It Happened One Night
Page 1
Stephanie Laurens
Mary Balogh
Jacquie D’Alessandro
Candice Hern
It Happened One Night
Contents
A Letter to the Reader
Mary Balogh
The Fall of Rogue Gerrard
Stephanie Laurens
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Spellbound
Mary Balogh
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Only You
Jacquie D’Alessandro
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
From This Moment On
Candice Hern
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Authors
Enter the World of Stephanie Laurens
Also by Jacquie D’Alessandro
Also by Candice Hern
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Letter to the Reader
What would happen if four authors were each to write a novella for an anthology and it turned out they had all used the same plot premise? Disaster, right? But what if it had been done deliberately? What if the four had agreed ahead of time on certain plot details they would all use and had then gone ahead and written the novellas without further collaboration? Madness, right? All the stories would be basically the same.
Or would they?
For years it has been my conviction that the individual imagination, voice, style, and outlook on life of each author would guarantee a quite unique story no matter how similar the basic plot was to someone else’s. I wanted to test the theory, but could arouse no interest in it until recently. And then I was out on a Levy book-signing tour with a crowd of other authors and idly mentioned my idea to Candice Hern and Jacquie D’Alessandro. They were instantly enthusiastic, and we talked of nothing else for the whole of one long bus journey from Chicago to Detroit. We were going to do it. But we felt that we needed a fourth member of the group and made a wish list. Candice happened to have Stephanie Laurens’s e-mail address with her, and since she was at the top of our list, we wrote to her and had an almost instant acceptance, despite the time difference between Detroit and somewhere in Australia. Our agents also loved the idea—and so did Avon when we pitched it to them.
And so here it is—an anthology of four novellas with the same plot! You can be the judge. Are they so similar that when you have read one, you have read them all?
Or are they as differently fascinating as the four seasons in which they are set?
The plot premise is this: A man and a woman, who have neither seen nor heard from each other in ten years, meet again when they find themselves staying at the same inn for a twenty-four hour period. To make the experiment a real one, we did not discuss our stories at all as we wrote them. The only artificial restriction we placed upon them ahead of time was to take different seasons of the year, since there are four of those and four of us.
Enjoy these very different novellas—even though in one sense they are all the same. Right? Or wrong?
Mary Balogh
The Fall of Rogue Gerrard
Stephanie Laurens
Chapter One
It was a dark, stormy, and utterly miserable night. Rain fell from the sky in unrelenting sheets; whenever Robert “Rogue” Gerrard, fifth Viscount Gerrard, managed to squint through long lashes weighed down by icy droplets all he saw was more rain.
Hunched in his greatcoat on the box of his traveling carriage, he held the reins loosely in one long-fingered hand; he’d stripped off his sodden gloves miles ago. There was no risk of the horses bolting.
“Just a little further,” he crooned, urging them on. He doubted they could hear over the drumming downpour, but the coaxing croon was ingrained habit. If one wanted females or animals to do what one wanted, one crooned; in Ro’s experience, it usually worked.
The powerful pair, normally arrogantly high-stepping, were disdainfully lifting first one hoof, then the other, free of sucking mud. Their pace was down to a crawl.
Inwardly cursing, Ro peered through the water coursing down his face, trying through the darkness to make out some—any—landmark. It was February. His mother always maintained one should never travel in February; as with many things, she was proving to be correct. But business had called, so Ro had dutifully left the luxurious warmth of the hearth at his principal estate, Gerrard Park, near Waltham on the Wolds, summoned his trusty coachman, Willis, and set out that afternoon for town.
He’d imagined putting up for the night along the way, possibly at the Kings Bells in St. Neots.
As usual, they’d joined the Great North Road near Colsterworth. It was only after they’d swept past Stamford that Willis, glancing idly back, had seen the massive storm clouds rushing down on them from the north. The turnoff to Peterborough had already been behind them; when applied to for orders, Ro had decreed they’d press on with all speed, hoping to reach Brampton. They’d just raced through the hamlet of Norman Cross when the heavens had opened with a ferocity that had instantly made traveling, even on England’s most major highway, a nightmare.
They’d limped toward Sawtry, but with the smaller, slighter Willis all but drowned on the box, having increasing difficulty managing the reins, Ro had insisted on trading places. His drenched coachman was now a shivering lump inside the coach, while Ro, also drenched to the skin, but courtesy of his size and constitution better able to withstand the apocalyptic downpour, squinted through the torrent.
They’d reached Sawtry over an hour ago, only to find every possible habitation packed to the rafters with travelers seeking shelter. The Great North Road was the country’s busiest highway; mail coaches, post coaches, and private coaches, let alone wagons and carts, had been stranded and deserted all around Sawtry.
No shelter of any sort was to be had, but the deluge had shown no signs of abating; if anything, as the hours dragged on, the downpour had only increased.
That was when Ro had remembered the small but tidy inn in Coppingford. The lane along which it lay met the highway about a mile south of Sawtry. With no real option, Ro had accepted the risk, not just of that extra mile on the highway, but of what he’d estimated as two miles of country lane.
Now, with the night an icy, wet, close to impenetrable shroud around him, with the horses slowing even more with every step, with the deluge rapidly converting the lane into a quagmire, he was seriously wondering if he’d judged aright. Yet quite aside from its seclusion tucked away through woods two miles from the highway, given the sudden onset of the storm and its dramatic impact, he doubted the Coppingford Arms would be full.
Gaining shelter for him, Willis, and his horses was currently his only objective, and both instinct and intellect told him shelter awaited at the Coppingford Arms.
He was debating whether to get down and lead the horses when he caught a glimmer through the dripping trees. Leaden branches drooped and bobbed in the downpour; he blinked, shook
his head, sending droplets flying in a vain attempt to clear his eyes, and stared again. A small, weak lamp glowed through the curtain of rain.
It grew larger, its light stronger, as the horses inched along. Through the drowned night the outline of a low, solid, two-story building in gray stone took shape. As well as the single lamp by the main door, flickering light at one window bore testimony to a fire within. The sight made Ro realize just how chilled he was; he quelled a shiver.
A stone archway beside the inn gave access to the stable yard. He turned the flagging horses under it. “Willis! Wake up, man—we’re here.”
“I’m awake.” Willis was out of the carriage before it had rocked to a halt. “Ostler! Get yourself out here! His lordship’s horses need tending before they get washed away.”
Swinging down from the box seat, Ro saw an ostler come rushing from the stable.
Wide-eyed, he grabbed hold of the leader’s bridle. “We can walk them into the stable and unharness there. No need to get washed away ourselves.”
Ro nodded to Willis when Willis looked back at him. “Go on. I’ll get my bag and bespeak rooms—come in when you’re done.”
Willis saluted and rushed to help the ostler manage the heavy, drooping horses. Ro stepped to the back of the carriage, opened the boot, and hauled his portmanteau up and out just as the carriage started moving, then strode up the steps to the inn’s side door.
He opened it and squelched inside. The sound made him wince; Hoby wouldn’t be impressed. “Innkeep!”
“Right here, sir.”
Ro looked up. The innkeeper—the same mild-mannered man Ro remembered from years ago—was standing behind a short counter by the stairs, watching the puddle forming about Ro’s large booted feet with resignation.
The man sighed, then ran his gaze up Ro’s long frame, animation increasing as he took in the quality of the greatcoat hanging from Ro’s shoulders and the elegant coat and waistcoat beneath, equally sodden. “A dreadful night, sir. You’ll be wanting a nice dry room, I’ve no doubt.”
“One with a fire, and a room for my coachman as well. He’ll be in shortly.”
Ro’s voice brought the man’s gaze to his face.
The man blinked. “Why…bless me! It’s Ro—” He corrected himself. “Lord Gerrard, isn’t it? We haven’t seen you in quite some years, my lord.”
Everyone remembered Rogue Gerrard. Ro managed to summon the charming smile that rarely failed to get him what he wanted. “Indeed. Bilt, isn’t it?”
Bilt was flattered to have been remembered; he came around his counter. “A right beastly night, my lord. Never seen anything like it—all this rain. A night for Noah, it is. We’ve one of our front rooms vacant. I’ll just nip up and get the fire roaring, and have the missus turn down the bed.” Eager to please, he reached for Ro’s bag. “If you’d like to sit in the tap for a moment, catch your breath, I’ll take your bag up and make sure all’s ready.”
Ro surrendered his bag. He was tired and sodden and wanted nothing more than to get dry. Getting warm would hopefully follow.
Using both hands, Bilt hefted the portmanteau and hurried to the stairs. “You’ll remember the tap from before, I’ll warrant.”
Ro did. He turned to the archway that gave on to the tap, a decent-sized room with a bar along one wall.
The room lay in chilly darkness. It wasn’t the room in which the firelight had flickered.
Ro swung his gaze to the door opposite the archway. If memory served, it gave on to a parlor. Crossing to the door, he opened it. Warmth and golden light rolled over him.
“My lord! Ah…”
Already over the threshold, Ro leaned back through the door to look up at Bilt, on the landing wrestling with the unwieldy portmanteau.
Bilt looked down at him, expression aghast.
Ro raised a brow. “What is it?”
Bilt swallowed. “If you don’t mind, my lord, someone’s hired the parlor.”
Ro glanced into the room, then looked back at Bilt. “Whoever they are, they’re not here, most probably because it’s the dead of night. There is, however, a fire still burning. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that I’m drenched, Bilt. To the skin. I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to catch a chill while waiting for my room to be made ready—especially as this fire is burning so well and otherwise going to waste.”
He smiled at Bilt, but this time the smile held an edge, one mirrored in his silver-gray eyes. “I’ll wait here by the fire.”
Very few people forgot Rogue Gerrard.
Entering the parlor, Ro closed the door and walked across to the hearth. With every step he could feel the welcome warmth reaching for him, engulfing him…but only on his face and hands, his exposed skin. The rest of him remained literally chilled to the bone, and that rest was rather a lot.
Halting before the fire, he shrugged out of his greatcoat and draped it over the back of a wooden chair beside the hearth, then mentally shrugging—there was no one around to see—he fought his way out of his coat, not an easy task given the lengths to which Shultz had gone to tailor the garment to his shoulders and back. The waistcoat was easier to strip off, but even his cravat and shirt were more wet than not. He couldn’t recall ever being so drenched. The cravat was a yard of limp, creased linen; he laid it over his coat on the chair. His buckskin breeches—thank God he hadn’t changed into trousers before setting out—had largely repelled the rain; they were already giving off steam.
He paused, considering his shirt, but was too desperate to feel heat on his iced skin to wait. Pulling the tails free of his breeches, he tugged and wriggled and managed to haul the damp linen off over his head. On the way, his dripping hair wet the fabric even more, but the heat of the flames caressing his chilled chest and arms brought instant relief.
He sighed, closed his eyes. Rubbing his hair with the bunched shirt, he gradually felt the worst of his inner shivering subside. Muscles tight with cold started to ease, to relax. He was still chilled, but no longer frozen.
His marrow might even be thawing.
Opening his eyes, reaching behind him, he mopped his back with the shirt, then dried his arms, rubbing briskly to get the blood flowing. Then he tried to dry his chest; given the state of his shirt, his skin remained damp. Standing before the fire, he let the flames warm him while passing the crumpled linen back and forth across the band of crinkly hair adorning the heavy muscles.
His mood was almost mellow when the door opened. Expecting Bilt, he turned—
And froze.
Across the room, a lady whisked into the parlor, turned and shut the door. Swinging back into the room, looking down, shaking rain from an umbrella, she walked a few paces, then halted.
She was swathed in a heavy cloak, the lower foot of which was wet through and muddy, but she’d pushed back the hood, revealing hair the color of burnished walnut neatly secured in a chignon, and a small oval face with delicate features.
Features Ro recognized, that still held the power to stop the breath in his chest.
She hadn’t seen him; she was patently unaware he was there.
He frowned. “What the devil are you doing here?”
She jumped. Smothered a small shriek that died away as her gaze rose, locked, and she stared.
Not at his face.
Her gaze had risen only as far as his chest. His naked chest.
He knew perfectly well what it looked like, knew precisely why women, ladies especially, stared at him in that way, but this was Lydia, and her staring at him in that way was definitely not going to help.
Somewhere in the inn, a clock chimed. Twelve bongs; midnight.
His only option was to ignore his half-naked state. It could have been worse; he might have changed into trousers before he’d left home, and then she’d have swooned.
“Lydia—cut line! What the devil are you doing here? More to the point, where the devil have you been—in a torrential downpour in the dead of night?” The words came out more harshly than he
’d intended, a reaction to the unwelcome realization that ten years had clearly been insufficient time to mute the effect she had on him. And all that flowed from that.
An impulse to shake her, given she’d clearly been doing something witlessly dangerous, being just one of his reactions.
She blinked. Her gaze slowly rose over his chest to his shoulders, then up the line of his throat to his face.
Her lips parted even further; her eyes widened even more. “Ro?”
Pressing his lips tight, he hung on to his temper. What the devil did she mean by staring at his chest when she hadn’t even known it was he? “As you see. Now, if you please—where the deuce have you been, and why?”
Mouth agape, Lydia Makepeace stared, for quite the first time in her life fully comprehending the meaning of the word “dumbstruck,” at the gentleman—gentleman rake, gamester, dissolute womanizer, and acknowledged libertine—displayed so delectably before her, all that damp skin just begging to be touched…and valiantly tried to harry her wits back into working order. The flickering firelight caressing his chest—that amazingly sculpted muscled expanse—lovingly outlining each ridge of his abdomen, each heavy curve of shoulder and arm in golden light, didn’t help.
Her mouth was dry; swallowing, she forced herself to focus on his eyes, on the irritation clear in the silvery gray.
Even as the most elementary ability to think re-formed in her mind, she saw her plans, her carefully calculated, absolutely vital plans, unraveling. “No.”
His eyes narrowed.
She narrowed hers back, tipped up her chin “What I do is no concern of yours, my lord.”
He growled, literally growled. “Ro—remember? And for your information—”
Breaking off, he looked past her. The door opened.
Glancing around, she saw the innkeeper. He stood as if poleaxed in the doorway, the smile on his face melting away—he plainly had no idea what expression to replace it with. As she had done, he was staring at Ro, at his naked chest; unlike her, the innkeeper’s expression was horrified.