The Turner Series

by Courtney Milan

  It took a few minutes to calm the crowd and to allay their worries. It took another few moments for Mrs. Blasseur to vanish into the holding cells. Ash slowly drifted across the room to him.

  “Smite.” Ash reached out and clasped his hand. His brother’s fingers were warm against Smite’s chilled flesh.

  “Yes?”

  “I had this notion for years that I would need to be the Duke of Parford to make things right for you. I thought—” he choked, then stopped. “Damn you, Smite. I must have aged ten years tonight.”

  He grabbed Smite’s shoulder with his free arm and then pulled him into a fierce hug. Smite only stiffened for a second before he hugged him back.

  “You know, Ash,” he said, before he could lose his nerve, “I love you.”

  Ash pulled back and looked at him quizzically.

  “And you will need to be the duke for me,” he said. “I made some rather egregious promises tonight. We’re going to need more constables—and you’re just the man to fund their salaries. Not to mention that we’ll need more magistrates; I’m weary of being the only one here who listens.” Smite gave his brother a tired smile. “Parliament will have to handle that. I’m hoping you’ll help me out.”

  Someone else might have blinked an eye at that. But Ash simply shrugged his shoulders. “There,” he said. “You see? I was just saying that I needed to consider more charity.”

  IT WAS ALMOST DAWN by the time Smite brought Miranda home—home to the house he’d bought for her. The rooms seemed too quiet to her; the servants, not expecting her to return, were in bed for the evening.

  He brought her up to her bedchamber, helped her strip off clothing made sodden and cold. They rubbed each other dry with towels, then slipped into wrappers that should have been warm.

  They weren’t.

  A fire in the bedchamber upstairs didn’t help. Huddling under the covers brought no warmth. The rain beat against the roof, hard at first, and then more softly. It was only when he drew her to him that Miranda stopped shaking. He pressed his body full-length against hers, and Miranda began to warm.

  But even though he stroked her skin, he did not attempt anything so tame as a kiss. It was just warmth they shared: nothing more. He’d not tried anything more since…since that night in the inn. It seemed so long in the past. It was the only time he’d actually spent the night with her.

  Through her window, the gray sky tinted first pink, then orange. The rain stopped and the clouds drifted apart, letting through ragged strains of early morning sunlight.

  Smite sat up beside her. His gaze focused on some far vista. Just beyond the flotilla of masts on the Floating Harbour she saw a rainbow. It glimmered ephemerally, and then disappeared.

  “You know,” Smite said softly beside her, “even in the Bible, there was just that one flood.”

  “One seems more than enough.”

  He stood. “Mine comes back. It’s a recurrent promise, one that I’ve held to all these years. It wasn’t the flood that drove away every living thing. It was me, afterward.”

  She sat very still, but her heart thundered inside her. He turned to her. He seemed so solemn. “I don’t know how to do anything by halves, Miranda.”

  He was going to send her away after all. She could scarcely breathe.

  “So,” he concluded, “you’re going to have to marry me.”

  She choked. “What?”

  “Marry me,” he repeated.

  She stared at him. He sounded perfectly rational. His hair was disordered, true, and he needed to shave. But there was no outward indication that he’d gone mad.

  “You can’t marry me,” she said finally. “I’m your mistress. Nobody in polite society will ever see you again.”

  He blinked at her for a few moments, and then drew a deep breath. “That possibility had never occurred to me,” he said stiffly. “In that case, I retract my offer. My overcrowded social calendar must be protected at all costs.”

  She stifled a grin.

  “Give over, Miranda,” he said. “That’s not a serious objection.”

  “You still can’t marry me,” she told him. “There’s no need. We can continue on—”

  He set his hand over her lips, stopping her words. “I sent you away once.” His fingers trailed down her cheek. “There are some things that cannot be made right by simple apology. It’s not simply marriage I intend. It’s a promise. I will never be without you again.”

  Her heart thudded wildly in her chest.

  “I was hoping I could avoid the bit in the proposal where I lay out all the advantages of the match to you. There aren’t nearly enough of them. The truth is simply this: you can find a better man than I. God knows you wouldn’t have to look very hard. But I don’t believe you can find one who loves you more.”

  She sucked in her breath.

  “Love will never magically make me whole. It won’t heal old wounds. But when I’m around you, I do not feel as if I must be alone. I smile when you’re in the room and I laugh when you’re happy. I feel as if I’ve come home to you.” He slid his fingers up her arm, around her back. “There isn’t one part of me that you’ve flinched from. I don’t know why you’d marry me, but I know why I’m desperate for you. Nobody else on earth would bring me to myself as you have.”

  “Oh, don’t you know why I love you?”

  He turned to her. His hands closed roughly about her wrists. “Say it again.”

  “You anchor me without holding me down. You frighten me without threatening my future. You’re unflinchingly devoted. I love you.”

  It had been days since he’d so much as kissed her. He made up for that now, with a hard, demanding possession. But his kiss was belied by the soft touch of his hands on her, stroking her arms, then her ribs. His fingers trailed up her sides as he kissed her, sliding up until he cupped her face.

  “How will we live? What will we tell people?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. As long as it’s with you…” He kissed her again. “If it matters, I can—”

  “We,” she corrected. “When it matters, we will find a way.” She gave him a long, slow smile.

  He echoed it back at her.

  “And we’ll start right here. With this.” She leaned in and slowly, tenderly, kissed his shoulder, and then down his neck.

  After a moment, his arms came around her. “Yes,” he murmured, pulling her close and slowly peeling back her wrapper. “This is an excellent place to start.”

  Epilogue

  ALMOST EVERYONE IN MIRANDA’S new family had gathered at Parford Manor on the day before Christmas—two weeks after their marriage. The thought of these people as family was still foreign to her. Like the ring Smite had put on her finger, she was still too aware of them—not uncomfortable, nor unwelcome, but still all too conscious of their newness.

  Lady Turner’s sisters had arrived in the early morning. They sat before the fireplace with Margaret, and played with Lady Rosa, the duke’s daughter. Rosa had just learned to pull herself up on the furniture. She stood on chubby, wobbly legs and grinned at the adulation this garnered.

  The room was hung with holly, and the scent of pine boughs was heavy in the air, mixing with the hint of smoke from the crackling fire. Snow was thick on the ground outside, but the sun was out, and light glinted off the surface, brightening everything.

  On the long divan, Smite, Ash, and Richard Dalrymple were arguing companionably about some item in the newspaper. Every so often, Smite would glance up and meet her eyes.

  The low, private smile he gave her curled her toes. He’d been hers for every night of their honeymoon.

  They’d settled into her house in Bristol, with Mrs. Tiggard staying on as housekeeper. They’d hired a manservant—but only the one, and he didn’t live in. They’d started a quiet, private life. When the New Year came, Robbie would join them. Smite would return to his duties. And Miranda would announce that she was home to visitors. Everything would change, and they’d have to make everythin
g work once more. But for this short space of time, he was all hers.

  Through the window, she caught a flash of brown.

  Smite stood, dropping the paper, and cutting off the friendly back-and-forth with two words. “Mark’s here,” he announced.

  Before anyone could say anything else, he darted away, opening the front door in a flurry of bells. Miranda followed with the rest of the family—everyone came except Margaret, who stayed back, bundling Rosa into warmer things.

  Smite reached the carriage first, just as Mark was stepping down.

  “Mark.” His pause was perceptible to her eyes only; he caught his brother in a hug after only that one bare second of hesitation.

  “Where’s Ash?” Mark said. “Not hanging back, I hope.”

  “Oh no,” Smite said slyly. “He has other plans.”

  Mark frowned. “Other plans?” He peered around dubiously. “I can’t bring myself to believe that, on Christmas Eve of all times. After all, I—”

  He was cut off by a snowball thudding into his chest.

  “Guess again,” Ash called out cheerfully. “I’m fortified.”

  “You distracted me.” Mark stared at Smite. “You distracted me intentionally so that Ash could get me.”

  Smite laughed and ran away, just as his younger brother ducked behind the wheel of the carriage and scooped up snow. Robbie tumbled out of the conveyance. But instead of going to greet Miranda—he’d been visiting Mark for the duration of their honeymoon—he exclaimed, “Brilliant!” and joined the battle.

  The war was fierce but short; it ended when Lady Turner sneaked up behind Ash and dumped a bucket of slush down his neck.

  She was declared the victor.

  Miranda was picking snow out of her husband’s collar—and wishing she’d joined Lady Turner’s initiative—when a second carriage topped the rise.

  “I thought everyone was here,” she said.

  “Did you?” Smite’s answer was a little too nonchalant. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten someone.”

  Everyone else was waiting with avid interest. A cousin, perhaps? The duchess’s other brother?

  As the carriage pulled around the drive, Smite found his way to her side. He slid his arm about her and then leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  “I’ve owed you a wedding present all these weeks,” he said. “This is it.”

  She had one moment to wonder what he could possibly mean when the door opened. It had been years since she last saw them, but she could never have forgotten. She started forward. “Jasper?”

  The man who stepped out saw her, and a brilliant grin lit his face. She ran across the snow, skidding into his arms. Jonas was next out.

  “Look at you,” Jasper said. “You’re all grown.” He held her close, and then murmured into her hair, “You’d best tell us what the jig is quickly, so we don’t put the lie to anything you’ve said.”

  “No lies,” Miranda retorted happily. “He knows everything.”

  “And he invited us anyway?” Jonas came up behind them, enveloping her in a hug.

  Smite was already coming forward. “Smite Turner.” He held out his hand. “It’s good to have the two of you here. Standish, I hear you’ve got a translation of Antigone. My brother Mark and I would love to hear what you’ve got.”

  “Oh, no,” said Jonas. “I must hear this story first. Miranda, how in God’s name did you end up here?”

  “Well,” Miranda said. “It’s a sweet tale, about kittens and puppies and rainbows and love.”

  Smite gave her that low, private smile again, and she warmed even in the cold air and bit her lip.

  “Especially love,” she said, linking her arm with Jonas’s. “Now shall we all go in?”

  Thank you!

  Thanks for reading the Turner series. I hope you enjoyed the books.

  • Would you like to know when my next book is available? You can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.courtneymilan.com, follow me on twitter at @courtneymilan, or like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/courtneymilanauthor.

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  This book is distributed by Entangled Publishing. Entangled’s Scandalous line releases new historical romances every month. Visit http://www.entangledpublishing.com/category/scandalous/ to find out more, or click here to read an excerpt from two Entangled books.

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  Excerpt: The Duchess War

  Leicester, November, 1863

  ROBERT BLAISDELL, THE NINTH DUKE OF CLERMONT, was not hiding.

  True, he’d retreated to the upstairs library of the old Guildhall, far enough from the crowd below that the noise of the ensemble had faded to a distant rumble. True, nobody else was about. Also true: He stood behind thick curtains of blue-gray velvet, which shielded him from view. And he’d had to move the heavy davenport of brown-buttoned leather to get there.

  But he’d done all that not to hide himself, but because—and this was a key point in his rather specious train of logic—in this centuries-old structure of plaster and timberwork, only one of the panes in the windows opened, and that happened to be the one secreted behind the sofa.

  So here he stood, cigarillo in hand, the smoke trailing out into the chilly autumn air. He wasn’t hiding; it was simply a matter of preserving the aging books from fumes.

  He might even have believed himself, if only he smoked.

  Still, through the wavy panes of aging glass, he could make out the darkened stone of the church directly across the way. Lamplight cast unmoving shadows on the pavement below. A pile of handbills had once been stacked against the doors, but an autumn breeze had picked them up and scattered them down the street, driving them into puddles.

  He was making a mess. A goddamned glorious mess. He smiled and tapped the end of his untouched cigarillo against the window opening, sending ashes twirling to the paving stones below.

  The quiet creak of a door opening startled him. He turned from the window at the corresponding scritch of floorboards. Someone had come up the stairs and entered the adjoining room. The footsteps were light—a woman’s, perhaps, or a child’s. They were also curiously hesitant. Most people who made their way to the library in the midst of a musicale had a reason to do so. A clandestine meeting, perhaps, or a search for a missing family member.

  From his vantage point behind the curtains, Robert could only see a small slice of the library. Whoever it was drew closer, walking hesitantly. She was out of sight—somehow he was sure that she was a woman—but he could hear the soft, prowling fall of her feet, pausing every so often as if to examine the surroundings.

  She didn’t call out a name or make a determined search. It didn’t sound as if she were looking for a hidden lover. Instead, her footsteps circled the perimeter of the room.

  It took Robert half a minute to realize that he’d waited too long to announce himself. “Aha!” he could imagine himself proclaiming, springing out from behind the curtains. “I was admiring the plaster. Very evenly laid back there, did you know?”

  She would think he was mad. And so far, nobody yet had come to that conclusion. So instead of speaking, he dropped his cigarillo out the window. It tumbled end over end, orange tip glowing, until it landed in a puddle and extinguished itself.

  All he could see of the room was a half-shelf of books, the back of the sofa, and a table next to it on which a chess set had been laid out. The game was in progress; from what little he remembered of the rules, black was winning. Whoever it was drew nearer, and Robert shrank back against the window.

  She crossed into his field of vision.

  She wasn’t one of the young ladies he’d met in the crowded hall earlier. Those had all been beauties, hoping to catch his eye. And she—whoever she was—was not a beauty. Her dark hair was swept into a no-nonsense knot at the back of her neck. Her lips were thin and her nose was sharp an
d a bit on the long side. She was dressed in a dark blue gown trimmed in ivory—no lace, no ribbons, just simple fabric. Even the cut of her gown bordered on the severe side: waist pulled in so tightly he wondered how she could breathe, sleeves marching from her shoulders to her wrists without an inch of excess fabric to soften the picture.

  She didn’t see Robert standing behind the curtain. She had set her head to one side and was eyeing the chess set the way a member of the Temperance League might look at a cask of brandy: as if it were an evil to be stamped out with prayer and song—and failing that, with martial law.

  She took one halting step forward, then another. Then, she reached into the silk bag that hung around her wrist and retrieved a pair of spectacles.

  Glasses should have made her look more severe. But as soon as she put them on, her gaze softened.

  He’d read her wrongly. Her eyes hadn’t been narrowed in scorn; she’d been squinting. It hadn’t been severity he saw in her gaze but something else entirely—something he couldn’t quite make out. She reached out and picked up a black knight, turning it around, over and over. He could see nothing about the pieces that would merit such careful attention. They were solid wood, carved with indifferent skill. Still, she studied it, her eyes wide and luminous.

  Then, inexplicably, she raised it to her lips and kissed it.

  Robert watched in frozen silence. It almost felt as if he were interrupting a tryst between a woman and her lover. This was a lady who had secrets, and she didn’t want to share them.

  The door in the far room creaked as it opened once more.

  The woman’s eyes grew wide and wild. She looked about frantically and dove over the davenport in her haste to hide, landing in an ignominious heap two feet away from him. She didn’t see Robert even then; she curled into a ball, yanking her skirts behind the leather barrier of the sofa, breathing in shallow little gulps.

  Good thing he’d moved the davenport back half a foot earlier. She never would have fit the great mass of her skirts behind it otherwise.