The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt

by Stephanie Laurens

  Connaught Square, London

  “I deeply regret being so disobliging, but I simply cannot accept Lord Eggles’s offer.” Loretta Violet Mary Michelmarsh surveyed her siblings and their spouses disposed on chairs and chaises about the library. She wasn’t entirely sure why her rejection of Lord Eggles’s suit was causing so much more consternation than the seven rejections that had gone before.

  “But . . . why?” Catherine, Loretta’s sister-in-law, her elder brother Robert’s wife, spread her hands, her expression one of complete bafflement. “Lord Eggles is everything that could be hoped for—so very eligible in every way.”

  Except that he’s a dead bore. And a pompous ass. “I believe I’ve mentioned,” Loretta said, her tone one of the utmost reasonableness, “that I have no wish to marry—well, not at this juncture.” Not until she met the man of her dreams.

  “But Lord Eggles was the eighth—the eighth perfectly eligible suitor you’ve rejected!” Catherine’s voice rose to a more penetrating note. “You cannot just keep rejecting suitors—everyone will start wondering why!”

  “Will they?” Loretta raised her brows. “I can’t imagine why they would waste the time.”

  “Because you’re a Michelmarsh, of course.” Margaret, Loretta’s elder sister, glanced at Annabelle, their middle sister, then with a sigh met Loretta’s gaze. “I hesitate to press you, but in this Catherine’s right—your continuing dismissal of all suitors is bordering on the scandalous.”

  “You’re a Michelmarsh female,” Annabelle said, “so it’s expected that you will wed. And while all would grant you’ve affected a quieter style than Margaret or I, or indeed any Michelmarsh young lady in recent memory, that in no way excludes you from that generally held expectation. All Michelmarsh females marry, usually well. Add to that the significant inheritances that will pass to your husband on your marriage and the question of who you will accept as said husband is one a sizeable portion of the ton is in constant expectation of hearing answered.”

  Loretta hadn’t missed the subtle emphasis Annabelle had placed on the word “affected.” The look in Annabelle’s blue eyes assured Loretta that Annabelle, two years older than Loretta’s twenty-four and closest to her in age, understood very well that Loretta’s reserved demeanor was indeed an affectation, an adopted façade. And if Annabelle knew, Margaret did, too.

  “What your sisters are attempting to explain,” John, Margaret’s husband, said from his position propped against the back of the chaise, “is that your peremptory and immediate dismissal of all suitors brave enough to approach is raising speculation as to whether, rather than the individual suitors, it is the institution of marriage you reject.”

  Loretta frowned. She knew precisely what she wanted in a suitor. She just hadn’t found him yet.

  Robert, her elder brother and guardian, seated behind the desk to the left of the straight-backed chair Loretta occupied, cleared his throat. Looking his way, Loretta saw color tingeing his cheeks. Embarrassment, she knew, not anger. Anger, after all, was a strong emotion, and Robert, aided and abetted by Catherine, had made a point of being the only Michelmarsh in history to be reserved, staid, prim and proper, as close to emotionless as made no odds.

  In his case, that demeanor was no affectation.

  Robert was the white sheep in a family of, perhaps not black sheep but at least distinctly brindled. Michelmarshes were, and always had been, the very souls of outrageous vivacity, extroverts to their very toes.

  All except for Robert.

  Orphaned at the age of twelve and left to Robert’s guardianship, taken into his family and placed under Catherine’s well-meaning but smothering wing, Loretta had quickly realized that affecting a prim and proper façade was the easiest path.

  Over the years, following the easiest path had become a habit, one she’d discovered had pertinent benefits, namely shielding her from a social round she found largely unnecessary. Keeping her gaze downcast and her voice at a whisper meant she could stand by the side of a ballroom, or sit in a drawing room or dining room, and think of other things. Of things she’d read, of matters a great deal more stimulating than the company around her.

  She’d come to appreciate that there was a great deal to be said for prim and proper behavior. It could be used to avoid all sorts of interactions she didn’t want to be bothered with.

  Like paying attention to gentlemen she had no interest in.

  Her façade usually worked.

  Sadly, some had been attracted to the façade and, given the many years’ practise she’d put into perfecting it, she’d found it well nigh impossible to make them understand that the prim and proper, highly reserved young lady they thought would be perfect as their wife did not exist. At least not in her.

  Hence the peremptory and immediate dismissals.

  “My dear.” Robert clasped his hands, lowered his chin to his cravat, and regarded her gravely from beneath his thickening brows. “I greatly fear that your current attitude to all suitors who approach cannot continue. You appear, as all here would agree, to be an exemplary paragon of delicate ladyhood and as such are viewed as the perfect match for gentlemen who seek such a wife. Lord Eggles would make you a fine husband. Having given my permission for him to address you—as indeed I have for the previous seven gentlemen—I feel I must press you to reconsider.”

  Loretta fixed her eyes on Robert’s. “No.” Irritation and anger swirled; she tamped both down, drew breath, and added in a steady, collected tone, “I cannot believe you would wish me to marry a gentleman for whom I feel nothing.”

  Catherine frowned. “But—”

  “I am convinced, “ Loretta continued, “that ultimately a suitable gentleman will appear and make an offer for my hand. Until then, I shall, of course, refuse all offers from gentlemen who do not . . .” She hesitated.

  “Measure up to your expectations?” her younger brother Chester suggested.

  He’d taken the words out of her mouth.

  His blue eyes trained on her face, Chester went on, “Your problem, dear sister, is that you—prim, proper, exemplary paragon that you appear to be—attract the wrong sort of gentleman.”

  “Nonsense!” Catherine fluffed her shawl, an offended hen. “Lord Eggles is a paragon, too.”

  “Precisely my point,” Chester replied.

  “I have no notion what you mean,” Catherine said.

  She didn’t, but Loretta did. The possibility had occurred to her, but it was a shock to discover that even twenty-one-year-old Chester saw through her façade—and saw the same problem she’d started to suspect.

  “Perhaps”—Margaret looked at Robert—“in the interests of giving Loretta a chance to clarify what she wants in a husband, she might stay with us for a few months. The Little Season is about to start, and—”

  “Oh, no.” Catherine laid a hand on Robert’s arm; she captured his gaze. “That wouldn’t do at all.” She glanced at Margaret and smiled placatingly. “Besides, I daresay you’ll be atrociously busy entertaining all of John’s political acquaintance. Hardly fair to ask you to chaperone Loretta as well.”

  While her sisters tried tactfully to ease her out from under Catherine’s determined wing—a lost cause; Catherine would view Loretta transferring to Margaret’s chaperonage as an admission of failure—Loretta wondered if political circles might indeed hold better prospects for her. She felt certain the man of her dreams existed somewhere—she was a Michelmarsh female, after all—but she had assumed he’d have the good sense to find her, present himself, woo her, and then make an offer which she would then accept.

  It was all very clear in her mind.

  Sadly, her theory had yet to translate into reality.

  And she was increasingly concerned that Chester might be right. She might have to change her tack.

  Even if only to avoid more suitors of the likes of Lord Eggles.

  But change in what way? To what? And how?

  “I’m sure—”

  “Truly, it would
be no great trouble. Why—”

  “I really feel it wouldn’t be right to—”

  Focused on defining her direction, letting the arguments—futile—wash over her, Loretta was the only member of the company to hear the sounds of an arrival in the hall. She glanced at the double doors.

  Just as they were flung wide, allowing a lady of striking magnificence to sail through.

  She was tall, slender, her startlingly white hair superbly coiffed and finished with fine feathers, her gown the very latest Parisian fashion in ecru silk and lace, her jewelry classic pieces of ivory and jet. She wore long gloves and carried a filigree reticule while a velvet mantle in rich dark brown draped from her shoulders.

  All conversation died.

  The apparition halted, poised in the space midway between the open doors and the chaises, calmly considered the stunned expressions turned her way, then smiled. Delightedly.

  Esme, Lady Congreve, spread her elegant arms and declared, “Darlings, I’ve come to steal Loretta away.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Finally alone in the private parlor of the Castle Inn at Dover, Loretta sat, her back poker straight, in one of the twin armchairs before the hearth and fixed her gaze on her outrageous relative, elegantly disposed in the other armchair.

  Until then, Loretta hadn’t had a chance to ask the questions piling up in her head. From the instant of her declaration in Robert’s library, Esme had taken charge. Like an unstoppable force, she’d rolled over all objections, explained in imperious fashion that she had need of a companion to accompany her on her imminent travels and that she’d determined Loretta would suit.

  She’d given Robert and Catherine little time to mount any effective defense. Margaret, Annabelle, Loretta, and Chester had exchanged glances, then sat back to await developments.

  Esme—she’d always insisted they call her Esme, rather than “Great-Aunt”—was their late father’s oldest aunt, their late grandmother’s elder sister. She was the last of her generation still alive, and therefore entitled to act as matriarch of the family.

  A right she’d unexpectedly decided to exercise to the full.

  Her husband, Richard, Lord Congreve, a Scotsman and senior diplomat, had passed away fourteen months ago; matters pertaining to the settlement of his considerable estate had kept Esme in Scotland until now. In search of a change of scenery, she’d decided on a form of the Grand Tour—one in which she revisited all the European cities in which she and Richard had held court during his extensive career.

  An unusually long and entirely literal trip down memory lane.

  When Esme had let fall that she’d already sent orders to Loretta’s maid to pack her mistress’s belongings for a few months’ travel, Loretta had not just seen but read the writing on the wall. She’d slipped out of the room to direct Rose, and take care of a number of other matters made suddenly urgent by the prospect of leaving London forthwith.

  As she’d closed the library door behind her, she’d had very little doubt who would win the ongoing argument.

  Less than half an hour later, she’d been summoned downstairs—and had left Robert’s house in Esme’s train.

  In response to Loretta’s question, Esme arched her finely drawn brows. “If you mean had I heard about the looming scandal your rejection of Eggles is about to cause, then yes, of course. Therese Osbaldestone wrote to me. That aside, however, I was heading your way regardless.”

  Loretta frowned. “To see Robert and Catherine?”

  “No. To kidnap you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I promised Elsie that I would take you under my wing and do what she ran out of time to.”

  Elsie was Loretta’s late grandmother. Esme and Elsie had been close. “She asked you to . . . take charge of me?”

  “She asked me to ensure that you turned into the young lady you’re supposed to be—a proper Michelmarsh young lady. To make sure you sloughed off this ridiculous reserve you’ve acquired under Robert and Catherine’s tutelage. As well-meaning as they are—and please note I give them due credit for that—they were entirely the wrong people to have been given charge of you. Sadly, with your sisters and Chester too young and Robert so serious about taking on the responsibility of the head of the house, there wasn’t any alternative at the time.” Esme considered Loretta. “Now, however, matters have changed, as I made clear to Robert and Catherine. This entire near-scandal, and it is indeed that as Lord Eggles and his family are not at all amused at the implied insult of your abrupt rejection, is a direct and entirely predictable outcome of attempting to impose on a Michelmarsh young lady such an alien regimen as a prim and proper reserve.”

  Loretta eyed Esme with inner disquiet and welling resistance. “I often find a proper reserve very useful.”

  “Has it gained you the husband you wish for?”

  “No.”

  “I rest my case. So now, if you please, you will travel with me and learn to live as a true Michelmarsh. And then . . .” Esme’s words trailed away. A martial light gleamed in her eyes. “And then we’ll see.”

  Loretta wasn’t at all sure she liked the gleam in Esme’s eyes. “You’ve never done this before, have you—acted as chaperone for a young lady?”

  Esme, her gaze still dwelling assessingly on Loretta, shook her head. “No. No children, no grandchildren. I have to admit that until now I hadn’t seen the attraction, but I do believe Therese Osbaldestone might be right—this will indeed be very like the facilitating one does as a diplomat’s wife.” Esme suddenly smiled. She met Loretta’s eyes. “I do believe I’m going to enjoy transforming you into a fitting testament to your heritage, then parading you temptingly beneath the right gentleman’s nose.”

  Loretta frowned.

  Undeterred, Esme flicked her fingers at Loretta’s skirts. “Apropos of which, I can only give thanks that our first stop will be Paris.”

  October 10, 1822

  Caravanseri outside Herat, Afghan Supremacy

  Rafe crossed his forearms on the weathered earthen wall and looked out across the desolate landscape eerily lit by the waning moon. Behind him, in the rectangular compound protected by the walls, a large trading caravan lay sleeping, the camels picketed to one side, the wagons staggered across the open gap that provided entry into the caravanseri. Tents and rude shelters lay deeper in the compound, protecting the caravan’s people from the intensifying chill.

  Out across the flat plain, nothing moved. Not robber, not cultist.

  Standing on the narrow walkway hugging the inner face of the walls, Rafe stared out at the emptiness, at the rock-strewn plain unbroken by trees, with barely a stick of brush to soften the stark lines.

  A zephyr whispered past, then faded. Died.

  Rafe heard soft footsteps approaching. Hassan. They’d taken positions as guards with the trader who owned the caravan. It was the best camouflage they’d been able to find for crossing this too open, too uninhabited land.

  “Still no sign of pursuit,” Rafe murmured as Hassan halted beside him.

  “There is no way the cult could trace us in such barren territory.”

  “No. So the next time we see them, they’ll be ahead of us, waiting for us to come along. I wonder where?”

  Hassan said nothing. A moment later, he walked on, circling the compound in the achingly cold silence.

  Rafe drew his long cloak closer, and wondered where his friends, his three brothers-in-arms, slept tonight. Wherever they were, he suspected they’d be warmer than he, but were they safer?

  He and Hassan had been lost to the cultists from the moment they’d ridden out of Bombay’s northern gate. He doubted the other couriers had been so lucky.

  Nearly a month into his mission, yet it had yet to truly start. Impatience niggled; he was a man of action—of facing enemies he could see, meet, and defeat.

  Around him lay nothing. Not even a hint of a threat on the wind.

  How long would it be before this hiatus ended and his final battle at last b
egan?

  November 3, 1822

  Villa in Trieste, Italy

  “We need to start for home—for England—now.” Loretta folded her arms, her gaze on Esme’s face. “You said you’d promised we’d be home for Christmas. If we don’t start now, we’ll never make it, and the weather will assuredly turn against us, too.”

  Reclining on a daybed before the windows of the drawing room of the villa she’d hired for their extended stay, Esme arched her brows. Consideration seeped into her otherwise relaxed expression, then she wrinkled her nose. “You’re right. I do so hate traveling in slush.”

  Relief shot through Loretta; her trial was nearing an end. “So we’ll head back to Venice, then via Marseilles to Paris?”

  Frowning, Esme studied her, as she often did, assessingly. “Hmm . . . I’m not quite finished with you. You’ve learned to be more forthright, and we’ve rectified your wardrobe, thank heavens.”

  By “losing” all the demure and decorous clothes she’d brought from London. Loretta didn’t bother glancing down at the periwinkle blue gown she wore, the color matching her eyes, the delicate fabric clinging lovingly to curves she would prefer remained hidden.

  “And you can now laugh, converse, and dance with the best of them—not that I ever doubted you could.” Esme wagged a finger at her. “But your flirting needs work, and you’ve declined to indulge in even one small fling. Your overall attitude still leaves much to be desired.”

  “Nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with my attitude. If I happen to meet a man I find interesting, you may be sure I’ll pay him due attention.”

  “Yes, well, therein lies the rub. You need to be interesting first, enough to make him draw near. Gentlemen—certainly those of the sort you’ll find interesting—are like elusive game. They have to be tempted to draw close, so they can fall into the pit.”

  “You make it sound like hunting.”

  “Good gracious, girl, that’s precisely what it is. You can’t expect them to know what’s best for them—they need to be persuaded to take the bit. But before we start bandying further metaphors, the fact remains that my work with you is not yet done. I have, therefore, decided that we will return to England by a different route. We’ll head to Buda—Richard and I spent a pleasant few months there before the Treaty of Vienna. From there, we can take the rivers back to the Channel—much less chance of our plans being disrupted by the weather.”