Love Regency Style

by Samantha Holt

Too many dark years had passed under this cloud. Would the hunted feeling Ryan MacGregor experienced ever fade from the clan? Perhaps it would have been better if Helena hadn’t saved Ryan that fateful day so long ago. But Ryan had lived, and his clan thrived, not by the sword, but by the timeless power of gold. Aye, the Ashlund name Helena gave Ryan saved them. Yet, Ryan MacGregor’s soul demanded recompense.

  How could Ryan rest while his people still perished?

  Marcus removed his hand from the sword and faced his father. “It’s time the MacGregors brought down the Campbell dogs.”

  Feminine laughter spilled from the kitchen into the great hall during the evening meal. Marcus sighed with contentment. Light from sconces flickered like a great, filmy curtain across the room. Two serving girls carrying trays of food stepped from the kitchen, and the men, who blocked the doorway, parted. The sense of contentment came as an almost unconscious realization. He had missed sharing the evening meal with his clansmen. Marcus leaned forward, arms crossed in front of him on the table, and returned his attention to the conversation with Cameron and Daniel.

  “We will be ready at first light, laird,” Daniel said.

  “The Campbells will not be expecting trouble,” Cameron put in.

  “If word has reached them that I’ve returned, they may be,” Marcus said.

  Cameron grunted. “Lot of good it will do.”

  The feminine voice Marcus had been waiting for filtered out from within the kitchen. “Easy now, Andrea,” Elise said.

  The conversation between his father and Daniel faded as Marcus watched for her amongst the men who crowded between the door and table. The thought of seeing her beautiful body heated his blood. Elise stepped from the kitchen, balancing a plate of salmon. She passed the table’s end where he sat and carefully picked her way through the men until reaching the middle of the table. She set the oval platter between the chicken and mutton.

  “Beth, place the carrots to the left. Andrea—” She took the plate of potatoes from the girl, then set it to the right and turned toward the kitchen.

  “Elise,” one of the young warriors called, “come, talk with us, lass.”

  Her mouth quirked. “If I play with you, who will finish dinner?”

  The man’s hearty chuckle gave evidence she hadn’t fooled him, and he approached with friends in tow.

  Cameron stood. “Elise,” he called over the men’s heads, “come here.”

  She turned. When her gaze met Cameron’s, warmth filled her eyes. She dried her hands on her apron and headed in his direction.

  “Go on, lads,” Cameron said to the men who teased her. “You have better things to do than dally with the lassies.”

  When she came within arm’s reach, he gripped her shoulders. “Meet my son. He’s returned today.” He turned her.

  Her gaze met Marcus’s. Her smile faltered but quickly transformed into polite civility. “We’ve met.”

  “Oh?” Cameron replied, all innocence.

  “Yes. He came by when Tavis, Bonnie, and I were on our way home this afternoon.”

  “Ahh,” Cameron said, then turned and gave the man beside him an energetic greeting.

  Elise looked again at Marcus and motioned toward the kitchen. “I have work to do.”

  “Aye,” he said. The memory of her breasts pressed against his chest caused him to harden.

  She backed up a few steps, then turned and ran headlong into the man behind her. He reached to steady her. A flush colored her cheeks and Marcus bit back a laugh when she dodged the warrior. Marcus leaned forward, catching one last look at her backside before she disappeared through the kitchen door.

  About the Author

  Award winning author Tarah Scott cut her teeth on authors such as Georgette Heyer, Zane Grey, and Amanda Quick. Her favorite book is a Tale of Two Cities, with Gone With the Wind as a close second. She writes modern classical romance, and paranormal and romantic suspense. Tarah grew up in Texas and currently resides in Westchester County, New York with her daughter.

  Website:

  http://www.tarahscott.com

  Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/TarahScottsRomanceNovels

  Twitter:

  @TarahScott

  Blog:

  http://tarahscott.tarahscott.com/

  Also by Tarah Scott:

  Highland Lords Series

  My Highland Love

  My Highland Lord

  Lord Keeper

  A Knight of Passion

  The Pendulum: Legacy of the Celtic Brooch

  When a Rose Blooms

  Labyrinth

  An Improper Wife

  Hawk and the Cougar

  Double Bang!

  Born Into Fire

  COMING SOON

  Death Comes for a Knight

  My Highland Chief

  A MacLean Highlander Novel

  The Highlander’s Courtesan

  Award Winning Titles:

  Lord Keeper

  Golden Rose Best Historical of 2011

  First place in the 2004 RWA CoLoNY Happy Endings contest

  Third place in the Greater Seattle Chapter RWA’s 2003 Emerald City

  My Highland Love

  Indie Romance Convention Best Readers Choice Awards 2013

  As T.C. Archer

  Chain Reaction: Phenom League

  Full Throttle

  Sasha’s Calling

  Trouble at the Hotel Baba Ghanoush

  For His Eyes Only

  Kirsoval Scourge Series

  Winter in Paradise

  Yeoman’s Curse

  COMING SOON

  In the Company of Kate

  Behind Enemy Lines: Phenom League

  LADY STAR

  by Claudy Conn

  Copyright Page

  http://www.claudyconn.com

  Copyright © 2014 by Claudy Conn at Smashwords

  Edited by: Kathryn Riehl

  Cover Artist: Kendra Egert

  All rights reserved

  Published in the United States of America

  January 2014

  Names, characters, and events depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Excerpt from Journey

  Copyright© 2014 by Claudy Conn

  Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Chapter One

  ON THE SEACOAST road to Rye, in the midst of a summer’s hazy day, stood Sir Edward Danton. His uncovered head of silver tinged ginger colored hair blew around his lean and handsome face. His lightweight, neatly tailored and soberly fitted blue coat was in some disarray with one sleeve torn and a lapel badly smeared with grime.

  His attention was on the rise and fall of the breakers and his uncovered hands were clasped tightly at his back.

  Behind him, in a deep and narrow ditch, one could see the sad semblance of his hired coach. One of the two horses that had pulled it into its present predicament stood grazing and hobbled not far off. The driver had ridden the other coach horse into town to seek help.

  If this situation was not enough to trouble a man of Sir Edward’s stamp, the ordeal he had just been through certainly was. His life had just been thrown into chaos.

  The morning had started in a thrillingly delicious manner. He had abducted the lady of his choice and was set on marrying her willy-nilly. He had truly believed that she loved him and wanted to be swept off her feet.

  How could he have been such a fool? She didn’t want him. She didn’t want to be swept off her feet by him. This had not been driven home until it was
too late.

  His day had come dramatically to a halt with his coach in a ditch and his lady love in the arms of another.

  He was bruised of heart, mind and body. He was, for the first time in his adult life, left confused, dazed and insecure.

  He had lost her to nothing less than a duke—Lord Wildfire himself. There was some solace in that, but the loss of Lady Babs was deeply felt all the same. He had been enchanted with Lady Babs. He found her delightful of mind and character. He also found her desirable and thought she actually wanted him, but was simply playing a game. That wasn’t the case. Why had he not realized that? His ego? Had he become so shallow? Had he?

  His pride had taken a throttling and his heart had taken a beating. He had now to take a long hard look at himself and what he saw, he found he no longer liked. It came home to him that he had known she wasn’t really enamored with him. He hadn’t cared. He had never liked losing.

  What sort of man had he become? Was he so spoiled that he only looked to his own needs? The time was now to sit back and take a cold, detached look at who he was and do something about it, because somewhere along the way, he had lost the man he had been and had become a stranger to himself. It was no wonder Lady Babs had rejected him so roundly.

  To be sure, he felt ill used. Had Lady Babs not teased him—led him a playful dance while she flirted outrageously with him? Yes, she had, but she was young and spreading her wings, testing herself. He should have seen that.

  Indeed, he had been taken with her lively antics, but the question remained—had he been truly in love. How could he have been in love and not seen that she loved another? How could he have been in love and not really taken her needs and wants into consideration?

  Had he decided to abduct her because in his heart he knew that was the only way he could make her his own? Perhaps? Ah, but had he sunk that low? Yes, the answer was a slap in the face—yes! He had to repair the damage he had done to himself.

  What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking—that was the trouble. He believed, or thought he believed that given her impetuous nature, she would enjoy being swept off her feet and fall instantly in love with him. What a complete fool he had been.

  Before she left with the duke she had told him that he was not in love with her.

  Was she correct? Time, only time would tell. What was that thing philosophers always went on about? Ah yes, time washes love’s wounds clean. He sighed and stared at the sea.

  The breakers crashed, flinging pebbles on the sand and he paced a bit with some of his frenzy returning to haunt him. What had he done? He closed his eyes as he thought of how he had even threatened blackmail. He had suspected at that point that she was no longer simply teasing him, dallying with him. He had realized hadn’t he, that she did not, definitely did not want him and yet…he abducted her all the same. Why? Did he think to change her mind with such cavalier behavior?

  What he needed was to take a good hard look at the man he was becoming and repair the damage before it was too late.

  First, he had to get away. He would travel on to Rye, send for his things then perhaps visit friends in Cornwall. It was a long trip and a goodly time away from the ton’s gossip and frivolous society—that was what he needed.

  Another environment for the summer.

  He turned at the sound of horses and the grinding of wheels signifying a carriage at his back and observed that the driver of his coach had returned with a smithy’s wagon and several husky men.

  Ah, help had arrived.

  He would send the driver back to Brighton to collect his valet, groom, and his own horses. That’s right. That was the ticket and then he would be off and away. He would forget Lady Babs, his humiliation and the fact that he was no longer the man he thought he was. He would put this horrible business behind him and become the man he should be.

  *

  Star Berkley’s hair was the color and texture of corn-silk. She wore it in a style peculiar to herself and one that was not at all fashionable. She knew that her mother had named her Star, had called her even in her infancy their own special Lady Star. She sighed as her mother’s memory tried to take hold. They had been without her so long.

  She ran her hand through her hair as she had recently had it cropped in short layered waves, a style first presented to the haute ton by Lady Caroline. This style had been adopted by a few daring ladies of the ton, but most of the gentlemen still preferred a woman to wear her hair long.

  Star’s brother had encouraged her to continue to keep it cropped and she found that because it suited her to do so, she would not give a fig for what the gentlemen of the haute ton thought.

  Star’s face was piquant and heart shaped, giving her a naughty pixie-like countenance. Her nose was small and pert, her lips, full and rosy. However, as she turned from the mirror in her brother’s room, she sighed heavily. She did not count herself a beauty, or notice the fact that she turned male heads wherever she went. She thought, in fact, that she might never meet her true love and told her brother, “I don’t know, Vern. Perhaps I was not meant to fall in love and marry.”

  He laughed and looked her over. “Well, Star, perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you should grow your hair and wind it all around your head in curls. Indeed, you would be stunning with such a hairdo.”

  She plopped on the bed beside him. “I am afraid that you see me out of brotherly eyes…I am far from stunning.” She peeped at him naughtily, “Why…I look like you.”

  Her dark slightly almond shaped eyes, framed with dark thick lashes, laughed into the same dark eyes. He chuckled heartily, but that chuckle gave way to a fit of coughing.

  Her spontaneous smile and infectious laughter vanished as she bent toward him on the bed and touched his shoulder. “Oh dear, Vern…you should be better by now.”

  Her brother’s coughing subsided and he took a long gulp of air, looked her over with deep affection and said, “Star…and you shouldn’t be here looking after me. You should be in London…at routs and balls and…”

  “Hush,” she admonished. “You take on too much to yourself. Why…that is neither here nor there. What do I care for such frivolities?”

  “You can’t fool me, Star, besides it is what I promised Papa I would do for you.” He pulled a face. “I have made a mess of it.”

  “Vern, you are only two years older than I. Papa was unable to pull us out of the mess he not you created. I loved him so dearly, but he shouldn’t have made you promise to do take on his burden. Matters were dire long before you inherited.”

  He frowned and turned away from her to stare out the window. Star was worried. She got up and took the sponge out of the bowl of warm water touched with rose water she had brought up and began wiping his head and neck with its soothing application.

  Suddenly he took hold of her hand and said, “Star.”

  “Yes, Vern, what is it, darling…do not get so worked up,” she cooed in an effort to calm him down. Faith! He suddenly looked frantic.

  She wished Doctor Hayes would arrive. Vern should be much better by now, but he wasn’t. She had sent Jeffries who she couldn’t really spare from the stables to fetch the doctor to the Grange more than an hour ago.

  “Star…” her brother cried out again. “Damn, but it is hot…so hot in here.”

  “Hush, Vern…just lay still.” She sponged his face again.

  All at once, he startled her by sitting straight up in his bed. He grabbed her wrists. His eyes were black pools boring into hers. Star was surprised by the intensity of his grip.

  He said, his voice sounding frenzied, “Star, it has just come to me—now when I realized how much we look alike. Damnation! Why didn’t I think of it sooner?”

  “Vern…what are you talking about?” Star frowned with concern and wondered if the fever had made him delirious.

  He moved his hold from her wrists and clutched her hands, “Star, sis…it will be a simple thing. You are shorter, yes, but perhaps that won’t be noticed,” he squeezed her f
ingers and she objected.

  “Ouch, stop, Vern.” What was happening to her brother? He was ill yes, but sick of heart and he looked desperate.

  “Oh, sorry, sis, but you must listen to me,” His voice was hoarse and he swallowed hard. “There isn’t time. I am out of time…out of time.”

  “You aren’t making any sense, Vern. What are you talking about?” Something however, had gripped at her heart. Instinctively she knew something awful was coming. Her spine felt a horrible tingle shoot through it. She had known something was off with Vern and had been over the last month.

  She had been unwilling and was unwilling still, to acknowledge what she knew in her soul to be a fact. Her brother had been associating with the wrong people. She was sure of it. She withdrew her fingers from his hands and stroked his damp cheek, “Just hush, the doctor will be here soon.”

  “Listen to me Star, my life depends on it. You see, I already accepted payment…don’t have it to return. You are my only hope.” His dark eyes pleaded before he ran a hand through his mass of corn-silk hair. “I promised father, I would look out for you, repair the estate…but nothing we did…the breeding fees only helped a little…and I was desperate. Star…”

  “Stop it. None of it is your fault and father should not have put such a burden on you.”

  “It is my fault. I lowered myself—misused my position and now my life is in jeopardy as well.”

  “What are you saying? I simply don’t understand,” she scanned his face as she tried to make sense of it. She knew of course, they were in debt. She knew they were in danger of losing everything. Was that what he was referring to, or was it something else? In fact, as of late, his comings and goings before he fell ill, had her worried. She had supposed he had fallen in with a heady group of men…perhaps gamblers like her father.

  “Star, I am in trouble. If you don’t do this for me, they will put a hole in me. This is more than an issue of money. They will think I betrayed them. Star, I would never ask this of you, but I don’t have a choice. I have to get the information to them.”

  She went very still as she looked at him. He was her elder by two years. He was her dear, most treasured brother, but he was more a child at twenty-two than she was at twenty. Their father had been dead for just under a year. Their ancestral estate was in ruins not because of Vern but because of her father’s extravagances and his gaming habits.