Mrs. Sartin's Secretary Read online

  His love is forbidden…but irresistible

  Mrs. Amelia Sartin helms her late husband’s business and implicitly trusts her secretary, Matthew Bellamy. Occasionally, she indulges her desires, but only if the gentleman poses no risk to her heart. However, as Amelia cedes control of the company to her heir, Bellamy finally persuades Amelia to act on their mutual, forbidden passion. Can Bellamy also convince her he is the one thing she cannot leave behind?

  Mrs. Sartin’s Secretary

  Lords of Chance 2.5

  by

  Wendy LaCapra

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Wendy LaCapra.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Publisher:

  Wendy LaCapra

  http://www.wendylacapra.com/

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  ISBN 9781386630630

  Cover design by The Write Designer

  Copy Editing by Louisa Cornell

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition April 2019, as part of the Second Chance Love, A Regency Romance Set Anthology

  Revised & Expanded August 2019

  Dedication

  To the staff at Bellamy Health Center for taking such good care of my mom

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Author’s Note & Related Titles

  About Wendy

  Chapter One

  MRS. AMELIA SARTIN POSED AT the glittering center of Lady Darlington’s soiree—part participant, part spectator, enthralled by the pageantry and, at the same time, restless within.

  Her turban’s peacock feather fluttered as she nodded along to her friend Lady Constance’s Bond Street Rodent Shopping Tale—a story Amelia had heard before.

  Unthinkable to interrupt, however.

  Beastly rude.

  Instead, Amelia drifted along with the music while the tide of conversation whirled around her in swirling eddies.

  Such sounds of Tonnish diversion sharply contrasted with Sartin Trading Company’s more familiar daily din—clattering delivery carts and working men bellowing to one another over the whirring chatter of machines.

  In the early years, whenever Amelia had complained of the noise, her late husband, the company’s founder, would lean back in his giant chair, take a pontificating puff on his pipe, and say, “Well, my dear, such are the sounds of commerce, and where there is commerce,”—here, he’d pause for a knuckle rap to the desk—“there is proof life itself is striving to expand.”

  Now—she lifted her brows—she practically embodied the disparity between elegance and industry. She was suspended between two worlds, presenting the face of a wealthy, bejeweled widow to the ton, while secretly—and happily—keeping the same long, working hours she kept when her husband lived.

  Ah, George.

  Carrying on hadn’t been easy. In fact, she couldn’t have done so without the discreet assistance of George’s trusted secretary, Mr. Matthew Bellamy. Bellamy, who—bless him—had been acting as the male face of a female-led company until her heir, George’s nephew Jeremy Pritchett, was ready to take his place.

  What would her days be like once Jeremy took on his role? No more contracts and papers, account books and decisions. No more pouring over Bellamy’s reports, trading ideas and sifting possibilities, often late into the night.

  She resisted a dawning sense of purposelessness with an intentional shiver.

  She’d spent years in toil. Years. And, her white, kid leather gloves concealed plenty of evidence of time’s passage. On the other hand, her sacrifice meant she could now, for the most part, do as she pleased.

  There. She’d thought of one benefit of age.

  Triumphantly, she ting-ed the side of her glass with the tip of her finger.

  Constance stopped speaking. “What was that?”

  Amelia blinked. “What was what?”

  “Didn’t you hear that odd little chime?”

  “Hadn’t noticed.” She glanced around. “Did someone make a toast?”

  “Possible.” Constance sighed. “Such a crush tonight! You’d think Lady Darlington would be more circumspect when issuing invitations. Now, where was I?”

  Amelia took a guess. “You’d just spotted the rodent on the dressing room floor.”

  “Ah, yes. So, there I stood, eye to eye with an evil, bead-eyed, furry ball of deviltry—”

  Poor, maligned mouse.

  “Eye to eye?” Amelia asked. That bit she’d changed.

  Constance lifted a shoulder. “In as much as one can be, when standing on a stool. Anyway, the air in the room simply disappeared…”

  Amelia further considered the benefit of age she’d just discovered. Namely, the absence of strict propriety—a young woman’s bane. Happy thought, indeed, and one which renewed her purpose for being here tonight.

  Lord Markham.

  She hadn’t attended because the Darlington soirees were to social and political discourse what Almack’s was to marriage. Well, less the tasteless punch and unexceptional music, anyway. Nor had she attended to savor the warming, nutmeggy taste of Negus.

  She’d attended because last season, after a good deal of prompting from her friends, she’d sampled Markham’s famed bedchamber talents, and, miraculously, found that his attention temporarily cured her restlessness.

  Tonight, she intended to—a-hem—renew their acquaintance.

  Warmth accompanied the memory of their last tryst. A dare at a horse race: could Markham bring her to climax in her carriage behind the stands before the horses completed the three-mile course?

  She sighed.

  Of course he had.

  And the encounter had been exciting. Satisfying. And, best of all, distracting.

  She searched the portion of the room she could see for any sign of Lord Markham’s distinctive auburn hair.

  “…So, I captured the menace, the madame praised my courage, and all was again right with the world.” Constance finished her story with a characteristic, there-you-go arm-spread.

  Amelia delivered the obligatory exclamations, and then asked, “Have you happened to see Lord Markham this evening?”

  Constance smirked before casting a furtive gaze about the room. “Both his sisters are present. But I see no sign of him—not yet, anyway.”

  “Well,” Amelia huffed. What could possibly be keeping him? “Lady Darlington assured me he would attend.”

  Constance drew close. “I told you you’d appreciate Markham’s talents, did I not? After only a summer apart, here you are bristling to renew your acquaintance.”

  Amelia lifted her fan and flicked her wrist. The ribs spread open with a flash of color and a cascade of successive clicks.

  “Bristling,” she repeated derisively. “I am not bristling.”

  “You aren’t?” Constance lowered her voice. “Do mean you won’t be upset if I attempt another go?”

  “Really, Constance,” Amelia said under her breath.

  “I was teasing.” Constance rolled her eyes. “You know I despise twice dippin
g any quill.”

  Amelia slanted Constance a glance, earning Constance’s lyrical laugh. Amelia wasn’t truly offended. Constance was just being, well, Constance.

  Also widowed. Also wealthy. The difference?

  While Amelia was impoverished gentry saved by a marriage to trade, dependent on the intentional cultivation of proper associations, Constance was, and always had been, a duke’s daughter whose greatest pleasure and only concern was skirting scandal with a Gallic shrug and a wink.

  Constance plucked at her lace. “Might I remind you who introduced you to Lord Markham?”

  “You,” Amelia conceded. “But only because he required a loan from my husband’s bank.”

  “I was talking about later, when I encouraged you to pursue an arrangement.”

  Amelia squinted, recalling. “Emily first raved about him, actually,” she said, mentioning another woman in their mature-and-the-Devil-may-care set.

  “Emily and I both recommended him, but I kept pressing. I knew you needed a bit of fun.”

  Fun?

  Was fun why she had pursued Lord Markham?

  She’d had no qualms regarding their liaison-without-attachment before, but to think of intimacy as mere fun seemed a touch… well, ill-considered, at the very least.

  Then again—“Of course I appreciated your encouragement, darling.” Amelia masked unease with a cheerful smile. “Lord Markham is delightful.” Delightful. She mustn’t forget that. And blessedly able to divert her attention. “I look forward to welcoming him back to the city. I’m not fool enough to seek anything more.”

  “Heaven forbid.” Constance scowled. “We are free, my dear. And there is absolutely no reason either of us should relinquish such a gift.”

  Gift. She could never think of George’s loss in such a way.

  Even setting aside her slowly healing grief for George, she wasn’t, quite frankly, celebrating her single state. She missed some things about marriage. Quiet amity. The feeling of not being alone. The kind of private amusements couples shared.

  Constance disturbed Amelia’s reverie with a loud clap. “I believe I just spotted a fresh fish in the pond.”

  Amelia groaned. “Don’t you mean an ‘undipped quill’?”

  “A quill I’d like to dip, anyway. I feel suddenly eager to catch up on my correspondence.”

  “Or, to follow your other metaphor, do a little poach—hey.” Amelia rubbed the place Constance had pinched.

  “Be useful, would you? Tell me what you think. He’s standing next to a potted palm.”

  “We’re standing next to a potted palm, Constance.”

  “The one across the room, silly…to the right of the refreshment table. No, wait.” Constance grasped Amelia’s arm, holding her in place. “Let me take his character first. Then you can tell me if you agree.”

  “Your favorite game.”

  “Far from my favorite, dear. Indulging in my favorite game would have me expelled.”

  Amelia snorted. “Arrested, more-like.”

  “That, too.” Constance folded her arms and studied her subject.

  “Well?” Amelia prompted.

  “Judging by the size of his lapels, he’s not often out. He’s not young…but I wouldn’t describe him as old, either. Nearing his thirtieth year, I suspect. He’s uncomfortable, but not completely unfamiliar, with the ton.” Constance tilted her head. “An enigma!” She lifted her shoulders in an excited little shrug. “And here I was, thinking this Season would be dull...”

  Poor man. If Constance decided to pursue him, he was already lost. “May I look, now?”

  “Of course.”

  Amelia followed Constance’s gaze. Recognition arrived in stages, as if the man were a conundrum she’d been tasked to solve, phrase by mysterious phrase.

  First, came the vague sense she had been long acquainted with his wispy brown hair. Then, her heart involuntarily softened as she took in his prominent cheek bones. And the last piece? A small, spontaneous smile the moment she identified his straight, thin, incapable-of-holding-up-his-reading-glasses nose.

  Reading glasses she hadn’t seen Matthew Bellamy without in years.

  The missing spectacles must have been the reason she hadn’t known her secretary at once. And the fact she hadn’t ever seen him dressed for an evening among the ton.

  “I’ve reached a verdict,” Constance announced. “Fortune hunter.”

  Amelia shook her head, considering Matthew’s investments and the legacy left him by George. “Definitely not a fortune hunter.” A secretary. Her secretary.

  Disconcerting possessiveness flared in her chest.

  Why on earth had he come?

  “Do you know him?” Constance asked.

  “Yes,” Amelia clipped. “Sartin Trading Company employs him.”

  Constance’s lips thinned. “Employs?”

  “Darling,” Amelia reminded, “I am employed by Sartin Trading Company.”

  “You own the company.” Constance set back her shoulders. “Entirely different.”

  That.

  Amelia scowled.

  That was why she was never entirely comfortable with Constance.

  Constance deemed people in trade beneath her. All except Amelia. Could a friend be a friend if they thought of you as “the exception”?

  “If it helps,” Amelia said wryly, “his mother is Lady Dorothy, daughter of the late Earl Wentworth.”

  Constance’s smile returned. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” She looped her arm through Amelia’s. “You may introduce us.”

  “You want me to introduce you to Mr. Bellamy? ”

  “Yes. Of course. Why not?”

  Why not, indeed.

  Amelia grasped for a valid protestation; none made sense.

  Because she’d known Bellamy since he’d come to George on his uncle’s recommendation over a decade ago, a lanky, awkward seventeen-year-old, hungry for knowledge?

  Because George, like the unique, kindhearted, ambitious cultivator of talent he’d been, had made Bellamy his own, second only to the nephew they’d practically raised?

  Because, after George passed, Bellamy encouraged her decision to defy advice and remain the force behind her late husband’s banking, trading and shipping companies?

  None of those were reasons she should object to an introduction.

  Nor did she have any claim on him. They merely spent day after day together.

  …And the occasional long night.

  Bellamy was loyal. He was smart. He was sincere. Most importantly, he was essential. But he was one other thing Amelia hadn’t noticed, one thing made plain by the gleam in Constance’s eyes.

  Bellamy was a man. Full Stop.

  A man uncommonly attractive in eveningwear—even outdated eveningwear.

  She’d been restless before.

  She was positively alarmed, now.

  Chapter Two

  MATTHEW BELLAMY WAS OUT OF SORTS, out of place, and, if his mother had her way, out of time. The grand Lady Dorothy had plucked him from his life, dusted and polished him, and would marry him off to a lady of her choosing before he had a chance to gather his wits.

  Case in point?

  Despite his vehement protestations, he was attending a fancy soiree, sipping some sort of horribly spiced red wine, listening to his mother whisper-list the pedigrees of every ‘suitable’ young lady in sight, obstinately oblivious that Matthew clearly did not belong.

  Yes, investments had made him comfortable enough, and he was only one family tree limb from a solid peerage connection, but, as he looked around him, he felt no affinity. None.

  If power and influence were a clock, he was neither fit to be the hours’ stout, stately hand, nor the minutes’ long, graceful arm. Matthew was decidedly a gear.

  A gear—he drained his glass—at a gathering full of pretty clock faces.

  He searched the room for one real thing. Real, like the shapes of the numbers in his ledgers. Real, like the flush of excitemen
t in his employer’s cheeks when she completed a successful negotiation.

  He twirled his glass.

  Only a gear.

  Certainly, there was nothing wrong with being a gear. Someone had to keep things ticking. But posturing and presentation? Not his forte.

  Take his clothes, for instance. Even he could tell his trousers were too loose, and his collar was…

  He spotted a fashionable, fire-haired gentleman across the room and discreetly compared their shirts, trying to discern how his was wrong.

  He gave up.

  His collar was just off, devil knew why.

  Lord, how much he wished to be back in the rational confines of his office.

  He. Did. Not. Belong.

  But nothing he tried had convinced his mother.

  Nothing.

  Not swearing on the three, individual graves of his father, uncle, and mentor he would set up a household.

  Not promising she would certainly have her own chambers in said household. Chambers she could decorate however she wished—no expense spared.

  Not pleading he hadn’t the time or inclination for the courtship she intended for him.

  And certainly not his final attempt—putting his foot down with a resolute no.

  Please, Bellamy. If you truly intend to set up a household, you must be reintroduced to society. The first Darlington Soiree of the Season is the perfect choice. Lady Darlington invites peers, ministers of Parliament, and even men of trade.

  The worst part? His mother had whispered men of trade.

  She refused to accept that, while Matthew’s grandfather, uncle, and, now, cousin had been Lords Wentworth, Matthew belonged to the whisper-shamed category, now.

  Although his position hadn’t left him without attention tonight.

  While some chaperones immediately averted their gazes, others lingered speculatively. No doubt, Lady Dorothy had dropped a hint or two about her son’s worth. The curious chaperones’ blatant attempts to calculate Matthew’s finances left him off-kilter.

  Ill, in fact.

  He was miserable.

  And, he had the nagging feeling things were about to get even…

  He glanced up to see his employer, gliding across the room on the arm of a woman who looked as if she were dressed as the crown jewels come to life.