Alexandra

by Lauren Royal

  Everyone loves chocolate, so these are perfect to take on a family picnic!

  —Anne, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1773

  TWO WEEKS LATER, on the peaceful rise overlooking Griffin’s vineyard, in the last sweet days of summer, Tristan and Alexandra picnicked with her family once again on the red blanket. Her siblings and cousins gasped as she told the adventurous story of her quest for truth and justice.

  At least, she made it sound adventurous. Griffin suspected it had been rather more dangerous than she was letting on—and he wasn’t happy about that.

  Brooding, he watched Claire lift the silver basket and turn it in her hands. “This is gorgeous. But it’s dented.”

  “In two places,” Alexandra agreed. “Peggy’s hard head left quite a mark.”

  “I can fix it,” Claire offered, having taken up an old family pastime of making jewelry.

  Alexandra smiled. “I think not. I like it just the way it is.”

  Apparently still mulling over the tale, Corinna reached for another of the chocolate puffs Alexandra had brought. “So Peggy offered to make that list in order to control who was on it?”

  “Exactly,” Alexandra said. “There were others who knew Maude was alive, even if they didn’t know Peggy was her daughter.”

  “And Tristan hadn’t done any of those things while sleepwalking,” Elizabeth said, her green eyes wide.

  “Of course he hadn’t.” Alexandra scooted closer to her husband and leaned dreamily back against him. “I knew he hadn’t all along.”

  “Have you sleepwalked since then?” Juliana asked him.

  “Not once,” Tristan said.

  “And I’m sure he won’t ever again,” Alexandra declared.

  “I wouldn’t wager on that,” her husband disagreed wryly, tilting her face up and back for a quick upside-down kiss. “Something tells me this irredeemable chit is likely to cause more trouble sometime in the future.”

  Everyone laughed. Except for Griffin. He was glad to see his sister happy, but that didn’t alleviate his misgivings.

  Alexandra frowned at his clenched jaw. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You should have come home,” he gritted out. “When all that was happening, you should have come home.”

  “That’s what Peggy wanted, but Hawkridge is my home now.” She exchanged a glance with Tristan, apparently realizing Griffin was as disappointed with his friend for not making her come home as he was with her for not doing so on her own. Extricating herself from Tristan’s embrace, she rose to her feet. “Let’s walk,” she said to Griffin, taking his arm to pull him up before he could protest.

  “I could have lost you,” he said as they headed down the rise to the vineyard.

  “Have you not figured out yet that you’re not going to lose any of us, Griffin? Not even after we’re all married and gone from Cainewood. You’re stuck worrying about us forever,” she said all too truthfully and cheerfully.

  They walked for a few minutes, sharing a companionable silence that relieved his temper. When they reached the vineyard, they headed into the middle of it, toward where Rachael wandered in the distance.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Alexandra asked.

  “I don’t know. Would you care to ask her?”

  “I’ll let you ask her.”

  “Hmmph.”

  She bent to touch a minuscule grape. “Your vines are bearing fruit!”

  A ridiculous sense of pride washed over him. “Nothing worthy of wine yet, but it’s something to celebrate.”

  “We’ll toast your success with Hawkridge’s wine in a few minutes.” She wandered the row, still heading toward Rachael. “Are they English sweet-water grapes?”

  “They’re Rhenish.” A few months ago he wouldn’t have known the variety, but the vineyard truly felt like his now. “Since when do you know anything about grapes?”

  “I have a vineyard now, too, you know. It’s my responsibility to learn everything about Hawkridge.”

  His eldest sister always had been rather responsible. But she was different, Griffin thought. He couldn’t put his finger on how, but he knew the change was for the better.

  “You should have come home,” he repeated doggedly, “but I must thank you for persevering. Because of you, Juliana and Corinna have fine prospects.”

  “Thank you for allowing me to marry Tris,” she returned, then shot him a grin that was much more impish than the old Alexandra. “And for the excellent advice you gave me the night before my wedding.”

  He felt his face heat and suspected he was as red as the blanket on the hill. “I think I shall talk to Rachael now,” he said and walked off.

  Rachael turned as he approached, her cerulean eyes laced with distress. “Leave me alone,” she said miserably. “I came out here to be alone.”

  “My sister sent me to talk to you.”

  “Do you always listen to your sisters?”

  “Only when I agree with what they say.” He stepped closer. “Tell me, Rachael. What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, thunderation,” she said, then pressed herself into his shirtfront and sobbed.

  He patted her awkwardly, feeling her warm tears soak through his shirt. Even miserable, she was stunning, and embracing her made him uncomfortably aware of that fact. He sent a murderous glance back toward Alexandra before patting Rachael some more. “Whatever it is,” he said soothingly—at least, he hoped he sounded soothing—“it cannot be that bad.”

  “I’m not a Chase,” she whispered through a sob.

  “What?” His hands froze on her slim back. “How can that be?”

  “I found a letter.” She pulled away, swiping at her swollen, reddened eyes. She didn’t look quite as stunning now, Griffin told himself. “This morning, when I was clearing out the master suite for Noah’s homecoming. It was from my mother to my father. From before I was born.”

  He dug a handkerchief out of his pocket, and she took it and blew her nose. Noisily and not prettily.

  Much better, he thought. Aloud he said, “What was in the letter?”

  “It said…it said she would always be grateful to him for wedding her even though she was a widow already with child. She prayed I would be a girl so he wouldn’t be stuck with another man’s son as his heir. She—”

  “Did she say she loved him?” he interrupted pointedly.

  She nodded. “But—”

  “They were in love, Rachael. Anyone could see it just looking at the two of them. Don’t you ever doubt it.”

  She shrugged, following that with a long, sorrowful sniff. “But he wasn’t my father. Whoever my real father was, he wasn’t a Chase.”

  “Did the man who raised you ever, for one minute, treat you as anything but his daughter?”

  “No.” The tears continued to flow as she shook her head. “But I’m not a Chase. I don’t know what I am if I’m not a Chase.”

  “You’re Rachael,” he said. “Noah and Claire and Elizabeth are still your brother and sisters. You still live at Greystone. Nothing has changed. What does your surname matter? It will change when you marry, anyway.”

  But her family name wouldn't change if she married him, another Chase. And he was aware, quite suddenly and uncomfortably, that the cousin standing before him wasn’t actually his cousin.

  Thankfully, she hadn’t seemed to make that connection. “You’re right,” she said, straightening her shoulders and taking a big breath.

  She didn’t look like she really believed him, but she looked like she wanted to believe him. And the shaky little smile she aimed at him had nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with family consoling each other.

  “Thank you,” she added. “I don’t know when you became so reasonable, but I do appreciate your calm, considered approach.”

  He could have had a hearty laugh at that one. He’d been anything but calm and considered since inheriting the marquessate. To tell the truth, he’d felt calmer on campaign with bullets whizzing around him.

&
nbsp; Panicked would describe his current state better.

  He had two more sisters to marry off, an estate that came with entirely too much responsibility, and now a cousin who wasn’t his cousin.

  And since she’d stopped crying, she was suddenly looking quite—what was the word Tristan had used?

  Oh, yes. Sultry.

  “I am glad I could help,” he said stiffly.

  “I think…” she said, licking her lips, “I think I’m ready to go back to the others.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said under his breath.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m thankful to God that you feel much better.”

  She cocked her head at him, as though she might not believe him. But she followed him back down the row, and for that he was thankful, too. Mostly because she was behind him, which meant he didn’t have to watch her hips swaying down the aisle.

  She’s your cousin, he reminded himself forcefully. Your cousin.

  Except she wasn’t.

  It was a good thing she'd said she'd never marry him, because the last thing he wanted was a wife.

  THANK YOU!

  Thank you for reading Alexandra! We know there are millions of books out there, and we’re honored that you decided to read one of ours. We hope you enjoyed it!

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  If you enjoyed this book, please consider posting a review. Reviews help other readers find books. We appreciate all reviews, no matter how short!

  The next book in the Regency Chase Brides series is Juliana. You’ll find an excerpt in the back of this book.

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  If you'd like to learn more about the history and real places in Alexandra, read on for Lauren’s Author's Note...

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Author's Note

  Books by Lauren & Devon Royal

  Regency Chase Family Tree

  Contest

  Excerpt from JULIANA

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Contact Information

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Dear Readers,

  Do you know any sleepwalkers? Two of my children occasionally sleepwalk, so I know firsthand that it doesn't look as scary in real life as it's usually portrayed in movies. Sleepwalkers look and act quite awake—if a little bit addled—but they never remember anything of their escapades in the morning.

  Much mystery has been attached to sleepwalking, yet it's really no more mysterious than dreaming. The main difference between the two is that a sleepwalker's brainwave patterns are a combination of the type produced during deep sleep mixed with awake patterns. This second type of brainwave reflects waking behaviors like walking and talking while the person is still asleep enough so that he's not aware of what's happening and isn't forming memories of his actions. In adults, sleepwalking is most likely to occur during times of emotional stress and usually stops when the source of anxiety disappears.

  As to whether sleepwalkers can be dangerous, although violence while sleepwalking isn't common, sleepwalkers aren't allowed in the armed services of the United States, in part because of the threat they pose to themselves and others when they have access to weapons and are unaware of what they're doing while asleep. There are at least twenty documented cases where defense against a murder charge was "I was sleepwalking and therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was not myself at the time I killed him and so deserve acquittal." The argument has proved successful more than once.

  If you're musically inclined, you may know Alexandra's favorite piece of music, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, as the "Moonlight Sonata." It wasn't given that name until after Alexandra's story, though. Beethoven wrote the sonata in 1801 and dedicated it to the seventeen-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom he was said to be in love. In 1832, several years after Beethoven's death, the poet Ludwig Rellstab compared the music to moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne. Since then, it's been known as the "Moonlight Sonata."

  Tristan's hydraulic ram pump was invented by a Frenchman, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, in 1796. In 1821, Ackermann's Repository, a very popular magazine, published an article with instructions on how to build a ram pump, calling it "A simple Hydraulic Engine, which will raise Water to a very considerable elevation, without manual force or assistance." The article included engravings very similar to the drawings Tristan sketched in this book, which you can see on our website at LaurenandDevonRoyal.com. Ram pumps are still built and used today.

  Unfortunately, Tristan was too optimistic when he predicted that slavery would soon end in Jamaica. Slavery wasn't abolished until nineteen years after this story, in August 1834, and, as he feared, the transition from a slave economy to one based on wage labor proved difficult.

  Although gas lighting is often thought of as a Victorian invention, it actually came into use during Regency times. It was developed by a Scot named William Murdock. The story is told that, as a child, Murdock heated coal in his mother's kettle and lit the gas that came out of the spout. In 1794, he heated coal in a closed iron vessel in his garden and piped the resulting gas into the house. That was the first practical system of gas lighting to be used anywhere in the world. In 1805, gas lighting gained public awareness when the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent) had it installed in Carlton House, his London home. Two years later, gas lamps were installed in Pall Mall, the first street to be lit by gas. The UK's first gasworks was built in 1812 to light the City of Westminster, and 288 miles of pipes had been laid in London by 1819, supplying more than 51,000 gaslights.

  Most of the homes in my books are inspired by real places you can visit. Cainewood Castle is loosely modeled on Arundel Castle in West Sussex. It's been home to the Dukes of Norfolk and their families, the Fitzalan Howards, since 1243, save for a short period during the Civil War. Although the family still resides there, portions of their magnificent home are open to visitors Sundays through Fridays from April to October.

  Hawkridge Hall was modeled on Ham House, a National Trust property located just outside of London. Known as the most well-preserved Stuart home in England, Ham House was built in 1610 and remodeled in the 1670s. The building has survived virtually unchanged since then, and it still retains most of the furniture from that period. The house and gardens are open Saturdays through Wednesdays from April to October.

  To see pictures and learn more about the real places in Alexandra, please visit our website at www.LaurenandDevonRoyal.com, where you can also enter a contest and find modern versions of all the recipes in this book. Alexandra particularly seemed to like puffs, didn't she? She made three different flavors!

  For a chance to revisit Alexandra and Tristan, look for the second book in this series, Juliana. You'll find an excerpt in the back of this book. And are you wondering if Griffin and Rachael might get together? Their story is included in the third book of this series, Corinna—it’s a double romance!

  To hear about our upcoming releases and other news, please sign up for our newsletter, join our Chase Family Readers Group on Facebook, or follow us on Instagram. We love to keep up with our readers!

  I hope you enjoyed Alexandra—thank you for reading!

  Till next time,

  BOOKS BY LAUREN & DEVON ROYAL

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  ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN

  a sterling silver replica of the cameo Tris gave Alexandra in this book!*

  To enter, visit the contest page on Lauren and Devon’s website at LaurenandDevonRoyal.com and answer a question to be entered in the monthly drawing.

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  Lauren & Devon’s next book is…

  JULIANA

  Book Two of the

  Regency Chase Brides series

  Lady Juliana Chase has never met a problem she couldn’t solve—or one she could resist. If friends and family don’t always appreciate her efforts on their behalf, well, that’s only because they underestimate her. James Trevor, the young Earl of Stafford, is a prime example—Juliana knows her friend Amanda is the perfect match for James, but he seems intent on spoiling her plans. Lucky for him, “defeat” isn’t in Juliana’s vocabulary…

  Just as James realized his dream of studying medicine, tragedy stole the love of his life. Though it’s time to move on, the last thing he wants is another romantic entanglement—ever. But somehow he’s got two: first, this ridiculous matchmaking scheme of Juliana’s, and second, an inexplicable infatuation with the matchmaker herself. If he’s going to get the girl, he’ll have to beat her at her own game—and there’s no easy victory when you’re playing with the stubbornest, most cunning meddler in all of London…

  Read an excerpt…

  The Foundling Hospital, London