by Anna Macy
She Ruined the Marquess:
A Historical Romance
By:
Anna Macy
The following text is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, businesses, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
She Ruined the Marquess: A Historical Romance
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents:
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER ONE
William Huntington, the Marquess of Mansfield Park, was exhausted. He hadn’t seen his two closest friends in months, and their reunion tonight had set him back a few hours of sleep.
When he finally did pour himself into bed, he could barely be bothered to undress. William knew that his long-suffering valet, Simon, would be all aflutter in the morning at the state of his master’s clothes. But the liquor and the ungodly time of night demanded he just passes out where he lay, on top of the pile of feathered, overstuffed blankets and pillows in his expansive guest suite, this one decorated in a mind-numbing shade of green.
“Oh, thank god,” he whispered, pushing his head deep into the downy pillow, his dark hair flopped over his eyes as he settled his body into the blankets with a grateful sigh.
He was lying prone, his long legs half hanging off the mattress, his liquor swirling brain relaxing into what he knew would be a sweet, blissful sleep when he was ambushed.
One moment he was lying there, spread eagle and wonderfully half-conscious; the next, there was the warm, substantial weight of another human clambering right over him.
Almost apologetically, a pair of hands felt their way across his shoulders, while painfully boney knees connected with a susceptible area that had him flying off the blankets with alarm.
Groaning thickly, he suddenly found himself nose to nose with a woman, her face shrouded in the early morning darkness that encapsulated them both. The scent of lavender washed over his dulled senses.
Skin like hot silk slid against his cheek. Her fingers traced his cheekbones to the edge of his jaw, a ghost of a caress. There the phantom nails drew lazy circles against the sharp stubble.
Exhaustion or not, every flight or fight instinct in William’s body was beginning to fire. He wasn’t expecting a woman in his bed.
Gripping what felt like a fine-boned wrist in one of his hands and the smooth curve of one delicate hip in another, he sent up a silent blessing that he hadn’t accidentally latched onto an even more feminine body part. In his state of mind, even this passing touch had fogged his mind with a passion he didn’t need.
Regardless of how he could feel his body responding to her attentions, he knew he had to get in control of the situation. Summoning his wits, he rolled the both of them across the bed, grabbing for a hold of his sweet-smelling bedmate.
Williams bucked his body off the bed with practiced ease, uprooting both of them and landing in a heap, his body now across the intruders. The woman below him let out a soft gasp of surprise.
Growling, William pressed his weight against the body below him, using the weight of his thigh to pin her down while he attempted to sort out whatever madness had just flown to him.
“What the devil? Who --,” he started before, to his boundless surprise, warm, soft lips cut him off with a tentative kiss. He reeled back, shocked and even more confused, letting go of his mystery woman’s wrist as he tried to put some healthy distance between the two of them—namely distance from the caressing lips that stole his breath and would’ve quickly taken his sanity.
However, his new guest had other plans for the two of them. Her newly freed hand reached up to grab at the undone collar of his linen shirt, her fingers dancing lightly against his bare chest.
Gripping the fabric tightly, she pulled herself back up to him, fastening her lips once more over his in a hot, velvet press of her mouth. Confused, and with more than a little liquor still clouding his usually sharp mind, William lost track of the moment when the attack turned from surprise to seduction.
He smiled against the pair of insistent lips pressed to his. Whomever she was, he still couldn’t see in the near-black darkness of the guest suite; she was like putty in his hands.
Her hands untangled themselves from his shirtfront. William immediately felt disappointment as humid summer air filled the minute space between their bodies.
He was trying to distract his mind from the feeling of her lush body curling perfectly around his hard edges, which were growing dangerously harder. William’s mind scrambled to identify her.
Had one of his friends taken a mistress and not told him? No, it couldn’t be, William thought dully, striking that option from his list. While she would earn points for sheer enthusiasm, the woman under him acted with raw instinct, not the well-practiced seduction that a mistress would’ve used.
She had to be a sorely misled guest. It was the viable only answer.
Her sweet lips broke from his, skimming their way over his jaw to where they pressed at his pulse, which was speeding out of control. Long legs had wound around his legs like curling ivy, and he could feel her full breasts arched up into his body.
Every part of her begging to be touched.
Her body spilled over the bed and around him, intoxicating him. The soft sighs that slipped from her lips as she addressed the thick column of his throat were enough to shred any preconception about his chance at a good night's sleep.
His darkly handsome face, paired with the generous title and family reputation among the aristocratic sect, meant William had never had to beg for any female attention.
But this, this was a whole new experience, and it heated his blood instantly. This fiery, surprise visit was setting his skin aflame, and his mind was fumbling at an explanation when her voice broke the moment like ice water on his back.
“Robert, I’m so glad you changed your mind,” a low, throaty female voice spoke, just a breath from his lips. Trepidation ran through his veins, devastating whatever feelings of passion he might have had moments ago and replaced them with dark, cold dread.
Robert. She had said, Robert.
William gulped audibly. Robert, as in Robert Wains of Devonshire, his closest friend, with whom he just been downstairs sharing drinks. That’s who she believed him to be.
William knew that Robert had changed his plans at the last minute to meet everyone at their mutual friend Nicholas’ country house to enjoy a few days' retreats from the suffocating heat that was August in London. Robert was staying exactly one door further down the hall.
“Oh, bloody hell,” William said, sucking in the warm night air as he managed to detangle himself from his new bedmate. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his body desperately tried to bring equal function to all its limbs.
This time, he successfully set her aside, keeping a desperate hand on her shoulder to block her from coming any closer. Panic wrecked him, his breath short in his lungs as he began to piece together the only identity possible for this intruder.
Weeks ago, Robert had written to him the short letter getting to William as he dutifully performed his annual check at his family’s historic estate, Mansfield Park. When he had read the
note from his friend, something in his chest had twisted.
Resentment, ugly and clawing, had risen in his belly.
At Eton and in the blissfully unencumbered short years after, William, Robert, and Nicholas had been the closest of friends in school. Thick as thieves. More brothers than any friend William had ever had before, or since.
Like Robert, William had spent most of his youth preparing for this transition of power and responsibility, yet it didn’t make it any more manageable. Robert had been burying himself in work, as his father, the Lord of Devonshire was slowly stepping back from the immense shipbuilding empire that had been in their family for generations.
It had been understandable, Robert’s aversion to the London social scene, much to the chagrin of his mother and sisters, who aspired above all else to secure the perfect bride for their beloved Robert.
In a desperate act to please his parents and siblings, Robert had agreed to attend a few society events. At the same time, his focus stayed on the only thing that mattered to him right now, maintaining his family’s legacy as the premier shipwrights in the region. The minute Robert stared down the actuality of his future as a Lord, he broke down and allowed his family to arrange a match for him.
Dear William,
It has finally happened. My mother and sisters have finally achieved the marriage match of the utmost importance. I am to be married to the only child of the Earl of Greystone, Miss Juliet Sonders. She is not challenging to look at, but I know little else of her, other than her evident breeding and wealth. Two things we at Devonshire are always sorely in need of, or so the ladies of the house have informed me.
Her stepfather has been agreeable, and we will be married at the beginning of the winter holidays. Until then, I plan to avoid the poor woman for as long as possible so that she does not become aware she is marrying an ungrateful monster who has no interest in the wife, house, or the domesticity that comes with either.
While it will not be the most fashionable event, I’d like you and Nicholas to be there to be sure I get through the ordeal with as little drama. With Marian at the helm, you can only imagine how impossible a task that is.
I hope to see you and Nick at Lakeview at the end of the summer. It has been too long, friend.
-Wains
After everything they had grown up promising each other, those blood oaths they took as children. Maybe it hadn’t meant something to Robert, or Nicholas, but to William, those promises had been a lifeline to a brotherhood, a family, he craved.
So much for strength in numbers, William had thought bitterly. He was used to being alone, but never before had it cut so deep, so permanent than in that moment.
After William’s father passed away just over a year ago, it left not only a seat in the House of Lords vacant for William to assume but a powerful, sprawling estate to manage. Learning about his land and his new role had consumed every waking moment of William’s life. He had begged off attending much of anything this past year, hiding behind the perfectly acceptable excuse of grieving
However, he had not been grieving for his long-estranged parent, but for his former life of frivolity. His father had never offered William a single reason to believe he cared for his only child in life. When he died, William felt only anger at his passing.
He had struggled to author letters to his friends this past year. After all, how does one politely explain that his life had been turned upside down? Yet he cherished each letter his friends sent to his apartment in London, or even to Mansfield Park, where he had been attempting to get a solid grip on life as Marquess.
Regardless, he now regretted several of his decisions to stay away now more than ever. Perhaps if he had been more involved, he would understand why his best friend’s fiancée was sprawled across his bed.
William could feel the sweat breaking out on his brow at the possible outcome of the situation he was in. Praying for sanity, William attempted to process this situation.
First and foremost, this woman thought he was Robert, and based on that could assume that she was, in fact, Juliet.
It was too dark in the room for her to know she had gone astray. His mind whirled in an attempt to smooth over that catastrophic detail.
Sleeping precariously close to this suite on the second floor of the vast Lakeview Manor, on either side, to be exact, happened to be some of the biggest gossips this side of the Atlantic. They would pounce on this small misunderstanding faster than a starving barn cat on an unsuspecting mouse.
His heart suddenly skipped, realizing that the formerly writhing woman below him had grown impossibly still during his analysis. Too still. For a fleeting moment, William prayed he had imagined her entirely, a curvaceous figment of his dreams that had quickly gone from fantasy to nightmare.
Then slowly, with an educated and very polite tone, his nightmare incarnate spoke again.
“I’m a little confused,” she said, her body shifting slightly under his, her knees brushing up against his torso in a tortuously slowly caress as she sat up against the pillowed headboard.
William couldn’t tell if it was intentionally seductive or accidental, but regardless, his blood flared again. He clamped his jaw hard, focusing hard on the predicament he was in. He cleared his throat once, then again, and shifted his clothing, including his trouser pants, slightly to offset any unintentional touching between him and who he feared was his best friend’s fiancé.
“You, I’m afraid, are not the only one confused,” William said, speaking in what he hoped was his calmest, least panicked voice. He wasn’t used to dealing with hysterical females. That said, if a situation ever called for hysterics, in his opinion, this was it. He wouldn’t blame her in the least.
Gingerly releasing her completely, he rocked back on his bare heels. As if brought on by fate, a thin blade of moonlight shone between the heavy brocade curtains on the far side of the suite. William felt it flash across his face, clearly displaying his distinctive features.
For a long moment, the world stood still, as if drawing both of them to a precipice of impending chaos. Then William was shoved backward hard, legs and arms akimbo, he toppled off the bed with a grunt and a string of curses. Disorientated, the woman launched herself off the bed, the sheets trailing after her bare feet.
Making a split-second call, William lurched upward, making two quick strides across the bedchamber where he grabbed for the floor-length curtains and swept them back, letting moonlight pour into the room. Capitalizing on nature’s luminescence to confirm everyone in the dark room’s identity.
Jerking his head back around to lay his eyes on his fleeing intruder, William found himself staring into wide, dark brown eyes. A quick look told him very quickly that all his fears were entirely well-founded.
The woman in front of him stood tall, back ramrod straight from either decades of proper breeding, or more likely, an overly strict governess growing up. Her flowing white nightgown reached the floor, but the neckline was stretched from their tumble, revealing a view of smooth skin, the color of ivory cresting across a graceful neck above lush breasts.
She was panting too, from passion, panic, or exertion, he wasn’t sure. He also didn’t want to waste his time wondering or staring, God help him, as her chest heaved.
The look on her lovely face was pure horror. Slowly, as if mesmerized by William’s appearance, so different physically from Robert’s, her fingers climbed her neck to cover her kiss-swollen lips.
William opened his mouth. Desperate to try again to calm the situation before he lost control of it completely. Or rather, lost control of it again, he thought to himself.
She cut him off, her voice stiff, with no trace of the passionate, seductive creature who had first spoken. “You must be William,” she dropped into a hasty curtsy that had him raising one eyebrow, “I know I owe you a proper apology and an explanation.”
She took a rattling breath, her fingers still half covering the lower half of her face. The half he could see pulled at his c
hest, making it ache for some reason. Robert was a lucky man indeed. Her delicate brows were dark, shaped, and graced a face that looked as if it had been carved from marble in its sleek beauty. A round stubborn chin cast in a heart-shaped face that remained hidden as she surveyed the scene she had been cast into.
He could almost see her thoughts flying across her face; the expressions were so vivid, so transparent. He could tell instantly she wasn’t the type to be driven to hysterics. Drawing a deep breath, William patiently for her to come to a final resolve, watching that lovely face flutter with emotion.
William was having a hard time forgetting the feel of her body twisted into his. Physically William shook himself free of the scalding memories and stomped out the remaining fire coursing through his body.
Slowly the horror of her mistake subsided from her expression, replaced with the pink flush of embarrassment. To his surprise, she didn’t falter a step. She almost grew taller under his scrutiny, that stubborn chin rising as she resolved her plan.
