Blaike: Secrets Gone Askew (Conundrums of the Misses Culpepper Book 4)

by Collette Cameron

  “Now you sound like Hawkins.” Oliver shook his head, his lips quirked in exasperation. “You know that note he sent?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “He apologized for overstepping the bounds, but said I was too pig-headed to accept help from those who care about me. So he’d taken matters into his own hands. He also said he’d call on me when he returned from visiting his daughter in Deal.” A rueful smile tipped Oliver’s mouth. “I didn’t even know he had a daughter.”

  “What will he do for work now?”

  “Lady Sethwick assures me she can find him a position, but I’ve half a mind to make him our butler. If you’re in agreement.”

  One of Blaike’s winged brows twitched. “Our butler? We don’t have a house.”

  More on point, what would Oliver do now?

  He pushed her gown off one shoulder, and as he nibbled his way to her neck, slid one hand up her thigh. “Ti desidero.”

  Good heavens.

  Forget the reading of the banns.

  That took much, much too long.

  She’d demand they be wed by special license.

  He caressed a particularly sensitive spot on her hip, and she all but dissolved into a mass of desire.

  Tomorrow.

  Yes. They must be wed tomorrow.

  He edged her bodice lower.

  “Pretty bubbies,” M’Lady Lottie cried.

  Blaike and Oliver both burst out laughing, and he left off his explorations.

  “When we are married, she’ll not be anywhere near our bedchamber. In fact, I’m searching for a mate for her. Maybe that will keep her occupied.” He sat up, then smoothed his hair. “We should get back and announce our official betrothal. I’m certain curiosity has them conjuring all sorts of interesting scenarios.”

  Biting back a disappointed sigh, Blaike also set about straightening her clothing. Everyone probably knew what was transpiring in the solarium. Nevertheless, Blaike needn’t broadcast her indiscretion by returning to the drawing room rumpled.

  As it always did, her curiosity demanded satisfaction, and she asked the question that had been tickling her tongue all evening.

  “Oliver, has her ladyship offered you a position as well?”

  Blaike stood and shook out her skirts, and after smoothing the satin with her hands, checked the pearls at her neck to make sure the clasp was in place at her nape.

  “She has. Lady Sethwick quite likes my drawings and would like to commission me to oversee the building of a new clipper straightaway. However, I begged her indulgence until I settled a few matters.”

  “Come here, amore mia.” He opened his arms wide.

  Blaike willingly stepped into his embrace once more. Her head resting on the firm expanse of his chest, her curves melding with his rigid lines, she fit there as if they were two halves of the same mold.

  “How do you feel about a honeymoon in Italy, cara?”

  Did he jest?

  She arched away from him.

  No. He appeared perfectly serious.

  “Italy? Whyever would you go there?”

  “Because, amore, I learned this very afternoon that amongst those documents you so wisely persuaded me to have translated, is a deed to a marble quarry and what looks—at least on paper—to be an extensive estate in Naples. It seems great-grandpapa didn’t completely disinherit his adored daughter, after all.”

  Ah, that’s why he’d been asking Heath about the fireplace. It was made of Italian marble. “Of course we should go. If that’s what you wish.”

  “So much time has passed, the deeds might not be valid anymore. I know nothing of such matters. Naturally, I’ll need to consult with a solicitor, here as well as in Italy.” He lifted her chin, searching her eyes. The merest trace of vulnerability fringed the corners of his dear face. “You should know you are marrying a man who at this moment, owns nothing but an annoying cockatoo. All I have to offer you is my love, and I do so unreservedly.”

  “That’s all I require, Oliver. I’ve never cared about possessions.”

  She wrapped her arms about his waist and hugged him tight. He was her everything. It would be enough to fall asleep with him at her side and wake to the same in the morn.

  “Where you go, I go, Oliver. On a ship. In an apartment above your office. A hovel in the Himalayas or a mansion in Rome. All that matters is that we are together.”

  His head inched lower until his lips were but a hair’s breadth away from hers.

  “Blaike, Il mio cuore è solo tua.”

  “My heart is yours too, Oliver.”

  Tilting her head and cupping his nape, she sealed her vow with a passionate kiss.

  Fortunate is the woman who knows this secret: for love to grow, she must risk giving it away,

  so it may dwell and flourish in the heart of the only person she trusts to keep it safe.

  ~Scruples and Scandals-The Genteel Lady’s Guide to Practical Living

  Naples, Italy

  4 August, 1823

  The entry’s gold leaf grandfather clock peeled midnight as Oliver took the marble stairs two at a time.

  His bride waited above, probably fast asleep given the late hour.

  As he had since they’d arrived nearly two months ago, he marveled at the ostentatious mansion’s architecture. It was quite the grandest, gaudiest, house he’d ever seen.

  He and Blaike had gaped like country bumpkins upon crossing the threshold that first day. It hadn’t taken them more than five minutes to decide this wasn’t the place for them. Hence, Villa de Rossini had discreetly been put up for sale for a price that boggled but, which Signore Parodi, his solicitor, had insisted was quite fair.

  The profitable quarry in Carrara Valley, Oliver opted to keep.

  Pauper poor mere weeks ago, now he possessed wealth beyond anything he’d ever conceived. He and Blaike could have a home wherever they liked—France, Italy, even America—but she preferred to live near her family.

  Wonder of wonders, he wanted to be near his, too.

  Passing beneath his ancestors’ gilded portraits, he paused at his great-grandsire, Francesco de Rossini’s likeness.

  Not a doubt who Abraham—not his real name—had descended from.

  No, Lanzo Abramo Rossini possessed the same sly, close-set eyes and slightly sneering upper lip as his grandfather.

  As vile as a dried horse turd in his mouth, the knowledge that Oliver was cousin to the knave who now called Newgate home stuck in his craw. Likely Abraham would remain imprisoned the rest of his days, unless his sentence was commuted to deportation to Australia instead.

  Untying his neckcloth, Oliver continued down the corridor and yawned. He’d been up at dawn three days in a row.

  The day Abraham torched Nonno’s office, he’d been after the deeds to Villa de Rossini and the marble quarry.

  His mother, the grand aunt who’d trotted off to England with her lover, had learned of the documents when her father died, and she’d returned home in disgrace for his funeral. She thought her bastard son was more entitled to the properties than Mamma. Or Oliver, another bastard and the only other remaining male in the family line.

  Abraham had wrongly assumed the documents had been destroyed in the fire he set and never attempted to steal them again. He’d turned his festering disappointment into tormenting Oliver at every given opportunity.

  Outside his chamber, Oliver paused, enjoying the peacefulness.

  No screeching cockatoos.

  M’Lady Lottie and her mate of six weeks, Michelangelo, were no doubt snuggled together on their perch in the conservatory. Neither would be pleased to leave their lush home, but another just as grand would be found for them in England.

  Thirty servants staffed this great house. Yet the only sounds disturbing the tranquility were the whisper of a mild breeze caressing the sheer panels covering open windows as well as crickets’ and cicadas’ songs filtering from the balconies on this side of the manor.

  Before Oliver lowered the latch
, he also said a quiet prayer of thanks for the entrancing woman beyond the door.

  Seems Hawkins’s faith had at long last borne fruit.

  The angry bitter man Oliver had once been had been replaced by one who daily gave thanks for the many undeserved blessings bestowed upon him.

  Quietly opening his bedchamber door, his heart swelled behind his breastbone. He’d never tire of seeing that vision.

  Blaike, her wondrous hair spilling over her shoulders, wearing nothing but a sleeveless nightgown, lying in their bed, waiting for him.

  She gave him a drowsy smile and held her arms open in invitation. “You’re later than I thought you’d be, darling.”

  After an embrace and a hungry kiss that promised more, he divested himself of his boots.

  “That’s because, cara mia, Signore Parodi found a buyer for this monstrosity. A duke, no less. He wishes to take possession before the end of August, if you’re in agreement.”

  “I’d like that. I haven’t seen Blythe’s darling Effie yet, and Brette is due any day.”

  “I’m done in, I tell you. Tomorrow, I refuse to rise before seven.” In a few quick movements, Oliver divested himself of the rest of his clothing.

  Blaike’s welcoming smile turned seductive as she perused his naked form. His wife wasn’t the least inhibited, and in fact, after finding a naughty book from the seventeenth century in the library, had made several creative suggestions regarding their love play.

  “I think,” she said, trailing her fingertips along the bottle green satin sheet, “I shall take up painting. Just so I can have a nude likeness of you to peek at whenever I please.”

  Smothering another yawn, he edged between the sheets. The other bedcoverings had been turned back to the foot of the bed due to the room’s summer heat.

  “Bella, I’ve seen your attempts at drawing, and I fear I’d resemble a troll. You’ll just have to be satisfied with seeing me in the flesh.”

  “Hmph, if you weren’t so dashed attractive, I’d be offended. But then again, you make a valid point. I possess abysmal artistic abilities.”

  Blaike came willingly into his arms, laying her shiny head upon his shoulder and placing a smooth-as-satin milky white leg upon his hair-covered thigh. The emerald and diamond ring, now sized to fit her ring finger, sparkled in the candlelight.

  Drawing lazy circles on his chest, she kissed his shoulder,

  “I had a most interesting letter from Blythe today. The Severs have been chased back to America in disgrace by their brother-in-law, Lord Desmond. Seems they were found in a compromising situation.” She swirled his chest hair with her forefinger even as he caressed a velvety buttock. “With each other, no less.”

  “Never say so.” Oliver couldn’t keep the shock from his voice.

  Sailors saw and heard many things that would appall respectable society, but even he hadn’t encountered that particular perversion.

  “Good riddance, I say, even if Ravensdale and the others essentially had already banished them to le Beau Monde’s outermost fringes because of what they did to you.”

  “Oliver?” Blaike raised up on her elbow, the white waterfall of her hair billowing onto his torso.

  “Yes, amore?” Hand on her trim waist, he edged her higher until she lay upon him, their legs tangled beneath the mussed sheet. His manhood’s gradually swelling suggested that perhaps he wasn’t so very tired after all.

  Her mouth a mere inch from his, she flicked her pink tongue out to lick her lower lip.

  “I read an interesting passage in The Ladies’ Delight this evening that I should very much like to attempt.” She gave him a wide-eyed look, seductress and innocent combined. “If you aren’t too tired, darling, that is.”

  “Cuore mio, my heart, I shall never be too tired, as long as I have breath in my lungs and blood flowing through my veins to show you how much I love you.”

  Before you go, if you enjoyed BLAIKE: SECRETS GONE ASKEW please consider leaving a review on Amazon.

  USA Today Bestselling, award-winning Historical Romance Author, Collette Cameron, pens Scottish and Regency Romances featuring rogues, rapscallions, rakes, and the intrepid damsels who reform them. Blessed with fantastic fans as well as a compulsive, over-active, and witty Muse who won’t stop whispering new romantic romps in her ear, she lives in Oregon with her mini-dachshunds, though she dreams of living in Scotland part-time.

  Explore Collette’s worlds! Join her VIP Reader Club and FREE newsletter. Giggles guaranteed!

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  Dearest Reader,

  Blaike and Oliver’s story truly started in Blythe: Schemes Gone Amiss, but I had to wait until Blaike was a tad older to set her romance in motion. I wanted their tale to be slightly different than the first three Conundrums of the Misses Culpepper books, and since Oliver was a sea captain, I decided the Sea Gypsy would make the perfect setting for a large portion of their story.

  As my characters always do, Oliver and Blaike directed their story, and the twists they came up with never failed to surprise me. He proved to be a much more complex character than I’d first anticipated, and M’Lady Lottie turned out to be a great deal of fun, too. I hope you enjoyed her antics.

  You’ll see Blaire’s story in the very near future as well.

  Please consider telling other readers why you enjoyed this book by reviewing it on Amazon. Not only do I truly want to hear your thoughts, reviews are crucial for an author to succeed. Even if you only leave a line or two, I’d very much appreciate it.

  Here’s wishing you many happy hours of reading, more happily-ever-afters than you can possibly enjoy in a lifetime, and abundant blessings to you and your loved-ones.

  Connect with Collette!

  www.collettecameron.com

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  Enjoy the first chapter of BROOKE: WAGERS GONE AWRY

  Conundrums of the Misses Culpepper, Book One

  Even when most prudently considered, and with the noblest of

  intentions, one who wagers with chance oft finds oneself empty-handed.

  ~Wisdom and Advice—The Genteel Lady’s Guide to Practical Living

  Esherton Green,

  Near Acton, Cheshire, England

  Early April 1822

  Was I born under an evil star or cursed from my first breath?

  Brooke Culpepper suppressed the urge to shake her fist at the heavens and berate The Almighty aloud. The devil boasted better luck than she. My God, now two more cows struggled to regain their strength?

  She slid Richard Mabry, Esherton Green’s steward-turned-overseer, a worried glance from beneath her lashes as she chewed her lower lip and paced before the unsatisfactory fire in the study’s hearth. The soothing aroma of wood smoke, combined with linseed oil, old leather, and the faintest trace of Papa’s pipe tobacco, bathed the room. The scents reminded her of happier times but did little to calm her frayed nerves.

  Sensible gray woolen skirts swishing about her ankles, she whirled to make the return trip across the once-bright green and gold Axminster carpet, now so threadbare, the oak floor peeked through in numerous places. Her scuffed half-boots fared little better, and she hid a wince when the scrap of leather she’d used to cover the hole in her left sole this morning slipped loose again.

  From his comfortable spot in a worn and faded wingback chair, Freddy, her aged Welsh corgi, observed her progress with soulful brown eyes, his muzzle propped on stubby paws. Two ancient tabbies l
ay curled so tightly together on the cracked leather sofa that determining where one ended and the other began was difficult.

  What was she to do? Brooke clamped her lip harder and winced.

  Should she venture to the barn to see the cows herself?

  What good would that do? She knew little of doctoring cattle and so left the animals’ care in Mr. Mabry’s capable hands. Her strength lay in the financial administration of the dairy farm and her ability to stretch a shilling as thin as gossamer.

  She cast a glance at the bay window and, despite the fire, rubbed her arms against the chill creeping along her spine. A frenzied wind whipped the lilac branches and scraped the rain-splattered panes. The tempest threatening since dawn had finally unleashed its full fury, and the fierce winds battering the house gave the day a peculiar, eerie feeling—as if portending something ominous.

  At least Mabry and the other hands had managed to get the cattle tucked away before the gale hit. The herd of fifty—no, sixty, counting the newborn calves—chewed their cud and weathered the storm inside the old, but sturdy, barns.

  As she peered through the blurry pane, a shingle ripped loose from the farthest outbuilding—a retired stone dovecote. After the wind tossed the slat around for a few moments, the wood twirled to the ground, where it flipped end over end before wedging beneath a gangly shrub. Two more shingles hurled to the earth, this time from one of the barns.

  Flimflam and goose-butt feathers.

  Brooke tamped down a heavy sigh. Each structure on the estate, including the house, needed some sort of repair or replacement: roofs, shutters, stalls, floors, stairs, doors, siding...dozens of items required fixing, and she could seldom muster the funds to go about it properly.

  “Another pair of cows struggling, you say, Mr. Mabry?”

  Concern etched on his weathered features, Mabry wiped rain droplets from his face as water pooled at his muddy feet.