Lauren M. Hayworth

A lady of quiet strength

Isobel Ridgeway has never left rural Cumberland, content to the whims of her eccentric father and an overbearing suitor who grows impatient to claim her hand. But when Isobel receives word that her sister has fallen ill, she undertakes a reckless journey to Northumberland, heedless of the winter storm that looms.

In a chance encounter, Isobel must seek refuge with a man she knows in reputation only—Lord Giles Trevelyan, the earl who became a recluse after his dazzling bride-to-be vanished.

A wounded romantic

Lord Trevelyan had no desire for company, but immediately finds Miss Ridgeway engaging, intelligent, and tender—the sort of woman who could draw him out of hiding. Perhaps even resuscitate his dreams of being a happily married man. Except Isobel’s marriage has been long since arranged, her sister’s health is in dangerous fluctuation, and impressions of Trevelyan’s first bride lurk around every corner.

When the mystery of her disappearance threatens to untangle, Isobel finds herself caught in the crosshairs with love, loss, and sanity at stake.

• one instance of unwanted sexual advances (not between the main characters)
• death, some graphic descriptions
• grief
• mentions of child loss and abortion, one mention of possible suicide (no graphic descriptions)
• infidelity (not between the main characters)
• language
• depictions of sexual relations between consenting adults

If you have any specific questions or concerns, please direct them to lauren@laurenmhayworth.com.

1

Cumberland, England

January 1814

Thursday evenings turned Isobel Ridgeway into a mathematician.

The dinner courses went by faster when she counted down the number that remained. If she made some vague, monosyllabic sound every three bites or so, very little conversation was expected from her. And if she took care not to extend her left elbow more than forty-five degrees from her side, it never brushed Captain Elias Sempill.

“Say, Lord Ridgeway, when was the last time you had a chimney sweep out?” Lady Sempill, the young captain’s mother, peered over her shoulder at the fire smoking in the grate.

The old viscount shrugged, and without waiting to swallow his mouthful of mutton, addressed his daughter. “Damned if I know. What do you make of it, Isobel?”

She was struggling to drag her knife through the fatty meat on her plate, but lifted her eyes. “I couldn’t say. Marriane always sorted the household matters.”

“Why, she’s been married for over a twelvemonth now!” Lady Sempill exclaimed, the black feather tittering in her grey hair. “It is crucial someone assumes these responsibilities, lest the entire house catch aflame. It is a woman’s responsibility, and you are certainly of age, ma’am.”

Isobel took her lower lip between her teeth, casting for a reply. She had known the Sempills for all eternity, and they always addressed her with the utmost informality. Unless, of course, their tempers were heating.

“I’ll speak with Father, when we return home,” Elias said at her side. “He’s bound to know a good chimney sweep.”

“I know a good chimney sweep,” Lady Sempill said, arching a brow. “A very thin child, able to fit in the narrowest of—”

Isobel winced at the thought of sending a child up the soot-blackened flues. A young boy had gotten stuck in one of the chimneys at Ridgeway House before, and by the time he was twisted out by the rope around his waist, he had burns and scrapes all over his flesh.

She hadn’t forgotten about the dirty chimneys. She just hadn’t wanted to subject another child to that cruelty.

The wind howled bitterly outside, and a gust swept down the chimney, forcing a billow of black smoke into the room and silencing Lady Sempill. Two footmen appeared immediately, adjusting the screens before the hearth. The older woman broke into a spasm of coughs and ran a hand up the back of her stiff coiffure.

“Very well,” Lord Ridgeway said with a weighted sigh. “I’ll look into the matter.”

“You mention your sister,” Elias said, leaning a little nearer to Isobel. “Have you heard from her lately? I imagine the coast is bitterly cold in winter.”

She smiled faintly at him, trying—not for the first time—to find attraction in those sharply hewn, narrow features. But all she saw was her childhood friend, not the dashing captain everyone expected her to wed.

“We write to each other. You know Marriane, however. Most of her letters are about new draperies or the latest French receipts.” Isobel ducked her chin. “She sounds happy enough.”

“I don’t know how she could be, married to that damned impudent man,” Lord Ridgeway burst in. “Hasn’t even brought her ’round for a visit. Not once in eighteen months, mind you.”

“Oh, but the marquess seems very amiable, indeed,” Lady Sempill said. “I’d wager Marriane lives in such comfort at his side, she’s no desire to travel about.”

The old viscount shook his head roughly enough to make his jowls wag. “I should’ve never let her run off to London, I tell you that. If I had it to do over—matter of fact, Isobel, never ask me for a blasted Season. Understand?”

“I have no desire for a Season, Papa.”

A thunderous banging sounded in the distance, and every hand stilled. The doorknocker was so seldom used, Isobel almost didn’t recognize its sound.

“Callers?” Lady Sempill asked, her mouth falling open.

“Impossible,” Lord Ridgeway said, gesturing for more wine to be poured.

The front door opened with a distant creak, and Isobel could pick out the timbre of the butler’s voice, though none of his words were clear.

“Who on earth could be calling at Ridgeway House?” Lady Sempill asked again. She sat down her knife and raised a hand to her breast.

On this rare occasion, Isobel shared her sentiments. The only visitors she and her father received were the pair in front of them now, who made the short journey every Thursday evening for dinner. It was unthinkable to have a caller at this hour, come so far into the country on a black winter’s night.

“What’s the trouble?” Lord Ridgeway shouted.

The shadowy form of the butler appeared in the dining room, and Isobel’s pulse quickened with unaccountable dread.

“It is a messenger on horseback, my lord. Delivering an urgent dispatch from Northumberland, for Miss Isobel.”

Isobel stood so quickly, her hips caught the table’s edge, sloshing the drinks and eliciting a gasp from Lady Sempill. “Please,” she said, striding toward the butler. “Let me see.”

He handed the letter over without a word and Isobel ducked from the room.

The paper was cold between her fingers, the seal difficult to tear as she sought out the light of a wall sconce. She hadn’t paused long enough to read the address, and was shocked to find a blocky, masculine script printed inside.

Sister,

Marriane has taken ill. I’ve summoned the physician, and her lady’s maid reports she is quite comfortable at the time of my writing this. Yet she requests your presence at the earliest convenience. I’ll have a room done up for you, should you trouble yourself in coming.

Signed,

Lord Pemberton, Marquess of Whitburn

When Isobel reached the end of the letter, she was leaning against the wall for support. She scanned the sparse message again and again, as if in doing so she could divine more information about her sister’s illness.

Marriane’s husband had never written before. Perhaps the clue to her condition lay not in his careless phrasing, but in the penmanship itself. If her sister had been able, she would have written personally.

“Pardon me,” Isobel said, walking back to where the butler waited. “Is the messenger waiting on a reply?”

“Yes, miss.”

The wind whipped outside, ruthless cold sieving through the seams of the door to raise gooseflesh on Isobel’s arms. “See that’s he’s taken to the kitchen for a hot meal, and that his horse is attended to.”

She moved toward the yellow drawing room, her fingers itching in anticipation of the reply she was about to pen.

“Is there anything else, miss?” the butler asked, plainly curious to the bone.

She paused. “Yes, actually. Have my trunks brought up at once, and the coach readied for a morning departure. I’m going to Shoremoss Hall.”

Excerpt from The Lover’s Eye copyright © Lauren M. Hayworth 2025. Reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without permission from the author.

Duty is her strength . . .

Sophie St. Quinton’s life did not end when her brother died, but her purpose for living diminished considerably: marry a nobleman to protect the family estate and ease her parents’ worries. Armed with wit, beauty, and a charitable heart, Sophie expects the task will be simple—until a ghostly reminder of the past resurfaces to rattle her world. She will stop at nothing, not even blackmailing the handsome stranger she just met, to bid her brother farewell one last time.

And his worst enemy . . .

Merchants’ sons are not welcomed in polite society, but Rafe Balfour elbows his way in for the same reason he does all things—to do the bidding of his tyrannical father. If his loyalty proves successful one last time, he’ll earn his long-sought independence. But when his secrets land him in a dark room and a second stint in servitude with a beautiful woman far above his touch, the effect could be disastrous.

What begins as a threat to their goals soon expands to more: a threat to duty, to decency, and to two grieving hearts that promised never to risk love.

• depictions of narcisstic abuse (verbal and physical) between parent-child
• grief representation (loss of a sibling, no on-page death)
• use of a firearm (one instance, no on-page death)
• one depiction of youth substance abuse
• depictions of sexual relations between consenting adults
• language and alcohol use

If you have any specific questions or concerns, please direct them to lauren@laurenmhayworth.com.

Mayfair, London

March 1812

Remember, you wanted this. The neck chain scraped heavy around Sophie St. Quinton’s throat, cold metal against warm skin. Gooseflesh swept up her arms. Proof of vitality—or perhaps calling it an outward sign of life would be a more profitable selection of words, for she was a hull. Hollow, heavy, and anchored to the last of her good sense.

“You look lovely.” Her mother moved into view of the looking glass, her wrinkled hand settling on Sophie’s shoulder.

The maid’s twitching fingers at last secured the necklace clasp, and the unwieldy ruby heirloom dropped into place. One of the golden links snagged Sophie’s hair on its descent, yanking it out. The face in the mirror underwent no change in expression.

Sophie watched her own hand, encased to the elbow in white satin silk, close over her mother’s and squeeze. She couldn’t break her own gaze. Who was this proper lady? The sort of woman who had been presented before the queen and felt nothing, who now prepared for her first ball with all the enthusiasm of a felled, rotting oak. Not quite the romantic product of her girlhood dreams. That mischievous, bouncing, utterly hopeful child was gone forever.

Yes, it really should have been me.

Little good being alive did her anymore. If her brother, Lieutenant Edmund St. Quinton, had not run off to that naval academy, had not been enamored with England and honor and Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy, if he had just stayed home and contented himself to being the heir and the torturous older brother—

“You will do very well tonight.” Mama’s hand was by itself again, patting lightly on her daughter’s shoulder, a slow beat that still managed to outpace that of Sophie’s heart. “Perhaps when your father is feeling less melancholy, it will be us who escort you to these balls.”

That was almost worthy of a laugh. The reflection of Sophie’s lips, massaged to a dull red with French rouge, curled sardonically. The last nineteen months of mourning already meant she was making her debut in London society two years belated. If she waited for melancholy to abate to find a husband, to add a man to the decidedly female-dominated St. Quinton line, she would no longer be a felled oak but a fossil.

“I am grateful to you,” Sophie said, forcing the corners of her mouth into a more pleasant-looking shape. “Had you not convinced Lady Penney to escort me, I might not be attending at all.”

Lord and Lady Penney, along with their outrageously beautiful daughter, were sour people. Nearly impossible to impress and certainly impossible to please—but those same qualities made them wretched chaperones. All the better.

Mama drifted toward the bed, where a sampling of luxuries had been arranged. A bracelet of seed pearls from the jeweler on the Strand. Crimson silk for the gown, a bold yet youthful shade meant to dissolve the last two years of aging. Silver tulle overlaying the bust, which the modiste had lowered the neckline of not once, but twice. Every selection had been made by Mama with painstaking care.

It was strange to finally be the object of her parents’ attention. Throughout Sophie’s childhood, Mama and Papa had been largely absent, too busy fussing over Belmaine Hall and the house’s endless string of renovations to worry much about their children. And in a strange, backward sense, the care her parents were now putting into her Season was still an investment in the old Sussex estate.

Edmund had died. There were no male relations who could inherit. Only the last, most tasteless option remained: marry Sophie to a gentleman worthy of inheriting all but her father’s title.

Oh, the old Sophie would have balked at the idea. Shook her fists in the air and made a case for the love she one day hoped to find—but now she took comfort in it. She possessed a power, a duty, that most daughters could never hope to claim. If she succeeded in marrying well, she would honor her late brother and her parents both. Her frayed sense of self would mend. Life would hold purpose again.

Sophie rose to join her mother, and found her eyes rimmed with red. “Tonight will prove successful,” Sophie said, and she thought the confidence in her voice would have made her proud, were she capable of feeling. “You agree, do you not?”

“I … do hope so.”

“It will.” Now she almost sounded angry. These tones, these portrayals of self, were growing difficult to regulate. “I cannot imagine a gentleman present who would not be proud to marry his name to that of our family and Belmaine Hall.”

“Not a soul present won’t have heard of your father’s improvements. What a legacy he has created.” Lady St. Quinton’s mouth twisted, and Sophie’s mind filled out the unspoken finale. And what a shame it will no longer bear his name, that his title will die with him, that the sum of our life’s toil will be left in the hands of whichever man you wed.

Sophie’s dressing robe was in a pool around her feet now, the fabric hot from the heat of her body. Lady St. Quinton turned her back; she never liked to see her daughter in any state of undress, and Anne, the scowling and newly hired lady’s maid, returned. Sophie stepped into the frothing skirts one foot at a time.

She would liberate her parents from their fears for the future. She would marry well, all hint of feeling be cursed (that wouldn’t be so difficult, now, would it?) and carry out her duty to this family.

Never mind that it should have been Edmund’s role. That the younger, naïve version of herself had dreamt of the day she would stand in Mayfair ballrooms, looking like this proper woman, and settle for nothing less than blinding love. She, the woman in the glass, might glow with vitality—hot skin and eyes of fire—but the old Sophie St. Quinton was dead.

***

“You are fond of Sussex, I imagine?”

Sophie forced a smile and blinked at her dance partner. Between the stomping feet, the swell of the orchestra, and the mingled shouts of laughter coming from the outskirts of the ballroom, she could scarcely hear him. A baron, was he? Or a second son? It had been half an hour since their introduction and she had already forgotten.

“Yes, sir,” she said, as he guided her through a turn of the cotillion. “You imagine correctly. My family’s seat there is the most important thing in all the world to me.”

The steps of the dance separated them. Her hands were sweating inside her gloves where he had been gripping them so tightly. After this—she glanced discreetly down at her wrist to confirm the vacancy on her dance card—she would slip off to the refreshment room. Five dances, and five droll dance partners, spoke of an endurance worthy of a drink.

The cotillion returned the pale young man to her. She hadn’t noticed his scent before, but the eau de cologne burned high in her nose now. He squashed her fingers together. Her teeth clenched behind her smile.

“It is Belmaine Hall which you speak of, is it not, Miss St. Quinton?”

She glanced up to see perspiration dampening his receding hairline, turning his fair hair to frizz. He had a thirsty look about his eyes. “An exquisite estate. It is my understanding your father is to be credited for its perseverance.”

“Yes. He has dedicated his life to the purpose.” She could almost see the scaffolding now, hear the incessant clanking of hammers and wet swipes of plasterers.

“A legacy worthy of pride, to be sure.”

Sophie smiled. She wasn’t sure there was any pride left in her father. Just melancholy.

They separated again. The skipping figures caused her white satin slippers to scrape up and down the backs of her heels. It would be a miracle if she walked out of this room with a normal gait at the night’s end.

The thought of walking away, or of at least smacking her partner’s wrists if he dared grip her so tightly again, was a luscious fantasy. But no. Sedate Englishmen with an interest in old buildings and aristocratic pride were the exact sort she was meant to entertain. To marry. To have children with.

A cold spark traveled down the back of her skull at the thought, but she ignored it, bowing at the cotillion’s conclusion and allowing herself to be dragged to the refreshment room. Mercifully, her dance partner neither stayed, nor claimed a second dance. It ought to wound her, she thought, as she accepted a glass of ratafia from a footman’s silver tray, that she had not made a favorable impression on the man.

It didn’t.

She wandered to the edge of the room, sinking into a chair beneath a faded tapestry. Her first sip was only satisfactory in that it soothed the dryness of her throat. The spirits went down sickly sweet, far too seasoned with fruit and sugar to be remotely pleasant. Better to let brandy be brandy for brandy’s sake than to embellish it so.

Was it something in her manner that had put the gentleman off? Had he looked into her eyes and thought, this woman is without soul, without an ounce of joy? Perhaps he had assessed her as being without maternal tendencies. Incapable of tenderness or love. She took another sip. Larger, this time, and quickly regretted.

“I say, Miss St. Quinton!”

Sophie wiped the grimace clean from her face as the hostess of tonight’s ball approached with rapid steps. “Lady Milton, how—”

“Don’t trouble yourself in rising, dear.” The plump, middle-aged countess took a seat beside Sophie, grasping the edge of her silk turban with a fingernail. She drew it farther down her forehead, concealing the grey V of a widow’s peak. “What has you hiding away here?”

“I am not hiding.” Sophie lightened her tone. “I have danced every set thus far, ma’am, and only paused for refreshment.”

“That may be, but a young lady in your position cannot afford to waste a moment’s opportunity on something as trifling as refreshment. Not unless you believe yourself truly at risk of swooning.” Lady Milton bared her teeth in an unconvincing smile. “I do wish you had some cousin or other to escort you to some of these events, dear. It is not entirely fashionable for you to make an appearance on the arm of your acquaintances. Perhaps once or twice, but …”

Bitterness settled in the pit of Sophie’s stomach. She gripped the glass in her lap. As if she needed a reminder that under any normal, fair circumstances, it would be her brother escorting her to tonight’s ball. She would be laughing and twirling and perhaps even flirting with a gentleman she truly hoped to know better.

“There is a gentleman in attendance tonight who you simply must meet,” Lady Milton prattled on. “He is the third in twice as many sons, and his elder brother has already fathered two boys of his own. Just the sort of strong male progeny your family is in want of. Oh! There is my dear Lord Milton now, let me arrange for an introduction!”

Sophie was left staring as the older woman scurried off with the same haste she had come. The dark, pomegranate-colored liquid in her glass glared up at her, but she could not bear to taste it again. Lady Milton’s words might be bluntly spoken, but they weren’t untrue. They shouldn’t bring about a wave of nausea.

Sophie rose from her chair. Whoever the gentleman was, it could do no harm to meet him. She strode in the direction of her hostess, whose head bobbed wildly as she spoke to her husband by the room’s open doors. They were gesturing and pointing across the ballroom, and Sophie caught the wisp of a sentence: take her to the lieutenant.

Sophie’s gaze locked with the blinding presence of a Royal Navy uniform. Pristine white trousers. A coat starched and heavy, crafted of the bluest blue. A gold epaulette affixed to the right shoulder, vying for the chandelier’s light. She knew how those coats felt beneath one’s fingertips. How proud they made the wearer, had made Edmund, as he had bid her farewell twenty-four odd months ago.

“I’ll be fine, Sophia,” he’d said to her, pinching her cheek just to make her swat him away. “You’ll be wishing I was gone still when I’m back to reign terror anew.”

The backs of her eyes scorched. Five months later, a messenger had delivered the news: Lieutenant Edmund St. Quinton had died at the Battle of Grand Port, his body lost to the Indian Ocean.

The sound of shattering glass made Sophie jump out of her skin. Her surroundings returned to her: her host and hostess swirled around to stare, the orchestra beat out a deafening reel, the air smelled of spirits and sweat. The lieutenant turned to stare in her direction, too, and she found he looked nothing like her brother at all.

“Good heavens!” Lady Milton was at her side, grabbing her wrist and flipping it over and back. “Are you injured?”

“What?” Sophie swallowed. “No, why—?” She saw, then, the shards of glass scattered around her own feet, registered the emptiness of her right hand which had previously held the drink. The ratafia had splattered the hem of her dress, dark spots against red, and the rest of the liquid puddled on the floor, sickly purple against the pale rug. “Oh. I-I don’t know what came over me.”

The countess dropped Sophie’s wrist and cracked a too-wide smile. “Hush, dear,” she said through clenched teeth. “People are looking.” She turned to face the rest of the room with a laugh. “No injuries! Nothing to fear!”

“Pardon me.” Sophie curled her hands into fists and made for the door before anyone could object. She would sacrifice many things to further her parents’ wishes, but suffering through an introduction with a uniformed man? She’d rather hang.

Male progeny. What a lurid concept! What did society take her for, a broodmare?

She kept a quick pace as she walked the ballroom’s perimeter, chin held high and refusing to meet the gazes she felt upon her. If anyone dared to poke fun at her filthy skirts, they would be made to regret it in the next instant. Heavens. She needed a moment’s peace. Something to dull her sharp, wicked tongue, which was clamoring for center stage.

The shadows of a salmon-colored corridor welcomed her. It was quieter here, and one of the candlelit wall sconces had guttered out. She edged open a door, hoping to find a water closet, but when the dim light followed her inside, it revealed what she presumed to be Lord Milton’s study.

Disorganized bookcases. A barren hearth. A globe and a painting of a ship. That final observation would have been enough to turn her away if she hadn’t noticed, just to her left, a cellarette.

She pushed the door just shy of closed. The cellarette’s mahogany lid opened with a squeak, and she fished into the darkness, finding the narrow neck of a bottle. “Thank you, Lord Milton,” she whispered to herself. There was just enough moonlight coming through the curtains to make the brandy’s label visible.

A minute’s fumbling revealed a velvet armchair and crystal glassware, which she wasted no time making use of. Darkness ensconced her in this corner of the room. The drink burned its way down her throat, and she took the glass in both hands to keep it steady.

She wasn’t that unsettled; a few minutes of quiet would see her restored. She would go back to that ballroom, soiled skirts and all, and continue to dance through to dinner. To dawn, if she had to.

“To the Penneys.” A wry smile curved Sophie’s lips as she spoke the words and tipped back her glass. “My attentive chaperones.”

It was a wonderful thing, on occasion, to go easily unnoticed. Everyone thought only of themselves, and tonight, all the Penneys’ thoughts would be for their daughter’s match. The wealthiest man in the house was doubtless being tortured by them, marked a sacrifice to restore their destitute estate through marriage. At least a lack of funds was one problem the St. Quintons did not have.

Perhaps the only one. Sophie drained her glass and coughed into the back of her hand. She’d taken off her gloves, letting the space between her fingers breathe, and even done the same with her slippers. All was well. She was in control again. She reclined in the armchair, leaning her head back as far as her pearl-pinned coiffure would allow, and stretched her legs.

Footsteps outside the study door sent her eyes wide open.

“I hadn’t expected you’d be in company tonight.”

Two men, their tones familiar only in their stiff formality. But the one who had just spoken, whoever he was, had a nice-sounding voice. A baritone marked by sharp consonants, not so refined as a gentleman. She’d have bet anything he was young, just by that voice. That barely leashed irritation lying beneath it.

“Perhaps you’d prefer to have this conversation privately?” The door creaked open another inch.

Oh, divine! Sophie sat bolt upright, her feet searching blindly for her discarded slippers. It was an easy assurance that no one would come seeking her out, but she hadn’t accounted for being discovered—in dishabille, barefoot, with her empty glass still reeking of her host’s private brandy collection.

She found the first slipper just as light bloomed on the carpet, and the lean silhouette of a stranger entered the study.

Excerpt from Favors from a Gentleman copyright © Lauren M. Hayworth 2026. Reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without permission from the author.