Remember When: Clarissa's Story (Ravenswood Novel, 4) - Softcover

Buch 4 von 6: A Ravenswood Novel

Balogh, Mary

 
9780593638439: Remember When: Clarissa's Story (Ravenswood Novel, 4)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593638433 ISBN 13: 9780593638439
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Discover the beauty of second chances at love and life in this heartfelt new novel from New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh.

The Dowager Countess of Stratton, Clarissa Ware, née Greenfield, has just presented her younger daughter to the ton, and the rest of her life belongs only to herself. She returns to Ravenswood, intending to spend the summer alone there. But the summer has other plans for her.

Born a gentleman, Matthew Taylor has chosen to spend his life as the village carpenter. Growing up, he and Clarissa were close—dangerously so, considering his family’s modest fortune. As a young man, he never would have been a suitable match for the daughter of the wealthy Greenfields. Clarissa married Caleb Ware, the Earl of Stratton, so Matthew married another, though he was widowed soon after.

Now everything is different—Clarissa has already lived the life expected of her by society. And Matthew is as attractive and intriguing as he was when they were young. As their summer friendship deepens into romance, they stand together on the precipice of change—essentially the same man and woman they remember being back then, but with renewed passion and the potential to take their lives in an entirely new direction.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mary Balogh

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

1818

Clarissa Ware, Dowager Countess of Stratton, drew in a deep breath of fresh air as she stood looking out through the open window of her private sitting room. It was sheer bliss. She could smell the freshly scythed lawn below that stretched ahead as far as the ha-ha. She could smell the sweetness of the wildflowers in the meadow beyond it and see the sheep grazing there. Sunlight sparkled on the river below the meadow and shone bright upon the village of Boscombe on the other side. Was there any lovelier place on this earth to be?

Ravenswood.

Home!

It was so different from all the bustle and stale air and limited horizons of London, where she had spent the past few months, rushed off her feet as she presented Stephanie, her youngest daughter, to the queen, and introduced her to the ton. That latter duty had meant attending as many balls and routs and garden parties and soirees and other entertainments as could reasonably be fitted into the twenty-four hours each day allowed. The spring Season had an overabundance of pleasures to offer as one mingled with as many of one's peers as one could. There had been scarcely a morning in which to linger in bed, or an afternoon in which to relax with a book or her embroidery. There had been almost no evenings to spend at home in the familiar company of her family. Even the nights had frequently been shortened by a particularly glittering ball.

At last she was home, however, and, for the first time she could remember, she was home alone. Alone except, that was, for the army of servants who kept the vast mansion running smoothly and administered the farms and kept the park surrounding the house in pristine condition. She was alone, however, in the sense that there were no other family members here with her and no guests. And it was going to remain this way for at least the next couple of months.

She felt slightly guilty at the delight she felt at the prospect of being alone for so long, for she dearly loved her family and close friends. Sometimes, however, she yearned for solitude, for time to be alone with her own thoughts and reflections. Now, after the insanely busy months in London, she craved it more than ever.

And there was the added fact that in a few short months she was going to turn fifty. It was all very well to tell herself, as other people had been telling her with annoying frequency lately, that fifty was just a number, that she was only as old as she felt, that she would be the same person the day after her birthday as she had been the day before.

Fifty was a number of undeniable significance. It was a reminder that her youth had been left behind so long ago that sometimes it felt like something from another lifetime or something that had happened to someone else. Her young womanhood was long gone too. Her children were all grown. Stephanie, her baby, was nineteen years old. Clarissa had already been married for two years when she was Steph's present age. Devlin had been born when she was eighteen.

Caleb had died of a sudden heart seizure six years ago.

Oh, fifty seemed so much larger a number than forty. Or even forty-nine. There was something very decisive about it. Half a century.

One of the sheep in the meadow baaed indignantly at a bird that had swooped too low over its head. The bird perched on the edge of the ha-ha close by and serenaded the sheep with cheeky indifference to any danger posed by the much larger animal. Clarissa smiled as she watched.

It was not that she was feeling particularly maudlin about her advancing age. There had been considerable happiness in her life so far, and there was every chance that there was more to come. As far as she knew, she was in excellent health. Her children were all doing well. Her grandchildren were an endless delight to her-four of them so far, with two more on the way. Pippa and Lucas were expecting again sometime after Christmas, as were Ben and Jennifer, though it was the first for them as a couple. Five-year-old Joy was Ben's daughter from a previous marriage. Clarissa's parents were both still in good health. George, her brother, was happily married to her longtime friend Kitty, both of them after a lengthy widowhood.

There was much cause for contentment, then, in Clarissa's life. It was true that Stephanie had not enjoyed her debut Season, but at least she was now officially out, and her confidence had surely been boosted by the two perfectly eligible offers for her hand that had been made very properly first to Devlin, Clarissa's eldest son, now Earl of Stratton. Steph had refused both offers, but Clarissa had hopes that one of these days her daughter would surprise herself and actually welcome just the right marriage. It was not a good idea, after all, for a woman to remain a spinster all her life, though Devlin and Gwyneth would always welcome Steph to continued residence here at Ravenswood, as they had assured her after she refused the second offer. And the choice between marriage and the single state was Stephanie's to make.

It had not helped this year, of course, that Owen, Clarissa's second youngest, had also been in town for the Season, enjoying himself with a group of friends, most of them from his Oxford days. One of those friends was Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, who had spent a few weeks at Ravenswood with Owen a couple of summers ago. He had been a delightful young man then and still was now. He was in town with his twin sister, Lady Estelle Lamarr, this year and had been delighted to introduce her to the Ware family, whom he remembered with great fondness. He was the sort of young man girls dreamed of-tall, dark, handsome, and genuinely charming. Lady Estelle was outstandingly lovely too. Poor Stephanie had lived through agonies during those weeks here two years ago. She had been seventeen and self-conscious and convinced she was the ugliest young woman in existence. She had gone to great lengths to avoid the young god with whom she had clearly been smitten.

Poor Steph.

Two years had not changed her. She had reacted exactly the same way to him this year, though it had been admittedly easier to avoid Viscount Watley among the crowds in London than it had been in the family setting at Ravenswood.

Almost the whole of Clarissa's family had been in London this year, though Ben had remained home at Penallen with Jennifer and Joy, and Nicholas, now a full colonel with his cavalry regiment, was still somewhere in Europe, though he expected to return soon to England, where he would take up a military post at the Horse Guards in Whitehall.

In many ways it had been a wonderful few months for Clarissa, surrounded by family and friends, always busy, always with interesting new acquaintances to make-and even a beau of her own, who had actually hinted at marriage. She had been tempted. But when Lucas, Duke of Wilby, had announced that he was taking Pippa and the children back home to Greystone for the sake of his wife's health, and Stephanie had jumped at the opportunity to go with them to see her sister through her confinement, Clarissa had declined the invitation to go with them then or to join them later, after the Season was over. Instead, she had announced her intention of returning home to Ravenswood.

There had been a chorus of protests, for no one else had intended to come back here yet. Devlin and Gwyneth were planning to go straight to Wales with their children after the parliamentary session and the Season ended to visit Gwyneth's Welsh relatives. They had wanted Clarissa to go with them. Her relatives would be more than delighted, Gwyneth had assured her. She had pointed out that Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys, her parents and Clarissa's closest neighbors and friends, would be going there too for a month or so. George and Kitty had begged Clarissa to remain a little longer in...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593638433
ISBN 13 
9780593638439
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
401
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
Niedersachsen
49078
Deutschland

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