by Eloisa James
On the chilly December night that Darien, Lord Montgomery, hosted a holiday soiree in honor of his sister’s recent nuptials, some happy culprit seasoned the cranberry punch with an entire bottle of gin.
The crime was established quite early when the offending bottle was found, sans contents, beneath the sideboard where the punch was being served. Or rather, had been served, as it had proven to be a popular refreshment.
Any and all would acknowledge that it wasn’t entirely unusual for a little sauce to be covertly added to the punches at lively affairs in Mayfair’s finest homes—particularly when the invitation list included some of the ton’s most notorious revelers—but it was unusual for the ton’s least-likely revelers to be in attendance, and on this night, the results of mixing those two crowds with a little gin proved to be . . . well, interesting.
Particularly for Montgomery. Not that he’d been among the revelers to have overindulged in the punch (more was the pity), but because he’d been occupied with tending to the comfort of his nearly one hundred guests, as well as ensuring that his good friend, Lord Frederick (otherwise known as Freddie), did not scandalize every young lady beneath the mistletoe as he seemed bent on doing.
In light of that, it was an ironic twist that Darien himself would be the one to do the scandalizing.
In hindsight, he could not begin to describe how it might have all happened, other than to note that he did indeed own a reputation for being something of a notorious bachelor. His favorite activity, after all, was women—flirting, seducing, making love—followed closely by hunting and equestrian sports. He was not, in his own estimation, the sort of chap to pass up an opportunity to gaze at a young lady’s décolletage or take a kiss . . . or more, were the lady so inclined.
But that evening, he had enough to do just playing host.
All right, then, to be fair—he had indeed made a trip or two to one of half a dozen sprigs of mistletoe he had hanging about the grand salon of the old Montgomery mansion on Audley Street, both times hoping to catch the vicar’s wife below it.
Oh yes, he’d certainly noticed the vicar’s young wife, along with every other man in attendance. How could he not? She was lovely. She had a glow about her, the sort of complexion one associated with the good health of country folk. With her pretty green eyes and reddish blond hair, she was quite remarkably pretty, especially when compared to the pale-skinned debutantes who stocked the streets and parlors of London.
But the most remarkable thing about the vicar’s wife was her vivacious smile. When she spoke, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. When she smiled, it seemed as if her entire body and those around her were illuminated with the brilliance of it. That smile was the one thing that compelled Darien to attend Sunday services each week, and not, as he had professed, the vicar’s rousing sermons.
And Darien imagined that lovely smile was what caused the good vicar, Richard Becket, to return last spring from his annual trek home to Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, quite unexpectedly, with a wife. Darien would have been sorely tempted to do the same, had he been in the vicar’s shoes.
This December night, she arrived dressed in a deep green velvet gown that was the exact color of her eyes, and Darien could not seem to keep from looking at her. As the evening wore on, and the guests grew livelier (thanks to their gin-soaked libations), her smile seemed to grow brighter, warmer, and on more than one occasion, it seemed to be aimed directly at him.
But Darien lost track of her altogether when Lady Ramblecourt had a nasty encounter with a chair, after which, having observed that fiasco, what with the wailing and whatnot, the natives began to root about for more of the punch. Darien’s butler, Kiefer, was nowhere to be seen, so Darien hastened to the wine cellar to bring up more gin, lest he have a mutiny on his hands.
He was quite pleasantly surprised to find Mrs. Becket on the lower floor, propped up against one side of the stone wall that formed the narrow corridor leading to the cellar stairs, fanning herself. She glanced up when he landed on the last step and smiled prettily.
“Oh, my Lord Montgomery!” she demurred, her gloved hands fluttering near her face. “I pray you will forgive me, but I found it necessary to seek a cool and quiet place for a time.”
She did seem rather flushed. “You are more than welcome to any inch of my house, madam,” he said sincerely, clasping his hands behind his back. “Or my orangery, or my livery. Whatever you desire, you may have, Mrs. Becket.”
She laughed lightly and pushed a loose strand of that glorious red-gold hair that hung across her eye. “How gallant ! You are too kind,” she said, and closed her eyes.
“Are you quite all right, Mrs. Becket?”
She opened one eye. “Do I seem unwell?” she asked, wincing a bit. “I’m afraid I might have drunk too much of your delicious punch.”
“Quite the contrary, actually. You seem, at least to these eyes, rather well indeed,” he said, and let his gaze casually peruse the shapely length of her. “In fact,” he added, lifting his gaze languidly, “there has been many a Sunday morning that I looked at you and thought that perhaps I was gazing upon one of God’s angels, you look so well.” He smiled provocatively.
Mrs. Becket opened the other eye and lowered her head, gazing up at him through long lashes with a suspicious smile. “My husband has warned me about men like you, sir,” she said pleasantly. “In fact, he’s warned me several times of you in particular.”
“Has he indeed?” Darien asked, cheerfully surprised that a man like Becket would have discerned the subtle smiles and greetings Darien had freely bestowed on his young wife. “And what has he warned you?”
Now she lifted her chin and filled the corridor with a soft, warm laugh. “That a rogue, by any other name, should smile as sweet, but is still a rogue.”
Darien couldn’t help his appreciative laugh. He took a step closer and asked low, “A philosopher, is he? And what does the good vicar say about beauty, Mrs. Becket? Does he quote Petrarch?”
“Petrarch?”
“An Italian philosopher, long dead and buried,” Darien said and casually reached out, tucked the loose strand of Mrs. Becket’s hair that had once more slipped over her eye behind her ear. His finger grazed the plump curve of her ear, and he lingered beneath her crystal earring, toying with it. “Petrarch said that rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.”
Mrs. Becket lifted one brow, then smiled fully, touched the strand of hair he had pushed behind her ear. “Mr. Petrarch sounds a rather jaded man. But I’m hardly certain if you mean to imply that perhaps I am a great beauty, my lord? Or possess great virtue? In either case, I should hardly know if I am to be insulted or pleased.”
“I am certain you are in firm possession of both,” he said with a slight bow, but he smiled a little crookedly. “I can see the great beauty. And I trust the great virtue.”
Mrs. Becket laughed low and pressed her gloved palm to her cheek. “My, it seems rather warm, even down here, does it not, my lord?”
“Quite,” he said. “I was just to the cellar to bring up a bottle of gin. Perhaps you might help me select. I am certain you will find the cellar much cooler.”
She glanced at the stairs leading to the cellar, then at him. “Ah, but that would be less than virtuous to accompany you to the cellar, would it not?”
“Absolutely,” he readily agreed. “But then again, there’s little harm in being slightly less virtuous in exchange for comfort.” He winked, held out his arm to her.
She looked again at the cellar stairs, and after a moment, nodded resolutely and pushed away from the wall. “You will find that I possess great virtue above the cellar, and in the cellar,” she said with a bob of her head, and put her hand on his arm.
“What a pity,” Darien said congenially, and led her to the top of the stairs. Next to the stairs was a small alcove from where he picked up a candle, lit it from one of the wall sconces, and turned toward Mrs. Becket. Still smiling, he took her hand in his and led the way d
own into the wine cellar.
At least he’d been truthful about the cellar; it was cooler the deeper they walked in between the shelves of wine and fine liquors.
“It’s delightfully cooler here,” Mrs. Becket said. “I am feeling quite renewed.”
“Ah,” he said, finding the shelf with the gin. “Here we are.” He put aside the candle and picked up a bottle to inspect it. Mrs. Becket peered over his shoulder. He turned toward her, the bottle in hand, and smiled at her sparkling green eyes. “Rather a good year for gin, I think.”
“I wouldn’t know, personally,” she said with mock superiority, “other than to say the addition of gin to a cranberry punch is most delicious.”
“I’m glad you found it to your liking,” he said. “It was quite unintentional.” And as he moved to put the bottle back and find another, he heard the scurrying feet of a rodent.
Mrs. Becket shrieked at the sound of it and lurched into his chest, grabbing his lapel in one hand. Darien grasped her firmly by the arms before they toppled into the shelving. “A mouse,” he said soothingly. “A little mouse as frightened of you as you are of it, I assure you. No doubt the tiny devil has already returned to his den.”
“A mouse,” she echoed and closed her eyes a moment as she sought her breath. But she did not let go his lapel. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at his mouth. Her lips parted softly with a sigh of relief, and she drew a ragged breath.
In the dim golden light of that single candle, Darien saw the rosy skin of her cheeks, the smooth column of her neck, the rise of her bosom, and a look in her eyes that he felt deep to the very depth of himself. In a moment of madness, without thought, without so much as a breath, he let go her arm, put his hand around her waist, and pulled her tightly to him at the same time he put his lips to hers.
She did not resist him; her hand loosened on his lapel and slid up to his neck, to his jaw. Reverently, he kissed her, sinking into a vague feeling of remorse for having done it at all. But she wore the scent of gardenias in her hair and on her neck, and the scent filled him with an almighty lust. Remorse was swallowed whole by desire spreading through him.
His hand tightened at her waist; he touched his tongue to hers, and she easily opened to him. He had an image of her body opening much like that, and his desire got the best of him. He kissed her madly, his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lips, his hand drifting to the swell of her lovely bum, grasping it and holding her against him.
Her hand sank into his hair, the other clinging tightly to his shoulder, fingers digging through fabric to bone, her desire as stark as his. His cock grew hard between them, and he pressed it against her. Mrs. Becket responded by moving seductively against him, her pelvis sliding against his, her breasts pressed to his chest. It was a wild kiss, full of illicit pleasure, hot and full of longing and anticipation.
But then suddenly, she jerked away, pushed his hands from her body, and stepped back. Her eyes blazed with passion and fear and a host of other things Darien could not identify. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, then pressed it against her bosom, over her heart. “Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at him. “Oh dear God, what have I done?”
“Mrs. Becket,” he said, reaching for her, but it was too late. She’d already turned on her heel and fled the dark cellar. He could hear the click of her heels against the stairs as she fought her way up to the surface.
Darien stood there until he could no longer hear the sound of her shoes.
He’d just kissed the vicar’s wife. A bloody rotten bounder, that’s what he was. Idiot.
With a sigh, he straightened his clothing, adjusted his trousers, and ran his fingers through his hair. When he was convinced he had returned quite to normal, he picked up a bottle of gin and his candle, and strode from the cellar.
He did not see Mrs. Becket again that night. Nor was she in church the following Sunday.
And every Sunday after that, she pretended not to see him. But Darien saw her. He did not press his case, but he saw her, for he could not take his eyes from her.
A few months later, in a tragic collision of his horse and a rogue carriage, her husband, the vicar, was thrown off Blackfriar’s Bridge to the murky Thames below.
His body was not recovered for several days.
Chapter Two
London, 1819
For the first time in the little more than two years since Richard had died, Kate Becket finally gave in to her father’s urging and put away her widow’s weeds. She donned a new gold walking gown trimmed in green around the hem and sleeves. Standing in her bedroom in the little guest house on the vicar’s property—where she and her father had been permitted to live since her husband’s death—Kate looked at herself in the full-length mirror and smiled. Gold was a much more becoming color for her than black.
She’d been reluctant to discard her widow’s weeds and had worn them longer than the customary two years. It seemed as if taking them off made her disloyal to Richard’s memory somehow, as if she was anxious to be rid of his ghost. Nothing could be further from the truth—she had loved Richard, had been devastated by his tragic death, and had truly and deeply mourned him.
But when spring came, she had awakened one morning with the surprisingly resolute feeling that it was time to move past her husband’s memory and live her life again.
Today, when she made her weekly call to the elderly and infirm members of the congregation with their fruit baskets, she’d be wearing her new gold gown and matching pelisse and bonnet. It had cost a fortune for a woman on a widow’s pension, but it made her feel pretty, and the good Lord knew she had not felt pretty in a very long time.
It was well worth the expense.
An hour later, with her father trailing behind her pushing the small cart of fruit baskets, Kate made her first call to the positively ancient Mrs. Biddlesly, who defied the universe by living past her eightieth year. Mrs. Biddlesly instantly declared her dislike of fruit and pushed the basket aside (although Kate knew she’d eat every last bite once she’d gone), then peered at Kate through rheumy eyes and demanded to know what had happened to her mourning clothes.
“My husband has been gone two years, Mrs. Biddlesly.”
“My husband died thirty-four years ago,” the old woman said, shaking a crooked finger at Kate, “and to this day I mourn him!”
That she did, in the same black bombazine she wore every day.
“I mourn my husband, too, Mrs. Biddlesly, and I always shall,” Kate assured her with a smile. “But life must go on. Don’t you agree?”
“Bah!” Mrs. Biddlesly said and eyed an apple in the basket. “Rotten stuff, that fruit. Don’t bring fruit again!”
Kate assured her she wouldn’t, and moved to the door, smiling at the equally ancient footman who moved to open it for her.
“Ho there, where do you think you are going?” Mrs. Biddlesly shrieked. “I’ve not said you might go!”
With a look toward heaven, Kate turned round. A full half hour later, she managed to escape, having endured the cataloguing of all Mrs. Biddlesly’s physical ailments—in precise detail, thank you.
Kate’s father was leaning against his little cart as she bounced down the stairs.
“A list of complaints again, eh?”
“Indeed,” Kate said with a laugh. “And she’s added quite a few more since last week.”
With a snort, her father rolled his eyes. “Don’t know why you bother at all, Kate. She’s an ungrateful old bat.”
“Ah, she is that. But I can’t help but do so, Papa—no one else will bother with her,” Kate said and adjusted her bonnet. “Well then! Shall we call on Mr. Heather?”
With another shake of his head, her father grabbed the cart handle. He looked up, over Kate’s shoulder, and nodded to something behind her as she took another basket from the cart. “Looks as if you’ll have an escort again this week.”
Kate turned around—and almost collided with Lord Montgomery. Again. Anoth
er happy coincidence. In fact, she quickly calculated it was the eighth happy coincidence in as many weeks.
“Beg your pardon, Mrs. Becket. I must have startled you,” he said with a mischievous smile.
“Not at all, my lord!” A ridiculously large, unguarded grin split her face.
He glanced over her shoulder at her father and touched the brim of his hat. “Good day, Mr. Crowley. Fine day for a walkabout, eh?”
“Aye, it is, as fine a day as the past Wednesday’s walkabout, and the one before it,” Papa snorted. “You go on ahead, Kate,” he said, ducking beneath the wide brim of his hat as he busied himself with the rearranging of the baskets in his little cart. “I’ve a bit of tidying up to do here, and you’d not want to keep Mr. Heather waiting for his victuals.”
“Thank you, Papa.” She stole a glimpse of Montgomery. “Mr. Heather is undoubtedly pacing the floor, wondering what could be keeping us. He’s rather the nervous sort.”
“You are so good to engage in such charitable works, Mrs. Becket, and how diligent you are about it!” Montgomery exclaimed. “There are others who are not as generous with either their time or their spirit, myself chief among them.”
“Indeed? I naturally assumed you were calling on them yourself, sir. Whatever else might bring you to this street each Wednesday?” she asked with a sly smile.
He chuckled boyishly, took the basket from her hand, and walked beside her as she started down the street. “You give me too much credit. My motives are far more nefarious than charitable endeavors, I freely admit.”
“Nefarious?” She laughed. “Lord Montgomery, how you tease me! I’d wager you’ve not a wicked bone in your body!”
He gave her a look that suggested she knew better than that, leaned slightly toward her, and said low, “You’d be quite wrong, madam, were you to wager. I’ve more than one wicked bone in this body.”
That sent a heat straight up her spine, and Kate swallowed. There were few persons who could confound her, but Montgomery happened to be the king.