Knights can’t afford them.”

  The two men watched the chair until it was swallowed completely by the night, then the younger man turned to the older. “I don’t understand why Sir Henry isn’t one of us. His father was!”

  The older man smirked and turned to head down the hill. “Ah, the older March was a true believer, having served Charles Stuart himself for a period of time in Italy. Sir Henry, on the other hand, hated his father, did well in the army, and may still be serving the crown. Besides, not everyone shares our sexual tastes, and we never could find anything sufficiently damaging to force him into the fold. His failings are all right out in the open for everyone to see.”

  The young man shook his head. “That’s unfortunate; he is actually very clever.”

  The older man chuckled. “You have no idea. You were too young during the war. He’s a formidable opponent. But fear not, we will break him through his daughter.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  FEBRUARY 1823, ON THE ROAD FROM NEWBURY TO AVON

  THE DAY WAS RATHER SPECTACULAR FOR LATE February. Sir Henry March, accompanied only by his groom, piloted his curricle along a small country road toward Upavon and his ducal cousin’s estate. He’d taken his hat and greatcoat off some miles back to let the sun warm him. The dry and unseasonably warm weather had left the roads passable, the riverbanks painted in crocus yellow and purple, and the bare trees brightened with the first hint of spring. Sir Henry had high hopes the familiar beloved landscape in all its spring glory would cheer him, but so far, nature’s exuberance had served only to highlight the melancholy holding his heart hostage.

  It was out of character for Sir Henry to feel so low. At four and thirty he was in his prime, blessed with a considerable fortune and the respect of his peers. He enjoyed good health, and nature had favored him with a pleasing countenance, straight limbs, and the kind of charisma women found hard to resist. His eyes were blue and penetrating, his hair sandy blond and cropped short, and his smile engaging.

  However, only three weeks had passed since he’d said goodbye to his lovely mistress, Eliza. There was no anger to carry him through the parting, since her sacrifice was as great as his own, and so he could only miss her. He missed her smell, her smile, the way she twirled her long dark locks around her fingers while she read. Most of all, he missed knowing she would be there when he got home. But Eliza had taken on the task of helping his friend and partner, Allen, who had returned from a foreign assignment with considerable injuries. And, to honor his agreement not to see Eliza for six months, Henry had to trust another agent to investigate the Russian threat and to keep Allen and Eliza safe.

  Henry and his groom had just passed through a sunlit oak forest, bright with early whispers of green, and were heading up the last rise before the descent into the Avon valley. He pulled up his grays on the crest of the hill overlooking the river. His cousin’s ancestral castle stood in the distance. The horses bent their heads to nibble at tufts of grass by the side of the road while Henry allowed himself a moment to take in the familiar vista.

  The road ahead led down a sheep-studded incline and over an ancient stone bridge spanning one of the arms of the Avon River. It passed through the charming hamlet of Upavon and disappeared into the forests beyond. The calmly flowing river below was bracketed by willows and hazel, shimmering silver where the sun hit the water.

  The scene was utterly peaceful. Not even the river had any sense of urgency, meandering here and there along its gently sloping valley, bordered by farmland and wooded groves. Henry took a deep breath, wanting the calm of this place to penetrate every cell of his being.

  He let his gaze travel back up the side of the hill to the forest to his right and paused. There, some distance away, where the forest stopped and the grassland began, a woman sat silhouetted against the horizon. She was seated on a portable stool and leaned toward a spindly easel as she painted.

  The woman was half turned away from him, absorbed in her work and oblivious to his presence. Henry found that circumstance most intriguing. It left him free to observe her, as she observed the landscape, and just like that, his love of the land was shared with another and his loneliness somewhat alleviated.

  Her figure was pleasing, and she seemed too young to be sitting at the edge of the forest by herself. Even from where he sat, the look of concentration on her profile was unmistakable. Her dark hair was brushed back from her face and held together at the nape of her neck with a sky-blue ribbon. Curiously, there were also several brushes stuck in it, and some of the shorter, slow-curling strands were unceremoniously tucked behind her ear. She wore a rather dowdy blue dress, and a large green triangular shawl was tied around her peasant-style to keep her warm and her hands free.

  But what held Henry’s attention was not her youth, or her looks, but the way she painted. She blindly bent to wash out her brush in a preserve glass on the ground, then flicked it behind her to expel the excess water, while looking alternately at the scene before her and her unfinished painting. Then she dipped her brush into two different pots of paint, swiftly mixed the color on her palette, held the palette up to check the accuracy of the hue, and added a few self-assured dabs to her composition. She cocked her head to the side to check the effect, added one more dab, and moved on to paint the sky with a broader brush she pulled from her hair.

  Henry couldn’t see the watercolor from his perch on the curricle, but he was willing to bet it was good. Every movement she made proved she was put on this earth to paint, and seeing her embrace her purpose was very attractive. Perhaps if he could find a woman who had a purpose he could understand and respect, married life might not be so bad. Eliza was right: he had to open himself to the possibility of meeting a woman he could at least like, if not love. He would never even have contemplated such a thing if she hadn’t insisted they go their separate ways.

  Over at the forest’s edge, the painter lifted her clasped hands overhead and reached skyward to stretch out her shoulders, inadvertently offering Henry a tantalizing view of the curve of her breast. But before he could wonder who she was, his attention was drawn to two riders emerging from the woods across the river and racing toward the old stone bridge. The flag of silvery blond hair streaming behind the female rider identified her as his daughter, Emily, who urged her dappled gray Arabian into a hair-raising full gallop, intent on winning the race. Impatient to see her, Henry pulled up the reins, set his team in motion, and promptly forgot all about the intriguing woman on the hill.

  EMILY BEAT HER COUSIN BERTIE to the bridge and slowed her mare to a canter to cross it, having spotted her father driving down the hill. Coming to a halt, she kicked her boot free of the stirrup and slid down the side of her horse with practiced ease. She patted the mare on her rump to let her know she was free to munch on the tender spring grass, then pulled herself up to sit on the bridge’s stone wall, letting her booted feet swing from under her slightly too short riding habit.

  As Henry approached, he couldn’t help but notice that not only had Emily outgrown the length of her frock but the material stretched tightly over her chest. With growing unease, he realized his lovely Emily—his treasured baby daughter
—had grown breasts. No wonder the well-meaning matrons in Henry’s life had deemed it necessary to impress upon Eliza the urgency of considering Emily’s coming out.

  Oblivious to his musings and her growing feminine allure, Emily sat there with the air of one who had patience with the male of the species, but only to a point.

  Bertie reined in his big bay gelding just as Henry pulled up to the side of the bridge. But Emily’s attention was still on Bertie, obviously keen to see his reaction to her win. At seventeen, Bertie was tall and lanky, and promised to fill out into a fine male specimen before too long. Right now he brushed his overlong dark-blond hair from his eyes and looked at Emily with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. “By Zeus, Em, how do you get her to go like that? She’s barely bigger than a pony.”

  Emily’s blue eyes sparkled, her silver-blond hair still wild and her face flushed from the exercise. “Maybe she just loves me and knows how much I love winning. Don’t you, Adonis?”

  Adonis lifted her head at the mention of her name and softly blew in Emily’s direction.

  Bertie, meanwhile, frowned and shook his head. “That name is just wrong. You should rename her, or stick to calling her Addy.”

  The horse moved to her mistress’s side and nuzzled her neck in silent support while Emily glowered up at Bertie. “Adonis is her given name. It’s not my fault that stupid Greek deity turned out to be male. I just liked the name and what’s done is done.”

  Familiar with the ceaseless bickering between his daughter and her favorite cousin, Henry shook his head, tossed the reins to Roberts, and jumped down from the curricle. Taking her cue from her father, Emily hopped off the wall and stepped into his waiting arms. “Hello, Papa. Do you want me to ride with you back to Avon?”

  Henry hugged her close and grinned at her cheek. She may have grown up, but she was still the same incorrigible, gregarious, horse-mad tomboy she had always been. “Hello, Poppet! Yes, I would very much like your company, and yes, you can take the reins. Has Uncle Arthur been giving you lessons?”