“Leave my daughter alone.” Mother rushed forward and the rider’s horse heaved back on its hind legs. Mother screamed as the horse came down on top of her.
Rosamonde stood in shock as her mother hit the ground, the beast’s hooves trampling and crushing her mother’s legs. Blood spurted, spraying out in a wide arc, coating Rosamonde’s skirts. The brigand laughed as he dismounted. He tossed his reins to one of the other men, pushed her inside the coach and slammed the door shut.
The carriage rocked as the brigand heaved himself into the coachman’s seat atop her father’s carriage. She grasped the window and flung it open as he shouted to his fellow thugs, “Dump the lady’s body where it won’t be found. Her daughter should fetch us a pretty penny, either for reward or on one of the vessels in port. I know a rich captain who’d pay to have her as his personal slave on his ship.”
Rosamonde screamed and screamed and screamed.
She got flung about as the coach sped down the road.
Another shout and she heaved to the window.
“I said halt,” a man atop a horse bellowed as he galloped in beside them. Not one of the highwaymen. He wore fine clothing, his blue greatcoat lined in fur and flapping over his stallion’s rump, a pistol in one of his hands as he aimed it at the driver. Olivia’s brother. The Earl of Winterly was here? She blinked a few times, but he wasn’t an illusion, and she’d never mistake Winterly, not when she’d spent such a great deal of time in his company whenever he visited Hillhurst Hall to see Avery. Winterly glanced once at her, then aimed at the highwayman and—boom.
The brigand toppled and crashed to the ground with a sickening crunch, the back wheels of the coach running right over him.
Winterly spurred his horse on faster, caught the flying reins and slowed the coach until it rocked to a stop.
She scrambled out the door and fell into his arms. “Oh, Winterly, please, my mother is back on the road. There are two other highwaymen.”
“They’re already dead, Rosamonde. I was out tonight traveling with my brother who’s home on leave, as well as the Duke of Ashten. We dispatched the outlaws rather quickly and my brother is taking care of the countess. Ashten rides to the nearest village and will bring the doctor.” He swung her onto his stallion then hoisted up behind her. With his arms wrapped around her, his reins once more in hand, he thrust his knees into his horse’s flanks and they bolted forward into the misty gloom. “Are you all right?” he asked in her ear.
“I n-need t-to—” She shivered from head to toe, her lips icy-cold.
“You’ll be safe with me. I give you my word, you will.”
“I’ve always been safe with you.” She snuggled deeper into his hold, the cloying mist swirling and parting as they galloped through it. Winterly’s muscular legs pinned hers against his horse, his legs encased in dark riding breeches, his body emitting immense warmth and solid strength. “I can’t lose my mother, Winterly.”
“You’re not going to, not if I have any say in the matter.” A gruff growl.
“Please, hurry.” The wind whipped past, the flimsy skirts of her light-blue muslin day gown flapping. She shivered violently.
Winterly curled one arm around her waist and tucked her even tighter against him, his lips pinched into a tight white line. “What did you witness in regard to the attack?”
“Everything, although Mother tried to push me away.”
“I’m sorry, so sorry.” Finally he slowed his mount.
Up ahead, his brother, Harry, sat in his regimental uniform on the side of the road cradling her mother in his arms, her eyes shut and face deathly pale. The bodies of the other two highwaymen were lumped in the ditch.
“Lady Rosamonde is with me and has come to no harm.” Winterly pulled his snorting stallion to a halt, bounded down and gripped her waist. He settled her on her feet beside her mother.
Immense grief and pain tore through her as she dropped to her knees. Hot tears burned behind her eyes and cascaded free as she cupped Mother’s cold cheeks. “You will survive, Mother. Do not give up the fight. I need you. Father needs you. My brothers need you. We won’t survive without you.”
“She’ll survive.” Winterly hunkered down beside her, the striking color of his blue eyes filled with firm assurance. He tucked her closer into his side, her mother’s ragged breathing all that broke the silence.
Chapter 1
Hillhurst Hall, Penrith, England, near the Scottish Borders, six years later, 1811.
“This is such a heinous subject matter, Mother.” Rocking in the chair at her mother’s bedside, Rosamonde arched a brow over the thick pages of the volume she’d collected from Hillhurst Hall’s library this morning. “Are you absolutely certain you wish for me to read this particular book?”
“Yes, that’s the one I wish for you to read.” Fluffing her lace-edged white pillow, Mother nestled back more comfortably in her bed, her pink and yellow floral bedcovers folded neatly at her waist and a waiting look on her face. “Indeed it is. Do begin, my dear child.”
“I’ll begin after you tell me why you have a sudden wish to read about ghostly wanderers?” She tapped the title emblazoned on the front of the black leather-bound cover. Peculiar Warnings Volume Two, The Ghostly Wanderer of the Moors.
“Well, you see, Lady Winterly sent me the book and if I haven’t read at least the first chapter of it before she and her daughter arrive for our house party tomorrow then she will be sorely disappointed.”
“I wasn’t aware Lady Winterly had a love of such, ah, scandalous novels. She should have sent a book of poems or even a fanciful romance as she usually does, not a novel of abject horror.” She would have a word with Lady Winterly when she arrived, except the lady she considered a second mother would likely do naught but smile and hug her instead of taking any warning truly to heart.
“Perhaps Flora wishes for me to read something different for a change.” A wrinkle of Mother’s nose. “This may be my fault. I mentioned to Flora in my last letter that I find some days rather difficult and tedious, being that I can’t travel as easily with these useless legs of mine. The book arrived soon after with a note saying, ‘Here is something different for a change.’”
“If you wish to travel to London, to either call on your friends, attend the opera, enjoy a ride through the park, or visit a museum or two, then you need only say. Father is riding to town next month and we can travel with him.” Neither of them had traveled much since that dreadful night six years ago. She’d been her mother’s constant companion ever since, a task she both adored and took quite seriously.
“No, I’d much rather stay right here in the country with you.” Mother shook her head, her words slightly jittery.
She let the topic go since it was clearly causing her mother some distress and instead lifted the book and turned to the first page. Sending her rocking chair into a gentle rock with the push of one foot, she tucked one lock of errant hair behind her ear and eyed the first chapter. “Then allow me to begin.”
“Chapter One. The shadowed dawn of the new day brought the Highland mist swirling with icy tendrils across the craggy moors. Count Colbert dug his shovel deep into the stony ground and tipped the mound of gritty soil onto the rubbly pile beside him. Six feet deep was the requirement for this hole, as requested by his father, the recently deceased Count Clement. His father had chosen this remote spot on the barren hillside overlooking the Scottish Borders as where he wished his final resting place to be, information his son had recovered from his father’s private papers. Once again, he plunged his shovel into the ground and heaved. When the burial plot met with his requirements, he wiped his dirtied hands on the sides of his finely tailored breeches, slowly stepped around his father’s body wrapped in the library mat and bowing his head respectfully, issued a quick prayer, then heaved.”
Shuddering, Rosamonde slammed the book shut and dropped it into her lap, the black leather of the volume a stark contrast of color to the white skirts of her day gown. “I believe th
at concludes the first chapter, Mother.”
“Oh, wonderful. I do detest tediously long chapters.” With a smile of gratitude, Mother scooped her embroidery basket from where her lady’s maid had left it earlier in the morning on the bedcovers and tugged it closer. With tapestry cloth and needle in hand, Mother frowned. “Oh, I need more red thread. I’m almost out of it. Could you fetch me a spool from the cabinet in your father’s study?”
“Of course.” She set the novel on the side table, kissed Mother’s warm cheek and crossed the spacious chamber decorated in the vivid colors of spring. After the accident, Father had transformed this room on the lower floor of their country estate for Mother, while he’d ordered the adjoining chamber to be made available for himself. The lower floor offered Mother more options. When she wished to move freely about in her wheeled chair, without the need of a footman to carry her up and down the stairs, she very easily could.
Once she’d closed Mother’s bedchamber door, she wandered along the lower passageway, her footsteps muffled by the deep red and gold woven hallway runner. Outside Father’s study, she poised her hand on the knob but halted as voices drifted to her. Raised voices. Father’s and another man’s.
Pressing one ear to the paneled wood, she tried to pick whose voice it was.
“I didn’t realize you wished for a possible match with my daughter, not when your previous betrothal to her came to an end due to my wife’s accident. I thought you understood my daughter is needed here.” Clear frustration tinged Father’s tone.
“I didn’t press for the match following the accident, not when your wife needed her, but I don’t believe the countess requires her daughter’s full companionship any longer. It’s been six years, Hillhurst.” A gruff answer, the voice now unmistakable. It belonged to the Marquess of Roth.
The marquess had visited a time or two each year, usually to complain about something or other to Father, disagreements they had relating to their joint land border to the north.
“Instead of marrying your daughter,” the marquess muttered, “I wed another lady and with her death from childbirth recently, I am again in a quandary. I require a son, Hillhurst, and you owe me a damned favor, a rather large one at that.”
“I might consider a possible betrothal in six months’ time. Certainly no sooner.”
“That is unacceptable,” Roth roared. “Your wife has not only birthed you four healthy sons, but your daughter could do the same for me. If you withhold from me, then I’ll withhold from you. I demand repayment of the funds you borrowed from me. The loan I extended to you has now come to an end.”
“The loan will be repaid in five years’ time, exactly as specified in our agreement.”
“Damn it, man. You stole your countess from me.”
“Elizabeth was never yours.”
“She should have been my wife all those years ago, and you know it,” the marquess hissed.
Shock flared through her. Was Lord Roth the titled gentleman her mother’s father had hoped to tie her mother to in marriage? If he was, then it was no wonder her parents had never spoken the man’s name to her or her brothers in all these years.
“Elizabeth chose me,” Father snapped back.
“Elizabeth’s father chose me. You, Hillhurst, would not be wed to your wife if you hadn’t kidnapped her and snuck her away to Gretna Green.” Glass shattered and Roth shouted, “You shall announce my betrothal to Lady Rosamonde immediately, otherwise I shall call in the loan and you’ll repay every penny owed to me. If you don’t do as I say, you could lose a damned lot. I’ll see to it that you do.”
Silence. Utter silence.
Rosamonde’s heart thumped.
A minute passed. Two minutes.
Finally, her father’s voice echoed back to her. “Fine. I will inform my daughter that she is now betrothed to you, and that your marriage will take place in six months.”
“I’m not waiting six months before she and I can speak vows. We will wed at the end of this month. You have twenty-eight days in total, not a single day more, Hillhurst.”
“Roth, we are expecting house guests this week. My wife and I don’t have time to organize a wedding given that kind of short notice.”
“You don’t need to organize a thing. I shall do it all. I also expect an invitation to attend this house party, so I might spend some time with my soon-to-be wife.” A storm of footsteps, and the door swung open. Roth stood there, his gray eyes as cold as the heavy clouds growing even heavier through Father’s square-cut study window. Roth glared at her, his nostrils flaring and his chin flapping. “Lady Rosamonde, it appears you like to eavesdrop on conversations. Well, so be it. You should know that your father and I have come to an agreement, that you and I are now betrothed, with our wedding set to take place at the end of the month. As my wife, I expect you to be submissive to my authority, and to bear me as many sons as I so desire. Is that understood?”
Shocked by his audacity, she couldn’t utter a word.
“Good. No words of opposition. That is a welcome start to our future nuptials.” He grasped her hand and planted a slobbery kiss across the back of her knuckles. “Following our marriage, you shall be permitted to visit Hillhurst Hall, but only once you’re expecting my child and not a day before.”
“I, ah.”
His fingernails bit into her palm. “I can see you’re a little overwhelmed by the news of our betrothal. I shall return—let’s see, not tomorrow, but the day after. Have one of your footmen bring a picnic basket down to the lake. I’ll meet you there at midday. We can enjoy some time together.”
“My lord, I—”
“There is no need to give me your thanks.” With a tug on his severely knotted black cravat, he heaved past her and marched down the passageway, his cane tapping the floor and the scent of pipe-smoke clinging to his morning coat, drifting back to her.
“Come in, Rosamonde, and close the door behind you.” Father released a long sigh as he sank back into his forest-green leather chair behind his polished oak desk.
“Open the blasted door, you idiot!”
She jumped as Roth yelled at their butler, then the front door clicked open and clicked shut after the marquess as he left. Her stomach knotted into an awful mess as she closed Father’s study door. “He is so rude, dismissive, and curt.”
“More so than ever before, I’m afraid.” Father motioned to the forest-green settee next to the oak side table holding a decanter and glasses, the glittering spread of fine crystal on the floor under the window the clear remnants of another glass. “Take a seat, my child.”
Primly, she sat, adjusting the gold-patterned cushion at her back before crossing her ankles and facing her father. The gray streaks either side of her father’s dark head were combed perfectly back, blending into the dark brown. “Please, Father, tell me I do not have to wed Roth.”
“I wasn’t aware you were outside the door.” He dropped his head back against the high headrest of his chair.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your conversation, but Mother needed some red thread and I was about to knock when I heard yours and the marquess’s raised voices.”
“Exactly what did you hear?”
“That there is a debt owed, that you stole Mother from him. Is he the titled gentleman that mother’s father wished for her to wed?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry you had to hear all that you did.”
“Mother still needs me.”
“Yes, I understand that, but Roth has demanded repayment of the loan if I don’t agree to your betrothal, which as you heard, I have now done. You are to wed him at the end of the month.” Turning his troubled gaze to the window overlooking the front drive, Father watched Roth alighting into his carriage. The driver snapped the reins and Roth’s horses moved into a swift trot, his carriage disappearing down their drive lined with fastidiously trimmed topiary trees. “Roth is rather determined in his quest for an heir, which I understand since he is a marquess.”
&nb
sp; “He has no brothers, correct?”
“None to speak of, although he’ll have other male relatives somewhere within his paternal line. I dare say he is also a stubborn man and you shall need to assert yourself once you’re wed to him.” Heavy, conceding words as Father leaned forward and pressed his elbows to the desktop, the leather of his chair creaking. “Rosamonde, you are three and twenty and must soon wed. I would also like to point out the benefits of marrying Roth. He is our neighbor and has already said he’d never halt you from visiting your mother. There is that to consider.”
“Only once I’m with child.” She rolled her eyes. “I detest him. He is a wretched man. Did you ever get the chance to meet any of his first three wives?” She certainly never had, not even his third wife whom Roth had wed only one month following her mother’s accident.
“Yes, your mother and I paid a call to Rothgale Manor, only once though, ten years after I swept your mother away to Gretna Green. We met his second wife at the time, but we never did meet his first wife or the third unfortunately. The ladies always preferred keeping to themselves.” At her quick intake of breath, Father raised a staying hand. “I understand that’s strange that they preferred doing so, but they simply did. Regarding the loan though, it is quite substantial, and if not for Roth offering to lend me the money when he did, then I would have been forced to sell our townhouse and all our unentailed land which I’ve worked hard to acquire. I now have several investments on the go, but none I’m able to cash in soon. I must wait for the profits from those investments to become available, which will be five years from now. Spend some time with him, my child. Be welcoming.”
“That’s your advice?”
“For your mother’s sake, yes. She isn’t aware of the loan, and neither is Avery. She would be in great despair if she ever learnt Roth had brought up her past in persuading me to agree to his forthcoming marriage to you. Both her and Avery must think that you have no issue marrying the man, that you desire a secure future as his marchioness. Do you think you can be convincing?”
The Earl's Secret Bride Page 2