Daring Lords and Ladies

by Emily Murdoch

  Hunt’s frown lines deepened. “Both the duke and Sir Alexander suggested something similar. Where do you think we should begin? Do you wish to live in London? Away from the Keep? If so, I would admit I would miss the duke’s tutorage.”

  A faint twitch claimed her husband’s cheek, and she knew it hard for him to speak of the importance of family to his full recovery.

  “Surely there is another alternative to London,” Angel mused. “I am not of the nature to enjoy the fripperies of Town life, and I do not believe I wish to leave Devil’s Keep, unless you plan to lock me in the cold drafty towers,” she said with a light teasing.

  “Not unless you would permit me to keep you warm while there,” Malvern groaned seductively as he nudged her closer.

  Angel smiled with satisfaction. Fate meant for her to tame the Devil’s cub. “Yours is an enticing suggestion.” Decidedly distracted, she admitted, “In truth, the Keep will do for the present. I require your mother’s instruction as much as you require the duke’s. Yet, somewhere in the near future, we must claim our identities and not theirs. We cannot fly if we live in their shadows.”

  Malvern digested this idea in silence. At length, he spoke his thoughts. “What of the dowager house? Not immediately, for doing so would offend my parents. Perhaps after a year or after you are to know a lying in. We could claim a need for privacy, while remaining close enough to participate in the running of the estate.”

  “Have I ever commented on the absolute brilliance of your mind?” she asked with earnest honesty.

  The glint in his eye was unmistakable. “As you well know, my mind is shattered, my lady, but it pleases me you care enough for me to overlook my deficiencies.”

  She slid her hand down his body, brushing her fingers across his manhood. “I know of no deficiencies upon your part, my lord.” Angel felt his erection spring to life. “Although I like the solution you offered, it is not a decision to be made tonight—we have time to come to a comfortable resolution. Instead, let us return to the first of my requests, of my knowing the Marquess of Malvern’s attentions.” She brushed her legs against him. “Can I not tempt you into a bit of impropriety, Huntington?”

  He sucked in a quick breath. “You, my angel, have tempted me since I first rested my eyes upon you.”

  While Angelica snaked her arms about his neck, he kissed her tenderly. Their future took a step back to permit the present, as her husband proved himself equal to her challenge of a love meant for a lifetime.

  ~ Finis ~

  Historical Notes

  Arsenic Poisoning

  Johann Daniel Metzger was the first to develop a method of detecting arsenic in solutions. Some twenty-five years later (in 1806), Valentine Rose detected arsenic in human organs. Mathieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila, known as the “Father of Toxicology” published A Treatise of General Toxicology in 1813. This book catalogued popular tests for poison detection and listed most as unreliable. Orfila was the first to show, with tests on animals, that ingested arsenic is distributed throughout the body.

  For more on the history and the effects of arsenic, one can start with “Forensic Toxicology” by Katheine Ramsland. It is an excellent overview for those interested in the subject.

  http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/toxicolo gy/3.html

  “I Pass All My Hours”

  “I Pass All My Hours,” words by King Charles II; music by Pelham Humphrey (1647 – 1764); also known as “The Phoenix” in Vincent Jackson’s English Melodies from the Thirteenth to the Eighteenth Century; can be found in One Hundred Songs of England: For High Voice, edited by Sir Granville Bantok, O. Ditson Co., 1914, 204 pages.

  Ultimogeniture or “Borough English”

  The principle of patrilineal ultimogeniture, or the right of the youngest surviving male child to inherit, came to the modern British political system from medieval England. It was often referred to as “Borough English” because of a 1327 court case in which the borough of Nottingham chose to enact the “junior right” to a prop- erty. Most believe this was in purposeful contradiction of the prevalent Anglo-Norman idea of “primogeniture.” In the rural areas of England at the time, lands were held in tenure by “socage.” A sokeman was a class of tenants, chiefly found in the eastern shires. They were socially between the free tenants and the bonded tenants. They were within the lord’s “soke” or his jurisdiction, but they possessed more personal freedoms than did the villeins (bonded tenants). Others believe “sokeland” referred to land from which services were rendered, but not under the jurisdiction of the manor. “Socage” is the legal term for tenure. The term “socage” also occurred in copyhold manors’ legal documents in the areas of Surrey, Middlesex, Suffolk, and Sussex.

  Meet Regina Jeffers

  Regina Jeffers, an award-winning author of historical cozy mysteries, Austenesque sequels and retellings, as well as Regency era romances, has worn many hats over her lifetime: daughter, student, military brat, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, tax preparer, journalist, choreographer, Broadway dancer, theatre director, history buff, grant writer, media literacy consultant, and author. Living outside of Charlotte, NC, Jeffers writes novels that take the ordinary and adds a bit of mayhem, while mastering tension in her own life with a bit of gardening and the exuberance of her “grand joys.”

  Blogs: Every Woman Dreams and Austen Authors

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  The Daring Mrs. Kent

  Michelle Morrison

  Chapter One

  St. Kitts, 1856

  Josephine Kent knew fear intimately. It had been a part of her life for nearly five years, after all.

  The look of displeasure on Thomas Kent’s face when she said something he deemed contradictory, the sound of his footsteps as he walked down the hall to her door, the cold, flat hiss of his voice as he ordered her to stand and accept her punishment had taught her the meaning of fear.

  But it had been more than a year without those daily lessons. Fear in this tropical paradise had come to mean simply a start when one of the island’s giant centipedes skittered across her path or the lightheaded sensation she’d experienced when her brother Theo had taken her to the peak of Mount Misery and she’d tottered as she looked down into the volcanic crater. So far removed was she from the fear of her past that she had ventured into the central part of Basseterre alone today.

  Now, however, her heart was pounding, and she could scarcely catch her breath. Perspiration—ever present, even when wearing her lightest dresses—ran down her back in rivulets. She pressed herself against the narrow alley wall and willed herself to calm down. It was highly unlikely the man she’d seen in the market was Josiah Benjamin, her husband’s henchman. The last she’d heard from Lady Amanda Howard, Benjamin and Kent had been convicted of corruption for the opium trade they had run through the workhouses they oversaw and sentenced to the prison hulks moored in the Thames.

  She closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath, then opened them and peeked around the corner of the building. She scanned the people along Fort Thomas Road searching for the blunt, angry features of Benjamin, but all she saw were the dark faces of laborers and merchants and the occasional pale face of one of the English residents.

  A flood of relief made her laugh shakily at her silliness and she stepped out of the passageway to continue to her destination: a newly-opened mercantile she’d heard had the finest cotton cloth from India. Walking along the road, she glanced from side to side, alert for squat, burly men with black hair, but when she’d walked nearly two blocks seeing only the same people she had encountered every day for the last year, she began to relax, and by the time she’d left the mercantile with a length of pale green sprigged cotton, she was back to her usual equanimity, a state that she had only achieved after weeks on board a ship with her dour but fiercely protective escort Chest
er, and a year in the safe keeping of her older brother here in Basseterre.

  It was starting to get hot, and Josephine glanced at the sky, hoping for a cloud to provide some shade for her walk home. Even a bit of rain would be welcome—she was going to have to change her gown anyway—but not a scrap of white marred the bright blue overhead.

  Resigning herself to a hot walk home, Josephine tugged the deep brim of her bonnet forward to shield her face as much as possible and set off. She’d walked not two blocks when she heard his voice off to her right.

  “’Scuse me, missus,” Josiah Benjamin said. “Can ye tell me where I might find a decent inn? I can’t understand these black ‘uns one word.”

  Josephine pretended not to hear him and hastened her pace, her heart in her throat as she scanned the street frantically for refuge.

  A hand on her elbow stopped her.

  “You speak English?”

  Josephine took a gasping breath. Perhaps he did not recognize her. She’d only met him a few times in London, after all.

  “Ja,” she said, trying to imitate the accent of the Swedish woman she’d met on the boat from England last year. She kept her face averted slightly, hiding her features with the deep brim of her hat.

  “You know where I can find a decent place to stay? I’ve been on a damned ship for two months.”

  Josephine thought frantically. There was a nice public house just around the corner, but that was too close to home for her comfort.

  “I believe there is a good inn on far side of harbor. Cooked Goose it is called. You find room there.” She had no idea if it was a nice place or a flop house, but it was the farthest such establishment from her brother’s house on the north end of Basseterre.

  She saw Benjamin duck his head trying to see beneath her hat.

  “What ye hiding under there?” he asked, and while there was a teasing tone to his voice, Josephine had heard the same voice discuss with her husband plans to threaten a rival and force children to work long hours in the poorhouses they ran as a front for their darker business ventures.

  “I keep sun off my face. Burn too easy,” she said, convinced her Swedish accent sounded nothing like a Swede. Fortunately, Josiah Benjamin had apparently never been to Sweden.

  “A fair one, are ye?” he said, the interest in his voice making her skin crawl.

  “Please,” she said, hating the sound of fear in her voice. “I must return home. Fix meal for husband.”

  “Husband, eh? What’s his business? He need any help? I’ve skills useful to a man of business, even in this God-forsaken hole.”

  “No. He—he not have business. I must go.” She tugged her arm away, thankful he did not try to prevent her. She forced herself not to run. She took quick, measured steps and even though the skin on the back of her neck tingled, she refused to look back. She crossed the street and walked into the first door she encountered in case Benjamin was watching her. She didn’t realize it was a warehouse until she slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, her heart pounding, her skin cold despite the sweat that trickled down her brow and back and armpits.

  Black spots danced in front of her eyes and her cheeks felt numb.

  “Damnit,” she murmured. “I can’t faint now.” This last was more of a mumble as her tongue felt swollen and dried.

  She pulled deep breaths into her lungs, thankful that corsets were largely ignored except for social occasions. She shifted her paper-wrapped length of fabric to her other arm and then promptly dropped it when a deep voice came out of the dim recesses of the warehouse.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I—well, you see—” She squinted, trying to make out the features of the figure walking toward her. He stepped into the light of the entryway and Josephine forgot that she had been trying to speak.

  Before her stood the most handsome—and extraordinary looking—man she had ever seen. He was easily six feet tall, with dark brown skin, black hair so closely cropped she wondered if he had recently shaved his head, a closely trimmed goatee, and pale eyes that were a mesmerizing hazel-green.

  A loose linen shirt, crisp and billowy, was unbuttoned at the collar, its sleeves rolled up, its hem tucked into finely tailored trousers. His leather boots were of excellent quality, though clearly well worn. A small gold hoop pierced one ear. All in all, he was an intriguing, heart-palpitating mix of polish and pirate.

  She came to her senses, realizing she’d not spoken in over a minute and his eyes were raised in question and amusement.

  “That is—well, I must beg your forgiveness for intruding.” She paused again, staring at the bold planes of his face. He had the build of a powerful warrior, but something in his gaze—was it compassion?—reassured her. Quite without thinking about it, she found herself telling him the truth. Or at least, part of it.

  “There was a man outside. He made me…uncomfortable.”

  The handsome man scowled and dipped his head to look out the small windows. He moved to go outside, and Josephine stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

  He glanced down swiftly, and she hurriedly dropped her hand.

  “It’s not necessary. I believe he’s left. I—I just needed, or rather wanted…” her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to confess to trying to trick Josiah Benjamin into thinking this was where she lived.

  “You just needed to be gone from his company,” he said simply.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know the man?”

  Josephine hesitated. While she felt a complete, albeit surprising, sense of trust for this man, it was an unfamiliar emotion for her. After nearly five years married to Thomas Kent, wariness was a far more natural emotion for her around men.

  “You needn’t answer that.” The man’s accent was English, and yet, not quite English. She wondered if he had grown up on this island. If so, he would have been born while slavery was still legal. Had that meant…? And yet he was well dressed, so either way he had done well for himself. She found her curiosity about him increasing, but she was too shy to ask him anything so deeply personal, especially when she had far too many things in her past she didn’t wish to share.

  “I’ll have a look to see if he’s gone,” he said, moving toward the door. “What does he look like?”

  As the man passed by her, Josephine felt her nerves tighten. This time, however, it was not fear that caused the sensation. It was…well, she simply had no words to describe it, but her heightened awareness and quick pulse was definitely not the result of fear. It was a most perplexing feeling.

  “Madame?” The man asked.

  With a little start, Josephine realized she’d been staring at him mutely for at least a minute.

  “I—I beg your pardon,” she said, feeling her cheeks warm as she smiled tentatively. “He is a rather short man though quite burly. He—” she paused, forcing herself to remember details of Thomas Kent’s henchman without letting her fear of him impede her memory. “He was wearing a brown coat. And no hat. His hair is black and closely cropped, but he is balding on top.”

  The man nodded and smiled reassuringly. At least Josephine thought that was his intention. Her reaction to his smile was rather more startling. Again, she experienced that jittery flood of awareness that was similar to fear and yet was definitely not.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as he opened the door and strode outside.

  While she waited, she glanced around the warehouse. Large barrels of what appeared to be raw sugar and molasses were stacked against one wall. Crates of all sizes filled the rest of the space, grouped as if for consignment to different ships and labeled with various names; Mimbah, Cudjoe, and Quash were on the boxes closest to her.

  A narrow staircase led up to a room with an open window frame. An office, perhaps? Before she could observe anything else, the door opened and the handsome man entered.

  “There is no one in the square and only an old woman with a mule on the street,” he reported. “If you would like to wait, I can have a
carriage brought round for you.” His voice was a deep rumble that Josephine found simultaneously soothing and exciting.

  “I shouldn’t like to be a bother. You’ve been so kind as it is.”

  He chuckled. “It is no trouble. I won’t be the one pulling the carriage after all.”

  “Of course not,” Josephine said quickly, embarrassed that she might have implied, or rather led him to believe she thought—

  “Oh bother,” she said under her breath. She hazarded a glance up at him and saw a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, his intriguing eyes alight with humor at her awkwardness. She returned his smile with a wry one of her own.

  “I’m nearly home. I will be fine.”

  “I’ll escort you,” he offered.

  “Oh, but that isn’t necessary,” she rushed to assure him. His open expression shuttered instantly, and she realized this time she had insulted him.

  He bowed and then held the door open for her.

  She took a step toward him, reaching a hesitant hand out.

  “That is, I should not wish to be a bother, but I would feel much safer if you would please see me home.”

  He nodded and grabbed a coat off a hook by the door. He stopped her from going out first, looking both ways to ensure Benjamin was nowhere around before nodding to her and gesturing for her to follow.

  Once outside, he locked the door.

  “You said your destination is close. Which direction?”

  She pointed up the street to the left. “My brother’s house is just down Westbourne Street. His name is Theodore Barclay. Do you know him? He is also in the export business.”

  She fell into step beside her escort, glancing surreptitiously from beneath the brim of her bonnet to study his profile. He was squinting a little, his brows lowered against the glare and she fancied she could picture his profile on an ancient coin of a warrior king such as she had seen once in the British Museum. He did not wear a hat and she smiled to think how envious her brother would be of him. Theo, despite three years in the Caribbean still could not go out unprotected unless he wished for his nose to burn and peel.