Midwinter Marriage

By K.L. Noone

The Honorable Edmund Rookwood needs to get married. By Midwinter. Or his father will disinherit him.

Edmund has always tried to be a loyal son and dutiful heir -- unlike his scandalous younger brother. But his father’s ultimatum seems impossible. Edmund has never fallen in love easily, and -- according to his father -- he’s a disappointment, inadequate, never good enough. Who would ever say yes to him?

Sebastian Melior, the Duke of Morinbrough, mathematician and inventor and Edmund’s best friend, offers to help. After all, Sebastian’s also unmarried, and they’ve known each other for years. So Sebastian’s proposal is a logical solution ...

But this Midwinter marriage of convenience stirs up unexpected emotions. And Edmund and Sebastian just might discover they’ve been each other’s answers all along.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Feb 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781685506872

K.L. Noone

K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

Book preview

Chapter 1

London, 1803

My father says he’s dying. Edmund Rookwood pressed one hand against the wall beside the window in his library, leaned against it, did not punch a hole through plaster and paper to air and sky and freedom beyond. The note, in his hand, crumpled like scars from the past. And he says it’s my fault.

Well, Sebastian Melior considered from his comfortable chair, legs stretched out and brandy glass suspended mid-air, you do hate him; did you poison the man?

No!

No, you wouldn’t do that. Even if he’d deserve it. Sebastian got up, finally, all fluid elegant grace despite the marginal lack of height for pink-of-the-ton perfection. The molten gold of his movements, hair, beauty, made him irresistible to most of Society, and distracted most people from the rapier-sharp gift for mathematics and investments that’d repaired his familial ducal fortunes. That was the reason they were friends; Edmund appreciated a useful mind, and had not ever noticed the prettiness.

Well. Perhaps he’d noticed. Once or twice. Impossible not to, in the decades they’d known each other. Especially when Sebastian wore green. Specifically, the same hue as his eyes. The color of light through forests, honey and emerald.

Or so some of the gossip sheets and breathless flutters claimed, adoring the handsome and wealthy Duke of Morinbrough. Edmund did not care about Sebastian’s looks. He’d never cared. Because that had no bearing on their friendship. Obviously.

Sebastian came over, having set the brandy down. Put a hand on Edmund’s arm. My apologies. Not the time for humor. Are you all right?

Of course I am. He took a breath, let it out. Sebastian’s hand remained on his arm, a weight, warm even through coat and shirtsleeve. The street moved, stirred, came to life below, beyond the window: Mayfair, London, at Midwinter. Carriages creaked. Hooves clopped. Skirts rustled like laughter, patterns of silk and brocade and conversations. Parties, suppers, candlelight blooming in pools of gilt-edged welcome. I apologize for the emotional outburst. We should return to the discussion of mineral rights and the development of the coal mining prospects on the Cumberland estate. As far as your investment—

Edmund. Sebastian’s gaze was green as glass, and steady. I’ve already promised my involvement, and we can go over those terms. In a moment. Your father’s dying.

The world won’t mourn him. If I go up to Cumberland in person, I can assist with some of the drainage—

You’re a weather talent, not necessarily a drainer of groundwater. Do you need to see him?

I can at least predict the rains and work out the best schedule. If I’m there. He turned from the swirl of humanity and life; drifted to a chair, sat down. The chair was new, fashionable but sober, precisely chosen for the appearance and lifestyle of a viscount’s eldest—and only non-scandalous—son. It held him up without comment. The folds of the note bit into his fingers. He asked me to come. After he told me this was all my fault.

How is it your fault? Sebastian swept in and snuck the note out of Edmund’s unresisting hand, and then perched on the arm of the chair as if born to be there. "Oh, gods of oak and ivy, this is dreadful. I don’t just mean how utterly long-winded and winding his sentences are. He can’t possibly think that your brother’s disreputable choices are your doing. I absolutely rescind my earlier comment; don’t see him."

Sam will do what Sam wants. And who. He always has. Edmund scrubbed a hand over his face. Forty-five years old, and he felt every one of them. Grey at his temples, and the claws of obligation on his shoulders. It’s…complicated.

In the next heartbeat he regretted saying so. He didn’t even know why he’d said it. He had not spoken to his younger brother—half-brother, the son of Viscount Phineas Rookwood’s second wife—for years, aside from social politeness when required. They’d never been close.

Sam had left the house as soon as possible. Had taken up employment, for the gods’ sake. Used his kinetic gifts to catch criminals, to solve cases, to speak to and associate with the filth of the London streets. Sam, Edmund knew, had a reputation: having risen through the ranks to become Chief Magistrate of Bow Street’s Preternatural Division.

Even worse, Sam had gone looking for the viscount’s missing third wife and her outrageous musically-gifted son. They were not family—Emily and John Thynne had fled the family, albeit for good reason, Edmund admitted—and Sam owed them nothing; Edmund himself had pointed this fact out, when Sam had asked for his assistance.

And Sam had spent money and resources trying to find them; had ignored Edmund’s very correct advice; had cared, when he should not have cared, because Emily and John had left and were happily flagrantly living wild unrestrained lives in Italy, sleeping with countesses and banditti, disregarding all Society’s rules and throwing propriety out of windows like, according to rumor, a pair of John’s undergarments from a chevalier’s bedchamber.

Edmund had been horrified. Anyone would be. Or ought to be. Sam hadn’t been. Sam, in fact, had become engaged to John Thynne the previous Midwinter, upon John’s return to London. Because they’d not been content with the existing level of notoriety of the family; no, Sam had had to go and agree to marry his own former stepbrother, a decade younger, a composer and an artist and an entire sensational three-volume novel on two legs.

Edmund had not congratulated them. How could he?

He’d seen them, of course. At the theatre. At Lady Daventhorpe’s grand