A Ring of Midnight Orchids: Flowers of the Aristocracy (Untamed Regency Book 3)

by Jackie Williams

  Lucas felt the bile rise.

  “But Pierce wouldn’t hurt a fly. He thought Daisy was happy with her Duke. That’s all he has ever wanted her to be. And he would never attempt anything like sabotaging a race. You saw how he was when you drugged me at our fight. He detests cheating. Of any kind.” But the authorities wouldn’t know that. They would look at the person with the most to gain. Namely Lord Pierce Trenchard.

  God damn it! Pierce’s footsteps echoed about the hall. Why wouldn’t she see him? This was his third attempt at gaining an entry. Why did she write if she didn’t want him at all? A door opened behind him and he spun around, hope laid bare on his face. His smile dropped instantly. Bloody hell! Not another butler. How many did they need?

  The man gave a short bow.

  “I am afraid that her Grace is unable to see you. The doctor is with her at the moment. Perhaps if you call tomorrow?” The man stalked towards the front door.

  Pierce’s feet became glued to the marble floor.

  “The doctor? Is Daisy, er, I mean is her Grace ill?” His stomach lurched at the thought. She couldn’t be ill. Just couldn’t be. Yes, her husband had died. Anyone would expect her to be grieving. But ill? Daisy? She was never ill a day in her life.

  The butler opened the heavy front door. He handed Pierce his coat.

  “The shock, I suspect, my Lord. I don’t think it serious, but for someone in her condition, it must be dreadful.”

  Condition? Couldn’t this man talk any sense? Daisy seriously needed to reconsider the staff she employed. His mind instantly came back to the point in question.

  “What condition?” What in God’s name was wrong with the woman he loved?

  The butler raised an eyebrow, looking Pierce up and down as though speaking to an ignorant fool.

  “Well, I would have thought that was obvious. What sort of condition do you imagine ladies find themselves in when they have been married for some time? ‘Tis a pity it has been so long coming. If it is a boy, the new Duke will have never known his father.”

  Pierce had thought his stomach felt bad before. Now he began to wish he hadn’t eaten so many kippers for his breakfast. They started to come back up. This couldn’t be happening. For some reason, though he knew well enough that she was married, he had always thought of her as if living in an ivory tower. Somewhere where no one could find her or touch her. Somewhere she would wait for him until she was released. Untouched, pure. Somewhere that though they couldn’t be together, they would never be apart.

  But that was a stupid dream, a child’s way of hiding the hurt. He had missed his chance once before, and now it seemed that he had missed it again. She was going to have her dead husband’s baby. His mind went back to the letter she had written him, the one laced with such decadent perfume, telling him that her husband was dead.

  Why had she done it if she didn’t want to speak to him? Why, when she would be in mourning for the next two years, and by that time, if she had a boy, she would be a mother to the future Duke. She wasn’t free and never would be. She would never be allowed to marry a mere Lord. And a lowly one at that. Sod the fact that he had recently won a fortune. Her husband’s family, dead though the man was, would see that any son only came in contact with exactly who they wanted. And Daisy would agree with them. To protect her son.

  His stomach rolled again. He ran out of the door and made it to the flowerbed before his breakfast came back up. Several seconds later he heard the big door close behind him. He wiped his mouth on his cuff and raised his head to look up at the windows. A curtain twitched on the first floor.

  A beautiful pale face looked down, and then disappeared almost as quickly.

  God damn it! She was there! Staring at him. He took a step backwards, craning his neck, hoping for another glimpse. Just a glimpse, anything, just a fraction of a second. Something to remember for the rest of his miserable life.

  Nothing. The empty frame mocked him. His shoulders slumped in defeat, but straightened as he felt a presence beside him. He glanced across at the heavyset man who stared at back him.

  “Can I help you?” Pierce didn’t want to help anyone, but good manners cost nothing.

  The man was joined by another.

  “Lord Pierce Trenchard?”

  The second man’s beard looked as if it could do with trimming. Pierce pulled himself to his full height. He wasn’t smaller than these men, but the two of them together were a little intimidating, especially given the grim expressions they wore.

  “Yes. Who is asking?” He didn’t recognize either brute and they didn’t look the sort to have ever been introduced.

  The first man glanced at his companion before speaking.

  “We have been asked to bring you in for questioning. I hope that you won’t cause a scene.”

  Pierce could hardly believe his ears.

  “”Questioning? A scene? Whatever is all this about?” A bad feeling, worse than that of puking up his guts, settled in his stomach.

  The men glanced at each other again. One suddenly lurched forwards, his hand outstretched, fingers curling to grab hold of Pierce’s lapel.

  Pierce didn’t hesitate. No man touched him without good reason. And he had recently come into a fortune. Shortly after the Duke or Portland had fallen from his sabotaged horse. And then died.

  Pierce jumped back and turned fast, sprinting across the greensward towards his stallion. He threw himself into Brutus’ saddle before the men had time to react. But others were gathering behind them. A group of four now headed in Pierce’s direction. Had Daisy known about this? Did she think he had anything to do with Portland’s death? Had she written to him deliberately to set up this farce? Pierce had heard of what happened when men were taken by force. It wasn’t going to happen to him.

  His horse took off at the touch of his heel, galloping across the lawn. The gates neared. He turned briefly, taking one last glance at the house. One last chance to see her again.

  But the curtains were already drawn across the window. She was gone. And pain split his heart.

  THE END

  I hope you have enjoyed reading A Ring of Midnight Orchids as much as I have enjoyed writing it. There will be more in the Untamed Regency series coming later this year.

  In the meantime, please read on if you would enjoy the first chapters in the

  Best Selling Unrivalled Regency Series.

  Silence of Scandal

  Prologue

  1799

  “How is that cart going to move without the horses? The kettle is surely far too small to create enough steam to move this thing.” Alexander Currurgh waved his hand towards the two wheeled barrow that normally carried the apples from the orchard. It was usually pulled by their oldest horse, Thyme. Now it stood resting on its two wheels with a very strange looking contraption at the front end.

  Alexander raised a scornful twelve year old eyebrow. His brother had clearly flipped the coop this time. “Don’t you recall the ones that drive those engines? We saw them in that mine. They’re huge. The amount of fuel you need to keep the fire running is enormous and we don’t even have a running water supply. Are you sure that you haven’t been at father’s brandy again, Phillip.” Alexander looked up at his elder brother with suspicion and swallowed hard as he remembered the recent late night trip to their father’s study and the fiery amber liquid burning his own throat. He didn’t even want to think about the subsequent spinning head and strange visions he had suffered for two days that made him wish he had never accepted Phillip’s reckless dare.

  Phillip looked down his long nose at his slightly shorter sibling. There were only a couple of years between them in age and not a lot in height or build but Phillip gave an extremely superior sniff.

  “You haven’t been listening, Alex. This is my first experiment into steam locomotion. I want to see if I can do it myself. Look here, see this pipe from the kettle spout, I’ve sealed the join, and when I release the valve the steam shooting from the kettle will force
its way down this pipe to the piston attached to this spoke.’ He indicated a shinier tube of metal that Alexander had seen him guarding for days. “Then with the high pressure steam being forced into the piston, it will turn the wheel.” He scratched his head doubtfully for a moment as he wrinkled his nose at the bits of metal bound together with strips of oiled leather and cloth. “Well, that’s the plan anyway. I’m going to see if this works now and then I should be able to replace the horses by the end of next year, if I can find a kettle big enough.” Phillip explained as though Alexander had never seen an engine before. It was their father’s insistence on letting them see a working mine with steam driven pumping gear that had begun all of Phillip’s experiments. All the noise and machinery had fascinated him.

  Alexander had not been nearly so enamoured of all the industry. While he knew about the progression of things he wasn’t entirely happy with such noisy, filthy changes. He looked curiously up at his brother.

  “Why do you want to get rid of the horses, Phillip? I don’t think Jennings will be at all happy if you do that. He won’t have a job for a start but apart from that at least the nags are clean, quiet and have several uses. This looks as though it’s going to be hard work and noisy.” Alexander peered at the copper kettle. It looked suspiciously like the one that had hung above the huge stove in the kitchen for many years. The same one that cook had accused Callum the woodsman of removing without permission. Alexander had liked the phrase ‘removing without permission’. He’d remained seated at the kitchen table with a lardy cake halfway to his lips as cook waggled her finger angrily at Callum while she demanded to know where her biggest kettle had disappeared to. Callum had looked as though he was going to choke over the words aimed at him. His face turned beet red and the whiskers in his nose wriggled as he breathed out furiously. Removing without permission obviously wasn’t quite stealing but it was near enough for Callum to storm out of the kitchen after denying the accusation loudly enough to be heard in the next county.

  Phillip peered into the kettle and gave it a small shake.

  “Jennings will have to move with the times though I don’t think father will give up his hunters anytime soon. This will be for farm machinery, maybe even for transport. The new century is only a few months away; new inventions are coming. The horse as a working beast will soon be a thing of the past.” He tipped another bucket of water into the kettle and looked a little more satisfied. “That should do it.” He pushed a blackened rag around the hole in the top and then forced the lid into the gap. He grunted as he made sure it was tight before he tied some leather strips, that looked very much like the missing set of traces that Jennings had spent the best part of the day looking for, around the lid and under the spout. He fastened the buckles, sat back on his heels and nodded in satisfaction. “Now it’s your turn Alex. Light the fire will you. Keep adding the wood until I tell you.” Phillip passed a tinderbox from his pocket to his brother.

  Alexander slid down from his position on a stook of hay and looked at the salver hanging beneath the kettle. He glanced up at Phillip as he recognized the large silver platter on which their butler, Grady usually served their mother’s afternoon tea. Phillip ignored Alexander’s raised eyebrows and motioned his brother forwards.

  Alexander struck the steel against the flint and sparks burst onto the thistledown. Puffing gently as he added shaving curls brought small flames licking to life and he added twig after twig until the fire was well established and needed larger chunks of wood. Phillip passed him several chopped logs that he had ‘borrowed’ from the woodpile and Alexander positioned them carefully for maximum impact. Then they both stood back and stared at the flames while they waited for something to happen.

  Watching the kettle come to the boil was not the most interesting activity in which he been involved. Alexander sat back on the comfortable and sweet smelling hayrick and stared at the blue and gold flames while Phillip tinkered with something attached to the wheel.

  “Is this going to take long do you think?” Alexander was not known for his patience. “I promised Jennings that I would help with the new filly father bought mother for a birthday gift. She’s a fabulous high stepper. Mother wants to take her out tomorrow but father says she has to wait until her special day. I don’t have to wait though and I wanted to have a ride first. Only to see if it is safe for mother you understand.” Alexander hid his grin at the prospect of riding the beautiful young horse.

  Phillip looked down at his dark haired brother. He might be only twelve years old but the slightness of his body hid inner strength. Riding the new filly would be easy for Alexander. Phillip smiled as he shook his head and he then looked back at the kettle.

  “Shouldn’t take too long to get up a head of steam. It’s getting the timing right that might be a problem. I need to keep as much steam in the kettle for as long as possible and then when I release the valve it should shoot out and give it a good chance of getting the piston moving. It’s lucky that I haven’t figured out how to attach the kettle to the two wheels actually. At the moment the cart will only turn in a circle but that will suit my purposes for now.” He looked around at the barn. There was less room than he had hoped due to the sudden and unexpected arrival of several unidentified crates stacked in the corner near the door but there was still plenty of room for the cart to turn. He adjusted the angle of the wheels accordingly.

  Alexander kicked at the slender stems beneath his feet. He picked a stalk from the stook, sniffed at its sweet scent and twirled it in his fingers.

  “I wish we had thought to bring some tuck. Cook was baking lardy cakes. They smelled as though they had just come out of the oven. I could have brought a few up here if I had known I was going to be all morning.” He sighed wistfully at his missed treat. He could almost imagine the smell of the delicious cakes as they left the oven, freshly baked and begging to be eaten. He sniffed the air and wondered at his own imagination. He would swear he could actually smell the things.

  Phillip laughed as he consulted the drawing he had brought along with them. Satisfied that he had everything in perfect order he folded the drawing into his pocket.

  “Half an hour is not all morning, Alex. A few hours without filling your stomach won’t kill you and at least if you are here with me you don’t have to put up with Lily Smith hanging onto your coat tails. She was loitering about waiting for lardy cakes too, you know.”

  Alexander rolled his eyes dramatically as he thought of his narrow escape from the curly haired Lily earlier that morning.

  He had been on the prowl for extras after eating what he considered a very meagre breakfast of coddled eggs, smoked haddock, bacon, kippers and butter smothered crumpets when he heard and deliberately avoided her. After being forced to marry the urchin only the previous week he had hidden behind the tapestry and covered his ears at Lily’s tuneless singing as she headed for the kitchen. It was her usual ditty and she sang it every day, loudly and at inordinate length.

  He’d waited until she was well past before slipping from his hiding place and turning back the other way only marginally sorry that he wouldn’t be able to scrounge any titbits from the kitchen. It wasn’t that she was horrible or anything but a seven year old girl attempting to play with grown boys was not the done thing. She had a tendency to sing her favourite rhyme at the worst possible moment, when either Phillip was making his dying speech on the battlefield or when Alexander was in the middle of rescuing his brother from murderous cutthroat pirates.

  Even worse, she occasionally tried to entice him into horrifying scenes of matrimonial bliss on their excursions into shark infested waters and Phillip, as Captain of the ship, wasn’t always as helpful as Alexander felt he should have been in extricating his brother and fellow crew members from such peril. Last week Phillip had actually married them before the mast. Alexander had been mortified but not nearly as mortified as Geoffrey, their steward’s son. Lily had draped the lad in a sheet and made him hold a bunch of freshly picked wild flowers whi
le he acted as her attendant for the day. Alexander still blushed at the very thought that anyone might have seen them. Fortunately they had been well hidden in the deepest recesses of the garden.

  It was at times like these when he thought it a shame that Smith, their ill-tempered tenant farmer, had been told that the child could come to the house while he worked in the fields, though if this favour hadn’t been bestowed after Lily’s mother’s horrific death, the child might have been sent to the orphanage. Even Phillip would have been appalled if that had happened to the girl. The trouble was that as she grew up she became used to the boys outlandish adventures and she now followed them everywhere, Alexander especially.

  He knew that he should be firmer with her, after all being the farmer’s daughter it wasn’t her place to play with gentle folk but he hadn’t been able to harden his heart to the tears that fell from her huge, dark eyes in the same way that Phillip had managed. She made him feel guilty if he left her out and he avoided her as much as possible rather than tell her that a seven year old girl wasn’t wanted. Alexander paused in his thoughts as he realized that he and Phillip were quite happy for Geoffrey, their steward’s son, to join in their games as either foot soldier or cabin boy and he was only five or six, so maybe it was a girl thing after all. The raven haired horror’s eyes filled with water every time he even frowned at her and she always wheedled her way past his manly heart.

  He plucked another stem from the hay beneath him and grunted as his stomach rumbled audibly.

  “Well, it’s her fault that I am about to waste away as we sit here waiting for this blasted kettle to boil. I didn’t have much for breakfast and what with coming the long way around after father discovered our shortcut, I’m nearly famished. I would have had time to grab provisions if Lily hadn’t turned up so early today.”