One Waltz with the Earl: The Seldon Park Christmas Novellas, #7

By Bethany M. Sefchick

Eight years ago, Lord Colin Thorne rescued a young woman from a convent at the direction of the Home Office – a woman who was destined to become his partner in the art of spycraft.  Now, after unexpectedly inheriting his brother's title, Colin is expected to give up his life's work with Thera and settle down, which includes announcing his engagement to a woman he barely knows on Christmas Eve.

For the last six years, Teresa Barrington has done her duty to Crown and country by Colin's side and never regretted a moment of it, even when doing so cost her more than she should have been willing to give.  Now it's time for Colin to begin a new life, but this time without her by his side.  She, in turn, is about to embark upon a new life as well, when she is introduced to Society as the long-lost granddaughter of a duke.

However, parting ways is something that both Colin and Thera are finding easier said than done.  Can they both somehow make peace with their proposed new futures, or will they give in to temptation and the magic of the holiday season as it winds its way around them at a Christmastide house party that is legendary for producing love matches?

This 42,300-word novella, which is a companion piece to the "Tales From Seldon Park" series, is written in the modern, Regency romance style for a slightly hotter and sexier read.  It may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bethany M. Sefchick
• Release date: Dec 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393189046

Bethany M. Sefchick

Making her home in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, Bethany Sefchick lives with her husband, Ed, and a plethora of Betta fish that she’s constantly finding new ways to entertain. In addition to writing, Bethany owns a jewelry company, Easily Distracted Designs. It should be noted that the owner of the titular Selon Park - one Lord Nicholas Rosemont, the Duke of Candlewood, a.k.a. "The Bloody Duke" - first appeared in her mind when she was eighteen years old and had no idea what to make of him, or of his slightly snarky smile.  She has been attempting to dislodge him ever since - with absolutely no success. When not penning romance novels or creating sparkly treasures, she enjoys cooking, scrapbooking, and lavishing attention on any stray cats who happen to be hanging around. She always enjoys hearing from her fans at: [e-mail]

Book preview

Prologue

December 23, 1813

Wynmouth Priory

Outside of Hexham, Northumberland

Teresa Maria.  Come.  There is someone you need to meet.

Of course, there was.  There was always someone to meet, especially this close to Christmastide.  Not that Teresa ever celebrated the holiday.  She hadn’t since she had come to the priory as a child.  Then again, she hadn’t celebrated the supposedly festive season when her family had been alive either.  Her mother had always been too ill to do more than make a half-hearted attempt at boiling a pudding, and her father was always at sea, having no time or patience for frivolities that didn’t make him any money – or, as he repeatedly grumbled, cost him money.  Christmas, in her father’s opinion, did both and was by far the worst offender of any holiday, scant few that there were.

Given that it was now only a few days before families in the area would gather to celebrate the holiday, Teresa assumed that someone was here to hire extra help for the Christmastide season and perhaps into Twelfth Night, be it for cooking or cleaning or serving.  Such visits happened every year and, if nothing else, it was a nice respite from this dreary place for a day or so, even if the coin she made went directly into the priory’s coffers and not her own pocket.

Not that Teresa had anything to spend coin on anyway, for she was not permitted to own anything save for two dresses (one for work and one for church services, of course) and her underthings.  Even her bible belonged to the convent.

Still, possessing a coin so that she might be able to purchase a sweet or two, should she ever be able to leave this place for a few hours, might have been nice.  But it wasn’t to be.  Dreams such as those had died long ago and she would do well to remember that.

This was her life.  Dull, drab, and colorless as it was.

Taking care to smooth down her threadbare soiled gray dress – which was, unfortunately, as clean as she could make it after repeated washings – Teresa turned away from the fading sunlight beyond the window and back toward the center of the room where she already knew Sister Magdaline waited for her, the unknown guest likely to the older woman’s left.

After all, the nun that oversaw the convent here in the far-flung reaches of northern England was nearly blind in her right eye, so she would never consent to anyone being in the same room as she without being able to see them clearly.  Also, Sister Magdaline didn’t trust anyone, not even those in her own order, so there was no chance she would trust an outsider.

As you wish, Sister.  Teresa did her best to make her voice sound appropriately chaste – whatever that meant, for she had yet to figure out that particular request – and humble at the same time.

The last thing Teresa wanted was to be beaten by Sister Magdaline once the visitor left for not displaying to their guest what the older woman termed appropriate gratefulness to the order of nuns that had raised her since she had been a ten-year-old orphan.  That had happened more often than not over the eight years Teresa had essentially been imprisoned in this frigid tower room and she had the scars on her back to prove it.

Despite what others said, Teresa was a prisoner here in his drab, frigid, gray room with its hand-cut stone walls, a single bed with a threadbare blanket pushed into a corner, and a small washstand with a chipped porcelain pitcher and bowl.  She supposed she should be grateful that the nuns had taken her in all of those years ago rather than being sent to a workhouse as most orphaned children were.  Or worse, in the case of young but extremely pretty girls, handed off to a brothel in Covent Garden never to seen again.

But Teresa wasn’t grateful.  Or at least not as grateful as Sister Magdaline thought she should be since without the nuns, the old woman firmly believed that Teresa would have ended up a whore in some man’s bed.  After all, in the old woman’s opinion, Teresa had been raised without any morals at all.  Better to be chaste and worked to the bone like a slave than to know the sins of a man’s body and his craven, tempting ways, at least according to Sister Magdaline.

That especially applied to Teresa.

In any case, Teresa’s disobedience and arrogance regarding her situation (again, Sister Magdaline’s terms and not Teresa’s) would likely not serve her any better today than they had the previous times visitors had come to call.  In truth, she should probably to do more to curb them anyway.  After all, it wasn’t as if anyone was coming to take her away from this hellish existence.  They hadn’t when she was a child so they were even less likely to do so now that she was an adult.

To be fair, she hadn’t always made things easy on herself either, often resisting the overtures of couples who came to look at the fair child who might make a decent cook or a household drudge.  Or, worse yet, a child they could take to London and sell to a whorehouse for a good amount of coin that might set them up for years to come.  Teresa had avoided those couples at all costs, for she could see the ill intent in their eyes, even when the naïve Sister Magdaline could not.

Teresa sincerely hoped whoever was here to have a look at her today wasn’t planning anything so awful as that.  After all, she was of an age now that she would not simply do anything someone asked of her just because it was proper or expected.

However, the moment Teresa turned around and caught her first glimpse of the new visitor to her tower room?  She instinctively knew that whatever this person standing before her wanted of her, she would do.  No questions asked.

He was a god or at the very least, he looked like one.  Tall and broad-shouldered, his finely tailored clothes hinted that he might be a peer of the Realm or, at the very least, came from considerable wealth.  His eyes were the color of the rich, brown taffy from the East Indies that she remembered from her childhood.  His dark hair was thick, though he wore it closely cropped and faint stubble shadowed his chin, something she thought was a likely state of being for him.

It was the way he looked at her, however, that made Teresa’s knees quiver.  For the first time in eight long years, someone looked at her, really looked at her, and saw all that she was – and all that she was not.

My lord.  Teresa dropped into a curtsey before Sister Magdaline could prod her into one.  I bid you welcome.  She made certain to use her best and most proper voice, the one she had learned at her mother’s knee.  The one that hinted at the privilege and refinement that her mother had been born into but gave up to marry Teresa’s father.

Teresa watched as the man’s lips twitched briefly with barely-concealed humor before he pressed them into a stern line again, as if trying very hard not to laugh.  As if he realized this situation was utterly absurd.  Which, of course, it was.

However, in the space of a breath, this man seemed to gather himself and take charge of the situation.  Teresa had no idea how he managed such a feat.  He just did.

Leave us! The stranger snapped at the old nun and for a moment, Teresa’s heart stopped beating, certain that Sister Magdaline would begin screaming and ranting at the top of her lungs as she was wont to do when someone questioned her authority.  Especially a man.  Instead, to Teresa’s utter shock, the old nun simply nodded, her lips in a grim line that matched the stranger’s, and left the room with a bowed head, muttering under her breath.

Teresa turned back to the heartbreakingly handsome gentleman before her, about to ask him how he had managed to cow the old crone with a single look, when he put his finger to her lips and gave her a speaking look.

Instinctively, Teresa fell silent, any word she might have spoken dying on her lips.  First her mother and then later her father had taught her to read a person’s body language, and this man was in something of a hurry.  She could see that now.  He also wanted something from her and she would be damned if she allowed him to leave before finding out what that something was.

You are Teresa Angeline Barrington, correct? the man asked, his voice soft and sensual, like silk flowing over her skin.  Aged eighteen years?

I am.  Taking a chance, she met his gaze directly, her unusually-hued, bright turquoise eyes staring back into his toffee-brown ones.  She prayed that he did not criticize her eyes, for they were a mirror image of her mother’s, and a bit of a sore spot as it was.  My middle name is not Maria.  That is the name the nuns gave me eight years ago when I was placed into their care when I became an orphan.  My last name is now Barrington, which I am told is from my mother’s side of the family, though I don’t know the depth of the connection, as she was disowned when she married my father, or so I am told.

The man nodded sharply, clearly approving of what she has just said.  Then you are also the daughter of Bram and Georgiana McTavish, the Scottish sea captain and his wife?

Once more, Teresa held the stranger’s gaze.  She would not show fear in front of this man.  Every instinct within her whispered that doing so would do her more harm than good in the end.

I am.  My father died at sea when I was ten.  He went down with his ship in a gale in the North Sea.  My mother passed away in childbirth with a stillborn son when I was but six years of age.

At that, the man’s harsh face softened and he became even more handsome than he had been mere moments ago.  Then you are the one I seek.  For a brief moment, the room seemed to shimmer and move around Teresa and she must have swayed on her feet for she felt the man’s warm hand reach out to steady her.  Then again, she had only eaten a crust of bread today and she was very hungry, which was nothing new.  She was always hungry.  Careful there.  I don’t want to lose you after it’s taken me so bloody long to find you.

She smiled as his use of the curse word inside the walls of the priory.  I have been here since I was a child, my lord.  Where were you then?

Teresa hadn’t meant her words to come out so sharply, but instead of being angry, the stranger only smiled.  Likely at school, for I am not much older than you, my dear.  Slowly, he slid his hand from where he gripped her wrist down further so that he could take her hand in his – and he wasn’t wearing gloves, much to her shock and delight.  Lord Colin Thorne.  Aged two and twenty, if you wish to know.

For a long moment, Teresa looked at her hand in his.  Hers was thin and fragile, almost skeletal, much like the rest of her, for she was given so little food to sustain her.  His was large and well-formed, though rough, as if he knew hard work.  Her skin was stark white from the lack of sun while his was firm and tanned.

So very different.  And yet, in some ways, so very much alike, for looking at his hand, it was evident to her that neither of them had known a soft and pampered life, even though he had clearly been born to wealth.

And what do you want with me, Lord Colin Thorne?  It was impertinent to ask such a thing of a true gentleman.  Teresa knew that, but she also knew that she couldn’t risk getting in too far over her head with this man, which was something she could likely do very easily.  Thus far, he had simply looked at her and spoken a handful of words, and already she was willing to do anything he asked.

He smiled at her then, really smiled, and it was as if something inside of her burst into life.  Something that Teresa didn’t even know had been dormant inside of her.  Now, however, she felt as if she was standing in the