by Mary Brendan
Deborah’s children had not completely forgiven her either. Claire’s head was crammed with exciting plans for a wonderful double debut with Ruby, so she was happy enough to be charitable towards the woman who had abandoned her.
On finding out that they were to be related by marriage the girls had been delighted and Claire much amused to realise she was her friend’s aunt. But for the sake of peace and quiet it had been decided that they could think of themselves as sisters. The girls had grown closer and, in the way of sisters, bickered as well as played together.
As for Michael, he was where he loved to be: back at school with his chums, but he’d written his mother a short note welcoming her home.
A sound of squealing laughter outside drew Faye’s eyes to the younger ladies. They were chasing around the corner of the building with their pretty pastel skirts held up about their knees. Ruby and Claire had said they’d gather some Michaelmas daisies to decorate their dressing tables. They had their posies gripped carelessly in their hands. Faye wondered wryly whether any petals would remain on the stalks by the time they were put in vases.
The party of women disappeared towards the courtyard that led to the back of the house, but Faye remained where she was, her green eyes roving the glorious colours of the wooded parkland for a glimpse of the person she really sought. Her vision stilled and she watched him, quietly fascinated as always by her husband’s lithe masculine splendour. The light breeze caught at his hair, ribboning his face with jet-black strands. Over one shoulder was slung a gun, over the other three brace of pheasant. At his heels loped his wolfhound, keeping pace with him.
As Ryan drew closer, his eyes drifted to the drawing-room window and tangled with hers. He gave her that subtle smile that put a thrill of excitement low in her belly.
Turning from the window, Faye quit the room, knowing he would head towards the study for some solitude while their female relatives filled the house with loud chatter about their social plans.
She found him as always poring over architects’ drawings for a new wing to the manor. ‘You brought us home some pheasant.’
‘Are you going to pluck them?’ he asked with a sideways smile.
‘Will you teach me how, Gypsy Kavanagh?’ She perched on his lap, kissing his lean, abrasive cheek, loving that he smelled of wood smoke from the bonfire; the gardeners had started cutting back for the autumn already.
Ryan shoved back his chair and encircled her waist with his strong brown hands. Lovingly he smoothed a thumb over the tiny bump beneath her skirt.
‘Are you going to tell them the news today?’
‘Not yet,’ Faye whispered, covering his hands with hers. ‘I want to keep our early wedding-night baby just for us, for now.’
Shrill female voices drifted along the corridor.
‘One minute they are hugging, the next shouting.’ Ryan sighed, sitting back in the chair and pulling Faye against his chest.
‘Girls of that age thrive on rivalry, you know,’ Faye said, snuggling against him. ‘They will constantly think that the other has the prettier gown, or the finer hat. This is nothing to what we might expect when they go to London. I would suggest dressing them identically to be scrupulously fair, but I doubt that would be acceptable to them either.’ She chuckled wryly. ‘There is nothing for it,’ she sighed. ‘We must prepare for tantrums.’
‘We could ask your aunt and stepmother to take them under their wings, then sneak back here to enjoy the solitude. I’m sure the ladies wouldn’t mind chaperoning them if I rent them a nice house for the Season.’
‘That wouldn’t be fair, Ryan,’ Faye chided. ‘You know they wouldn’t say no, even should they baulk at the responsibility of those two minxes. Aunt Aggie and Deborah are falling over themselves to show gratitude to you. You’ve been so kind and generous...especially to Deborah.’
Ryan had said, if she was in agreement, he would allow her stepmother the chance to leave her squalid life behind and return to Mulberry House to live there, rent free. Faye had been eager to accept his offer, sensing her father would want the mother of his children to be allowed shelter and dignity in her latter years.
Ryan had also provided both her aunt and Deborah with an allowance so they might live comfortably in their own homes. Faye knew he would sooner they had some privacy than a houseful of her relatives. But he tolerated their long visits, to prove he loved her.
‘We are all so thankful to you, especially me.’ Faye brushed a slow kiss on the musky skin of his brow. ‘You have been wonderfully generous and considerate...’
‘As you have been to me...’ Desire roughened his voice. ‘There is never a night you’re too tired to welcome me into your bed and exhaust myself...’
‘Ryan!’ Faye scolded, blushing furiously.
‘Well...enough of your talk of gratitude and generosity, or I will match you like for like with reasons for being greatly obliged to you.’ He drew her face down to his, tasting her lips. ‘I don’t mind doing anything that makes you happy. And I can’t get enough of you, you know that.’ His amusement held an undercurrent of rueful gravity. ‘Even now...before dinner is even served, I long for the evening to be over so we might retire and...’
Faye smothered his throaty words with her fingers for such talk from him always made her feel hot and restless. His raw passion, some nights exquisitely slow and gentle, at other times short and rough and repeated over and over, was a gift that she never tired of receiving. In a way she was glad that she was pregnant simply so her menses would not stop him from loving her the way he did. But he was alert to their need for discretion while they had other people...especially the girls...beneath their roof.
‘Thank God we might soon be able to marry Ruby and Claire off, and have more time to ourselves,’ Ryan murmured against his wife’s cheek, as though his thoughts had tracked hers.
‘I meant to say to you about that...’ Faye began. ‘Do you think it is too soon for them? They are just girls at heart and next Season they will still only be seventeen. Perhaps another year at home might benefit them.’
Ryan gave a rueful sigh. ‘I have to admit that I was thinking along those lines while watching them haring around outside.’
‘I only wanted Claire wed because I had little money to keep us all. Then after the business with Donagh and the threat to her reputation it seemed the only way.’
‘Donagh and his people are now far away,’ Ryan soothed. ‘I heard that they are heading towards York and might not come back this way, but return to Ireland.’
‘You are relieved about that, too, because of Ruby, aren’t you? You think she might fall for him again and go travelling.’
‘She is at an impressionable age, as is Claire,’ Ryan said soberly. ‘Ruby might want to make long visits to her mother’s people and I wouldn’t stop her from doing so. I understand the pull of the clans for those with gypsy blood. But it is not romantic...it is a primitive life and riven by feuds. I brought Ruby to England not only to distance her from Donagh, but so she might experience a more sophisticated way of life.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t want her to risk giving birth in the back of a caravan, as her mother did.’ He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘I know the hazards of childbed face women of every class, but I want to protect my daughter if I can.’ He gazed earnestly at Faye. ‘And I want to protect you, Viscountess Kavanagh. The best physician must attend you when the time comes for your confinement. And he must stay in the house until you are up on your feet again.’
‘I’m as strong as an ox and need no mollycoddling,’ Faye reassured him and quickly changed the subject. ‘So we will have another year to put some polish on those two hoydens before we let them loose on society. Even then I believe you won’t allow any poor fellow near your daughter unless he is a paragon. And as I have already netted the only one of those in existence...’ Faye teased him. ‘She will want somebody
as fine as her father. I knew she’d be overjoyed to find out who you really were.’
Ryan looked abashed. ‘I wish I’d told her before...it was foolish not to. Any longer delay and it might have been too late.’
‘I understand why you acted that way,’ Faye said solemnly. ‘It was hard for me to find the courage to make changes to my life rather than keep the status quo.’
‘Are you thinking of Collins?’
Faye stared at the architects’ plans, tracing the new nursery with a shapely fingernail. ‘Yes... I am thinking of him.’
‘Are you jealous?’ Ryan asked bluntly.
‘Jealous?’ Faye frowned. Ryan had returned from London earlier in the week with news that Peter Collins was back from the Indies.
‘Are you jealous that he has married Cissy Pettifer?’
Faye cupped his face with her hands. ‘Of course not...she is very welcome to him. In fact, I feel sorry for her. She is young by all accounts and I wonder if she knows what she has let herself in for.’ She paused. ‘He has made himself a hard bed to lie on...and his wife will suffer alongside him.’
Faye had heard from her aunt that the consensus of opinion in town was that Peter Collins was lucky to have escaped gaol and unlucky to have lost the best thing he’d had: namely, her. Of course it had leaked out that he had stolen from her and that he’d been cashiered from the navy. He was a risible figure and his wife, too, her aunt Aggie had told her, whereas Faye Shawcross was now envied by every young lady who’d never had a chance to meet and attempt to charm the newly arrived Irish viscount with sinfully good looks.
‘I feel sorry for his parents, too,’ Faye continued. ‘But I don’t pity him,’ she ended flatly. ‘I think Peter Collins has been given more chances than he ever deserved.’ She gazed at her husband’s profile. ‘Which brings me to ask...will you sell him back his estate?’
Ryan gave a slight smile. ‘I’ll consider doing so, if he ever manages to raise the money to pay for it. My attorney tells me he has been in touch because he still wants it. I’ve got what I want and Collins is of no consequence now. I’m not a vindictive man.’
‘You’re an extraordinary man,’ Faye said simply. The dinner gong sounded and she tutted. ‘Oh...I’ve not even changed yet.’ Faye twitched her day dress, making to rise.
‘Nor I...’ Ryan said, holding her on his lap with two firm hands. ‘I’ll tell the servants to delay for a short while so we can go upstairs, shall I?’
Faye glanced over her shoulder. His low-lashed eyes were hungrily roving her rounded bosom, making a pulse beat beneath her bodice.
‘Yes... I’d like that,’ she said, starting to giggle.
Ryan stood up with her in his arms, spinning about with her as he travelled towards the door.
‘What am I going to do with you, though, when you’ve still not learned to be silent and we’ve a houseful of people?’ he teased.
‘Kiss me quiet, sir... I beg of you,’ Faye whispered against his lips and immediately got her wish.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss these other great reads by Mary Brendan:
COMPROMISING THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER
TARNISHED, TEMPTED AND TAMED
THE RAKE’S RUINED LADY
A DATE WITH DISHONOR
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE RANCHER’S INCONVENIENT BRIDE by Carol Arens.
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The Rancher’s Inconvenient Bride
by Carol Arens
Chapter One
Tanners Ridge, Wyoming, July 1883
“The Devil Wind is blowing and it’s going to make all those circus folks go mad.”
William English pressed his hat to his head. The wind was blowing devilishly, but he doubted it was going to push anyone over the brink of sanity. Unless, maybe it was the elderly woman leaning on her cane and frowning intently up at him.
“I’m sure they’re no more likely to go mad than anyone else, Mrs. Peabody.”
“If you’d seen the things I have, Mayor English, you would be running for the hills.” She pounded her cane on the boardwalk in front of Tanners Ridge Community Bank. Twice. No doubt the extra thump was to make sure he was paying attention.
A third thump might have been in order, given that he really was paying more attention to keeping his dearly priced bowler hat on his head than to her unrealistic fears.
“I’m sure you’ve seen some interesting things—”
“The skeleton of a three-headed dog,” the woman declared, cutting off his attempt to ease her fear. “And a man swallowing a sword—a flaming sword—and a fellow putting his head in the mouth of a lion! And that happened without the wind blowing. Who knows what might happen tonight.”
“Everyone will have a fine time. Just you wait and see.”
“What I’m waiting for, is for you to hire Tanners Ridge a sheriff.”
William smiled, his lips pressed tight. As mayor—and hopefully future governor—of Wyoming, it would not do to let his emotions show.
The fact that Tanners Ridge had no sheriff was no one’s fault but the good folks living here. He had presented no less than four candidates and they had all been voted down or refused the job because of low pay.
“Will you be at the meeting this afternoon? I’ve another candidate to introduce for the job.”
“Of course—unless I’m murdered by a fat woman with a beard who has gone raving.”
“Would you feel better if I went down to take a look at things?”
“Why, that would be a good idea.” Mrs. Peabody’s smile brought out the charming wrinkles in her cheeks. Her look of relief made the trip down the hill to where the circus was camped seem worth the effort.
He tipped his hat to her, nodded. “I’ll see you this afternoon at the meeting, then.”
“Be careful,” she warbled after him.
Chances were, the only danger in going down had to do with walking the steep, rocky path, not circus folks gone wind-mad.
A quarter of a mile down the path the ground leveled out, giving the traveling circus plenty of room to set up their big tent.
Even buffeted by wind, the huge structure barely moved. Still, it couldn’t hurt to have a look around and make sure folks would be safe inside tonight.
A fair distance from the tent there was a circle of colorfully painted wagons. He supposed this was w
here the performers and other employees lived.
The scent of baking pastries and simmering stew came from one of them. Had to be the chuck wagon, or the circus version of it.
On the way to the big tent, he passed by a circle of large, wheeled cages. A dozing leopard lifted one eye when William passed. In another of them, dogs of all shapes and sizes barked at him. Other dogs roamed freely about, so he imagined the ones who were confined were not pets but performers.
Within the circle of cages, a pair of elephants were tethered to a pole.
This was something he’d never seen! True-to-life elephants. All he could do was stare in amazement while dust swirled around their big feet and their swaying trunks.
Because he wasn’t paying attention, his bowler blew off. It rolled over the ground toward the big tent.
On a run, he snatched it up. He secured it to his head with a thump, straightened his bow tie, then brushed off his lapels before stepping inside the canvas tent.
It was an impressive space. For all its size, it didn’t sway overmuch in the wind. Perhaps if the roustabouts who raised the tent had used a few more ropes it wouldn’t sway at all. If William had been in charge of things, he would have—
Done nothing different. Even though his mother lived twenty-five miles away and he hadn’t seen her in months, her narrowed eyes and firmed lips appeared in his mind. Her voice whispered as clearly as if she had been standing beside him.
“William Byron English, you do not need to be in charge of everything.”
Maybe not, but still he wondered if heavier wood should have been used on the risers where folks would sit.
Letting go of control was a lesson he’d been trying to learn since the time he was a boy and had decided that the fire in the hearth would be better with six logs rather than the two the butler had put in.
It had taken a week before his mother would smile at him and a week after that before the stench of smoke cleared out of the house.
