The Stolen Bride

by Jo Beverley

  The two young women laughed together. “It has all been rather ridiculous, hasn’t it?” said Sophie. “But I really did wonder what he felt for me. It’s the Ashby charm that’s to blame. I do hope none of our children get it.” At the thought of children she blushed rosily.

  Jane looked a little self-conscious too. “Speaking of children... By next Easter you and Randal will be aunt and uncle.”

  “Jane! How wonderful...”

  At that moment the door opened and Randal walked in as if he had every right in the world. The word wonderful on Sophie’s lips slid easily over to apply to him.

  The two were immediately lost in each other and with a smiling shake of the head, Jane left them alone.

  Randal came to sit on the edge of the chaise. His hand went to rest with natural possessiveness on Sophie’s hip. She carried his other hand to her lips.

  “Hello, minx,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  “Does your leg hurt much?”

  “Not too much.”

  Counterpoint to this prosaic conversation their eyes and hearts spoke of love and desire, hunger and unity. His hand burned on her hip. Her fingers twined with his restlessly.

  “How is Chelmly?” Sophie asked.

  “Better than we could have hoped,” said Randal with a smile. “He’s weak as a kitten and has the devil of a headache, but judging from the questions he was pestering me with, he’s lost none of his faculties.”

  Sophie grinned with relief. “He sounds like the old Chelmly indeed.”

  Randal smiled thoughtfully. “Not quite. I think you may find him more willing to fall into the matrimonial trap. I suspect the mere notion of the estate being in my feckless hands has scared him out of his misogamy forever.”

  “Trap indeed,” said Sophie thoughtfully. “Is that how you regard it?”

  With a laughing groan he slid down beside her on the chaise and eased her over him. “If it is a trap, minx, there was never a man more willing to be caught. Don’t let me hurt you,” he said softly.

  “You couldn’t ever hurt me,” she said, laying her head deliciously on his chest, hearing his pounding heart.

  “I spanked you once,” he said.

  “You did not,” she replied, without moving.

  “You were about six. You tried to pick up a loaded gun.”

  “I don’t remember that, but it sounds as if I deserved it.”

  “You did. You acted as if I’d hurt you, though. You howled like a banshee.”

  Sophie giggled. “Probably so you wouldn’t hit me anymore. It’s the best way. The few times my mother tried to switch me I shrieked so much at the first stroke she lost her nerve.”

  “And look where it’s got you,” he said, his hand rubbing softly where the switch might have done its work. “A few proper chastisements and you would have had the sense to marry Trenholme.”

  Sophie turned slightly so their faces were close. “It’s got me heaven, and well you know it. I’ve wanted you, Randal, since I was a child. When I reached for that gun I was probably just trying to please you. When I howled it was probably just because you were angry. I could never live without you.”

  She feathered soft kisses on his lips.

  “And you’ve entranced me, little flame,” he said, “since you were in your cradle. You were an utterly beautiful baby, you know, even to a young boy who cared nothing for such things. You were a delightfully naughty child and I encouraged and protected you. You followed me around and I loved it. You made me feel like a god.” His fingers wandered her back, sending dancing promises throughout her body. “You still do,” he said softly.

  He surrendered to her teasing and kissed her. The magic was already familiar to Sophie and she no longer wanted gentleness. She reached up to hold him close and taste him, feeling the wonderful shudder go through both of them at the contact. She rubbed against the slight roughness of his clothes. She felt him tense. And then he pushed her away.

  “Sophie,” he said unsteadily. “We can’t do this.”

  She wanted to protest, but knew he was right. “It hurts,” she said.

  “Believe me, sweet torment, I know.”

  He slid from under her and stood, raking a hand through his disordered curls. “Sorry as I am to say it, Sophie, but it’s back to propriety until the wedding.” He turned back with a beautiful smile. “And this time, minx, can you not tease me to death?”

  Sophie grinned in delight. “Did I? You didn’t seem to notice.”

  “Oh, I noticed. The day you left your gown loose at the front and found so many excuses to lean over...”

  Sophie giggled.

  “The way you kirtled your skirt up high whenever we played any kind of sport...”

  Sophie mischievously began to inch her skirt up her leg. It was enthralling to play this game with him and she couldn’t resist.

  He sharply tugged her skirt back to her ankles. “Behave yourself, Sophie.” His eyes were warmly smiling, though. “The times you brushed up against me when there was room all around...” He took a deep breath. “Sophie, I have to go.”

  By the door he stopped and it was as if he braced himself for a painful task. “Sophie. If you still think it best, we’ll postpone the wedding until Chelmly’s on his feet again.”

  Sophie stared at him. They’d surely both expire of starvation. She shook her head and said mischievously, “Don’t you dare. Heavens, do a thing like that and they’ll think they’ve reformed us. Let’s start by shocking the world so they’ll know what to expect.”

  He laughed with relief “So be it. We have a tryst then, my fiery angel, a tryst for Wednesday, August the twenty-eighth, in the big front bedchamber at Fairmeadows. The one that looks over the rose gardens and is always full of their perfume...” Their eyes met across the room, full of the pain of the brief parting and the promise of endless delight.

  “And,” said Sophie, “I think we can do without seconds, don’t you?”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  SOME NORTH American readers may be perplexed by the rules of cricket. It does bear some resemblance to baseball, but not very much.

  In cricket there are always two batters up, one at each end of a strip of grass called the pitch. The strip of grass is officially twenty-two yards long and nearly three yards wide.

  At each end of the pitch is a wicket. This is a set of three stumps—twenty—seven—inch—high sticks—set in the grass with two small pieces of wood called bails balanced on top. The batter stands in front of the wicket, guarding it with his bat, which is flat and about four inches wide. A bowler from the opposing team throws the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, his main aim being to hit the wicket and dislodge the bails which will get the batter out. The batter is also out if he hits a ball which is caught before it touches the ground. The batter can be out for a number of other strange things but we won’t go into that here except for being run out, which will be familiar enough to North Americans.

  If the batter hits the ball and is not caught he may score a run if he thinks he can make it. He will run to the other end of the pitch while the batter at that end has to run to his. Either player can be out if the ball reaches the wicket before they do. The batters can continue to run until the ball is returned. Whoever is at the batting end when they stop is the next one to receive the bowling. This is why David and Sophie were each trying to arrange the runs so they would be at the right end.

  There is no limit to how many balls a batter may take. He will stay in until he is out or until there is no other batter to be up with him.

  A bowler throws the ball six times for an “over.” Then another player on the fielding side becomes bowler from the other end of the pitch. The identity of the bowler and the end bowled from changes after each over but the same two bowlers can bowl the whole match if they have the stamina.

  The wicket keeper is like a catcher in baseball.

  The rest of the fielders stand around to stop and, if possible, catch the ball.
It should be noted that a cricket ball is solid and very hard and cricketers do not use catching gloves. There are two fielding positions called “silly mid on” and “silly mid off” because the injury rate so close to the batter is rather high.

  It has always been usual for the batsmen to wear leg and hand protection, and nowadays they also wear helmets. In a casual game, however, this would not be the case and in the Regency period the bowlers were still throwing underarm and so the velocity of the ball would have been less dangerous. I’m sure you can understand, however, why Randal was gentle in his bowling to Sophie.

  The Regency period was an important one for the development of cricket. The game had existed for hundreds of years, but it was during the eighteenth century that it became organized. The White Conduit Club was founded in Islington (a London suburb) but the field where they played was being built upon and so they asked a certain Thomas Lord to find them another site. He found them a location in Marylebone, which is why the ruling body of cricket today is called the Marylebone Cricket Club, even though they no longer play there.

  In 1814 Lord found the MCC a new site in St. John’s Wood, which was called Lord’s Cricket Ground, and Lord’s has been the center of cricket ever since.

  A true cricket match takes a number of days, each team going up twice. Nowadays, as most spectators can’t take the time off work, they have one-day matches on Sunday as well. Still, a five-day Test Match can disrupt the flow of British commerce. It’s surprising how many cricket enthusiasts have radios, or even miniature television sets, in their desks.

  If you visit England and decide to take in a cricket match, be prepared for something more leisurely than a baseball game, but just as exciting in its way. Perhaps the best way to enjoy the sport is to track down a village match and sit on the grass with a beer or two for company.

  Just take note of one fact, however. If the ball should happen to come your way, you do not take it home. A cricket ball has to last a certain length of time and the bowlers are carefully nurturing it until it has just the right degree of wear to produce their most deadly ball—a flipper, a googly or a leg-break, perhaps. Putting the cricket ball in your pocket may land you in the local duck pond.

  I hope you have enjoyed The Stolen Bride. If you’re intrigued by the Dark Angel, his book, Emily and the Dark Angel, will be out in a few months and there’s an excerpt beginning on the next page. If you missed the earlier books in this series, Lord Wraybourne’s Betrothed and The Stanforth Secrets are still available, as is my most recent book, The Secret Duke, set in 1764.

  There’s more information about all my stories on my Web site, www.jobev.com, and you can sign up there for my occasional newsletter.

  All best wishes,

  Jo Beverley

  Please read on for an excerpt from

  EMILY AND THE DARK ANGEL

  Available from Signet Eclipse Trade

  in October 2010

  EMILY LOVED the cycle of the seasons, but these days they seemed to pass so fast. She was twenty-six years old. Firmly on the shelf and virtually past her last prayers. For a long time she had not minded being the quiet daughter, the plain one, the one who would stay home and look after her father. She had certainly not envied her pretty younger sister when Anne had married Sir Hubert Keynes. Sir Hubert was a pompous young fool, and Emily wondered how Anne could tolerate him for two minutes.

  These days, however, she was aware of a restless dissatisfaction, though she was not at all sure what she desired. Certainly not another Sir Hubert. Nor could she contemplate a change in her life so long as her father needed her to run the estate.

  In fact, she told herself sternly, she had better apply her mind to business instead of whimsical fantasies. She opened her record book as she walked on, reviewing the purchases and sales made at the market, and checking the list of supplies she had to order before returning home.

  The heels of her mother’s old-fashioned half-boots clipped smartly on the cobbles with each step. At only five foot two, Emily felt she needed every advantage when she went to the cattle market, but the heels on the boots made her footing precarious on the wet cobbles, and she kept half an eye on the road before her.

  There were people about, but only servants running errands or making deliveries and country people going to and from market loaded with purchases. As she turned on to the more fashionable streets, even these became fewer. As she had predicted, what Society people were in town were fast in their beds.

  She was pondering whether to buy some of the first crop of Seville oranges, which were expensive as yet but which would make wonderful marmalade, when a shriek made her look up. In one of the new narrow houses, a window had been pushed open, and it was from there the shriek had come. A tall man came out of the house and stood looking up. Before Emily could prevent it, he took a few steps backward and collided with her.

  Her reticule and book went flying, and Emily herself was knocked off-balance. With the agility of a cat, the man twisted and grasped her in strong hands as she teetered. There was an ominous crack from the heel of her boot.

  Stunned, Emily looked up at the most handsome face she had ever seen. Lean. Unfashionably brown. Royal blue eyes shining with hilarity. Crisp glossy dark curls under a fashionably tilted beaver.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, obviously struggling with outright laughter. “I—”

  A china bowl flew past them and shattered on the cobbles. “Be damned to you, Piers Verderan!” The shriek rent the air. “Go to hell, where you belong!”

  Emily gaped up over his shoulder to see a red-faced woman leaning out of the upper window with most of her body hanging out of a loose silk wrap. Tousled Titian curls massed around what had obviously been intended by God to be a pretty face.

  The man began to turn, his hands still on Emily’s arms. The woman reached behind her and threw. A beribboned oval box sailed through the air to knock his hat flying. The box burst open, and a pungent cloud of violet-scented powder billowed out over both of them. The woman shrieked with laughter.

  The man choked and let Emily go. He stooped, ripped up a tall weed complete with muddy roots, and hurled it with deadly accuracy at his attacker. She was still laughing as it hit. She stopped and opened her mouth to start another blistering tirade, but after an alarmed look at the gentleman she shut her mouth, retreated, and slammed the window shut.

  Stunned, coughing, and waving away the pungent powder, Emily still had to admire such ability to silence a harridan. When the man turned back to her, his face was smoothly expressionless. He coughed again, brushed a volume of powder out of his dark curls, grimaced slightly, shook himself, and then turned his attention to Emily.

  Her large plain straw bonnet had caught most of the deluge, and he deftly removed it and beat the powder off downwind. Dazedly shaking her serviceable dark pelisse, Emily felt as if she’d stepped into a violet-scented hurricane. Her bewilderment increased when an elf popped out of the half-open door of the house.

  A delicate creature, shorter even than Emily, with a mass of silver blond curls and huge blue eyes, the elf was dressed only in a filmy knee-length smock and showed a great deal of slender, shapely leg.

  The elf and Emily stared at each other blankly, and then it disappeared. Emily blinked. The tall gentleman spoke as he came to stand in front of her.

  “As I was saying,” he drawled as he settled the bonnet back on her head and deftly retied the ribbons, “before we were so rudely interrupted, I beg your pardon.” He brushed at his sleeve and then shrugged and desisted. “I think that does more harm than good.” He looked down at her, and a touch of sardonic amusement lightened his features. “We’ll just have to bring powder back into fashion, won’t we?”

  Torn between annoyance and unwilling amusement, Emily shook out her skirts and said, “Hair powder, perhaps, if you can afford the tax, but body powder?” After a moment, she realized what she had said and went red. When she looked to see his reaction, however, he was picking up hi
s hat and her reticule and book, and paying no attention to her words at all.

  Arrogant, she thought. Abominably arrogant. A typical London buck come to lord it in Melton and chase foxes—a Meltonian.

  He returned her possessions to her. “Perhaps I may make amends by escorting you to your destination, ma’am.”

  One embarrassment subsided only to be replaced by another. It was finally dawning on Emily just what kind of scene she had interrupted. On top of that, it couldn’t be clearer that he had no enthusiasm for being in her company.

  “No, thank you,” she said as coldly as possible. They both reeked of violets to a cloying degree, and she maliciously hoped it would embarrass him even more than it would embarrass her.

  Even her coldness left him unruffled. “As you wish,” he drawled. He produced a card. “I’m Piers Verderan, as you may have heard. Staying at the Old Club. If your clothes prove to be unreclaimable, apply to me for recompense.”

  “Thank you, but that will be unnecessary,” Emily said frostily, annoyed at being taken for an upper servant though she deliberately dressed very plainly for these trips. She turned to make a dignified withdrawal and almost fell as the heel of her boot snapped off.

  Again he gripped her arm, though he released her as soon as she got her balance. He bent and retrieved her heel from where it was wedged between two cobblestones. He looked down with interest at her footwear and raised one elegant dark brow.

  “Quaint,” he remarked, and Emily’s lips tightened. “If you care to raise your foot like a horse, ma’am, I’ll see if I can fix it, but I doubt it will work.”

  “I don’t have far to go, sir,” Emily said, and held out her hand for the heel. “I will manage, I think.”

  He placed the wooden heel in her hand. “My dear lady,” he remarked with an edge to his voice and an air of excruciating boredom, “I don’t bite, and I only abduct women if I find them wandering on deserted moors at full moon. You will be much more comfortable if I lend you my arm as you hobble to your destination.”