Love Regency Style

by Samantha Holt

  Maude’s eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed in a rather graceful heap.

  A collective gasp drowned out Peggy’s scream. Ernest knelt to feel Maude’s blue-veined wrist for a pulse.

  “Mother!” Peggy was shouting repeatedly, with impressive volume for someone who currently had a mastiff compressing her chest. “Mother! I didn’t want to hurt anyone! I just wanted to scare her away. But she wouldn’t leave, the stubborn chit—”

  “Maude’s only fainted,” Ernest announced.

  Peggy sagged in relief, while everyone released their held breaths.

  “Excellent,” Tris said. “Please move her to the bed and then go fetch the sheriff. The man is earning his keep this day.”

  He was still holding Alexandra. While they waited for the authorities, he finally released her and took her hand instead, clutching tight as they told their rapt audience all about Maude and his uncle’s accidental poisoning.

  Maude woke from her faint, rolled over, and went to sleep. Rex remained sitting on Peggy until the sheriff arrived and hauled her away. It seemed hours before the servants finally drifted back to their duties, leaving Alexandra and Tris alone in their room.

  Well, except for a slumbering Maude and a slobbering mastiff.

  Tris was still holding Alexandra’s hand. “Good dog,” he told Rex, then turned to her. “See, I told you he doesn’t hate you.”

  “He saved my life,” she marveled.

  “There’s no need to give him quite that much credit. There were twenty-odd servants waiting to rescue you if he hadn’t. They all love you, Alexandra. And so do I.”

  “You…what?” Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

  He glanced again at Rex, then at Maude still in their bed. With a long-suffering sigh, he drew Alexandra from the room and down the corridor. “I love you,” he stated quite clearly.

  And with that, he pulled her into the Queen’s Bedchamber, used one booted foot to slam the door shut in Rex’s face, and crushed her to him.

  The kiss was fiercely possessive, and she responded with equal intensity. The warmth between them built into a heat that seared her senses and overwhelmed her awareness, making her forget everything except the three words that wouldn’t stop repeating themselves over and over in her head.

  I love you, I love you, I love you.

  She’d known he did, but she hadn’t known how much it would mean to hear it. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  “You cannot cry now,” he admonished. “I cannot kiss a sobbing woman.” He kissed her nose and her cheeks. “I love you. Have I told you I love you? You may not have saved my life, but you rescued it from oblivion, you stubborn chit.”

  She laughed. “I did it for myself as much as for you. I’m a selfish chit as well.”

  “You’re an irredeemable chit,” he said, pulling back a little. He brushed at her dress. “How on earth did you get so dusty?”

  “I scooted under the bed to hide from Peggy.”

  “I love you,” he said and laughed, either finding it funny she’d been under the bed, or perhaps from nervous relief—she wasn’t sure which. And she didn’t really care. She felt free and easy with him for the first time ever, and that mattered so much more.

  “I shall have to have a talk with Mrs. Oliver,” she said, looking down at herself in disgust. “There is no excuse for such muck to be under the beds.”

  He laughed even harder. “I love you,” he said.

  “Where did Peggy get a gun?” she suddenly wondered.

  Tris shook his head. “She nearly killed you,” he murmured, suddenly looking rather pale.

  “I guess she did.” Alexandra slanted a glance at him. “Are you going to tell me you told me so?”

  He shook his head again, his forehead creased in concern.

  “How can someone named Peggy have done such terrible things?” she asked. “It’s such an innocuous name, don’t you think?”

  That seemed to bring him back. He laughed, the tension flowing out of him, and wrapped his arms around her, so tight she groaned in protest. “Sorry,” he said. “I seem to keep forgetting you’re still bruised. But that’s because I love you. I think I will tell you I love you every five minutes for the rest of our lives.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she told him with an amused smile. “But I love you, too. And I’m glad you finally figured it out.”

  He nodded, skimming his knuckles over her cheek. ”I couldn’t admit it before. Not even to myself. I was too afraid of losing you. I thought I would lose you when you chose to leave, but instead I almost lost you when Peg—”

  “Hush,” she said. “I know.”

  He nodded again, lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger to fix her with a serious silver-gray gaze. “All right, just once more for good measure. I love—”

  She silenced him with a kiss.

  Epilogue

  CHOCOLATE PUFFS

  Beat the white part of a good-sized egg till very stiff and then add a handful of sugar. To this add finely grated chocolate and then put small spoonfuls on a flat buttered pan with an area between them. Bake in an oven not overly warm for an hour or until the puffs are very dry.

  Everyone loves chocolate, so these are perfect to take on a family picnic!

  —Anne, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1773

  Two weeks later, on the peaceful rise overlooking Griffin’s vineyard, in the last sweet days of summer, Tristan and Alexandra picnicked with her family once again on the red blanket. Her siblings and cousins gasped as she told the adventurous story of her quest for truth and justice.

  At least, she made it sound adventurous. Griffin suspected it had been rather more dangerous than she was letting on—and he wasn’t happy about that.

  Brooding, he watched Claire lift the silver basket and turn it in her hands. “This is gorgeous. But it’s dented.”

  “In two places,” Alexandra agreed. “Peggy’s hard head left quite a mark.”

  “I can fix it,” Claire offered, having taken up an old family pastime of making jewelry.

  Alexandra smiled. “I think not. I like it just the way it is.”

  Apparently still mulling over the tale, Corinna reached for another of the chocolate puffs Alexandra had brought. “So Peggy offered to make that list in order to control who was on it?”

  “Exactly,” Alexandra said. “There were others who knew Maude was alive, even if they didn’t know Peggy was her daughter.”

  “And Tristan hadn’t done any of those things while sleepwalking,” Elizabeth said, her green eyes wide.

  “Of course he hadn’t.” Alexandra scooted closer to her husband and leaned dreamily back against him. “I knew he hadn’t all along.”

  “Have you sleepwalked since then?” Juliana asked him.

  “Not once,” Tristan said.

  “And I’m sure he won’t ever again,” Alexandra declared.

  “I wouldn’t wager on that,” her husband disagreed wryly, tilting her face up and back for a quick upside-down kiss. “Something tells me this irredeemable chit is likely to cause more trouble sometime in the future.”

  Everyone laughed. Except for Griffin. He was glad to see his sister happy, but that didn’t alleviate his misgivings.

  Alexandra frowned at his clenched jaw. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You should have come home,” he gritted out. “When all that was happening, you should have come home.”

  “That’s what Peggy wanted, but Hawkridge is my home now.” She exchanged a glance with Tristan, apparently realizing Griffin was as disappointed with his friend for not making her come home as he was with her for not doing so on her own. Extricating herself from Tristan’s embrace, she rose to her feet. “Let’s walk,” she said to Griffin, taking his arm to pull him up before he could protest.

  “I could have lost you,” he said as they headed down the rise to the vineyard.

  “Have you not figured out yet that you’re not going to lose any of us
, Griffin? Not even after we’re all married and gone from Cainewood. You’re stuck worrying about us forever,” she said all too truthfully and cheerfully.

  They walked for a few minutes, sharing a companionable silence that relieved his temper. When they reached the vineyard, they headed into the middle of it, toward where Rachael wandered in the distance.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Alexandra asked.

  “I don’t know. Would you care to ask her?”

  “I’ll let you ask her.”

  “Hmmph.”

  She bent to touch a minuscule grape. “Your vines are bearing fruit!”

  A ridiculous sense of pride washed over him. “Nothing worthy of wine yet, but it’s something to celebrate.”

  “We’ll toast your success with Hawkridge’s wine in a few minutes.” She wandered the row, still heading toward Rachael. “Are they English sweet-water grapes?”

  “They’re Rhenish.” A few months ago he wouldn’t have known the variety, but the vineyard truly felt like his now. “Since when do you know anything about grapes?”

  “I have a vineyard now, too, you know. It’s my responsibility to learn everything about Hawkridge.”

  His eldest sister always had been rather responsible. But she was different, Griffin thought. He couldn’t put his finger on how, but he knew the change was for the better.

  “You should have come home,” he repeated doggedly, “but I must thank you for persevering. Because of you, Juliana and Corinna have fine prospects.”

  “Thank you for allowing me to marry Tris,” she returned, then shot him a grin that was much more impish than the old Alexandra. “And for the excellent advice you gave me the night before my wedding.”

  He felt his face heat and suspected he was as red as the blanket on the hill. “I think I shall talk to Rachael now,” he said and walked off.

  Rachael turned as he approached, her cerulean eyes laced with distress. “Leave me alone,” she said miserably. “I came out here to be alone.”

  “My sister sent me to talk to you.”

  “Do you always listen to your sisters?”

  “Only when I agree with what they say.” He stepped closer. “Tell me, Rachael. What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, thunderation,” she said, then pressed herself into his shirtfront and sobbed.

  He patted her awkwardly, feeling her warm tears soak through his shirt. Even miserable, she was stunning, and embracing her made him uncomfortably aware of that fact. He sent a murderous glance back toward Alexandra before patting Rachael some more. “Whatever it is,” he said soothingly—at least, he hoped he sounded soothing—“it cannot be that bad.”

  “I’m not a Chase,” she whispered through a sob.

  “What?” His hands froze on her slim back. “How can that be?”

  “I found a letter.” She pulled away, swiping at her swollen, reddened eyes. She didn’t look quite as stunning now, Griffin told himself. “This morning, when I was clearing out the master suite for Noah’s homecoming. It was from my mother to my father. From before I was born.”

  He dug a handkerchief out of his pocket, and she took it and blew her nose. Noisily and not prettily.

  Much better, he thought. Aloud he said, “What was in the letter?”

  “It said…it said she would always be grateful to him for wedding her even though she was a widow already with child. She prayed I would be a girl so he wouldn’t be stuck with another man’s son as his heir. She—”

  “Did she say she loved him?” he interrupted pointedly.

  She nodded. “But—”

  “They were in love, Rachael. Anyone could see it just looking at the two of them. Don’t you ever doubt it.”

  She shrugged, following that with a long, sorrowful sniff. “But he wasn’t my father. Whoever my real father was, he wasn’t a Chase.”

  “Did the man who raised you ever, for one minute, treat you as anything but his daughter?”

  “No.” The tears continued to flow as she shook her head. “But I’m not a Chase. I don’t know what I am if I’m not a Chase.”

  “You’re Rachael,” he said. “Noah and Claire and Elizabeth are still your brother and sisters. You still live at Greystone. Nothing has changed. What does your surname matter? It will change when you marry, anyway.”

  But her family name wouldn’t change if she married him, another Chase. And he was aware, quite suddenly and uncomfortably, that the cousin standing before him wasn’t actually his cousin.

  Thankfully, she hadn’t seemed to make that connection. “You’re right,” she said, straightening her shoulders and taking a big breath.

  She didn’t look like she really believed him, but she looked like she wanted to believe him. And the shaky little smile she aimed at him had nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with family consoling each other.

  “Thank you,” she added. “I don’t know when you became so reasonable, but I do appreciate your calm, considered approach.”

  He could have had a hearty laugh at that one. He’d been anything but calm and considered since inheriting the marquessate. To tell the truth, he’d felt calmer on campaign with bullets whizzing around him.

  Panicked would describe his current state better.

  He had two more sisters to marry off, an estate that came with entirely too much responsibility, and now a cousin who wasn’t his cousin.

  And since she’d stopped crying, she was suddenly looking quite—what was the word Tristan had used?

  Oh, yes. Sultry.

  “I am glad I could help,” he said stiffly.

  “I think…” she said, licking her lips, “I think I’m ready to go back to the others.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said under his breath.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m thankful to God that you feel much better.”

  She cocked her head at him, as though she might not believe him. But she followed him back down the row, and for that he was thankful, too. Mostly because she was behind him, which meant he didn’t have to watch her hips swaying down the aisle.

  She’s your cousin, he reminded himself forcefully. Your cousin.

  Except she wasn’t.

  It was a good thing she’d said she’d never marry him, because the last thing he wanted was a wife.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Readers,

  Do you know any sleepwalkers? Two of my children occasionally sleepwalk, so I know firsthand that it doesn’t look as scary in real life as it’s usually portrayed in movies. Sleepwalkers look and act quite awake—if a little bit addled—but they never remember anything of their escapades in the morning.

  Much mystery has been attached to sleepwalking, yet it’s really no more mysterious than dreaming. The main difference between the two is that a sleepwalker’s brainwave patterns are a combination of the type produced during deep sleep mixed with awake patterns. This second type of brainwave reflects waking behaviors like walking and talking while the person is still asleep enough so that he’s not aware of what’s happening and isn’t forming memories of his actions. In adults, sleepwalking is most likely to occur during times of emotional stress and usually stops when the source of anxiety disappears.

  As to whether sleepwalkers can be dangerous, although violence while sleepwalking isn’t common, sleepwalkers aren’t allowed in the armed services of the United States, in part because of the threat they pose to themselves and others when they have access to weapons and are unaware of what they’re doing while asleep. There are at least twenty documented cases where defense against a murder charge was “I was sleepwalking and therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was not myself at the time I killed him and so deserve acquittal.” The argument has proved successful more than once.

  If you’re musically inclined, you may know Alexandra’s favorite piece of music, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14, as the “Moonlight Sonata.” It wasn’t given that name until after Alexandra’s story, though. Beethoven wrote the son
ata in 1801 and dedicated it to the seventeen-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom he was said to be in love. In 1832, several years after Beethoven’s death, the poet Ludwig Rellstab compared the music to moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne. Since then, it’s been known as the “Moonlight Sonata.”

  Tristan’s hydraulic ram pump was invented by a Frenchman, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, in 1796. In 1821, Ackermann’s Repository, a very popular magazine, published an article with instructions on how to build a ram pump, calling it “A simple Hydraulic Engine, which will raise Water to a very considerable elevation, without manual force or assistance.” The article included engravings very similar to the drawings Tristan sketched in this book, which you can see on our website at LaurenandDevonRoyal.com. Ram pumps are still built and used today.

  Unfortunately, Tristan was too optimistic when he predicted that slavery would soon end in Jamaica. Slavery wasn’t abolished until nineteen years after this story, in August 1834, and, as he feared, the transition from a slave economy to one based on wage labor proved difficult.

  Although gas lighting is often thought of as a Victorian invention, it actually came into use during Regency times. It was developed by a Scot named William Murdock. The story is told that, as a child, Murdock heated coal in his mother’s kettle and lit the gas that came out of the spout. In 1794, he heated coal in a closed iron vessel in his garden and piped the resulting gas into the house. That was the first practical system of gas lighting to be used anywhere in the world. In 1805, gas lighting gained public awareness when the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent) had it installed in Carlton House, his London home. Two years later, gas lamps were installed in Pall Mall, the first street to be lit by gas. The UK’s first gasworks was built in 1812 to light the City of Westminster, and 288 miles of pipes had been laid in London by 1819, supplying more than 51,000 gaslights.