The Earl Who Loved Me: The Seldon Park Christmas Novellas, #3

By Bethany M. Sefchick

It's Twelfth Night and Lady Amelia Banbrook, the daughter of the esteemed Earl of Hollinworth, finds herself in a bit of quandary.  She is in love with her family's country neighbor, the perennial bachelor, Lord David Rutledge, the Earl of Weatherby.  Friends since their youth, Amelia is convinced that there is no possible way that David returns her love, no matter how much she might wish it or if he even remembers the night when her feelings for him changed.

As the renowned Earl of Weatherby, David Rutledge is used to women falling at his feet.  All except for the one he most desires, of course - Lady Amelia.  The house party he has planned for Twelfth Night has done little to help his cause with Amelia, much to his chagrin.

With title-grasping women chasing after him, can he find a way to seduce the woman he loves and make her understand that his love is real and not just some fleeting Christmas infatuation?  Or will fear keep them apart and drive him into the arms of another?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bethany M. Sefchick
• Release date: Dec 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781386809029

Bethany M. Sefchick

Making her home in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, Bethany Sefchick lives with her husband, Ed, and a plethora of Betta fish that she’s constantly finding new ways to entertain. In addition to writing, Bethany owns a jewelry company, Easily Distracted Designs. It should be noted that the owner of the titular Selon Park - one Lord Nicholas Rosemont, the Duke of Candlewood, a.k.a. "The Bloody Duke" - first appeared in her mind when she was eighteen years old and had no idea what to make of him, or of his slightly snarky smile.  She has been attempting to dislodge him ever since - with absolutely no success. When not penning romance novels or creating sparkly treasures, she enjoys cooking, scrapbooking, and lavishing attention on any stray cats who happen to be hanging around. She always enjoys hearing from her fans at: [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter One

January 1820

Amelia Banbrook peered into the dimly lit corridor, thankful that for once, Lord Weatherby's servants were being frugal with the candles.  Or perhaps they were more interested in setting the mood for the house party.  Either way, it did not matter.  She simply did not want anyone to see her as she attempted to skulk off to her room for the rest of the evening, especially as the parlor games were still well underway.

As the daughter of the Earl of Hollinworth and an invited guest, she was expected to fully participate in the silly, childish games that marked the penultimate evening of the Twelfth Night celebration at Weatherby Hall.  Except that she could not tolerate parlor games and had thought Lord Weatherby - or David as she privately referred to him - could not, either.

Then again, as the host of their party, he could not precisely say no to the repeated requests from his assembled guests for evenings filled with fun and frivolity, either.

Though he could have said no to the rather overt attentions of Lady Lydia Parham, daughter of the Viscount Colebrooke, who clung to David like a leach to skin.  That, she was certain, he could have said no to at least in some fashion.

No, that was mean, Amelia chided herself as she scurried into the hall, praying that no one had noticed her departure from the ballroom.  It was not David's fault that the chit was empty-headed and simpering.  If anything, it was her parents' fault for too often indulging their overly spoilt offspring in her every whim and desire.   Not that Lady Colebrooke would ever view her daughter in such a disparaging way, of course.  After all, Lady Lydia had been raised from the cradle to be a peer's wife, a countess or perhaps even a duchess.  At the moment, however, given the way she was attached to David's side as a burr might be to a saddle, she seemed perfectly content to aspire to the title of countess.

That aspiration made Amelia's head throb and her heart ache.

Not that she truly had any reason to feel thus, of course.

After all, it wasn't as if Amelia herself had any claim over David.  Not specifically anyway.  She also most certainly should not be thinking of the Earl of Weatherby by his Christian name, despite the fact that he had known her since she was a babe and he not much out of leading strings.  That was far too familiar a thing for their current positions in life.

No, Amelia did not have that right.  No one did.  But she wanted to.  Very much so.  More than she had wanted anything in a very long time.

For at some undetermined point over the previous season, Lady Amelia Banbrook had done the one thing a shy, unremarkable bluestocking of a spinster with an occasional sharp tongue should never even contemplate.  She had stupidly - foolishly even - gone and fallen in love with one of the most handsome, eligible and sought-after men of the ton.  None other than her childhood friend and country neighbor, Lord David Rutledge, the Earl of Weatherby.

Even though he most decidedly did not love her in return.

Not that his lack of romantic affection for her should come as a surprise to Amelia.  After all, she was already five and twenty, well past the prime marriageable age of a debutante, and she had never made much of an impression on the marriage mart, let alone Society in general.  Much like her person, her seasons had all been remarkably unremarkable.

Neither hideous nor beautiful, Amelia was somewhere in the middle of the debutantes with nothing much to commend her except her family's fortune, her rather overly large dowry, and her childhood connection to the Earl of Weatherby, which, to her surprise, opened far more doors to her than she would have anticipated.

Well, her connection to Weatherby helped, certainly.  However, she was also wise enough to know that her father's country estate, Fallstaff Grange, bordered not just one but two estates owned by rather infamous men of the ton, which also helped to increase the rather enormous amount of invitations she received.  Anyone that might bring with them a bit of gossip about two of Society's most notorious bachelors was always welcome in the drawing rooms and ballrooms of London.  

Before her debut, Amelia had given very little thought to the location of Fallstaff Grange, simply accepting that everyone had neighbors.  Hers were simply slightly more notorious.  David's estate lay to the west of her family's, while Overlook Hill, the ancestral home of the infamous - and, were she being honest, somewhat terrifying to most - Adam St. Vincent, the Duke of Enwright, lay to the east.

Amelia had never thought Adam all that terrifying, actually.  Cold and remote certainly, and thrust into the dukedom well before his time, but never cruel or horrid, as some chits of the ton had whispered behind his back over the years.  If anything, to Amelia, he had seemed rather sad and alone.  In recent years, especially after his marriage to Lady Lucy Cavendish, he had become even less terrifying, but no less fearsome when crossed.  He and his wife even called upon the Banbrooks with some frequency when he was in residence at Overlook to share some fine brandy or port.

However, for as dashing and handsome as Enwright had been in their youth, it was the young Earl of Weatherby who had won Amelia's loyalty and love.  Merely because he was kind to her more often than a boy several years older than she should have been, she supposed.  David should have dismissed her as a youthful pest, but instead, he had grudgingly invited her along on his adventures with his cousin, Hugh Sykes, the future Earl of Hewdon, when they were in residence at the hall.

When David's parents had died in a carriage accident when he was merely four, he was not at all capable of managing the title that had been thrust upon him far too soon.  In truth, he was more interested in mud pies than seeing to flooding fields that left tenants unable to farm and the estate teetering on the edge of destitution.  So his uncle, James Sykes had stepped in, temporarily relocating his own family to Weatherby Hall a few months out of every year until David was old enough to go off to school and leave the estate in the capable hands of a carefully chosen steward.

It was during those early years that Amelia and her parents had visited the Hall frequently, and she had found in David a playmate who was more willing to allow her to accompany him than the children of her parents' own servants.

The seeds of Amelia's love for David had been sown so very long ago but had remained dormant for years, undisturbed like so much fallow ground, neither producing anything nor changing in any way.  Until this previous season when she had danced with the dashing earl at the wedding of her distant cousin, Lady Amy Cheltenham to Doctor - and now Lord - Gibson Blackwell.

The dance had been a waltz.  She and David had waltzed together for years, including many times at Almack's, without incident.  It was simply the done thing.  He was her long time friend and she?  Well, she was someone he took pity on, someone whose shy nature and occasional bad habit of saying precisely what she thought did not

Reviews for The Earl Who Loved Me

[mariakritikou · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was really beautiful, l loved it. Totally recommended for romantic souls.