“I…” Unshed tears closed her throat.
“Your dowry shall indeed be yours to do with what you will. I want no part of it, and if you choose to trot over the globe without me, build a refuge for homeless, bedraggled pigeons, that is your prerogative.”
As if she could leave him behind. Her lips twitched with amusement. Where had he gotten the ridiculous idea she wanted to keep pigeons?
“As to the problem of marriage, one of the reasons you fear that state is being thrust into the center of attention. I have a solution to that as well.”
“You do?” Slowly, she turned, caught his gaze with hers. With every breath, her heart beat a little faster. “You wish to remain lovers?”
“Oh, I do, of course, but only if you do me the honor of wedding me. I am, after all, a respectable member of Buckinghamshire society, and you are an earl’s daughter. I’ll wager you won’t wish to burn that bridge or invite the gossips.” When she sputtered a protest, he sank to one knee despite the rain and the mud and the muck. “Elope with me. That cuts out the need for a gown and a fussy ceremony and a damned wedding breakfast. There will be no room for outcry or criticism from your family or snide comments from the bevy of suitors you’ll leave hanging. In fact, there will only be you and me in front of an officiant, embarking on our lifetime together.”
A giddy sort of lightness fell over her. He’d removed nearly everything she feared. “That doesn’t excuse the marriage part.”
“I think it will.” Peregrine captured her hand once more. His hair lay plastered to his skull and water dripped off his hawk-like nose. “Marriage can offer you a different sort of freedom you’ve never known. Throw away your previous thinking, for having a partner by your side can make everything easier, richer, fuller. You’ll have someone to talk to. Whatever you wish to do, I’ll support you. While you are discovering who you want to be, I’ll walk beside you and prop you up when you falter, cajole you into laughing when you’re down and fire your desire when you wish for a lover.”
“But…”
“Don’t you see, Isabella?” Urgency rode his voice. “I’m giving you cart blanche to find your place in this world without constraint or societal barriers. Hang the ton, for I’m not a member of it. You’ll never need attend another event if you don’t wish it. The bloody rules can sod off for all I care. If I have you, nothing else matters.”
Tears fell to her cheeks as she stared down at him. “Would we live here in the country or in London?”
Uncertainty clouded his stormy eyes. “I’ll admit, London is an expensive prospect for a man with a military pension, but if you wish to live in Town, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, find employment where I can.”
“I rather like the country, and it will afford privacy…”
“We can work with that.” When she didn’t say anything more, panic glimmered at the backs of his eyes. “In short, I am giving you my life to do with it what you may because I love you. I’ll protect you, cherish you, love you to distraction, shout your goodness from the rooftops if you wish it, and all I’m asking for in return is your heart with the same promise, but if you cannot or will not extend that courtesy, I won’t darken your doorstep again.”
“Oh.” Her heart trembled in time with her knees. Everything he said sounded so wonderful, and he was so earnest. Now was the time to make a choice: a life without him or a life with him. Both came with their fair share of potential heartache and fear, but only in one would she have a companion to lean on when times were tough and celebrate with when times were grand.
Perhaps that was the point. A person didn’t have a guarantee of how life would go, but if there was love, nothing would be so bad. The fortune teller had been right all along. Dropping to her knees in the wet, she framed his face in her hands. “I choose you.”
The joy and hope in his expression tugged at her heart and loosed her own. It was incredible how a handful of words could make someone so happy, and in turn give her the same. “You do?”
“Yes. Today, tomorrow, next year, it will always be you.” She brushed the wet lock of hair away from his forehead. “On one condition.”
“Which is?” Wariness shadowed his eyes. Did he think she’d take everything away from him? Poor man.
“I want a wedding trip to those places we’ve talked about, and I want you to captain a small craft to take us there. That is the only thing I want, for I’ll have you, and you’ll walk the path with me. Together.” She swiftly kissed his mouth, stifling whatever he would say. “I want that adventure, Peregrine. I want you.”
“If I can afford to purchase a small sloop or a cutter, we’ll be off as soon as we wed.”
Then another thought occurred to her. “Papa won’t give you the dowry if we elope.”
“We can delay our wedding trip a few years.”
Perish the thought! “Or I can encourage you to procure a special license so we can marry the proper way with a fair amount of haste.” Though the muscles in her stomach clenched just thinking about it, for that trip, to see the world with him, she’d make the sacrifice.
“You would do that for me?” Incredulity rang in his voice.
“For us. Because I love you, and I have since you first danced with me in the maze.” There was no point in denying it, even to herself. It was true. She’d fallen hard and fast, and she wouldn’t look back. “It’s quite mad, this feeling, after eleven days, but there it is.”
“Many marriages are based on less, but imagine the fun we’ll have in the discovery of each other’s secrets.” Then he crushed her in his arms and proceeded to kiss her until she couldn’t remember her name, couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t contemplate life without him.
When she could breathe again, she struggled to her feet and offered him a hand. “Hitch Ares to my carriage. We both need a chance to dry out, and we can tell my parents the news.”
As soon as he stood, his feet slid out from under him and he landed face down in the mud at her feet. Once more. “Bloody hell.” When he finally slipped and struggled into a standing position, with her help, they were both hopelessly covered in mud but laughing. “I would prefer to face your parents in clean, dry clothes, and without the muck.” He wiped mud from his face but only succeeded in making a bigger mess. “If I’m to argue terms with an earl as well as my ability to care for you in a manner you’re accustomed to, I’d rather do so looking respectable.”
“Then you’ll meet me later today?”
“Or…” A wicked twinkle lit his eyes and she didn’t quite trust the smile that curved his mouth. “We could both retire to my house and discover the wonders of communal bathing, for our tryst from last night was forfeit.”
A shiver of need played down her spine. “What about my clothes?”
“I’ll drive you back once I’m clean and dry and have shown you the depths of my regard.” He winked. “Once we arrive at your house later—very much later—you can run upstairs and change. Then we’ll talk to your parents together. Perhaps we’ll break the news over dinner. That’ll cause quite the sensation.”
Isabella couldn’t help her smile. “You, Captain St. John, are very dangerous for my peace of mind.” And it wasn’t as bad as she’d previously thought.
“Best get used to it, Lady Isabella, for I don’t intend to be anything else, at least for a while. A little danger is good for a marriage.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Perhaps wedding you will be my splendid folly.”
“And one we’ll spend a lifetime disputing, for it’s the best decision either of us could possibly make. Just think of it, years of spirited discussion, adventure, bed sport, and changing the world.”
“You’re adorable.” Despite his muddy countenance or their wet state or the rain, she tugged him into her arms and kissed him.
Life was about choices and picking a path that offered challenges. If those things led to love and a partner to walk the distance with, even better.
The End
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br /> Here’s a sneak peek of the next book in the Fortunes of Fate series: The Fate of a Highland Rake. Brethren of Stone by Tammy Andresen
Not only is this title part of the “Fortunes of Fate” series, it is also the final installment of the “Brethren of Stone” series. It is a standalone romance but if ye like brawny Scots with broody natures but hearts of gold ye might consider reading the other Sinclair books. The Duke’s Scottish Lass, Scottish Devil, Wicked Laird, Kilted Sin, and Rogue Scot. As always, thank you for reading!
Chapter 1
Rihanna raced through the crowd at the docks, her breath coming in short gasps. She clutched a few coins in her right palm as though her life depended on holding them. In fairness, it might. That was, if she survived the next few minutes.
A man yelled behind her. “Thief!”
She turned in time to see him point and she redoubled her efforts to run.
Rihanna hadn’t stolen from him. The accusation was blatantly unfair, though he hadn’t given her much opportunity to explain before he raised his fist to extract his coins from her.
She’d run without another word. Rihanna had learned the hard way that a woman of her stature should not attempt to explain anything once fists were involved.
Her family practiced the art of fortune telling, and her mother had trained her since she’d been a small child. She’d had a gift for pulling a person’s future from their cards.
That was until five years ago, when her mother had died. Since then, she’d lost the gift. Not that she wanted it back. This life had grown thin. Even when she’d told an excellent fortune, she didn’t always say what customers wanted to hear.
It seemed as though she spent far too much time running exactly as she was now.
Weaving in and out of several sailors as they boarded cargo, she took a right down a long dock. It was a risk. The dock would end and she could have nowhere else to go. Then again, the pier was exceptionally crowded and might offer a hiding spot.
She untied the red scarf she had wrapped about her head, hoping to be less obvious as she darted between several more sailors, a few giving her a long stare. She noticed some crates stacked off to the right. Could she hide?
With her head turned as it was, she didn’t notice the man directly in her path until she was just inches in front of him. She attempted to stop but it was too late and her body crashed into his with a force she’d barely imagined. The impact felt like she’d run into a rock wall.
Hellfire and damnation. Now she’d have two disgruntled men on her hands and nowhere to go.
***
It was an odd feeling, Reginald Sinclair reflected as he walked down the busy London docks he’d come to know like the back of his hand these last thirteen years. People rushed about him, unloading goods, or loading them, trying to get their boats out with the tide. They yelled, scrambled, and jostled one another in a rough manner that was accepted as appropriate in the setting.
As an adult, he’d lived two separate and distinctly different lives, so disparate from one another that thinking of them at the same time made his head hurt. This one was the first. The life of a sailor. At the age of twenty, he’d been plucked from the open ocean by a passing vessel. He had no memory before that day. The English crew had named him Scott, likely because of his Scottish accent. His past had been erased, his life vanished in a moment. Some things had remained. He’d clearly been a sailor before. He knew rigging, how to sail, how to tack a ship in crosswinds, and how to sense when a storm was coming.
But he also knew how to read, and write, add long columns of numbers, and how to use a map to navigate. He’d quickly worked his way up the ranks of the vessel that had rescued him, making a rise to the top his primary goal by any means necessary. It hadn’t all been pretty.
In that time, he’d lived the life of a sailor. He’d gambled, drank, swore, and partook of the occasional woman who caught his fancy.
That was until last year.
Out of nowhere, standing upon this very dock, a man who looked exactly like him had called him from his ship. In that moment, his past life came flooding back. His brothers, his sister, his friends, the man he’d been before he’d been rescued at sea.
He rubbed his temples. That was the problem. The man he’d once believed himself to be held little resemblance to the one he’d become.
In his first life, he loved his sister with a fierceness that had taught him never to take advantage of any woman, no matter how willing. He’d been kind, generous, caring. His family still expected him to be that man. They’d been supportive, overly so. Said they understood he’d led a different life apart from them these last thirteen years. But how could they know what he’d become? They’d surely hate him the way he hated himself if they found out.
He hadn’t remembered his identity, he understood that. But how could he have forgotten his heart? Left his principles and values in the ocean when he’d climbed aboard that boat? He knew right from wrong, but he hadn’t been living by those values the past thirteen years.
He wanted to make excuses. He’d had more money as the brother of an earl. The advantage of privilege. He could afford now, and before the accident, to uphold principles.
But the truth was, he didn’t need money to be a good man. He’d fallen in the water trying to save his sister’s life. Since then, the only man or woman he’d served was himself.
He thought back to the more atrocious acts he’d committed over the last decade. Self-loathing rose like bile in his throat and he stopped walking. In some ways life had been simpler before he’d remembered.
Closing his eyes, he tried to slow his racing heart.
He knew better than to shut down his senses in a crowd like this, and he paid for his gaffe. Suddenly, someone careened into him, nearly knocking him over.
Reginald reacted without thought, steadying himself and the other person as he opened his eyes. His first actual thought was that the waist he held was tiny. Smaller than any he had ever touched. Then dark brown eyes fringed with long black lashes looked up into his. They were wide with fear, dilated as she panted for breath between lush red lips. She reached for his shoulders and a mass of dark hair flowed down her back, rolling and undulating like the waves of the ocean on a summer day.
“I’m so sorry,” she gasped as she attempted to push off him.
He held tighter. He wasn’t sure why except that he liked looking down into her pretty face. High cheekbones and a heart-shaped chin were perfectly accented by her small straight nose. “It’s all right. What’s yer name?”
“Rihanna.” She shoved harder. “Please,” she begged, growing frantic in his arms.
“Thief,” another voice boomed over the crowd.
Her grey eyes widened. “Please…” Her voice was high and tight as she tried to break free. And still he couldn’t let her go.
Want to read more? Find The Fate of a Highland Rake on major retailers!
Regency-era stories by Sandra Sookoo
Scandal in Surrey series
Lady Parker’s Grand Affair
The Bride’s Gambit
Misfortune’s Lady
Miss Bennett’s Naughty Secret
Darrington family series (Kindle Unlimited exclusive)
Marriage Minded Lord
To Bed or To Wed
The Bridal Contract
Regency-era pirate romances
Act of Pardon
Angel’s Master
Storm Tossed Rogue
Once a Pirate
Scoundrel’s Trespass
Lords of Happenstance series
What the Stubborn Viscount Desires
What a Wayward Lord Needs
What the Dashing Duke Deserves
What a Determined Earl Wishes (coming spring 2020)
Lords of the Night series
Devil Take the Duke
Bitten by the Earl
Adrift with the Viscount
Treasured by the Earl (coming August 2019)
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sp; Transformed by a Christmas Star (coming December 2019)
Author Bio
Sandra Sookoo is a USA Today bestselling author who firmly believes every person deserves acceptance and a happy ending. Most days you can find her creating scandal and mischief in the Regency-era, serendipity and happenstance in Victorian America or snarky, sweet humor in the contemporary world. Most recently she’s moved into infusing her books with mystery and intrigue. Reading is a lot like eating fine chocolates—you can’t just have one. Good thing books don’t have calories!
When she’s not wearing out computer keyboards, Sandra spends time with her real life Prince Charming in central Indiana where she’s been known to goof off and make moments count because the key to life is laughter. A Disney fan since the age of ten, when her soul gets bogged down and her imagination flags, a trip to Walt Disney World is in order. Nothing fuels her dreams more than the land of eternal happy endings, hope and love stories.
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Lady Isabella's Splendid Folly: a Fortune's of Fate story (Fortunes of Fate Book 7) Page 17
