With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Alec watched in pensive silence as his two friends glared at each other. He gave the earl’s glass a significant look and said seriously, “If you don’t stop swilling that stuff, all of Seymour’s charms and fairies won’t help you. Something or someone worse than a dog is going to put you out.”

  Downe drilled Alec with the look of the damned. “What I do is my own bloody business, Belmore. Stay out of it.”

  Alec and Neil exchanged a glance, and the viscount shook his head to indicate that talking to the earl did no good.

  The tense silence was broken when the doors to the drawing room opened with a bang and Joy rushed inside, the deep ruby red of her skirts swirling and swishing and rustling, her face eager and expectant, as if the most wonderful experience of her life was occurring this instant. Alec had seen that look before— whenever it rained rose petals.

  Her ruby silk dress was the finest his wealth could buy, yet something told him she would look just as vibrant in a ragged gown of drab flannel. Her heavy mass of shimmering brown hair was swept up on one side, away from her expressive face, elegant and formal, but a cascade of long curls fell from the other side, framing her flushed cheek and flowing over a pale feminine shoulder. Diamonds and deep rubies sparkled at her ears and neck and on the toes of her slippers, but no one would notice because her smile outshone them.

  Her appearance suggested what she was—a bewitching sprite of a woman who found adventure in a walk through the snow or a sleigh ride in the park, a woman so untouched by cynicism that she saw the essence of all things in the smallest leaf and in each crystalline granule of snow. She was an unusual beauty whose eyes at times could make Alec forget he was duke.

  He watched her greet his friends—Seymour with a genuine welcome, Downe with tolerance mixed with apprehension. Then she scanned the room, her gaze seeking and finding his, then pulling away when Seymour spoke to her. Downe had stood when she entered and raked his gaze from her head downward, randomly stopping to stare at prime parts. Alec had to quell the urge to cuff him. His hand tightened on his own drink.

  Henson announced dinner, and Alec acknowledged him with a curt nod, while his friends escorted his wife toward the dining room. He tore his brooding gaze away from the empty doorway.

  He’d married for convenience and gotten none. He’d gotten a witch. He almost laughed at the irony. Almost. He took a drink and looked back to the spot where she’d stood, wondering if protecting the Belmore name was his only reason for hiding Scottish. He set down his glass and pushed away from the wall with more force than necessary. Then he followed them, and not liking the answer his conscience gave him.

  During the next few busy days, Joy learned social behavior under the tutelage of her frustrated husband. It took her a whole morning to master the royal curtsy; her knees ached from the ridiculous and unnatural position in which they’d been bent. When she suggested that Englishwomen must have knee joints different from those of the rest of the world, he countered that she was part English. She decided her knees were Scot.

  She’d learned forms of address, proper responses, and who was who among the ton, and she’d been cooped up in Belmore House until her need for nature had made her as fidgety as a child on Christmas Eve. ‘Twas then that dear Neil and Richard had suggested an outing and now all four of them were in the carriage just pulling away from Belmore House.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  Joy looked at her husband and nodded. “I’m fine, truly.” He settled back in the carriage seat, then absently rubbed a hand over his arm. That was the third time he’d asked the same question, so she asked, “Are you cold?”

  “No,” he answered too quickly, as if she had asked him something so personal that her question offended his masculinity. He looked out the window. “Must be the damp air.”

  Half an hour later, the team’s hooves clattered with a hollow sound as they passed over London Bridge. For the first time in over a century the Thames had frozen. The river was now alive with milling dark-clothed crowds enjoying this wondrous event—the Frost Fair. Between London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge the river was known as Freezeland Street. There, enterprising watermen were charging an ice toll of twopence to walk along the ash-covered aisles.

  A few minutes later, Joy and Alec followed Neil and Richard through the wooden entrance to the icy walkway. At river-level, bright pennants and banners—yellow, green, and blue—red and white flags, and multicolored swagged bunting were strewn from booth to shopkeeper’s booth, each proclaiming the fair’s best goods. Crusty beef pies and roasting mutton warmed the bitter air with their sweet scent while tavern keepers emptied hogsheads of frothing ale to sell to the hordes of fairgoers.

  “I don’t know how I let them talk me into this,” Alec said under his breath, his glare pinned on the viscount and the earl.

  Joy whipped her head from left to right trying not to miss one exciting thing. “You promised to take me to a fair.”

  “You attended one, without my permission, and that’s how we ended up with a deaf butler whose voice could wake the dead and a Caribbean cook who sings his recipes.”

  “You said yourself that dinner was superb.”

  “I happen to like lobster.”

  “So did your friends.”

  He grunted some kind of response, frowned, and fastened the brass frog on his greatcoat.

  “Alec, are you sure you’re not cold?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I say, Joy. Need some advice, here.” Neil waved them toward a booth at the west end of the ice aisle.

  “Which do you think I should purchase?” The viscount held up a small vial of blue oil and a watch fob made of ivory.

  “What are they?”

  ‘This”—he held up the bottle—“is protection oil.”

  “Protection from what?” the earl asked.

  “Ghoulies, ghosts, goblins, and the like,” the shopkeeper said, then added, “and witches.”

  “I believe I could use that,” Alec said dryly, and Joy frowned up at him.

  “No harm in being safe, Belmore,” Neil said seriously. He held up the other item in question. “And this is a tooth from a hellhound.”

  “What, no garlic ropes?” The earl leaned against the corner of a booth.

  “Over there, yer lordship, next to the hex dolls and the bogey charms,” the wiry little shopkeeper said with a gap-toothed grin. “The garlic’s fer bloodsucking vampires.”

  “I’ve known a few bloodsuckers in my time, but haven’t seen any vampires. I’m certain, however, that Seymour has.”

  “Have not. But this morning I saw you fight off a hellhound.” He dangled the fob in the earl’s line of vision.

  “Don’t remind me.” The earl winced and rubbed his hip.

  Neil turned to Alec and said, “I daresay, Downe needs the hair of the hound that bit him.” Then he chuckled and asked, “What do you think he needs, Belmore?”

  “I think—” Alec stopped in mid-sentence. “Bloody hell. I thought you said none of the ton would be here.”

  Neil turned to follow Alec’s scowling look.

  “Oh, look who’s here! Eugenia! Claire! Look! If it isn’t His Grace!” Lady Agnes skittered toward them like a foraging squirrel to plump nuts. “What a small world!”

  “Too small,” the earl commented while the three gossips sidled through the crowd.

  Joy clutched Alec’s arm. His hand moved to rest atop hers just as a cheer cracked through the icy air and the crowd shifted to gather around a circle of gamblers who were winning at rouge et noire.

  “Hurry!” Alec pulled her through a space between the booths, the earl and viscount following. They wormed their way past a fat grinning kettledrummer and a dancing fiddler, then ducked behind a makeshift stage where a small crowd of fairgoers watched a Punch and Judy show.

  “Quick thinking, Belmore. Now, I can enjoy my ale without having to listen to that noodle-headed woman and her gaggle of gossips.” The earl tossed an ale seller a coin, t
hen paused and, in a completely surprising move, ordered a hot mulled wine and handed it to Joy with a gallant bow. Smiling at her stunned expression, he leaned indolently against the stand, sipping ale from a foamy tankard.

  “I say, Downe, ‘tis a small world—and fast becoming even smaller,” Neil said, his voice suddenly amused. “Look there, over your right shoulder, by the skittle alleys. Isn’t that . . . ”

  The earl turned, then finished in a groaning voice, “The Hornsby hellion.”

  Joy would have not have thought it possible for the Earl of Downe—rake, cynic, and borderline drunkard—to panic at anything. But he did. His handsome and cool features became a grimace, and there was true dread in his usually shuttered eyes. He quickly stepped between the booths, trying to hide behind a swag of bunting and the shoulders of a puppeteer.

  She followed the direction of Neil’s amused eyes and saw the infamous Letitia Hornsby. The girl was one of the most harmless-looking women she had ever seen. Neither tall nor short, she had a bright and serious English face. She’d unfastened her rich blue pelisse and underneath was a pale blue cashmere dress with dark blue flounces and a bodice line of bright gold anchor buttons. To Joy she appeared to be completely harmless and totally incapable of creating the havoc of which these men accused her.

  The girl turned suddenly, searching, her hand raised to shield her eyes as she swirled, the reticule on her wrist launching into the air like a Greek discus.

  A nearby gentleman stopped it—with his open mouth. He yelped and wiggled a front tooth while he danced in ringing pain atop the ice, sprinkling ashes upward with each boot step.

  Poor Letitia gathered her startled wits and tried to apologize, reaching out to the flailing man. Like precisely aimed arrows two of her fingers poked his stunned eyes. His holler could have been heard in

  Glasgow. She grasped her cloak and stepped back, obviously fearful of the man’s rage. With a dull thwack, he fell flat on his back, losing his beaver hat in the crowd of onlookers. His shiny black-booted feet—which had been standing on the hem of her cloak— were now pedaling the air in time to his bellowed curses.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Joy whispered, trying not to giggle.

  “Good God!” Neil grabbed his good luck charms and stared at the supine man who was Letitia’s current victim.

  “What?” Alec and Richard said in unison.

  Neil pointed at the man who was still lying on his back. “That’s Brummell!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The party of fairgoers arrived back at Belmore House two hours later. Laughing at the banter between the viscount and the earl, Joy blew into the foyer in a flurry of wet snowflakes, followed by the bickering lords and Alec, the only one of the group who was scowling.

  “I say, Belmore,” Neil said, while handing his outerwear to Henson. “You’ve been glowering since this morning. No fun at all.”

  “‘Twas bloody cold,” Alec said, waving off Henson in favor of the drawing room fire where he stood for a few minutes of warming before he removed his gloves. “See that the fire in the saloon is stoked up, Henson, and close those doors. This place is freezing.”

  “I’m not cold.” Neil looked at the earl. “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  “Been acting strange all day, Belmore.”

  Alec didn’t answer, just glared at the viscount and backed a bit closer to the fire.

  “We weren’t ready to leave, you know,” Neil went on. “The fun was just starting.”

  “Unless you were Brummell,” the earl added, sinking into a wing chair and stretching out his long legs, his hands unusually empty of drink.

  “I say, wasn’t that the strangest thing you’ve ever seen? The Beau with no voice. One minute he was bellowing at that chit and the next nothing but a croak and then silence.”

  “Even I felt sorry for that hellion,” the earl commented.

  “Brummell can cut to the quick with that rapier tongue of his.”

  Joy moved toward the door. “Well, I think I’ll leave you gentlemen to your—”

  “Wait.” Alec’s voice, sharp and cold as the sting of frost, stopped her just before she made her escape.

  She turned.

  His back was still to the fire, and the light glowed a golden outline around him. She couldn’t see his features, but the stiffness of his stance, the angle of his head, told her exactly how he felt. “I will speak to you. Alone.”

  Joy didn’t dare move. He knew, he knew what she’d done. She swallowed and tried to look innocent. She opened her eyes wider and hoped it worked. “Me?”

  “You.”

  “Whatever for?” She hoped that sounded innocent.

  His silent look gave her the answer.

  “Where?” How in the world had her traitorous voice cracked on a word of one syllable?

  “I say, Joy,” Neil cut in, unaware of the tense exchange going on between husband and wife. “Before you leave you must promise me a dance at Prinny’s ball.”

  “A dance?” She turned to him with the eagerness of someone seeking shelter.

  “A country dance or a minuet. Prinny still insists on opening and closing his balls with minuets. I turn a fine leg, if I do say so myself.”

  “Turn an ankle would be more the truth.” The earl gave him a smirk.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know those dances,” Joy said quietly, reminded how out of place she was.

  “Bloody hell.”

  She turned toward her cursing husband.

  “Egad! How can you go to the ball if you can’t dance? What are you going to do, Belmore?”

  Alec said nothing.

  “She can learn now,” Richard said. He flipped open his pocket watch and added, “We don’t have to be at the club for a few hours.”

  “Winning idea, Downe. We shall be her dance instructors.”

  Surprised, she faced the earl. She would have expected such a favor from the viscount, but not the acidic Earl of Downe. Unwittingly, he had saved her from an angry husbandly lecture. Joy could have kissed the man, even though she still wasn’t sure she particularly liked him. He was a strange cynical man, and she had thought he had a cruel streak of his own. Yet, she had seen another side to him today.

  Today he’d been sober. And most uncharacteristically gallant.

  Complain as he did about Letitia Hornsby, he was the one who had finally spirited her safely away from the ranting man who rang such a cruel and embarrassing peal over the poor girl. Joy had noted how Letitia’s eyes had moistened, and her face had flushed with the threat of tears, yet bravely the girl had refused to let herself cry.

  ‘Twas then that Joy had twiddled her fingers, robbing the cruel man of his voice. She’d hoped Alec had missed it. Now that hope was dead.

  “I assumed you knew how to dance,” Alec said to her, his voice still too controlled for her peace of mind.

  “What say you, Belmore? To the music room?”

  Alec crossed the room and stood next to her. The look on his face killed any hope she’d had that he’d forgotten about the incident at the Frost Fair. She wanted to step away, and he must have read her thoughts, because he placed his hand on her arm in a gesture that had nothing to do with husbandly affection and everything to do with keeping her within reach. “We shall follow you.”

  The two men left the room and went up the staircase. Joy started to follow, quickly, but Alec held her arm firmly so she could do little but walk by his side.

  “Tell me, wife. What do you suppose happened to Brummell’s voice?”

  “Perhaps the cold weather. I heard once about—”

  His grip tightened on her arm. “I told you: no hocus-pocus,” he whispered through a clenched jaw.

  “He was humiliating that poor wee girl,” she whispered back.

  “That is none of your affair.”

  “I couldn’t stand by and watch that kind of cruelty, Alec.”

  “London thrives on cruelty.”

  “The girl did not deserv
e such unkind treatment. That man should count himself lucky,” she added fiercely. “It could have been much worse.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “I could have made him spit toads.”

  He ground to a halt and turned, his face livid. He grabbed her shoulders, his face a mixture of anger and panic. “If you ever make anyone spit toads, I’ll . . . I’ll—”

  “He was too cruel, Alec.”

  He just glared down at her as if he couldn’t believe she was arguing with him, as if no one ever argued with him.

  “Sometimes words can cause greater pain than physical blows,” she said with quiet seriousness.

  His mouth tightened into a thin line. Both of them remembered his own cruel words to her. She expected his face to tighten with displeasure. She was wrong. His eyes had narrowed, but not in anger. There was a distant look in his eyes, and he seemed to be thinking back far beyond a few nights ago. There was vulnerability in his expression— something she’d never thought to see in the Duke of Belmore.

  When he focused again, he searched her face, as if seeking something so elusive that he despaired of ever finding it. His eyes reflected defeat—now, that was something Joy understood. This was what she had first seen in him, this need, this vulnerable side to the cool aristocrat seen by the rest of the world. So she and Alec were both cursed by a sense of failure, only each dealt with it differently. She accepted it; he didn’t. She tried to compensate; he fought it with a will so strong it formed his being.

  She wished she could conquer his demons with her magic. But she couldn’t even conquer her own. He had her heart and a part of her soul; she had his name and his protection. But she’d have given those away along with her powers, weak as they might be, for a loving smile from this man.

  “Belmore! I can’t remember which blasted room is the music room.”

  Alec watched her a moment longer, then blinked once and answered, “Fourth door to the right.” He loosened his grip on her arms and silently led her up the second flight of stairs.