Marry the Man Today

by Linda Needham

  “Bloody hell, Jared, if he isn’t, he should be. Why would anyone advise the leader of a country to hand over his empire to his enemies?”

  “Because the war is, after all, inevitable, Ross. Because the Russian tsar has equipped hundreds of thousands of soldiers with the most modern weaponry and they are perched on the sultan’s backside?”

  “Modern weaponry, Jared?” Ross dug around in his attaché for the folio with his report. “Are you sure? Where do you suppose they bought these cannons? I haven’t found a source, and I’ve looked in all the usual places.”

  “Like Jared said, Ross, the war is going to happen, sooner or later. At least according to Caro, who knows all the players.”

  “Because she’s related to all of them,” Jared said.

  “Now there’s a brain you should pick, Ross,” Drew said. “We’ll be at the charity ball.”

  “I might just do that. Maybe your wife can give me a hint about those bloody Austrians. They’re as slippery as a box of newts.”

  Drew laughed and leaned against the edge of the table. “Say, Ross, how’s your beautiful little revolutionary?”

  Jared turned back from staring at the map. “What’s this, Ross? A revolutionary what?”

  “Nothing.” At least he’d thought it was nothing. That she was nothing. An impossibility.

  Drew wiggled his eyebrows like the utter devil he was. “Ross has been seeing a woman.”

  “Really? Which woman? Not Captain Tyson’s daughter from last season? I couldn’t bear that laugh. Please don’t make me live through Twelfth Night and Easter and every last holiday of my life with that laugh.”

  “This one’s much better than the hyena, Jared.” Drew, the lout, knuckled Ross in the upper arm. “He met her in a jail cell at Scotland Yard.”

  “A jail cell?”

  Ross sighed, knowing he’d been trapped again. “It’s a long story.”

  Jared narrowed his eyes at him. “Sounds serious, Ross.”

  Drew answered for him. “I think it is.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Sit.” Jared pulled up a chair and shoved Ross into it. “Tell me all about it. Everything. Because Kate will have my head if I don’t wrench every last detail out of you.”

  Somehow he thought Jared would say that.

  Kate was that kind of woman.

  Caro too.

  Sublimely perfect in every way.

  And until recently, he believed there were only two such women in the world.

  Now it seemed there might be three.

  Chapter 12

  A king is always a king—and a woman always a woman; his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse.

  Mary Wollstonecraft,

  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

  “And I’ll have another copy of that perfectly shocking Mary Wollstonecraft, please,” the elegantly dressed woman was saying to Skye as Elizabeth entered the bookshop from the street. “I want to take this one to my sister.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Farnham.” Elizabeth sat the box of books on the counter beside the woman, then exchanged a quick embrace with her.

  “Oh, indeed it is, my dear,” Mrs. Farnham said from under the massive brim of her lavish hat. “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Ha! That ought to send my blockheaded brother-in-law right into a fit of apoplexy. Doesn’t like his wife getting above herself, you know. If my sister doesn’t stand up for herself, then I’ll just have to do it for her.”

  Dear Mrs. Farnham, the crusading widow, with all the force of a cyclone and all the money in the world to spread her newfound cry of freedom.

  “Knowledge is power, Mrs. Farnham.”

  “From your lips to Parliament’s ear, my dear Elizabeth! See you at the charity ball!” The woman took her paper-wrapped package by its silk ribbon handle, then dashed out of the shop, nearly colliding with Jessica and Cassie as they entered, each with their own boxes.

  “Thank God, you two made it safely across that bloody street.” The traffic was a gauntlet of London’s most lunatic drivers. Crossing at any time of the day or night, especially with an armload of boxes, was a risk to life and limb. “I really need to move the bookshop into the Adams. Maybe connect it to the tea shop, or at least have it on the same side of the street. I can’t have you dodging death every time you take a simple trip to the bookshop.”

  “Now, where’d be the fun in that, Miss E?” Skye was already two steps up the ladder, unloading the new books onto the shelves.

  “You three already risk enough for me and the Adams.” Prison time the least of it.

  “All in a good day’s work, right, ladies?”

  As usual, Cassie’s cheery disposition drew a raspberry from Jessica.

  “Oh, Miss Elizabeth, before I forget—this came for you just moments after you left your office.” Jessica handed her a telegram, then set to work dusting the display in the front window. “Good news, I hope.”

  “It very well could be, Jess. It’s from Mrs. Frederick, in Winston Quay.” Elizabeth unfolded the telegram and quickly read through the elaborate handwriting. ” ‘Eagerly awaiting special package. Send anytime. Will forward per instructions.’ Excellent. At least Lydia will have a safe place to stay before she—”

  “Oh! Why, look, Miss Elizabeth! We have a customer!” Skye spoke overly loud, then jerked an eyebrow subtly toward the sunlight glaring in through the doorway.

  But it wasn’t a real customer.

  It was him. Blakestone. The amazing man she had tried to seduce three nights before, bits of sunlight lighting his broad shoulders, making a halo of his hair.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Dunaway.” Such a rumbling, compelling voice, reaching out for her from across the bookstore.

  She’d missed the sound of him, the encompassing sense of him. Three nights, three days, with only the briefest contact, had been too long to be without his teasing banter, his taunting smile.

  “Good afternoon, my lord.” Elizabeth tucked the telegram into her apron pocket, her fingers afire with the sudden need to hide it from him. “Welcome to the Bookbox.”

  But he was turning away from her, gesturing behind him. “Come in, my ladies, if you want to meet the remarkable Miss Dunaway …”

  Remarkable? With that odd introduction, two of the most enchanting women Elizabeth had ever seen swept into the bookstore, locked eager eyes with her, grinned at each other, then made a beeline toward her.

  “Miss Elizabeth Dunaway,” Blakestone said, standing directly behind them, a most charmingly fond smile tucked into the corners of his eyes, “it’s my great pleasure to introduce Princess Caroline—”

  “Lady Wexford!” the young woman at his left said sweetly, from between her perfect white teeth. “It’s Lady Wexford, Ross. How many times do I have to remind you?”

  “Sorry, Princess.” He didn’t seem at all sorry; as though he was as perfectly used to teasing the woman as she was to teasing him right back. “Miss Elizabeth Dunaway, this is Lady Wexford, the ex-Princess of Boratania.”

  Oh, that princess! The one who had given up her whole kingdom for the love of her life. At least that had been the gossip at the time. A full two years ago, and she still looked radiant.

  Elizabeth began to sweep into her best curtsy, but the princess had already taken her hand, as though to terminate the gesture.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Dunaway. So very pleased. We both are. This is Lady Hawkesly.” She handed off Elizabeth to the other grinning woman.

  “Truly delighted, Miss Dunaway.” Lady Hawkesly drew her close as she shot a glance up over her shoulder at the imposing man behind them. “Ross claims that he’s told us everything he knows about you and the Abigail Adams. But he’s a man; and you know how men are.”

  She was beginning to know how this particular man was. His smile, the deep, deep brown of his eyes.

  “He didn’t tell us you also owned a bookstore, did you now, Ross?”

  “A woman
of initiative.” Lady Hawkesly winked at Elizabeth, her smile dazzling. “And utterly beautiful as well! How did you manage, Ross?”

  Manage? Elizabeth rarely found herself speechless, but she was completely without words at the moment. With a wad of evidence in the abduction cases stashed in her pocket, a supply of French letters hidden in the storage room, a princess and company treating her like a long-lost sister standing in her bookstore. Her three steadfast companions cowering together behind the counter.

  And Blakestone, looking quite pleased with himself through all the teasing, following her every move, the heat of his glance slipping into the thrum of her pulse.

  “I’m very glad to meet both of you,” Elizabeth finally managed, beginning to feel her old spiky self again. “Lord Blakestone told me he had friends, but frankly, I didn’t actually believe him until now.”

  The women laughed and Lady Wexford nudged the stoic Blakestone in the ribs. “Take care, Ross. She’s miles ahead of you.”

  “Leagues and leagues, Princess.” There was that smile again, cocky and wry and clinging too tightly to her heart.

  Lady Hawkesly was scanning the shelves now. “Caro, just look at these titles. All the Brontës, both the Brownings, Shakespeare, children’s books.”

  “Shelves of Dickens and Trollope and every magazine imaginable. Even writing cases and a lovely collection of tortoiseshell pens.”

  And while the two amazing women converged at the counter and swiftly put her three assistants to work with their requests to see this book and that teapot, Elizabeth could feel Blakestone’s presence at her back, warm and rousing, reaching out to her.

  “I knew you managed a bookstore, madam,” he whispered above her head. His breath steamed against her hair, his broad hand shaped intimately against her waist. “But you told me nothing of being the proprietor as well.”

  “I didn’t think I needed to, Blakestone.” She turned slightly, whispering up at him. “After all, you knew about my aunts, and my financial status. The color of my favorite stockings. My slipper size. I assumed you knew everything about me.”

  “The more I learn about you, Miss Dunaway, the more I realize that I don’t know a thing. But that’s not the point. I told you I don’t want you traveling anywhere without a bodyguard.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He spun her easily to face his frowning anger. “Good God, woman, how many times a day do you cross that very busy street to come here to the store?”

  “Two or three.” More, but she didn’t want to alarm him further.

  “Don’t you see the danger? A kidnapper who is bent on eliminating the Abigail Adams by eliminating you has merely to study your methodical movements, wait for the perfect moment, and then snatch you into his black carriage on your way across the street and you’re never seen again.”

  For the first time she could see the genuine fear in his eyes. Intimate, caring.

  Oh, what a shameful spot to put him in. Allowing him to do battle against a phantom that she had conjured herself.

  “It won’t happen, my lord.”

  “It already has. Three times.”

  Not exactly. She was in complete control of the kidnapping situation.

  Though she was quickly losing control of her heart, her sense of guilt. The remarkable earl had taken on the case with an uncompromising ferocity. Leaving no stone unturned.

  No clue undiscovered, no question unasked.

  Her heart tangled up in the tailings, while she planned still another kidnapping.

  She could only hope and pray that he would never catch the perpetrator. Because he didn’t seem inclined to compassion for those who deceived him.

  And she was doing just that. Openly. Freely.

  He probably despised such people to the depths of his soul, and that would be impossibly difficult to bear.

  Because under all that bluster, beneath that fierce scowl, was a good man with an unyielding sense of honor.

  “What I do know, madam, is that every lead I’ve followed in these three kidnapping cases, every speck of evidence, has come to an absolute dead end.”

  What a great relief. But for reasons so different than she ever could have imagined.

  “As though these women never existed after the moment they were abducted.”

  Even better. Because he’d never have to discover the extent of her falsehoods. As long as she remained clearheaded in her decisions and meticulous in her methods.

  “What do you think that means, my lord? Professional kidnappers?”

  “It means that once you’ve been taken, madam, you’d be gone for good, just like the others.” He held tightly to her upper arms, nearly growling at her, his voice low and coming from deep inside him. “And by God, I wouldn’t like that one damn bit.”

  She was about to ask him why, when she heard Skye come beside her, whispering,

  “Miss Elizabeth, may we give the two ladies samples of the creamy chocolates from Coraleigh’s Confections? Nothing like word-of-mouth advertising to help Miss Cora find steady customers.”

  Elizabeth turned and nodded, a bit dizzied by the earl’s intensity. “A fine idea, Skye, please do.”

  “Delicious!” The candy disappeared in a flurry of female whimpering that left her haunting exchange with Blakestone unfinished, her heart wanting more of him.

  “And now, Miss Dunaway,” the princess said, her eyes twinkling as she handed her brown-wrapped paper bundle to Ross, “about this ladies’ club of yours….”

  “Yes, yes, how do we join?” Lady Hawkesly stuffed her package under Ross’s free arm.

  “Join? You?” Why would either of these highly accomplished, so obviously independent women need to belong to a scandalous ladies’ club?

  “I don’t think that’s wise, my ladies.” Blakestone frowned down upon the room.

  “Why?” Lady Hawkesly shot back, her chin thrust at him.

  “Because … well…” He looked suddenly wordless, sheepish as they stared hard at him. “Shouldn’t you consult with your . .. never mind.”

  “Oh, pish-tosh, Ross.” The princess waved him off in a playfully regal way and hooked Elizabeth’s arm with her own. “Now, Miss Dunaway, if you don’t mind, we’d love to see the Abigail Adams for ourselves.”

  They were out the door a moment later and plowing across the street like the prow of a great galleon, the traffic miraculously coming to a complete stop in the wake of the ex-Princess Royal of Boratania and her entourage, including the tall, brooding earl and his leagues-long stride, pulling up the rear.

  The royal tour of the Abigail Adams included nearly every inch of the club, except the cellar and the guest room floor, finally ending in the foyer, where they had left Blakestone behind in the visitors’ parlor, where he’d taken up residence like a palace guard.

  “You’ve done a perfectly wonderful job, Miss Dunaway,” the princess said, “with everything. A true home away from home.”

  “A den of revolutionaries.” Ross hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but now every female head had turned to him in the doorway of his cave, as though he had just tossed his boot into their punch bowl.

  “What I mean, ladies, is … a place where you can kick off your shoes and exchange … never mind.” He’d been about to say recipes, but decided he would rather live.

  More silent scrutiny. Kate had begun to slowly shake her head at him.

  Miss Dunaway raised a tolerant brow at him. “Thank you, Lord Blakestone.”

  Then they all went back to their animated discussion, as though he hadn’t spoken at all.

  Which was just fine. He had plenty of things to do before his meeting with the Lord High Admiral.

  He had just decided to leave his two charges to the princess’s burly driver and the carriage that was parked in the drive up when Hawkins burst from his little side room and threw open the front door to block the way of two men.

  “Sorry, sirs, but this is a ladies’ club—”

  “You were right, Jar
ed, they’re still here!” Drew and Jared both stalked past the befuddled Hawkins and into the foyer, then went straight to their wives.

  Jared lifted Kate’s hand to his lips. “Have you forced the women’s vote on Parliament, my love?”

  “Tomorrow, sweet. Afternoon session.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re checking up on us, Drew,” Caro said as her husband collected her into his arms for a quick waltz around the floor.

  “Never more, my dear. I had enough of watching your every move two years ago to last me a lifetime.”

  Bloody ballocks, Ross thought. The man was, and always would be, a hawk when it came to his princess and their new little son.

  And damned if he wasn’t beginning to understand why. Even now he found himself intently watching Elizabeth, who was herself closely watching the two effusive couples in their own Unbridled Embraces. A smile of wonder in her brilliant eyes, a softness to her brow.

  Happiness in marriage, my dear rebel. It’s possible. He’d seen it. Felt it in his dreams.

  And as though she had heard his thoughts, she turned her head and met his gaze, a worried smile now caught between her teeth, her eyes glinting like emeralds. His heart stuttered at the sudden intimacy, dancing sideways before it righted itself.

  “Hey, Ross! This came for you at the Huntsman.” Drew left Caro with the others long enough to hand him a message, a serious cant to his brow. “From the Foreign Office.”

  “A declaration of war, do you suppose?” Ross asked wryly as Jared joined them, weary of the tangle of personalities as he thumbed open the envelope and gave the message a quick scan. “Ah, not quite yet. Merely a few tempers to soothe.”

  “The Austrians?” Jared asked. “Or the French?”

  “The Russians this time.” Ross tried to read Clarendon’s dashed-off message, but the man’s hand was nearly inscrutable. “Apparently one of their diplomatic couriers was knocked down this morning in Euston Station by someone who wanted his attaché case badly enough to try to grab it in broad daylight as he stepped off the train.”