The Earl’s Scholar (Hart and Arrow #3) (A Regency Romance Book): Hart and Arrow, #3

By Julia Sinclair

Marrowly Grange holds a thousand secrets...

And Tabi Kingsley is going to find them all!

The quietest cousin of the irrepressible Martins is on a mission!

She wants to learn all about her family and their seemingly endless feuds with the Carrows.

And… she runs right into the newly-made Earl of Westbury, Ned Carrow.

Ned's a hardened soldier, a reckless flirt, and the most tempting thing innocent Tabi has ever laid eyes on...

He's also the second son of her family's greatest rivals!

Ned never thought this beautiful girl is able to take his very breath away.

Shy, nervous and scholarly, he would never have thought that Tabi would be his type, but as passion carries them both away, they realize that it's more than just desire that binds them together.

At Marrowly Grange, the history of the Martins and the Carrows is finally unveiled.

An ancient feud comes to life, old sins are exposed, and love hangs in the balance.

All of the Martins and Carrows find what the love most on the line as the earl's scholar follows her heart!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julia Sinclair
• Release date: Feb 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393421290

Julia Sinclair

Author of Regency Romance. She writes dark and poignant stories often with witty and catchy dialogues.

Book preview

Prologue

––––––––

In England, they say that it is more likely for lions to lie down with wolves than it is for Carrows and Martins to come to an accord. The two ancient houses have been at each others' throats since the Renaissance, and though the cause of the quarrel has been lost to time, the enmity certainly hasn’t.

Hart and Arrow : Referring to the crests of the Martins and the Carrows respectively.

*   *   *

London, 1798

Ned Carrow didn't particularly care that the man across the table was cheating. The money on the table wasn't enough to make him bat an eye, even as the people around him kept stirring with interest.

He had lost better hands and won better ones as well. Everything around him seemed oddly dull and muted, as if he were seeing it through a thick pane of cloudy glass.

No, what was bothering him was the fact that the man across the table continually patted his jacket over his hip, where Ned was growing increasing aware he had hidden a pistol.

I feel as if he should be allowed to be angry he lost or allowed to cheat, not both.

The other men at the table had bowed out already, leaving Ned and his opponent on their own. The man, scowling, laid down his cards and unsmiling, Ned did the same.

A roar went up around them, and Ned reached over to draw the pot towards his own side of the table. The man chewed his mustache, glaring viciously, and it might even have been fine if Ned hadn't spoken.

If you're going to cheat, sir, you must at least find a way to do it more competently.

That was apparently an offense too far. The man, shorter than Ned, but twice as heavy, roared like a wounded bear and sent the table toppling to one side.

Chaos erupted as some people sped for cover, other people dove for the coins that were sent spinning to the floor, and the man Ned had so offended fumbled for his pistol.

Ned knew that he should have been terrified. Not his rank, either his commission in the army or the one he had born with, nor his money could save him in this situation. Better men than he had died in circumstances just as vicious.

Instead, for what felt like the first time since his ship had sighted London, hell, maybe since the first time since he had mustered out, his view felt clear.

He doesn't have a gun that will fire a straight shot, and even if he did, he probably can't aim worth a damn if he's that drunk. Of course, it's better to make sure it never gets fired at all.

The man's gun had fouled in the fabric of his jacket, and when he finally tore it loose, the barrel wavered every which way. Before he could fire it by chance or design, Ned was there, closing his hand over the barrel  and bringing it down and away.

Ned had spent years thinking on his feet and realizing that anything that came to hand counted as a weapon. He snatched up a ceramic beer mug and sent it down hard on top of the man's wrist.

The man howled, the gun dropping from his numb fingers and Ned had the gun in his hand in a moment. With a smooth motion learned of long-practice, he reversed it and bashed the man across the head with the butt.

Good job, that. Hard enough to put him down, but probably not hard enough to permanently impair him. Probably.

Ned couldn't find it in himself to care much. He looked around at the chaos around him, and wondered why in the world he felt more comfortable than he had in weeks.

That is damn well enough!

The voice cut through the tumult like a scythe through ripe wheat, and somehow, the entire gambling hell went quiet. For one mad moment, Ned was certain it was his dead father who had spoken. Out of the corner of his eye, Ned saw a woman actually pause before shoveling one of his fallen shillings in her pocket.

Tristan Carrow, Duke of Parrington stood sternly at door of the gambling hell, his heavy greatcoat making him look even larger and more imposing. He looked for all the world as if he were addressing an unruly Parliament rather than one of the worst gambling hells Seven Dials had to offer, and if the situation was not so dire, Ned would have laughed.

Tristan. Didn't think this was one of your particular favorite clubs.

Tristan glared at him, and then at the room at large. Amazing how much power a nobleman could command simply by being sure of his own privilege.

We're leaving now, and we are not going to have any trouble over it.

Ned started to say something, sighed, and then scooped some of his winnings from the floor into his pocket.

All right. I'm coming along like a good boy.

Tristan was silent until they were on the street, and then he turned to Ned impatiently.

I've been looking for you for three days. You left no message as to where you would be.

Big brother, calm the hell down. I survived in an actual war for seven years, I think I can handle London. How'd you even find me?

Well, he didn't. I did.

A small brown shadow pulled from the alley and came to stand close to them, and Ned stared.

Blythe? You came to find me?

She grinned at him. What, as if it were hard? I know where the trouble spots in Seven Dials are, and I had a feeling you would know where to find them.

Ned still remembered reading in Tristan's letters of how Blythe, their cousin and raised with them as a sister, had spent her life perfecting a masquerade as a pious do-gooder, only to reveal years of disguised derring-do in the slums of London. A truly terrifying encounter with a kidnapper had ended with her married to Thomas Martin, Marquess of Amory, and the heir to the Duke of Southerly.

Somehow, the idea that sweet little Blythe had married a Martin, the son of the Carrows' age-old rivals, was more stunning than news of the masquerade.

Tristan, not one for talk when he could be taking charge of things, growled at both of them, herding them towards his carriage.

Once inside, where the soft glow of a small lantern allowed him to see better, Ned saw with guilt that his older brother looked exhausted. He slumped against the seat and passed a hand over his eyes as if he had not slept in ages.

Tristan?

What?

I'm sorry to have troubled you. Is it Georgiana? Is she doing all right?

Tristan's irritation faded to something even worse to Ned, a kind of deep sadness and helplessness so hard for a man used to commanding the world.

She's as all right as she can be, I suppose. The doctors say that she is healthy enough. She smiles and makes terrible jokes about it, but sometimes I can tell she's been crying.

Tristan glanced at Blythe.

She says she would like to see you soon. She's sorry that she sent you away...

But knowing that I had little Daniel at home was too hard for her. No, I understand, and I'll come by.

Ned was glad that Blythe reached over to hold Tristan's hand. He had no idea how to comfort his proud and so usually invulnerable brother in a time like this. Now there was no battle to be won, only a deep and aching well of grief that seemed to be at times endless.

I'm sorry I took you away from Georgiana tonight.

Unexpectedly, Tristan grinned at him, wry but real.

If you seriously thought I would leave Georgiana when she needed me to come looking for you in a gambling hell, little brother, you are dead wrong. No, she sent me. She thought that you should be told at once.

Ned blinked.

What should I be told at once?

Do you remember our great-uncle Wensleydale?

No?

"Neither did I, but I had Sederick look into matters. I thought that the missive was the convoluted plot of some con man, or perhaps an error.

Wensleydale Carrow is a cousin that ended up in Canada, and apparently he died about three years ago.

I am so sorry to hear it.

Maybe you won't be in a moment. Over the last three years, the courts have been wrangling through the terms of the entail of his title and his lands, both of which seem to be substantial.

And?

And, well, it seems they are going to go to you. We need to schedule an investiture and have you created the Earl of Westbury.

What.

In his own ears, Ned's voice was as flat as a dropped anvil.

You're going to be an earl in your own right, with all the wealth and responsibility that goes with it. Your army days are over.

They were over regardless, but Tristan didn't know that yet. Ned shook his head, still trying to get used to the idea.

I never thought to-

It seems Father was right to make sure we both knew how to run an estate and to take care of the legal technicalities of being a noble.

I suppose, but-

No, I will not take them over for you. I'm still not even sure how they managed to skip over me in the terms of succession for Great-Uncle Wensleydale, but I'm glad of it. I hardly need the trouble right now. You'll be fine.

You said that when I was ten, right before my new horse threw me into the ravine.

And you were fine.

Ned covered his face with his hands, and Blythe laughed softly, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder.

It rather does change everything, doesn't it? But that can be a good thing.

I suppose. And where is this estate of mine supposed to be?

Tristan looked almost apologetic. North. Near Lindisfarne on the moors.

In Scotland?!

Just barely not. No one is saying you have to live up there. I would recommend at least a visit, but-

No. No, I would like to go, as soon as everything is in order.

Blythe looked concerned. You've really only been back from France for two months. Are you sure you want to be gone from your family again so soon?

Ned nodded firmly. I've not been fit company for anyone for two months, and well I know it. Perhaps I just need to get away from people for a little while.

Tristan smirked just a little, and that was good to see. Away from people. Close to sheep. Goats. Fields of rocks.

Yes, thank you, I remember our trips up north as well as you do.

Despite his sarcastic tone, Ned wondered if this was what he needed after all. He had never saw himself as a lord, but time away from London, away from the memories of France that chased him and would not let him sleep, perhaps that would grant him some kind of peace.

Ned hoped so. There was a moment when the man fumbled with his gun where there was no fear in his mind, but only a sense that perhaps an ending would not be so bad after all.

*   *   *

chapter 1

*   *   *

Tabi lifted her face up to the clear white sky, letting the cold northern wind tug at the wisps of hair that had come away from her bun. She took several deep breaths of fresh air, and waited for her heart to stop beating quite so fast.

It could have been worse. I could have actually been down in the cellar when the roof inevitably went.

She glanced back at the caved in doorway, where it looked like the sullen gray stones were already settling into the place they would occupy for the next hundred years or so.

Tabi flopped down into the tall grass, just beginning to go from last year's sere brown to the first inkling of soft green. At any moment, her heart would stop beating as if it were sounding a call to war.

At least it wasn't a pointless trip, as we feared.

She looked down at the moldering handful of documents she had pulled from the rotted leather valise in the cellar. They were discolored and crumbling, ugly, but somehow, they were miraculously dry.

See, Uncle Peter, it was worth me coming north after all.

Two weeks ago, she had brought the research that she had been collating with the occasional help of her friend Eleanor Parr to her bed-ridden uncle, the current Duke of Southerly.

Peter Martin had once been a tall and strong man, renowned in his youth for his riding ability and his boxing at the private clubs close to the docks. As he approached his eightieth year, he was more and more confined to his bed, his strength wizened and his once sharp blue eyes turned more and more inward.

Many days, Tabi mused, the old duke was like a tea kettle with a broken handle. Most of the time, if you knew what you were doing, you could handle it without a burn. However, even someone who was used it could get a burn if they did not exercise the correct care.

The marriages of his children, Georgiana and Thomas, had left him emptied of a certain kind of strength, and in the balance, he had become more irascible than ever. Even Tabi, with whom he had shared his passion for history, had felt his ire on more than one occasion.

So when it came time to present him with her research, she had been cautious. She came to him in a bright blue dress which had always been his favorite color, and instead of asking outright to go north, she had merely presented him with her carefully drawn maps.

In his bed, the old duke looked over her research with a critical eye, passing a gnarled hand over the notations and dates that she had come up with. Then his finger tapped on small box just north of famous Lindisfarne Abbey.

Breghan Castle. You think you will find more at Breghan Castle.

Yes, Uncle, I do. There are so many notations from the diaries and log books of the Martins of the 1600s about that location.

Peter had snorted.

Of course there are. It was ours.

"Well, that's not precisely accurate. It was ours..."

He shook his head. No, my girl, it is ours. By let of Elizabeth herself. She granted us Marrowly Grange and Breghan Castle after Tilbury. That claim still stands.

Tabi bit her lip and said nothing.

So you want to go north?

Yes. Yes, I do.

All right. Make arrangements with my solicitor. He'll see that you get where you are going and that you will find some safe accommodations.

He paused for a moment, giving her a suspicious look. Are you going to need any kind of chaperon, any such nonsense?

Tabi smiled a little. No, Uncle, I will not.

He nodded, satisfied. Good. That's for the likes of... well. Never mind. You needn't concern yourself with matters like that, Tabi. Go north. Find me something good to read. Try to come home before I finally shove off this mortal coil.

She knew he was thinking of Georgiana, his daughter and as far as he was concerned, traitor to the family since she married the Duke of Parrington. Georgiana needed escorts and chaperons wherever she went. Tabi, a poor relation of the late Lady Southerly, needed no such considerations. She was even mostly glad of it.

Tabi carefully marked the  spot of the collapsed stone cellar on her map and stood up. She was pleased to note that her knees were no longer trembling at all.

All in all, that was a fine venture, with plenty to pay it off.

She was a little startled to see that the sun was already beginning its descent in the sky. It felt as if evening came earlier in the north than it did in London, and that the wind cut colder. She gathered her long wool cloak a little more firmly around herself, making sure it was well over her leather satchel in case of rain.

It is really past time for me to return to Mrs. Hennings' house.

The boarding house was a snug spot on the outskirts of the town of Westbury, and she was loathe to lose it. Mrs. Hennings had looked much askance at Tabi appearing with her bags all alone, but the duke's solicitor had done good work. She had not asked Tabi a single question, though perhaps she leaned a little hard on the fact that visitors were only welcome as far as the visiting room and that the doors locked at sundown, no exceptions.

Just as she started back, however, Tabi was confronted with the dark shape of Breghan Castle, rearing up from the hills and tearing the white sky with what remained of its black turrets.

It belonged to the Martins, the old duke had said, and Tabi knew it would be risking a fight to argue with him. Bringing up the Carrows at all seemed to send the old man into a frothing snarl, and she hadn't wished to endanger her mission, which more and more she was suspecting would hold the key to many of the Martin family secrets.

Breghan Castle was a modern name, the bastardization of something lost to time that Tabi suspected might go back to the conquest. The stone fortress itself was certainly not that old, but it was pre-Elizabethan, at the very least.

It might have been ceded to the Martins originally, but it had not remained in their hands. Less than twenty years later, according to the deeds, it had gone to the Carrows, and then some fifty years after that, been returned to the Martins. It had spent time as a bone of contention between the two families before it was mostly forgotten at the beginning of the 1700s.

Tabi had lost track at some point of who it belonged to now, but she wouldn't bet more than a farthing that it was the Martins or the Carrows.

She had decided to start her hunt for relevant documents in the Westbury archives and in the abandoned crofters' cottages on the moors. Still, she was here for Breghan Castle, and though she told herself over and over that she should not venture there until she was sure she was ready, she found her feet taking her there anyway.

Up close, the ancient fortress was even larger than it had looked from the moor. The stones were solid and silent in a way that the stones of London surely weren't, and as she entered through the empty portcullis, she was struck by a sense of melancholy.

Once there were so many people who came through here, lived here, loved here, and now they are all gone.

Tabi made her way through the courtyard, wondering in only a half-fanciful way if she could feel the eyes of the old fortress's spirits watching her, silent and sad.

The sun was setting even faster it seemed, and the shadows were long, making Tabi shiver.

This will be far more welcoming in the morning, I am sure. If it gets much darker, I will not be able to see my way, and the last thing I want to do is to slip on mossy stone.

She almost went out again, but then she saw a stone staircase that wound its way up one of the more intact-looking curtain walls. The stone staircase, protected to some extent, had remained in remarkably good condition, and she realized that the wall it was on was the east wall.

Oh, perhaps you could see the sea from up there.

Before she quite knew what she was doing, she was making her way up the stairs, marveling at how sound they were. She tested each step before she went, and found them whole, though slippery with a velvet green moss. She could see that there had once been a wooden railing along the side facing the courtyard, but that had long ago rotted away or been scavenged for the wood.

At the top of the wall, she stepped close to the battlements. She knew that once upon a time, archers would have stood where she did, shooting between the notches in the crenelations and then ducking back from the enemy's volleys.

She looked east, but to her disappointment, there was too much mist rolling in from the sea. The land seemed to dissolve into the fog.

Well, perhaps when I come back in the morning.

She turned to go, but then she heard a shout. Turning quickly on the top steps, she was so surprised by what she saw, her jaw dropped. In the courtyard where there should have been no one at all, there was a man in a black jacket, wheeling a blood bay around in a tight circle to face her.

A ghost, angry at my trespassing...

It was a foolish thought, one that she would have dismissed a moment later, but the surprise had been enough to make her shift, and that shift was enough to throw her off her balance. With a shriek of surprise she dropped her satchel in an attempt to cling to the rock, but to no avail. Tabi spun off into empty space.

*   *   *

chapter 2

*   *   *

Making his introductions at Stratford Hall had been, in a single word, uncomfortable. The servants were all the elderly side and dour, a mix of Northumbrian and Scottish, and they regarded him with the mulish impatience of those who know their place in the world to the very root of themselves.

They had served his Great Uncle Wensleydale for most of their lives, and when Ned introduced himself as the new lord at Stratford Hall, they had all been polite, but eager to get back to their duties.

Stratford Hall itself was gracious and strong, built to withstand the northern winds and coastal storms. There was something at once militaristic about and antiquated at the same time, and for some reason, it made Ned feel more at home than he  had since coming back to English soil.

His Great Uncle had obviously been an eccentric. There were whole rooms that seemed lined with moldering books and leather folder, a great deal of animal head trophies mounted on the wall and one whole hall devoted to the prominant display of armor.

Regular human armor would not have been so very strange, Ned decided, but the horse and dog armor was something