True Pretenses: Lively St. Lemeston, Book 2

by Rose Lerner

  “No,” Rafe said gently enough to make Ash think it had been. “I’d rather have the name you gave me. Are you sure you’ll be happy, pretending?”

  “I’ll be happy with Lydia at the Dower House,” Ash said. “If I told everyone I was Jewish, it would be the same life, with the same people, except that everything would be more difficult, and I’d have to hear them do and say things that would make it hard to like them. Why should I? Do I owe it to them? Lydia knows who I am. That’s enough for me. That was always enough for me. Did you think I was longing to tell the world the truth, all the years we spent together? I don’t wish I was honest, Rafe. I only wish I’d been honest with you.”

  Rafe frowned. “You’re finished with swindling, though, aren’t you?”

  Ash spread his hands wide. “I’m finished with stealing. But raising money for a hospital or a school exercises all the same muscles. I won’t be bored.” He bit his lip. “The difference is that now when I’m done, the flat and I both leave happy. I’ll have built something. You understood that that mattered before I did.”

  Rafe bumped shoulders with him. “I grew up in a kinder world than you.”

  Ash looked away at that. He wouldn’t embarrass his brother by crying. “Do you think you’ll visit? If you don’t want to pretend to be Ralph Cahill anymore, I’ll understand. We could meet in Brighton.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rafe grin. “Jamie’s already invited me for the lambing in the spring.”

  Ash raised his eyes beseechingly to Heaven. “It took me weeks to get that boy to look at me without glowering.”

  “You put too much pressure on people,” Rafe said. “He’s shy. He doesn’t want to make a deep connection with you. He just wants to talk to someone who’s entertaining and interested in what he has to say.”

  Ash stuck out his tongue. “The eggs are teaching the hens now!” Di eyer lernen di hiner had been one of Ash’s favorite sayings when they were boys. Later, he’d substituted Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs. It had never felt quite right, but it had made Rafe glare the same glare, which was the main thing.

  This time, Rafe beamed at him. “I haven’t heard you say that in a while.”

  Ash must have done something right, because he’d brought up the best kid in the world. “Come again in the fall,” he said. “For Rosh Hashanah. We’ll throw bread in the water, feed our sins to the fishes and start new.”

  “I’d like that.” He sprawled back on the bed, gazing pensively at the ceiling. “Ash…tell me about the day you found me. Would you?”

  Ash nodded. “I was eight years old, and I was working for Izzy Jacobs, the resurrection man…”

  It was a long time before Mr. Cahill finally knocked lightly on the door of their room and came in. He pulled off his boots and laid his coat over a chair. Then he came silently to the bed and gathered her in close, the two rows of buttons on his waistcoat nestled on either side of her spine.

  She could feel his happiness in his body. “How did it go?”

  “Shhh,” he whispered, nipping her ear. “The walls are thin.” He did his level best to make her moan. She retaliated, but they both had plenty of practice at silence, she who’d always slept with a maid within call and he who’d spent his youth in one-room lodgings with a younger brother. He thrust into her slowly, delicately, to keep the ancient bed from creaking—then tickled her when she was pinned to the mattress. She clenched her teeth together, her helpless writhing rubbing her sensitive places against him. When she pinched him, he jerked inside her.

  Their pleasure drew out and out like a violin string vibrating just on the edge of hearing, until that became a game too, how long they could put it off.

  The distinct sound of snoring came from the room next door. Their eyes met, and they pressed their lips together and stayed absolutely still for probably ten seconds before they were shaking with laughter and making awful wheezing noises trying to stay silent.

  Those few moments of lost control were all it took. Lydia went off like a firework, in bursts and sparks and sudden flares. It wasn’t until Mr. Cahill bit her shoulder that she was even aware he was spending too. They fell back against the pillows, drawing in ragged, giggling breaths and arguing in whispers over who had spent first, and whose fault it was that Lydia had hit her head against the headboard at the last with a small but distinct thud.

  There was a brief lull in the whispers, and Mr. Cahill fell swiftly and thoroughly asleep. Rolling onto her side, Lydia nestled against him, reveling in the particular pleasure of a warm bed when one was utterly worn out.

  She didn’t think she had ever before looked forward to a morning with such certainty of its living up to expectations.

  About the Author

  Rose Lerner discovered Georgette Heyer when she was thirteen, and wrote her first historical romance a few years later. Her writing has improved since then, but her fascination with all things Regency hasn’t changed. When not reading, writing or researching, she enjoys cooking and marathoning old TV shows. She lives in Seattle with her best friend.

  If you’d like to know when her next book is available, you can sign up for her newsletter at www.roselerner.com, follow her on twitter at @RoseLerner or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/roselernerauthor.

  Look for these titles by Rose Lerner

  Now Available:

  In For a Penny

  A Lily Among Thorns

  Lively St. Lemeston

  Sweet Disorder

  Political intrigue could leave his heart the last one standing…alone.

  Sweet Disorder

  © 2014 Rose Lerner

  Lively St. Lemeston, Book 1

  Nick Dymond enjoyed the rough-and-tumble military life until a bullet to the leg sent him home to his emotionally distant, politically obsessed family. For months, he’s lived alone with his depression, blockaded in his lodgings.

  But with his younger brother desperate to win the local election, Nick has a new set of marching orders: dust off the legendary family charm and maneuver the beautiful Phoebe Sparks into a politically advantageous marriage.

  One marriage was enough for Phoebe. Under her town’s by-laws, though, she owns a vote that only a husband can cast. Much as she would love to simply ignore the unappetizing matrimonial candidate pushed at her by the handsome earl’s son, she can’t. Her teenage sister is pregnant, and Phoebe’s last-ditch defense against her sister’s ruin is her vote—and her hand.

  Nick and Phoebe soon realize the only match their hearts will accept is the one society will not allow. But as election intrigue turns dark, they’ll have to cast the cruelest vote of all: loyalty…or love.

  Warning: Contains elections, confections, and a number of erections.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Sweet Disorder:

  Nick leaned on his walking stick, giving himself a few moments to catch his breath. Of course the widow lived at the top of two flights of very steep, very twisty stairs.

  After six hours of jouncing about on bad roads the day before, followed by sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in damp weather, his leg had already been protesting. He’d waited until the sun came out this afternoon, and still his leg whined all the way from the Lost Bell, Tony’s inn headquarters: past the Market Cross and down the quaint streets, up the uneven garden path to the widow’s lodgings, past hedges and bushes strewn with drying clothes and past the open kitchen door, and into the house. Now, after the stairs, it shouted at him that it wanted to go home and sleep.

  You and I both, leg. He rapped on the low attic door. There was no answer. After half a minute dragged by, he tried again. No answer. The wretched woman wasn’t home. The staircase yawned behind him like a drab, dirty descent into Hell.

  Men had probably journeyed into Hell with more grace and less cursing, but eventually Nick found himself back out on the threshold. He closed
the door and leaned against it. The maids at their washing in the kitchen couldn’t see him from this angle. He shut his eyes and silently recited Byron until the ache in his leg receded.

  “Are you ill, sir?”

  He started upright. The plumper of the two maids stood before him. The water from the washing had splashed all down her front, and it was chilly enough that the points of her nipples showed even through several layers of wet cloth. There was so much of her, breasts and hips and thighs and—

  She cleared her throat loudly. “Sir?”

  He hurriedly raised his eyes to her face. It was a lovely face, heart-shaped with great dark eyes, finely arched brows, and an annoyed rosebud mouth. The tips of her thick dark hair curled wetly.

  “Yes, I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,” he said. “I’m Mr. Dymond, and I’m looking for Mrs. Sparks. Do you know if she’ll be in later?”

  The maid’s eyes widened, and she tried to dry her hands on her skirts. “Maybe,” she hedged. “What did you want to speak to her about? Wait a moment, did you say Mr. Dymond? But I’ve met him, he’s—”

  “I’m sorry, I should have said Mr. Nicholas Dymond. My brother is the candidate.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know Mr. Sparks is dead, don’t you? He can’t vote.” Her Sussex accent wasn’t as strong as many of the folk he’d spoken to here, but a warm burr coated her words like a honey glaze.

  It would behoove him to win her over for the sake of Mrs. Sparks’s vote, but he didn’t quite know how. Flirting with a voter’s wife was safe; she knew you didn’t mean it. A maid might think you were trying to bed her. His mother had impressed upon them all from a very early age the folly of womanizing during an election.

  How would Lady Tassell handle this? A smile, flattery and a bribe, no doubt. She had small armies of servant spies across England, and they all thought her a paragon of kind generosity.

  He smiled at the maid. Her hands twisted in her skirts. “I do know,” he said reassuringly. “But there’s nothing to stop her taking another, is there? If you could tell me of anyone she might be sweet on, I’d be very grateful. You must know all the news hereabouts.” He pulled a shilling out of his pocket and pressed it into one nervous hand.

  Her fingers were cold and damp. Even with the sun finally out, it was a damnable day for washing.

  The other maid, holding a linen shift trimmed with faded green bows and red rosettes, appeared at her elbow and plucked the shilling from her fingers. “That’s mine, I believe. And Mrs. Sparks isn’t sweet on anyone.”

  “Sukey!” The maid flushed, then turned on him, eyes flashing. “I thought better of the Orange-and-Purples, I really did. I’m not getting married for your dratted election, so you can stop flirting with all the servants in the vicinity.”

  Sukey winked at him. “Oh, don’t stop on my account.”

  Nick stifled a groan. He wasn’t cut out for this. He couldn’t manage even the simplest bit of politic dealing. “Mrs. Sparks, I take it.”

  Despite Nick’s dismay, he couldn’t help thinking this meant that was her shift in Sukey’s hands. Her petticoat and underthings were draped over the rhododendron behind her. Under her wet dress, right now, she must be wearing brown-and-white striped stockings, like the three pairs hanging from a nearby tree branch.

  “Yes,” she said sharply, “and yes, those are my underthings you’re ogling. Sir.”

  Nick straightened, collecting his wayward thoughts. “My humblest apologies, madam.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really? The very humblest? Ne plus ultra?”

  There was no purpose even in an ordered retreat; he had no reinforcements, no main army to rejoin. He had to stay and fix this. But first he needed to discover the lay of the land. “Did you like being married?” he asked bluntly.

  “No,” she snapped, and then pressed her fist into her mouth as if she couldn’t believe she’d said it. “I mean—yes,” she amended after a moment. “Sometimes. I—it wasn’t Will’s fault. Lord, I’m a beast.”

  This was interesting.

  “Of course you’re not a beast, ma’am,” Sukey said. “Men are impossible to live with, that’s all.” She put a hand on her mistress’s shoulder.

  As if that made her remember how cold she was, Mrs. Sparks shivered. “I’m impossible to live with too,” she said sadly. Then she shot him a glare. “Which is why I live alone.”

  He sighed. “So do I. Although I’m sure it will be no time at all before my mother is trying to matchmake for me. She bullied me down here to talk to you, you know.”

  He didn’t like how calculated his words were. But it worked. He could see it, when in her mind they became fellow pawns in his mother’s game. She smirked. “If this is an example of the delicacy of her stratagems, you have nothing to fear.”

  “Unkind, but just.” Her lips twitched. He almost had her. “Listen—perhaps you don’t want to marry again, but do me a favor and at least come to the dinner my brother is throwing for the voters on Thursday? Meet a few potential husbands. I hear there’s to be dancing, and it will convince my mother that I’m at least making inroads into your spinsterhood.” Damn, that last bit sounded rather indecent.

  She flushed, evidently agreeing.

  “Why not, ma’am?” asked Sukey. “It would do you good to get out for an evening. I can’t remember the last time you wore something really pretty.”

  It wasn’t meant as an insult, but Nick winced as the blush deepened into angry shame on Mrs. Sparks’s face. “I don’t own anything really pretty,” she said harshly. “I dyed my best gown black when we laid Will out.”

  “There, you see?” Sukey said. “That means it was more than two years ago. Two whole years of drudgery and scribbling. It’s about time you—”

  Mrs. Sparks began to vibrate like a teakettle. Nick found it inexplicably charming.

  “It’s not a very formal affair,” he interrupted before she could boil over. “Pin an orange-and-purple rosette in your hair and you’ll be the height of fashion. Please say you’ll come. I’d like to know there will be at least one familiar face in the crowd.” His mother wanted him to dance. He had planned to ignore that, but now, if his leg would permit it, he found himself wanting to dance with Mrs. Sparks. Although if she stepped on his feet, he imagined she would do so very firmly.

  Her face softened. He was close to success, so close. “I don’t have time,” she said, still sharply but with rather less conviction than before. “Drudgery and scribbling is time-consuming work, and unless you wish to do my washing and piece a quilt for the Gooding Day auction, the rest of my week is—”

  “So if I help with your washing and make a donation to the auction, you’ll come to the party?”

  He crossed an ocean to find her. His secret could prevent him from claiming her heart.

  Claimed by the Rogue

  © 2014 Hope Tarr

  Claimed, Book 1

  When Robert Bellamy signed on with the East India Company and set sail for Calcutta, Lady Phoebe Tremont took his promise to heart. Their separation would be but brief; in six months he would send for her.

  Six years later, believing her love to be drowned at sea, Phoebe hides her tears behind a disguise at a masked ball to celebrate her engagement to a dashing French aristocrat. It is there she encounters a handsome guest costumed as a rogue of the sea—a pirate. When he drops his mask, she finds herself looking into a dead man’s eyes. A ghost’s eyes. Robert’s eyes.

  Through hardship and degradation, Robert never lost his resolve to return home to England a rich man. Now a successful ship’s captain, there is one prize left to reclaim—Phoebe.

  But the demure debutante he left behind has grown into a dazzling, decidedly self-determined woman. Nor is Robert the callow youth who set sail in search of adventure. Yet the one thing that could win her heart is the very dark truth his
pride warns him never to reveal…

  Warning: This book contains steamy sex, some violence—and a hero so swoon-worthy you’ll find yourself seduced into staying up into the wee hours turning pages.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Claimed by the Rogue:

  The garden lay below, lit by torches and strings of Chinese lanterns much as it had been six years ago, the breeze sweetened by early blooming roses and the honeysuckle intertwining the trelliswork. Phoebe crossed to the rail, reaching it as the first angry tear splashed her cheek.

  Oh, Robert, if only…

  The costuming, the music and collective chatter, the ceaseless press of people wishing her happy when she felt anything but, was suddenly all too much. Feeling as though she might suffocate, she pulled at her mask, the surprisingly sturdy ribbons resisting snapping.

  “Bloody, bloody, bloody hell.”

  She tore the accursed thing off, hauled back and pitched it over the ironwork, the force straining her gown’s seams. Breathing hard, she gripped the ironwork and looked over. The fit of temper, better worthy of Belinda, had reaped the intended and instantly regretted result. Beyond reach in the thorns, her mask was as good as gone.

  “Whoa! Whoever he is, he’s not worth it.”

  Phoebe let out a gasp and spun about, her backside bumping the balustrade.

  A tall man costumed as a pirate pushed away from the plasterwork column against which he must have been leaning. “You would fare far better with a lover who makes you laugh than one who makes you curse—and cry,” he added, stepping into the cone of colored light.

  Beyond mortified, Phoebe dashed a quick hand across her damp eyes, hoping he might at least miss that much of her shame. “Sir, you should have made your presence known.”

  One dark brow arched upward. “I believe I am doing just that.”

  A gentleman would apologize for the intrusion and excuse himself to go inside. He, however, showed no sign of budging. Arms folded over his broad chest and legs akimbo, he stood his ground, raking her with his gaze. Stunned by his boldness, Phoebe studied his lantern-lit face. Who did he imagine himself to be? More importantly, who was he? His broad-brimmed hat with its extravagant plume and form-fitting doublet coat were not the standard fare found in costuming shops. He must have taken the invitation’s call for authenticity seriously indeed, for his leather breeches and riding boots wore a cannily real-looking coating of dust.