Someone to Remember Read online

  Mary Balogh grew up in Wales and now lives with husband Robert in Saskatchewan, Canada. She has written more than 100 historical novels and novellas, more than 30 of which have been New York Times bestsellers. They include the Slightly sestet (the Bedwyn saga), the Simply quartet, the Huxtable quintet, the Westcott series and the Survivors’ Club series.

  Visit Mary Balogh online:

  www.marybalogh.com

  www.facebook.com/AuthorMaryBalogh

  Praise for Mary Balogh:

  ‘One of the best!’

  Julia Quinn

  ‘Today’s superstar heir to the marvellous legacy of

  Georgette Heyer (except a lot steamier)’

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  ‘Ms Balogh is a veritable treasure, a matchless storyteller

  who makes our hearts melt with delight’

  Romantic Times

  ‘Balogh is truly a find’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘Balogh is the queen of spicy Regency-era romance,

  creating memorable characters in unforgettable stories’

  Booklist

  By Mary Balogh

  The Westcott Series

  Someone to Love

  Someone to Hold

  Someone to Wed

  Someone to Care

  Someone to Trust

  Someone to Honour

  Someone to Remember

  The Survivors’ Club Series

  The Proposal

  The Arrangement

  The Escape

  Only Enchanting

  Only a Promise

  Only a Kiss

  Only Beloved

  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

  Copyright

  Published by Piatkus

  ISBN: 978-0-349-42499-6

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Mary Balogh

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Excerpt from Someone to Love copyright © 2016 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Hold copyright © 2017 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Wed copyright © 2017 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Care copyright © 2018 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Trust copyright © 2018 by Mary Balogh

  Excerpt from Someone to Honour copyright © 2019 by Mary Balogh

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Piatkus

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  Praise for Mary Balogh

  Also by Mary Balogh

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Read on for an Excerpt from the First Novel

  Read on for an Excerpt from the Second Novel

  Read on for an Excerpt from the Third Novel

  Read on for an Excerpt from the Fourth Novel

  Read on for an Excerpt from the Fifth Novel

  Read on for an Excerpt from the Sixth Novel

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Regency world of the Westcott family.

  Whether this story is your first venture into the series or you are an old friend who has read all or some of the six books that preceded it, I am delighted you have decided to read this novella. It was not part of the original plan for the series, but it caught my imagination anyway and insisted upon being written! I am thoroughly enjoying bringing this whole family to life by telling the love story of one of its members in each book.

  The Westcott series was born in my mind with the idea of a crisis situation. What if the head of a family—an earl, no less—had entered into a bigamous marriage when he was a young man, tempted to it because he was in dire financial straits and needed a wealthy wife? What if he justified it, in his own mind, anyway, by the fact that the wife he had married secretly a few years before was dying of consumption?

  Would anyone know? There was a daughter from that first marriage, but she was still an infant at the time. He decided that if she was put into an orphanage, no one would ever know who she was.

  What if he got away with the bigamy until after his own death more than twenty years later, when his widowed countess sent her lawyer to find and pay off the orphan—presumably a love child from an illicit affair—she secretly knew her husband had been supporting?

  What if the countess’s son, the new earl, lost his title and fortune after the shocking discovery was made that he was illegitimate?

  His sisters would also lose their titles and social status.

  The larger family, thrown into turmoil, would somehow have to learn to cope with a new reality. A cousin who had never expected or wanted to inherit the title would find it foisted upon him anyway.

  And there would be the added complication of the only legitimate daughter of the late earl discovering who she was at the same time as the family discovered it.

  Would the family open—or close—its ranks to her? Would she want to be a part of it?

  Someone to Love, the first book of the Westcott series, deals with just such a catastrophe. Specifically it is the love story of Anna Snow, in reality Lady Anastasia Westcott, the firstborn child of the earl, and Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby, guardian of Harry Westcott, the newly dispossessed young Earl of Riverdale. What would happen if that newly titled orphan fell in love with the man honor bound to protect the dispossessed heir? What if he fell in love with her?

  My plan for the series was to write eight books—for Anna; for Harry and his sisters, Camille and Abigail, and their mother, Viola, the bigamously married Countess of Riverdale; for Alexander, the new Earl of Riverdale, and his sister, Elizabeth; and for Jessica Archer, cousin and best friend of Abigail. Most of them are young people. The eldest is Viola, who is forty-two when her story is being told in Someone to Care.

  Someone to Remember, this additional and originally unplanned-for novella, is different from the others in that its heroine, Lady Matilda Westcott, is in her mid-fifties, considerably older than any other heroine I have ever created. But her story was begging to be told, and I know there are readers
who want romances about older heroes and heroines. I have to admit, I absolutely adored writing this story. I do hope you will enjoy it too.

  This story is special to me because of how it called to my imagination. It all started with Matilda, the spinster daughter of a former Earl of Riverdale, who appears in each of the Westcott novels. She is the one who remained single to devote herself to her mother’s care, while her younger brother and two sisters married. In all the previous books, she came alive on the page as an overly fussy character, constantly irritating the dowager countess by wrapping shawls about her shoulders and otherwise protecting her from drafts and other hostile elements. She presses smelling salts upon her at the slightest hint of an upset. Uninvited and often unwanted, she always seems to be the one who heads family committees to deal with the crises that arise from time to time within the family. While she and her sisters are planning a grand society wedding for Anna and Avery in Someone to Love, for example, Avery whisks Anna off to a small, obscure church one afternoon and marries her privately. At that point, early in the series, Matilda certainly did not seem like a potential heroine.

  That began to change, however, in Someone to Trust, book 5, Elizabeth’s story. The change became irrevocable in Someone to Honor, book 6, Abigail’s story. What happened was that Matilda started to become a real person to me, and suddenly she was precious.

  She was far more than just an aging spinster daughter or sister or aunt to the other characters. She was more than just a fussy woman whose world revolved around her mother and the wider Westcott family. She was a person.

  I started to see that she genuinely loved her family and wanted the very best for them all. She was a romantic at heart, as shown in her reactions when some of the family members chose mates the rest of the family found less than ideal. She was happy for Elizabeth and spoke out in her defense when Elizabeth made the shocking announcement that she was going to marry a man nine years her junior. She was happy for Abigail after Abigail married a man who had begun life as the illegitimate son of a village washerwoman.

  By this time in the series, I realized I felt very tenderly toward Matilda and wanted her to have her own chance for romance and happiness. I also wanted to know her fully (this, by the way, is how all my main characters begin and grow—through the stories I write for them). What was the story behind her spinsterhood and her fussiness? Had she always been the same? Wasn’t she ever interested in marrying? What was her truth? Since she had no reality beyond my imagination, only I could answer those questions—by writing her story.

  I had decided after finishing Someone to Honor at the end of last summer that I would do something I had not done before, since I started writing in the 1980s, and take off the whole winter before starting on Jessica’s story in the spring. However, I had organized a four-day writing retreat with a group of writer friends in November. I love those retreats, both for the concentrated writing time and for the camaraderie, and hated not to go. But if I did go, I couldn’t spend the days twiddling my thumbs while all about me friends were happily tapping away on their keyboards. But what was I to write?

  The question soon found an answer, of course. I would write a novella—a long story, a short novel—for Matilda. I thought at first it would be published just as an e-book. I jumped in with enthusiasm and had produced a third of the story by the end of the retreat. It all came together with relative ease despite the looming Christmas season. The hero had already obligingly identified himself in Someone to Honor. It was simply a matter, then, of bringing these two lonely souls together in a warm, romantic love story. Perhaps the imminence of Christmas actually helped me, even though it is not set at Christmastime.

  As soon as I finished, I sent the story off to Claire Zion, my editor. After reading the finished novella, Claire liked it so much that she felt it had to be brought out for all the Westcott fans, and not just the e-book readers. Hence, you now hold in your hand the print edition (or maybe you’re reading the e-book edition, which we also did).

  As I’m sure you have noticed, this book is less expensive than my full-length novels. That’s only because it’s shorter, not because it’s any less important to me than the novels. Matilda is a full member of my beloved family now! I have grown very fond of her and am glad as many readers as possible can find her story, regardless of their preferred reading format.

  We have also included in this volume excerpts from all six of the Westcott novels already published. If by chance Matilda’s story is the first of the series you have read, perhaps the excerpts will entice you to enrich your acquaintance with the family by reading the full stories of six of its members. The hope is that these excerpts will help you pick the next one to read.

  If you have already read them, perhaps the excerpts will remind you of each separate story and send you back to reread them in their entirety. I asked on my Facebook page recently how many people are rereaders and was surprised that the overwhelming majority of those who answered are. So am I. There is something very comforting about meeting old friends again within the pages of a loved book. It’s a bit like coming home.

  But whether you are an old or new fan of the Westcott family, I offer you the below to help you navigate the series:

  Someone to Love, book 1, involves the discovery soon after the death of the Earl of Riverdale, head of the Westcott family, that his marriage of more than twenty years was bigamous and that the son and two daughters of that marriage are therefore illegitimate. The secret, legitimate daughter of his first marriage, who grew up in an orphanage, unaware of her true identity, now inherits everything except the title itself and the entailed properties. That child, Anna Snow, now grown to adulthood, is the heroine of this book, which shows her as she copes with the staggering new realities of her life, not the least of which is the unexpected courtship of the very aristocratic Duke of Netherby, whose stepmother was a Westcott by birth.

  Someone to Hold, book 2, is the story of Camille, one of the dispossessed daughters of the late earl. As well as losing her title and social status, Camille lost her aristocratic fiancé, who broke off their engagement as a result of the news. The proud, straitlaced, somewhat humorless Camille has to piece her life together somehow and takes the totally unexpected step of applying for the teaching job at the orphanage in Bath recently vacated by Anna, the half sister she at first deeply resents. There Camille meets Joel Cunningham, Anna’s close friend and former suitor.

  Someone to Wed, book 3, is the story of Alexander Westcott, suddenly and unwillingly the Earl of Riverdale after his second cousin Harry loses the title upon the discovery of his illegitimacy. Along with the title, Alexander has inherited the entailed mansion and estate that go with it, both of them neglected and shabby and in need of a huge influx of money—which he does not have. Resentfully but dutifully, Alexander turns his mind toward the search for a wealthy wife. At the same time, Wren Heyward, a reclusive neighbor who always wears a veil because of a disfiguring birthmark on one side of her face, decides to use the vast fortune she has recently inherited from an uncle to buy herself a husband and some sense of belonging.

  Someone to Care, book 4, is the story of Viola, the forty-two-year-old former Countess of Riverdale, who reacted to the knowledge that her marriage had been bigamous and her children illegitimate first by running away to live with her brother and then by living quietly in the country with her younger daughter. She has suppressed her anger and her suffering for a few years. But her control finally snaps for no apparent reason at the christening of her grandchild in Bath, and she leaves alone to return home. On the way there, she encounters a man who once, years ago, tried to coax her into an illicit affair. She refused then, but now when he suggests that she run away with him for a brief romantic fling with no strings attached, she asks herself, why not? She does it—she runs off with Marcel Lamarr. As it turns out, however, there are many strings attached to that impulsive decision—for both Viola and Marcel. For each of them has a family that cares.

 
Someone to Trust, book 5, is the story of Elizabeth, Lady Overfield, the new earl, Alexander’s, widowed sister, who left her abusive husband a year before his death. Now she has decided that she wants to marry again, but not for love this time. She wants a marriage of mutual respect and quiet contentment. However, at a Christmas family gathering in the country, she spends time with Colin, Lord Hodges, whose sister is married to her brother. There is an unexpected chemistry between them, but any thought of romance is out of the question, for Colin is nine years younger than Elizabeth and he too is in search of a bride among the young debutantes of the coming Season. I loved the challenge of dealing with the older woman / younger man dilemma. I also loved creating Colin’s mother, the super-narcissistic villain, who first appeared in Someone to Wed.

  Someone to Honor (make that Honour if you have the British edition!) is the story of Abigail, who is still grappling with the way her life completely changed after it was discovered that she was illegitimate. She still does not know quite who she is or what she wants out of life. Then she meets Lieutenant Colonel Gil Bennington, a friend and colleague of her brother’s. Gil is a military officer and seems to be a gentleman, but in reality he is the illegitimate son of a village washerwoman and grew up as a gutter rat, to use his own words. He has acquired some wealth and a home in the country, but he is desperate to recover his young daughter from her maternal grandparents, who took her away when his wife died while he was away fighting in the Battle of Waterloo. His lawyer warns him that his best chance of winning the upcoming lawsuit is to marry again so he has a mother, as well as himself, to offer his child.

  I do hope you enjoy the new story, Someone to Remember. I hope you will agree with me that Matilda is a precious person and deserving of her own happily-ever-after even though it has come late in life. And I hope you will agree that Charles is perfect for her and appreciates her as fully as she deserves. And expect to meet them again in future books—as well as Charles’s children, including his first son, Gil Bennington, and, of course, Matilda’s family, the Westcotts.

  Please look for the next book in the series, book 7, Lady Jessica Archer’s story, next year.