Ripe for Pleasure

by Isobel Carr

  Leo nodded, well acquainted with the sensation of knowing you had the answer but being unable to quite get hold of it. “It will come to you later.”

  She laughed and nodded. “In the middle of the night.”

  “Or while riding, or in the bath.”

  “At whatever moment is most inconvenient. Yes, that’s how my mind works as well.” Viola shrugged. “No point torturing ourselves over it. Shall we go for one last ride before our friends and family descend upon us?”

  “You mean before we throw the foxes among the hens? By all means, let’s. Run up and change, and I’ll have the horses saddled.”

  Leo wandered slowly out to the stable block and stood throwing a stick for Pen while Meteor and Oleander were saddled. Viola came running down the path as the girths were being checked, skirts pinned under her elbow.

  Leo tossed her up into the saddle, letting his hands linger on her hip and legs as he helped settle her in. “You know, the idea of your friends, my friends, and my family sharing the same roof for even a single night makes me quake with horror and anticipation.”

  She smiled, eyes filled with glee. “Afraid our wedding breakfast will turn into a bacchanal?”

  “The breakfast? No.” He swung up onto Meteor and brought the grain-high horse under control. “The night previous…” He let the comment hang as he imagined his friends pursuing hers through the corridors of the house while his parents shut themselves in their room and died of laughter. It was just the sort of thing his mother would appreciate as a very good joke.

  “As long as there are no duels, and no one mistakes your sister for one of my friends—which surely isn’t possible, as your friends all know your sister, correct?—I think we should be fine.”

  “We’re exceptionally lucky that Augusta is breeding and not feeling up to the trip.”

  “Aren’t we though.” Viola tossed him a sly grin over her shoulder. “But I can’t help wishing we’d got to see your brother force her into the church.”

  “You are a monster. Do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been called worse, by you if memory serves.” She winked, and Oleander shot out of the stable yard, shoes ringing on stone like bells.

  The scent of orange blossoms filled Viola’s head as she stood before the altar. Only the first few pews were filled, Leo’s family in the fore, their friends forming a slightly raucous crew behind them.

  The spangled net shivered as she took a deep breath. She felt oddly overdressed in the gown the duchess had chosen for her. Like an impostor.

  Lord Leonidas kept a firm grip on her hand as they said their vows, as though he knew she might bolt. He held her gaze, his own sincere, both eyes heavy with intention.

  Whispers and giggles filtered through the haze that seemed to surround her. Her friends had arrived in force, making up for the fact that she had no family to support her, and they seemed to be enjoying the occasion immensely. There was a burst of laughter when the vicar had recited the part about declaring impediments that only died down when the duke cleared his throat loudly, and with clear implication of dire consequences were his warning to be ignored.

  Leo dipped his head slightly, a slight smile hitching up one side of his mouth, and she realized she was supposed to be responding. Her skin burned. The spangled net itched where it touched her skin. She pressed her foot down hard on the coin Lady Beau had slipped into her shoe for luck.

  “I, Viola Elizabeth Whedon, take thee, Leonidas Roibert Vaughn, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey.” Leo smirked as she hit obey, both eyes teasing her. She raised her brows and finished: “Till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.”

  The vicar nodded approvingly and continued with the ceremony, the words falling from his lips by rote. Another guffaw flickered through the crowd as Leo slipped the ring onto her finger and the words with my Body I thee worship passed his lips. And then they were kneeling, and the final prayer was being said over their heads.

  She was married. The bubble of panic that had been growing in her chest exploded. A deep breath did nothing to calm her nerves. Her vision wavered, going black for a moment, and she struggled to keep from fainting. If she had the vapors she’d never forgive herself. Leo squeezed her hand and helped her to her feet.

  Hope. That’s what marriage was about. Hope. Sps, spem, spe, sp. Her heart slowed, and she was finally able to catch her breath.

  Viola stopped dead in her tracks, causing Leo to do likewise. He pushed her back into motion, the hand at the small of her back propelling her forward. As they exited the church, his lips brushed her ear. “Is everything all right, Vi?”

  Viola nodded, allowing herself a grin of pure delight as her pulse sped for an entirely different reason. She squeezed his arm as their friends cheered them on. Leo handed her into the carriage, smiling, but with a bit of concern hovering about his eyes.

  He climbed in after her, his weight causing the pretty little open coach to rock like a skiff pushing off from shore. “Vi?”

  “I know where the treasure is.”

  His brows flew up. “Shall we leave our guests to their own devices and proceed directly to town?”

  Viola held her tongue firmly behind her teeth. The secret knowledge burned within her chest like a banked fire. “If I’m right, it’s been safely hidden for nearly forty years. It can wait a few more weeks, or until spring. It can wait however long you can wait.”

  “What? Not even a hint? You’re my wife. You just swore to love, cherish, and obey.”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “You’re really not going to tell me?”

  His look of feigned indignation set her laughing. His mouth quirked up, and he threw himself back on the squabs with an exaggerated sigh.

  “You couldn’t possibly have intended to hold me to obey.”

  “I suppose not.” He leaned close, rubbing his face in her hair, the tip of his nose pressed against the sensitive skin behind her ear. “It’s not your strong point, after all, but I’ll have cherish and love by all that’s holy.”

  EPILOGUE

  London, March 1784

  Leo ripped the vines off the statue and studied it closely. It certainly might have once been St. Jude. It was missing an arm, and its features had been worn away by time and rain and lichen, so it was impossible to tell really. It was just a vaguely human-shaped piece of stone, fluted with what might have been the drapery of robes.

  “I’d forgotten that the other name for St. Jude was Thaddeus.”

  “So had I,” Viola said from behind him. “But then it came to me in the church.”

  She was quivering with impatience, like a hound aching to be unleashed. She’d kept her secret all winter long, teasing him with it, clearly reveling in having solved the mystery. But she had dragged him out to the garden the moment they’d arrived in London.

  Leo laughed. “In the church? When you had nothing better to be thinking of?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “No, when the ceremony was over. Marriage is about hope, and it just came to me in a flash. ‘Hope’ on the inscription. The patron saint of the hopeless is St. Jude, and his other name is Thaddeus. The reason there were no letters from our mysterious Mr. Thaddeus is that he was entirely incapable of writing any.”

  “Being stone and encased in creeping vines,” Leo said.

  “Well, here we go. Say a little prayer to St. Jude as I heave him off his pedestal.”

  Contrary to his words, Leo lifted the statue carefully from its resting place and set it aside. If the treasure was here, St. Jude would become a revered icon in their home, regardless of what the Bible had to say about worshipping false idols. If this Thaddeus had done his job for all these years, he deserved a little pagan worship.

  Leo cleared away the remaining vines, and using a spanner from his coach,
lifted the platform and sent it sliding off into the dirt. It landed with a crash, crushing plants and gouging brick.

  “Well?” Viola pressed close, her hands clutching at his coat. The memory of the first time she’d done so surged through him. He’d known from the moment he’d seen her that he was doomed, but it was turning out to be a far more pleasant fate than he could have ever imagined.

  Leo stared down at the large chest that had been concealed inside the stone base. “I think St. Jude just became the patron saint of the Vaughns, at least of the junior branch.”

  “Lost causes, all of us?” Viola asked with a laugh.

  Leo wrapped one arm around her and dragged her forward for a kiss. “Happily lost, but more happily found.”

  “A fitting motto. We shall inscribe it in Latin over the door.” She wrapped her arms about his neck and smiled up at him.

  Leo tightened his grip on his wife, a fierce burst of love and longing and possessiveness burning its way through his veins. He had the only treasure that mattered right here in his arms.

  One of the Second Sons

  is after an heiress’s heart…

  Her brothers are after him.

  Please turn this page for

  a preview of

  RIPE FOR SCANDAL.

  It’s not as though this is the first time I’ve been abducted, you know.”

  “An old hand at it, are we?”

  Lady Boudicea Vaughn bit the inside of her cheek and studied her abductor for a moment. Mr. Nowlin was so cocksure, so confident that he would get away with abducting her and that her family would simply acquiesce to such a marriage—and that she would. It was baffling.

  “Yes. Two years ago, it was Mr. Granby. My brothers say perhaps they should have made me marry him. Only by the time they caught up with us, he wasn’t willing anymore.”

  Nowlin grinned at her. Deep dimples appeared on either side of his mouth. It seemed impossible that a man with dimples like those could be so treacherous or that a man so handsome should need to be.

  “Scared him off, did you?”

  Beau shook her head and batted her eyes. “Stabbed him. With a fork. The tines went all the way into the bone and stuck there. So much howling. So much blood. My brothers caught up with us because we were waiting for the surgeon.”

  “I guess you’ll be eating your meals with a spoon on this trip,” he said almost cheerfully.

  Beau sighed. He wasn’t listening. Having only a spoon wasn’t going to stop her. “And before that there was Mr. Martin. I was only seventeen.” She shook her head sadly. “He lives abroad now. Only one eye left. Father felt that was punishment enough.”

  Nowlin frowned, his dimples deserting him momentarily. Beau smiled wider and continued. “It’s quite amazing what happens when you press your thumb into a man’s eye socket with all your might.”

  “Well, well. You are a cold bitch, aren’t you?”

  Beau smiled and tilted her head, looking at him out of her lashes. “I am my mother’s daughter. The best outcome here—for you, that is—is that one of the men in my family catch up with us. Left to my own devices, I’m liable to do permanent damage.”

  “It would cause quite a fuss if you did. Exactly the kind of thing that a woman in your position should be trying to avoid.” His words were confident, but the tone was less so.

  “And you think blinding a man didn’t have that very distinct possibility? But not one whisper of either affair has ever reached the scandalmongers, has it?”

  The worried frown returned, marring his handsome face. He rapped on the roof, and the carriage slid to a stop. Beau leaned forward to press her point. “They might—might—only have sent you packing back to Ireland. But you had to go and abduct me in public.”

  Without a word, he jumped down and slammed the door shut behind him, the scraping sound of the lock enraging her further. “They’ll have to kill you. You know that?” she yelled after him, giving the door a good kick for emphasis.

  Beau crossed her arms and hugged herself. Nowlin might not be ready to let her go yet, but if he failed to see reason, she’d see him cowering and bloody just like the others.

  She was ruined already, and they both knew it. What he didn’t know was that her father would let her choose ruin and a quiet life abroad, and she wouldn’t hesitate to embrace the option. Paris, Vienna, Florence… perhaps even St. Petersburg or Tangiers.

  Hours later, the coach suddenly shimmied beneath her, shaking Beau out of a hazy nap. It bounced horribly, then sagged backward as it came to a stop.

  A chorus of cursing swirled about her. Beau smiled to herself. There was something wrong with one of the wheels. That would slow them down. And if they had to stop for a repair, Nowlin would have to let her out of the carriage. She straightened her clothing and finger-combed her hair, slipping the pins back into place.

  Eventually, the coach resumed its progress, but with a rolling jolt and a scraping sound that spoke all too clearly of increasing damage. After a painfully slow hour, they entered a small village, little more than an inn, a few shops, and a smattering of houses along an otherwise desolate stretch of road.

  The minutes stretched. Beau began to fear that Nowlin intended to keep her locked in the coach while the wheel was seen to, but eventually the door opened and he appeared to lead her inside.

  “Don’t bother telling tales to these kind people,” Nowlin announced loudly as he dragged her through the taproom. “I’ve told them all about your little escapade.”

  Beau glared at him. Martin had done that, too: poisoned the well so no one would help her. Nowlin pushed her into a private parlor and kicked the door shut behind them.

  “Wives who run off and abandon their husbands and bairns don’t sit too well with the common folk.”

  “And I suppose you’re the forgiving husband come to fetch me home?”

  “And I always will. Don’t believe anything different for a moment, my love. Have a seat and eat something.” He gestured to the table, where a cold piece of steak and kidney pie sat waiting beside a tankard with a frothy head that promised ale. There were no utensils on the table.

  “I see you remembered about the fork.”

  Nowlin laughed, his misleading dimples peeping out. “No forks, no knives, no candlesticks. I suppose you could hit me with a chair, but if you do, you’ll eat the rest of your meals standing at the mantel.” He bowed and slipped out of the room.

  Beau swallowed down her anger and sat. Her stomach had been growling since dawn. Starving herself wouldn’t help her situation one jot. She pulled off her gloves, thrust them into her pocket, and sat.

  When she had finished, she pushed the empty plate away and paced the room. A small commode was the room’s only other piece of furniture. Beau rifled through it. It held a chamber pot, a few glasses, and an assortment of half-used candles of dubious quality.

  She hefted the chamber pot with one hand. It was heavy stoneware. Nothing like the porcelain ones she was used to, with their fanciful flowers or pretty patterns of Oriental splendor. It was… she searched for the proper word: serviceable.

  Clubbing Nowlin with it might not get her anywhere, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. If she could wound him, it might at least slow them down, or delay them further.

  She took up a position a safe distance behind the door and waited. He’d had fair warning, which was more than any woman owed under such circumstances.

  The door swung open a few minutes later, and Nowlin, in a fresh change of clothes and newly shaved, stepped through. His cologne preceded him like a dog before its cart, the scent flooding the room.

  Fury burst through her. He got a change of clothing and a wash, while she was still wearing the same gown he’d abducted her in and hadn’t been offered so much as a basin of water to wash her hands in.

  She raised the heavy chamber pot as high as the tight sleeves of her jacket would allow and swung hard, putting all her anger and frustration behind it. Nowlin ducked, twisting about to f
ace her, taking only a glancing blow to the head.

  With a growl, he caught her wrists and squeezed. The chamber pot slipped from her grasp and hit the floor with the unmistakable sound of pottery breaking.

  Beau twisted her wrists, wrenching one free. Nowlin let go of the other and backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling. Beau hit the wall, tasting blood, pulse hammering through her like a military drum calling the troops to war.

  She slid all the way to the floor, keeping the wall at her back. Nowlin stared at her as her hand closed around one of the shards of the pot. The edge was rough, jagged. It would hurt when she slashed it across his handsome face.

  “Put it down, my bonny lass, or I swear on St. Patrick’s staff, I’ll beat you silly.”

  Beau tightened her grip and got a boot to the stomach for her defiance. She gasped and retched, her vision flickering as pain roiled through her. He’d kicked her hard enough to break the wooden busk of her stays, and now they were gouging into her, making it impossible to draw a free breath.

  Nowlin stepped heavily onto her wrist, boot smearing her with mud, and wrenched the pottery shard out of her hand. He jerked her up, fingers digging into the flesh of her arm.

  “Would you really rather be dead? That’s not the plan, and I’d be hard-pressed to explain it, but you’re begging for a beating the likes of which you’ve clearly never seen. We’re leaving now, and you’re going to behave yourself on the way to the coach or I truly will make you regret it, lass. Do you understand?”

  Beau met his gaze. He didn’t even look angry, just grimly determined. The taste of blood in her mouth made her stomach lurch painfully against her broken busk. She turned her head and spat.

  “I see that you do understand.” His smile returned in full force. “Good.”

  • • •

  The mist had thickened, not quite turning to rain but heavy enough to coat everything with a damp layer of droplets every bit as cold and slippery. Gareth Sandison turned up the collar of his greatcoat and gave Mountebank his head. The gelding picked up the pace, breaking into a trot, as eager as Gareth to reach a warm, dry inn.