Someone to Honor Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE WESTCOTT SERIES

  Someone to Trust

  “The balance between sweet and bitter produces a complex and winning love story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The sheer perfection of Balogh’s prose in the fifth superbly written installment in the Westcott series marries her rare gift for crafting realistically nuanced characters to produce another radiant Regency historical romance by one of the genre’s most resplendent writers.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  Someone to Care

  “A love story nearly perfect in every way.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “A story that is searing in its insight, as comforting as a hug, and a brilliant addition to this series. Another gem from a master of the art.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  Someone to Wed

  “Balogh delves into her characters as only she can and delivers another emotionally compelling romance that is truly unforgettable. This brilliant novel will find a place on readers’ ‘keeper’ shelves.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “With her signature voice and steady pace, Balogh crafts a thoughtful, sweet Regency-era love story to follow Someone to Hold.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Balogh’s delightful ugly duckling tale may be the nonpareil Regency romance of the season.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “A tender and touching historical romance . . . a beautiful story that is hard to put down and even harder to forget.”

  —BookPage

  Someone to Hold

  “Written with an irresistibly wry sense of humor and graced with a cast of unforgettable characters, the second in Balogh’s exceptional Westcott series, following Someone to Love, is another gorgeously written love story from the queen of Regency romances.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “This ‘Cinderella’ reversal story seethes with desire, painted paradoxically in the watercolor prose that is the hallmark of this author.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This Regency romance dives deeper than most and will satisfy fans and new readers alike.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  MORE PRAISE FOR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR MARY BALOGH

  “One of the best!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn

  “Today’s superstar heir to the marvelous legacy of Georgette Heyer (except a lot steamier).”

  —New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “A romance writer of mesmerizing intensity.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

  “Winning, witty, and engaging.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros

  “A superb author whose narrative voice comments on the characters and events of her novel in an ironic tone reminiscent of Jane Austen.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Mary Balogh reaches deep and touches the heart.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston

  “Thoroughly enjoyable.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Janelle Taylor

  “Balogh once again takes a standard romance trope and imbues it with heart, emotional intelligence, and flawless authenticity.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “This touching, totally enthralling story overflows with subtle humor, brilliant dialog, breathtaking sensuality, and supporting characters you want to know better.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Balogh can always be depended on to deliver a beautifully written Regency romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I loved this book. I read it in one sitting and it made me smile a lot and cry a little.”

  —Smart Bitches Trashy Books

  Also by Mary Balogh

  The Westcott Series

  SOMEONE TO LOVE

  SOMEONE TO HOLD

  SOMEONE TO WED

  SOMEONE TO CARE

  SOMEONE TO TRUST

  The Survivors’ Club Series

  THE PROPOSAL

  THE ARRANGEMENT

  THE ESCAPE

  ONLY ENCHANTING

  ONLY A PROMISE

  ONLY A KISS

  ONLY BELOVED

  The Horsemen Trilogy

  INDISCREET

  UNFORGIVEN

  IRRESISTIBLE

  The Huxtable Series

  FIRST COMES MARRIAGE

  THEN COMES SEDUCTION

  AT LAST COMES LOVE

  SEDUCING AN ANGEL

  A SECRET AFFAIR

  The Simply Series

  SIMPLY UNFORGETTABLE

  SIMPLY LOVE

  SIMPLY MAGIC

  SIMPLY PERFECT

  The Bedwyn Saga

  SLIGHTLY MARRIED

  SLIGHTLY WICKED

  SLIGHTLY SCANDALOUS

  SLIGHTLY TEMPTED

  SLIGHTLY SINFUL

  SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS

  The Bedwyn Prequels

  ONE NIGHT FOR LOVE

  A SUMMER TO REMEMBER

  The Mistress Trilogy

  MORE THAN A MISTRESS

  NO MAN’S MISTRESS

  THE SECRET MISTRESS

  The Web Series

  THE GILDED WEB

  WEB OF LOVE

  THE DEVIL’S WEB

  Classics

  THE IDEAL WIFE

  THE SECRET PEARL

  A PRECIOUS JEWEL

  A CHRISTMAS PROMISE

  DARK ANGEL/LORD CAREW’S BRIDE

  A MATTER OF CLASS

  THE TEMPORARY WIFE/A PROMISE OF SPRING

  THE FAMOUS HEROINE/THE PLUMED BONNET

  A CHRISTMAS BRIDE/CHRISTMAS BEAU

  A COUNTERFEIT BETROTHAL/THE NOTORIOUS RAKE

  UNDER THE MISTLETOE

  BEYOND THE SUNRISE

  LONGING

  HEARTLESS

  SILENT MELODY

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Love copyright © 2016 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Remember copyright © 2019 by Mary Balogh

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9781984802385

  First Edition: July 2019

  Cover photographs: woman by Miguel Sobreira / Arcangel Images; park by Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH / Shutterstock; park bench by Darryl Brooks / Shutterstock

  Cover design by Katie Anderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  CONTENTS

  Praise for the Westcott Series

  Also by Mary Balogh

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Family Tree

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Someone to Love

  Excerpt from Someone to Remember

  About the Author

  One

  Home at last!

  Well, back in England, at least. Twenty months had passed since his last brief, disastrous stay here, after the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815. Now he was back.

  But as Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Bennington, Gil to his friends and acquaintances, disembarked from the packet in Dover after making the night crossing from Calais, he felt only weariness, irritation, and a heavy foreboding that coming home was not going to bring happily-ever-after with it.

  He grimaced at the sight of an elegant traveling carriage, ducal crests emblazoned upon its doors, standing on the dock, for it was obviously awaiting him. Or, more specifically, Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby, one of his three traveling companions. Gil would have far preferred to hire a chaise for the journey ahead, but he might have guessed that nothing but opulent splendor would do for His Grace on his own native soil. And it had to be admitted, grudgingly, that this conveyance would be far better than a hired chaise for one of their other companions, Harry. Harry was looking gray with exhaustion.

  Gil had not intended to have three companions for the journey. He had recently spent a year on the island of St. Helena as part of the garrison that guarded Napoleon Bonaparte during his second exile. When he had returned, on a ship bound for France rather than England for the simple reason that it was the first outward-bound vessel after his term of duty was over, he had gone to Paris. There he had discovered, quite by chance, that his old friend and comrade Major Harry Westcott, who he thought had died at Waterloo, was convalescing at a facility for military officers. Gil had last seen him after the battle, when his injuries had seemed mortal. But against all odds Harry had survived—barely. And after more than a year and a half he was itching to go home, though his physicians advised strongly against the strenuous journey. He was still not fully recovered.

  Gil had offered to escort him, and Harry had jumped at the opportunity. He had invited Gil to stay with him for a while once they were back home, and Gil had accepted. He wanted to be in England. He needed to be there. But he was reluctant to go all the way to his own home. There were things that must be done first.

  But then, at the last possible moment, two of Harry’s kinsmen had arrived in Paris with the purpose of conveying him home themselves. And although Harry himself was a mere illegitimate member of his family, his kinsmen were powerful men. Aristocrats. They were Avery Archer, who had once been Harry’s guardian—before the illegitimacy was discovered—and was now his brother-in-law; and Alexander Westcott, Earl of Riverdale, head of the family and holder of the title that had once been Harry’s—also before the discovery of the illegitimacy.

  It was a bit of a complicated family, Gil understood. Harry had never spoken much about it.

  They had traveled together, the four of them, though Gil had tried to bow out. He did not feel comfortable in aristocratic company. Despite his senior military rank, he was in reality a nobody from nowhere and as illegitimate as Harry. A gutter rat, if one chose to call a spade a spade. But Harry had begged him not to change his mind, so Gil had come. His friend would need him after his relatives had conveyed him home and returned to their own families.

  “Ah,” the Duke of Netherby said now, looking at his carriage through the quizzing glass he raised to his eye. “A sight for sore eyes. How much did you wager, Harry, that my carriage would not be here?”

  “Absolutely nothing, if you will recall,” Harry said. “It would be more than the life of your coachman is worth, or his livelihood anyway, to be late.”

  “Quite so,” His Grace said with a sigh. “Let us go find a nearby inn and enjoy a good English breakfast. I daresay there will be a meaty bone somewhere on the premises too.”

  The meaty bone would be for Gil’s dog, a great lump of a canine of indeterminate breed that had followed him from Waterloo to England to St. Helena, to France, and now back to England. She stood panting at Gil’s side, happy, he believed, to have her paws on firm soil again. Within moments she was inside the Duke of Netherby’s carriage with the rest of them, draped over Gil’s feet like a large sheepskin rug and half over Riverdale’s boots too.

  The carriage transported them the short distance to what Gil did not doubt was the best inn in Dover, where three of them ate a hearty breakfast and Harry nibbled without enthusiasm upon a piece of toast. His Grace then called for pen, ink, and paper and wrote a brief note to inform his duchess of their safe return to England and of the change in their planned destination. His relatives had intended to take Harry to London, where other relatives awaited him, including his mother, the Marchioness of Dorchester, and one of his sisters. But Harry had insisted upon going to Hinsford Manor in Hampshire, where he had grown up. He wanted the quiet of the countryside, he had explained to Gil. More to the point, he wanted to avoid being fussed over, and fussed over he would be if he went to London.

  Having arranged for the note to be sent, His Grace joined the other three in his carriage and it proceeded northward without further delay. It was certainly a comfortable carriage, Gil conceded. It also attracted the gawking attention of everyone it passed.

  Harry, on the seat opposite, next to Riverdale, was even paler than usual, if that was possible, and thin almost to the point of emaciation. His good looks and ever-cheerful, energetic charm had deserted him. He was twenty-six years old, eight years younger than Gil. Apparently for the six months following Waterloo the army physicians had been in daily expectation of his dying. He had been taken to Paris after the first month—why not back to England none of the military authorities seemed to know. Even after the six months he was being assailed by one infection and fever after another, only to have to face a painful, life-threatening surgery five months ago to remove an embedded bullet, which his surgeons judged had shifted closer to his heart. Having it removed would very possibly kill him, they had warned. Not doing so certainly would. He had survived the excruciatingly painful ordeal, but the renewed infections and fevers had almost killed him anyway.

  Gil hoped the ordeal of their trip would not accomplish what all the fevers and infections had been unable to do. He hoped Harry would survive the journey, which Gil had encouraged and arranged.

  “You must be happy to be back in England, Harry,” Riverdale said. “Though it is unfortunate you are being treated to a typical English welcome.” He gestured toward the window. Heavy clouds hung low over a landscape that was being buffeted by a west wind and assaulted by a slanting rain.

  “It is indeed a good feeling,” Harry said, gazing out upon t
he scene. “But I have been thinking and wondering. I suppose it is altogether possible I will be descended upon not just by rain in the next week or so. Do you think there is any chance the family will come visiting since I am not going to London to visit them?”

  “I would certainly not wager against it,” Alexander said. “They have all been eagerly awaiting your arrival in London. I doubt your choosing to go to Hinsford instead will deter them. It is not terribly far from London, after all.”

  “The devil!” Harry muttered, closing his eyes and setting his head back against the plush cushions.

  “I suppose,” Riverdale added, “you have chosen to go straight to Hinsford at least partly in order to avoid the commotion awaiting you in town.”

  “Yes, at least partly,” Harry admitted—and then laughed unexpectedly without opening his eyes. “I ought to have known better. And if I had known better, I would have felt obliged to warn you, Gil. There is possibly no other family on earth that rallies around its members as the Westcotts do—and that includes those who are married to Archers and Cunninghams and Handriches and Lamarrs and . . . Did I miss anyone? Once a Westcott, always a Westcott, it seems. Even if one is a bastard.”

  “You know that is a word we never use within the family, Harry,” Riverdale said. “Think of your sisters when you use it, if you please, even if not of yourself.”

  Gil, without showing any outer sign, was wishing like hell that Harry had thought to warn him that his fond family was likely to descend upon him en masse even though Hinsford was some distance from London. Most of them would be gathered in London now for the spring session of parliament and the social whirl of the Season. He might have guessed, of course, when these two men turned up unexpectedly in Paris as emissaries of the family. But it had not occurred to him even then that the rest of them would actually journey into the country to see Harry when he arrived home.

  After all, no family had ever rallied around him, either on his mother’s side—they had turned her out, never to relent, after she conceived him—or on his father’s. The most his father had ever done for him was purchase his ensign’s commission in a foot regiment after word had reached him of the death of Gil’s mother. Gil had been at that time a sergeant with a British regiment in India. Later he had purchased a lieutenancy for his son too, but Gil had written to him on that occasion, and not to thank him—why should he thank a father who had ignored his very existence for more than twenty years, only to swoop down seemingly from nowhere with a gift his son had neither wanted nor asked for? Gil had written to inform the man that he need supply no further patronage and that it would be refused if it was offered. By that time Gil had been wishing heartily that he were still a sergeant. He had been happier with his own kind.