Minerva's Match

by Lisette Giroux

  She was, however, not above making things a little difficult for him and when he finally hoisted himself into the Rothwell coach the only seat vacant was beside a suddenly very sullen looking Virtue. Ozzie knew better of course.

  The sherry helped ease Eleanor’s nerves about going to the party. She spent most of her time pushing men away. The idea that she now had to get them to come to her caused a stomach ache. It was the sherry that started her giggling as the coach started off.

  “Virtue, you look more like my brother’s sister than I do.” Two blonde heads snapped up to glare at her. The fierceness in their blue eyes were twins too. “Oh those looks at me are not helping your case.” She turned to look at Simeon and realized the same could be said of them. Both dark haired, though different eyes, they looked a matched set also. Just then the coach hit a rut in the road and sent the lot of them flying. Virtue grabbed for the seat but instead got Ozzie’s thigh as he had shifted also. The two of them looked at each other for all the world like they were about to burst into flames. She was so consumed with laughter that she didn’t realize Simeon’s arm had wrapped around her waist.

  After Virtue snatched her hand from Ozzie’s leg and his breathing sounded less like a bellows, he realized what was going on across from him.

  “Rothwell! Unhand my sister.” Eleanor looked down at Simeon’s hand which spanned nearly her entire ribcage. He wasn’t groping just sort of resting it there. Perhaps it was the sherry again but she rather liked the way it felt. Yes, it would be easy to pretend to like Simeon but she would have to remember not to get too carried away with the ruse or she would get caught in her own trap. She had chosen him precisely because he was unsuitable as a husband. He wasn’t an awful man as far as she could discern, but he would never do for her. A man like Simeon would want a docile, quiet wife, if he took a wife at all. He was far too interested in his position to put up with the kind of scandal she was likely to cause, even without trying. No, the man was completely wrong and havoc would ensue if she forgot that. Now she turned and looked the man invading her thoughts right in the eye.

  “I just, I wasn’t going to do anything! Just trying to keep the girl from falling to the floor. Shame to ruin such a pretty dress.” She felt herself preen slightly, almost as a reflex. Brothers were not so good at giving compliments on how she looked and mothers lack any sort of detachment. Then he had to go and ruin it. “Of course, Virtue would look ravishing in nearly anything.” She shouldn’t be miffed. It wasn’t as if she hoped he would fall for her, and all the heiresses had made peace with coming up short in comparison to Virtue’s beauty. To them it seemed almost more a curse than a gift. Men never ventured beyond her looks and women hated her on sight for that and that alone. Still, she couldn’t deny the bolt of jealousy that now ran through her. “Wouldn’t she, Ozzie?” Simeon continued as a sly smile crossed his lips.

  Ah, that was what he was playing at. Eleanor covered her smile behind her fan. Under her breath she whispered “Well played.” She saw Simeon startle and then smile at her. She did her best to bestow a demure smile on him. The other two were so busy trying to climb to opposite ends of the seat they noticed nothing else.

  “So are you ladies prepared to bring the male population to their knees? I suppose that is what you have been learning since you left the school room?” Virtue glared at Simeon and Eleanor let loose a rather unladylike snort, which she quickly tried to cover with a cough.

  “Barton’s teaches young ladies of a certain class enough sums to manage the household accounts,” Virtue started to say.

  “But not so much that they presume to interfere with their husband’s business dealings.” Eleanor finished.

  “Enough French that they may converse with their dressmaker.”

  “But not so much as to seem Francophile.”

  “Enough art that we should be able to entertain ourselves while our husbands are with their mistresses.”

  “But not so much that we would dare to consider ourselves artistic.”

  “Enough literature that we can converse intelligently at parties,” Virtue continued.

  “But not so much that we actually get ideas of our own,” Eleanor finished.

  “Sounds positively awful.” Simeon concluded rightly.

  “It had its advantages.” She smiled at Virtue who was starting to visibly relax again. “If you were smart you enlisted a band of compatriots.”

  “This would be the infamous Heiresses of Eris your brother mentioned.” Both women turned to stare at Oswald.

  “Bloody hell.” He whispered under his breath and turned to stare out the window into the dark.

  “Yes, that is what we named ourselves. We all decided that the curriculum asked so little of us that we would each pick a particular area to specialize in, in addition to the womanly arts as they called them.”

  “Virtue, what hobby did you choose?”

  “Military intelligence and codes. I also learned to sculpt a little.” Both men swallowed audibly.

  “You’re serious?” Ozzie had come out of his sulk to stare open mouthed.

  “Quite. Why are you shocked?”

  “I’d expect something like that from her, but you?”

  Simeon regarded her coolly. “Eleanor, dare I ask what you studied as your hobby?”

  “Military strategy and hand-to-hand combat, also sleight of hand tricks.”

  “Eleanor always was the overachiever.” Virtue smiled at her and she returned it warmly. Their whole band was tight but Virtue and she were closer even than that. Both her brother and Simeon were staring at her as if she had just materialized in their coach.

  “For God’s sake, why?” Ozzie finally spit out.

  She glared at her brother. “Simple. I had four cads for brothers, all of whom never let me forget how much stronger than me they were. Therefore I attacked them in the one area they were unarmed, intellect.” Simeon shook with suppressed laughter and Ozzie turned an odd red color that you could see even in the gloom of the carriage.

  “So I understand the strategy and fisticuffs, but why the sleight of hand tricks?” Simeon asked through escaping laughter.

  “How else was I to steal their things right out from under their noses?”

  “You did not! We aren’t so stupid as to fall for those kinds of cheap street tricks.”

  The carriage lurched again and everyone was tossed and settled back into their seats.

  “Would you like to make a wager, dear brother of mine?”

  “What?”

  “I can take something of yours at some point this evening. Anything I take, I keep. If I am able to take three items of yours, you have to dance with Virtue.” Virtue stared daggers at her. She should have warned her but the fact was, Virtue was invited to these functions because no one wanted to anger her ducal patriarch. Except, because no one actually knew who he was, when she attended she was often shunned, or worse propositioned inappropriately. One dance from Ozzie might change that, if nothing else it kept her from tapping her toes against the wall all night with the rest of them.

  “Deal. You’ll never do it.”

  “Perhaps but it couldn’t hurt to try. Ozzie, the dinner was to start at nine o’clock sharp. What time do you have?” Ozzie fumbled in his watch pocket and then started patting his vest.

  “Blast! I know I had it. Can you look around on the floor I seemed to have lost my watch.”

  “Yes, you have dear brother.” She let the watch chain unfurl with a pop as the pocket watch swung crazily in the bouncing carriage. “I have always admired this watch. It was a gift from father, was it not?”

  “You hellion, I will get even for this you know.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. One item down, two more to go.” Simeon laughed out loud and without restraint. He had a nice laugh, odd how she had never noticed it before.

  You met Louisa in Chaos’s Consort and Minerva’s Match. This is her story. A shy quiet exterior hides the heart of a lion and she’ll need every bit
of it to handle Colin Campbell.

  Hera’s Husband Prologue

  Tugging on her dress only made the problem worse. Damn and Blast! She looked up to find the source of her confusion bearing down on her. Another tug on the dress did no good.

  “There you are, Miss Compton. Who knew such a little thing could run off so quickly. What have you done there?”

  He pointed to where her dress was tangled in the shrubbery. If she didn’t know better she would swear he’d bewitched it to do that very thing. Trapped by the very man she was running from. She’d been so looking forward to the maze. Why did the Duke of Northford have to make them work in teams and why did they let Eleanor talk them into mixed pairs? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t see the heat building between the two of them. She made a mental note to speak to Eleanor about it later. “I am not a thing, Mister Campbell. I am a fully grown woman capable of reason and action.” She refused to use his title. More the bother that the beastly man never seemed to mind that she didn’t. Really, what was a Laird anyway?

  “Ah. That you are now, fully grown I mean.” He gave her that smile again. The one that said he had secrets he wasn’t sharing, the one that made her stomach soar like a sea bird on the wind only to plummet to the water and dive under. “You seem a trapped woman. I might have to use this to my advantage seeing as you are always so eager to get away from me.”

  “A gentleman would not.”

  “Perhaps I am no gentleman then lass?”

  His words should have chilled her. But the way his eyes sparked with mischief made her swooping stomach drip warmth down to her... Oh dear, no... She mustn’t think those kind of thoughts and certainly not about Mister Campbell. “Regardless, I don’t need you anyway. I am fully capable of extricating myself. Move along, I’ll be fine.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the boxwood wall of His Grace’s maze. “Think I’ll stay for the show. Might be worth my time and I can’t very well get to the finish without my partner.”

  She glared at him and started to growl under her breath. She stopped when she realized it only made that damnable smile of his bigger. Handsome or not, the man was intolerable. Her only conscious thought was she had to get away from him. No, that was a lie. Parts of her didn’t want to get away. Parts of her wanted to know what his hands would feel like if they touched her in places no one ever had before. Her skin flushed scarlet at her thoughts and she raised her glance to see if he noticed. Of course he noticed, and his smile widened. He was insufferable!

  She had spent all her nineteen years being nearly invisible to her parents. Just something to manage along with their business interests and her mother’s grasping at a better place in society. Her friends, the other ‘Heiresses’, took notice of her but even with them she felt the need to keep parts of herself hidden. Mr. Colin Campbell made her feel transparent. Not just that he saw her and took notice but as if he could see deep inside her to all of her hidden places. It was disconcerting.

  She yanked harder on her dress and heard the fabric tear a little despite the dratted bush not releasing her. Oh lovely, now she’d have to endure her mother’s inquisition, but if it meant she could remove herself more quickly from Colin Campbell’s presence it might be worth it.

  “Here now, you’ll tear that fine dress of yours.” Before she could react he was kneeling at her feet. For such a large man he moved gracefully, danced well too. Her blush was back with a vengeance at remembering the feel of his arms around her at the last ball. She could feel it all the way to her...toes? Colin Campbell was removing her kid boot!

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  “Just getting you free lass, nothing more.”

  “But why does that entail removing my boot?” Her whole foot seemed to fit in the palm of his hand as he deftly worked the laces free with the other. “Your heel is twisted in the hem. I’m only trying to make it easier for you to stand.”

  Except she could feel the warmth of his hands through the thin leather. Soon her stockinged foot was clasped in his large hand. Who knew a foot could be such an instrument of erotic pleasure, or was it just his touch? Did he realize he was running his thumb over her instep? The caress so sensual her heart threatened to shatter. She was a fool. Of course he knew, his smile gave his game away.

  The sensation seemed to travel up her leg to her... She mustn’t think those thoughts. Instinctively she tried to yank her foot away. And managed to lose her balance immediately.

  “Whoa. Easy there, girl.” He caught her around her waist, hauling her against his shoulder. She was stunned silent. She’d never been touched like this by anyone let alone a man she barely knew.

  “Unhand me.” Her words barely left her throat. If she were telling the other Heiresses this story she would say it was from anger but the truth lodged itself in her breast. By God, she liked the feel of him, the strength running through his body called to the softness in hers. A moment later he stood easily with her pressed against him still. Even through her stays and all the layers she wore she could feel the heat of him. It did terrible, wonderful things to her.

  “I’m not the kind of man you can give orders to.” The words were softly said but there was no mistaking the power in them. The sentence hung there much as she did. Again it should have chilled her, did in some respects; this was not a man to be badgered into doing as she bid, but it also spoke to the truth of this man. His arm was braced under her bottom and his hand was petting her thigh as if she was a child or a horse he was trying to soothe. “This is some fine muslin. Was it imported from India?”

  She blinked at him. The question was so unexpected, especially in the situation she was in, her protest that he had no right to manhandle her, died before she could give it voice. It was a tossup as to which stung more, that he was so unaffected by their closeness that he was noticing the cloth or that he thought she was one of those women who thought of nothing but dresses.

  “How am I to know, and why should I even care? Let me down this instant you brute.” Instantly she was plummeting to the ground. A scream burst from her lips as she grabbed his neck to avoid hurting herself, and then, she wasn’t falling any longer. She was still suspended but now he had clasped her around the waist. He’d turned enough they were now chest to chest. He darted a quick look at her breasts as they pillowed against him. Before she could say anything his eyes flashed to hers. The look there confused her even more than his smile. If she was correct, that was want in his eyes, but he knew nothing about her so he couldn’t know she came with quite the purse or, more importantly, what her overbearing social climbing mother was like.

  He slid her down his body and she would swear she felt every inch of him. He was lean muscle from his neck, which she still had her arms wrapped around, to his powerful thighs encased in fine buckskin breaches. Oh. Dear. The slide down his body seemed to take forever and at the end she still had her hands resting on his chest. He was bending with her so that when her feet were on the ground his mouth hovered just over hers. His breath was almost sweet smelling, and slightly medicinal. Not unpleasant at all. It made her want to taste... Him? No, that can’t be correct. His hand slid to her waist seeming to cover the whole side of her from chest to hip.

  “Easy now. I have you.”

  Perhaps he only meant that he wouldn’t let her fall, but in that moment, when she was expecting his kiss, his smile of self-satisfaction and air of confidence pushed her to her limits. When she tried to slap him he caught her hand. She wasn’t an ‘Heiress’ for this many years for nothing. She stomped hard on the man’s ankle. Hessians or no, that hurt and she knew it. Eleanor had taught them all that trick to avoid being grabbed on the street.

  “Argh!” He dropped her boot as he reached for his foot. She caught it before it hit the ground and danced out of his grasp. Backing away even as she chastised him.

  “You do not have me, Mister Campbell. A beast like you will never have me.” She saw his eyes light with fire but she also saw him smile.
Damnable confusing man! She wasn’t about to stick around for more and ran as fast as she could.

  Hera’s Husband Chapter One

  Louisa Compton stroked her fingers over the embossed letters of her favorite book. She frowned just slightly, a tiny rebellion, since her mother would have no doubt made a fuss over her destroying her countenance if she had seen it. The frown was not because of the book itself but perhaps the ideas the book had put in her head. Fairy tales were all good and fine when one was a child but she was now grown. One of her best friends had married and, at least from Eleanor’s letters, enjoying her matrimonial state immensely. Well, at least the marriage bed. Marriage and getting away from her mother, Louisa longed for, but the marriage bed, she wasn’t supposed to want. Her parents slept in separate rooms; she supposed that was just what marriage was like when you had been married as long as they had.

  Flipping through the fairytales soothed her agitation. The familiar pictures brought back memories of sitting on her gran’s knee and listening to the stories. Her fingers stopped at the story of Beauty and the Beast. That had been one of her gran’s favorites. Gran’s version of the beast’s roar had always brought Louisa to tears of laughter. Now she traced over the image of the shaggy beast and sighed. What would Gran advise her now?

  She’d found a beast of a man and damn him, he attracted her as much as he scared her. No, that wasn’t true. He didn’t scare her so much as confuse her and that is what scared her, not the man himself. Colin Campbell, Laird of some country borough she could never bother to remember, was too smug by half. He acted as if he were Zeus himself, the way he expected women to fall at his feet. Well if he expected her to bow and scrape to him he would wait a very long time.

  She slapped the book closed on the beast, the one in the book and the one who had wormed his way into her head. Now she rubbed the back cover of her book and smiled at the secrets hidden there. Her gran would be proud of her. The woman may have told her fairytales but she also taught her the practicalities of life. A woman needed to know what gave her power of her own. One could only trade on beauty for so long and it always faded. But intelligence when cleverly used, money when well placed, observation when properly voiced, those could be counted on to keep a woman warm and fed for the whole of her life even without the benefit of a husband. And certainly were better company than Colin Campbell. He transfixed her, but he was all wrong, too sure of himself, too handsome, too strong. If she were going to have to spend the rest of her life with someone they should be biddable. They would ask her opinions on matters of consequence, not women’s fashions. And they should defer to her, not... Not confuse her. No, a man like Colin Campbell would never do. But she couldn’t stop wondering what he looked like stripped to the waist and laboring at some task. Damn Eleanor for putting that image in her head and damn Colin Campbell for filling it out.