by Laura Martin
* * *
‘I hear there are bookmakers in London taking bets as to how long before you dispose of me, now you’re Lady Edgerton,’ Harry murmured into Anna’s ear, dodging the hand that swatted at him.
‘How long do you think you’ve got?’ Anna asked.
‘I believe I can keep you interested for at least a few months.’
Anna regarded him seriously, looking over every inch of him with her businesswoman’s eye.
‘Perhaps a month or two, and then you’ll have to go,’ she said, her serious façade cracking as Harry nodded in agreement. ‘Or perhaps I’ll keep you for eternity.’
‘Four husbands is quite enough,’ Harry agreed. ‘Any more would be greedy.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be greedy.’
‘That’s settled then, you’ll remain Lady Edgerton for ever.’
They were sitting at the dining table, having a late wedding breakfast with their assembled guests. The ceremony had been a private affair, with only four guests, who were all sitting around the table talking amiably. Harry’s mother hadn’t been persuaded to leave the safety of Halstead Hall for the wedding, but Harry had his sister and Rifield as his guests. Rifield was deep in discussion with Anna’s uncle, leaving the two young girls, Lydia and Beatrice, free to discuss whatever young women of eighteen talked about.
Harry ran a critical eye over his sister. She looked happy today, at least as happy as he’d seen her in a long time. She’d been with Anna to purchase a new dress and had allowed the maids to style her hair in the latest fashion. She didn’t smile as much as Anna’s cousin, or laugh in the same carefree way, but slowly he was starting to see flashes of the old Lydia returning. She was engaging a little more with the world now, seemed to spend less time inside her own head and more time experiencing what was going on around her. Slowly, Harry could see progress.
‘She’ll find her way back,’ Anna said softly, nodding towards Lydia.
A few months ago Harry would have overanalysed a comment like that, wondering if it was possible, wondering if he was doing everything he could, but now he just nodded. He believed she would find her way back. It might take longer than he liked and she probably wouldn’t be the same person as she had been two years ago, but that wasn’t the end of the world either. Together they would make it through and one day he would be able to look back on these past couple of years and realise what a small part of their lives they had been.
‘I would like to propose a toast,’ Rifield said, standing and raising his glass. ‘To the happy couple, Lord and Lady Edgerton.’
Everyone around the table stood and raised their glasses and Harry felt a moment of complete happiness. He had just married the woman he loved and was surrounded by people who cared about them both. What more could a man ask for?
‘No killing this one off until we’ve had a rematch,’ Rifield said to Anna. ‘The last time we went through our sword drills he made me look like a beefy drunkard and that’s not how I want to remember our friendship.’
‘Slander my wife one more time, Rifield, and I’ll make you look worse than a beefy drunkard,’ Harry said with a grin.
‘Forgive me, Lady Edgerton. I was wrong,’ Rifield said with a little bow. ‘Dispose of him as soon as you see fit, perhaps even before you leave for your honeymoon.’
Harry felt Anna’s hand take his own, her fingers lacing in between his.
‘The ton will have to find someone else to gossip about,’ Anna said serenely. ‘From now on I’m going to be the perfect embodiment of respectability.’
Unable to resist, Harry leaned down and whispered in his new wife’s ear, ‘We’d better hope our baby isn’t born too early then, otherwise the gossips will be talking again.’
The hand that flew to her lower abdomen confirmed what Harry had suspected for the past week. Anna was carrying his child. The bouts of nausea, the subtle changes in her body, the lack of her monthly courses, all had made Harry suspect, but now he knew. Soon there would be another addition to their family.
‘I’m not sure,’ Anna said quietly.
‘I am.’
‘I don’t know if I can...’
‘You can. You were just waiting for the right time. The right husband.’
‘And that’s you?’ There was a twinkle of humour in her eyes.
‘That’s me.’
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story,
you won’t want to miss these other great reads
by Laura Martin
GOVERNESS TO THE SHEIKH
HEIRESS ON THE RUN
A RING FOR THE PREGNANT DEBUTANTE
AN UNLIKELY DEBUTANTE
Keep reading for an excerpt from A WARRINER TO SEDUCE HER by Virginia Heath.
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A Warriner to Seduce Her
by Virginia Heath
Prologue
Markham Manor—February 1803
‘Why don’t we go and walk in the orchard, Mama?’ He tugged her hand, hoping she would cease staring at the river. While her distant mood and melancholy were nothing new, and nor was the route their daily walk had taken, the water was high and angry after the week of rain and the sight of it bothered him.
‘When I was a young girl, Jake, we used to promenade along the River Thames at Putney. Sometimes my father would row us out onto the water, but more often than not we used to sit on the banks with a picnic. He used to love escaping the crowds of London and while away the hours on that pretty stretch of the river.’ At least she was talking, albeit about the past again, which was a marked improvement on the painful silence he had endured for the last two hours.
But then it was always the same after his parents had been fighting, which they did with the same regularity as the sun rose in the mornings and set at night. His elder brothers Jack and Jamie always claimed it was best to leave them both be afterwards, and although he knew they were probably right, Jake’s bedchamber was next to his mother’s and the familiar sounds of his parents’ explosive, poisonous relationship taunted him and haunted him in equal measure. Her angry shouts and spiteful words, his father’s drunken slurring, the short and terrifying bouts of violence which they both participated in and then the odd silence, broken only by whispers, intimate laughter and the inevitable rhythmic creaking of the bed frame. When his father left her soon after, as he always did to find more brandy or whisky or whatever cheap grog he had managed to procure instead, there would be more
cruel words followed by his mother’s noisy tears. It was so very hard to sleep with all that wailing going on and his poor childish heart wished he could make her happy, even though Jake knew that was impossible, too. His mother’s happiness remained in the past, well before she had met his father and stupidly married him.
If he had been Joe, he could have read to her. Mama liked that—sometimes—but although only one year separated him from his closest sibling, Jake had struggled to learn his letters and his mother became impatient when he stumbled over the words. Jamie earned her smiles by painting her beautiful pictures, although he did that less and less because he said she was selfish and self-indulgent and he had no time for either. His eldest brother saved her from the worst of their father’s daytime violence, by absorbing the blows in her stead, and took on the main brunt of the parenting because neither she nor his father could be bothered. The only thing Jake excelled at was making her laugh or by being the ears which listened to her incessant ramblings about her old life, back when she had been happy and he could only do that by keeping her company.
‘Tell me about London, Mama.’
As he’d hoped, the usually dead light flickered in her eyes. ‘It’s a grand place, Jake. So vibrant and exciting. Every night there is a different ball or party to attend and my dear papa made sure I had enough gowns for all of them. They were always in the first stare of fashion and the gossip columns frequently commented upon them. The dancing was my favourite. I was renowned for my grace as much as for my beauty...’ She sighed and closed her eyes, picturing it all. ‘It’s the most wonderful feeling, Jake, swaying in time to the music and being adored by the lucky gentleman I had deigned to dance with...’
Jamie often said she was vain, too, preferring to spend hours having her hair dressed for dinner than spending any time with the sons she conveniently forgot existed. Jake secretly agreed, but felt guilty for agreeing, because she was always so sad he reasoned it had to be good that looking pretty pleased her.
‘That’s where I met your father. Without waiting for the proper introductions, he pencilled his name on my dance card. He was a wonderful dancer and so handsome.’ Two of the few positive things anyone could say about him.
Her eyes fluttered open and she noticed Jake for the first time in an hour. Her hand came up and cupped his cheek. A rare and precious moment of parental affection in a home devoid of any. ‘You’re the most like him, you know. You have his smile and his way with words.’ As his father’s words were always slurred or nonsensical from inebriation that comparison didn’t particularly please him, but Jake didn’t move or speak because at least she saw him. ‘He was a charmer, too, just like you are... I dare say you’ll grow up to be identical as well. His bad blood runs the strongest through you.’ Her hand slipped back to her side and her expression soured. Because he reminded her so much of his father she looked away in disgust. That cold, dead stare out to nothingness reserved wholly for him for disappointing her so. How he hated that look.
‘Go fetch him, Jake.’
‘Not now Mama. It’s still early.’ Two in the afternoon was practically dawn by his father’s standards. ‘Let him sleep it off a bit longer. Tell me more about your picnics in Putney.’
‘No, Jacob! Fetch him now.’
He never understood how it was possible for her to simultaneously loathe and love his horrid father at the same time. How could those opposing emotions exist together? He loved his brothers, sometimes they irritated him, but Jake never hated them. Joe reckoned this was because the love between men and women was entirely different from brotherly love. If that was true, then he wanted no part in that destructive other kind of love. Jake hated arguments. And bad moods. He preferred fun and laughter to tears and tantrums.
‘Let’s walk in the orchard instead.’ Away from the dangerous, angry water which she seemed intent on staring at.
‘I don’t want to. I want my husband. Bring him to me! Tell him I will throw myself in the river if he doesn’t come!’
And there it was, the usual threat. Mama was always threatening to end her life in whichever violent way was closest to hand to get her own way. Yesterday, she had threatened to stab her heart with her embroidery scissors, last week she was going to fling herself under a carriage. She never once tried, but his father still came running, after Jake had borne the brunt of his drunken temper at being awoken when his head still pounded. He would haul his dissolute carcass from his pit, dash to his woman and the pair of them would go at it again like vicious cats with their claws bared until they disappeared into her bedchamber.
With the threat of the customary angry punch from his hateful father and the petulant, dramatic whining he would hear from his mother if he refused, Jake nodded. Resisting was futile. This was the way of things. His parents hated each other and were addicted to each other at the same time. The emotions so powerful they blotted out and excluded everyone and everything from the personal hell they preferred to share together.
With heavy feet he trudged back towards the house and tried to fill his head with happy thoughts instead. Purposefully light and cheerful things which he would one day enjoy, but which did not exist in his miserable childhood. Parties, balls, dancing ladies in beautiful gowns, rowing boats and sunny picnics...
Instead of fetching his father he sat down to daydream, waiting long enough to ensure she believed his lie that dear Papa couldn’t be woken. Another habit which earned him censure from both his parents. Sometimes that worked and she would march back to the house in a temper to give him what for. Other times, she scowled at Jake and called him useless like his father, then ordered him straight back, but at least he had delayed the inevitable.
It was always inevitable.
With a sigh he stood and headed back to where he’d left her. As soon as he emerged from around the trees she turned and smiled, then promptly launched herself off the bank into the swirling water.
At first he stood frozen to the spot, but then realised the gravity of the situation. She had carried out her threat and he’d failed to fetch his father. His father might well be a roaring drunk, but he was a strong one and could save her. Now all she had was Jake, the smallest and most useless Warriner.
He sprinted towards the river bank calling to her, dropping to his belly at the edge and stretching out his arm. ‘Mama! Grab my hand!’ But she was too far away from his childish arms to reach, clinging to overhanging branches of the bare weeping willow as the river foamed and rolled around her, coughing violently as water splattered into her lungs.
He ran to the tree, screaming for help. ‘Jack! Jamie! Come quick!’
His elder brothers were in the field somewhere, working because most of the labourers had left long ago. He had no idea where Joe was, but willed him here, too. Joe was cleverer than Jake and his quick brain would find the solution, although anyone else would be better than just him. In desperation, he clung to the sturdy trunk and leaned out as far as he dared, knowing that if he tumbled in then the raging river would take him and they would both be dead.
‘You need to grab my hand, Mama!’ Hot tears were streaming down his face. Tears of guilt and terror, of shame at not being good enough and too selfish to sacrifice himself. ‘Please!’
Her heavy winter coat and long skirts were weighing her down like an anchor. Jake could see that as well as he could see the fear in his mother’s eyes just before her head plunged beneath the water. It bobbed up, but barely. Only her face was visible as she gulped for air, but her eyes locked with his and beneath her fear he saw the disappointment that he had failed her just as his father had so many times. In that moment, he realised she had never meant to die.
‘Grab my hand...please!’ Her chilled fingers were losing their grip on the slippery fronds, the fast current was greedily flowing around her, each new surge ebbing higher and higher as she struggled to stay afloat. Soon her fingers, then her face disappeared beneath the wate
r and all Jake could see was the tangled whirl of her green skirts trailing like river weed among the branches of the willow.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the dreadful sight, even for the thumping sound of racing feet behind him, watching powerless as his two eldest brothers selflessly risked their own lives to correct his mistake. Joe arrived soon after and was stood frozen behind, his face white and terrified. Like a statue, he was so still.
In his daze, the tragedy unfolded.
Jack, his eldest brother, waist deep in the water, holding Jamie’s hand tightly on the bank as he tried to grasp her.
Jack carrying his mother’s limp and bedraggled body towards the bank.
Jamie laying her out on the ground, pumping her chest. The eerie gurgle of water trickling from her mouth with each push. Painful minutes ticking by before pressing his ear to her chest. Shaking his head.
Joe’s pleading voice. ‘We have to save her. There must be something we can do?’
His eldest brother’s arms went around his shoulder. He didn’t offer platitudes or false hope, simply his strength, and Jake leaned on him.
‘This is all my fault.’
‘No, it isn’t. You did all you could.’
Which was never enough.
His mother’s lifeless eyes as she gazed up from the mud. That final cold, dead stare out to nothingness. Disappointed for evermore.
Copyright © 2018 by Susan Merritt
Loyalty to the Brotherhood comes before all. Including women.
Formidable Viking leader Rurik knows the law. His loyalty to the Forgotten Sons is his bond, and he’ll allow no woman—not even the sultry Parisian thrall he finds in his bed—to threaten what he’s built from the ground up...
Keep reading for an excerpt from KEPT BY THE VIKING by Gina Conkle.