With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Crawley put the cask down. “Respect? Harrumph! Maybe when me betters start doin’ good deeds around this ’ere village, instead of treatin’ life like a lark, raisin’ ’ell, and goin’ around vandalizin’ our statues, then, aye, maybe I’ll respect ’em.”

  “Gareth’s done a good deed! He saved that coach from the highwaymen!” Chilcot cried, defensively.

  “An accident o’ fate. Probably so far in ’is cups ’e didn’t even know what ’e was doin’.”

  “I’m not listening to this.” Muttering an obscenity, Chilcot turned his horse and galloped away. Perry, Lord Brookhampton, shot Crawley a quelling look and sent his horse charging after him. Tom Audlett, Jon Cokeham, and Sir Hugh Rochester all followed, guffawing and mimicking Crawley’s humble, country accent. Only the Wild One remained behind, his horse blowing and foaming and fretting to be off with the others.

  Lord Gareth studied the old innkeeper for a long moment, frowning.

  “I say, Crawley about that statue—I am sorry. I’ll fix it for you when I return.” He gave a wan smile, and flipped the innkeeper a coin in appreciation for the information about the woman. Then he gave the big hunter its head and sent the animal thundering off after his friends.

  Crawley watched him go. Then, shaking his head, he hefted the cask of ale and carried it inside.

  The Beloved One going off to America and getting himself killed.

  The Defiant One trying to invent a flying machine.

  And now the Wild One, vandalizing statues and ruining innocent young women.

  The duke might be the devil’s kin, but Crawley didn’t envy His Grace The Wicked One one bit.

  Chapter Ten

  She had caught the stage in Ravenscombe.

  They made good time. The road, rutted and puddled, had taken them through spectacular chalk downs and pastures fenced by hedgerows, through humble villages and market towns and along the banks of a peaceful river that one of the other passengers said was the Thames. But heavy clouds foretold an early nightfall, and by the time they reached Hounslow, it had begun to rain.

  Juliet watched the passing scenery with a sort of dismal fortitude. The weather reflected her spirits, though her future did not seem as bright as the green fields outside the window, the purple aubrietia that spilled over garden walls, the gay red and yellow tulips, the thousands of tiny daisies and dandelions that carpeted the grassy pastures. England’s spring was well underway, but back in Boston, the flowers would only be just starting to bloom, as though unsure whether to emerge after a long and brutal winter.

  Boston.

  A town turned upside down, torn apart by war and strife. She gazed out the window, dry-eyed and unblinking. Not the best place for a young, unwed mother to bring up a baby and certainly, no longer a safe one. Especially when people thought you were a Loyalist.

  And your baby’s father was rumored to be one of the enemy.

  She let her body rock with the motion of the coach. Best to stay in England, conserve the money the duke had given her, and find work in London as a wet nurse or something.

  Rabbits sat up and watched from the verge as the coach hurtled past. Sheep grazed in distant pastures whose horizons vanished into gray mist and low, rushing clouds. A pheasant, calling in alarm, glided over a field of new, mint-green wheat. With a pang, Juliet thought of Andrew and his flying machine, of Nerissa defending him, of Gareth with his seductive, romantic eyes.

  And of the duke.

  From the moment Juliet had awoken that morning she knew that something must have happened overnight. She had heard the giggles of the chambermaids as they hurried past in the corridor outside. She had felt the tension in the air as she made her way down to breakfast. And she had seen it in His Grace’s face when she quietly took her seat at the table.

  He had not said a word to anyone as he sipped his black coffee and read his paper. His mood was such that even Nerissa and Andrew, exchanging swift, puzzled glances, had been uncharacteristically silent. Only the brief drumming of the duke’s beringed fingers on the tabletop had betrayed some inner agitation that he had not allowed his face to show. He had waited only long enough for Nerissa and Andrew to make their excuses; then he’d stood up, his gaze falling on Juliet. “Come with me to the library,” was all he’d said, and she had known then that the news was going to be bad.

  She had seen the veiled shadows around his eyes, the weariness in his bleak and forbidding face as he leaned against the mantel and raked a hand through his hair. She had quietly taken a seat in response to his invitation—and then sat there feeling everything crash inside her as he had calmly explained that it was not possible for him to make Charlotte his ward.

  He offered no explanations for his decision, nothing. Just said he could not do it.

  And Juliet had stared at him numbly, as stunned and empty as a ship suddenly becalmed, holed, beginning to sink. This is it, then. Pretty much what I had expected, I guess. Farewell, hopes. Farewell, Charles, and your wish for your daughter’s future. Farewell, de Montfortes, because I cannot stay here now.

  “You are welcome to remain at Blackheath for as long as you wish, of course,” the duke had murmured in that disaffected, benign way of his that said he really didn’t care one way or another what she did. But Juliet couldn’t remain. Not now. She had too much pride to throw herself on the charity of a man who did not want her little girl. She could not live in a house with him knowing how he felt, could not raise her daughter where she would grow up knowing she was not wanted by the man who fed and clothed her. Never. Far better to take her little baby far away, where her mother’s love would enfold her and protect her from such people as her unfeeling uncle.

  She had quickly packed her things. The duke had been waiting for her in the Great Hall, standing alone near the suits of medieval armor. The silence of the ages had echoed around him.

  “I will tell my siblings of your decision after you have gone,” he’d said simply. “Better not to make a scene, I think.”

  “But I should like to say good-bye—”

  “It is for the best.”

  His face had been as much an enigma as the man himself. Wordlessly, he had escorted her out to his own private carriage waiting out in the drive to take her into Ravenscombe. There he had courteously handed her up into the vehicle, passed Charlotte to her, and stood there studying her for a long moment while the footmen had lashed her trunk to the top and a groom stood at attention by the horses’ heads.

  And then he had pulled a fat pouch from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

  “Take this. It will keep you and your daughter safe, even if I cannot.”

  Money. A lot of money. Her pride demanded she hand it back. Her practical nature, that he had so praised, bade her to accept and be grateful for it.

  She had taken it. Thanked him for it. And seen, in his inscrutable black gaze, the brief gleam of something she could not identify before the door was shut, he bowing deeply, and the coach rolled down Blackheath’s long drive of crushed stone, taking her away forever.

  She had not looked back.

  Now, as the stagecoach thundered down the road, the gray Thames occasionally peeping from behind the newly clothed stands of English oak, hawthorn, sycamore and chestnut, Juliet told herself she had no reason to grieve. After all, she hadn’t really expected that one so high and mighty as the Duke of Blackheath would deign to acknowledge his own bastard child, let alone his brother’s. She had known all along that he wouldn’t help her, hadn’t she?

  But what about Lord Gareth? Why did he fail us, as well? I thought he was my friend.

  She blinked back stinging tears of betrayal.

  When the stage stopped at a coaching inn in Hounslow, she took a room for the night, deciding to continue on to London in the morning. Carrying Charlotte and her trunk, she stood at the counter and waited for the innkeeper to fetch a room key. The door stood open behind her. Rain fell steadily, plopping into puddles and making her feel all the more homesick an
d alone. Mixed scents of damp vegetation, horse manure, and hyacinth came in on the breeze, mingling with the stale aroma of beer and smoke, a scent that the rain seemed to bring out of the old stone walls of the coaching inn all the more.

  She carried Charlotte up to their room, fighting despair and vowing to make the best of things. Beyond her window and the slate roof that shone with rain, she could see the trees waving in the breeze, dark against a dark sky. English rain, English cobbles, English trees, English wind. How out of place she felt. How far away from home. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to have Charles here by her side.

  Or even Lord Gareth, for that matter.

  Pain sliced through her. Best not to think of the de Montfortes. Best to look forward, not backward. She washed the baby’s napkins and hung them up to dry beside the fire, trying to take her mind off things and telling herself she wasn’t as lonely as she suddenly felt. She put the duke’s pouch of money beneath the pillow, fed Charlotte, then picked at the supper the landlord kindly sent up to her. But she kept seeing Gareth’s charming smile, those romantic blue eyes. Kept seeing him lying in his bed, playing with Charlotte, laughing down at her as they raced home the day of that spring thunderstorm. A lump rose in her throat. She pretended that he meant nothing to her, absolutely nothing. She pretended that it really hadn’t hurt that he had not come out to stop her from leaving—as she had thought that he would. And outside the rain still fell, that tarnal, infernal rain, streaming down the window’s cracked glass and trickling down the slates, pulling at the awful lonesomeness until it became unbearable.

  She felt suddenly alone in a world that was much, much bigger than herself.

  A half-hour later, her dark hair hung in a plait down her back, her petticoats, gown, and cloak were draped over a chair, and she, clad only in her chemise, was sliding beneath the cold bed sheets, Charlotte beside her.

  Outside, the rain fell softly, and somewhere in the distance sheep bleated, a lonely sound in the vast English night. She felt every one of the three thousand miles that separated her from Boston, from home. Her eyes burned with sudden tears.

  I failed you, Charles. I failed you, and your brothers failed us. I’m sorry. God help me, I’m sorry I tried my best.

  The back of her throat ached. Her nose burned. Beyond the window, the rain came down and down and down.

  I will not cry.

  Tears wouldn’t win her a duke’s sympathy. Tears wouldn’t gain her a home, a family, or a future for her baby. Tears wouldn’t change her situation one bit. She set her jaw and determined to cry no more, to get on with her life and make the best of things. As her mama used to say, the only thing tears ever brought a person were wrinkles before their time. She would not give in to them.

  But a single one slipped down her cheek and melted into the pillow.

  Then another.

  Suddenly there was movement on the pillow beside her—Charlotte, reaching for her in the darkness, her little hand grasping. Swallowing hard, Juliet pushed her forefinger into the baby’s palm, feeling the tiny fingers close around hers with surprising strength.

  She choked back the sobs, reached deep inside herself and found strength. They were in this together, the two of them. She had failed Charles, but she would not fail her baby.

  On that thought, Juliet closed her eyes, and eventually, lulled by the rain falling steadily beyond the windows, found sleep.

  “Stop here—we must check every major coaching inn from Ravenscombe to London!”

  The Den of Debauchery members reined up their steaming horses outside yet another inn. Before Crusader could even come to a stop, Gareth was out of the saddle, leaping puddles and charging through the front door.

  He was back a moment later, frantic with disappointment and rising anxiety as he leaped back aboard the tired horse.

  “Not there,” he cried, yanking his hat down against the rain and setting his heels to the animal’s sides. “Damn it, we must find her!”

  At about the same time that Juliet Paige was settling down to sleep, and a soaked and streaming Gareth de Montforte was charging out of the Hare and Horses, the Duke of Blackheath was calmly finishing his evening meal.

  He was not alone. His closest friend, who had dropped by for an impromptu visit several hours after Lord Gareth had stormed off and set the house in an uproar, sat across the table from him. Sir Roger Foxcote, Esquire, had first met the duke in ’74, just after the barrister had been knighted for his brilliant defense of a prominent Whig MP accused of murdering his wife. Lady Chessington had been found in the bedroom of their London town house with a knife through her heart, and, as everyone knew she and her husband were estranged, a hangman’s noose had seemed quite imminent for poor old Sir Alan. No barrister in the land would defend him. He was a good friend of the king, and if Chessington went to the gallows, so would any royal favors for the man who failed to save him. But Foxcote, twenty-five years old at the time and eager to prove himself, had accepted the case. On the stand, he had dramatically exposed Lady Chessington’s lover as the murderer, and the news had swept the country. When the tumult had died down, the grateful king, beside himself with elation, had wasted no time in bestowing upon his “Clever Fox” a knighthood for his efforts.

  The nickname had stuck. And so had the reputation.

  Fox, the second son of an aristocratic Oxfordshire family, was not a diffident man. Nor was he particularly restrained, either in his opinions or his dress. He was handsome, something of a dandy. But those who knew him, or knew of him, were not deceived by appearances. Fox and his friend the Duke of Blackheath were two of the most dangerous men in England.

  Tonight he and Blackheath lingered over their port in the duke’s immense dining room while his private quartet struck up an after-dinner violin concerto. It was a glorious room, with ornate plaster columns, Italian art, and scenes of Bacchus and the gods painted on the high, friezed ceiling. Fox liked this room well, but not because of its rich ambience; he was in love with one of the portraits just over the doorway and enjoyed looking at the beauty’s mischievous eyes as he ate. It didn’t matter that Lady Margaret Seaford had lived and died nearly two centuries past. Fox still liked to look at her.

  And he was looking now as the footmen cleared away the remains of their meal. Pity that only he and Lucien had been there to dine on the roast pheasant stuffed with currants and apricots and finished in red wine. It had been exquisite. Divine. But Gareth was gone, and Andrew and Nerissa, who weren’t speaking to His Grace, had taken their meals in their rooms.

  Nothing out of the ordinary at Blackheath Castle.

  “I say, Lucien, this whole situation is most complicated,” Fox mused, selecting a wedge of Stilton from the cheese plate the footman offered and studying it absently before popping it into his mouth. “You allowed the girl to stay just long enough to ensure that Gareth would become enchanted with her—then, when he annoyed you, as he inevitably would, you sent her away. How very cruel, my friend! To use the poor girl to punish your brother! But no. That is not like you to be so heartless. Thus, I can only conclude that you are up to something, though what it could be, I have yet to fathom.” He shot Lucien a sideways glance. “Are you certain she’s the one Charles was so smitten with?”

  Lucien was sitting back, smiling and idly watching the musicians. “Dead certain.”

  “And the child?”

  “The spitting image of her father.”

  “And yet you sent them away.” Fox shook his head. “What were you thinking of?”

  The duke turned his head, raising his brows in feigned surprise. “My dear Roger. You know me better than that. Do you think I would actually banish them?”

  “’Tis what your sister told me when I arrived.”

  “Ah, but ’tis what I want my sister to believe,” he countered, smoothly. “And my two brothers—especially, Gareth.” He sipped his port, then swirled the liquid in the glass, studying it reflectively. “Besides, Roger, if you must know, I did not send the girl away
—I merely made her feel so awkward that she had no desire to remain.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “But of course. She made the decision to leave, which means she maintains both her pride and a small modicum of respect, if not liking for me—which I may find useful at a future date. Gareth thinks I sent her away, which means he is perfectly furious with me. The result? She leaves, and he chases after her, which is exactly what I wanted him to do.” He chuckled. “Oh, to be a fly on the wall when he finds her and the two of them discover my hand in all this.”

  “Lucien, your eyes are gleaming with that cunning amusement that tells me you’re up to something especially Machiavellian.”

  “Is that so? Then I fear I must work harder at concealing the obvious.”

  Fox gave him a shrewd look. “This is most confusing, as I’m sure you intend it to be. You know the child is Charles’s and yet you will not acknowledge her and this after Charles expressly asked you to make her your ward?”

  “Really, Roger. There is no need to make the child my ward when Gareth, in all likelihood, will adopt her as his daughter.”

  The barrister narrowed his eyes. “You have some superior, ulterior motive that evades us mere mortals.”

  “But of course,” Lucien murmured yet again, lifting his glass and idly sipping its dark liquid.

  “And perhaps you can explain it to this mere mortal?”

  “My dear Fox. It is quite simple, really. Drastic problems call for drastic solutions. By sending the girl away, I have set in motion my plan for Gareth’s salvation. If things go as I expect, he will stay so furious with me that he will not only charge headlong to her rescue—but headlong into marriage with her.”

  “Bloody hell! Lucien, the girl’s completely ill-suited for him!”

  “On the contrary. I have observed them together, Fox. They complement each other perfectly. As for the girl, what she lacks in wealth and social standing she more than makes up for in courage, resolve, common sense, and maturity. Gareth, whether he knows it or not, needs someone just like her. It is my hope that she will—shall I say—reform him.”