A Lady’s Colorful Enigma (Preview)

Prologue 

Summer 1812

Lady Catherine Everwood had always loved spending time during the summer at her father’s countryside estate in Bath. It had always been one of her favorite times of the year, not least of all because she spent much of it with her closest and dearest friend Isabella Worthington. It did not matter who else joined them so long as Catherine had Isabella. 

And it was during one of these summers that Catherine came to vow that she would detest William Huntington until her very last breath. 

During a picnic out in the meadows, at the very edge of the Everly estate, Catherine and Isabella could be found playing with a ribboned ring, throwing it back and forth between themselves or even making chains from the daisies that grew in abundance. They were, after all, children. As such, they liked the simpler things in life, playing and talking and dreaming of what they would do when they were finally adults, able to walk out in society. 

And, as such, they often found themselves brushing up against Isabella’s brother Edward Worthington and his own close friend William Huntington. The two were much more boisterous than their feminine counterparts, always scuffing their knees and getting their clothes torn and dirty. 

Catherine would watch them and though she would roll her eyes and cluck her tongue against her teeth with disgust at some of their antics, deep down she often wished that she could join them. How she would have loved to hitch up her skirts, or better yet remove them altogether, and chase about the meadow like a carefree boy. 

Such as things were, she and Isabella left the boys to their own games as often as possible. It was all too unladylike and undignified to do any other. 

But one particular afternoon during their usual summer picnics, after their parents had disappeared into the copse of trees at the edge of the meadow, and the boys had chased after them, Catherine found herself compelled to follow. 

She’d had quite enough of sketching the birds and bees that buzzed about the meadow, with her paper and charcoal. Her hand was aching and so she wiped the charcoal from her hands on a handkerchief and suggested to Isabella, “Perhaps we might go into the woods in search of a brook to dip our toes into? It is rather warm today.” 

Isabella looked none too excited at the suggestion, but offered very little protest. The two girls clambered up from where they had been lounging in the long grass and made their way into the trees. 

No sooner had they taken a few steps in before Isabella exclaimed, “Ouch! What was that?” 

Catherine turned to find her friend glancing all about her, clutching the back of her shoulder as if something had struck her. “What?” 

“Something hit me!” 

The hushed sound of chuckling sounded somewhere in the bushes and a second later something tapped Catherine upon her own back. 

Whipping around, she scanned the bushes, her cheeks burning hot with embarrassment and frustration. She already had a pretty good idea who it was that was throwing things at them. 

“William! Edward! Come out here and stop throwing things at us before somebody gets hurt!” she snapped at Isabella’s brother and his friend. Though she was younger than her own brother by three years, she was always having to scold him for doing silly things. If she didn’t then who else would? 

“I told you they wouldn’t be any fun,” William grumbled even as he and Edward revealed themselves from the bushes.

In response, Catherine crouched, picked up a small pebble and threw it just so that it hit William upon his knee. 

“Ouch, what did you do that for?” William demanded, sticking out his tongue at her. 

“I wondered whether you might find it fun to have things thrown at you,” Catherine responded, glowering back at him. “And I guess the answer was no, so please refrain from throwing things at us!” 

“We were just playing,” Edward protested. “We didn’t mean any harm by it.” 

“Well perhaps next time you might include us in your games rather than making us the butt of them?” Catherine suggested, looking to Isabella for a little backup. The girl shyly blushed and nodded her head. 

“Perhaps you would like to play a different game?” Edward suggested, his own cheeks blushing. Of the two, Edward had always been the quietest and the least likely to try to frustrate the girls. Catherine often found him a welcome relief compared to the constant antics of her brother and William. 

“Yes, why don’t we play hide and seek?” William put in, glancing around the group. “It is always much more fun when there are more players.” 

Catherine bit the inside of her lip. She wasn’t much up for playing hide and seek with the boys, especially when it was so clear they were in an extra-special annoying mood today. 

“Can we, Catherine?” Isabella asked excitedly, as though she greatly enjoyed the idea. 

Seeing the anticipation on her friend’s pale, creamy face, how could she protest? 

“I suppose it is better than having things thrown at you,” she stated with a shrug, and before she could say anything else the two boys turned and hurried off deeper into the trees. 

“We shall hide first! Close your eyes and count to one hundred and don’t peek or we won’t play anymore!” Edward instructed them over his shoulder as they went. 

Catherine huffed and rolled her eyes before she reached out her hand to Isabella and the two girls closed their eyes to count. 

“1…2…3…4…” it seemed to take forever to count all the way up to one hundred and as she did, Catherine tried to listen all around her for any signs of where the boys might be hiding. She heard a rustle here, a stomping there, then silence. 

And finally, the girls called together, “Ready or not, here we come!” 

With that, they set off into the trees to look for the boys. They searched the undergrowth, behind boulders and into a ravine where they might have been crouching. But there was no luck. 

“This is hopeless! They have vanished!” Isabella cried with frustration. 

Catherine might have agreed with her friend were it not for the chittering of laughter she heard coming from above them. 

Sure enough, she turned her face up to the canopy above their heads and exclaimed, “Found you!” 

There, hanging in the branches of an oak tree was William. While Edward was nowhere to be seen, Catherine could at least say she had found one of them. No doubt Edward was hiding somewhere close by, having been too slow to manage to climb up into the tree after the others. He never had been quite as agile as William. 

“To win you have to tag me!” William called down to her. 

“That isn’t part of the game!” Isabella cried in protest, but Catherine was not going to have it said that she had failed at anything. and so she was already well on her way to the tree trunk, hitching her skirts up around her knees in order to find the first foothold. 

“Catherine! What are you doing?” Edward screamed at her, appearing from the bushes close by, but she did not respond. 

Instead, she focused all of her attention on climbing, higher and higher, until she was perched on the branch just beneath William. 

“Why Lady Catherine Everwood, I never had any idea you could climb!” William laughed down at her, swooping his leg out of the way before she could tag him. “You make a very graceful monkey.” 

His tone was mocking, and he laughed, sticking out his tongue to agitate her further the more she tried to reach for him. 

“You can’t get me!” he jeered. “You’ll never get either of us!” 

But Catherine was determined and the more that he taunted her, the more he swung his legs this way and that just out of her reach, the more she wanted to get him. And so, in a last-ditch effort, she half-swung, half-threw herself at him, both arms outstretched to grab hold of him. 

It was a foolish thing to do, and had she been thinking clearly, she never would have done it, but William had always had a way of getting under her skin. 

And as she managed to wrap her arms tightly around one of his legs, she felt her own slipping from the branch she had been perched on. 

“Catherine!” Isabella screamed from below. 

“Ahh! Let go of me!” William cried but Catherine could not, because he was all she had left to hold onto as they both fell from the branches of the oak tree, landing in a pile of leaf mulch among its roots. 

“Catherine Elizabeth Everwood!” 

“William Frederick Huntington!” 

The scolding tones of their parents made Catherine’s skin crawl and as she laid in the leaves, her arms and legs tangled around William’s, she turned her face up to find that her own parents and his were standing all around them, other guests among their number. All looked utterly shocked at what had just landed in their path.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Frederick Huntington, the Marquess of Bath demanded. From where she lay, Catherine could barely see the marquess’s face past his severely round potbelly that bulged around his leather belt, but she could hear the fury in his tone well enough. 

“She started it!” William exclaimed, shoving her away from him in an attempt to get up. 

Catherine fought back, wrestling with him for the simple fact he was sitting on her gown and his hands had pinned her to the floor by her hair during his attempt to get himself upright. 

“I did not!” Catherine protested, finally managing to get to her feet and dust herself off. Her auburn hair stood at odds and ends, littered with bits of leaf and a feather or two. Even William’s much shorter dark hair had not fared well during the fall, and it stuck out like that of a hedgehog’s bristles. 

Murmurs of disgruntlement flitted through the onlooking adults while the children’s mothers looked on in horror. 

“Catherine, what is going on here?” her own father demanded, coming to stand beside the marquess. The earl of Everly was not a vicious man, but he did not take kindly to looking a fool and it was clear from the look on her father’s face that was exactly how he felt in that very moment. “This is most unbecoming of a lady!” 

William scoffed beside her, and she heard him hiss under his breath, “She is no lady. Ladies don’t climb trees.” 

“Hey!” Catherine snapped at him. “I heard that.” 

She jammed her elbow into his ribs. 

“Ouch!” William cried. “Stop hurting me!” 

“Oh, look I’m big, strong William Huntington and I’m hurt by a little girl!” Catherine mocked, sticking out her tongue, for just a second forgetting about all the onlookers. 

“That is enough! Both of you,” the Marquess of Bath declared. “You have ruined the afternoon. I should punish you both!” 

“That won’t be necessary, Lord Bath,” Catherine’s father assured his friend. “I shall take Catherine’s punishment in hand myself. Come, Catherine, now!” 

Before she could offer any kind of protest, her father gripped hold of her by the elbow, and began to drag her away. 

She only had time to glance back at William to see him smirking with quiet amusement at her being whisked away. And it was in that moment, hearing the angry muttering of both her parents, that Lady Catherine Everwood decided she would loathe the Huntington boy forever and a day.

 

Chapter One

Spring 1818

So engrossed in her painting, Lady Catherine Everwood barely heard the approach of her maid, Clara, until the woman laid a silver tray upon the table close by. 

“Thank you, Clara,” she said absentmindedly, out of the corner of her eye seeing that the maid had brought her the refreshments she had requested. All the while her paintbrush continued its work on the golden sunflowers she had been painting. They sat in a vase in her bedroom window, the sunshine catching them just perfectly, and she knew that if she did not hurry, she would lose the right light in which to paint them. 

“You’re welcome, my lady,” Clara responded, coming up behind Catherine in order to examine the painting. “That is a fine piece, my lady. In fact, I rather think it some of your best work.” 

Catherine took a step back and examining her own work, huffed, shaking her head. “I think it could be better.” 

“Oh, no, my lady,” Clara protested. “It is perfection, just as you always paint.” 

“It is very kind of you to say, Clara, but I fear I shall never be quite happy with it,” Catherine insisted, dabbing her paintbrush into the yellow paint once more. “There is always room for improvement.” 

Clara watched her silently for several moments and the longer she stood there, the more Catherine sensed that she might be forgetting something. With a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece, she quickly realized what. 

“Isabella’s engagement party!” she exclaimed. 

Clara smiled at that and nodded, “Yes, my lady. It is this evening. Your mother instructed me to come and help you prepare.” 

“Oh, heavens!” Catherine said, throwing down her paint pallet and her paintbrush. “I fear I shall never be ready in time. I must bathe and comb my hair and dress. And oh, whatever should I do first?” 

Clara as always was cool, calm, and collected. “I have already drawn your bath by the fire next door, and I shall have your gown prepared by the time you are washed, my lady.” 

“Oh, good heavens, Clara,” Catherine stated as she hurried through to the dressing room where her maid had drawn her bath, “Whatever would I do without you?” 

“I am sure you would make do, my lady,” Clara insisted, standing loyally at her side to take her garments from her as she hurried to disrobe. “But for now I am here, and you should use me while you can.” 

Clara winked at Catherine. The two knew that truly nothing could ever come between them. Clara had always been with Catherine, ever since her parents had deemed her old enough to have her own ladies maid, and in a way, they were friends. Much like she was friends with Isabella Worthington who would never let her live it down if she were to be late to her engagement party. 

As she slipped into the bathtub, she couldn’t help but think on how things had changed since their carefree summers in Bath. They were no longer the two innocent little girls who had chased after her brother and his friends or who had run away screaming when the tables were turned. 

They were grown women out in society and her best friend would soon be married to Mr. Charles Pembrooke, a wonderful gentleman who Catherine hoped would make her friend very happy. 

“I cannot believe this day has come around so quickly,” Catherine thought with a sigh, remembering how she and her friend had often daydreamed about what their adult lives would be like; who they would marry and how quickly that would come into being. Would they be businessmens’ wives or duchesses? Countesses or maybe even the wives of naval officers? The possibilities were endless and yet, her friend had come to find her answer. 

Still, Catherine wondered, where shall my path end? So far, she much preferred to be left alone, painting in her room, to the constant pageantry of the social seasons. 

“It seems like only yesterday the two of you were children,” Clara agreed, nodding. Catherine chuckled a little. It was so like Clara to sound as though she were old and wise, being a little over nineteen, whilst only having a year on her mistress. 

“Indeed, I can’t imagine how everyone must have changed,” Catherine thought aloud. She couldn’t remember the last time that she and all of her friends had last been in the same room together, though she had heard from Isabella that everyone had been invited. And how could any of them miss such an important day for her? 

“Indeed, perhaps now that Miss Worthington has found her Mr. Pembrooke, you might be more open to finding yourself a worthy man?” Clara suggested with a raised eyebrow. Perhaps had they not been so close, Catherine might have been offended by her maid’s presumptuousness, but instead she was simply taken aback by the idea. In fact, she hadn’t thought about it all that much. Though her mother was always dropping hints as any mama would, Catherine had never quite been able to take them seriously. She was much too invested in her books and her painting to worry over such things. After all, she was under no illusion that once she was married off, she would be able to continue in such a manner. It was a situation she was not in any hurry to enter. To Catherine, the thought of losing her freedom, unlike so many other ladies, was not appealing. 

Able to see the golden flowers of her painting through the archway between the rooms, Catherine sighed deeply. It was perhaps her best painting yet, but it was still nowhere close to perfect. How could she hope to move onto the next stage in her life when she hadn’t accomplished all she wished to do in this one? 

Yet she could not tell her maid that and so, as she bathed, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Perhaps.” 

Deep down, she wondered what kind of man could possibly encourage her from the wonderful, carefree life she lived and into a new, unchartered life as a wife. He would have to be a special man indeed. Though Mr. Charles Pembrooke was a very kind and very wealthy man, a man who seemed to make Isabella happy, he certainly wasn’t enough for Catherine to drop everything and swoon. 

Nor did she think any man ever would be. 

Shaking the thoughts of such things from her mind, Catherine set to preparing for the evening. If it was anything like the previous balls she had been to, she was in for a long night of her mother encouraging her to dance with every eligible bachelor imaginable, when all she wanted to do was come home and sleep early to rise at dawn for the best light to paint by.

Those days were numbered though. She felt it in her bones. Yet she would hold onto them as long as possible. No man was good enough, so far, for her to lay down her paintbrush, even for a day. Hopefully, Isabella’s upcoming nuptials were enough to keep everyone busy for a little while longer. 

***

William Huntington had always loved a game of chess in order to quiet his thoughts. It gave him something to concentrate on other than the pressures of being the eldest and only son of a highly respected marquess, a man whose renown left him almost always feeling inadequate. 

So when his closest friend, Edward Worthington suggested, “I think we ought to wrap this game up,” William was quite disappointed. It felt as though they had only been playing a short while but when he glanced at the grandfather clock beside the bar in the gentleman’s club where they so often liked to play, he realized his friend was quite right. 

“Isabella would never forgive me if either of us were late to the ball,” Edward insisted, grabbing his crystalline glass of whisky from the table, and upending the rest of the contents into his mouth. His pale face twisted with disgust as the liquor burned down his windpipe. He slammed the glass back down on the table and moved one final chess piece. “Checkmate.” 

“I shall let you concede it there,” William sighed, leaning back in his seat. They both knew that Edward so very rarely won. The viscount’s son had never been any real match for him, not since their days at Oxford together, or even before then, when they had been young children, playing as close friends because their own fathers had always been so close. 

“How very gracious of you,” Edward sighed, rolling his eyes. “I suppose you shall be handling the bill as well?” 

“As your sister’s engagement is being announced this evening, I think I shall treat you, yes,” William said playfully. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of the ball they were to attend that evening. It had very little to do with Edward’s sister and rather more to do with her best friend; Lady Catherine Everwood. 

He hadn’t seen her since their three families had shared those long, lazy summer days in the countryside together when they were children, before he had been sent off to Oxford for his education.

Though the two had always had a sort of love-hate relationship, he was intrigued to see just how she had grown and changed since they were children. From what he had heard on the grapevine she had ripened into a rare beauty indeed. 

“Then I shall have you to blame if she decides me too intoxicated to attend,” Edward chuckled, standing up with a little wobble in his step. 

“I am certain you shall be fine in a few hours,” William protested though he stood and offered his friend an arm to help him from the club. “You’ll have just enough time to arrive home, get prepared and be sobered up for the announcement.” 

“And I’m certain you shall have enough time to do the same before reuniting with your long-lost nemesis,” Edward laughed whole-heartedly, and William’s stomach clenched. Their old rivalry had clearly not been lost upon his friend either. 

“I am unsure as to who you mean,” he said, shaking his head. Though he knew exactly who his friend meant, he wasn’t about to let on the fact. 

Edward paused in their walking, dragging William to a halt with him. He glowered at his friend with a raised eyebrow, “Do not play the fool with me. I have felt your anxiety like a prick in my own chest for the last few days every time you have mentioned the damned engagement ball.” 

William gritted his teeth. Whether his friend was right or not, he was not about to admit it. 

“I think perhaps you have had a little more than I thought,” he said, gripping his friend’s arm a little tighter. “Let me escort you home and pray that you are sober by the ball.”

---

“A Lady’s Colorful Enigma” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Lady Catherine Everwood had always been an unconventional soul, indifferent to society’s expectations. She never thought that romance could offer her much thrill, until an enigmatic letter from an anonymous admirer captivates her imagination. Yet, the revelation of her admirer’s identity shatters her fantasy. As she retreats to her art, her only loyal companion and shelter, love is about to strike her with the brightest colors.

Can she overcome her mistrust and prejudice for a chance at a love that defies societal norms?

Lord William Huntington, a master of expressing sentiments through ink rather than spoken words, returns from Oxford with a newfound awareness. No longer content with his prankster younger self, William grapples with the weight of his evolving desires. Amidst the relentless pressure from his parents to marry, he discerns that true happiness lies in the company of only one woman. As he reunites with Catherine, heartfelt emotions conquer him and he becomes the man he failed to be in the past…

Can his tender transformation win the heart of the only woman he ever loved?

In a delicate dance of misunderstood intentions, Catherine and William navigate a labyrinth of their creation. As past shadows cloud their vision of the future, a mysterious third party threatens their budding romance. Will Catherine choose the safe path by the side of another man, or will she take a chance on someone whose childhood mischief now stirs a different kind of longing? As their emotional conflicts persist, will they finally see that happiness has been within reach, or will the echoes of the past deny them the joy they both deserve?

“A Lady’s Colorful Enigma” is a historical romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

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