Royal Bridesmaids

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Most people who need a break hit a tropical beach. Not some dusty back road to nowhere.”

  “Maybe nowhere is exactly where I want to be.” She shoved the second sandwich into the bag a little less carefully.

  Whoa. Was it his imagination or was he detecting some underlying aggression?

  “Well, I’m sure your family will be happy to have you around for a little while,” he said, watching her graceful fingers fold down the top of the bag.

  She gave him no response as she set the bag on the counter, grabbed two paper cups, and began to fill them with iced tea.

  “So . . . exactly how long of a little while will that be?” he asked.

  The glass pitcher thunked on the counter and tea sloshed up the sides. “The length of my stay is really no concern of yours, Deputy Harley.”

  “True. But I’m more than willing to change that if you are.”

  A smile tilted her soft, full lips. “You really are incorrigible.”

  He mirrored her expression. “It’s a cross I bear.”

  She set the cups of tea down in front of him and pushed plastic caps over the rims. “I hope you enjoy your lunch, Deputy Harley. Please do come again soon.”

  “Is that an invitation?” Say yes, Angelface.

  Her delicate brows pulled together over sea green eyes. “Are you serious?”

  “As a tortoise trying to cross the road.”

  “I’m sorry, Deputy—”

  “I think we know each other well enough to be on a first name basis, don’t you?” Her slight hesitation gave him hope.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry, Deputy, I’m not here to engage in anything other than some rest and relaxation. I need a break. Not an opportunity to . . . lose control,” she whispered.

  James smiled. He knew exactly how loudly Kelly lost control. And exactly what made her lose it. Then again, he was more than willing to invent new techniques to make that happen too. Even if it took all night. Please, God, let it take all night.

  If Princess Prosecutor imagined him as a man who gave up easily she’d be very wrong.

  “You know . . .” He leaned closer and spoke low for her ears only. “If you give me your number you might just have a little fun losing a little control for the little while you’re here.” He lifted the bag and cups from the counter, stepped back, and gave her a good long appreciative once over. “Or is that what you’re afraid of?”

  An Excerpt from

  A MOST NAKED SOLUTION

  by Anna Randol

  Lady Sophia Harding: beautiful, blonde, and . . . capable of murder? That’s what Lord Camden Grey intends to find out.

  Sophia knows that to keep her family’s secrets she must avoid any entanglements with the powerful and brutally handsome man. But the pull of their mutual desire is all-consuming. Can Sophia trust Camden with the truth when she knows it might kill the love that grows between them?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Weltford, England, 1816

  Sir Camden Grey glared at the ink-spotted paper in front of him. Damnation. Was that a six or an eight? Perhaps a three? He placed his quill back in the ink and pressed the heels of his hands against his bleary eyes.

  He should have stopped working on the equation hours ago, but the solution had seemed so close this time. If he’d worked only a little harder or faster, perhaps he’d have been able to—

  A knock again sounded on his door, reminding him of what had startled him into splashing ink everywhere in the first place.

  “Yes?” He knew his tone was harsher than it should have been, but he hadn’t slept in—he checked the clock—twenty hours, and his servants knew better than to disturb him. If that fool Ipswith found an answer first, Camden would never again be able to set foot in the Royal Mathematical Society. The chairman, his father, would see to it. Just as he had seen to convincing Ipswith to research the exact same theorem to put Camden in his place.

  The door opened and Rafferty entered, his stoic butler façade remaining in place despite the crumpled papers littering the carpet at his feet. “There is a . . . man to see you, sir.” There was a significant distaste in his pronunciation of the word man.

  Camden raised his brow. What was he then, a goat? Really, it was no wonder he found conversing such a waste. It was an imprecise medium. “What is his business?”

  “He wishes to speak to the Justice of the Peace.”

  Camden glanced at the clock. “At three in the morning? Has there been a death?”

  Rafferty cleared his throat and didn’t make eye contact. “It is three in the afternoon, sir.”

  Camden swiveled to stare at the drawn curtains behind him. Indeed. Amend that—he’d been awake for thirty-two hours instead of twenty. Suddenly exhaustion hit him like a blow to the side of his head. He scrubbed at the grit in his eyes. “Did he say if it was urgent?”

  As impressive as the title of Justice of the Peace sounded, it usually only amounted to settling squabbles about sheep and stolen chamber pots. He wouldn’t have accepted the appointment to the position at all if there had been any other men who met the requirements in Weltford save drunk-off-his-arse Stanfield.

  “The fellow claims to have information on the Harding death, sir.”

  Camden straightened in his chair. That would be worth delaying sleep. “Where did you put him?”

  “In the library, sir.”

  Camden stood, twisting side to side briefly to loosen the knots in his back, then strode past his butler and down the stairs.

  He smelled his guest before he saw him. The air in the corridor stank of stale onions and spoiled ale. And he wasn’t even in the same room yet.

  Camden stepped into the library, then silently groaned when he saw his guest. “Mr. Spat?” Lloyd Spat, less than affectionately known about the village as Tubs, sat in the center of the room, his enormous girth filling the settee from arm to arm.

  “Ah, Sir Camden! A pleasure to see to see you. A real pleasure.” He tried to struggle to his feet but gave up after a single attempt. “There was a reward for information on the death of Lord Harding? A sizable one?”

  “If your information proves to be of use.” But he had offered the money over three months ago at the death of Viscount Harding. While he still found it difficult to believe the death was a result of a poacher’s misplaced bullet, he found it more difficult to believe that Tubs wouldn’t have come forward if he had real information. The man would do anything for his next pint. “Why wait to come forward?”

  “Well, I feared for my life. Near trembled at the thought of what would happen to me if they found out I spoke.”

  “If who found out?” Camden focused on breathing through his mouth only.

  “The men.”

  He was too tired for this. His only hope was a strict linear line of questioning. Camden spun the standing globe next to him absently, tapping every third line of longitude. He returned to the original question. “Why tell me now?”

  “Well you might ask, sir. Mr. Haws, that greedy old bastard, has decided that my word is no longer good enough for him. He says if I’m wanting another drop of ale from his tavern, he needs to be seeing some of the coin he’s owed. Now I’m rightly offended at such rudeness and I have a mind to take my business to another tavern, but my health’s no longer what it was. And I need to be close to my lodgings and my dear Mrs. Spat.”

  So he’d decided that his next drink was worth more than information that might cost him his life. That logic would have been too much to follow on a day when fully awake; Camden stood no chance of sorting it out now.

  Tubs rubbed his hands together, then glanced nervously about the room. “No one will find out the news came from me, right?”

  “Not unless you tell them.”

  Tubs nodded, his chin disappearing into the rippling folds at his neck. “Well, then. The day after the murder I was at the tavern.”

  Camden had never seen him anywhere but at the tavern.

  “I was sitting at my table in th
e corner when I heard voices behind me. It was two blokes discussing getting paid. Now I normally keep to my own business but one of the gents says, ‘The deed is done?’ Now I know that when men are talking about deeds, that’s not something that I need to be hearing, but I was right there so I couldn’t not hear them.”

  Camden stopped spinning the globe, his hand coming to rest somewhere in Russia. Tubs finally had his full attention. It wasn’t Camden’s responsibility as Justice of the Peace to investigate crimes, only to rule on small squabbles, or for more serious matters, to decide if there was enough evidence for a criminal to be sent on to the formal court. While he gave the cases he heard his full attention, he’d never been tempted to become involved past his limited role. It was the responsibility of the victim or his family to prosecute the crime. But something about the Harding case had seemed suspicious. Camden had finally ruled with the coroner’s jury because he’d had no evidence to contradict the theory of the poacher’s bullet, but it had always seemed too convenient. As if someone had decided three plus three equaled five because they didn’t want to be bothered to count to six.

  Then the widow’s powerful family had swooped in to ensure the whole matter stayed quiet. Her father and her brothers stayed at her side, keeping her distant from everyone. Lady Harding’s father, the Earl of Riverton, himself, had visited Camden to ask for discretion when dealing with the case.

  Camden had agreed because he knew better than to deny a powerful man like the earl without cause. He also knew the earl’s oldest son, Darton, personally, and he trusted him.

  To a point.

  But the whole situation had made him wary. More alert. He’d asked a few questions about town but had come up empty.

  Tubs cracked his knuckles, the popping interspersing his words. “Then the other fellow says, ‘He fell like a sack of turnips. Easiest job I’ve ever done.’ Then he laughed. Now I hadn’t heard about the good viscount’s death yet, but something in his voice made my skin fair crawl off my body.”

  “Did you get a good look at either of the men?”

  Tubs’s eyes bulged. “There’s no way I was going to let them know I’d heard them. What with them being hired killers.”

  Camden could hear his own teeth grinding. “Then what information do you have that you think will earn you the reward?”

  “Well, then they started talking about returning to London.” He looked hopeful at this bit of information, then sighed when Camden didn’t react. “Then one of the fellows said, ‘Did you collect the rest of the blunt from her?’ ”

  Camden stepped away from the globe. “Her?” Why had an image of Lady Harding suddenly appeared in his mind?

  “That’s what he said as clear as day.”

  “Did they give a name? Anything more specific?” Camden tried to think of what he knew of Lady Harding, but could come up with little. Oh, he could picture her clearly enough, the pretty young woman who’d lingered outside her brother’s mathematics lessons when Camden had gone to tutor him almost seven years ago. The slender delicate grace of her body and the almost elfin point of her chin. He’d liked knowing that she hid in the corridor to hear his lessons.

  But he knew nothing of the woman she’d become. The Hardings had been at their house in Weltford only rarely. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been invited to an event at Harding House. He’d paid little attention to the social engagements in the area. Besides, his knighthood was recent and that left him below the notice of the oldest of the bluebloods like the Hardings.

  And if he was completely honest with himself, he’d had no desire to see the girl who’d written him the only letter he’d received while in the army—a love letter—with another man.

  Tubs grunted and tugged on his ear. “No. They left right quick after that.”

  Camden had little reason to think Lady Harding the woman that the killers referred to. Except, why hadn’t she or her family done more to find the shooter? Why had she been content with the coroner’s ruling? Why had her family been so intent on keeping him away from her? They’d claimed her prostrate with grief. All his questions had gone through her father.

  “Do I get the money?” Tubs asked.

  “Only if your information proves to be correct.” Despite his own suspicions, he had no proof that Tubs’s story was true.

  “But I took time away from my dear wife to come to help with your investigation.”

  Frowning, Camden tossed him a guinea. “For your trouble. But you get no more unless your information leads to an arrest.”

  The money disappeared into Tubs’s pocket. “It will, sir. Everything I told you is as true as my name.”

  Tubs lumbered to his feet and Rafferty escorted him out.

  Camden had planned to pay his respects to Lady Harding at some point, perhaps see what manner of woman she’d matured into. Now it appeared he had no choice.

  She may have grown up to be a murderer.

  “You want me to give away all of the books in the library?” Lady Sophia Harding’s housekeeper stared at her in shock. “But, my lady, the books must be worth hundreds of pounds.”

  Eight hundred and sixty-three pounds, to be precise. Sophia knew. She’d purchased every one of them when they had renovated the house last year.

  But now the gilded leather spines sickened her.

  She took a deep breath. “Yes, every one of them.”

  “What will you put in here instead, my lady?” Mrs. Gilray asked.

  Sophia smiled. She had absolutely no idea. She would pick what she liked. She didn’t even know what that would be. Perhaps piles of penny dreadful or scandalous novels. More books on mathematics.

  All she knew was that no one would have a say in it but her.

  She wouldn’t fret over her choices, thinking and rethinking each one. Trying to pick those Richard would approve of while knowing she’d never be able to guess correctly.

  Richard was dead.

  And now she intended to reclaim the library from his influence. Sophia traced a finger down the edge of one of the books. If only it was as easy to reclaim herself. “Send them to St. Wilfred’s orphanage.”

  “Very good, my lady.” Mrs. Gilray was too new to dare question her.

  Sophia turned at the sound of heavy boots in the corridor. Her eyes widened at the sight of her head gardener.

  Mud caked Wicken’s boots and his white hair jutted out from his head in awkward clumps. “There’s an urgent matter I must discuss with you regarding the rose gardens.”

  Sophia tried to smile as if urgent meetings about greenery were a normal occurrence, but her mind was racing. “That will be all, Mrs. Gilray.”

  Mrs. Gilray’s fascinated gaze swung back and forth between the other two occupants of the room, but she bobbed a curtsey and glided from the library.

  Wicken closed the door behind her with a click, the kindly lines on his face deep with worry. “Sorry, my lady. I know this is most unusual. But I thought it important that you know.”

  Sophia swallowed against sudden unease. “Is something amiss?”

  “My daughter just sent word from the village. The Justice of the Peace has been asking questions about your husband’s death.”

  “What questions?”

  He rubbed his right arm, the arm her husband had broken when Wicken refused to tell Richard where she was hiding.

  Sophia fought not to stare, not to choke on the guilt that burned in her chest at the stiff way the arm hung at his side.

  “What enemies Harding might have had. Same as he did right after the death.”

  “Has anyone said anything?”

  “Not as far as I know, but it’s only a matter of time before one of the villagers lets something slip.”

  Sophia’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. Sir Camden wouldn’t find anything. She wouldn’t allow it. Not when that slip might lead him directly to her husband’s killer—her father.

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  COPYRIGHT

  This is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.