Beastly Lords Collection

by Baily, Sydney Jane

  He jumped up at the midwife’s arrival.

  Immediately, the woman brought a calming presence with her as she approached Jenny’s side and took her hand.

  “What’s happening here, young lady? Are you causing a fuss and worrying the earl?” Her tone was warm and caring. Then she glanced at Simon, taking in his demeanor. “My lord, would you mind removing yourself to the chair over there?”

  At her husband’s querying look, Jenny nodded, smiling as he stroked her forehead before taking the seat by the window.

  “I felt a strange sensation I hadn’t felt before.”

  The woman nodded. “May I touch you?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jenny said.

  “Was it here?” she asked, resting a hand on Jenny’s gown over her rounded belly. “Did it feel as if your stomach tightened and hardened?”

  “Yes, exactly.” Relieved Emily knew exactly what had happened, she nearly cried.

  “Is she all right?” Simon asked, before Jenny could say more.

  “I believe so,” the midwife said. “This is not the start of labor. It’s only false contractions that make your body ready for the real event. It can certainly be frightening at first. But it wasn’t painful, was it?”

  Jenny considered. “No, I don’t think it truly hurt. It was uncomfortable and frightening. I was about to enjoy my soup,” she added, realizing she was hungry. “And I’m sure I smelled roast woodcocks for our supper.”

  Hearing Simon laugh, she looked at him.

  “I’m sorry to have spoiled our dinner with Mr. Turner. He seems like a nice man. Perhaps you should head back there and finish the meal.”

  “I’m not leaving you. That’s final.” Then he ordered the maid waiting patiently in the corner to go get some soup for her mistress.

  “And bread,” Jenny added. “And if we have some cold chicken, that would be lovely. But bring the soup first please. I’m famished.”

  *

  “I, for one, am pleased to have him as our neighbor,” Jenny told him later that night when they were in bed. Yawning broadly, she closed her eyes.

  “I’ll reserve judgment for now,” Simon told her, cradling her close with her back against his chest.

  “Did you remember to send word that everything was fine?”

  He nuzzled the top of her head. “I did. Stop worrying about a thing. Sleep well, my love.”

  In a few moments, holding his warm, relaxed wife, Simon felt the tug of sleep draw him down. It seemed as if almost instantly, Simon awakened in his cell in Burma. Instead of feeling an ounce of dread, however, he closed his eyes once more and said, “Enough.”

  When he opened them again, he was home.

  Epilogue

  “You were right,” Simon told her.

  “Say that again, my lord.”

  “Why? Can’t you hear me over the squalling baby?”

  Jenny grinned. “Your son is lusty with life, not squalling. And I can hear you perfectly. I just want you to say it again.”

  “You. Were. Right.”

  “I accept your statement, but about what?”

  “Emily. She is better than any accoucheur I could have hired.”

  In truth, the rather scary event of childbirth and afterbirth had gone quite smoothly if painfully. After months of fretting over it, knowing the many stories of both joy and tragedy, Jenny had been delivered of a beautiful boy.

  “And she brought fresh clove buns.” Reaching over to the basket of baked goods beside the bed, she helped herself to another as Maggie came back into the room. “I doubt any mid-husband, no matter how competent, would have thought to bring the baker’s best goods.”

  Maggie helped herself to a bun as well. “I doubt an accoucheur would be married to a baker anyway,” she said, spraying a few crumbs onto the counterpane. “By the way, the admiral has taken Emily home. She said she would stop by again tomorrow to help you with … um …” Her eyes widened and she glanced at Simon.

  “With what?” he asked.

  She looked back at Jenny and gestured her head from the baby to her sister’s chest. “With feeding the little one there. Emily said you didn’t seem the type to have a wet nurse.”

  “Of course I won’t. Why would I let my own milk go to waste?”

  “So practical,” remarked Simon, and they grinned at each other.

  “Please sit, Mags. Where’s Mummy?”

  “She’ll be back shortly,” she promised, easing herself onto the edge of Simon and Jenny’s bed. “She and Eleanor are still settling in.”

  “I’m glad you made it in time, but sorry you had to cut your Season short again.”

  Maggie shrugged and look unbothered. “No ball or duke is as important as you.”

  “You can still go back,” Simon offered. “The townhouse awaits you.”

  “I appreciate that. However, I believe I am done for this year.”

  Jenny shot her husband a glance.

  Maggie continued, “The Season is ending in a week or two. I see no reason to drag out the agony. There might have been an offer coming, but not one I would have accepted.”

  Reaching out, Jenny touched her sister’s hand.

  “No,” Maggie said, “don’t get all sympathetic on me. I’m perfectly fine. What a dear little boy. If only he wasn’t bawling quite so loudly. It’s hard to hear oneself think.”

  Laughing, Jenny looked at her husband. “Perhaps we should call him Lionel, for he roars like a lion.”

  “I like it,” Simon agreed.

  “Here let me hold him,” Maggie said.

  Jenny let her sister scoop him from her lap and stroll about the room with him, swaying him to and fro. He continued to yell.

  “Hmm,” Maggie considered. Then she slipped her smallest finger into the young heir’s open mouth. He closed it firmly and there was silence.

  “Dear God in Heaven!” Simon marveled.

  “How did you know?” Jenny asked.

  “I saw Mummy do it with Eleanor. You were busy at the time doing something useful, I’m sure. My goodness, he’s got quite a grip.”

  “Let me try,” Jenny said, popping the last of the sticky bun into her mouth and wiping her fingers on the coverlet.

  Maggie returned the baby to his mother.

  “If the finger works so well,” Jenny considered, “I imagine the breast will work even better.”

  “Oh my,” said Maggie because of the earl’s presence.

  Jenny wasn’t deterred one bit. She was with the three people she loved most in the world. Cradling him in one arm, she lowered her shift, giving her son access to her left nipple.

  “Ouch,” she exclaimed at once.

  Simon leaped from his chair in concern, then stopped, perhaps self-conscious to be standing beside his sister-in-law, both watching his wife who was half bare-breasted.

  “Well,” Maggie said. “I’ll see about getting you some tea.”

  With that, she left the new parents to the wonder of their son.

  “I could swear he has teeth,” Jenny muttered.

  Simon sat on the bed gazing down happily at the vignette of mother and son. “To think where I was a year ago, I could never have imagined this life with you.”

  “To think where I was a year ago, my lord, I could say the same.”

  “This is no dream?” he asked, reaching out and stroking her face.

  She beamed at him. “Oh yes, my love, I think this is an exquisite dream, one from which we shall never awaken.”

  Lord Anguish

  Beastly Lords

  Book Two

  Sydney Jane Baily

  Dedication

  To Victoria “Vickie” Piercey

  A generous heart, a true friend, a strong woman

  Acknowledgment

  Thanks to my copyeditor, Violetta Rand, who made me rethink and who caught my errors, and to Dar Albert for another superb cover. And, as always, thanks Mom!

  Chapter One

  1848, Turvey House, Bedfordshire, E
ngland

  Nothing in his rather pampered existence had prepared him for this. John Angsley, Earl of Cambrey, lay on his back with his severely broken leg in a plaster cast and raised in a sling. Utterly impossible for him to roll over or even change positions, he cursed loudly. It had been a mere few days since he’d taken his last sip of laudanum and he’d never imagined how quickly the pain would take over.

  Not only pain. Every bloody ailment known to man seemed to be visiting itself upon him. Including nausea.

  Sitting up as best he could, he grabbed for the bowl at his side and heaved up the contents of his stomach. Thankfully, because his gut hurt all the time, both when taking the tincture of opium and even more so since stopping, he’d barely eaten. Dry-retching, as it turned out, wasn’t any more pleasant than heaving on a full stomach.

  It was an hour or more past midnight. Even the servants were probably sound asleep. With that irritating thought, he yelled as loudly as he could and then yanked the bell pull, which was more effective in bringing help but not nearly as satisfying as using his lungs to their full capacity.

  Shivering and sweating at the same time, aching from his neck to his buttocks and on down through both his good leg and his injured one, he waited for his valet.

  After a few minutes, there was a tap on the door, and Peter entered.

  Lucky man, Cam thought, walking in on two feet, looking perfectly hearty but for his rumpled hair. In fact, his valet was infuriatingly normal, except for the fact he was wearing no jacket and his waistcoat was inside out.

  The last detail was the only thing which made Cam feel any better. He had startled his usually immaculate valet out of bed and into his clothing at such a rate, the man had barely been able to dress himself.

  Perhaps he should mention it and dock some of his wages. Punish the healthy bastard!

  Sighing, Cam wondered who the hell he was becoming.

  “Take the bowl and fetch me something.”

  Peter bowed and reached for the porcelain containing barely more than bile.

  “Fetch you what, my lord?”

  Cam wanted to say, “The damned opium, of course,” but he didn’t. That path led to nothing but more stomach aches, wool-headed thinking, and strange dreams, though the bliss of painless days and nights was worth it. Nearly.

  Besides, he’d told Peter not to bring him the bottle of laudanum no matter how he begged. How humiliating!

  “Bring me brandy. Warmed, I suppose.” Would it help him sleep through the painful, vile symptoms that had resulted since he’d stopped taking opium? He doubted it. More likely, the brandy would either come up or go through him, resulting in the other disgusting outcome.

  “Go!” he yelled at Peter who was hesitating, possibly awaiting more orders.

  How Cam wished he could shed his mortal coil entirely, but only for a short while. He wanted to live through this hell. He wanted to walk again. And more than anything, he wanted to lay eyes upon Margaret Blackwood once more.

  *

  Six months earlier

  The Earl of Cambrey, had a choice—another evening at his club surrounded by good friends and good brandy or a long, potentially boring evening at Lord and Lady Marechal’s. He chose the latter. After all, along with the music and the insipid young misses, the burnt champagne and sweetmeats, and the puffed-up dandies came the chance to see Miss Margaret Blackwood.

  God, if any of his friends ever knew what a mooncalf he had become over the Blackwood girl, why, he’d be drummed out of the clubs. Yet, there was something about her.

  True, that something wasn’t subtle. Every damn young buck at every event all Season saw what Cam saw—her attractive figure, shining caramel-colored hair, gold-flecked eyes which danced when she laughed, and a smile that absolutely took his breath away. And all of this she used to devastating effect.

  Unfortunately, she used it on every man jack who came her way. He would have welcomed her showing him a modicum of favoritism, considering they’d met before the Season even began because Margaret’s older sister had married his best friend, Simon Devere, and he was the damn Earl of Cambrey!

  Yes, it would be nice to be shown a little partiality.

  Perhaps she did have a special interest in him. They had spent considerable time together since her mother and two sisters had come early to London. Not only had he dined at the Devere townhouse, Cam and Margaret had sat next to each other at a cricket match at the newly opened Fenner’s Ground and cheered the players together. Another time, they’d laughed—as discreetly as possible, of course—when a particularly untalented soprano failed to hit her notes, or any notes, for that matter, on the Sadler’s Wells stage.

  Nevertheless, under and over his name on Margaret’s dance cards were always many other gentlemen’s, including Westing, a man younger than Cam by at least seven years, which stung.

  It wasn’t like Cam was ancient, but at twenty-eight, he was nearly a decade older than Miss Blackwood.

  Maybe she was simply too young.

  Too fickle.

  He groaned when she entered the ballroom with her mother and her older sister.

  Too damnably beautiful!

  *

  Maggie loved the Season and everything about it. As much as her older sister, Jenny, thought it frivolous, impractical, even tedious, Maggie thought it exciting, titillating, and, of course, utterly necessary. Her debut Season the year before had been cut short by the death of her father. In quick order, what was left of her family, namely her mother and two sisters with a few servants, had been forced to move out of London. Maggie had left behind her hopes for a well-matched future.

  Selling their lovely townhouse had not been easy. Moving back into their small cottage in Sheffield and being forced to become a French tutor had been excruciating. She’d been cut off from all her friends, including her dearest one, Ada, another baron’s daughter with expectations of finding a good husband.

  And then, thank her lucky stars, her older sister had caught the eye of the Earl of Lindsey, and before one could dance thrice around the Maypole, they had married.

  Thus, here Maggie was, with the full social season ahead of her and new gowns. Life was bliss!

  What’s more, she’d caught the eye of the worldly Earl of Cambrey, who cut quite a dashing figure. Something about him caused her insides to sizzle in an unfamiliar and dangerous manner. However, she feared looking too eager in his eyes, or anyone’s, for that matter. Moreover, she didn’t want to settle on the first man to capture her attention.

  John, as she privately thought of him, was as old as her sister’s new husband. Not that he was too old for her, but she feared he might not share her same sense of fun. Perhaps he would want to sit out each dance or demand she produce babies immediately as Jenny was doing, already with child mere months into her marriage.

  No, Maggie wanted to live a little before she experienced such a terrifying adventure, all too aware it might cut her life extremely short indeed. She knew of two ladies in their circle of acquaintances who had died in childbirth this past year.

  Shuddering, she forced herself to send happy thoughts toward Jenny who would give birth in the fall. Please, God, let her have an easy and safe delivery.

  “Why are you looking like that?” her mother asked. “With such an expression of worry, you’re making a frown line, and no one will approach you.”

  Her mother was wrong, of course. No sooner did Maggie set foot on the parquet floor than half a dozen gentlemen jockeyed for position to put their names upon her dance card.

  “A moment, if you will, boys,” she teased, knowing she was being impudent. Obviously, one shouldn’t call Lords Fowler and Welkes by such a term. But Maggie did. What’s more, she knew she could get away with it. Despite her beauty, she would not have deigned to do so were she still poor Maggie Blackwood from Sheffield, whose father, the baron, died penniless.

  However, as Miss Margaret Blackwood, sister-in-law to the Earl of Lindsey and residing in the Devere townho
use on Portman Square, she was a coveted eligible. She could get away with teasing, and more.

  When the crush of gentlemen dissipated, she spied Lord Cambrey standing casually yet assuredly, drink in one hand, expression of mild amusement upon his handsome face. No, she could not think of him as a boy, nor ever call him such without embarrassing herself. He was the only one with whom she got a little tongue-tied, felt the flutter of nerves in her stomach, the only one who caused her a bit of unease.

  She liked that about him. Immensely.

  Furthermore, her worries he might be stuffy had turned out to be completely unfounded. They’d already had barrels of fun, sharing a similar sense of humor and a passion for cricket. What’s more, in his strong arms, on the dance floor, Maggie moved lightly and effortlessly with the earl as a superbly confident lead.

  Yes, John was high on her list of bachelors, and apparently, he was waiting his turn to write on her dance card.

  Setting his glass down, he greeted all three of them.

  “Lady Blackwood,” he addressed her mother, taking her hand and bowing over it.

  “Lady Lindsey,” he greeted Maggie’s sister in turn. Unfortunately, Jenny looked, as usual, as though she would rather be elsewhere than at a society event. Though not yet showing, at least not to the unaware eye, with her husband away on business, her sister seemed unable to enjoy herself.

  Maggie rolled her eyes. Jenny was a countess and her life was set, for goodness sake!

  John turned to her next. As their gazes briefly met and held, she felt a frisson of delicious anticipation for the evening ahead. Then he bowed low over her hand and brought it to his lips.

  “Miss Blackwood.”

  “Lord Cambrey,” she murmured.

  When he raised his head, they held each other’s gaze another moment, a deliciously long moment, until she felt her lips turn up in an involuntary smile.

  What was it about this man that tickled her fancy?