What a Nobleman Needs

What a Nobleman Needs THE BROTHERHOOD: ORIGINS MERRY FARMER WHAT A NOBLEMAN NEEDS Copyright ©2023 by Merry Farmer This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your digital retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (who is completely fabulous) ASIN: B0BKY9WSDD Paperback: 9798366056540 Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when the next books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/RQ-KX 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 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Epilogue About the Author Acknowledgments Prologue SWANMORE GLEN, HAMPSHIRE – JULY, 1827 The world was a vast, unfathomable puzzle to fifteen-year-old Ellis Copeland. “Oy! Spotty! What are you reading?” Ellis was startled out of the thrill of Don Juan as his older half-brother, Hugh, snatched the book from his hands and turned it so that he could scan the page. “Give that back!” Ellis shouted, leaping up from what he thought was his secret reading spot in the rose garden. He’d found the hiding place the year before and had furnished it with cushions and a particularly pretty shawl he’d absconded with from the discarded belongings of his father’s first wife. “Lord Byron?” Hugh exclaimed, bursting into a derisive laugh. “I never would have thought you had it in you, boy.” Ellis scowled at Hugh’s use of the word “boy”. He was not a boy, he was a young man. There was a distinct difference. “Give that back to me right now,” he growled, disappointed when his voice cracked a bit. That only made Hugh laugh louder. “Who would have imagined that limp-wristed, pathetic, spotty little Ellis would gorge himself on the daring dos and womanizing ways of Don Juan?” Hugh jerked the book out of Ellis’s grasp each time he reached for it and backed away, avoiding every one of Ellis’s efforts to retrieve the tome. “Do you even know what he’s talking about in these pages?” Hugh asked on. “You wouldn’t know one end of a woman from another, would you, you great nancy.” “I am not a nancy,” Ellis insisted, giving up his attempts to get his book back and taking a swing of a different kind at Hugh instead. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely certain what a nancy was. The word had been hurled at him when he’d been forced to accompany his father to London. He assumed it meant weak and overly pretty. He heard it a lot when he was forced to socialize with the sons of his father’s friends. Ellis usually sought to avoid those boys, if he could. They were bigger than him and crasser, for all they were noblemen’s sons. He was the grandson of a marquess himself, but also the son of his father’s second wife—a former barmaid from the pub he frequented in London. It had been a shocking scandal when Paul Copeland had married the woman, to be sure, but seeing as the barmaid was only a second wife, Copeland already had an heir in Hugh, and he was the second son of the marquess to begin with, the scandal didn’t last long, and Ellis and his brother, Noland, and sister, Carolina, were quickly forgotten. Which was an ideal situation, as far as Ellis was concerned. If only Hugh would forget him as well. Hugh continued to laugh and dodge as Ellis tried to fight him. “What do you know about the sorts of women Lord Byron writes about?” Hugh said, holding the book at arm’s length above his head. “Or any ladies at all, for that matter.” “I know they’re pretty and they smell good,” Ellis growled, jumping up in another attempt to retrieve his book. That only made Hugh laugh harder. It was horribly unfair. Hugh was seven years older than him and should have known better. It was unbecoming for a grown man to vex a boy—that is, a young man—the way he teased Ellis. There was no reason for it. Ellis was not a threat to him in terms of inheriting anything, nor was he a particular favorite of their father. Ellis didn’t have a single advantage that Hugh could have been envious of, and yet, the bullying was nearly constant—enough so that Ellis questioned whether he might deserve it. Ellis gave up and stepped back with a heavy sigh. “Just give the book back, please,” he said, sullen over being reduced to inferiority in the face of his half-brother’s torment. “I don’t think so,” Hugh said, lowering the book, now that Ellis had given up fighting for it. “I should make you read some of the more salacious stanzas aloud. We’ll see how you feel about pretty, good-smelling women then.” Ellis shivered. He had picked up Don Juan for the tales of adventure and travel. He’d skimmed through the stanzas with the ladies. They held no interest to him, not when there was adventure to be had. Ellis hoped his life would be adventurous too someday, although it didn’t seem the least bit likely, given his circumstances. “There we are,” Hugh said with a mean smirk. He