Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 4-6: A Regency Romance

by Collette Cameron

  She’d heard him vow to the Dukes of Sheffield and Sutcliffe that come hell or high water—Pennington’s very sternly muttered words—he’d reclaim the lands that had once been an unentailed part of the duchy. Lands that had belonged to his grandmother’s family for generations.

  Property, which included her beloved home, Hartfordshire Court. A holding that Grandpapa had purchased, fair and square, from the duke’s own degenerate grandfather decades before and which, with hard work and industry, had made the estate prosperous.

  “Mama is so very pleased you are to attend our musical assembly, Your Grace,” Nicolette blurted. As if sensing the stilted silence and not understanding the reason why, but wanting to defuse the tangible awkwardness.

  Unable to contain her disbelief, Gabriella sent him a quick glance from beneath her lashes. He is to attend? Of all the dashed rotten luck. He rarely remained at his country seat past mid-March. London held far more appeal to a man of the world like him, and truth be told, she had anticipated—needed—a few months’ reprieve from his presence.

  She and Ophelia were to attend as well, but now she no longer anticipated her first social foray other than tea in two months as she had but a minute ago.

  Nicolette shifted the puppy and received a wet tongue on the cheek for her efforts. “No licking, Bella,” she admonished whilst rubbing the pup behind her ears. “It’s also Gabriella’s birthday that day,” she offered with an impish twinkle in her eye. “She’ll be one and twenty.”

  Gabriella shot her a quelling glance. The world—he—didn’t need to know she was practically on the shelf with no prospects, save spinsterhood.

  “I quite look forward to the entertainment.” Insincerity rang in his tone as he gave a gracious nod and continued staring at Gabriella. “And also, to wish you a happy day, Miss Breckensole.” The latter held a note of authenticity. He flicked his gaze down the street, seeming uncharacteristically uncertain. “Ladies, would you join me for a cup of chocolate or coffee?”

  The Prince’s Coffee House was but four doors down and acclaimed not only for its hot beverages, but ambiance and scrumptious pastries. Not that Gabriella had ever sampled either.

  She’d wanted to, but Grandpapa frowned upon eating in the village. A waste of good coin, he grumbled.

  Nicolette shook her head, no genuine regret shadowing her face. After being jilted, she bore disdain for every male, save her brother, the Earl of Scarborough. “I fear Mama is expecting me inside. I only came outside for Bella’s sake.”

  “And I must return home straightaway.” Gabriella signaled her driver with a flick of her wrist and slant of her head. She’d finished her shopping before bumping into Nicolette and the newest addition to the Twistleton household.

  Amid a chorus of creaks and groans, her grandfather’s slightly lopsided and dated coach pulled alongside her. Jackson, the groomsman, climbed down and after three rigorous attempts, managed to lower the steps. She passed him her parcels, which he promptly placed inside the conveyance.

  “Please allow me.” The duke stepped forward and offered his hand to assist her inside.

  While she wanted to give him the cut by refusing to accept his offer, Nicolette was sure to interrogate her as to why she’d been so rude the next time they met. A year ago, even three months ago, Gabriella would’ve been overjoyed at his attention. Now, he was her enemy. A handsome, dangerous, cunning, and unpredictable nemesis.

  As lightly as she was able, she placed her fingertips atop his palm and entered the rickety out of fashion forty-year-old coach. Lips melded, she studiously disregarded the alarming jolt of sensation zipping up her arm at his touch. She should feel nothing but contempt for him and most assuredly entertain no carnal attraction.

  The duke didn’t immediately close the door behind her. His gaze probed hers for a long sliver of a moment, and suddenly the coach became very confining. And hot. She waved her hand before her face, having left her fan at home. “Might I call upon you tomorrow?” Is he utterly daft? “Perhaps we might take a ride? Naturally, Miss Ophelia is welcome too.”

  That latter seemed more of an after-thought. He knew she couldn’t ride out alone with him, and he was mad as a Bedlam guest if he truly believed she’d willingly spend time in his company.

  Gabriella met his gaze straight on. Something undefinable shadowed the depths of his unusual eyes—one green and one blue. “I must decline, Your Grace. I also must ask you, once again, to direct your attentions elsewhere. I am not now, nor will I ever be, receptive to them.”

  If she never spoke to him again, it would be too soon.

  Did he really think just because he was a duke and she was the lowly granddaughter of a gentleman-farmer, she’d jump at the opportunity to spend time in his company?

  You did at one time. And suffered a broken heart when his true character became evident.

  Not. Anymore. Never again. Not when she knew his true motivation for seeking her company. How much her feelings had changed for him these past months.

  At once his striking countenance grew shuttered, his high cheekbones more pronounced with… Anger? Disappointment? “We, shall see, chérie. We shall see.”

  “What, precisely, do you mean by that?” Something very near dread clogged her throat, and the words came out husky rather than terse as she’d intended.

  Instead of answering, he offered an enigmatic smile and doffed his hat, the afternoon sunlight glinting on his raven hair. “Good day.”

  We, shall see, chérie. We shall see.

  His words replaying over and over in her mind, she remained immobile, her focus trained on his retreating form until he disappeared into the Pony and Pint instead of The Prince’s Coffee House. At one time, she’d fancied herself enamored of him. She’d been flattered he’d turned his ducal attention on her: a simple country girl without prospects.

  Firmly stifling those memories and the associated emotions, she tapped the roof. “Home. Jackson, and do hurry. Grandmama needs her medicines.”

  And I need to put distance between myself and the Duke of Pennington. Because even though she knew the truth, a tiny part of her heart yet ached for him, and she loathed herself for that weakness.

  Two hours later shivering and briskly rubbing her arms, Gabriella bent forward to peer out the coach window again.

  Tentatively probing her head, she winced. The knot from smacking her noggin on the side of the vehicle when the axle snapped hadn’t grown any larger. Neither did it bleed. Nonetheless, the walnut-sized lump ached with the ferocity of a newly trapped tiger. A superbly large, sharp-toothed, and foul-tempered beast.

  “Really,” she muttered, exasperated and uncharacteristically cross from hunger, cold, and the painful bump. “Whatever can be taking Jackson so long to return? Hartsfordshire Court isn’t so very blasted far.”

  Less than two miles she estimated after another glance at the familiar green meadow sloping to the winding river beyond. The recent rains caused the brown-tinged water to run high and spill over its banks, as it did nearly every spring. In the summer, the lush grasslands fed Grandpapa’s famed South Devon cattle on one side, and their neighbor, the Duke of Pennington’s fluffy black-faced sheep on the other.

  An uncharitable thought about the distinction between the keen intelligence of cows and sheep’s lack of acumen tried to form, but she squelched it. It wasn’t the poor sheep’s fault she couldn’t abide their owner.

  After repeatedly assuring her hesitant coachman she would be perfectly fine until he returned with the seldom-used phaeton, Jackson had swiftly stridden away. Not, however, without turning to work his worried gaze over her, the team, and the disabled coach’s crippled wheel thrice. Each time, she donned a smile wide enough to crack her cheeks and made a shooing motion for him to continue on.

  For pity’s sake. She wasn’t one of those silly, simpering misses afraid the hem of her skirt might become dusty or who shrieked hysterically upon a cobweb brushing her gloves or cheek. So long as the resident eight-fuzzy-leg
ged spider had long since removed itself to a new home.

  If it weren’t for her impractical footwear, Gabriella would’ve walked as well. But, she’d no wish for bruised feet or the lecture certain to follow from dear Grandpapa about the cost of replacing ruined slippers. And that would probably produce another discourse about unnecessary trips to Colechester for what he deemed nonsensical fripperies.

  Perhaps they were absurd to a man given to wearing the same staid suit and shoes for the past five years as Grandpapa had been. But Ophelia’s birthday present wasn’t a silly frippery. Neither were Grandmama’s medicine nor the chemises for Gabriella and her sister frivolous expenses. It had been three years since anyone had purchased new undergarments.

  With her leftover pin money—one half a crown every month—Gabriella had purchased the beloved hunch-shouldered curmudgeon his favorite blend of pipe tobacco. Oh, he’d grumble and grouse over the wasteful spending, but she hadn’t a doubt she’d earn a kiss upon her forehead before he shuffled off to enjoy a pipe and a tot in his fusty study amongst his even fustier tomes.

  A wry smile quirked her mouth.

  Did Grandpapa use the same tobacco five times as he insisted Grandmama do with tea leaves? Anything to save a penny or two. The Breckensoles didn’t enjoy neat lumps of white sugar in their tea either, but rather the golden-brown nubs chiseled from a cheaper hard-as-a-blasted-boulder loaf. Since they never—truly never—had guests for tea or for any other occasion for that matter, there was no need to feel a trifle embarrassed at the economy.

  She ran a gloved finger over the lumpy parcel containing the umber-brown bottles for her grandmother. A month ago, a nasty cough had settled in Grandmama’s lungs, and she couldn’t shake the ailment.

  Gabriella’s current discomfort tugged her meandering musings back to her immediate situation. For all of two seconds—fine, mayhap three—she’d considered riding one of the horses still harnessed to the coach home. But that would’ve required hiking her gown knee-high and riding astride. Even she daren’t that degree of boldness.

  Nonetheless, on days she yearned to toss aside society’s and her strict grandparents’ constraints, she might’ve been known to sneak a horse from the stables and ride along the river: bonnet-free and skirts rucked most inappropriately high. Oh, the freedom was wondrous, though the tell-tale freckles that were wont to sprout upon her nose usually gave her recklessness away.

  Her grandparents never lectured, but their silent disapproval was sufficient to quell her hoydenish ways. For a week or two.

  The carriage made an eerie noise; the way a vehicle sounded in the throes of death. If a vehicle were capable of such a thing. Another juddering crack followed as the damaged side wedged deeper into the dirt.

  She let loose a softly-sworn oath no respectable woman ought to know, let alone utter aloud as she grabbed the seat to keep from tumbling onto the floor. A labored groan and a piercing creak followed on the heels of her crude vulgarity, and a five-inch-long jagged crack split the near window.

  “Blast and damn.”

  A new chill skidded down her spine as she mentally braced herself for Grandpapa’s intense displeasure. He’d be aggravated about the damage to the coach, but more so about the cost to repair it. A frugal, self-made man, he was as reluctant to part with a coin as he was to leave Hartfordshire Court. Others who didn’t know him well called him stingy and miserly.

  In the fifteen years since coming to live at Hartfordshire, Gabriella could count on two hands the number of times either grandparent had left the estate. She would shrivel up and die if forced to stay there months on end.

  Yet, her hermit-like grandparents had been diligent to assure she and her sister never lacked for company or social interactions. They’d even conceded to send the twins to finishing school. At no little cost either. What a juxtaposition. Her grandparents eschewed all things social, but she and her sister craved the routs, soirees, balls, picnics, musical parties, and all else that guaranteed a superior assemblage.

  One troublesome, unignorable fact remained unaddressed, however. Grandpapa had never spoken of a dowry for either of them. They’d never wanted for necessities, but Gabriella suspected his pockets weren’t as flush as he’d have his family believe.

  Her heart gave a queer pang. It wasn’t exactly worry or distress. But neither was the peculiar feeling frustration or disappointment. Nevertheless, it left her unsettled. Discontent and restless. Disconcerted about what her future might entail. Ophelia’s too.

  As improbable as it was, except for splurging on the matched team and phaeton, her grandfather had been noticeably less inclined to spend money after the twins returned home two years ago. Now, almost one and twenty, their aging grandparents’ health beginning to fail, and their neighbor, the mercenary Duke of Pennington, bent on stealing Hartsfordshire Court from them, Gabriella fretted about what would happen to her sister if neither one of them married and soon.

  There weren’t exactly men—noble or otherwise—scurrying to form a queue to court either of them. Or to dance with them at assemblies or request romantic strolls through opulent gardens. No posies, sweets, or poems found their way to the house’s front door on a regular basis either. On any basis, for that matter.

  Oh, the country gentlemen were kind and polite enough. Indeed, some aristocrats and gentry—even a rogue or two—had been downright charming and flirtatious. More than one had hinted they’d very much like to pursue an immoral liaison. But the simple truth was as obvious as a giraffe’s purple tongue sampling pea soup in the dining room. Dowerless, Gabriella’s and Ophelia’s prospects were few.

  Nonexistent, truth to tell.

  For one horrid, ugly fact couldn’t be overlooked: a woman without a dowry, no matter how refined, immaculately fitted out, or proficient in French, Latin, Spanish, painting, playing the pianoforte—or the violin in Gabriella’s case—and managing a household she might be, without the lure of a marriage settlement to entice a respectable suitor, such an unfortunate lady was labeled an undesirable.

  And much like other hapless women in the same ill-fated predicament, spinsterhood, dark and foreboding, loomed on the horizon, a slightly terrifying fate for any young woman.

  Which made the duke’s interest in her all the more questionable. He couldn’t possibly have honorable intentions.

  She pursed her mouth, drawing her eyebrows into a taut line. Barbaric, this business of bribing a man with money, land, and the good Lord only knew what else to take a woman to wife. Why couldn’t love be enough?

  Like Theadosia and Sutcliffe? Or her maternal cousin Everleigh and the Duke of Sheffield? Or even Jemmah and Jules, the Duke and Duchess of Dandridge? Once not so long ago, Gabriella had yearned for that kind of love. Had dared to hope she might’ve found it, but the object of her affections had turned out to be a colossal rat.

  Unfortunately, such was the nature of the Marriage Mart. Without dowries, Gabriella and her twin could look forward to caring for their grandparents into their dotage rather than marry and have families. Their lack of suitors could be laid at Society’s silk-clad feet. Strictures, along with a goodly portion of greed and hunger for power, dictated most matches. That, regrettably, was an indisputable fact.

  Something uncomfortable and slightly terrifying, much like melancholy, turned over in her breast and swirled in her stomach. To distract herself from her somber reflections, she inspected the lonely road once more.

  The fading afternoon sun filtering through the towering evergreen treetops on the other side of the deserted track confirmed dusk’s dark cloak and chill would blanket the countryside soon. For at least the sixth time in the past hour, Gabriella examined the dainty timepiece pinned to her spencer.

  She frowned and gave it a little shake. Was the deuced thing working?

  Yes, the big hand shifted just then. She huffed out a small petulant sigh, for she recognized her own impatience.

  Where the devil was Jackson, for pity’s sake? Had something waylaid him? Obviously.
Yes, but what? The unbidden thoughts agitated her already heightened nerves. Nerves that had been fraught since departing the village earlier.

  Angered anew at Pennington’s audacity, she pressed her lips into an irritated line and fisted her hands. Only he had the ability to make her so peeved. Bloody, greedy bounder. By Jove, didn’t he have enough? Why must he covet what we have too?

  Chartworth Hall was an immense estate boasting some two-thousand acres, a mansion—more castle than house—a hunting lodge, a dower house, embarrassingly massive and full stables, and numerous other outbuildings.

  Why the duke focused on Hartfordshire’s acres and seventeen-room residence, quite desperately in need of refurbishing and restoration, made no sense at all. She didn’t know the particulars of the sale. Neither did she understand how the unentailed property came to be adjacent to the entailed lands, but she didn’t give a fig.

  What she did care about was the duke’s callousness. His insensitivity and cold-heartedness. He hadn’t a thought for any of the Breckensoles, of displacing them from their home. Oh, no. His only concern was how to cheat Grandpapa out of his property and to expand the already enormous ducal holdings.

  By God, she wouldn’t permit it. She would not.

  Drumming her fingertips atop her thigh, Gabriella huffed out another frustrated breath. Ophelia was the patient twin. The sensible twin. The good-natured, genial twin. The one capable of tempering tart retorts and painting a benign mien upon her features.

  Far too frequently, Gabriella spoke her mind and responded with emotion rather than reason. Alternating tapping her toes on the sloping floor, one foot then the next, she put a hand to her hollow middle and moistened her lower lip. She was rather parched too.

  Memory of the meat pies and other savory foods’ aromas wafting from the lodging house and The Prince’s Coffee House caused her stomach to protest loudly. We’ve plenty of food and refreshment at Hartfordshire Court. No sense wasting good coin. Grandpapa’s admonishment replayed through her mind.