Enraptured by the Marquess

ENRAPTURED BY THE MARQUESS WHEN THE WALLFLOWERS WERE WICKED DAPNE QUINN Copyright © 2023 by Tammy Andresen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Created with Vellum CONTENTS 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 Epilogue Entangled with the Duke’s Daughter Join Swift Romance’s newsletter About the Author PROLOGUE PROLOGUE When Ranscombe House finally came into view, Jeremy Bexley forgot about the terrible pain in his leg, and the exhaustion that filled his body, and spurred his horse on. After five long years, he was finally home. Everything had changed, and yet all was the same. The grand stone building that he had grown up in still dominated the skyline, and the oak trees still blew around in the wind. But his father was dead now, and so Jeremy had returned as the Marquess of Yeovil. And his time at war was over. Would he ever be the same again? He did not know. But now that he had performed his duty for king and country, it was time for him to set his own life to rights. To make sure the marquessate was in good hands. His eyes strayed to the Burville estate, high on the brow of the next hill. He needed to make himself presentable, before he called on Miss Elinor Burville, whom he had promised to marry so many years ago. Now that he was home, it could finally happen. He was sure she would make an impeccable marchioness. But first he needed to bathe and shave and make sure he could walk without too obvious a limp or a grimace. He did not want his Elinor believing she was marrying a broken man. He had not mentioned his injuries in his letters to her, keeping them as positive as he could. And even though, lately, letters did not seem to be getting through, he had religiously sent his falsely cheery updates. The war had damaged him, certainly, but he would not let it break him. He would forget the horrors he had seen, in time, and he would be happy again. Happy with Elinor by his side. How it had always been planned. The staff had been rather surprised to see him return, although thankfully they had kept the house in good shape since his father had passed away almost a year earlier. He would have returned sooner if the damned Peninsular War had not still been raging. The people who had served his father, and before her untimely death, his mother, did not immediately remember that he was now the Marquess. He was greeted with his old title of Lord Brentry, as he had been known since his birth. The Earl of Brentry. A lofty title for a tiny baby – but as the eldest son, and in fact the only son, of the Marquess of Yeovil, it had belonged to him. But no longer. He supposed one day it would be his son's name. His and Elinor's son… What a glorious thought that was. He struggled to picture her, after five years of separation, but he knew she was beautiful. And he had been true to her for the long five years he had spent in France. Now he just wanted to be wedded to her, to take her in the way that he never had done when he was courting her, for fear of scandalous rumours, for a child being born out of wedlock. She had not wanted him to go to war, but he had felt a strong sense of duty, and a need to prove himself to his father. He’d argued with his father about his future role and title, and so off he’d gone to enlist, partly to prove the man wrong. And although he spent many dark nights fantasising about her soft curves and the flutter of her eyelashes, when he was under heavy artillery fire, he was always pleased that they had never anticipated their wedding vows. For had he been killed, and left her with a bastard child, it would surely have ruined her. And that was not something he would have wanted on his conscience, dead or alive. It was very strange, to sleep in his father's bed, to feel the realities of his new position. He did mourn his father, but he was not one to share his emotions with the world, and he and his father had always maintained a cordial yet distant relationship. In fact, after his mother had died, he saw more of nannies and tutors than he did of his remaining parent. He had one of the terrible dreams that night and woke up thrashing and screaming for a good while, before he realised where he was, and that he was safe. No one came to investigate the noise, and he wondered if they had not heard him, or if they just did not know what they ought to do. The images that filled his sleeping hours were as real as being on the battlefield. Blood spurting, men screaming, the terrible stench of death all around. It had been an awful war, and it was hard for his mind to become accustomed to the fact that he was no longer part of it. He paced the bedroom, trying to calm his heart, and felt the sharp twinge in his leg, where there were still fragments of lead from where he had been shot. The surgeon had said he was lucky to keep the leg, but the pain would likely be with him forever. He had hoped these dreams would stop as soon as he returned home, for he could not have