Lady Scandal: A Sexy Historical Regency Page 13

  “Henry.” He penned with a smile, glancing over at the ball of fluff sleeping (and shedding) atop yesterday’s waistcoat.

  “Wivy, Jacks and our other new friends and servants.” His pen flowed as she dictated. He knew how she missed those companions who’d remained near Duffield while they’d traveled to London to meet with the architect who would oversee the construction of their new home at Amherst.

  “Our…little…Jupiter.”

  The second her words registered, the ink smeared. The J lurched off the page. Zeus dropped the pen and snared his wife. “You’re with child?”

  Roses bloomed on her cheeks. “I believe so.”

  He stood and whirled her around in a circle that encompassed the entirety of their rented rooms. “You’ve made me the happiest of men, my lady. But if you think any son of mine is going to carry a blighted name such as—”

  Her lips at his ear stopped the tirade. “Would you agree to James? Or Jane?”

  “Aye, I would.”

  “Then put me down, Mr. Tanner, and I’ll trade you my two stockings for your shirt and buckskins.”

  Thanks for reading Lady Scandal. I hope Zeus and Juliet’s journey toward lasting love satisfied your inner romantic. If you have a chance to write a review, it’s always appreciated. Reviews and word-of-mouth are wonderful things you can do for authors you enjoy.

  Join my newsletter group for early sneak peeks, giveaways – and possibly what might interest some long-time readers the most – a say in which book or series I work on next! Meanwhile, laugh every day and savor some chocolate for me whenever you get a chance.

  Excerpt from SEDUCTIVE SILENCE

  Pestered by a persistent stammer, a Regency lord must find a way to woo his new mistress without words. He just hopes she can hear what’s in his heart.

  Part of Chapter 1

  The Mistress Conundrum

  My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

  I have seen roses damask, red and white,

  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

  And in some perfumes is there more delight

  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

  William Shakespeare, “Sonnet CXXX”

  London, 1815

  “‘Than in the b-breath that from my mistress reeks.’” Daniel Holbrook, the fourth Marquis of Tremayne, repeated the last few words with a grim smile.

  “Reeks is right,” he muttered beneath his breath (breath that most assuredly did not reek of onions as that of his former mistress often had). He crumpled the topmost page off the stack he’d liberated from a desk drawer and tossed it over his shoulder.

  When it bounced against the window coverings and crinkled to the floor, a curious sort of satisfaction threatened to dissipate his gloom. With great zeal, he balled up more of the filled pages that had been languishing in his desk ever since her ill-fated demand.

  Poems. Stupid poems.

  Said former mistress had begged him to memorize and recite poetic verse to her. Though he’d—wisely—refrained from succumbing to her urging, Shakespeare’s 130 had been the only sonnet to remotely tempt him into performing.

  Thinking of her likely response to his stumbling recital, assuming she perceived the intended slight and took affront, a real laugh emerged. Cy huffed a surprised bark at the sound, the first Daniel had heard from his faithful, snoozing companion since the damnable rain had caused man and beast to retreat to the safety of his study. Now, with drapes drawn and fire roaring, he sought to forget the downpour lashing the house and the dark memories apt to drown him.

  He’d only taken to cleaning out his desk in order to avoid what resided on it—an advertisement he’d saved and Penry’s unanswered note: Are you still planning to attend the festivities this eve? Lest you forget, you already agreed.

  Ahhh, the “festivities”. Amorous festivities, no doubt.

  Was he going to attend?

  Daniel didn’t rightly know. He fingered his bruised jaw, working it from side to side. The swelling had gone down to the point he didn’t think he’d terrify a potential inamorata with his battered visage. But what if he did?

  Mayhap ’twould be a good thing—scare off any candidates before he opened his mouth.

  Was replacing the reeking Louise really something that had to be done tonight?

  Just to hear the potentially uplifting crackle, he hefted several bunched-up poetic missiles overhead into the burgundy drapes. Cy gave a curious sniff, his languid gaze following one paper ball when it rolled drunkenly toward him.

  Louise. Sometimes he’d thought marbles resided in her upper garret. But he’d tolerated her less-than-desirable qualities in exchange for the ones he did like. Most notably, her mouth.

  Fact was, despite her off-putting fondness for onions, he’d often found her mouth worthy of appreciation (if not its very own sonnet), for she typically kept it open and active, chattering about everything yet saying nothing. He could spend two nights a week in her company and only be called upon to utter a handful of sentences per fortnight.

  Add her lack of expectation for meaningful conversation to her lusty fervor for lovemaking and was it any wonder he’d made her his mistress a decade ago at the absurd age of twenty-one?

  His long nap complete, Cy stretched and sauntered over, placing his ugly mug on the desk until he received the expected scratch behind his ears, then thanking his master with a sloppy bark. Daniel blotted the ever-present drool with the handkerchief he kept at the ready. He’d rescued the one-eyed mangy mongrel, now plump on doggie pudding and old age, when he’d caught the scarecrow of a pup being whipped for making off with the baker’s meat pasties. A coin flipped in his direction persuaded the baker to turn over the dog. A meat pasty in Daniel’s outstretched hand persuaded the frightened animal to follow.

  It might have taken several years and several hundred hours to win the canine’s trust, but Daniel had accomplished the deed, and gladly. He had no use for those who beat others, whether they had four legs or two.

  Cyclops gave a hearty whine and pushed past Daniel to nuzzle the drapes aside where he promptly pressed his nose to the windowpane, the unrelenting storm on the other side making a hash of the view.

  Daniel frowned at the grey sky. I know, mate. I detest this weather too.

  But he detested more the dance necessary to find a new mistress. Waltzing the pretty and paying glib compliments to secure a warm and willing body in his bed might prove to be his undoing. Of a certainty, contemplating it posed significantly more pain than Penry’s lightning jab, else he would have seen the task done before now.

  Gad. Ten weeks.

  His head clunked forward into his waiting hands. Ten blighted weeks equating to seventy long nights he’d palmed his staff rather than find another ladybird to do the job for him.

  He scrubbed at his hair as though the friction would lessen the growing tension centered in his groin. Blast. If he chuffed his pipe any more frequently, he’d likely yank the thing off.

  The momentary ease such release brought was just that—a few seconds’ respite from urges growing ever more insistent. A surging morning erection growing ever more persistent. “I need a woman.”

  “Well, aren’t you the fortunate one?” A decidedly feminine voice jerked his head upright. “Just as you call out to the universe, I present myself in all my wilted glory.”

  Raking his hair into some semblance of order, Daniel skewered his sister with a glare. He hated being caught unawares.

  Beyond the glass panes Cy had revealed, rain drizzled freely and her fashionable attire did the same. The once pristine walking dress, made of the palest cream French cambric and complete with intricately fringed hem, was topped off with a fur-trimmed spencer in what was supposed to be a coordinating spring green. Wet, it looked more like something Cyclops had cast up after emptying one of Daniel’s snuff boxes.

  What a decline for the costly toggery (he should
know; he’d paid enough for it when she’d spied the plate in Ackermann’s and pleaded with him to have it made up). Evaluating it now, he doubted the finely woven cambric would ever return to its former, undrizzled-upon glory.

  The delicate, coordinating parasol he’d commissioned as a surprise had obviously been a waste of his blunt—it was bound up tight, unused. Everything else dripped and sagged. Her once-new bonnet, her dark blond hair beneath. And the spencer’s fur trim? “You have a…dead ferret strangling your neck. What b-brings you here this fine spring…day?”

  And damn him for remembering so much about ladies’ stylish apparel. Useless information, now that he’d seen his precious Elizabeth matched in a happy union.

  All smiles and sunshine despite her disastrous, dripping attire, she swept toward him, pointing that conspicuously dry parasol his direction. “Ridicule all you want. It won’t do any good. I’m in a lovely state of mind and have no intention of allowing anything to alter it.”

  She paused to scratch Cy beneath his chin when he bounded toward her. “And aren’t you the most remarkable boy?” Her shining eyes found Daniel’s. “Sometimes I forget how good he looks. In my mind, he’s still the scrawny bag of bones you described in your letters.” Elizabeth had only been in town a short while. Married in the country last fall, she’d spent the time since living on her husband’s estate and the majority of time before chained to their father’s.

  When Cy began snuffing at her hand, Elizabeth laughed and returned her attention to the dog. “I do apologize, Sir Cyclops, but I don’t have any treats. Ann’s in the kitchen”—she mentioned her lady’s maid—“I wager she’ll sneak you a dollop of whatever’s to be had.”

  “What he needs. Mmm—” Surprised rather than frustrated when his lips unexpectedly stuck together, Daniel faked a cough into his fist, and then finished, “More food.”

  “What have you been up to? Providing Cyclops new toys to chase after?” Her tidying efforts complete, she straightened and grinned, her brown gaze fairly shimmering with joy. “Rain or no, it’s too glorious a day to shroud yourself up like this.”

  Coming up beside him, she relinquished the frilly parasol and placed it square on his desk—still spring green, he idly noted, and not the muddy color of Cy’s snuff-induced cascade as was the rest of her gown.

  He plucked at the parasol’s dangling fringe, as arid as a desert, and gave her sopping dress a speaking glance. “Useful item.”

  “Stop that.” She slapped his hand away and smoothed the fringe. “It’s my very favorite, as you well know. I tucked it under my dress so it wouldn’t get wet.”

  “Ah now.” Recalling how he’d just mangled the sound, he took a slow breath before continuing. “Makes…total sense. And the reason for your visit?”

  He was curious what would bring her out in such weather. Not that he wasn’t pleased to see her. The one member of his immediate family who still drew breath. More than that, the one member who’d never betrayed him—either in fact or by dying too damn soon.

  With her customary composure, his sister took possession of the leather chair flanking his desk and evaluated him as one might a captured butterfly. Her brows drew into a frown. “Why is half your face a veritable bevy of purple and green?”

  “Half?” He barely refrained from fingering his lip. The new scab over the old scar had dropped off two days ago. “Ellie, surely you em…bellish.”

  “Not by much,” she muttered. “Covered in whiskers, it still shines through.” She rose and approached him. “I fear ’tis becoming unseemly, Daniel, this fascination you have for sporting rainbows.” Elizabeth turned his head with gentle fingers to inspect the worst of it. Lips pursed, she released him to rummage in the reticule dangling from her wrist. “When will you realize you no longer need to prove yourself?”

  When I stop hiding in here every time it rains.

  Hiding in his study, where his mechanical pursuits provided the solace nature denied him. He glanced over at one apparatus in particular and felt a grimace tighten his cheeks. When they worked, that was.

  “Silence. I should have known. Your answer to everything unpleasant.”

  Daniel glanced back at Elizabeth. His bad memories weren’t to be laid at her doorstep. Neither was his sour mood. “If I recite p-p-po-etry, will you smile?”

  That got a laugh from her. “The day you recite poetry is the day I juggle torches standing on my head.”

  “Unlit ones, I hope.” Relieved he could still smile, he suffered through the application of the lotion she’d pulled from her bag. She was always slathering him with some concoction or other “to help with the bruising and aid healing”.

  He should be grateful, but the stuff put him in mind of an apothecary. Nose wrinkling by the time she finished, Daniel jerked his head back. “What’s in there? Smells like a harem.”

  Elizabeth stumbled in her efforts to screw the lid on. “A harem? My, where your mind veers…” Jar sealed, she slid it across his desk in between stacks of yet-to-be-crumbled-and-discarded pitiful poetry.

  “I tried a different blend this time,” she admitted without meeting his gaze.

  What else had she chopped and crushed and stirred in there? “Ellie?”

  “I think it smells rather lovely.”

  He sniffed again and frowned. There was more to it than that, over and above the smell. “Out with it.”

  “Oh, very well.” A tiny huff and she finally met his gaze. “If you must know, I added a wee bit of honeysuckle. For hope.”

  “And?” Although, by now, he was almost past caring. His face felt better than it had since the practice round that landed such a fierce chop to his jaw. He was even starting to like the scent—a little light and fluffy for his tastes to be sure, but it did have a spicy undercurrent, a bit of zest.

  “Clovesforlove,” she said in one breath.

  “Huh?”

  “Cloves. To attract love.”

  “Ellie.” His sister and her potions. Romantic whimsy, her and her “spells” for happiness—usually his. But she stood there, looking at him so earnestly, so drippingly—and his face felt so damn comfortable—that all he did was tuck the jar into his newly cleared desk drawer. “Thank you.”

  Her witchy rescue cream accepted, she resumed her seat and fixed him with one of her sunny smiles. “Surely you can cultivate an interest in something other than smashing your face into your friends’ fists?”

  Daniel’s eyes again veered toward the orrery collection occupying the bulk of his study. Nothing gave him greater satisfaction than tinkering with the mechanics of the planetarium models he’d collected. But his satisfaction had dimmed considerably since resurrecting and repairing (or attempting to) the pinnacle of all the models he’d amassed: the one originally owned by his grandfather. The one, despite his every effort, he couldn’t get to operate properly. Not on his own.

  He had an interest other than boxing, dammit—he just didn’t know how to pursue it. Not without branding himself a simpleton.

  “Daniel,” Elizabeth called his attention back to her. “Why can you not find a hobby that doesn’t involve being at daggers drawn or going at loggerheads several times a week?”

  Feeling instantly defensive, and uncertain why, he sputtered, “I like to bu-bu—” Blast it! He couldn’t even get out a simple three letter word: box. A fast exhalation and he spit out, “Like sparring.”

  “You like beating things to a pulp and proving how strong you are.”

  A pulp? Talk about embellishing!

  So he enjoyed a few rounds of pugilistic endeavors every week. Could he help it if he was adept at fighting? If the exhilaration he got from firing off punches and having onlookers cheer him on helped sustain him through the silent—and solitary—hours of his life?

  He didn’t have to talk in the ring. Wasn’t expected to wax eloquent at the boxing academy. Didn’t have to jabber over inane comments that in reality meant nothing. All he had to do was strip off his shirt, strap on his gloves—whe
n he and his sparring partners agreed to them—and let his fists talk for him.

  It was the one place he could be around his peers without fearing coming across as weak.

  “Men!” A decidedly feminine lift of one shoulder accompanied that pronouncement. “Why you cannot all find tamer amusements closer to home that satisfy your manly urges, I’ll never comprehend.”

  What? Had she been reading his mind?

  “What’s this?” She noticed the advertisement he’d cut out announcing Mr. Taft’s visit to London and presentation on orreries.

  Something Daniel had been debating whether or not to attend. “A lecture I’d like t-to hear.”

  “On what?” She turned the page toward her, then flicked it away with a smile. “Orreries. I should have known. Go. I daresay it’ll be a good experience for you.” Her gaze drifted across the room. “Have you fixed it yet?”

  His scowl answered for him.

  “Then go. Learn who else shares your interest. Possibly get Grandfather’s machine running again.” She gave his face an arch look. “A much better pastime than fighting, if you ask me.”

  Before he could respond, the bright smile slid from her face. “Daniel. I came because I needed to see how you got on.” Her gaze flicked over to the window behind him, then she focused on his face. Her beautiful eyes were somber, sadder than they should be. “I know where your mind tends to dwell on days such as this.”

  He wondered whether she knew he was expecting her husband. That he had other, even more pressuring, topics on his mind. As always, when in the company of anyone save Cyclops, he carefully considered his words before he spoke. “Meeting someone shortly. ’T-tis what snares my attention.”

  Well, that and Penry’s note.

  “Oh, posh.” She dismissed his excuse. “No one ever calls this early.” Elizabeth rose and gripped his clenched fists. He hadn’t realized his fingers were tangled until she applied herself to unknotting them. “What’s on your mind?”