With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  “That was dumb.”

  He looked Stephen straight in the eye. “It was. But I’ll find her. I promise I’ll find her.”

  He’ll never find me. The ache was so great that Joy fell to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. When she pulled her hands away the image had faded. A plea on her face and anguish in her voice she turned to her aunt. “I love him. Please. He needs me.”

  The MacLean watched her, then glanced at the blank window. A moment later she shook her head, turned, and left the room.

  And so it was that the days dragged by, empty, silent, and devoid of magic. Stephen recovered and spent most of his time in the garden, caring for the flowers and plants that Joy had taught him about. He would say with simple unshakable confidence that she would come back soon. Alec had promised.

  But Alec’s confidence had waned.

  He had ridden over every acre of Belmore Park. He’d sat slumped in a chair in his chamber for hours on end. In a kind of deliberate self-punishment, he surrounded himself with reminders of her. The only food he would eat was roasted chicken legs, turnips, and gingerbread. On every table and every mantel in the rooms he frequented stood vase after vase of pink roses.

  One day a wagon had come from London filled with heavy crates. It had taken three footmen to carry the stacks of Gothic romances into the duchess’ room. They were stacked along a wall seeming to await her return.

  He memorized the names of his servants, then confused the wits out of them when he ordered all the clocks set for different times. He went through the gardens looking for small birds and first blooms. He walked on the roof at night, looking at the stars, and wondered if he’d ever look down and see them in her eyes again. He prayed for snow. He picked a sprig of rosemary and remembered. And every so often, when he was alone at night, he cried.

  Alec stared off in the distance, remembering. Like the ribbons on a Maypole she had twisted and twined her way into his life. He laughed to himself. What life? He’d had no life before Scottish. He’d had his pride and his name, neither of which mattered to him anymore.

  That cold shell of a life seemed to have existed long, long ago. Now he had a brother he loved, but still the house was empty, lonely, cold. Without Joy he could find no peace. He felt wounded, and he knew with surety that he would never heal without her.

  He craved her magic. But it wasn’t her witchcraft—weak and feeble and often disastrous—that he needed as surely as he needed breath. It was Scottish. The strongest magic she had was herself.

  The clouds above the garden broke a bit. Rain sprinkled the flagstone walks. Alec wondered if she was crying. He closed his eyes briefly, then let go of the elm tree.

  Alec watched the door of his study close in the wake of the royal messenger. He turned back to stare down at the royal invitation to the fete in honor of His Grace, the Duke of Wellington. He tossed it across the desk. “I don’t give a bloody damn who the prince is honoring, I’m not going to London. I won’t leave until I find her.”

  “I take it there’s been no word.” Downe sat across the room, twirling a cane.

  Alec shook his head. “Nothing. Not a thing for two months. I received the report from Surrey last week. She’s not there. The Lockleys knew nothing. I’ve got every man I could hire turning all of England upside down. All reports are the same. She’s disappeared. The only reports I’ve yet to receive are from James and Fitzwater. They’re combing the isle of Mull.”

  Seymour fumbled with the growing collection of charms that weighted the chain on his waistcoat, then looked up. “Thought I spotted her myself a week ago in London. I scared the wits out of Billingham’s wife. He almost called me out. From the back she looked exactly like Joy.”

  “You’d think there would be some clue. Something,” Downe said, frowning.

  Alec sagged back in his chair and shook his head in defeat. “She’s gone. I don’t think I’m ever going to find her.” He looked at his friends. “Where else can I look? There’s got to be some clue, something I’ve missed.”

  “Did those two servants ever come back?” Downe asked. “What were their names again?”

  “Hungan John and Forbes.”

  He nodded, then looked uncomfortably at Alec. “Do you suppose they had anything to do with her disappearance?”

  Alec shook his head. He suspected that Joy had had something to do with their disappearance, but he couldn’t explain that to Downe, so he lied and said they had been checked out. There was nothing else he could do but wait and hope. He clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Where the hell would a witch go?

  As he mentally cataloged the possibilities for the thousandth time, the room became silent, too silent. It drew his gaze from the ceiling to his two friends.

  Downe seemed caught off his guard, and Seymour’s mouth gaped open. The viscount closed his mouth and drew himself up straighter. “Seems a tad out of line to call Joy a witch, Belmore.” Seymour’s tone was defensive.

  He had spoken aloud. He was going out of his mind. Insane.

  Seymour harped on, “Joy’s no witch. Everyone knows witches look like that old hag that told us about her in the first place.”

  Alec blinked once, then slowly looked up. The clock ticked away the seconds. Alec slammed his hands on the desk with a bang and shot to his feet. “Bloody hell! That’s it! The old woman. I’d forgotten about her. But that’s it!” He crossed the room, his long legs eating up the distance in three strides.

  His hand on the doorknob, he turned back to his friends, who were scrambling to follow. “I’m going to search every street corner in town until I find her.” He ripped open the doors and shouted, “Henson! Pack my things. We’re leaving for London.”

  His deep voice echoed down the marble halls, and three maids looked up in fright at the duke running toward them, shouting. He stopped in front of one of them and pointed at her. “Mary White.”

  The maid nodded, clutching her feather duster to her white apron.

  He looked at the next maid and said, “Mary Jones.”

  She nodded and remembered to curtsy.

  He turned to the third maid, whose head was already bent almost to her knees. “Mary Brown.”

  She slowly looked up and nodded.

  The Duke of Belmore smiled. “Well, Marys, don’t stand there. Run and tell Stephen, we’re going to London.”

  Chapter Thirty

  One month later, the London season was at its peak. Balls and soirees ate up the idle time of the quality, and provided gossip and scandal—daily sustenance of a starving ton. Just last week news had arrived from the Continent that a certain countess was seen in Paris on the arm of the brother of her husband’s current mistress. This latest on-dit set aside the rampant speculation about the strange behavior of the Duke of Belmore. It was whispered between deals at snug little card parties and teas that he’d gone batty with grief at the disappearance of his duchess. Rumor had it that he’d been accosting the flower sellers on the street corners. The Duke of Belmore!

  But this week the gossips had new fodder: the prince’s fete—the largest single event of this flamboyant season— was to take place tonight. From early in the morning, ladies had begun to flutter and flit, donning jewels and silks, feathers and fans, preparing to flaunt their wealth and taste before those who mattered. Before their mirrors, gentlemen practiced the brooding stares that would gain them the mystique of a dark poet. They perfected that smooth pinch of snuff and the turning of a fine masculine leg.

  The royal musicians tuned up their violins, cellos, and flutes and the finest florists in London delivered the hundreds of imported potted lemon trees, which had become the Rage. As was done before, the trees would line the ballroom at Carlton House, a sight that was rumored to have cost in the thousands of pounds. The Regent, however, refused to be bothered by ha’pennies, for tonight the ton would welcome home England’s newest peer and hero, the Duke of Wellington.

  The Belmore carriage was one of the
hundreds that lined the route to Carlton House. Packed three deep from Pall Mall to the top of St. James’s Street, the conveyances stood waiting to deposit their occupants at the corner where Horse Guards framed the entrance line to the gates. So here was the whole of the ton, sitting in their carriages in the light of the new gas lamps, dressed up in all their finery, and waiting to pay tribute to their hero and their prince.

  “Blast it all! What a crush!” Seymour opened the carriage window and stuck his coppery head outside.

  “Watch out for my leg, Seymour.” The Earl of Downe rapped the viscount with his cane.

  Seymour poked his head back inside and glanced at Downe’s leg. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that. Forgot all about your foot.”

  “Damned female,” the earl muttered and adjusted his foot so it was well out of the way of his eager friend.

  “What damned female?” Stephen asked in innocent curiosity. Alec turned and glared at Downe.

  The earl stammered through some kind of explanation that Seymour said was a “lame excuse” and then explained his pun to Stephen, who laughed after a few minutes of thought. The regent had come across Alec and his brother in the park early one morning and had taken a particular liking to Stephen Castlemaine. The lad had shown such an extensive knowledge of plants and flowers—a subject dear to the regent’s heart, since he was midway through the design of his personal gardens—that Prinny had requested another audience with the duke’s brother.

  When the Archbishop of Canterbury quietly commented that the younger Castlemaine was a bit slow, the prince had angrily replied, “So was Moses,” which silenced the royal contingent. Within a day, Stephen Castlemaine had become a royal favorite. Alec still chose to protect his brother, preferring to keep him away from fickle society, but tonight he’d agreed to let Stephen accompany them.

  “I say, there. It could take us another hour just to reach the line to the gates,” Seymour said. He scowled when Downe removed a silver brandy flask from his coat.

  “It’s not for me,” Downe said, handing it to Alec. “Here, Belmore.”

  Alec gazed out the window, his mind back on the roof of Belmore Park, his senses filled with the scent of roses.

  “Belmore?”

  Stephen leaned over and with one finger poked him in the arm. “Alec!”

  He shook his head and looked up. “What?”

  Stephen pointed at the earl, who held out the flask and said, “You look as if you could use this.”

  Alec shook his head, then turned back just in time to catch a glimpse of a faded red hat bobbing through the crowd. “Bloody hell!” He threw open the carriage door and stood, gripping the open window to keep his balance. “It’s the flower seller! It’s her!” He jumped onto the street and threaded his way through the crush of carriages, moving onto the walk and running as best he could through the crowd. He lost sight of the red hat and shoved his way through. Women screeched and men swore, but he didn’t give a damn. He would not lose her. He leapt onto the top of Harbinger’s gig and searched the crowd. A few hundred feet ahead he could see the old woman’s hat.

  “Stop her!” he shouted, pointing. “Stop that old woman!” But the hat bobbed onward, the crowd looking at him as if he was as insane as he felt.

  “Belmore!”

  Alec ignored the murmurs and turned. Seymour, Stephen, and Henson ran toward him, and Downe, with his cane, hobbled along behind swearing the air blue.

  “Over here!” he shouted and waved them forward. Then he took off again, seeing an opening between the carriages. He ran, ran as fast as he could around mincing teams and rolling wheels. It was her. He knew it was her. She was his only hope, his last chance. His breath came in pants. He ran faster, weaving his way through the crowd and yelling at the woman to stop, not caring who or what was in his way.

  A carriage shifted, blocking his way. The team started to balk and the carriage rocked. He couldn’t get through. Like thunder, panic beat through him. And desperation. Overwhelming desperation. This was his only hope. His last chance.

  “Damn!” He shifted left, then right, then dashed through a small opening between teams. He was in the crowd again, but he’d lost sight of her. He stretched upward to try to spot her. Then, frustrated as hell, he shoved his way to the iron fence that circled the royal residence. He grabbed it and pulled himself up, hanging on to the fence with one hand.

  “The Duke of Belmore has a thousand pounds for anyone who can hold that old flower woman in the red straw hat!”

  A loud murmur traveled wavelike through the crowd. He yelled it again, and then, ignoring the stares, forged his way through. There was another shout.

  “There she is!”

  Alec ran in that direction, pushing and shoving his way past the gates. He spotted her. About thirty young bloods, most of them known for their lack of funds, blocked his path in their rush to reach her.

  Like the waters of the Red Sea the men parted. He ran at her, just as she held up a posy, her back to him.

  “A lovely posy fer yer lady!”

  He grasped her small shoulders and spun her around. “Where is she? Where is my wife?”

  A pair of sharp and familiar gray eyes stared up at him. “Who?”

  Panting, he rasped, “You know who! My wife!”

  “Who be ye?”

  “You damn well know who I am. I’m the Duke of Belmore!”

  The old woman eyed him for a long time, silently, then dismissed him and said, “Don’t know what yertalkin’ ‘bout.” She turned around to the crowd and held up her flowers. “Lovely posy feryer lady!”

  His breath still coming in staggered spurts, Alec stood there, frustrated and helpless. A hand touched his shoulder and he turned to face Downe, Seymour, and Stephen. “She won’t tell me anything.” He ran a hand through his hair, helpless.

  Downe reached into his pocket and took out a money pouch. He limped to the old woman and shoved the money in her basket. “Tell him where she is.”

  The old woman turned very slowly. She looked from the earl to Alec, then at the pouch. “Ye wish to buy me whole basket o’ posies, yer lordship?”

  “Tell Belmore where his wife is. You told his fortune. Said he would meet her. Months ago . . . On the steps of White’s. Where is she now, old woman?”

  “I just sell posies, yer lordship.”

  “Those months ago you sold more than that.”

  Seymour and the others stood beside him. The viscount dropped his purse into her basket, then took off every charm, fob, and amulet on his person and dropped them in her flower basket. “Bring her back.”

  Stephen looked at the hag and stated simply, “Alec needs Joy. Look at him.”

  She remained silent.

  “Damnation, woman!” Alec shouted. “Tell me where she is. What do I have to do? I’ve torn London apart looking for an old flower woman in a red hat. I finally find you and you won’t tell me anything. What do I have to do?”

  She remained silent, but watched him closely.

  “I’ve hugged every tree from Wiltshire to London.” He turned around and spotted a maple a few feet away. He strode over and wrapped his arms around it. “Where’s the magic, woman? Where?”

  The crowd began to titter. He ignored them. “I eat gingerbread. Hell, I don’t even like gingerbread! I look for fairies. I wish on stars. I sleep with roses. Pink roses. I wake up calling her name at night. What do I have to do? Tell me! Please . . . ” His voice tapered off, and he was quiet for a moment before he said, “I love her.”

  There was absolute silence. Those wise gray eyes pinned him for the longest time, then she slowly turned and walked away. “A lovely posy fer yer lady! A lovely posy fer yer lady!”

  He watched her walk away. His hope went with her. He sagged back against the tree and stared at the ground. The crowd stood frozen, thinking God only knew what. He could feel their stares. He didn’t give a damn.

  After a few minutes the crowd began to murmur, then move and Downe limped over to Alec. “Come
on inside, Belmore.”

  Alec took a deep breath and pushed away from the tree. Wordlessly he followed them inside, purposely sidestepping the reception line. He didn’t want to talk to anyone now. He made his way across the ballroom, but something touched his arm. He turned in hope.

  Lady Agnes Voorhees, flanked by her gossips, stood there looking as if she could burp feathers.

  He just looked at them, feeling nothing.

  “Why, Your Grace! I’ve never seen anything like that! You poor man. Well, I said to my Henry, isn’t that just like a Scot to run out. Can’t face anything. Weak blood. Which reminds me . . . I just met Stephen. Over there with His Royal Highness? Why, your brother is as sweet as can be for someone who”—she leaned closer and whispered—“who isn’t all there. But that’s still no excuse for that girl to leave you.”

  He looked at London society’s version of the witches from Macbeth and said, “I should have let her do it.”

  “Do what, Your Grace?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Both warts and frogs.” He spun around and walked away, not seeing the little bump that had just popped onto Lady Agnes’s beak of a nose. Two days later, a nice black hair would grow from it, and from the other wart on her chin . . . forever.

  Like a cipher, Alec moved toward the terrace doors. He needed air. He needed space. He needed isolation. A few seconds later he sat on a stone bench under a tree in a dark corner of the garden, his head leaning against the trunk as he stared upward. Through the dark crown of the tree, he looked up at the sky, at the stars Scottish saw such wonder in, wished upon and believed in.

  Without her, he had nothing to believe in anymore. He had nothing.

  The orchestra struck up a waltz. It was that same waltz. He smiled a bittersweet smile. He bowed his head and sat there, elbows on his knees, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes and relived the memory.

  What had she said that time? Something about having to make memories. Memories were all he had.