Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed (30 page)

“You are my precious jewel, my perfect flower, my dear delight. But I am still afraid to touch you in case my need overwhelms my caring.”

With a sweet and radiant smile Jane reached up and slowly untied the silken ribbons of her bonnet to take it off. The great mass of her dusky hair swung free and loose around her. She saw his breath catch and a flame leap in his eyes.

She walked slowly towards him until they were barely touching and his breath was warm on her face. He smiled down into her eyes, and the flame burned into her. She took his face in her hands, then stretched slowly upwards to taste his lips.

He gathered her gently to him and buried his head in the dusky cloud of her hair. As his arms tightened, she felt the tumultuous beat of his heart in counterpoint with her own. His voice shivered across her ear as he murmured, “My wonderful Tiger Eyes.”

Then his fingers began to work slowly at the long length of fastenings on her dress.

Dear readers,

 

 

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my very first book. Yes,
Lord Wraybourne’s Betrothed
was the first book I sold, and I can still remember the thrill, especially of holding the first copy in my hands. I threw a party and had all the guests sign it, so it makes a lovely keepsake of a special moment in any author’s life.

I wrote six Regency romances in the early days of my career, and they’ve become expensive and hard to find, so I’m delighted that NAL is reissuing them, and with such lovely covers, too. For complicated reasons, it was the last of those six books—
The Fortune Hunter
and
Deirdre and Don Juan
—that was reissued first in a collection called
Lovers and Ladies,
which came out last year. Their publication together approximately coincided with my twentieth anniversary of publication.

Yes, it was early in 1988 when I received that magical phone call to say that Walker Books of New York wanted to buy
Lord Wraybourne’s Betrothed,
and by late in that year, I had a copy in my hands. The wonderful Melinda Helfer of
Romantic Times
magazine gave it a rave review, saying, “The sky’s the limit for this extraordinary author.” I think I’ve been trying to live up to that ever since.

Now, beginning with this story, the remaining four will come out in order.

These books don’t form a tight series like my Company of Rogues or the Mallorens, but Lord Randal Ashby forms a link. He’s a handsome young devil nicknamed the Bright Angel in school, largely in contrast to his friend the Dark Angel, Piers Verderan—a troubled boy who would turn into a dangerous man.

You’ve met Randal now, and seen how he becomes entangled with Lady Sophie, Wraybourne’s sister. The next book,
The Stanforth Secrets
(February 2010), takes us back a few years to when he helped his cousin Chloe cope with murder and mayhem and find her own true love.

In
The Stolen Bride
(June 2010), the date for Randal and Sophie’s wedding is coming close, but all is not well in their Eden. Sophie thinks Randal is behaving strangely, and fears it’s because he’s been trapped into marrying her. She wants him for her husband more than anything in the world, but she knows an unwilling groom will be disastrous. Into this fraught situation comes an old enemy.

As those problems work out, we meet the Dark Angel himself, and see exactly why people are always warning Randal to stay far, far away from him. However, in
Emily and the Dark Angel
(October 2010), Verderan meets no-nonsense Emily Grantham in a cloud of violet-scented talcum powder and his life will never be the same. This book won a RITA award.

I hope you’ll enjoy all these classic stories, for the first time or again.

If you visit the page for these books on my Web site—
www.jobev.com/tradreg.html
—you’ll find more about the books, plus a place to sign up for an e-mail reminder when the books are arriving on the shelves. Those are the only e-mails you’ll get from there, so don’t worry about spam. You can also sign up for my occasional e-newsletters. There’s a separate sign-up box for those, but again, no chat, no spam.

 

All best wishes,
Jo Beverley

THE
STANFORTH
SECRETS

 

W
ITH A SENSE of premonition, Chloe heard the sound of wheels and hooves on the coast road behind her. She allowed herself to hope, however, that they would sweep past and be on their way to the vicarage or Trough-ton House, anywhere but Delamere. After all, fate could not be so cruel as to have her meet Justin again for the first time in four years when she was covered in mud. Half an hour before, a silly young horse had unceremoniously dumped her onto the damp sands of Half-Moon Bay and then taken off for the stables.

There was a clear word of command, however, and the vehicle stopped. With resignation Chloe turned to confront not one but two smart equipages with grooms already at the horses’ heads and two equally smart young gentlemen laughing at her as they leapt down from their seats. Hands on hips, Chloe glared at her cousin Randal, looking beautiful as always, and her cousin-in-law, Justin, thinner, darker, tougher-looking, but still handsome. Still heart-tuggingly like her dead husband.

“Chloe?” Justin said in surprise. More surprise than just at seeing her trudging along the road. Had she perhaps changed too?

With some notion of showing him she was no longer a hoyden, she dropped a curtsey. “Welcome home, Lord Stanforth.”

His brows went up and he grinned as he bowed. “Thank you, Lady Stanforth.”

This appealed to Chloe’s sense of the ridiculous and she burst out laughing. “I warn you there’s a plenitude of Lady Stanforths these days. Two a penny, we are.” Chloe wanted to use his name. Once he’d been Justin to her, but now she felt . . . shy? Surely not.

She turned quickly to her cousin, and Randal swept her up for a hearty kiss. “You’re looking very fetching, Chloe. It must be the smears of mud which are the finishing touch.”

“Regulation wear in Lancashire,” she remarked and rubbed her dirty gloved finger down his elegant nose. “Can one of you take me up back to the Hall?”

As she was standing by his side, it should surely have been Randal who made the offer, and yet somehow she found herself handed up into Justin’s curricle. She caught a glint of familiar amusement in her cousin’s bright blue eyes. What was Randal up to now?

Justin took up the reins and sent his groom to ride behind the other vehicle. “I do hope you’re going to tell me how you came to take a toss, Chloe. It must be an unheard-of event.”

“Very nearly,” she agreed as she arranged the skirts of her ruby-red habit and took control of her agitated nerves. “But everyone gets thrown now and again. I was on a young horse and woolgathering when a seagull chose to fly at us. That is the sum of it.”

“Is the horse likely to be hereabouts? Perhaps Corrigan could find it.”

“Oh, Mercury will be home by now, I’m sure, the discourteous beast.”

“How is everything at the Hall?” Justin asked. “I find it difficult to think of it as my home, even though I spent many happy times here as a boy.”

He spoke so casually, thought Chloe. As if it wasn’t four years since they had last met, since that moment . . . They had never spoken of it, that flash of awareness, and so she couldn’t be certain he had felt it as much as she. She had told herself over and over it had been imagined, and yet here she was, within moments of meeting him, her senses disordered.

It would not do. She had meant every word when she said she would not bind herself again to a Dashing Delamere.

She sternly controlled her thoughts and addressed the businesslike subject. “Everything is running smoothly. Scarthwait, who was Stephen’s manager, has carried on, and he is very efficient. You’ll find the land in good heart.”

“I was a little surprised to find how well-to-do I am. After the estate had been through Stephen’s hands, and then Uncle George’s, I expected to inherit nothing but debts.”

“That is unfair,” said Chloe sharply. “Stephen may not have been organized, but he left everything to Scarthwait. And he was not terribly expensive. He didn’t gamble, you know.”

“Except with his life,” said Justin quietly and drew the horses up again, waving Randal to pass them and go ahead. He turned to Chloe. “My wits and manners must have both gone begging. I’m very sorry, Chloe, for speaking like that. I wrote, after I had the news, but I’ll say again how sorry I was to hear of Stephen’s death. It has been a year, so I suppose the first pain must have faded but . . .”

“Oh please don’t, Justin,” said Chloe, looking away, for he was bringing tears to her eyes. “As you say, it is so long ago now. My mourning is past, and there’s no point in going over the ground again.”

He covered one of her hands with his for a moment. Chloe felt the warmth of it through two gloves, a warmth which swept through her. Her breath caught. Then he clicked the horses to a walk. They drove in silence a little way.

How would he feel if he knew her hypocrisy? That the tears had come from sadness at not feeling more bereft?

“How long have you been in England, Justin?” she asked, to break the silence. It was only then she realized she had used his name twice without the heavens falling in.

“Three weeks. I wrote as soon as I reached London.”

“Yes, I received it,” said Chloe, summoning up a lighter tone. “With relief and prayers to the Lord, I assure you. I cannot wait to drop the responsibility for Delamere in your lap and flee to a more comfortable place. What with the Dowager wandering the place scaring the servants, and the problem of quite how to treat Belinda, particularly when there was a chance she would be the mother of the next viscount. . . . I have been disturbed in the night by ghosts, and have had to handle a stream of tenants complaining about the sudden influx of soldiers. Some imbecile in London sent them because of rumors of smugglers hereabout. Smugglers! In Lancashire! If it wasn’t for Grandmama, I think I would have gone mad.”

Justin had tried to interrupt at various points in this tirade but now he only said, with a frown, “Ghosts? Delamere Hall has never been haunted to my knowledge.”

“Or to mine,” said Chloe, her mood lightened by having released some of her annoyance. “But there have been strange noises in the night. Disturbances to furniture and particularly to the cellars. As the chimney of my room passes down by the storage rooms, I have been awakened sometimes by noises. It isn’t only I who hear them, either. I usually find Grandmama, who is a light sleeper, there ahead of me. Twice the pantries were found in disarray and,” she said forcefully, “I assure you we do not have rats.”

He looked sharply at her, but his voice was casual as he said, “I didn’t know ghosts were interested in turnips and potatoes.”

“Nor did I. This one seems mainly interested in apples. Shades of Adam and Eve?”

“I think I would be more likely to look for a dishonest servant than a spirit,” he suggested. “Are any of the servants new?”

“No,” said Chloe. Then added, “Well, Matthew, the footman, has not been with us long. Delamere had been without a footman for a while, since Stephen was so rarely in residence and never entertained here. Uncle George hired him. I think Matthew was recommended by George’s old friend Humphrey Macy. Macy spent a lot of time at Delamere after George inherited. I was very grateful for it. For one thing he has a normal share of sense, and George would listen to him.”

The road had swung away from the coast, and ran now between hedges. Soon it would pass the driveway to the Hall.

“And what sort is this Matthew?” said Justin. “Honest?”

“I think so, or I would have dismissed him. He seems to have settled in here very well, and I have no reason to think he sneaks around the pantries stealing fruit. For one thing, the staff are well fed at Delamere. Now, however,” Chloe added with satisfaction, “it is entirely your problem, thank goodness, and you will do as you think best.”

She saw his lips twitch with amusement.

Chloe felt a surprising spurt of satisfaction to have made him smile. He was too solemn for a Dashing Delamere and there were shadows in those warm brown eyes. She remembered the Justin of six years before, bubbling with light-hearted enthusiasm for life, just like Stephen. In the short time before she left to make a new life for herself, it wouldn’t hurt to brighten his spirits.

Justin swung the curricle between the gates of Delamere Hall and sighed.

“It must be strange for you,” Chloe said softly, “coming here like this.”

“Yes it is. I can’t accept yet that Stephen is dead. He was always so full of life. But then I sometimes feel a hundred years old. At least I’ve had this year to accustom myself, though it must have been an awkward time here. Was George’s wife distressed to give birth to a girl?”

“Belinda is not given to drama but she was disappointed, I think. As mother of the viscount, she could have ruled at Delamere. She thinks little Dorinda gives her a right to live at the Hall, and I suppose she may be correct—Oh dear.”

The last two words were caused by a figure which had just stepped out from the rhododendrons into the middle of the drive—an elderly lady in the flowing skirts of the last century. Justin reined in his horse and glanced at Chloe.

“That’s your aunt Sophronia,” she said quietly. “It must be one of her bad days. Wherever is her companion?”

Justin looked at the Dowager Lady Stanforth with astonishment, and she glowered at them.

“What are you doing that is evil?” she asked fiercely.

“My God,” muttered Justin.

Chloe leapt down from the carriage. “Oh dear. Why don’t you drive her up to the house?”

“While you walk?” he said in consternation, and then shrugged. “If you can persuade her up here.”