A most worthy husband, p.1
A Most Worthy Husband, page 1
Also by Faye Delacour
The Lucky Ladies of london
The Lady He Lost
A Lady’s Guide to London
Copyright © 2026 by Faye Delacour
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Delacour, Faye author
Title: A most worthy husband / Faye Delacour.
Description: Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2025. | Series: The lucky ladies of london |
Identifiers: LCCN 2025024447 | trade paperback | epub
Subjects: LCGFT: Romance fiction | Novels | Fiction
Classification: LCC PR9199.4.D4463 M67 2025 | DDC 813/.6--dc23/eng/20250627
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025024447
To Minou, who kept me company during many 3 a.m. writing sessions by purring on my lap.
Though you cannot read this, you are the best of all cats.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Acknowledgments
About the Author
One
London, 1843
Although no one would believe her at this point, the truth was that Hannah Williams hadn’t planned to ruin her life when she’d kissed a near-stranger in front of a room full of people that fateful Tuesday evening. On the contrary, it felt to her as though everyone else (more specifically, her mother) had been ruining her life for ages, and her actions were nothing but a necessary form of self-defense. Inevitable, really. If Mama didn’t want her to run away in the middle of the evening to seek out compromising situations, she should stop bringing Hannah to terrible places and forcing her to meet terrible men!
The terrible place where they’d begun their evening just a few hours earlier was Mrs. Anwar’s town house. It might not seem too bad from a distance—sitting just south of fashionable Berkeley Square and hiding behind a deceptively pristine plaster facade replete with Corinthian columns—but what made it so terrible was the fact that it was filled with people. And not the sort of people that one might enjoy spending time with, such as a small group of dear friends. No, this house was filled with strangers! Hundreds of them! Roughly a quarter of whom were eligible young men that Hannah might be expected to dance with.
If Dante had shown the slightest care for accuracy in drafting his Inferno, he would have included a crowded ballroom as one of the circles of hell. A step or two above the circle reserved for murderers, but certainly below the ones for such trivial problems as treachery or waste.
“Why is it considered a mark of success to stuff one’s home so full that no one can move?” Hannah reflected, blowing away an ostrich plume rooted in a neighboring lady’s hair, which had drooped to tickle her nose. “If I had my own house, I should be very glad to invite exactly five people over to see it, and no more.”
“I believe they do it to provide us with an excuse to explore the gardens for some air,” Hannah’s friend, Annabelle Danby, mused aloud.
“Never! You know how dangerous gardens are.” Set one foot onto the green at the same time a member of the opposite sex was present, and you were liable to find yourself engaged. Hannah’s older brother, Eli, had learned that the hard way a few years ago. Though he’d managed to escape the worst of it, Hannah had never forgotten the lesson. Gardens and libraries and secluded nooks were strictly off-limits if she didn’t want to find herself trapped.
Which she most certainly didn’t. As far as she could tell, marriage only made people grow to detest one another.
“I was only joking,” Annabelle replied, a touch defensively.
“Forgive me, but I cannot find any humor in such things. You know my mother would seize on any excuse to marry me off.”
It made no difference to Mama who the man was, so long as there was one. In the four years since she’d come out, Hannah’s life had been a dizzying carousel of introductions, each more repugnant than the last.
As if on cue, Mrs. Williams materialized from behind the lady with the ostrich feather. “There you are, poppet. I was wondering where you’d got to.”
I was hiding from you. If there was one advantage to the size of the crowd—and only one—it was that Hannah had managed to tuck herself out of sight for a full half hour.
“Let me see your dance card. Who has engaged you this evening?” Without waiting for a response, Mama helped herself to a look at the little card secured to Hannah’s wrist with a yellow ribbon. Her face fell as she took in the empty space beside each song. “Why, you’ve made no effort at all! We’ve talked about this.”
This was not strictly true. A more accurate description would be to say that Mama had talked—primarily about the fact that Hannah was doomed to die a spinster, as if it were a fatal disease that progressed from untreated shyness—while Hannah let her eyes glaze over and imagined she was someplace else. In fact, that might be a good strategy now. She would try to remember her favorite walking path back home in Devonshire. The one that wound down to the little stream where she used to dip her feet in the summer.
“Fortunately for you,” Mama continued, “I’ve found a lovely young gentleman who would be pleased to ask you for a dance. I know his mother, Mrs. Horvath, and we both agree you would suit. Come along. Let me introduce you.”
Hannah tried to shoot a pleading look to Annabelle, but she was already being bodily shuffled away (quite a feat, given the crowded state of the room). Once they had jostled their way past several innocent bystanders, Hannah saw the object of their search, a skinny gentleman of about thirty years with a pinched face and a premature stoop to his shoulders.
“Mama,” she whispered. “Stop it. I don’t want to dance with Mr. Horvath.”
“Then you should have found your own dance partners,” Mama hissed back. “You cannot stand idly by and wait for the right man to appear. Every year that passes leaves you with fewer options. It’s past time for you to show some initiative.”
Though probably true, this was of no real consequence to Hannah. She looked forward to the day that everyone deemed her a hopeless spinster and left her in peace. The precise date of this happy event seemed to be forever shifting, as Mama vowed that each season would be her “last chance” every spring.
Hannah wasn’t even sure how there could still be men left in England she hadn’t already driven off. She’d never had a talent for making sparkling conversation. Nor was she especially pretty. She had an ordinary sort of face, with a nose that was a touch too pointed and plain brown hair that never held a curl for more than a minute before flopping limply on her too-long neck. With raw materials like these, it should have been easy to escape matrimony!
But though she spent most of these evenings hiding behind the nearest potted plant, Mama always managed to dredge up someone.
The three-thousand-pound dowry attached to Hannah’s name probably had something to do with it. While not a vast fortune, it was enough to tempt the sad, faded bachelors who turned up at her morning calls.
I’m being sold off at a very depressing auction.
“Mr. Horvath, may I present my daughter, Miss Hannah Williams?” Mama said on cue. “She was just telling me how much she loved the grand march earlier.”
A blatant lie. Hannah would never tempt fate by saying anything complimentary about the dancing at a ball.
“How do you do?” Mr. Horvath bowed deeply, wobbling a bit on his way down. He smelled strongly of brandy. There was a very real possibility that Mama had gotten him drunk in order to secure his consent to this meeting. Her mood was more desperate this season than it had ever been before. It made Hannah uneasy. “Are you engaged for the next dance? It would be my”—he broke off to hiccup into his hand—“my pleasure.”
“She is not,” Mama answered for her, tugging Hannah’s dance card off of her wrist and thrusting it at Mr. Horvath.
Should I ar gue? Hannah didn’t like to make a spectacle of herself, but she’d had no choice but to overcome her reserve these past few seasons. She’d pretended to be a political radical when Mr. Brown came to call last month; then told Mr. Bailey that she’d taken a vow of chastity; and finally spilled her tea in Mr. Moore’s lap. Her efforts had yielded resounding success: not one repeat caller in the lot!
But Mr. Horvath hadn’t actually done anything to her yet, except smell of brandy, and Mama would hound her all night if she didn’t dance a few sets. Perhaps it would be easier to get it over with and make an excuse to leave after.
Hannah allowed Mr. Horvath to lead her to the floor, executed the requisite curtsy, and linked her hand in his. It was a waltz, which meant they would have to talk the whole time. Drat. Of course Hannah wasn’t lucky enough to get herself a country dance where they could change places too frequently for a real conversation.
“What part of the country are you from?” Mr. Horvath opened. A safe move, if uninspired.
“Devonshire,” Hannah replied. Where I would much rather be at present. Not that she’d had any choice in the matter, with the way Mama had rushed her off without a moment’s notice three weeks ago. “We’re in town for the season to visit my brother and his wife. They’ve just had a baby.”
“That’s nice.” Mr. Horvath looked bored. His eyes kept darting around the room to watch the other dancers. “Your parents must be thrilled to meet him.”
“Her,” Hannah corrected, though she didn’t think Mr. Horvath was listening. Mama was thrilled to meet baby Gloria, at any rate. Papa must be thrilled too, even if he hadn’t come along.
Hannah didn’t want to correct Mr. Horvath’s assumption that both her parents were in town. There was no reason to. After all, what business was it of his whether her parents travelled separately? It was perfectly normal for Papa to remain at home. He’d never liked London.
Although the row they’d had just before Mama had packed Hannah up and carried her off like an overburdened trunk hadn’t felt quite as normal as the others. There had been an awful lot of “You’ve never understood me”s and “Oh, stop your wailing”s, which Hannah had tried not to hear from the safety of her bedroom with a pillow folded over her ears.
And then there was the fact that Mama kept changing the subject every time Hannah asked when they were going back home.
Never mind. Mr. Horvath certainly didn’t need to know about any of that.
The conversation had lapsed into an awkward silence while Hannah had been ruminating on her worries, and she saw no reason to try to rescue it. Better not to give this man any false encouragement. Besides which, he’d already stumbled twice and would probably do better to concentrate on his steps. But Mr. Horvath seemed to feel the need to fill the silence with more noise, and stammered, “I b-believe I saw you speaking with Miss Annabelle Danby earlier?”
“Yes.”
He brightened at this, finally focusing his gaze on Hannah instead of watching the other couples. “I say, do you know her sister, the elder Miss Danby? Such a stunning young woman.”
“I do,” Hannah replied slowly, wondering where this was leading.
“I don’t suppose you might introduce us? I’ve been trying to manage it since last season, but it seems we’re never at the same events. I would be so grateful.”
“Are you…asking me to introduce you to another woman while we’re still dancing?”
Hannah knew that her looks were underwhelming—and Della was, as Mr. Horvath had so eloquently put it, stunning—but this was really a bit much. Even if she had no interest in Mr. Horvath, if he was going to trap her in a dance, he might at least take the trouble to be polite.
“And why not?” Mr. Horvath grew indignant at the criticism in her tone. “We’re all friends, aren’t we?”
Praise heaven, the song was ending. Hannah gave a rushed curtsy, murmured, “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Horvath,” and hurried from the floor before he could rise from his bow.
She’d been foolish to think she could flee so easily. Mama found her before she could even make it to the door. “Where are you going in such a rush? How did you like Mr. Horvath?”
“I didn’t.” Hannah saw no need to sugarcoat her words, though she kept her voice low. “Mama you have to stop foisting these men on me. None of them want to be with me. They only agree because you coax them into it, or because they hope to get at my dowry.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to explain her objections, but Mama seemed determined not to hear her. Only last week, Hannah had been so incensed after Mr. Bailey’s visit that she’d threatened to join a convent, but her mother had wryly observed that they “weren’t Catholic” and that Hannah “wouldn’t last a week.” She hadn’t even shed a tear at the prospect of losing her only daughter! It was very vexing, the way no one ever took her seriously.
“Shhh.” Mama’s deep-set brown eyes widened in shock. “Don’t say such a thing.”
“It’s true.”
“Only because you won’t make any effort! Of course I have to coax a little, when you hardly speak two words to anyone. If I didn’t help you along, you’d never leave your room.”
How unfair! She made Hannah sound like a recluse, when the truth was that there were plenty of things she might like to do if only Mama would allow it. “I would go to Bishop’s if you let me,” Hannah retorted.
“Absolutely not. It will ruin your reputation. No one will want to marry you if you’re seen in a house of ruin.”
This sounded like a winning prospect to Hannah. “If Jane can go to a gambling club, why can’t I?”
“Because Jane is married, and your brother doesn’t object.” This subject was quickly making Mama lose her patience, if her tone was any indication. “Once you are married, you may do as your husband likes, but as long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules. And I insist that you make an effort to be polite this evening and encourage a gentleman to dance. One to whom you give an honest chance before you dismiss him.”
“But we don’t live under your roof.” The words were out before Hannah could stop them, though her face grew hot with embarrassment. She was tired of being put off. “When are we going home? Why didn’t Papa come with us?”
Mama was so shocked by this that her mouth moved silently for several seconds. She suddenly looked her age, her brown hair shot with streaks of ashy gray and her eyes shadowed by dark circles.
“Never mind that,” she finally snapped, looking around to make sure no one was listening to them. “Your place is to find your own home, as a wife and mother. Before you run out of time. London is the best place for you to meet someone.”
“I want an answer,” Hannah whispered. “Are you and Papa going to live apart forever? If I get married, would you go back home?”
Hannah wasn’t prepared to make such a sacrifice, but she needed to know where they stood.
“Plenty of couples spend time apart, particularly once their children are grown.” Mama’s voice was carefully light, as though they were discussing a spot of rain and not the disintegration of her marriage. “And I expect that you might need my help to learn how to manage the household and raise your own children once they come along, if Eli and Jane don’t need me here by then. Your grandmother Williams lived with us while she was still alive, and I was very grateful for her when you were small. You will be grateful for my help too, once you realize how much work it is.”
So this was it. Mama really wasn’t going back. Hannah had thought it would feel better to finally have some honesty between them, but it didn’t. It felt much worse.
She knew her parents had their share of troubles, but so did most married couples. They were supposed to bear it privately, like normal people, not run away! What would everyone think when they learned of it? What was she supposed to tell her friends?
Hannah wanted to scream and cry and shatter a crystal glass on the floor, as if a tantrum might change Mama’s mind. But she wasn’t a child anymore. She had to act like a lady and pretend everything was fine.
Interpreting her silence as grudging acceptance, Mama kept on speaking. “Now, let’s not have any more complaints. I’m going to the powder room for a minute, and when I get back, I expect to see you dancing with a gentleman. If you don’t like the ones I’ve found, then pick one who pleases you better. If you would only smile and say a few kind words, I know any man here would be lucky to have you, poppet. All I want is to see you taken care of.” Mama offered her a reassuring smile and left the room, giving Hannah a few blissful minutes alone with her thoughts.
