Swept Away By a Kiss
Read Swept Away By a Kiss Online
Authors: Katharine Ashe
S
WEPT
A
WAY
BY A
K
ISS
K
ATHARINE
A
SHE
To Georgie.
They are all for you, but this one is especially.
And to my husband, the model for all my heroes.
Thank you both from the deepest place in my heart.
The ocean sings there for you.
Contents
Paris, France
1799
F
ourteen years old? She is merely a child.” Steven Ashford did not bother concealing the puzzlement in his rough whisper.
His companion, dark as the night, chuckled despite the stench of sewage and the ankle-deep puddles of the alley in which they hid.
“Ah, but the child foretells the woman,” Maximin murmured. “When she grows to be that woman, I will seek her out again and I will make her mine.”
Brow creasing, Steven tried to discern the set of his friend’s features through the curtain of rain. Maximin must be hoaxing. Steven couldn’t imagine otherwise. At eighteen, Steven never failed to attract female attention. A few years earlier he had barely discovered whiskers on his jaw before women became impatient to introduce to him the manifold pleasures of the body.
Love, they called it.
At first he willingly complied. But within months the thrill of his adventure in physical love had paled in comparison to the endeavor that captured both his body and heart. Now, with that heart pounding in anticipation so loudly he could barely hear the rain slanting around him, Steven marveled at his friend’s folly.
“You are a fool, Maximin.” He shook his head. “Girl or woman, I haven’t time for diversions like that, or the desire to—” His voice stilled.
The man they awaited appeared in the mist of rain-flecked lantern light at the alley’s end. Steven steadied himself, sensing Maximin’s same ready tension.
The caped figure strode down the narrow street, his tricorne ladling tiny waterfalls in three directions. Then, as though aware of danger, he paused.
“Who is there?” The downpour consumed his cultured accents. He continued forward more slowly, peering to either side.
Steven swallowed. His thumb slipped forward on the ivory hilt of the blade in his palm, tilting the tip upward.
“I know you are there,” the man said into the flickering silvery black. “What do you want? Money? I will give you as much as you need if you allow me safely past. On my honor, I promise it as one citizen to another.”
Steven smiled ruefully. Men in positions of power never believed they could be harmed. Stillness streamed through his veins, cool and stealthy as a midnight ocean breeze. He stood, coming shoulder to shoulder with Maximin in the deluge. They moved into the center of the alley, one behind, the other in front of the politician. Maximin nodded. Steven’s lips curved again, this time in anticipation.
“We have no wish for your money, Monsieur Representative,” Maximin said.
The politician’s gaze darted between them, but his voice remained confident. “Then what do you want?” His hand moved to the sword hilt at his hip.
“Why, Monsieur Citizen,” Steven replied in equally refined tones, “justice, of course.”
As one, he and Maximin stepped forward to claim their demand.
Boston, Massachusetts
May 1810
THE RIGHT HONBLE.
THE EARL OF ALVERSTON
DERBYSHIRE, G.B.
Dear Valentine,
I have been childish. I have been selfish. I have been every kind of fool. But I have now had enough of that sort of thing, and enough of exile. Dearest brother, you, at least, forgive me. I am coming home.
Your Unfaithful Sister,
Valerie
B
reathe,” Lady Valerie Monroe whispered into the flutter of breeze curling down the hatchway. The wooden stair gleamed with fresh polish, inviting. Beyond the open hatch above, the azure sky seemed infinite.
Setting her foot upon the lowest step, Valerie drew in a tentative breath. As though encouraging her, a current of briny air rushed down the hatchway, tangling in the sable locks escaping her bonnet, beckoning her aloft.
She propelled herself up the steps onto deck. Risking her milky complexion, she tilted her face into the late-afternoon sun spill and gazed up through lacy rigging into the heavens. The mingled scents of crisp salt water and acrid tar teased her nostrils. Gruff male voices rose through the tumult of activity across deck and on the quay beyond. Valerie filled her lungs and a smile split across her lips.
“I can breathe again.” Caught up by the wind, her words sounded like a prayer.
She moved to the deck rail. On the dock below, sailors and tradesmen hustled about wharfed vessels, shouting in as many languages as colors billowed from lofty masts. A choir of brawny workers heaved crates and barrels onto her ship. Her gaze followed the procession of men and merchandise aboard, traveling aft, then up to the mainmast’s tip rising high above the roofs of the dockside buildings.
A sigh trembled in her throat. In moments, at the whistle of the boatswain’s pipe, the Dutch merchantman would embark for Portsmouth. For England. Home.
Valerie’s starchy American cousins worried about her sailing alone across the Atlantic on a merchant ship. But Valerie didn’t care a fig about the crossing. Her only thoughts were for her destination. Two interminably long years had passed since she’d last teased her beloved brother, Valentine, or embraced her dearest friend, Anna; last run barefoot through a velvet Derbyshire meadow; last tickled her lips on champagne in a Mayfair mansion; last truly lost her breath dancing in the arms of a gentleman.
Two years of searing guilt. Two years of alternating heartache and tedium.
“Now I am free,” she murmured, imbibing the heady sea air like a tonic. Free of numbing misery. Free to make a new start.
Her gaze slipped across deck and over the motley group of sailors making ready to set sail, boys and wizened elders, Dutchmen and ex-slaves, all weathered and wiry with sea-worn strength. Settling into her cabin earlier, she had overheard Cousin Abigail instructing the captain to clear the deck of idle sailors when Valerie came above. It would not do, Abigail whispered, for an Unfortunate Incident to occur during the crossing.
With a giddy breath, Valerie laughed at the recollection. Abigail was a pea goose. With the earl dead, what use did Valerie have any longer for common sailors . . . or under grooms, or junior footmen?
The sun slipped behind the dockside warehouses, casting burnt shadows upon the bay. Soon they would be under way. Soon she would be with her loved ones again. Valerie worried her lip between her teeth. When she stepped off the ship in England, Valentine and Anna would greet her warmly. They might be the only ones.
A whisk of wind grabbed a lock of hair and sent it scampering across her sight. Firmly willing away her unwanted thoughts, she drew the dark tress aside.
She froze.
Ten yards away upon the dock stood a man dressed in a black gown and a high-collared cape. Only the sharp edge of white at his neck relieved the grim costume. He held a black hat in one hand. As the breeze pulled at its broad brim, gold glimmered upon his finger.
Valerie stared. The black-clad stranger was no country vicar or city bishop—pale-skinned, limp-wristed, and altogether distasteful. Despite his priestly garb, this man positively radiated masculine heat.
Her lashes fluttered as her gaze traveled down his habit. The shape of the ebony robes and the hat were distinctive, the breathtaking male shape beneath just as alluring. A Jesuit stood before her, one of the legendary, despised race of priests people uttered such thrillingly barbarous stories about. Handmaidens of the pope, missionaries to jungle savages and plains bandits alike, they dressed like natives and even worshipped with them.
Valerie knew ample, lurid details about the fraternity’s members. She was not likely to forget such titillating knowledge, or how she acquired it. Sneaking into the library late at night to read about the scandalous clerics had earned her one of the earl’s most chilling reprimands to date. She had been only fifteen. The iciest chastisements came later, culminating in her journey to Boston. To exile.
