A Not so Convenient Marriage (The Reeves of Reeves Hall, Book 3)

A gentleman sworn to protect his family’s secrets.

A young lady determined to uncover them.

And a marriage neither of them planned.

“Beware of poking your nose into our affairs,” he growled. “Do not doubt there will be hell to pay if you breathe one word of what you saw last night to anyone.”

Verity Drake knows the Reeves family are not who they claim to be. Ever since they arrived at Reeves Hall, she has sensed something strange beneath their polished manners and guarded ways; and she is determined to uncover the truth.

Harry Reeves is equally determined to stop her, turning her curiosity into a battle of wills neither of them intends to lose.

But when scandal threatens to destroy Verity’s reputation, there is only one solution: an inconvenient marriage to the very man who has been her adversary.

Bound together by duty neither anticipated, their simmering tension gives way to desire—and then to something far more dangerous: love. Yet the secrets Harry guards are not merely his own, and when the truth emerges, it will force them both to confront an impossible question.

What truly makes a family—blood, law, or love?

Because some truths cannot be hidden forever… and some bonds are stronger than fate itself.

Chapter One

A Most Mysterious Family

April 1821

There was very little that occurred in the small Cornish village of Penhale that escaped the attention of Miss Verity Drake. She had long ago made it her mission to know everyone’s business and had consequently developed a friendly acquaintance with a great many people, in all walks of life, as a means to acquire this knowledge.

It would be an unkindness, however, to call her a busybody, for she certainly did not engage in any idle gossip. No, indeed not. The information she gleaned through artful questioning and very attentive listening, she kept firmly to herself. A busybody she was not, yet it would be true to say that she had a great curiosity about the lives of the people that lived in her vicinity, and that she took great care to indulge that curiosity.

And thus, when the Reeves family had moved into the locality some seven years ago, purchasing a large and crumbling estate on the outskirts of the village, she had naturally been most keen to find out all she could about them. In this, she was not alone, for the arrival of the Reeves clan into their midst had excited much interest among the residents of Penhale. But to their collective disappointment, very little knowledge was to be discovered about this mysterious family. The Reeves kept themselves apart from local society and hid

behind the sturdy walls of their estate, which was guarded by a surly gatekeeper who made sure to keep all curious visitors out. Other than a brief appearance at church every Sunday and the occasional sighting in the nearby town of Newquay, few opportunities were to be had for discourse with any member of the Reeves family.

As is often the case when the true facts are obscured, stories soon began to emerge about this family, the rumours spreading like acorns flying in the wind, becoming more outlandish with each day, month and year that passed. The very latest tale making the rounds was that the Reeves were members of a pagan cult that practised the dark arts. Verity had listened to these reports with the scepticism of a gentlewoman grounded in good sense. To her mind, there was no credible reason to suppose that the Reeves were involved in witchcraft.

This did not mean, however, that everything about the family was above board. She had conducted her own lengthy investigations into the matter and come to the conclusion that the Reeves were not who they claimed to be. Soon after their arrival, they had let it be known that they were descendants of a Cornish gentleman named Phineas Reeves who had travelled to Brazil several decades ago and there made his fortune. Verity doubted the truth of this very much. Over the course of these past seven years, she had painstakingly studied the records of births and marriages in Penhale’s church register and in every neighbouring parish that she visited, finding no mention at all of any Phineas Reeves. She had spoken to elders in the village and beyond, probing their long memories for any knowledge of a Phineas Reeves. None was forthcoming. The man was an obvious figment of the imagination, or if he had indeed existed, he had not been a gentleman from these parts of the country.

What this could mean for the true identity of the Reeves family was anyone’s conjecture. Perhaps they were French spies, settled near the coast so they could convey smuggled messages to and from their home country. The Napoleonic Wars were over, that was true, and peace had been restored, yet there was still immense distrust between the two nations. The Reeves being French spies might also have explained the strange hint of a foreign intonation which Verity had detected in their speech. English, she was sure, was not their mother tongue.

That was one possibility. Another was that the Reeves were not descended from gentry but from more humble stock, that they had somehow amassed a substantial fortune in the shipping trade and were now anxious to join the ranks of the landed class. They would not be the first rich merchants to want to wash off the stink of trade through the purchase of land. If that were the case, however, then would it not make sense for them to be more sociable with the other landowners of the county rather than live reclusively as they did? The Reeves had made no effort, seemingly, to bolster their social standing. They had declined the handful of invitations to dine with the Drakes, the nearest landed family, and the Drakes had not received any invitation in return, much to Verity’s frustration, for she would dearly have liked to see the inside of Reeves Hall and have an opportunity to probe further into the mysteries of this family.

At length, Verity had mulled over these two possibilities and found them both wanting, for they did not explain the other strange things about the Reeves family. For instance, the fact that they were very tall, much more so than was common, and that they all possessed a gleaming set of perfectly white, straight teeth, which was so far out of the common as to be quite remarkable. This last circumstance had helped to fuel those rumours of witchery, for how else could a family achieve such dental perfection other than through magical means? Even so, Verity, being a lady of good sense, could not bring herself to believe the rumours, and so she strived to use logical reasoning to solve this mystery—a resolution of which still evaded her.

Such was her preoccupation with the matter that she immediately set her teacup down and paused in the partake of her breakfast when, one April morning, her brother, Timothy Drake, casually dropped these words. “I came across Brook Reeves yesterday, when I was in town. Had a drink with him at the Red Lion.”

“Oh?” inquired Verity, pretending a passing interest, though she was unlikely to fool her brother. He knew only too well of her continuing interest in the Reeves family.

“Damned uncomfortable business it was too,” replied Timothy.

Verity arched a delicate brow in enquiry, silently urging her brother for more. He readily obliged. “The tavern keeper was unbearably rude to the man. I had half a mind to give him a set down, but then, to make things worse, Brook Reeves noticed my discomfiture and quizzed me on the matter.”

“Did you tell him about the rumours?”

“Well,” said Timothy, scratching his side whiskers uncomfortably, “I had to, didn’t I?”

“Naturally,” replied his sister good humouredly. “And how did he take the news?”

Timothy huffed. “I could tell he was surprised by it, and not a little displeased.” Quickly, he added, “I told him, of course, that I did not set much store by these rumours and that they were most likely prompted by the differences in their ways, no doubt due to their having lived abroad for so many years.”

“A sensible conclusion,” approved Verity.

“Though I almost did end up believing something of those rumours,” continued Timothy with a snort, “when I saw the scowl on Brook Reeves’s face. The man looked positively menacing!”

“Yes, he can be quite terrifying,” sighed Verity dreamily.

Her brother sent her an arched look. “Don’t tell me, Verity, that you have developed tender feelings for the man.”

“I am far too sensible for such things,” she replied briskly, “but I would have to be in my dotage not to find that man other than appealing.”

Timothy laughed. “I know only too well just how sensible a person you are, so it is heartening to see that even you can occasionally succumb to a gentleman’s charms.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll allow that the man does have a formidable presence, and he is mightily handsome too.” He shook his head, as if to dispel the matter from his mind, and dropped his eyes to the knife and fork in his hands as he neatly cut through a slice of roast beef.

Verity too dropped her eyes, wanting to spare her brother’s blushes. With her proclivity for finding out everybody’s business, she could not but be aware of Timothy’s preference for persons of his own sex, though they never alluded to the matter openly. It was not something one talked about, but of course, she knew something of it, and knew too that her brother would most probably always remain a bachelor. This suited her well, for it looked as if she too was likely to end her days a spinster—not out of preference, but out of circumstance. And thus to be assured of a comfortable home with her brother in the event she never did marry, was a reassuring prospect.

“What do you suppose he will do, knowing that the good folk here believe his family to be involved in witchcraft?” asked Timothy, after a moment of silence. “Surely he cannot ignore the rumours, for they will not go away otherwise.”

After a moment’s consideration, Verity replied, “If it were me, I would host a dinner party or a ball, and invite people into my home to show them I have nothing at all to do with any sort of wizardry. It is the fact that they hide themselves from view that makes the people here so curious and predisposes them to believe the rumours.”

“Hmm,” her brother grunted, not entirely convinced.

In this, however, she was to be proved right, for not two days later, an invitation arrived in the post for them both to attend a dinner party at Reeves Hall.

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