by Lisa Torquay
“First, done.” She admitted.
He moved to stand up with her in his arms. “Great. Let’s get the second underway in this case.”
“You’re a terrible man, husband.”
“And…?”
“And I love you!” She said with a loving smile.
They kissed as he took her to their chambers.
EPILOGUE
One year later
It was one of those rare glaring sunny days of summer in Hampshire. Drake came outside holding his daughter, little Philippa, against his shoulder. The four-month-old girl possessed brown hair and brandy eyes like her father. She’d been napping after her bottle and had just woken up, and her father brought her to the garden and the sun.
“Is she awake already?” Hester asked.
“Yes. How about Philip?” Her twin brother lay in his mother’s lap, basking in the sun. The sound of his father’s voice made him open the magnificent green eyes he’d inherited from his mother.
“For someone who took their time to produce an heir, you did a right good job of it.” Titus, sitting with his pregnant duchess and Edward on a chaise not far from them, said teasingly. The one-year-old toddler slid from his father’s hold to explore the lawn.
Two-year-old Claire walked from Harris to the little boy on the grass, followed by three-year-old Daniel who already took up the leadership of the group. He’d asked his father, Edmund, to join the others.
“They made up for lost time.” Added Harris, sitting near Edwina.
"I like the choice of names," Edwina commented.
"Like Romulus and Remus, I suppose," Philippa said. She'd become so surprised to learn Lord and Lady Worcester would name their twins after her.
As a duchess, Philippa had done a lot for the Worcesters in the months after Hester’s marriage. Upon seeing what happened in the theatre, the duchess and her duke had made it a point to stay in London exceptionally to help get the ton at the Marquess’ and Marchioness’ feet. Something Philippa accomplished with flying colours.
Otilia, Edwina and Philippa were glad to walk Hester through the maze of aristocratic etiquette without the awkward feelings Hester would have had with a governess. Her friends’ help made her utterly thankful. The skills as an actress made it possible to compose any character, including that of the public image of the Marchioness of Worcester.
“One of these days we could present The Aeneid,” Oliver suggested, referring to the epic poem by Vigil about the foundation of Rome.
“Probably after the second play Lord Worcester is writing.” Eli risked. Unsurprisingly, Drake had continued his forays as a playwright, sharing the direction of the plays with his father-in-law.
Her father and brother had also been besotted by the twins at first sight.
Hester looked at her friends and family gathered in the garden as deep contentment invaded her. It'd been a busy year. The season for The Plight of Sarah Borne finished with an even bigger roaring success before they retired to the country to await their child. Soon after the New Year, she’d gone into labour. And Worcester had gone into despair. Were it not for Edmund, Harris, and Titus, he’d have torn his own Georgian house down with his own fists.
Until the midwife came to inform him that he fathered twins.
Then that giant of a man acquired this enthralled look of pride and wonder his friends had refrained from commenting on, fully aware that they boasted it when their first-born came into this world.
As he entered their chamber, dishevelled, wrinkled clothes, and sleep-deprived eyes, Hester had only words of love for him. She introduced Philippa, the eldest by ten minutes, and Philip to their father. He held both new-borns and eyed her as if she was not of this world. “How on Earth did you do this?” he’d asked, still thunderstruck.
“I got a little help.” And gifted him with a smile riddled with exhaustion. The sight of which propelled Drake to yell orders to make his wife comfortable quickly so she could rest.
Hester didn’t know how he’d react when she told him she intended to resume The Plight coming autumn. First things first, she decided as Philip now demanded his bottle.
“The names suit them perfectly.” The dowager Marchioness of Worcester approved as she came to the garden to join the group.
That had been another issue Hester took into her hands: Bridge the estranged mother and son back into some semblance of civility. After all, Hester would not allow her children to grow up without their grandparents on both sides.
While in London, she'd invited the dowager for a stay of a few days in Worcester House. It'd taken all her diplomatic prowess to convince Drake to accept his mother as a guest. And since he wanted Hester all for himself, he agreed to reopen his mother's townhouse and re-establish her allowance. The dowager was utterly grateful to the daughter-in-law she initially shunned, but to whom she warmed to, seeing the efforts the younger woman had made to re-unite her head-strong son with his even more head-strong mother.
Taking her granddaughter in her arms, she strolled with the infant, not disguising her love for her grandchildren.
As Drake observed his mother’s dedication to his children, he cast a grateful glance at his wife.
Brown, the butler, excused himself to announce that luncheon had been served in the summer terrace adjoining the conservatory, and Drake and Hester followed their guests there.
No one saw the accomplice looks the duke and duchess exchanged, for the conservatory held precious memories for them.
One after the other, the couples retired for a nap; the Worcesters included. Which gave the dowager ample opportunity to have her grandchildren all for herself. And spoil them rotten.
“It’s going smoothly,” Drake said as they closed their chambers. He looked at his wife, love overflowing from his gaze.
“As I knew it would.” She said while nearing the window to absorb the beautiful greenery outside.
Drake came behind her and laced her by the waist with his two arms, head bending to inhale the skin on her nape. “Oh, yes, Lady Know-It-All.”
Her green gaze turned to him as she leaned on his muscular frame. “I’m not wrong this time.”
“No,” he drawled, his lips grazing the delicate skin. “You’ve become the light in my life.”
He might say that he was the happiest man in the world with a family he loved and a wife he fairly worshipped. But his friends would dispute the epithet. So, he settled for being among the happiest men in the world.
“And you in mine,” she answered, her hands over his on her midriff.
“Can we repeat the feat?” And nipped the shell of one ear.
“Which one?” She asked in a near moan. It’d been several feats since they met.
“The twins.” He ventured, very aware that she might as well run him out of the room.
“Could be.” She turned to him, lacing his neck with her arms. “I’ll need that little help I mentioned.”
“I’ll be delighted to give you all the help you need,” he answered with that wicked grin of his. Then his brandy eyes merged on green ones. “I love you, marchioness.”
“I love you, too, marquess.” And pulled him for a kiss.
Continue reading on to a brand-new series:
Ladies and Strays
And the preview of book one
Brand-New Series
Ladies and Strays
They are rough. They are raw. And they are uncultivated. They come from the bowels of England—miners, mill workers, brick-layers—invisible to everyone. Instead of blue, their blood is red, hot, and pulsing. They will stumble on delicate, sheltered ladies who aren't afraid of a little sweat and soot. Strong as they are, these ladies will face the choice of remaining in their luxurious life or giving it up in the name of love.
Books in the series:
1. The Lady and the Miner
2. The Lady and the Mill Worker
2.5. The Lady and the Solicitor - Erotic
Novella
3. The Lady and the Bricklayer
*Lady Millicent will have her story in book three.
Don't miss the brand-new series Ladies and Strays. Coming soon.
Preview of The Lady and the Miner
Northumberland, England, 1820
Amelia Bolton closed the door to Mrs Higgs’s tiny cottage where she’d taken a basket of food, Mary’s husband sick in bed and unable to go to work in the mine. Outside, all kinds of litter lined the narrow alley cutting through the miners’ village with its usual foul stench. Amelia, having been born not far from there, became used to the general decay she found outside the walls surrounding her family’s mansion up the slope.
Movement down the alley caught her attention. A tall man walked this way some fifty yards from her. The miner who came to talk to her brother sometimes. Instinctively, she pressed herself against the rough, scarred wood, hiding more from herself than anything else. Sir Joseph, her brother, overtook the family’s three-generation-old business after their father died two years prior. With the changes he’d been making, Daniel Hill, the miner, had been visiting the house.
With dire consequences to her.
No, the man didn’t even know she existed. But she knew he did, acutely. Tumultuously, too. And overwhelming clandestinely.
A middle-aged man neared him, and he halted to listen to what the older man was saying. The sound didn't reach her. But she could see Mr Hill so clearly from her secluded spot. He was tall, too tall for a miner to crawl through the cramped tunnels carved in Earth's own womb—where the black treasure that made her family one of the richest in England was extracted at the cost of blood, sweat and death. At least six feet four to her five feet five, his height filled with a powerful body not even his bedraggled clothes managed to hide.
His eyes roamed the alley distractedly as the older man continued to talk. Blue, two pools of cobalt on a face constantly smudged with coal soot. They shone like stars in a moonless night. The astronomer in her marvelled at them. Angular, rugged, his smudged front only made him more arresting, his eyes brighter, his power rawer. And she was incapable of tearing her stare from him. Fortunately, he couldn't see her from where he stood. Or so she hoped.
The middle-aged man left, and Daniel Hill strode to the derelict cottage he lived in, even smaller than Mrs Higgs’s. In it, he lived alone, his family consumed by the life-eater mine.
A rough hand plucked out his worn-out cap as he stopped by the water barrel at his entrance. The ousted cap revealed a hair blacker than coal and as dusty. Straight, it fell in strands over his brow. The headpiece dropped to his feet as he bent to wash, those big hands diving in the water and cupping it to throw on the dark stubble that lined the square jaw.
Her gaze followed each droplet dripping from his skin. Jealously. The weather was damp and cool, but her body came alive like coal in a grate. Albeit damp.
Even if she lived to be a hundred, she wouldn’t be able to look her fill. He was simply magnificent.
Having grown up in a mansion surrounded by the mine and the miners’ village, she had become more than used to the people that inhabited this place. For her, they weren’t a nameless, faceless crowd. They were her neighbours, people who she saw and talked to every day.
And Daniel was the forbidden man she gobbled with her eyes even aware that, if they lived close, they were a precipice apart. But, for the love of her long-gone mother, every time her starved eyes fell on him, it caused a raucous revolution to course through her. Sleep eluded her, food disgusted her, and a sort of languid mood dominated her insides. Her lids pressed closed, her nostrils absorbing rarefied air. She had to get a grip on this stupid pull. Joseph, like her father, had high expectations for her. A title in exchange for a ridiculously fat dowry, the reason she’d been travelling so often to London and mingling with nobility.
A noise made her open her lids to see Daniel pushing the run-down door to his cottage and disappearing into it, cap back in hand. Hurriedly, she left the doorjamb to head to the mansion where her family entrenched themselves.
Daniel nearly banged the frail wooden panel and then had this urge to smash it to dust. He threw his cap on the small table as if it were a big piece of coal against an imaginary window. She’d jammed to Higgs’s door, but he’d seen her. Impossible not to.
Even if he hadn’t, he’d sense her, know she was around. Invariably. Since the first time he had the unfortunate chance to lay eyes on her, things happened to his unruly body. Things that shouldn’t happen, like a fucking cock-stand. No, a cock-stand was when he found a willing woman to assuage his needs with. The sight of soon-to-be Lady Something, nee Miss Bolton, made his rampant erection explosive. The naked hunger in her eyes when she looked at him didn’t help.
As a miner from the age of sixteen, he strived to keep out of the way and, most importantly, out of trouble. At thirty, he toiled in the Bolton Mine during the day until his muscles tore and his bones splintered. If he survived the day’s work, he’d have an ale with his mates in the tavern that served the poor. Or paid for a tumble with some doxy from the nearest town, who sometimes came to offer their services in the same tavern. The miners’ village counted one, Bessie, but he didn’t want to get involved with someone he saw growing up. Life was short, and he wasn’t about to pass on the few pleasures he might afford.
But the sight of Miss Bolton always muddled his mood, as he couldn't stop thinking about how it would feel to drive his unrestrained craving into her until he died of it. Until both died from it. He had to extricate her from his fantasies though. Her milky, slender form wasn't for the likes of him, with his calloused hands, sooty skin, and sweaty clothes.
The sound of shiny, expensive leather boots echoed in the alley. And his body didn’t even consider stopping before moving to the closed door. Through a crack in it, Daniel watched as Miss Bolton trudged past as though she hadn’t been eating him alive with those huge caramel saucers. The brief sight caused his rampant member to react again. And he almost took off his shabby clothes to dive in the freezing water in the barrel.
As if the relief would last. Tonight, that doxy would have to work hard.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Torquay comes from a multi-cultural family. She graduated in History and earned a Master’s Degree in British Empire. She has worked as an English and History teacher at high schools. She married a Norwegian and moved to Norway, where she has lived for three years. Writing has been her passion since she was thirteen. When she’s not writing, she’s messing up in the kitchen because she loves cooking as much as she’s clumsy.
Connect with Lisa Torquay
www.lisatorquay.webs.com
Facebook/Lisa Torquay
Other Books by Lisa Torquay
Igniting the Countess
The Lass Defied the Laird (Explosive Highlanders 1)
The Lass Defended the Laird (Explosive Highlanders 2)
The Lass Beguiled the Laird (Explosive Highlanders 3)
The Lass Initiated the Laird - Erotic Novella (Explosive Highlanders 3.5)
The Lass Abducted the Laird (Explosive Highlanders 4)
Explosive Highlanders Collection (Series bundle)
Her Wicked Earl (Imperious Lords 1)
Her Wicked Libertine (Imperious Lords 2)
Her Wicked Duke (Imperious Lords 3)
Her Wicked Marquess (Imperious Lords 4)
Coming soon!
The Lady and the Miner (Ladies and Strays 1)
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