by Tracy Sumner
Simon’s spine stiffened beneath the hand she’d flattened on his lower back. “You wrestle like a street thug, madam. Right for the jugular.”
“You could succeed where others have failed. That’s a resounding theme in your life. Savior of St Giles, some are calling you.” She pressed her lips together to hide a smile that would go over like a lead brick if he witnessed it. “Why not make it a family theme?”
“An Alexander by name and combat style, my beloved.” Simon scrubbed his fist across his chin with a gently issued curse. “So, Finn kicked my rebellious nephew out on his arse. After the boy was dismissed from Rugby. Trust me, I had my fair share of heated discussions with administrators on that campus, too. But they invited me back each fall, much to my surprise.” Exhaling, his shoulders slumped. “And to think, Lucien’s the actual son of a viscount, not a bastardized imposter, and still they expelled him.”
Emma reached for a small shipping crate sitting by her desk, intending to drag it over and sit on it so they could talk. Simon was up like a flash, knocking her hands aside, lifting the crate, empty she could’ve told him, and positioning it before the desk. His hand going out in a flourish as if he’d offered her a seat on a chariot. When she settled, he went to his haunches before her, that slightly terrified look he’d carry until the baby arrived twisting his features.
She trailed her finger down his cheek and watched in delight as his lids fluttered. “He’s confused, Simon. Like you were. Everyone in the League is, while managing a mystical talent and adolescence. He’s eighteen, fighting to find himself, find independence from an overbearing but incredibly loving father. Touching objects and seeing the future, or the past—each and every object you encounter—must be horrendous. Add to that, his father feeling such guilt for giving him the gift.” She paused, letting her advice sink in. Men often desired to feel they’d come to the decision their wives had placed before them. “He needs space. He needs you.”
Simon grimaced, his lips twisting. “It must be horrendous. My haunts are nothing like that supernatural burden. I’ve even come to appreciate them, friends that never, ever leave. Henry says he’s staying with me until I kick, then we’ll walk off into the sunset together.”
“Lucien loves you, trusts you. You’re closer to his age. Finn is too soft-hearted to deal with a wayward young man. Julian and Piper should have known better. If only he could meet someone in the League and fall in love, a woman who understands what being gifted is like.”
Simon rocked back on his heels, his hands going out in surrender. “I give up. Alert Dimitri and have him send the carriage. I’ll put Lucien to work at the Blue Moon, maybe even at the Board of Works office. Limit the objects he has to touch, walk him through the uncertainty of our world. An uncertainty he has to accept. And remind him, repeatedly, that there is no true definition for normal.” He snagged a half crown from his waistcoat pocket and gave it a reckless spin between his fingers. “What’s another child anyway? This will make three.”
Emma snorted a laugh through her nose, then clapped her hand over her face to try and call it back, sounding like the undignified Emmaline Breslin of old. “He’s 18, not two. You have months before another babe appears to worry over, anxious papa.”
Simon’s gaze rolled up to hers, so vulnerable she felt hers tear up in response. “I’m thrilled, by the way. Incredibly grateful and happy. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I want as many babies as you’d like to give me.” Leaning, he caressed her stomach with a hand that trembled. “I promise to do my best, always. You have my word as a thief.”
Rising to her feet, Emma held out her hand in invitation. “I know a wonderful way we can celebrate. Follow me to the bedchamber, and I might be persuaded to show you. As you likely suspect, I’m wearing few layers beneath this gown. We could get to negotations quickly.”
Bracing his hand on his knee, Simon shoved to his feet in a burst of masculine enthusiasm. “I’ll follow you anywhere, my girl. To the past, to the bedchamber, and especially,” he said, laughing as he swept her into his arms and strode toward their bedchamber, “to our future.”
The End
Thank you for reading Simon and Emma’s love story! I hope you enjoyed The Hellion is Tamed as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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Come along for Julian and Piper’s tumultuous affair in The Lady is Trouble (book 1), for Finn and Victoria’s wild ride in The Rake is Taken (book 2) and Sebastian and Delaney’s love story in The Duke is Wicked (book 3).
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Read on for a sneak-peek of The Lady is Trouble (book1).
He’s a viscount with a dark past who yearns for the one woman he can’t have. She’s a psychic firebrand. Rebellious, spurned by society and determined to change his mind.
* * *
What’s a defiant woman to do when the man she’s meant for doesn’t believe in love?
* * *
After three years of waiting for Julian Alexander to realize they are destined to be together, Lady Piper Scott takes matters into her own hands. Because her gift as a healer has never done anything but distance her from the most principled man in England. A meaningless diversion as a medium, all done to gain a certain wandering viscount’s attention, backfires. As most endeavors have for a woman known in the ton as Scandalous Scott.
* * *
What’s a reluctant viscount to do when the woman he can’t have becomes the woman he can’t live without?
* * *
Julian Alexander, Lord Beauchamp, battled his way from the lowliest slum to assume his title. He carries not only a turbulent past, but a mystical psychic gift that separates him from society. Honorable to his core, he is committed to protecting a community of outcasts with abilities like his own. He has no time, no place, for love. Or repeatedly rescuing the most outrageous, beguiling woman he’s ever known. Even if she needs his protection most—and he desires her above all others.
* * *
Seduction, intrigue and desire lead to an explosive passion…
* * *
Julian vowed to shield Piper from the deadly foes seeking to possess her powerful gift. Although he needs her help in controlling his own, the mix could be deadly. Soon what was once a simple agreement to work together becomes enchantingly complex as they surrender to a timeless love…
Chapter 1
There is nothing stable in the world;
uproar’s your only music.
* * *
~John Keats
London 1865
Allowing the lady to lure him into her carriage had been a brilliant idea.
Julian stared at a spider crack in the ceiling of his Mayfair townhome and wondered when he might start to believe it. A gust of wind ripped through the open window and sent the bedcurtains into an aggravated dance, bringing with it the putrid smell of coal smoke and the Thames. A gross lack of industry on his part, the entire night, even down to Marianne undoing her own bodice strings.
It would be excellent, this chance encounter, if there weren’t the niggling—familiar—pinch of regret the moment his cock had settled. A faint sense of having erred, gone off the path and into a shadowy forest where one could be easily lost.
As lost as one felt after stepping into a dimly lit carriage.
He watched Marianne wrap herself in his silk dressing gown as her chatter lulled him into a state of satiated distraction. Only the first and third word of each sentence filtering through, he found the conversation definitively complete. Earl, garden, tryst, scandal. Titles and the men who held them occupied her entire interest. Each day spent investigating a riddle which had no solution. Was, in fact, not worth the attention she devoted to it.
He stroked the pads of his fingers along the bedsheet, starch and laundry soap mixing, not altogether unpleasantly, with the scent of their coupling. In all fairness, Julian should not judge. His mystical gift separated him from a normal existence and made this world at times unrecognizable. However, the ton was satisfactorily hoo
dwinked. He looked like he fit in, had been born to fit in. He played a role for the sole purpose of propping up the viscountcy because it was his duty, dancing in and out of society’s circle while struggling to keep his secrets, and the secrets of those he protected, buried. Of course, he tendered his title when it benefited. But a barony would have profited just as well and knocked him down a notch, perhaps far enough to slip beneath the waves and be carried from view.
He closed his eyes as his mind drifted. If he woke to an empty bedchamber, all the better.
Then Marianne mucked it up by kicking the door to the past wide open.
He rose to his elbow, knocking the counterpane aside. Dragging his hand through his hair, he asked, “Repeat that, will you?” Alarm vibrated through his belly, like swimming in the sea and realizing a large wave crested behind you. No, it couldn’t be. “Come again?”
Marianne turned, her gaze settling where the sheet hung low on his hips. “So, you were listening.” She reached to touch, a stroke on air. Licked her lips in the event he didn’t register her appreciation. “Jules, with you, I never know.”
He slid high in the bed, suppressing his annoyance. Jules. He’d asked her to refrain from calling him that. Too. Many. Memories. “Marianne, the clairvoyant?”
Her smile grew luminous, her delight an example of the scant attention he offered. Without trying to be a disdainful cad, it seemed he was exactly that. “Oh, darling, it was the most farcical evening! Asher arranged for a fortune teller to entertain, and you know him. For a duke, he pushes the boundaries of propriety while always staying within limit.” She leaned in, clutching the lapels of his dressing gown to her bosom. “I heard there was absinthe served to the gentlemen. Why, the festivities were enough to make a stuffed bird laugh!”
Julian hummed low in his throat and rose from the bed. He didn’t know but could imagine. Fuck, he thought and reached for his clothes, which lay in a tidy pile next to the chiffonier. Taken off without haste, neatly folded.
He frowned. How little had he actually wanted this encounter?
“I didn’t glean any outrageous tidbit about my future. Though I tried.” She lifted a delicate shoulder beneath silk. “More the delight just being there.”
He buttoned his shirt, slipped his braces over his shoulders. “You mentioned the woman had an unusual accent.”
Marianne crossed the room, slippers striking the floor in an excited rhythm. “It was dark, too dark to see anything. Very mysterious. Madame wore a veil, and there was candlelight. The ideal setting. Although Asher seemed oddly anxious the entire evening, adding nothing to our merriment.” At Julian’s impatient look, she rushed on, “Madame’s accent came out on one word. She sounded almost...” She twirled her hand in a languid circle, finger pointed toward the plaster ceiling rose. “Ad-ver-tise-ment. That’s what she called the sheet she handed me. She sounded, can you imagine, American? Would that not be a vulgar surprise?” She laughed it away, swept beneath the Aubusson at her feet. “Although I’m sure I misheard. Doubtless an upstart trying to hide cockney.”
Julian’s fingers twitched, missing a button on his waistcoat. He moved too forcefully across the room as she took a stumbling step back. “Where is it?” He drew a breath laced with the scent of Marianne’s perfume and the acrid aroma rolling in the open window. Soot, sewage. That damned river. Christ, he hated London. “The advertisement.” He extended his hand, controlling the tremor that wanted to travel from his fingers to his heart.
Could. Not. Be. Piper was tucked away in Gloucestershire. Under armed guard. Protected. Safe. Their enemies were looking for her, had been looking since she’d arrived from America all those years ago. But they wouldn’t look there. She knew this. He’d cautioned her more times than he could not count. Had been cautioning her for years it seemed.
Marianne regarded him through eyes the color of fresh cow dung. “Why, darling, I fear I’ve not seen you react…to anything. Appetites fed but the heart untouched.” She waved away her discomfiture and a statement she likely wished she’d kept to herself. Turning in a whirl of crimson, she moved to rifle through the reticle sitting atop the chaise lounge, one the color of eyes Julian had tried with little success to forget. “Lucky for you, I saved it. As proof I experienced such an evening. Who would believe otherwise?”
Julian flexed his fingers, preparing for the transmission. His gift didn’t marry well with a lack of sleep. Touching an object and being pulled into the otherworld of someone who had touched it previously was difficult enough. Stepping into that world when exhausted was foolish to the extreme and allowed the images to control him.
Maybe it wasn’t Piper and this endeavor would be nothing more than supernatural experimentation. He’d sent Finn to visit last month. Or had it been May? A headache moved to the base of his skull. Lifting his hand to his brow, he pressed hard.
Bloody hell, had they not visited since the spring?
Marianne thrust the advertisement at him, and he hesitated. Taking time to notice she’d only secured one ear bob and it dangled there without a partner, bouncing as she did. Her lips canted, though he’d bet a half-sovereign the smile would disappear if she fathomed the source of his reluctance. If she had any idea who he truly was and how his gift of sight forever separated them. “If you’re interested, Julian, and I’m shocked you are, Madame DuPre is doing a reading tonight. The address is listed.”
His breath seized. Madame DuPre. The name conjured forgotten summers of youth. Running through fields of grass so tall the blades hit his thigh; swimming in shallow lakes on moonlit nights; climbing trees until he was breathless surveying all that fell below. Laughter and foolishness—even love by some arcane definition—on a scale he and Piper could no longer afford.
Hell. He huffed a sigh and grabbed the sheet from Marianne before he could think better of it. Or stop himself, which he would not, because it appeared Piper had jumped off another goddamn ledge.
And he was her rescuer. Her caretaker, her warden.
I’m going to throttle her, was all he managed as he crushed the sheet in his hand and was thrust into the otherworld.
The room he stepped into was swathed in shadow and candlelight. The curious combination of burnt ashes, spice and lilac stung his nose. Piper was settled over a desk, her gown as golden as the Kingcup scattered along Harbingdon’s stream each spring. Moonlight carved a path along the floor and Julian followed the dazzling river of silvery blue. The walls surrounding her were covered in tattered wallpaper, peeling at the ceiling and seams. The furniture was scuffed, the rug threadbare. The dwelling was nothing like Finn’s description of the modest but opulent manor in Gloucestershire.
His heart thumped desperately against his breastbone. She was more vibrant than any model he’d ever painted, and he had tried to recreate her, a thousand strokes of brush to canvas.
Her vibrancy simply eluded him.
Stumbling back, he tried to step out of the trance. It was a problem lately that he had trouble doing so. Through eyes drawn to slits, he watched Marianne’s lips move but was too entrenched in another space and time to respond.
Too entrenched in her.
Completely independent of his gift, Piper Scott had a stronger hold over him than any woman could ever hope to have.
Muttering a harsh oath, he dropped the advertisement like it was a sizzling coal and the image of Piper spiraled away like water down a drain. Forcing him from the room with the tattered wallpaper and the girl he’d sworn to protect with his life but never touch again to protect hers.
The woman for whom he hungered.
Dear God, Piper, what have you done?
He was through the door and into the hallway before another breath had passed, ducking as a vase accompanied Marianne’s shriek of rage.
She could only determine events had gotten out of control rather quickly.
Piper lifted her veil as she stumbled along the smoke-filled hallway, drawing a breath tasting of charred wood and burnt velvet. Baron Audley’
s aura had simply been so startling. An unusual shade: darker than lime, lighter than moss. Jealousy? Envy? Questions she would have asked had she not shifted rather suddenly in her excitement, bumping the table and sending the candlestick to the floor. She should have known better than to use such a tall taper, but they were very atmospheric.
Now the small parlor in the hotel where she’d held her readings was on fire. A trifling, containable blaze at last assessment. But still…
She tripped over a crease in the runner and halted in place. Was this the way out? She focused on calming her mind and placed her hand on the wall to steady herself. The wallpaper felt warm, a bit sticky, and though she realized time was limited, her mind returned to the Baron’s aura. Determining the emotion associated with the color took deliberation; it was not a simple process. She needed her research, which was upstairs in her room.
Damnation. The papers would do her no good if she burned to a crisp trying to retrieve them.
A strip of light marked the floor at the end of the hallway. Her lungs stung, her vision graying as she dashed toward the exit. She pressed her hand to her head as thoughts threatened to burst from it. This would win the prize as her worst blunder yet. Frankly, dying would be the easiest option. Because surviving this debacle to find herself, Lady Elizabeth Piper Scott, daughter of a viscount and granddaughter to an earl, exposed as a clairvoyant would be worse than any previous error in judgment.
And…Julian…
Julian would, quite truthfully, kill her.