“Gaston will make an excellent big brother,” Sarah confirmed, squeezing the boy’s hand, the affectionate gesture causing him to blush furiously.
“So, Grace, is it?” Martín asked Sarah. “I don’t recall that name as one we discussed.”
Sarah’s eyes slid to Gaston. “It was Gaston’s choice.”
Martín looked from Sarah to his tall, strapping son and smiled into his anxious face. “Grace is a good name, son.”
Gaston smiled, but then his forehead wrinkled with concern. “She was born without teeth, Papa.”
Martín laughed. “Don’t worry, she is her mother’s daughter—she will get teeth soon enough.”
“Martín . . .” Sarah warned, shaking her head, a rueful smile curving her lips.
“Shh,” he said, rising from the bed, his daughter still in his arms. “You need your rest, my dear. Gaston and I shall take Grace for a while.” He leaned forward and kissed Sarah’s forehead. “I love you, Sarah.”
“I know you do, Martín. I love you, too.”
Martín looked from his wife to his son and daughter, the emotion in his chest almost too much to bear. He’d thought he was a free man but, somewhere along the way, he’d become enslaved without even realizing it. This time it was chains of love that bound him, and he never wanted to break free.
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for reading Scandalous!
As this is a historical romance novel and not a treatise on the subject of slavery, my references to the subject are, by necessity, brief.
If you find the topics of slavery in the British Isles or the Slave Trade Felony Act of 1811 or the West Africa Squadron interesting, I highly recommend you delve into the wealth of primary information available for free on various university websites. Of course there are also thousands of secondary sources on the subject.
If you are looking for a definitive monograph on the topic of slavery, there isn’t one; the subject is simply too mammoth. It is one of the most written-about topics in the field of history, and the wealth of scholarship is impressive and well worth exploring if you wish to learn more.
Although I don’t directly reference the Somerset v. Stewart case (1772), I do allude to it when Martin tells d’Armand he is free while on British soil. This was a highly controversial case that was interpreted in a myriad of different ways and was by no means an iron-clad protection for slaves who found themselves in Britain.
While the case was a boon to the abolitionist movement, the liberty of a freed slave was still subject to the caprices of local authorities. Slave-takers often operated with impunity, and many freed slaves were kidnapped, resold, and never escaped bondage, no matter how illegally they’d been seized or how public some of the cases became. Keep in mind that Britain did not formally abolish slavery until 1833.
Mies Graaf is a character from a fictional branch of the House of Orange.
Please read on for an excerpt from the next novel in Minerva Spencer’s Outcasts series,
Notorious
London, 1817
Drusilla Clare plied her fan, using it for its intended purpose—cooling—rather than its expected purpose—flirting. After all, who would flirt with her?
“Dru, you’re doing it again.”
At the sound of her name, she looked at her companion. Lady Eva de Courtney should not, by all rights, have been sitting beside Drusilla in the wallflower section of the Duchess of Montfort’s ballroom. Eva wasn’t just one of the most beautiful debutantes in London this Season, she was also one of the most exquisite women Drusilla had ever seen.
But Eva was also proof that a hefty dowry and a gorgeous person were not, alas, enough to overcome a fractious personality or notorious heritage. Or at least her mother’s notorious heritage. Because it was a well-known fact that the Marquess of Exley’s first wife and Eva’s mother—Lady Veronica Exley—had not only been a ravishing, mesmerizing beauty who’d driven men of all ages insane with desire and yearning, she had also been barking mad.
Eva, reputed to be every bit as lovely as her dead mother, had neither the desire, nor the charisma, to drive anyone mad. Except perhaps her stern, perfectionist father.
“What, exactly, am I doing?” Drusilla asked Eva, who had pulled a lock of glossy dark hair from her once-perfect coiffure and was twisting it into a frazzled mess.
“You’re frowning and getting that look.” Eva thrust out her lower jaw, flattened her lips, and glared through squinty eyes.
Drusilla laughed at her friend’s impersonation.
Eva’s expression shifted back to its natural, perfect state. “There, that is much better. You are very pretty when you laugh or smile.”
Drusilla rolled her eyes.
“And even when you roll your eyes.” Eva’s smile turned into a grin. “Come, tell me what you were thinking when you were looking so thunderous.”
Drusilla could hardly tell her friend she’d been wondering when Eva’s gorgeous but irritating stepbrother, Gabriel Marlington, would make an appearance, so she lied. “I was wondering if Lady Sissingdon was going to fall out of her dress.”
They both turned to stare at the well-endowed widow in question.
Eva snorted and then covered her mouth with her hand. Drusilla couldn’t help noticing that her friend’s previously white kid glove now had something that looked like cucumber soup—one of the dishes at dinner—on the knuckle and a stain that must be red wine on the index finger. Drusilla could not imagine how Eva had managed to acquire the stains as she had not been wearing her gloves to eat.
Eva’s violet-blue eyes flickered from Lady Sissingdon’s scandalous bodice back to Drusilla, and she opened her mouth to speak, but then saw something over Drusilla’s shoulder.
“Gabe!” She shot to her feet and waved her arm in broad, unladylike motions.
Drusilla slowly swiveled in her chair while Eva attracted not only the attention of her stepbrother, but that of everyone in their half of the ballroom. Drusilla knew she should remind her friend to employ a little decorum—it seemed to be her duty in life to keep Eva out of scrapes—but her heart was pounding, her palms were damp, and her stomach was doing that odd, quivery thing it seemed destined to do whenever Gabriel Marlington entered her orbit. Something he’d been doing on an almost daily basis since the beginning of the Season when he’d begun escorting his sister—and, by extension, Drusilla—to every function under the sun.
He stood near the entrance to the ballroom as the major-domo announced him. His name—as always—sent a frisson of excitement through the crowd. The women in the room—young, old, married, widowed, or single—raised their fans or quizzing glasses, the better to watch him.
The men, also, took notice of his arrival. Especially the clutch of younger men who slouched near the entrance as if they were undecided about whether they should remain at the ball or leave to engage in some vile masculine pursuit. The men closed ranks as Gabriel walked past them, like a pack of wild dogs scenting a larger, more dangerous predator.
One of the group, Earl Visel, a man with perhaps the worst reputation in London—if not all of England—said something to Gabriel that made him stop.
The two men faced each other, Visel’s cronies hanging back as their leader stepped closer to Gabriel. Visel and Gabriel were, Drusilla realized, both tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped men, although Visel was pale, blue-eyed, and blond while Gabriel was golden, heavy-lidded, and flame-haired.
Whatever Gabriel said to Visel put the men behind the earl into a flutter, their gabble of voices audible even over the noise of the ballroom. Visel was the only one who seemed unconcerned. In fact, he threw back his head and laughed.
Gabriel ignored Visel’s laughter and scanned the crowd just like the Barbary falcon he resembled, his full lips curving into an easy smile when his eyes landed on his sister. His gaze kept moving, and Drusilla couldn’t help noticing how his expression turned to one of mocking amusement when he saw her. She told herself his reaction was ent
irely natural, especially since she had done everything in her power to provoke and annoy him for the last five years.
She also told herself that she disliked him because he was everything she despised in the masculine species: arrogant, too attractive for either his own or anyone else’s good, assured of his superiority, and so accustomed to female adulation that he would never even have noticed Drusilla’s existence if she hadn’t forced him to.
But she knew she was just lying to herself.
photo credit: VJ Dunraven Productions
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Minerva Spencer was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has lived in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Mexico. After receiving her M.A. in Latin American History from The University of Houston she taught American History for five years before going to law school. She was a prosecutor and labor lawyer before purchasing a bed and breakfast in Taos, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband and dozens of rescue animals.
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