The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane
Read The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane Online
Authors: Kasey Michaels
Tags: #romance, #comedy, #bestselling author, #traditional regency, #regency historical
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Electronic Edition Copyright 2011: Kathryn A.
Seidick
EBook published by Kathryn A. Seidick, 2011
Original Print Edition published, 1982
Cover art by Tammy Seidick Design,
www.tammyseidickdesign.com
EBook Design by
A Thirsty Mind Book
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
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For my mother, who believed.
Table of Contents
Now Available as
Digital Editions
Kasey’s “Alphabet” Regency Romance Classics
Alphabet Regency Romance Complete Box Set
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane
The Playful Lady Penelope
The Haunted Miss Hampshire
The Belligerent Miss Boynton
The Lurid Lady Lockport
The Rambunctious Lady Royston
The Mischievous Miss Murphy
Moonlight Masquerade
A Difficult Disguise
The Savage Miss Saxon
Nine Brides and One Witch
: A Regency Novella
Duo
The Somerville Farce
The Wagered Miss Winslow
Kasey’s Historical Regencies
Indiscreet
(Enterprising Ladies)
Escapade
(Enterprising Ladies)
A Masquerade in the Moonlight
(Enterprising
Ladies)
The Legacy of the Rose
Come Near Me
Out of the Blue
(A Time Travel)
Waiting for You
(Love in the Regency, Book
1)
Someone to Love
(Love in the Regency, Book
2)
Then Comes Marriage
(Love in the Regency, Book
3)
Kasey’s Contemporary Romances
Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You
(D&S
Security Series)
Too Good To Be True
(D&S Security
Series)
Love To Love You Baby
(The Brothers Trehan
Series)
Be My Baby Tonight
(The Brothers Trehan
Series)
This Must Be Love
(Summer Lovin’ Series)
This Can’t Be Love
(Summer Lovin’ Series)
Stuck in Shangri-La
(The Trouble With Men
Series)
Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
(The Trouble With
Men Series)
I
t was a typical day
for late March, a bit chilly, but tolerable for travel if one had
an adequate cloak and a closed conveyance. The female urging her
ancient, broken-in-the-wind steed to abandon his plodding walk
along the North Road for at least a half-hearted trot had neither.
She was aware she was beating a dead horse—well, nearly—but the
traveler was feeling decidedly chilly.
“Come on, old fella,” she bullied the horse,
“surely you can do better than this. For a blacksmith’s rental, you
make a sorry advertisement for his establishment. You represent
your employer as well as your own kind, you know, yet I dare say I
saw a tortoise flash past us some two miles back. Have you no
pride?” Other than a half-hearted twitch of his left ear, there was
no response from the un-proud beast.
“I should never have agreed to be governess
for the Squire’s brats,” she told herself aloud for the hundredth
time, “if I had not been so desperate. Tare an’ ’ounds, I wager
they send me off to a cold garret next to a drafty schoolroom,
without so much as a crust of bread or dish of tea. Oh, I’m cold,
I’m tired, I’m filthy, I’m hungry, and this blasted gig is giving
me splinters enough to have me eating my mutton from the
mantelpiece for the next fortnight.”
Poor, poor Miss Tansy Tamerlane (for that was
her name) was obviously not too well pleased with her current lot
in life, as indeed she had every right not to be, for she had not
been born to penury and service. In fact, six and twenty years
before—when Tansy’s premature, rather puny self had first been
brought kicking and squalling into this world to become the only
child of Sir Andrew Tamerlane and his scatterbrained wife, Phoebe—
her arrival could only have been termed “well cushioned.”
When she not only refused to expire, as many
babes breeched too soon often did, but steadfastly grew in size and
strength every day, her Mama—who one would think would do more for
the only child of her bosom—cursed her with the absurd appellation
of Tansy, which she had heard meant “tenacious” and “persistent.”
Sir Andrew tried to point out that it was only a short hop from
tenacious to stubborn, but his wife would have none of it.
Tansy’s life on a small country estate was
much like that of any young girl born to genteel, moderately
wealthy parents until her Mama obediently succumbed to a trifling
summer cold when Tansy was just ten years old. Her education was
evermore left in the hands of a parent who directed his grief into
bouts of drink and gambling for high stakes, which is the same as
to say Tansy’s education—at least at lady-like pursuits—ended when
Mama did.
The girl now traveling the North Road to her
fourth place of employment in less than two years knew nothing of
French or Italian—indeed, knew just enough of the King’s own
English to get by—and most of that was not fit for a proper lady.
She could not play upon the pianoforte or harp, sew a fine seam, or
sing so much as a note. These deficits, plus a strong tendency to
speak her mind, had made for her abrupt departure from her last
three posts as governess, and explained her readiness to accept
employment bear-leading Squire Lindley’s four milk pudding-faced
offspring.
If only she had been born a man! Perhaps then
she could have halted, rather than simply delayed (by means of
stringent housekeeping), the inevitable erosion of the Tamerlane
wealth that ended with Sir Andrew’s creditors cutting up the estate
piecemeal after his death. As it was, her only legacies were a
superior riding ability, a cool hand and clear head while up behind
a spirited pair, a mind crammed with the name of every Newmarket
winner of any moment (as well as the leading fists, their matches,
and opponents), the location of the best fishing waters within
fifty miles of her former home, and even the right to claim the
Tamerlane Precision Fishing Lure as her own invention. She could
also load and fire handguns and fowling pieces better than most men
and—when pushed into losing her none-too-serene temper—could spout
oaths with the best of them.
On the other hand, Tansy could not dance at
all (not a step), did not know how to curtsy to a lord, would
undoubtedly use the wrong fork on a lobster (a delicacy she had
never seen, let alone tasted), and had never mastered the blush,
the simper, or, alas, the giggle. It was no wonder, then, that she
remained unmarried and, if not firmly on the shelf, definitely at
her last prayers, as her hired horse slowly covered the remaining
miles to the Squire’s abode.
She gave another flick to the ribbons. “Get
up there Dobbin—or Horace, or whatever your blasted name is,” she
urged once more. “There’ll be a nice bag of oats for you at the end
of the ride.” It wouldn’t do to tell him he’d probably only get
straw, and that moldy and damp. Dobbin, or Horace, perked up his
droopy ears this time and broke into his own version of a trot for
a few yards, then lapsed once more into what seemed his forte—the
slow plod.