Authors: Pamela Britton
Tempted (25 page)
What a curious, crazy, wonderful world.
“That’s it,” Mary’s breathless voice urged. “That’s it, Alex. Harder. Harder.”
Alex gritted his teeth, doing as she asked, his brow beaded in sweat as he sought to please her.
“There,” she said on a sigh. “There. Don’t move. Shift to the right a bit. There. There.”
Insatiable wench. She never let up. He would die of exhaustion by the time he was fifty-five.
“Here it comes, Alex. Don’t stop.”
Stop? How could he bloody stop?
“Three, two, one…”
And now she was counting. Good lord.
“Hang on.”
And then he was sailing…flying through the air just as she was, their horses landing almost in unison.
She gave out a laugh of exhalation, Alex glancing over, and for a moment, he nearly forgot to hang on. This, he decided on his own sigh, this was the reason why he tortured himself on a daily basis learning how to ride Sailor. She was delightful in her exuberance. Magnificent in her joy. Lovely in her high spirits, her cheeks glowing a heightened red, her hair tucked up under a jaunty cap. Piles of that hair had still come loose, the result of her impatience to be off and riding and having to wear a riding habit in order to do so.
“Hurrah,” she commended, her patina-green eyes highlighted by the copper color of her jacket as she drew her horse down to a trot and then a walk. Alex did the same. “Well done, my lord. Sailor took that magnificently. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything as glorious as you and Sailor sailing over that fence.”
Alex had. Lord, he had. Right now. She took his breath away, literally, for the way his chest tightened had nothing to do with riding his horse and everything to do with her.
She turned to him, obviously expecting a comment back, and when all he did was stare, she lifted an auburn brow. “What the blazes are you staring at?”
“You.”
The other brow lifted, and then her whole face softened as she tipped her head back and laughed. “I thought I had mud on the tip of my nose.”
He shook his head. “If you did, it would do nothing to detract from your beauty.”
“Ach, go on with you,” she said on a laugh. “I’m a mess, I am, and I suspect your pretty words have more to do with wanting to get under my skirts than my being in good looks this morn.”
This time it was his turn to laugh, the sound of it causing nearby crickets to go silent. It had dawned a perfect day, yellow-green patches of grass where the sun trickled through the trees sometimes rising with a ghostly steam at the sun’s startling touch. It had rained last evening, their horse’s hooves squishing the moisture from the ground in rhythmic steps.
“I assure you, my dear,” he said. “I have no such designs on your virtue.”
“What a corker.”
And in a move that would have done Mary’s fellow performers proud, Alex jumped down while his horse still moved. Sailor jerked his head up as he did so, almost as if to say, “Again?” And, indeed, Alex often dismounted in this spot, often looked up at Mary as he did now. Often held out his arms and said, “Care to wap with me, my dear?”
A giggle escaped her. “Hmm,” she said. “I’m not at all sure I should. I hear the future Duke of Wainridge is rather wicked.”
It was his turn to chuckle. “And I hear the future Duchess of Wainridge has something of a reputation herself.”
“And what reputation would that be?”
She slid down into his arms, Alex saying tenderly, “That she’s an irrepressible hoyden. That she says and does the most outlandish things.” He softened his gaze. “That everyone loves her—even her stepdaughter— despite rumors that the two of them despise one another.”
She reached up and touched his cheek in a gesture both familiar and poignant for the memories it evoked. “It has not been easy.”
“No,” he said. “But I knew it would all work out in the end. Society has grown to accept and love you.” He kissed her lightly, drew back. “Gabby, too, for she needed someone like you, though I can well understand why she would put you off wanting a child.”
“I never said I didn’t want a child,” she said, placing a finger against her lip. “I said just not right now.”
And something in her eyes, something in the way she looked at him above the shadow of her lashes made him murmur, “What are you trying to say?”
The finger traced a pattern around his lips, then around again. “I’m saying that perhaps, just perhaps, you might be able to change my mind about producing an heir.”
His heart stalled like a bird on a current of air. “Mary, are you certain?”
She nodded.
“But what made you change your mind?”
She smiled softly. “A number of things. Being reunited with my mother and realizing how much she loved me. Well, all of us, and how sad it was that in the end, she ended up with none of us by her side. Visiting with my father to try and resolve things and realizing that in his own way, he loved his children, too. Even me. But most of all, being with you.”
He lifted a brow. “Being with me?”
“Aye, my love, for watching you with Gabby, seeing how wonderful you are, makes me realize that even if I end up as poor a mother as my own, our children will always,
always
have their father to love them, too.”
And above them, a breeze stirred, fluttering leaves to the point that they sounded like a waterfall. A squirrel chattered near them. Insects zipped by them on wings pushed by a wind. Alex noticed none of it. Indeed, all he could do was cup his wife’s face, slowly bend down, murmuring just before he kissed her, “Well, if you insist…”
But it wasn’t nine months later, nor even ten, nor even eleven months later that the sound of Alex’s heir rang through Warrick Hall. Alas, the creation of a child took longer than Alex and Mary had expected, much to their delight.
And so it was that the newest heir to the Duke of Wainridge was born, and, indeed, when the Marquis of Warrick pulled back his swaddling (because one must always see for oneself that one’s child is, indeed, a boy), he verified that everything was as it should be.
And when the aforementioned marquis ascended to the title of duke many years later, he went down in history not as a tempter of innocents, not as a Wicked Wainridge, but rather, as one who had been himself…
tempted.
The real mistress of the Duke of Clarence was, indeed, an actress. Her name was Dora Jordan, and like my heroine’s mother, she bore the duke children, ten of them to be exact. She was also involved before she met the duke, bearing her former lover four children. Alas, she died alone and penniless in France, discarded by the love of her life after he bowed to pressure from his family.
The first equestrian performances were put on by Philip Astley and his wife “Petsy” sometime around 1766. In 1782 Charles Hughes opened a rival establishment which he called the “Royal Circus,” which is the first use of the word in that context. The acts were much the same as they are today with juggling, tightrope dancing and, of course, trick-riding.
I hope you enjoyed Alex and Mary’s story. As always, my goal is to bring you wacky, zany stories that make you laugh out loud and (hopefully) sigh at the end.
Blessings,
Pamela
Bestselling author Pamela Britton blames her zany sense of humor and wacky story ideas on the amount of Fruity Pebbles she consumes. Not wanting to actually have to work for a living, Pamela has enjoyed a variety of odd careers such as modeling, working for race teams— including NASCAR’s Winston Cup—and drawing horses for a living.
Over the years, Pamela’s novels have garnered numerous awards, including a nomination for Best First Historical Romance by
Romantic Times
Magazine and Best Paranormal Romance by
Affaire de Coeur
Magazine. Pamela’s second book,
Enchanted by Your Kisses
, was an Amazon.com bestseller resulting in Pamela having to choose between writing full-time or selling insurance. Difficult decision.
When not imbibing Fruity Pebble milk, Pamela enjoys showing her horse, Peasy, and cheering on her professional rodeo cowboy husband, Michael. The two live on their West Coast ranch (aka: Noah’s Ark) along with their daughter, Codi, and a very loud, very obnoxious African Grey Parrot prone to telling her to “Shut up!”
Please visit her at her Web site at:
www.pamelabritton.com
or write to her at: c/o Pamela Britton, P.O. Box 1281, Anderson, CA 96007.
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Pamela Britton!
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SCANDAL
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July 2004.
It all began over a dog. Silly as it may seem, the day Charles Reinleigh Drummond Montgomery, sixth earl of Sherborne, flattened the duke of Wroxly’s terrier was a dark day indeed.
Never mind that the dog had often been likened to a canine cannibal. And that it had bitten no fewer than ten and five children. And that in recent months a bounty had been placed upon its head: ten shillings (the result of a collection Wroxly Park’s staff had gathered) to whoever disposed of the carnivorous pooch. None of that mattered for the dog was loved by the duke, so much so that Rein, who had no preference either way, felt very bad indeed when the thump turned out to be … well, not a thump.
“What have you done?” the duke asked as Rein lay the precious Pookey before him.
Rein, who was to think later that he’d never seen a man turn so instantly pale, said, “He ran in front of my phaeton, Uncle.” Actually, Rein was reasonably certain the dog’s proximity to his carriage had been
no
coincidence, but he kept such theories to himself.
“You ran him over?”
“Actually, it was more of a glancing blow. Very quick, I assur—”
“You ran
over
him,” the duke raged, his eyes turning as red as that little speck one saw in the corner of a bovine’s eye.
“I’m sorry, Uncle.” And Rein truly was, for he was not without compassion. Truth be told, he had rather a fondness for animals, even those that enjoyed the taste of human flesh, like Pookey.
But the duke was pointing to the door now, his finger stabbing the air with so much force, his whole arm vibrated. “Get out.”
“Now, Uncle—”
“I refuse to tolerate your presence for a second more,” he said with a veritable waterfall of saliva. “You charge from one scandal to another. Indeed, look at you now, a bruise around your eye—”
“It was an accident.”
“Long have I considered
you
an accident.”
“I say,
that’s
rather harsh.”
“You are a blight on our family tree. Placing an advertisement offering Windsor Castle for lease,” the duke raged.
“You heard about that?” asked Rein, wiping at his cheek.
“Suspending a carriage from Windsor Bridge,” his uncle went on, ignoring him.
An engineering marvel, not that Rein had done the mathematical calculations.
“Creating fake stones and tossing them upon your professor as he walked into Eton’s school yard thereby giving him a fit of apoplexy—”
“I never meant to actually
harm
the man—”
“And then getting not only yourself, but my
Freddie
thrown out of Eton, and that after being expelled from Oxford because of that incident with the barmaid—”
“Yes, but that was
years
ago—”
“And then to come here and do—” his uncle’s eyes caught on the dog, his expression turning to one of grief. “—this to my precious Pookey.”
Which made Rein feel as vile as the wet bottom of a bag filled with rotted apples. “Uncle, I truly am sor—”
“No,” the duke shot, “No. I will not listen to another word of your excuses. For eighteen years I have tolerated your presence, but no more. From here on out you shall never set foot at Wroxly Park again.”
“But I—”
“Out,” the duke roared like a Shakespearean actor. “Out, I say,”
Damned spot,
Rein silently added. But he didn’t chide the old man for stealing the great player’s lines. No. Instead he bowed and exited the scene.
And there it might have ended, but for one thing: Years later Rein became the duke’s heir.
About the same time Rein was banished forever more from Wroxly Park, eleven-year-old Anna Brooks was trying very hard to understand where she fit into the world. Born to a captain in the King’s Navy, and a gently bred but impoverished seamstress, she was not exactly poor, not exactly orphaned (her mother and father were alive, but often sailed together), but rather the girl in the village whom everyone knew would become a governess, or a missionary, or
something
that involved Anna supporting herself in some humdrum way.
This was a source of constant irritation for Anna who’d been taught by her mother that a woman’s life could be far from humdrum. Why, she could even captain a ship (which her mother did upon occasion, when her father’s superiors weren’t looking). So when she overheard Lavinia Herbert say to Elliot Spencer, a boy whom Anna had developed a
tendre
for, that Anna would do well to enter a convent so that she could begin her life’s work early, Anna was outraged. Work in a convent, indeed. She was destined for a far greater purpose in life than tending the gardens at Our Lady of the Fountains Convent. Unlike Lavinia, Anna had a brain.
And so she came up with a plan, and a rather good one at that, she thought. Working day and night she began to construct her greatest creation, something that would prove her brilliance: a ship (though it was more the size of a row boat), for Anna was something of an inventor. But this ship would be lighter, faster and more maneuverable than other ships.
Alas, it didn’t turn out quite that way.
Oh, she built the ship. It just looked rather, well, odd. First, it was shaped rather queer; like a fish caught in the throes of a death arc. And the main mast tipped to port. And her sail. Well, Anna was quite convinced window coverings were not meant for sails, even if they did look unique what with the pattern of roses printed upon them.
Still, on the day of the race Anna optimistically stood by her ‘boat’, she was proud. The thing did, indeed, float, even if it was in the way that flotsam often clotted together on a stagnant lake.
The people of Porthollow, bless their hearts, were not cruel enough to laugh when they saw her creation repining on the sand. Indeed, they called out good luck to each other and smooth sailing as the racers stood by in preparation to launch on that sunny and clear day. Elliot, that youthful object of her secret fantasies, however, suffered no such compassion, Elliot being a boy, and everyone knew how unfeeling a male child could be.
“You’ll sink within ten seconds,” he predicted from his position next to her.
“I will not,” Anna said, fussing with her cloak nervously.
“You will.”
But Anna had taken her boat out last eve and so she knew she was relatively safe. Thus, she decided not to argue the point. Instead she flicked her cloak off her shoulders in the manner of a great Naval captain, gave Elliot an arch look, and shoved off.
Things didn’t work out quite the way she’d planned. One, the boat she’d spent so many hours crafting had gotten wet (as boats were supposed to do), the result being that the wood was now water-saturated, thus making it more heavy and the boat—much to Anna’s dismay—no longer buoyant.
Two, the pegs she had pounded in to secure the timbers had swelled and worked loose during the night, the result being that the moment she shoved off, she heard a rather startling couple of
pops
followed by an ominous
twang
.
“Hell’s bells,” she used her father’s favorite curse. She glanced up at Elliot, who had launched his sleek little sloop next to her.
He smirked from his hunched position beneath the main sail.
She closed her eyes.
He started counting.
She was up to her knees at five.
Eight saw her to her waist.
Nine put her up to her shoulders.
And ten? Well, ten was garbled by the water in her ears.
Anna decided she would allow herself to drown. Alas, Elliot would not let her.
He dived in, coming to her rescue like one of the Titans protecting his ladylove. Anna’s keen intellect suddenly reasoned that this was a much better way of gaining his attention, so she held her breath, feeling strong, manly arms swoop her up and pull her to the surface.
“Anna Brooks,” he gasped as they surfaced, “you are the veriest fool I’ve ever seen.”
Anna didn’t care. Oh, she just didn’t care. The feel of Elliot’s arms around her. The touch of his body against hers. The scent of his salt-laden coat…it made her head swim. She would, she decided as Elliot carried her toward the shore, her ‘ship’, his sloop, and the concerned cries of the crowd forgotten, remember the moment for as long as she lived.
And, indeed, a half-hour later as she made her way home, wet, embarrassed, bemused, and yet never defeated, Anna did relive the moment. Again and again and again. Elliot had rescued her. He had held her close and—well—while he hadn’t kissed her, he might have if she’d played her part a bit better. Things couldn’t have gone better.
Hmm. She frowned as she walked up the middle of the lane, perhaps they could have, for she’d have liked to have sailed into the bay next to him, but she hadn’t taken into account the weight of the wood once wet, a lapse on her part. And those pegs. She should have compensated for the swelling. For half a heartbeat her mind spun with a mathematical calculation, one that compensated for the weight of the wood and the amount of swelling and the pressure such swelling would cause, Elliot momentarily forgotten, but only a short moment, for a voice penetrated her musings.
“Oh, miss,” Anna heard someone say.
Anna hated being interrupted when she was in the middle of a calculation. It was the same feeling she got when she was interrupted reading a book.
Pop.
Out of the story. She looked up, surprised to see Sarah, the maid of all work her parents employed, standing off to the right of the road.
“Been waiting for you, I have.”
“Sarah, why are you not in town for the May Day celebrations?”
And for a moment the pretty little maid couldn’t speak she was so overcome by emotion.
And Anna knew. She just knew in the way that people know when someone is coming up behind you. The way a person knows bad news is on the horizon by the way a body shivers with cold. The way one senses something ominous has happened, though not exactly how, or what, only that it has happened.
“It is my parents, is it not?”
The maid nodded, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “I’m so sorry, Miss. So sorry. Their ship went down two weeks ago.”
Two weeks ago?
Anna closed her eyes, a pressure building behind them. She tried not to cry. Lord, wasn’t that silly? She tried not to cry so Sarah would not feel bad. But she couldn’t stop the tears. A grief filled her such as she’d never known before, and would likely never feel again. One so instant and so all encompassing she could only find the strength to utter one word, “No,” in a small little voice.
Mama.
Papa.
Gone.
Though Anna was only eleven, though she’d yet to experience life and all its pains and sorrows, she was bright enough and astute enough to realize the blow she’d just been dealt was one that would change her life forever. That nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be the same again.
And, indeed, it never was.
Many years later, long after a heartbroken little girl went off to live in London, the poor duke of Wroxly was told that Rein Montgomery was now his heir.
“My heir?” the duke roared.
“Yes, your grace.” The man swallowed, watching as the duke’s face reddened past his gray hairline.
“Impossible,” and his green eyes all but snapped the word at him.
“I’m afraid not.”
“I will not allow it.”
“You have no choice.”
“We could kill him.” The duke affirmed, his jowls quivering like a chicken’s wattle as he bobbed his head. “Kill him as he killed my Freddie.” He nodded for emphasis, the ducal hair, which had never been very prevalent, shaken into streamers that stuck out in the manner of porcupine quills.
“Your grace,” the solicitor felt the need to point out. “Your son died in a duel—”
“He would never have involved himself with that woman if his cousin Rein had not expressed interest in her himself.”
“Yes, but the fact remains that your son involved himself with a married woman, one whose husband felt understandably cuckolded when your son—”
“My son would never have done something so dishonorable if not for Rein Montgomery,” the duke said, his voice rising in volume until he doubled over in a fit of coughing, a cough that had gotten worse since his son’s death. When he regained himself, he straightened, saying in a low voice, “I will not have that—” The duke swallowed. “I will not have that wastrel, that instigator, that
killer
inherit my lands, not while my poor Freddie lies in the ground.”
At that moment, the solicitor felt almost sorry for the duke, only the glimmer of madness he saw in his grace’s eyes caused that pity to turn to concern.
“Something must be done,” the duke said. And, indeed, something was.
Two years later the former earl of Sherborne sat before the duke of Wroxly’s solicitor to hear the reading of a Will that promised to make him rich beyond belief. Alas, he didn’t want to appear too anxious and so he studied his nails (and admitted he needed a new manicure), barely able to contain himself as he waited for the solicitor to get to the good part, the part where his uncle left him everything.