Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two

by Mary Lancaster

  Barons, Brides, and Spies

  Regency Series Starters, Volume Two

  Mary Lancaster, Maggi Andersen, Ellie St. Clair, Elizabeth Ellen Carter, Emily Royal

  Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2019 by Mary Lancaster, Maggi Andersen, Ellie St. Clair, Elizabeth Ellen Carter, Emily Royal

  Kindle Edition

  Published by Dragonblade Publishing, an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Collection Contents

  The Wicked Baron

  by Mary Lancaster

  Presenting Miss Letitia

  by Maggi Andersen

  Lady of Mystery

  by Ellie St. Clair

  Live and Let Spy

  by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Henry’s Bride

  by Emily Royal

  The Wicked Baron

  Blackhaven Brides

  Book One

  Mary Lancaster

  Orphan, Gillie Muir, makes ends meet by holding genteel card parties for friends and visitors to the newly fashionable spa town of Blackhaven. But when Lord Wickenden, known as the Wicked Baron, makes her a shocking proposal, her world is turned upside down.

  Jaded and bored, Lord Wickenden has his own reasons for joining the house party at Braithwaite Castle. One of them is to oblige an ex-mistress by detaching her son from the local gaming den hussy who has ensnared him. But, confronted by Gillie’s unexpected charm and innocence, Wickenden abandons his original plan of simply taking her for himself.

  Instead, he becomes embroiled in her bizarre problems, which include saving her reputation and her life, keeping the Watch away from her card parties, and hiding an injured smuggler who was once kind to her.

  The infuriating and devastating Wickenden soon has Gillie’s heart in a spin. But when she discovers he means to fight a duel over her – and everyone knows the wicked baron never misses – she’ll go to any length to save his life and his soul. Even elope with another man.

  The Wicked Baron is the first in the Blackhaven Brides series, set in a newly fashionable spa town on the beautiful Cumbrian coast, where the great and the bad of visiting Regency society turn local life upside down.

  Chapter One

  Smuggler Jack had undoubtedly been shot. Gillie stared at the hole in his chest, just below his right shoulder, from which blood had spilled all over his clothes. In fact, it still bled sluggishly.

  Jack’s comrades heaved his body on to the wooden table in the center of the cellar, and he groaned and opened his eyes before squeezing them shut again in obvious pain.

  “See, Miss? He’s not dead,” one of smugglers assured her.

  “Yes, but you can’t leave him here or he soon will be!” Gillie exclaimed. She wasn’t at all prepared for this.

  She and her brother were in the middle of hosting one of their regular card parties. She’d only come down to the cellar because she didn’t want the servants to discover the “gentlemen” making their normally silent delivery. It had certainly never entered her head that she might be presented with a bleeding smuggler along with her contraband brandy. Even more distressing, she’d known Jack since childhood.

  “You must take him to a surgeon,” she instructed. “Or better still, take him home and tell his wife to send for Doctor Morton. In my name, if she wishes.”

  “Can’t take him through the streets in that state, can we?” the smuggler said reasonably. “The Watch will nab him sure as day and we’ll all be done for.”

  Although he had a point, Gillie was about to insist, on the somewhat panicked grounds that her house was full of guests—until she remembered that one of those guests was, in fact, Doctor Morton. She closed her mouth.

  “I’ll do my best for him,” she promised.

  As she ran back upstairs into the main part of the house, she concentrated hard on how to save Smuggler Jack’s life while hiding his presence from her guests, to say nothing of the Watch.

  And of course, this was the best attended party they’d yet held, which would have been wonderful in other circumstances. More guests were arriving in the front hall. Surreptitiously, she shook the cellar dust from her dark grey gown, whose dull color at least hid most of the dirt. Thank God we are still in mourning!

  Greeting the newcomers in her usual friendly fashion, she slipped between them and made her inexorable way to the large salon where she was sure to find Doctor Morton.

  In the doorway lounged a tall man in impeccable black evening clothes. One ankle crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest, he leaned against the doorframe. His posture betrayed insufferable boredom. Guilt smote her—for this venture of hers and her brother Bernard’s, could not work with bored guests—until she flicked her gaze up to his saturnine face. Short, black hair framed a stunningly handsome countenance. Or at least it would have been handsome were it not for the upward slope of his somewhat satanic eyebrows and the discontented curve of his full, decadent lips. Disconcertingly, his hard, grey eyes were fixed on hers.

  A flush rose to her cheeks, adding to her flustered state. She had to force herself to a vague, distant smile and a slightly breathless, “Excuse me,” as she hurried past. Although he unfolded his arms, he certainly didn’t jump to give her room.

  London manners, she assumed scathingly. If she hadn’t been in such a hurry, she’d have been disappointed. Such a good looking man should have been better natured.

  Hastily, she returned the good evenings of the elderly Misses Dundas at the whist table, and waved in friendly manner to the many greetings called out to her by the officers playing piquet and hazard.

  “Doctor Morton,” she exclaimed in relief, as she finally reached her grey-whiskered quarry in his regimental red and gold coat. He stood, drinking tea with another officer and a visiting gentleman with gout.

  He beamed upon her. “Ah, there you are, Gillie! How are you?”

  “Perfectly well, Doctor,” she said thoughtlessly, before realizing she could have used ill-health as a reason to extract him from the company. Oh well. “But I wondered if we might have a word on another matter?”

  Giving him little choice, she relieved him of his cup and saucer, setting them down on the side table. Then she simply took his arm and tugged.

  Doctor Morton, who’d known her since childhood—had indeed delivered both Gillie and Bernard to their proud parents—patted her hand in a soothing kind of a way.

  “What’s up, little lamb?” he asked jovially.

  She barely noticed the nick-name, which had been given to her when she was about eight years old and imitating the jumping of spring lambs for the entertainment of her parents’ friends.

  She lowered her voice so that he had to duck his head to hear her. “We have an injured man in the cellar and I’m afraid he’ll die if you don’t help him. Or even if you do,” she added honestly.

  “Not sure the cellar’s the best place for an injured man,” the doctor observed.

  “I’ll move him when I can,” Gillie promised. “But if you would be so very good as to look at him now in the cellar—” She broke off, for by then they’d reached the salon door, where the dark, satanic stranger still lurked, still watching her. At least he’d uncrossed his ankles by then, and he did move aside
with the faintest, ironic bow as they brushed through the door.

  Annoyingly, the entrance hall was now clear, leaving the stranger a direct view of her passage with the doctor across the hall to the basement stairs. God knew what he imagined, although she comforted herself with the undoubted fact that it was none of his business.

  The rest of the smugglers had cravenly vanished, presumably back along the tunnel to the Black Cove and their ship, leaving poor Jack behind on the wooden table surrounded by bottles and kegs. There was a lot of blood, clearly visible, even in the dim light, although Jack had blessedly lost consciousness again.

  “You’re still buying from smugglers?” Doctor Morton said, scowling, as he took in the situation and lifted a lit lantern from the floor. “You do know they’re in league with Bonaparte himself now, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I don’t believe ours are,” Gillie said staunchly. “Not directly, at any rate. They bring the stuff north from colleagues on the south coast. Who may well,” she admitted honestly, “be in league with Bonaparte. But where else would I get brandy of this quality?”

  Doctor Morton grunted. “Go away, Gillie. Send me some water and bandages and preferably a maid you trust—or even Bernard—to assist me.”

  “I can assist you,” she offered.

  “Your absence will be noted,” Morton said, already cutting away the man’s coat with a knife from his belt. “It already has been, you know. I’ll speak to you later.”

  She hesitated only a moment longer. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said awkwardly, then, pausing only to pat the unconscious Jack’s good shoulder, she hurried back upstairs.

  Forcing herself not to glance in the direction of the salon in case the satanic gentleman was still there, she crossed the hall and ran up the main staircase, calling for Dulcie who had been nursemaid and surrogate mother to both herself and her brother.

  “Dulcie, you must take bandages to Doctor Morton in the cellar, and collect a bowl of fresh water from the kitchen for him, too.”

  Dulcie, somewhat erratically mending stockings by the old nursery lamplight, stared at her. “What’s the doctor doing in the cellar?”

  “Hopefully sewing up a shot smuggler,” Gillie said frankly. “I can’t help since we have a house full of guests who mustn’t know anything about it.”

  “Where is your aunt?” Dulcie demanded, hurling stocking and needle from her. “I don’t know what she’s thinking of, allowing these ridiculous parties—which will be the end of you, Gillie Muir, mark my words! It just isn’t a respectable way to go on. And now she’s allowing smugglers in the cellar!”

  “Dulcie, please will you look after Jack?” Gillie begged. “We’ll put him somewhere more comfortable later, but truly, we can’t let him die. He took Bernie and me fishing when we were children. You came once, too.”

  Dulcie sniffed and stood up. Reaching to the top drawer of the dresser, she extracted long strips of bandage, stuffing them into her work bag on top of whatever else was in there. She added scissors and several jars and bottles familiar to Gillie from childhood scrapes and bruises. What use they might be to a man with far more serious injury, Gillie didn’t care to guess. But at least they proved Dulcie’s cooperation.

  Gillie blew her a kiss. “Thank you, Dulcie!” Pausing only to check her hair and gown in the glass, she hurried back downstairs.

  To her relief, the strange gentleman no longer propped up the salon doorway. It hadn’t been comfortable to have her comings and goings observed quite so closely, although she couldn’t help a flicker of interest in return. She wondered who he was and why he had come to a place which so clearly bored him.

  However, her respite was short-lived, for as Dulcie began to hobble downstairs behind her, a movement caught Gillie’s eye at the basement stairs.

  Her stomach lurched with quick alarm, for she knew Doctor Morton could not have finished with his patient so soon. Since no one else was around to see, she leapt the last three steps at once and bolted across the hall to the cellar stairs. An elegant, dark-haired gentleman in black had almost reached the shadows at the bottom. Worse, she was sure she recognized him.

  “Sir!”

  He paused, glancing over his shoulder. It was indeed the satanic gentleman.

  “Madam,” he returned, with the faintest bow. His voice was cool, deep, and far from unpleasant. Nor did he seem remotely embarrassed to be discovered at the foot of a stranger’s cellar stairs.

  “If there is something you require, allow me to fetch it for you,” she said as civilly as she could.

  “A key to this door would be appreciated.”

  In fact, she hadn’t even locked it, but something about his face told her his outrageous request wasn’t entirely serious.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot help you there,” she said regally. “But I assure you we don’t require our guests to fetch their own wine from our cellar. The servants will bring it to you.”

  “I’m disappointed. It seemed such a busy place that I was sure there was some much more interesting entertainment going on down here.”

  “Hardly,” Gillie said hastily, ignoring the not-so-veiled insult. “Unless you find broken bottles diverting.”

  Part of her itched to descend the rest of the way, seize him by the arm, and drag him back up the stairs before he could reach out and open the cellar door. But somehow, he didn’t seem the kind of man one would touch let alone drag around without permission. Which was ridiculous when he was undoubtedly in the wrong. She hoped she wouldn’t need to summon Danny from his watch position outside… She struggled to find polite words to order the stranger back up.

  Unexpectedly, he smiled. “Don’t spare my feelings. I’m well aware I have no business exploring your house without permission.”

  She swallowed, for even in the poor light, that smile was devastating. A little desperately, she lifted her chin. “Then please be so good as to return with me to the salons.”

  Before she’d even finished speaking, he moved with unexpected speed and no less elegance, climbing the steps three at a time. By her last word, he stood on the same step as she, gazing down at her with remains of that overwhelming smile still lurking on his sensual lips.

  “With pleasure,” he murmured.

  There was something altogether too large and disturbing about his person so close to her. He smelled very clean and fresh…apart from the hint of wine on his breath that reminded her to turn hastily and take the last two steps back up to the hallway.

  Although he followed her obediently, she was sure his gaze mocked her. She could feel it burning into the back of her neck as they walked in silence to the salon.

  From the whist table between the Misses Dundas, her aunt Margaret cocked an interrogative eyebrow. Gillie nodded reassuringly and turned straight into an officer who seized both of her hands and spun her around in a circle before kissing her cheek.

  “Gillie Muir! It is you!”

  “Kit!” she exclaimed with delight, recognizing an old friend who had been in Spain for the last several months. “How wonderful! I didn’t know you were back.”

  Kit released her hands to point at his leg with a grimace. “Wretched thing’s misbehaving, so they sent me home on leave. Which is dashed annoying when I could be helping kick Bonaparte out of Spain!”

  “They sent him to Doctor Morton,” one of his companions, Major Randolph, explained, “whom he’s avoiding like the plague. Which is no way to get back to Spain in a hurry.”

  Kit—more properly, Captain Grantham, whom she’d known since he was a very green and youthful coronet—aimed an easily dodged kick at Randolph’s shins. “You just want to take my place,”

  “I do, dear boy, and more,” Randolph said lazily, “but there, someone has to shuffle the regimental papers.”

  Major Randolph, once tipped to be the new commander of the 44th when Colonel Fredericks retired, had been passed over for a new man from a different regiment altogether. Randolph had never shown the slightest sign of disappo
intment or complained about being part of the staff left behind when half the regiment joined Lord Wellington on the Peninsula. Gillie liked him for that, although not for drawing attention to Doctor Morton’s absence.

  “Where is the old quack?” Randolph inquired, looking around him.

  “He’s here tonight, somewhere,” Gillie said hastily, reminded to glance around for her satanic stranger while she pretended to search for the doctor. She caught a glimpse of his back wandering into the smaller salon, but before she could analyze whether her deep breath was one of relief or disappointment, her restless gaze found yet another old friend.

  Her eyes widened. “Good grief!”

  The Earl of Braithwaite stood up from the hazard table and grinned as she approached. “My lord!” she exclaimed.

  “Miss Muir,” he returned mockingly, as he took her outstretched hand. “You’ll be telling me next what an honor it is to receive me.”

  “Well, I suppose it is that, too,” she admitted. “But mostly it’s a surprise. How long have you been home?”

  “Just a day or so.” His smile faded and he squeezed her hand before releasing it. “I was so sorry to hear about Captain Muir.”

  Over the few months since her father’s death, she’d learned to deal with the frequent lump in her throat. “Thank you.”

  “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do?”

  “Of course, but truly we are managing. Thank you.”

  Relief tinged his face as he changed the subject. “I hope you’re coming to this wretched ball tomorrow evening.”

  “Wretched?” she repeated in mock outrage. “Wretched? My dear, sir, the entire county has been looking forward to it for weeks.”

  “How so when my mother has been so eclipsed as Blackhaven’s most notable hostess? All we hear about now are Miss Muir’s card parties.”

  “Quiet and select gatherings, my lord,” she said primly, although she allowed her eyes to dance. “Nothing on Lady Braithwaite’s scale!”