With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

“You’re allowing me to throw the lever?” Roddy threw up his fists like a champion. “Yes, my lady. I can do it. You can depend on Roderick Toombs for certain.”

  “That’s exactly what I like to hear.” If only Mr. Walpole exhibited half as much confidence, the roiling in the pit of Georgiana’s stomach might ease. “How long has the coal been burning?”

  Roddy held up the pocket watch she’d given him. “A good twenty minutes.”

  “And the holding tank is full?”

  “Yes, my lady. Double checked it myself.”

  “And there’s more coal at the ready?”

  “Aye.”

  “Very well. Remember to keep the fire hot while Mr. Walpole is talking.”

  “I will. And I’ve piled the wood for the demonstration. It is ready to set alight when you give the word.”

  “Excellent.” With his vigor, the boy certainly had all the qualifications to succeed when he reached his majority. “Tell me, Roddy, can you read?”

  He puzzled. “Read?”

  “We shall discuss such a virtuous and important skill after we return to the town house.”

  She smoothed her hands down her black mourning gown. Daniel had been gone for over a year now, but she still wore black from head to toe. She tugged her poke bonnet lower on her brow to ensure her hair was secured beneath. After adjusting the spectacles she’d purchased to provide a modicum of disguise at the request of her father, Georgiana gave the actor a nod. “A good opening might be, ‘ladies and gentlemen, gather round—’”

  “Not to worry, Your Ladyship. That’s the easy part.”

  To Georgiana’s surprise, Palmer Walpole became a different man onstage. To the tune of the engine’s gentle pops and rumbles, he introduced the steam pumper as if he were an expert on the subject of fire engines and, as she whispered key attributes, he held forth with gusto. By the time a good-sized crowd had amassed, she gave Roddy the cue to start the wood fire for the demonstration.

  “We are looking for venture capital. Someone to partner with us in the manufacture of the Whiteside steam-powered fire pumps,” the actor repeated as she whispered the most critical information. “Fires will be snuffed before a building can be badly burned, saving lives, livestock and cherished family heirlooms. No town or estate should be without—”

  “That’s all well and good, but where does the water come from?” asked a man from the crowd. Wearing a beaver hat and an exquisitely cut tailcoat, the gentleman pushed through to the front of the dais and stood with his fists on his hips.

  Though the expression on his dark features was quite arresting, butterflies en masse swarmed through Georgiana’s stomach. The man had asked a very reasonable question and, by his commanding presence, he was completely engaged. Further, he looked like he was exactly the financier she needed. A real magnate—a man of money.

  Bless the stars. At long last, she stood on the precipice of realizing her dreams.

  Walpole’s jaw dropped. “Ah…there’s a reservoir?” he asked as if hadn’t a clue.

  “Yes, but the reservoir is only the beginning,” she shouted in a whisper while smiling at her potential partner. “The engine draws the water from a source, like a well or a pond.”

  The man stroked his fingers along his square jaw, turning a critical eye. “Is the woman speaking for you?”

  “Ah…er…noooo.”

  Georgiana’s pulse raced. Good heavens, an obviously wealthy gentleman was showing interest in her machine and the accursed actor decided now was a brilliant time to grow tongue-tied? She gave Roddy a nod to start the wood fire then, adjusting her spectacles, she moved forward and held forth about the various options for the water source.

  As she spoke, the magnate looked her from head to toe as if she’d descended from the moon. When she stopped to take a breath, he addressed Mr. Walpole. “What about the hose? Will it not burst under such pressure?”

  “Not at all.” Squaring her shoulders, Georgiana nudged the dumbstruck actor aside and continued, “Whiteside hoses are reinforced with copper-riveted seams. Moreover, they are coupled every fifty feet. With estimated pressures of one hundred pounds per square inch, pumping a distance of, say, seventy-five feet is entirely possible.”

  “Seventy-five feet? Now I know you’re telling tall tales.” With a snort, the man batted his silver-tipped cane through the air and turned on his heel.

  Georgiana tugged Mr. Walpole forward while the crowd began to dissipate. “We’re losing them,” she growled through clenched teeth.

  “Do you know who that is?” the actor asked as if the performance had come to an end.

  “This is no time to stand about discussing who is who,” she snapped, thrusting her finger at the steam pumper. “Now, Roddy!”

  The boy threw the lever and ran around the front to man the hose.

  Except he wasn’t fast enough.

  Under extreme pressure, the line came to life, whipping through the air like a serpent and sousing everyone within fifty feet. Men and women shrieked and ran while Roddy grappled with the hose, taking a whack to the face in the process.

  When the lad at last managed to wrap his fingers around the nozzle, he leveled the spray straight ahead.

  Lord, no.

  Within the blink of an eye, Georgiana’s potential investor was completely doused. Saturated. Deluged. Extinguished. The gentleman’s hat flew off as the blast of water struck him directly in the center of his well-cut, beautifully tailored tailcoat. How he managed to remain standing was only a testament to his robust stature.

  When all two hundred gallons finally emptied from the tank, the man whipped around with fury in his eyes. A bit of steam rose from his shoulders while he homed his gaze on Georgiana and shook his walking stick as if he might be about to strike her with it. “Women have no business tinkering with machines, especially something as powerful as a steam engine. Take this monstrosity and throw it in the Thames!”

  Could a person wilt? Perhaps not, but she might crawl under the dais and hide for the rest of her days. Georgiana didn’t have the resources to travel about the country in hopes of finding financial backing. She’d only come to London because her parents were in residence for the Season and, though the Baron and Baroness of Derby hadn’t approved of her marriage to a poor inventor, they had agreed to allow her to store the steam pumper behind their mews while she organized demonstrations in London—and that arrangement had taken all but an act of God. Papa wanted nothing to do with steam power—or anything that had interested Daniel Whiteside.

  Having managed to remain completely dry, Mr. Walpole stared at her as if in shock. “Do you know who you just drowned with two hundred gallons of water at one hundred pounds per square inch?”

  She splayed her fingers. How would the man’s throat look with her hands wrapped around it? “Now you choose to commit such an important tidbit of information to memory?”

  “That…” He pulled out a snuff box. “Was the bloody Duke of Evesham.”

  A duke?

  Perhaps wilting wasn’t enough. Perhaps Georgiana ought to throw herself in the Thames along with her monstrosity. Of course, the well-dressed, very handsome dandy was a duke. Prickly heat spread across her skin. Why couldn’t he be a visitor from the Continent or a sea captain scheduled to set sail for the next decade?

  “Aye.” Mr. Walpole sneezed. “And he’s the wealthiest, most notorious rake in London. I reckon every woman within fifteen miles of Town would recognize him. He’s in the papers often enough. I’m surprised you didn’t.”

  “Perhaps that’s because I’ve been living in a workshop in Thetford for the past six years. I wouldn’t recognize the Prince Regent if he kissed my hand.”

  Georgiana wandered down the steps while tears stung the back of her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” Roddy said, a bruise rising on his forehead. “I had no notion the hose would come alive like that.”

  “Oh dear,” she exclaimed. “You have a knot on your head. Are you in pain?”
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  “It doesn’t hurt. I just feel as if I’ve let you down.”

  She mussed his sandy hair. “’Tis no one’s fault but my own. We needed more people—one to run the engine and one to man the hose…and next time, Mr. Walpole had best have his lines memorized.”

  That was if the Duke of Evesham didn’t take measures to ban her from giving demonstrations within a hundred miles of London.

  Soaking wet and furious, Fletcher Markham hired a sedan chair to take him home. Normally, he’d enjoy a stroll across the old London Bridge on a fine afternoon such as this, but not today. Aside from being a tad under the weather from a late night at Whites’ back-room card table, the incident with the damned steam pumper had all but burst his spleen.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d seen complete nincompoops try to bring something untried and utterly useless to market. Did they not know how important developing a functional steam-powered fire engine was? Dammit all, with the force of the water blasting from the hose, those idiots could have seriously injured someone. What if a child had been in the line of fire?

  And that puritan woman stepping in front of the inventor and speaking as if she’d built the damned thing herself was bloody absurd. Obviously, she’d spent hours memorizing facts and figures provided by her stage-frightened accomplice.

  He groaned. Fletcher was most likely as interested in fire engines as anyone in England. He had cause to be. At the tender age of sixteen, he’d been away at Eton when he’d lost his mother in a fire. God rest the soul of the only person on earth who’d ever given a damn about him.

  After paying the two footmen for the lift, the door to his town house swung open. “Your Grace, I didn’t expect to see you return this early,” said Smith, holding out his palm to take Fletcher’s hat and gloves. “My word, are you wet?”

  “Soaked to the bloody bone,” he growled, marching through the entry. “Some henpecked steam engine inventor with no clue about dousing fires gave an abysmally amateur demonstration at the Southwark Fair.”

  “’Tis a shame,” said the butler. “It would ease your mind a great deal to have such equipment at Colworth.”

  Fletcher shuddered. Though he might convince himself the involuntary action was due to being wet and cold, even after four years of dukedom, the name of the immense Tudor mansion still sounded like the foreboding castle where his father resided—the sprawling thirty-five thousand acre country estate upon which Fletcher had only gazed from a distance until the former duke was on his deathbed. Realizing his only son was still a bastard, the man who had ignored Fletcher for six and twenty years called for his solicitors at the last minute and had claimed his son as his rightful heir. Not only that, dear Papa’s solicitors had falsified church documents claiming that the duke had married Fletcher’s mother in secret and had not wed the woman who was suddenly referred to as his stepmother until after Mama’s death. The records were all but written in stone and not even Fletcher could do a damned thing to retract them.

  Father’s dying words? “I’m sorry.” But they were not spoken to Fletcher to provide an apology for his years of neglect, nor were they for his mother who’d died alone in a one-room cottage. The apology was to his weeping, childless duchess who was so heartbroken, she’d also passed away not long after.

  Fletcher headed for the stairs. “Please tell the valet to draw a bath.”

  “Straightaway.” Smith bowed. “Will you be going out as planned this evening?”

  “Unless you have found a harem of women to occupy the second floor, yes.”

  The butler chuckled. “I shall never grow tired of your humor, Your Grace. I could predict your father’s every word but, if you don’t mind my saying, your clever wit surprises me each and every day.”

  The irony? Fletcher wasn’t joking. He might have a title, but he’d been born a bastard and would always remain a bastard.

  Buy The Duke’s Untamed Desire

  About the Author

  A descendant of an ancient Lowland clan, Amy adores Scotland. Though she now resides in southwest Utah, she received her MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Winning multiple writing awards, she found her niche in the genre of Scottish historical romance. Amy loves hearing from her readers and can be contacted through her website at www.amyjarecki.com. Visit her web site & sign up to receive newsletter updates of new releases and giveaways exclusive to newsletter followers.

  Secrets of Midnight

  Miriam Minger

  Chapter One

  England, 1813, Near Porthleven, Cornwall

  “Did you see the groom, Corie? His face all red and sweaty and his bulbous belly out to here? Lord, the way he was leering at Druella all through the ceremony with those little pig eyes! If I saw such a sight walking toward me on my wedding night, I’d fling myself out the nearest window!”

  Fling herself Lindsay Somerset did, quite dramatically, Corisande Easton thought as her best friend tumbled to the ground in a swirl of white petticoat and silky blond hair.

  Corisande’s smile widened as Lindsay lay still as a corpse with her slender arms outflung and her pink-stockinged legs askew in a most unladylike fashion. Only the slight rise and fall of her breasts betrayed her. Imagining what that awful termagant Lady Somerset would say if she saw her stepdaughter behaving so wantonly, Corisande shoved away the unpleasant thought and focused again upon Lindsay as the young woman began to recite in somber dirgelike tones.

  “Here lies dead a virgin bride, poor girl, wed to a man who resembled a pig. Perhaps if she’d been allowed to choose her own husband, she wouldn’t be dead, she’d be dancing a jig!”

  Corisande’s burst of laughter was joined by Lindsay’s as she sat upright and brushed damp bits of grass from her gray merino walking dress.

  It was good to hear Corisande laugh. Lately she’d been too serious by far, so many cares weighing upon her mind. So many things to do. So many local wrongs to be righted. Lindsay nonetheless was determined that their last afternoon together would be as lighthearted as possible, Corisande’s responsibilities forgotten if only for a short time.

  For that matter her own worries as well, Lindsay thought as she glanced out across Mount’s Bay, the water’s surface blinding in the brilliant sunshine that had finally broken through the fog.

  No, she simply wouldn’t consider the possibility that her stepmother might change her mind about allowing Lindsay to finally have her London Season. Her father’s second wife, Olympia, had been nothing short of despotic these past eight years since her marriage to Sir Randolph Somerset, but she couldn’t, couldn’t be that cruel. If Lindsay was forced to wait another year, she’d be twenty-one and well on her way to spinsterhood!

  “A brilliant performance, Miss Somerset, and an even more apt observation about the groom,” Corisande’s voice broke into her thoughts, her friend pushing a stray lock of auburn hair behind her ear as she grinned down at Lindsay. “He did have the look of a prize Truro pig, and with an unpleasant nature to boot, but you have to admit Druella Simmons seemed quite pleased with herself, no matter that the marriage was arranged.”

  Lindsay met Corisande’s smiling dark brown eyes, which were a color that Corisande matter-of-factly considered plain as Cornish mud but that Lindsay always assured her was quite lovely, especially with those amazing green tints. “Yes, I suppose Druella would be pleased to have captured a wealthy squire. She always claimed she would make the richest catch in the parish.”

  “No, I believe she said something about the whole county.” With the gift of a mimic, Corisande affected a lofty nasal tone that sounded just like Druella, a local girl who had long lorded it over other young women of her acquaintance just because her father was a baron, albeit an impoverished one. “And then, my dearest, dearest darlings, you must all come to my beautiful house in Devonshire for tea.”

  Lindsay gave a loud hoot of laughter. Yet her grin became a grimace as she shuddered, remembering how the groom had lasciviously pressed his girth to Druella’s slight frame
after Corisande’s father, the Reverend Joseph Easton, had pronounced them man and wife at the small church wedding yesterday morning. The disgusting man had practically been drooling onto his boots!

  “Druella’s won herself a marvelous big house and hundreds of pounds a year, truly. Each night at bedtime she’ll likely wish she’d settled for less coin when that great white whale of a husband flops under the covers with her and demands his due!”

  Lindsay caught Corisande’s outstretched hand, her dearest friend’s own grimace melting into mirth as she pulled Lindsay to her feet. Arm in arm, they set out once more along the cliff, the strong late March breeze, laced with salt spray and smelling of the sea and the lush promise of spring, whipping their hair around their faces.

  Corisande was never shocked by anything Lindsay said or did, and Lindsay loved her for it. There had been so many times she had escaped the oppressiveness of her beleaguered father’s manor for the comforting chaos of the Easton parsonage where she could be herself without any fear of rebuke. Just as she had fled this morning, climbing out a dining-room window when she heard Olympia trumpeting her name from an upstairs bedroom.

  Heaven help her, she’d be damned if she spent her last day at home being lectured on the proper decorum for a young lady about to embark on her first Season! Not when her father’s elder sister, Winifred, Lady Penney, had no doubt been directed to torment her with the same rules and regulations once she reached London.

  Sobering at the thought, Lindsay sighed as she glanced at Corisande. “I know I’ve nearly hounded you to death, but it’s not too late for you to come with me. We’d have the most marvelous time! I’ll just tell Olympia”—even saying the woman’s name was distasteful to Lindsay, who had never once been able to call her father’s wife “Mother”—“well, I’ll tell her that you could be another chaperone for me in case Aunt Winnie grows weary of all the balls—”