by Claudy Conn
He heard the carriage coming before he saw them and got into position.
He and Midnight blocked the road as he stared Duncan down, daring him to come at him. Midnight snorted as the horse and carriage approached, but the viscount held him in place. “Steady, lad, steady…”
Duncan only slowed a bit as he made up his mind and drove his horse hard at the viscount, shouting, “I’ll go through you if I have to!”
Ness saw a glint of light and realized Duncan had discarded the broken crystal vase on the floor of the open carriage.
With more speed than finesse, she dove at it and brought it down hard over Duncan’s head.
“One good blow deserves another,” she called gleefully, and heard the viscount roar with laughter.
Duncan’s hold on the ribbons slackened as he started to lose consciousness and Ness hurriedly took them into her capable hands.
As she reined in the horse and yanked on the brake, she realized that Duncan had been dazed but not out. He was already grabbing the reins from her, and shoving her aside.
The viscount was in the carriage and on him in that moment. He lifted him with one hand and landed him a settler that sent him flying off the carriage. The viscount followed him, picked him up by the buckskin lapels and planted his closed fives in Duncan’s belly before bringing his fist up quickly across the devil’s bonebox.
Ness saw blood spurt out of Duncan’s mouth, and saw the man’s eyes haze over and close. She ran to the viscount and stayed his arm with her imploring hands. “Enough! Oh, my love, it is enough. He is unconscious.”
The viscount was dimly aware that the man he dropped was in no fit condition for more. However, what stopped him were Ness’s eyes.
He took her into his arms and hoarsely cried into her ear, “My love…I was sick with worry and rage. I wanted to kill him.”
“I know…”
His mouth closed on hers, his kiss turned into another and yet another. She wanted this to go on and on, but knew they had to get off the road.
Laughing, she pushed away and said, “Bret, darling, we need to settle this scoundrel and be done.”
He touched the dried blood on her neck, down her chest. “I will kill him!” he seethed.
“You nearly have already, so now we must secure him,” she said gently. “And I believe he is about to stir…and there is a rider coming down the road!”
The viscount paid not the slightest heed to either of these incidentals as he took his love very tightly back into his arms and proceeded to display the depth of his feelings.
Epilogue
What happened then?
Ah, a great deal of commotion ensued in the following weeks, and much to Ness’s family’s relief, it was pleasant commotion.
As to Duncan, he was delivered by Richard and Randall to the magistrate, along with their statements regarding Bess’s confession. The letter was not then mentioned in hopes that there was enough evidence now that Duncan had tried to abduct Lady Vanessa as well.
Ness’s parents arrived on the scene within the second week of this incident and the viscount applied for her hand.
At Ness’s insistence, the viscount provided Mrs. Echworth and Sheila with a small but lovely establishment in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also established a trust fund, which when added to the small income they already enjoyed, was sizeable enough to provide them with a comfortable lifestyle. All he stipulated was that they remain in Scotland, as they would never be received at Montlaine again.
Orson knew nothing of what his brother had planned, but he did know after the fact and had done nothing to either bring his twin to justice or to stop him from further ugly wrong-doing. However, once again, Ness thought it best that he be allowed to join his mother and sister in Scotland, which she said, for someone like Orson who loved his life in London, would be punishment enough.
“There is nothing to stop him from returning to London, though,” the viscount argued.
“No, though you could cut off his allowance? I do think it would be cruel to do so and at any rate, Orson is no threat, my sweet…no threat,” Ness said softly.
“You are heart…all heart,” he whispered as he covered her face with kisses.
Duncan, however, was found guilty of the murder of Melony Fry and for his crime was sent to prison for life.
Edward Parks, satisfied that justice had been done, returned to his prospering law practice and looked about himself for a wife. He was lonely and a romantic and Ness thought it her job to aid him in this endeavor.
“Impossible…no one could be as happy as I or have what we have,” he said, and kissed her ruthlessly.
Randall was pleased to return to London, but Richard stayed on for the rest of the summer at Montlaine.
Mary and Richard’s bond worried Ness from time to time. He seemed almost as attached to Mary as she was to him.
“Darling, Mary will go off to school and forget all about Rick in short order. Although she is now seventeen, she is still too young to think about marriage, and besides that, I have noticed that your brother still has an eye for a well-turned ankle.” The viscount grinned.
“What has that to say to anything? All men look at well-turned ankles, whether they are in love or not,” she said, and laughed.
He chucked her under the chin. “You are so right, but believe me—don’t worry about either Mary or Rick.”
Ness sighed. “Hmm. As you say, she is only seventeen, but before you know it, you and I will be an old married couple and she will be nineteen and we will be the ones giving Mary her first London Season.” She clapped her hands. “Oh, now won’t that be fun.”
Their wedding was like a fairy tale come true, Ness thought as they started their honeymoon abroad.
Ness looked around at the passing scenes from their gondola. Venice was beautiful. She laid her head back against her husband’s broad chest.
He hugged her tightly, but one hand slipped under her cloak and cupped her breast. “I am of a mind to return to our room.”
“Are you? So early?” she teased.
“Ah, yes, beauty, for I want to strip you naked, suckle at your big beautiful…”
“Shhh, the gondolier will hear you,” she said, and giggled joyfully.
“Will he, then he will envy me, for I mean to lick your nipples and then…”
“Shhh, he has heard you. I can see a sly smile on his face.”
The viscount laughed out loud. “Very well, we will finish this ride and then I will whisk you off to our inn and…”
She turned and put her hands to his neck and drew him closer. “You are a devil, a handsome devil who I can never resist.”
“Do you want to resist me, love?” he answered hoarsely.
“Never,” she said, and kissed his mouth hard and fiercely. His tongue slipped between her lips and invited her to join him in a dance that left them both breathless.
She knew they were destined for a life filled with adventure and laughter because of who they were. What would seem improper to most would simply be ‘life’ to them.
And Mary, who had begged them not to send her back to school? Indeed, she was concerned about Mary.
She could still see Mary’s dark eyes as her new sister told her she meant to get through the next year at school as quickly as she could.
She had laughed and said, “Why? You should enjoy this time of your life.”
“I have to come out and be the woman he will choose,” Mary had answered so seriously.
“Who will choose?”
“Why, Richard, of course.”
Ness had laughed, but it had not really amused her.
Who knew what the future would hold? She didn’t want Mary to hurt over Richard and what if Richard met and fell in love with someone while Mary was growing up?
Mary’s story would unfold, but not now.
Now, Ness had a story of her own to live, now, her story belonged to the Devil of Montlaine.
Take a peek at the next Regency Ren
dezvous Romance
The Blue Drawing Room
Penniless and jilted, Eliza Plowman accepts a position as governess to Lord Alistair Kennedy’s illegitimate children. When Eliza sets foot in the Scottish lord’s carriage, she faces the most dangerous foe a woman can face: a charming rogue. The danger is not only to her heart, however, but to her life, as well.
In an effort to deny her son’s illegitimate children, Alistair’s stepmother insists on a dour governess who will break their rebellious spirits. Alistair, however, decides that the pretty lass with a colorful French vocabulary who shows up in his stepmother’s drawing room is exactly what the children need. If the notion offends his stepmother, all the better. If the lass is what he needs… well, a man can’t ask for more.
His stepmother doesn’t intend for Alistair to open his heart to her grandchildren, or the woman who cares for them. Her plans include forcing them onto the streets.
Chapter One
A Heartless Man
London, February 1814
“Scandalous.” Captain Edwards sniffed in disdain. Eliza tried not to wince when he turned his icy gaze from the store window to her. “No wife of mine would even look at such a gown.” Clenching his bearded jaw, he added in an even stronger censorious tone, “Frankly, Eliza, I’m disappointed.”
We’re not married—yet, Eliza retorted in her mind, and caught herself mid-roll of her eyes.
She pushed her prim straw bonnet back from her face and turned back to the shop window for another look. The gown floated there like a dream come true. Cut in the latest fashion and trimmed with embroidered rosebuds, lace, and tiny seed pearls, its sweeping, crimson silk skirt fell in a tumble of soft, sensuous folds. The dressmaker had even angled several mirrors around the masterpiece to highlight the different views. Eliza grinned. If she squinted her eyes and tilted her head just a little to the left, she could almost imagine herself wearing the confection. In her mind’s eye, an obliging shaft of winter sunlight caught the playful spark in her eyes along with the brilliant gold of her unruly brown curls, a contrast against the cream taffeta as she whirled in the dress.
Her future husband’s heavy hand fell upon her shoulder. She jarred back into the moment and caught his reflection in the window. A toned and muscular tower of a man, resplendent in a Queen’s fine scarlet coat with its gold braid and polished brass buttons. A gallantly handsome figure, to be sure—at first glance, anyway. A deeper inspection revealed chilling blue eyes and the vein on his forehead pulsing in disapproval, a vein that betrayed an ever-present simmering rage.
“I insist we leave, Eliza.” He grasped her arm. “A virtuous woman would never soil her father’s good name—nor mine—by wearing such an abomination.”
Eliza suppressed a snort. “I merely thought it pretty, Captain Edwards.”
“As my future wife, I insist you think no such thing.” He looped his arm through hers and pulled her away from the shop window.
This time, she did roll her eyes. Heavens, did the man seek to control her thinking? She snorted.
Captain Edwards paused midstride and peered down at her through narrowed eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
Eliza thinned her lips in a grim line. She’d witnessed the Captain’s temper often enough to regret her acceptance of his marriage proposal—a proposal her father had pressured her to accept at the tender age of sixteen. Her father, a major in the Queen’s army, found Captain Edwards quite the catch. Not only was he a decorated captain, but a distant cousin to a baronet. Later, she learned her father owed the man a great deal of money. The discovery gave her courage. She’d begged her father to allow her to end the engagement, but he thought it far too late, and reminded her that he valued loyalty and faithfulness above all else—after the balance of his bank account, of course.
Still, she tried to change his mind, but whenever she broached the matter, he invariably replied, “It is you who must change, Eliza. You are proud and willful. Be grateful the man still wants you. Heed his guidance. Marriage isn’t pleasure. Marriage is work. When you’re older, you’ll understand. Now, enough of this foolishness.”
Well, now she was older and she understood very well. Her father sought only to protect his own interests—not hers.
“I’m speaking to you, Eliza.” Captain Edwards gave her arm a rough shake. “I repeat, are you mocking me?”
Eliza blinked. She cleared her throat, then answered in the most placating of tones, “No, sir.”
He searched her face, clearly—and rightly—suspicious of her sincerity before nodding in satisfaction. Anchoring her arm tightly under his, he resumed their walk down the icy, snow-covered street.
“I know you think me harsh, Eliza,” he said. “But I’ve only your best interests at heart. Be grateful I am here to guide you. Because of me, you have blossomed into a virtuous woman, a woman worthy of becoming my wife. You’ve changed so much from when I met you as an undisciplined young girl of fifteen.”
Eliza looked away, struggling to keep her anger in check. If only she hadn’t met him that summer six years ago, that dreadful day when he’d first stepped foot in her father’s home. She’d been far too young and impressionable to see what he truly was: an insufferable, judgmental boor of a prig—and a prig with a raging temper at that.
“Now, you’re of an age where one expects you to have overcome your flaws,” he droned on, puffing his chest pompously with each judging word. “The unhappy catastrophe of your mother’s death as a child resulted in your lack of a proper upbringing, but…”
Eliza let his voice fade into the background and took a deep lungful of the crisp, clean winter air. She’d heard this speech countless times. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her newborn daughter with only a name and a leather-bound cookery book. And with her father stationed in far-off India, Eliza and cookbook passed between various family members for a time. She’d finally found a happy home with an elderly, distant relative, a retired Navy man who taught her Greek philosophy and the fine art of swearing. She’d been delightfully happy. Then he passed away and shortly after, her father returned from abroad.
“A humble, subservient wife, Eliza,” the pompous man at her side continued. “One wearing and looking at only modest attire. You must be the very model of propriety…”
A dark cloud passed over the sun. Stifling a yawn, Eliza stared at the sudden snowflakes swirling down from above, tracking their descent from the sky as they flurried around the streetlamps lining the lane. If only she could be as free to simply float away.
“Respect, duty, and honor,” Captain Edwards kept on. “Discipline and fortitude. A woman to remain by my side through life’s fortunes and misfortunes. Do you not agree that these are the obligations of a proper wife, Eliza?”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled dutifully.
A break in the buildings ahead offered a sudden tantalizing glimpse of the Frost Fair spread out on the frozen Thames below. She’d read about it in the papers, but in person, it was fabulous, a living painting of women in brightly beribboned, feathered bonnets, men in velvet top hats, and children skating on the ice, toffee apples in hand. Painters lined the river banks, squinting in darkening afternoon with brushes in hand as they captured the gaiety of the wondrous occasion on their canvases. Men walking on stilts threaded through the crowds gathered to watch the puppet shows and gape at the elephant by Black Friar’s Bridge, used periodically to test the strength of the ice.
Suddenly, Captain Edwards cupped her chin and forced her eyes up to his. “What do you say to that?” he asked in a deep voice.
Eliza blinked, startled by the unexpectedness of his move. He usually railed on for a good half hour or so. She twisted her lips, trying in vain to recall his words. “Da—uh…dare I agree, sir?” she choked, catching herself at the last second and swiftly changing damnation into dare.
The blue eyes staring down at her remained aloof, cool, and critical. She bit her lip, hoping her reply a sufficient one to whatever he’d asked.
She let out a breath of relief.
“Then we agree,” he said. “We will wed this summer. At last.”
Eliza choked. This summer?
“Eliza!” a woman’s frantic voice called from behind. “Eliza!”
Eliza whirled. The butcher’s wife waved her apron as she ran towards them, sliding in the icy snow.
“Go home, girl, home. At once,” the woman huffed, trying to catch her breath as she arrived. “It’s Major Plowman, your father. There’s been an accident.”
* * *
An accident. Two simple words that changed Eliza’s life forever.
Alone in the empty London townhouse, Eliza huddled next to the kitchen stove in a solemn mood, listening to the howling winds bringing more snow. The coal hadn’t lasted more than a week after her father’s death. Unable to afford more, she’d resorted to what wood she could find, but with harsh winter weather causing everyone in London to search as well, she found precious little. She’d been reduced to buying twisted sticks of soiled straw from the hotel stables at the end of the lane, but it flamed so fast it provided little heat.
Now, she stared at the stove, wondering what she had left to burn. The creditors had taken everything.
Well…she had her relatives’ letters.
With a bitter, mirthless smile, she tossed them into the stove, lit the match, then watched the heartless missives catch fire, all of them variations of the same we cannot provide any assistance… Cannot or will not? It didn’t matter. She’d find her own way.
Drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders, Eliza remained seated before the stove long after the last letter curled into ash. She now understood the meaning of ‘nightmare.’ She’d been living in one the past few weeks, beginning with the constables informing her of her father’s most unfortunate death. “An accident,” they’d said. He’d fallen through the ice and drowned in the Thames. She hadn’t believed them. She still didn’t. Not after seeing the elephant standing on the river ice that very same day. How could her father break ice that could withstand the weight of an elephant? The idea stretched the imagination beyond credibility, but what could she do? No one cared—even before the creditors descended upon her like wild dogs.