“Mama, why doesn’t that man like me?” Daniel asked, his singsong voice echoing loudly around the walled chamber.
Slowly, the Captain turned to face them. He took two steps closer to Daniel and squatted as low as he could manage on one leg, while keeping his bandaged leg straight and using it for balance. “I apologize, your lordship.” He spoke directly to Daniel. “My name is Gabe, and I don’t dislike you. In fact, you remind me of my three nephews and I like them. A lot.” He sighed. “I have several decisions to make, difficult decisions, but that isn’t an excuse for bad manners.” He glanced up at Anne. “As I’m certain your mother has told you.”
Daniel nodded. “Uncle Bren told me to be good for Mama, and you, ‘cause you’re the Captain and you’re taking me and Mama to En…En…” He tugged on her hand. “Where are we going, Mama?”
Anne smiled at her son. “England, darling. We’re going to England.”
Daniel pulled his hand from hers and stepped up to the Captain, careful to avoid his bandaged leg. His tiny hand rested on Gabe’s shoulder and he patted him. “My mama will help. Mama knows ‘bout Englin, and she makes sores better.” He pointed at Gabe’s outstretched leg. “Kisses make it better.”
Anne gasped, while Gabe chuckled. His amber eyes held a twinkle as he spoke to Daniel. “I’m sure your mama’s kisses would make any man feel better.” He looked up at her and smirked. “Will you kiss me, Lady Melton?”
Anne groaned and put her hands to her burning cheeks, thankful that Daniel’s focus was on his new friend and not her red face. When Gabe stood and slowly drew his bandaged leg under him, Anne realized that he didn’t have his crutch.
“Captain, please, lean on me.” She moved closer and was relieved when, with a muffled groan, he slid his arm around her shoulder and settled a little of his weight on her.
Michael Brandon nodded. “Yes, I’m related to Lord Brandon, Frederick, who disappeared four years ago.” He faced the sick man. “We searched everywhere for you. Men scoured the streets of London for weeks after you disappeared, and then we widened our search. Ports, inns, the countryside, anywhere you might have gone. Or anywhere that you might have been taken if you’d been kidnapped and held for ransom.”
Michael groaned. “Three years of nothing. Not a sign. The police declared you a missing person, most likely deceased, and told us to wait out the seven years until we could officially declare you dead.” He swiped at his eyes, brushing aside the gathering tears. He took Frederick’s hand. “But we never gave up hope. None of us, and especially not mother.”
Tears trickled down Michael’s cheek and he brushed them aside impatiently. He didn’t care that everyone saw his raw grief. He only cared that his brother, if this shell of a man truly was his previously vibrant brother, heard his words and understood the truth in them. The heartache and sorrow that they’d all carried for years. The pain they’d suffered thinking they might never set eyes on Frederick again.
“Your mother …” His words caught as a sob escaped him, echoing the continuing sobbing from Melissa behind him. “Your mother died a year ago, but her last words were a desperate plea for me to keep looking for you. To find you, and to bring you home.”
Michael watched tears trickle and run over the creases on the aged face before him, and he knew. This was Frederick, his constant companion during hundreds of childish escapades.
https://books2read.com/suziloveDS December Scandal, Book 3 Scandalous Siblings.
‘How dare you.’ Lady Lillian spat the words at the Earl of Mallory and gave him her fiercest glare. ‘You shouldn’t have interfered like that. If those gentlemen recognize you, they might work out who I am, which is exactly what you wanted to avoid.’ She huffed. ‘Besides, I instigated that kiss.’
‘Why would you do such a brazen thing? Risk your good name and your life in such an impulsive manner.’
She sighed, all her anger deflating. ‘My good name evaporated when Geoffrey’s sexual preferences became known after his death. The men he mixed with kept his secrets when he was alive, and possibly even liked whips and ropes as much as Geoffrey, but dead men can’t reveal their secrets so they felt safe to expose him, while distancing themselves from those activities.’
‘But why would they risk incriminating themselves?’
‘I learned later that two girls had died, a day apart and in different areas of London, but both had been physically tormented and their bodies were left in parks in Mayfair. Government officials were sent to investigate after a minister’s wife and children stumbled upon one of them, and there was a push to find the culprit and to close down any houses of ill repute in respectable neighborhoods.’
‘I read about the murders, but surely they don’t think Geoffrey had anything to do with that. He wasn’t the most respected man and nor was he a decent husband, but I cannot imagine him killing women.’
‘The enquiry cleared Geoffrey, but as those houses were places that Geoffrey and his cohorts visited, his so-called friends decided to toss out Geoffrey’s name and draw the scrutiny away from them.’
Brent took her hands and shook them lightly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She shrugged. ‘Geoffrey was dead and I simply wanted to forget all the sordidness and start afresh.’ She waved a hand at the guests, whose conversations had become bawdier and louder the more punch was consumed and, as inhibitions were drowned in liquor, both women and men had stripped away clothing and were well on their way to public sex. ‘Here, I can reclaim myself, because everyone indulges in excesses and they don’t judge each other badly because they’ve let down their guards for an evening.
Have you read Suzi Love’s Books? Romance, Mystery, Military and History. Regency, historical and contemporary romance. Plus non-fiction history and writing.
The Viscount’s Pleasure House Book 1 Irresistible Aristocrats Disenchanted Viscount tutoring three Regency Ladies. What could go wrong? #Regency Erotic https://books2read.com/suziloveTVPH
Four Times A Virgin Book 2 Irresistible Aristocrats: The countess will do anything to prevent her younger sisters being forced into sordid marriages like hers, even if it means joining forces with the Duke of Stirkton and revealing the horrors of their intertwined pasts. books2read.com/suziloveFTAV
Pleasure House Ball Book 3 Irresistible Aristocrats: Lord Mallory attends his first courtesan’s ball in ten years to appease his concerned friends, though he’d rather stay home and read to his motherless daughters. Though mortified that Brenton unmasks her at a scandalous ball, Lady Lillian Armstrong doesn’t regret their night together. books2read.com/suzilovePHB
Petunia and the Pearl Diver Book 4 Irresistible Aristocrats Series: The pearl diver needs a working girl to rouse his body. Petunia needs money to save her family. A night at a London brothel could be the solution to both problems. But walking away is impossible when one night leaves them craving more…and more. https://books2read.com/suzilovePetPD
Loving Lady Katharine Book 5 Irresistible Atistocrats: When Lady Katharine Montgomery flees London after her scandalous husband was murdered, the Pacific islands of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) become her haven. Her life changes when Lord Alexander St. John, British ship’s captain and trader, sails into Port Vila. https://books2read.com/suzi
Embracing Scandal Book 1 Scandalous Siblings: Lady Rebecca Jamison saves her family from financial ruin by investing in railways, but when a greedy syndicate murders her friend, Becca is forced to beg assistance from Cayle St. Martin, the new Duke of Sherwyn. https://books2read.com/suziloveES
Scenting Scandal Book 2 Scandalous Siblings Series: Richard, Earl of Winchester, may not know it yet, but he’s Lady Laura Jamison’s perfect match. Lady Laura Jamison believes her extraordinary olfactory senses will sniff out her perfect match, but will Richard prove her theory wrong? https://books2read.com/suziloveSS
December Scandal Book 3 Scandalous Siblings: The Jamison family joins the Duke of Sherwyn and the St. Martin clan at the duke’s country estate, but guest numbers double when early December snowfalls make roads impassable. #HistoricalRomance https://books2read.com/suziloveDS
Love After Waterloo: When Lady Melton and son join antagonistic Captain Belling and the last group of wounded British soldiers evacuating Waterloo, she anticipates hardship and trouble with deserters. Not her relationship with a belligerent Captain. #RegencyRomance #military books2read.com/suziloveLAW
Self Publishing: Absolute Beginner’s Guide. Information, contacts, and checklists steer you towards professionally produced books. Helps both fiction and non-fiction authors and available in digital and paperback. Co-Authored by two Australians: multi-published Imogene Nix and best-selling and award winning Suzi Love. http://books2read.com/selfpublishing
History Notes Books 1-28: Do you need more factual and visual information for your historical fiction? Non-fiction Series: Fashion, music and social manners in the 18th and 19th centuries books2read.com/suziloveFashWomen1700s
Michael Brandon strolled after Cayle St. Martin, the Duke of Sherwyn, when the duke strode to the hallway to greet the latest group of travelers. They’d be, like him, grateful to accept the duke’s hospitality because they’d all become stranded after heavy snowfalls had led to rapidly rising water levels and an impassable local bridge.
He leaned on a wall and watched Mason, the efficient butler at Martin House, ease open the massive front door while three footmen braced their shoulders against the door to stop it blowing fully open. The house had already been full of family members gathered for Christmas, but with the addition of several groups of half-frozen travelers arriving every hour during the afternoon, the house’s walls must be groaning under the excess number of guests needing beds.
Several massive rooms in Martin House had been opened and warmed for the weary travelers who had descended on the duke and his family, but those large fires needed constant feeding with logs of wood. Therefore, Sherwyn couldn’t risk a barrage of snow and sleet blowing inside his house from the courtyard because, in such inclement weather, his footmen might not be able to collect more firewood for another week. Little wonder then that the duke hovered near the front entrance and supervised each subsequent arrival, his charming duchess by his side to add her won welcome.
Michael and his party had been the first to beg assistance from Sherwyn this afternoon, as he’d known that Sherwyn had left London a week earlier and would already be in residence at his country home. There had been a flurry of social events in London over the past two weeks before the Ton left the city and retreated to their country estates to wait out the colder months. Though this extreme weather had caught everyone by surprise.
It was barely mid December and the nearby bridge usually served the locals well through that month and into the New Year. Water levels normally only rose and covered the bridge after the snowstorms of January. Michael and Cayle were long time friends and so he knew Cayle had loathed this house, his family seat, when his father and stepmother had been in residence, but now that Cayle was the duke, and a married man, he had decided to turn this house into a more welcoming family gathering place. Even with the influx of visitors, invited or not, the staff here were jolly and efficient, a rare combination in the serving ranks.
‘Brent,’ Lady Lillian murmured as she entwined her fingers with his and gave him a begging look. ‘If I promise we’ll leave in an hour or two and not stay until dawn, will you keep my secret. Let me have a couple of hours here to watch and learn and…’
Earl Mallory frowned. ‘And what? Has your companion, whose name I still don’t know, made some sort of arrangement?’ He looked worried and suspicious, and with good right. Perhaps she’d reveal half of their plans, enough to pacify him and give them room to explore without him hovering like a distraught father.
‘Please, let me go on my way. You can do whatever you came for, too.’
His hands were on his hips and he looked angry. ‘I did not come here to find a mistress, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m more than happy to leave now and take you home.’
She mimicked his stance by putting her hands on her own hips and scowling at him. ‘I am not leaving. Not until I’ve explored all the upper rooms as well.’
‘The upper rooms? Are you mad? A lady cannot go prowling around the bedrooms. There will be couples in those bedrooms having–’
‘Having sex? I do know these things. I’m a widow, not a spinster.’
‘Huh! And what will you do if you walk into a room where there are more than two people? Perhaps three or four, or even five, in one bed.’
‘Oooh, do you know which rooms they are in?’
‘I do not. And I don’t wish to know.’ He sucked in a breath and pointed a finger at her face. ‘And neither do you.’
‘I’m my own person now and I’ll do what I want. I’m going upstairs to explore, and to observe. To join in if I’m asked.’
‘You deserve better than the men you’ll find here, Lillian. Go to a respectable ball. Dance with some decent men. Find another husband.’
‘Why are you eager for me to risk a repeat of my miserable marriage, when you’ve declared that you’ll never marry again?’
‘Because you’re a woman and I’m a man.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a very biased view, and I thought you better than that.’
He groaned. ‘You’re right. It’s unfair to tell you to risk more unhappiness when I won’t.’
Lady Lillian Armstrong’s mind raced, scrabbling for an excuse for being here. Shock held her captive. Her best friend stood behind her and he’d recognized her, despite the pains she and Maggie had taken with their enormous masks and gowns purchased from the dressmaker who designed flamboyant gowns for courtesans. Lord Mallory, Brenton, was the last person she’d expect to meet at a ball for procuring a mistress.
Maggie, her companion and procurer of ball invitations, had assured her that the majority of gentlemen attending tonight would be vetted acquaintances of Lord Browning’s. Gentlemen on the lookout for a new mistress, young men eager to exchange their quarterly allowances for a brief affair with a rising star in courtesan circles, or men with aspirations of wealth who hoped to afford a full time mistress in the next year or two.
Brenton didn’t fit any of those categories, or perhaps she was mistaken and he lived an entirely different life than the one she saw. He’d barely ventured ten miles from his estate in the past five or six years and preferred evenings at home with his daughter to roaming London’s streets with his peers, gambling at clubs, or getting drunk and visiting brothels. She lifted her fan to her face and waved air across her heated cheeks, not wanting her male admirers to notice her distress. Maggie had promised that all conversations and connections were incognito, so Lillian wouldn’t be recognized as the duke’s disgraced daughter, giving her an opportunity to let the repressed side of Lillian to fly free.
The last thing she needed was a serious conversation with Brent, or to have him criticize or interfere in the outrageous night she and her companion had planned. Maggie’s twelve months of wearing depressing black and pretending to grieve for a man who’d been cruel and abusive had almost destroyed her, so she’d urged Lillian to avoid her mistakes. Advised Lillian to avoid spending months in seclusion and under censure from ignorant family members. Urged Lillian to do something rash and abnormal. Something to clear her mind and soul of the stink of her husband’s infidelity, uncontrolled spending, and irrational actions.
Why shouldn’t Lady Lillian take the chance of a night’s fun and freedom, hidden from high-society an out of reach of the duke’s continual criticisms? She’d lost enough of her life while married to a man who didn’t deserve either her patience or her fortitude. Starting tonight, she’d take control of herself and rebirth the confident and happy person that only appeared now when she was staying at her father’s country estate.
She’d been excited about this night for weeks and she’d no intention of running away before she’d explored and widened her experience, though only visually. Not even if Brenton threatened to expose her, or worse, visit her father and reveal where she’d been. Stiffening her spine, she took Brenton’s hand and, after muttering a quick apology to her cluster of admirers, led him straight to one of the balcony doors. She didn’t stop until they were in a darkened section of the balcony where no one could overhear their conversation.
She dropped his hand and turned to lean on the veranda rail and stared out at the garden. ‘What are you doing here?’ She spoke without turning to face him, both mortified and terrified that he’d discovered her here.
‘Michael dragged me here.’ He caught her wrist and tugged her around to face him. ‘Who is that woman you are with? Did she bring you here?’ He ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself and dampen down his anger. ‘Of course she brought you here. You wouldn’t have known to come to a place like this otherwise. Did she coerce you in some way?’
Lillian chuckled. ‘Do you truly believe me such an innocent that I don’t know the location of brothels or the estate houses that hold balls where the main guests are ladies of the night? I’m not that naïve, Brent. When I was a married woman, the other married ladies spoke constantly about the state of their marriages. Those conversations included such things as where their husbands, fathers, or brothers went to visit paid women, and what happened in those places.’ She snorted. ‘They’d no idea that my own marriage was so dismal that the only times my husband touched me in bed was those rare occasions when he remembered he was supposed to breed a son and so made an appointment for the next night to visit my bedchamber. Even during those ten dreadful minutes he spent with me, he never thought to explain what happened between a man and a woman, or about how children were conceived. My mother, the duchess, gave me a one sentence explanation on my wedding day of how to act with my husband and the need to create a child, but she unfortunately never gave me the information I needed about what physical intimacy entailed, so the first time my husband lifted the hem of my night dress, I panicked.’
Laura had turned to run, when an intractable force grasped her bodily and threw her off her feet, hurling them both sideways. Winchester, or to be precise, his muscled arms, had circled her body, heavy, protective, and immovable. Women screamed on the street below. Footsteps pounded across the stone steps.
Laura and Richard hit the ground a few feet from where they’d been standing and he rolled, his arms wrapped around her. The cocoon of his body stopped her from slamming onto the harsh stone, and he kept her lifted free of the blistering gravel on the pavement. After a series of rolls and tumbles, they pulled up in a tangled heap, a foot short of the tree-lined fence that separated church land from a row of buildings.
Not out of danger but, thank God, no longer sitting ducks. A large palm spread across the back of her head and gripped, as the Earl thrust her head into the concave shell of his chest. Her rib cage hurt as she struggled to open her lungs. She sucked in noisy streams of air, bobbed her head skyward and fought for normal breaths. His hand brushed her hair.
“Shush. Just breathe. Slowly.”
His mouth nuzzled, soothed, and hot breath lifted her curls. Under his guidance, she managed to slow her breathing to ease the ache in her chest and calm herself. She turned her head to listen, before peering out from under his arm. Sweat dripped off her brow and splashed onto the gravel below her chin, while drops fell from Winchester’s face onto her.
From beyond the high-piled vegetable cart, which provided a little protection, came chaotic noises—the terrified whinny of horses and high-pitched shrieks from humans. By the mix of lower-class voices calling to each other along the pavement, the crowd was confused about what had happened. Though not Laura.
She’d been stunned for a few seconds, but hadn’t needed any announcements to know a bullet had been fired. Not after several other incidents in recent months. They’d been physically threatened, and Becca had witnessed the murder of their friend who did the book-keeping at the Women’s Betterment Society. Scenting Scandal By Suzi Love Book 2 Scandalous Siblings Series. books2read.com/suziloveSS
“Be warned, my lord,” the woman said. “I shall return. Tomorrow. Early. Very early. And if you refuse to speak with me, I’ll haunt your house until you are prepared to listen to me.”
Justin Tremayne, Viscount Hawkesbury, felt the air suck out of the room. Movements ceased, breaths held, no one spoke. Every person in the room, including the courtesans, was aware of the reason he’d spent four years debasing himself before the wealthiest members of the ton.
The reason he forced himself to get out of bed each day, to place one foot in front of the other and go through the rituals, the pretense of living a normal life. Why he arranged wild bedroom antics for women and men that he barely knew and certainly didn’t like or respect. His guilt festered like an open wound and the pain never lessened. His obsession was to locate his mother and two sisters, to bring them home, and try to make amends for his absence at the time his deranged father had evicted them.
Unable to reply, he shook his head, robbed of coherent thought, unable to believe her declaration. Unable to convince himself it wasn’t another misery-causing lie. Unable to gather the energy to conclude his night’s business. Nothing mattered above the bait she dangled before his nose, the thing he yearned for more than any other—to bring his family back to him. This tiny despot had forced him into negotiating with her.
“Bart, Thomas. I ask you to leave me to my visitor. Then I’m off to find my bed.”
