The Regent Pageantry: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

By Liz Levoy

The Regent Pageantry

A Historical Regency Romance Novel

In a duchy of over seventeen noble families with lords and ladies of different kinds, Henry Forehouse is searching for a wife to be his duchess when he eventually becomes the duke of Forington, even though he is secretly in love with Eunice Manderly, a noble lady. Eunice Manderly, however, is in love with a man, Kent Fillbutton, who is already betrothed to another. 

What happens when the truth comes out and the wife comes for her husband? What happens when it is time to rule and our duke is without a duchess? Will he pick up one of the numerous ladies at his disposal or will he wait patiently for the one he loves? In his wait, what happens when the noble lords of Forington begin to grumble? 

The Regent Pageantry is a story of love, passion, betrayal and nobility. Suspenseful! Heart gripping! You can't stop until you are done!

About the Author

Liz Levoy is a bestselling author who has been writing romantic stories since her senior year in high school. Levoy is a truly passionate romance writer that loves to entice her avid readers, using her experience from her travels around the world.

Feelings of love, desire and chemistry dominate her books and the characters that she creates come alive, striving for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DAO Press
• Release date: Aug 27, 2018

Book preview

Chapter 1: Duke William

William Forehouse sat at his dining table and drank from his favorite silver cup. It was actually the only silver cup he had and it was his favorite cup. Back then in his days of youth, he would not drink tea from anything else but his silver cup. He could remember how his mother would always complain to his father about this attitude of his. William’s father did not really seem to care. William did not expect him to anyway. He was the one who gave him the cup at his thirteenth birthday. William could still remember the day vividly and how all the events played out. His father had called him to his study and had presented the gift to him. It was wrapped in brown paper.

Thanks, father, he said simply when he received the gift, not knowing if he was supposed to open the gift then or some other time in his own room. His father helped him out.

Open it, son, he said.

William relaxed in the study, a room filled with books and parchments of all kinds and unwrapped the gift. It was a bright silver cup, shining in the sunlight that penetrated the room from the open windows with their drapes apart.

Thanks, father, he said with bright unbelievable eyes. It was not as though he did not expect his father to get him a present for his birthday. He expected it and he knew his father would not disappoint him. But then, he had not expected a silver cup. This was a real silver cup he was holding in his hands. Or was it not?

That is a silver cup you are holding, son. It is made of and from silver. Silver is a precious metal. You know that right?

Yes sir, he said calmly.

This is a present to you, son. Don’t lose it, his father said then and that was all.

William did not know the value of the cup until his mother told him years later, after his father had died and he had become the duke, that the cup was a family heirloom. It belonged to his grandfather and his father before him. Its history could be traced to the very day Forington was founded, the day the king demarcated the land and gave it to the Forehouse family as a possession. That silver cup was the same cup the first Forehouse drank from as he and the king enjoyed a toast.

The Forehouses that followed the first did not use the cup. They did not drink from it. They kept the sacred silver thing in a corner in their chamber or treasury and only brought it out at special occasions and when they wanted to pass it to their son. The same happened for William’s father. But not William. He would hear nothing of it. The moment he got the cup, he put it to use. He drank from it daily and used it as though it was just a normal cup and there was nothing significant about it.

Now that he was in his last days, he still drank from it. He was sitting at his dining table, his eyes focused not on the cup but on the portrait hanging on the wall before him. It was a portrait of his wife, his late wife.

William had always thought he was going to die before his wife, Emma. It was what he wanted and he always told his wife so and even the duchess believed it for as long as she could until it became obvious that the opposite was going to be the reality.

Emma died two years age of sixty-two. She had lived long and even at sixty-two, not for once did William’s love for her diminish. He had been telling his two children, Henry and Catherina ever since that he still loved their mother as though she was still alive. It was the reason he did not give himself to the brothel. He was never one to have concubines and mistresses even before he married Emma and ascended the throne and he did not take up this practice after her death.

Instead of the brothel, he however gave himself to the bottle. William was a heavy drinker. He sat at the dining table now, his eyes focused on his late wife and he was thinking. He was thinking about the last things she told him and how he was living in them now.

Take care of Henry for me…and Catherina too, Emma had said in her last days.

I will, Emma. Save your strength, William would answer impatiently.

Promise me, Will, promise me, she would persist and he would have to promise and then still her mouth with a kiss.

It was already certain at that point that she would die. She was surrounded and attended to by multiple maids and nurses. The doctor had come from the king to treat her but it was all to not avail.

The sickness spreads faster than anything I have ever treated before, my Lord, he explained to William.

Is there anything we can do? William asked then, over and over again. The answer was always negative.

Not that I know of. This is a new pestilence, I presume and I have never seen it before not to talk of curing it. I have given her syrup to reduce her pain. I however cannot guarantee that it would keep her alive, the doctor explained. And then they looked at Emma and said, The duchess has lived a fairly long time.

Not long enough, William said and dismissed him

Emma died the next day. As the doctor had promised, it was a painless and silent death. William was in his dining room waiting for the news. When it came, he did not mourn like the peasant. He braced himself and called on his servant.

Get me my cup, he told the servant who bowed and left. William did not need to explain which cup. Even the workers in his estate knew which cup William loved to drink from on special occasions and even every other day.

As he sat at his dining table thinking, his mind drifted back to his son. It was his son that he was thinking about initially when his thoughts digressed to his past. He was not initially thinking solely about his son. Instead, he was thinking about the duchy. Forington had always been his home. He could not look back and remember a time he was not living here in the castle. He loved the castle. During his father’s reign, the castle underwent a massive transformation.

When the royal family gave Forington to the Forehouses, it was a period of austerity and so there was no great or unusual show or spending of money. The only thing spectacular about the castle was that it was a castle. There was no gold, no silver, nor diamond. The designs were pretty common and the castle did not smell of royalty. It did not smell of wealth.

As time went on, the various dukes that reigned gave the castle a touch of wealth; gold here, diamond there. But then, those were just touches. None of the former dukes really went out of his way to make sure the castle looked as grand as it was supposed to look. They contributed their tidbits to it during their reigns but still, Forington castle did not meet up with its fellow castles in the North.

William’s father however did not die without doing what his ancestors refused to do. In his first ten years as duke, he called for a total renovation of the castle. It was so complete and overall that they had to evacuate the castle for a whole week. They lived in the small houses in the estate during that one week. It was William’s first time living outside the grandeur of the castle. It felt strange and it was though he was living on the streets. He did not know how to respond to it. He would cry and cry but then, his mother would keep telling him they would soon go back to their real home. William could not wait for that to come to pass. He used to think then that someone had attacked them and had taken away their castle and left them in these cubicles to live in.

Eventually, they returned to the castle and really, the castle they returned to was not in a way like the one they had left. The castle they returned to was royal, regal, and imperial. There was no denying the fact that the duke really spent a huge sum of money renovating the castle and that the one week they lived outside the castle and in the small houses in the estate was worth it. Living away from grandeur for one week gave them this majestic house to live in.

Gold was everywhere. There were golden cups and goblets. The doors were plated with gold. The pillars were adorned with sculptures of various sizes depicting various topics. The drapes were also changed and so were the cushions. There was a glass table with a golden stand in the middle of all the sitting rooms. It was wealth and majesty beyond measure. There was no one who saw it and did not marvel. Everyone expressed their awe for it and worshipped the duke for the great job he did.

It was in this castle that William grew up in and when the time came, it was this castle and the whole of Forington that he was made duke over. And now that he was approaching old age, he could not help but think about the castle. He sat at his dining table thinking. He emptied his silver cup and filled it again from the wine in the golden goblet. Everything in the house always reminded him of the dexterous work his father did in this castle. Even the goblet that held his wine came into the house during the Great Renovation, as the people called it now. It was indeed a great renovation.

William gulped down his wine and began to think about what would befall the castle after his death. He had not really given this a proper thought before and he knew that was inappropriate. It was not that he did not care about the castle. William loved this castle more than anything else. He loved Forington beyond measure and this castle was center of authority in the dukedom. If this castle fell, there was no more Forington. Of course, William was not so much concerned about the physical wellbeing of the castle as much as he was concerned about the administrative wellbeing of the castle.

William knew nothing but the end of the world could bring down this magnificent castle that he lived in. But he could not say the same for the duchy of Forington. And it was not because he had been a bad duke or anything of such. It was because of his son, Henry.

More times than he could count, he had been brought to the thinking table because of his son. What worried should not have been a thing of concern at all. What worried him was what was supposed to be worrying a duke who was not man enough to give birth to a son who would take control of the dukedom when he died. But William had given birth to a son. He had given birth to Henry twenty-five years ago and so he did not have to worry about that. But still, he was not certain the future of Forington was secured in the hand of Henry. And this was not really because he did not trust Henry or because he was not a good man but rather because Henry, the heir to the throne of Forington, the future duke of this grand duchy, was without a wife. If this alone was the problem with his son, perhaps William would not be sitting here draining every drop of wine in his silver