Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy
Table of Contents
About Heather
Title Page
Dedication
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Dear Reader
Acknowledgements
Acts of Kindness
Heather Barnett grew up in Wiltshire and has a degree in English and French from the University of Leeds. Aside from writing, her interests are classic literature, cats and comedy. She is head of marketing at an agency near Oxford and lives by the river Kennet in Berkshire. Lord Seeks Wife is her second novel.
For more information on Heather and her books, please visit her website – www.heatherbarnettauthor.com or join the discussion on Twitter and Instagram @WritesHeather.
Lord Seeks Wife
Heather Barnett
First published in Great Britain by Serpentine Books
This edition published in 2021 by
Serpentine Books Limited
www.serpentinebooks.com
info@serpentinebooks.com
Copyright © Heather Barnett 2021
The moral right of Heather Barnett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Epub ISBN 978 1 9138 7411 7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For David Hart.
Chapter 1
Noblet George William Chatterton de Beeble, 14th Earl of Pantling – Nobby to his friends – became aware that his mother was trying to get his attention across the breakfast table. Setting down a forkful of sausage, he raised his eyebrows at her.
‘What’s that, Mother?’ he enquired.
Lady Caroline threw a copy of The Telegraph at her son, quite hard. Having smacked him in the nose, it fell into the remaining fried egg on his plate. ‘I asked, you stupid boy, what you have to say about that?’
‘That’ was a short article on one of the inside pages:
Lord Seeks Wife: Long Hours but Excellent Benefits
Marriage is a contract, true, but how often do the clauses cover hours of employment, salary and holiday pay? It seems that in rural Mereshire, romance is dead. Noblet de Beeble, 14th Earl of Pantling, is advertising for a wife in the Situations Vacant section of his local paper, the Market Mornington Gazette. Although remuneration is not specified, the advert claims the role of wife of Lord de Beeble will appeal to those who enjoy the countryside and large houses. Curiously, a love of the novels of Wilkie Collins is also a pre-requisite. What the interview process will entail isn’t clear: perhaps an essay on The Woman in White followed by a practical examination in flower arranging.
Noblet shook his head.
‘Amazing how these journalists twist things.’ He slapped the paper with the back of his hand. ‘Quite amazing.’
‘You didn’t place an advertisement in the Situations Vacant section of the Gazette, then?’
‘Oh, I did, yes. Have you not seen it? I’ve got it here somewhere.’
He got up and burrowed around in the sheaves of paper on the sideboard.
‘Here it is. Yes, I placed the advertisement. It’s entirely different to the way this fellow’s made it sound, of course. See for yourself, Mother.’
Lady Caroline took the paper and read aloud:
‘Thirty-something Earl seeks wife to help run ancestral home. If you love the countryside, animals and large houses, this could be the role for you! P.S. Must have a passion for the novels of Wilkie Collins. Apply in writing, stating qualifications for the role, to the Earl of Pantling, de Beeble Hall, Mereshire.’
Lady Caroline lowered the paper and ran a cold, appraising eye over her eldest son’s bulky frame. Could it be that this unkempt man with his absent-minded stare was her flesh and blood – a representative of an ancient family? No matter how often she asked herself this question, the answer remained resolutely, yes. She continued to ask it regardless, in the hope that new information might come to light. If only Henry had been born first. Henry was well-mannered and capable: Nobby surfaced from the mid-nineteenth century to eat his meals before diving back into the reign of Victoria. Henry was a thoroughbred, Nobby was a carthorse. Not just a carthorse: an imbecilic carthorse.
‘Nobby?’
‘Yes, Mother?’
‘You are an imbecilic carthorse.’
‘So you keep telling me, Mother. If I could bring up the small matter of my Masters and PhD…’
‘PhD? Any idiot can get a PhD. If I scribbled a few pages on an obscure author, they would no doubt be falling over themselves to call me Doctor de Beeble.’
Noblet’s expression reminded his mother of her Labrador puppy when it received an unexpected tap on the muzzle. ‘Wilkie Collins is widely acknowledged as one of the finest writers England ever produced, Mother! How you can call him obscure—’
Lady Caroline rose from the table with an air of finality, dropping her napkin beside her plate.
‘You’ve made a pig’s ear of this, Noblet. I’m going down to the village today to hand out prizes at the fête. When I come back, I shall be interested to hear your proposed solution.’
With that, she marched to the door, paused to allow her son to leap up and open it, and swept out of the room.
***
Ever since she could remember, Alice Brand had manned a stall at the Gently Rising May Day Fête. One of her earliest memories was sitting on a stool next to her mother behind the Women’s Institute table, pensively drooling over the coffee cakes and treacle tarts. She had risen through the ranks over the years: from helping her mother, she’d graduated to become Colonel Markham’s second in command on the tombola, and from there had made the leap to the heady heights of supervising the primary school’s white elephant stall. Somehow, manning the stall always seemed to fall to Alice. The other teachers would make vague promises to relieve her during the afternoon but never remembered to – and anyway, Alice didn’t mind. If she wasn’t running a stall she’d be expected to ‘mingle’: a word that never failed to fill her with dread.
The May Day Fête was held on the playing field of St. Hilda’s, the quaint Edwardian primary school, and all the teachers were expected to arrive early to help set up. At ten o’clock, Alice said goodbye to Tom the cat and hurried out of the front door of her small cottage, down the path, through the painted wooden gate and out onto the lane.
Alice loved Gently Rising. She loved the mismatched collection of cottages and grand houses that clustered round the village green. She loved
the shady lanes winding their way into the surrounding countryside. She loved the circle of hills that surrounded the village like a big grassy hug. She wasn’t such a huge fan of the new estate on the south side of the village, but she closed one eye as she was passing that particular spot. Gently Rising had always been her home, other than a few traumatic years studying for her PGCE at Homerton, from which she’d returned as soon as possible, sighing with relief. Alice couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Her sister, Cecily, had once got as far as ‘I noticed they’re building some new apartments on the riverside in Market Mornington, Alice. Have you ever thought about…’ before being brought up short by the sight of Alice, aghast, grasping wildly at the nearest object (Tom the cat) as if pressing the whole of Gently Rising to her bosom. She and Tom had worn the scars of that incident, emotional and physical, for some time afterwards.
As Alice hurried up the driveway to the school, she saw Mrs Fratterbury, the headmistress, outside the entrance. Wearing a voluminous dress in stagnant-pond green, she was wedged into a wooden armchair, puffing on a cigarette. At the sight of Alice, she ground the cigarette under her large, be-sandled foot. Had Star Wars’ Jabba the Hutt glooped his way into Gently Rising that morning and cast eyes on Mrs Fratterbury, he would no doubt have licked his lips at her Huttish beauty and suggested something outrageous involving slime – such was her similarity to his race. This wasn’t something that struck Alice, who greeted Mrs Fratterbury with a cheery wave.
‘Morning, Mrs Fratterbury, what a lovely day for the fête!’
‘Perhaps a trifle on the fresh side, but merely a trifle. Are you well today, lovie?’
‘Fine thanks, you?’
Mrs Fratterbury shook her head with the air of a weary surgeon giving bad news. Her voice became husky.
‘I struggle on, Alice, and I don’t complain but I’m not a well woman. It’s a bit of a throaty thing, you know.’ A small cough was coaxed into a dramatic spluttering fit. ‘I shouldn’t be here; I should be in my bed and if I was any kind of normal person I would be. But I’m soldiering on, lovie.’
Alice knew that if she gave her her head, Mrs Fratterbury would trot on through the meandering highways and byways of her many aches and pains. Normally, she would have been sympathetic, but time was ticking on and her stall needed to be set up.
‘Well, you take it easy, Mrs Fratterbury, and I’ll go and check on the organisation.’
‘That’s the spirit, Alice, lovie. See you later. I’ll stay here and rest a moment,’ said the headmistress, surreptitiously lighting another cigarette.
***
The ‘organisation’ wasn’t up to much, it turned out. A weak sun was picking out the last remaining wisps of a silvery mist on the empty field. A few tables were stacked up against one of the mobile classrooms and a tangled pile of bunting lay on the single table that had been erected. A bouncy castle lay limp and forlorn over near the hedge and an old man in a waxed jacket and flat cap was prising open a plastic crate on the patio that ran along the back of the school.
‘Morning, Colonel Markham!’
Caught off guard, the old man sprang to attention as if he were on the parade ground. Quickly recovering himself, he roared:
‘Alice! Timed to a T! Come and lend a hand, my dear.’
As the two of them unpacked the tombola drum and set it up on a table, the Colonel grumbled, ‘Same every year. All the grunt work gets left to the likes of you and me and then the dolly birds swan in and take the glory. It’s the last year I’ll do it, my dear. The very last year.’
Alice made a feeble attempt at dissuading him but her heart wasn’t in it, as he’d been threatening to give up since 1989.
By the time Alice had brought all the white elephant donations out from the school hall, it was beginning to look more like a fête. The bouncy castle had bloomed, stalls were springing up here and there around the edge of the field and Mrs Hawsbury had arrived with her horse and haybales to set up the course for the pony rides.
The sun was hotting up in a clear blue sky. Many of the villagers were taking advantage of the sunshine to show off their new summer wardrobes; none more so than Sinead Dumper, currently setting up her bookstall next to Alice’s white elephant. Wobbling a little in her blue patent stilettos, she was having some difficulty bending down to lift books out of boxes, due to the tightness of her white skirt suit.
‘I’ll set up here, Alice. We can help each other out.’
Ever since Sinead had moved to the village four years ago, she’d always set up next to Alice so they could ‘help each other out’. Translated, this meant Alice manning Sinead’s stall while she went on the prowl.
She was setting out the books with care, arranging them according to size and colour but with complete disregard of genre.
‘Heard about the advert?’ Sinead asked.
‘What advert?’
‘Not heard? Oh, Alice!’ Her laugh was like a chimpanzee stepping on a drawing pin. ‘Always one step behind. Got a copy here.’
She brought a newspaper clipping out of her handbag, folded in quarters.
‘Daily Telegraph. Went back through last week’s Gazette. Found the original.’ Another pristine clipping emerged from the shiny blue bag.
Alice read the proffered cuttings.
‘Mereshire in the news. How exciting. It’s a shame they didn’t mention Gently Rising,’ she said as she passed the cuttings back to Sinead, who stowed them away again.
‘Who cares about Gently Rising! Didn’t you see what it said? Lord de Beeble is looking for a wife. Wonder if he’s coming today,’ she mused, eyes flickering around the field. ‘Never met him. You?’ she asked, rounding on Alice.
‘Sort of. I’ve seen him in the village a few times. He used to live in Oxford until he came back here a few months ago. I heard he was studying for a PhD – or was it writing a book?’
‘Both,’ replied Sinead instantly. ‘Completed a PhD on the Victorian author Wilkie Collins. Took him five years. Since then he’s been working on a book.’
‘Gosh! You know a lot about him.’
Sinead threw a scathing look at Alice.
‘Research.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘I expect he’ll come to the fête. He’ll want to take a look around. Get to know the villagers.’
Sinead’s hands were groping in her handbag for her lipstick as she spoke, eyes darting hungrily from face to face. ‘What does he look like?’
Alice thought for a moment.
‘Um, I remember him being quite tall…’
‘Tall – good.’
‘And quite big, I think. Not big, big but, you know – kind of broad-shouldered.’
‘Well built – good.’
Alice stopped.
‘What else?’ demanded Sinead. ‘Eye colour? Hair colour? Good-looking?’
‘I’m sorry, Sinead, I can’t remember much about him. It must be five years since I last saw him. It was when they put on The Moonstone at the village hall. Lord de Beeble was the guest of honour and he made a short speech before the curtain went up.’
‘Good speaker?’
‘Well… He didn’t stammer or anything as far as I can remember.’
Sinead did her impression of an injured chimp again.
‘Useless! There’s Jan Fratterbury. She’ll know. Mind my stall for me.’
She stalked away towards the headmistress, heels sinking into the grass and sinewy buttocks rotating inside her tight skirt.
***
Soon the fête was in full swing. Bunting hung limply in the heat, runaway dogs raced each other between the stalls, the smell of sausages and onions wafted through the air and excited young voices rang out across the field. Alice’s stall was proving popular, a swarm of people gathering round to rummage through knick-knacks and exchange gossip.
‘What I want to know is what Lady Caroline will have to say about all this. I mean, it’s not exactly de rigueur, is it?’ asked a horsey-looking woman in a Hermes s
carf.
‘Yes, and he’s quite the oddball, I hear,’ replied her friend. ‘Practically a recluse according to Tom Phipps – Tom drinks in the Lion and Lamb with the gardener from the Hall, you know. His Lordship’s barely left the library since he got back from Oxford.’
‘No doubt some women will degrade themselves enough to respond to his strange little advert. There are people that desperate, my dear.’
‘Oh, I know, my dear.’
‘Short skirt and blue heels, my dear!’
This last followed by peals of high-pitched laughter.
A little girl in a gingham dress tugged at the horsey-looking woman’s sleeve.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Who’s got a short skirt and blue heels?’
‘Be quiet, Isobel! Don’t listen in to Mummy’s conversations! Go and find Daddy, he’s over there by the welly wanging.’
As Alice watched the little girl trotting off towards Daddy, someone else in the crowd caught her eye.
The most stunning woman Alice had ever seen was walking towards her across the field. People gawped as she passed them. At six feet tall she could have been gangly but instead, she made those around her, even the tall, willowy ones, look rather dumpy. Waves of thick chestnut hair that glinted auburn in the sunlight bounced with every step in a way that would have made a shampoo advert director’s mouth water. Her simple green silk dress fell to mid-thigh and revealed slim, elegant limbs, lightly tanned as if she’d been wintering in St. Tropez. (Unlike Sinead Dumper, who looked like she’d been held hostage in a St. Tropez spray tan booth.) Cat-like green eyes, defined eyebrows, a smattering of tawny freckles across her elegant nose and a confident smile were all the details Alice had time to take in of her face before she found herself confronted by this goddess.
‘Hi.’
The goddess held out a slim brown hand, silver rings gleaming.
Alice took the hand and resisted the urge to bring it to her lips. Shaking it instead, she said, ‘Hi. You’re new.’ And then she giggled. You’re new’? What am I saying? She’s not a five-year-old in my reception class!