A Second Chance at Love, A Regency Romance (A Danby Family Novella) by Lilia Birney Page A

questioning in detached horror, "All of this nonsense? Over the Ware gel?"
    And then, the hurried passage to Italy to study music. "A fresh start," his family declared. As though a new beginning really mattered at that moment. He took another fortifying draught. He'd tried to forget Emily Ware—had done everything he could to forget her. Wine, women, and song. Rome was nothing if not ripe with amusements and amusing people. A different soubrette every night, sometimes more than one in a night. His lips curved downwards at the memory. A return to England meant a return to the land of Emily Ware—no, now she was Emily Barlow, nee Ware. Of course, she wouldn't be anywhere near Danby. She was likely to be settled near Sheffield with her portly little prick of a husband.
    Damn them both.
    All of this nonsense. Over the Ware gel.

    "I don't understand." Emily Barlow leaned forwards in her chair, eyeing the solicitor with growing unease. "My husband was a wealthy man. He assured me that his business affairs were in order. Why do you make it sound as though everything is on the verge of collapse?"
    "Mrs. Barlow, let me assure you that everything has collapsed. We have long gone past the verge." The solicitor pronounced the words with a flourish and removed his spectacles. Holding them up to the ceiling, he squinted and then rubbed them with his handkerchief.
    Emily watched this performance in frozen horror, her breath coming faster. Surely the man was joking. Charles had given every indication that they had plenty of money to live on forever. "What happened?" she managed to gasp, clasping her hands together to still their shaking.
    "Mr. Barlow invested in a mine—a chancy practice, you know. This was a mine in the West Indies, supposedly filled with diamonds. Needless to say, the mine came up empty. Not a stone in it worth a penny. Yet your husband sank everything he had in it. He mortgaged your home and everything he owned. I'm very sorry to say it, Mrs. Barlow, but you are close to being a pauper."
    "Surely there is something left, Mr. Brown."
    "Nothing except the clothes you and your daughter own and any jewels you managed to hide away."
    Jewels? She hardly had any precious stones at all. Only the brooch her former beau, Lord Philip Whitton, had given her, the one she had hidden from Charles to keep from provoking any jealousy. She shook her head, her eyes downcast.
    "Well, then. You will need to move back in with your family, Mrs. Barlow. Or…find some means of occupation." He flicked an insolent glance over her widow's weeds, stopping pointedly at her bosom.
    Emily stood up abruptly, sending her chair scraping back across the wooden floor. "I shall go home to my uncle this week. How much longer do we have the use of the house? After all, it may take some time to gather our things."
    "You and your daughter may stay there one last week, Mrs. Barlow. That should give you time to go home and gather what is left to you. After that, I shall put everything up for sale to cover your husband's debts." He gave her an icy smile and shuffled the sheets of foolscap littering his desk into an untidy pile.
    "Thank you," she snapped, turning on her heel. Outside his office, she leaned against the wall, panting and fanning herself. She was no better than a pauper—no better than she had been when she went to live with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Millie as a young girl. The only child of penniless parents, taken in as a charity case. Her marriage was supposed to secure her place in society, not simply rent that place to her only to snatch it away with Charles's death.
    She wept when her husband died, for while she didn't love him she was grateful to him for all he had given her. But now, if he was here and standing beside her, she'd give his eyes a jolly good scratching. She'd trusted him with everything, and how was that trust repaid?
    Gathering her skirts with her courage, she headed down the steps and back to the Bridge Inn. How far away home