The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (3 page)

“A pleasure, you say? Viscount Evers can take his cursed home with all its cursed expensive hand-painted fineries and go straight to the devil for all I care!”

Chapter 2

“Did Miss Sheffers just wish you to the devil?”

Wynter’s wide gaze and gaping mouth went beyond shocked. The man appeared utterly flabbergasted, a look Radford had never associated with his even-keeled friend.

“I believe she did.” A smile creased the corners of Radford’s lips. He eased down onto the sofa the women had vacated. Three half filled round teacups stared up at him from the side table next to him. The fourth little cup in the set, missing. “I believe she also pilfered from my fine china.”

Miss Margaret Sheffers.

Before an hour ago, he hadn’t the slightest clue that the lady existed, let alone that she resided on one of his properties. She was the kind of woman he generally overlooked. Gently shabby, small, with not one extraordinary feature to attract a man save for a pair of unusually vivid violet eyes—before today he’d guess such a woman would make a fine lady’s companion or governess, fading into the draperies. She was of so little import her initial burst into the room had his gaze shifting to the alluring Lady Iona, not her. So just how did such a woman manage to leave him with his heart throbbing in his chest?

“The marriage list we’ve just completed,” Radford said and thrust out his hand. “I believe you stuffed it in your pocket.”

Wynter eyed Radford for several moments before pulling the crumpled piece of foolscap from his pants pocket and dropping it into Radford’s palm. “What in blazes was that all about, Evers?” The note of anger was unmistakable . . . and completely a surprise.

“What was what?” Radford asked somewhat absently. He struggled to his feet so he could pace like a normal man while he reviewed the list of qualities he’d demand in a wife.

“Your damned behavior, is what. I’ve never witnessed a ruder display. Is this how you plan to woo a wife? If you do, you had better start preparing for a long bachelorhood.”

“I just wished to ascertain their qualifications.” No vagaries on his list, nothing left to chance.

“Qualifications, Evers? This isn’t Tattersal’s where you can pry open their mouths and peek inside. You have to use your charm. Before you bought that bloody commission, all you had to do was wink and every damned woman in sight would swoon.”

“That man no longer exists. For one thing, I am no longer a prime pick. Look at me! I’m a cripple, naught but half a man.”

Wynter sighed, long and loud. “It’s your acid tongue, not your injury that scares women.”

Radford continued to pace, feeling his limp grow more pronounced. The pain in his foot returned with a vengeance.

How was it that for the past half-hour he’d been free of the searing pain? Something about pricking the anger of a plain, utterly forgettable faded bloom had completely erased the state of his injured body from his mind.

“Perhaps a wife is exactly what I need.”

“Bloody funny way of going about finding one.” Wynter helped himself to a second serving of claret. He held up the decanter, offering to pour a glass for Radford.

Still pacing with his jerky movement of half dragging his lame leg, Radford waved Wynter away. “Not now,” he grumbled. He needed to think. To plan.

Just as on the Peninsula, everything lived and died by the force of strategy. No matter what Wynter said about the necessity of charming a woman, Radford knew there was more to this chase for a wife than that. He’d seen the fleeting glances the society ladies sent his way, their sidelong looks literally twitching with a blend of fear and pity.

Miss Sheffers’ mystically deep violet eyes had sparked with anger, not pity.

Long gone were the days where every lady he met would stare up at his healthy physique with moon-eyed affection.

She hadn’t been moon-eyed, but she’d appeared indifferent to his condition.

“Never mind my offending the woman, Wynter. She didn’t meet even one marriageable criteria.” Radford shook out the foolscap.

“Didn’t she?”

Radford began to read from the list. “Number one, age. She needs to be young enough to be pliable, readily molded into my image of the perfect wife and viscountess for my estate. No younger than eighteen—I have absolutely no wish to bed a child—no older than one-and-twenty. Need I go on?”

“I see no problem as of yet,” Wynter said with a shrug.

“Number two, appearance. She should be fair of complexion, like an angel smiling down from the heavens—I believe the poet in you added that last part. Her body should be sturdy, full enough to fill a man’s hands, and possess wide hips—”

“Within reason,” Wynter interjected.

“—To safely produce a brood of sons.” Miss Sheffers’ compact body, like a coiled spring, no doubt fit the second part of the description. The muslin gown hinted at the curves hidden underneath. But, alas, her unusual olive skin tone, angular features, and bright violet eyes gave her the look of part elf, part gypsy. A combination well suited for fairy tales and fantasies, but not the refined position of viscountess. “Again, need I continue?”

“I don’t see why not.” Wynter made himself comfortable in the overstuffed chair by the fire, enjoying the claret as well as the dissection of this woman’s shortcomings a little too much. Radford ground his jaw.

“Number three, disposition.” His voice rose along with his aggravation. “Above all things, she should possess a gentle disposition. Behave properly. Be agreeable in all things.”

“To be fair, Evers, circumstances had forced her to act as she had. I’d say she handled herself very well, considering . . .” The reproach deepening the blue of Wynter’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed.

“Very well, we’ll skip that one for now. Not that it matters.” Radford drew a steadying breath. “Number four, family. Born to a respectable family of suitable rank and possessing a sizable dowry.” He cast a pointed look across the room, daring Wynter to argue in support of Miss Sheffers’ family, convinced her family name passed his friend’s ears as meaninglessly as it had his own.

Wynter shrugged. “As for the dowry, I don’t dare speculate. One can never assume the financial stability of another when so many live high on credit. But her family name stands on its own merit.”

“Exactly.” Radford stopped his pacing, uncertain. What did his friend mean,
stands on its own merit
? No matter. The last qualification was perhaps the most crucial, the one point he would never bend. “Number five, horses. She must”—the word underlined, twice—“possess a full knowledge and genuine affection of horses. I am planning to continue my breeding program whether or not I am able to ride again.”

His doctors all agreed. They’d been blunt. He’d never be able to properly seat a horse or ride for prolonged periods. The heartless men might as well have taken up a knife and carved out his heart. Never ride again, his love, his life torn away as easily as that?

“My wife will share my love of horses. I will not give up my stables. I simply will not.” He looked at the second piece of foolscap in his hand. He’d completely forgotten he still possessed it—Miss Sheffers’ writ of eviction. Feeling nearly unhinged, Radford shouted his next words. “So you must agree. Miss Sheffers admitted it herself, if not in words in tone. She’s deathly afraid of the beasts!”

Wynter started with a sudden jolt of confusion. “Miss Sheffers? I thought we were discussing the very eligible Lady Iona.”

* * * *

May avoided her aunt Winnie and made a straight path up the stairs to her chamber to smooth her unruly hair and change out of her damp gown. Her shivering hands, not from the rainy chill but from the fury still boiling inside her, drew her attention to the thin teacup still lodged between her fingers. Bright blue parasols and flowers danced around the outside of the perfectly rounded cup.

His teacup
. In her rush to escape before angry words poured from her lips and shamed her, she made the horrible mistake of taking the teacup with her.

Your father’s gypsy blood ruins you, makes you unruly, makes you as wild and impossible as him
. Those bitter words, her uncle’s, rang loudly in her head. He tried to beat the willfulness from her, ruling her with a heavy hand those three weeks out of the year when she was forced to endure living with him.

You’re just a passionate child
. Aunt Winnie, always trying everything she could to fill the void only the return of her mother or father could truly repair, would coddle May in her arms, humming a sweet tune while a much younger, painfully innocent May wept.
There is nothing wrong with passion
.

Yet there was. May learned under the heat of disapproving
tonnish
glares, wielded by some of the most imposing society matrons, to dampen her spirit, to fade—like her gowns—into something colorless, nearly transparent. She carried the crime of her father’s birth with her everywhere. Not until her entrance into society did she understand the weight of the burden or the discouragement her Uncle Sires felt when he looked upon her. Only after she came of age did her dreams of marrying a man who could love her as passionately as her father loved her mother disappear.

Her birth, her looks, her lack of fortune, and her very manner frightened eligible men away. Gradually, she and her aunt exchanged positions and May became the caretaker, a lady’s companion. An honorable profession for a woman destined for spinsterhood.

In time, May grew accustomed to her role. She took pride in providing for Aunt Winnie in the same loving manner she’d been raised. There was no room in her life for a husband, not with the full-time responsibility of caring for her aunt, running the small household, and accompanying her to an exhausting string of teas, balls, exhibitions, and dinners.

As for a family—what woman didn’t long for children? But her heart was full. She had the love of her aunt and of her friend, Iona. And that was enough. It would be greedy to ask for more.

The only need in her life was time. She fingered Viscount Evers’ teacup, recalling just how he’d humiliated her.
I have no interest in squabbles of this sort
, he’d said, belittling the amount of pride May had had to swallow in order to enter his home like a beggar. He’d refused out-of-hand to hear how she’d already forced down a whole pantry-full of pride when she’d petitioned her uncle for funds after the fretful Mr. Thomas, the local banker, explained how the courts had seized her parent’s money.

Two and a half months had already passed, and still no word or reply from her uncle.

If it were just May’s fate in question, she’d understand his disinterest. But Aunt Winnie was Uncle Sires’ eldest sister. He always appeared in awe of Winnie and, even, faintly wary of her opinion. Absent siblings of her own, May had nothing to compare it with. Yet, she assumed his behavior a form of brotherly affection.

So why turn his back on Winnie now, when she needed him most?

She and her aunt were caught between the indifference of two men, that’s what. May chewed her bottom lip, uncomfortable with the feeling of being beholden to any man. She carefully placed the viscount’s stray teacup on her dressing table next to her brush.

That silly teacup. What the viscount must think of her! She crossed the room to the velvet cord, thinking to call the housekeeper and ask her to return the cup posthaste. Her hand had just touched the cord when she heard a clamor rise below and the rumble of horses.

She peered out the tall floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into the small front garden, the street, and the fashionable Sydney Gardens. A carriage, bearing an intricate golden crest emblazoned on the door, swayed as it stopped in front of their humble cottage.

May reached for her throat, uncertain of what to do.

What could it mean for
him
to come here? This was most unexpected. She rushed a brush through her hair, despairing at the stray curls already pulling free from the pins, a regular condition only worsened by the rainy weather.

There’d be no time to change her damp gown. Aunt Winnie would need assistance preparing for company.

May glanced out the window one last time and watched a liveried footman with a dark umbrella in hand open the carriage door with measured purpose. She stiffened her spine—this would just have to be endured—and set off downstairs in search of her aunt.

Chapter 3

The rains had died away and the heavy clouds parted just enough to allow a sparkling ray of sunlight to pass through to the city. That moment, the first break in a storm, usually calmed May’s heart. It was in that magical instant she felt closest to the mother and father who were as elusive as the sunlight.

Today, May could only spare a wistful glance to the sky from the parlor window. The storm, it seemed, hadn’t truly passed but only moved inside.

Their guest paced the length of the parlor. Dressed in gray breeches with a long black coat fashioned from broadcloth, his heavy body filled the room. He hadn’t arrived alone, either.

Uncle Sires, the eighth Earl of Redfield, had brought with him a stranger. Mr. Tumblestone, a finely dressed gentleman as portly as Aunt Winnie’s lazy tomcat and nearly as old as her uncle, smiled fondly on May while he was presented to her. He took her hand in his and pressed his rather large set of lips to her gloved knuckles.

With introductions out of the way, family members inquired after, and tea sent for, Uncle Sires took to strolling about the parlor again while Mr. Tumblestone settled into a tapestry-covered seat. Aunt Winnie, panting from too much excitement, allowed May to assist her to her favorite chair near the fire.

Her uncle’s sharp gaze missed nothing. His frown lengthened as he took notice of Winnie’s weakened condition. Nothing appeared to please him, in fact. He paused to inspect a silver four-stemmed candleholder set on the mantel. He lifted the piece, turning it in his hand. The expensive wax candles had been burned down all the way to their nubs. Though the silver was polished, the cheaply made candleholder was dented from years of use in a string of households. He wiggled a stem. May held her breath, praying the brittle metal wouldn’t snap under the force of his hand.