Those Autumn Nights

by Theresa Romain

  There followed a pleasant interlude of kisses and caresses, whispered assurances and laughter at nothing at all—and then, when practicality returned, dismay at the realization that Eliza’s trunks were on their way to Sturridge Manor and would need to be returned to the Friar’s House.

  “But not quite yet,” she suggested, still within the cradle of his arms. “I can stay here until we wed, and then we shall have a real homecoming as a newly married couple.”

  The idea seized Bertie’s imagination at once. “All right. I can carry you over the threshold. But how long do you want to wait? You see, I have an excellent idea.”

  “I am fond of those. Do tell.”

  “If you’ll wed me before your birthday—and we could, because Sturridge, who is probably listening at the door, will help us get a special license—”

  “No one is listening at the door!” came a voice through the door.

  “—then I will use your dowry to buy the Friar’s House.”

  She gasped. “But it’s been in the Greenleaf family for centuries!”

  “So it would continue to be, through you.”

  Resting her head on his shoulder, she pressed a kiss to his neck. “What if I’m not ready to wed at once?”

  Then I will perish of lust, especially if you keep kissing me like that. “If you’ll agree to wed me in the future, I will still buy it. If you want to live there.”

  She lifted her head. “Think of the cost!”

  “I needn’t. We’re really rather wealthy, we Gages. Comes from those vulgar marriages with trade heiresses,” he mused.

  “And the land and tenants?”

  “Remain with your father and, in his will, would pass to the care of your eldest brother after he is gone.”

  “God help them.” Her palms flattened against his chest. Not pressing, simply resting. Feeling his heartbeat, maybe.

  “Your father wants the money from the sale of the house. I cannot say how it’ll be used, and I know you’re concerned about that. If he stays in Tunbridge Wells and away from the dice, though, it ought to last him several lifetimes.”

  “My brothers, though…their families are in London. Living there would be expensive even if they did not gamble.”

  Bertie shrugged. “We could wed after your birthday and not buy the house, if that’s what you wish.”

  “No.” Her reply was quick and sure. “I want to make sure the Friar’s House will never fall into ruin. It is a home, and it should be lived in and cared for by people who love it. We shan’t shortchange it, or ourselves, merely because we suspect my brothers will shortchange themselves.”

  “And what of their reputation? What of the Greenleaf family honor?”

  “I’ll do my part to uphold it. That’s all I can do. I have often done what was best for my family. But once we wed, my closest family will be my husband. And one day, I hope, our children.”

  “Beautifully put,” Bertie said. “I regret doubting your motives. You cannot know how much.”

  “Oh, please don’t say that. You really needn’t grovel. I regret that I gave you only a part-truth about the dowry, because I suspected my family’s involvement would bother you. But avoiding distress is not a reason to hide the truth. That’s as bad as my brothers trying to cover gambling losses under the guise of paying five hundred pounds for beef.”

  Bertie laughed. “It’s not the same thing. But that reminds me. Do you like working with the ledgers? Because I believe we shall take charge of them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well. I was a bit high-handed in that I worked out an arrangement with your father. I’ve felt at loose ends since leaving the military, but I think I might like, very much, being an estate manager. It’s not a job I could do alone, though. I really ought to have the help of someone who’s good with numbers.”

  “You really ought,” she said. “And I believe I know just the person.”

  As they kissed again—and then again—and once or twice more for good measure—Bertie heard, through the drawing room door, the faint sound of applause.

  * * *

  A week after Michaelmas, a week after she and Bertie had again become lovers and agreed to wed, six days after they had lost sight of the truth and found one another again, Eliza Greenleaf took Bertram to husband and became Eliza Gage.

  It was a name she could have adopted ten years before, had she found her own courage and placed more trust in her heart.

  But all had worked out well in the end. Maybe she and Bertie had both needed to live in the wrong way before they were so certain of how right they were for each other.

  By waiting, they were married not by a rough, strange Scotsman across the English border, but in the drawing room of the Friar’s House. With a special license, and the friendly local vicar, and the Lochleys and Lord and Lady Sturridge and—of course—Mrs. Clotworthy and Georgie there to witness and celebrate the wedding.

  Eliza’s father pleaded ill health and excused his absence, but offered to raise a glass in their honor.

  “He’ll probably raise two,” Bertie said.

  What did that matter, though? The legal intricacies of transferring money and property would take a while, but in her heart, Eliza considered the Friar’s House her home in a way it had never been before. She came to Bertie that night not in secret through a hidden passage, but through the door that connected their new bedchambers.

  There was no rain that night, but he built the fire up high anyway, stripped her bare, and loved her until they were both gasping their pleasure and the season seemed more like sultry summer than autumn.

  In the morning, they ate breakfast in the breakfast parlor, under a repaired roof and a ceiling of bare lath that was soon to be replastered.

  This was only the beginning of a long process of repair. An ancient home like the Friar’s House would always need some sort of work. A body would have to be vigilant and caring with it.

  It was almost, Eliza thought, symbolic.

  Mrs. Clotworthy and Georgie welcomed the newly wed pair to the breakfast table with knowing smiles that made Eliza blush furiously.

  “Since it’s your birthday today, Eliza dear, I want to knit something special for you,” offered Mrs. Clotworthy as she spread jam over toast. “Something for your trousseau, maybe. You can’t have had time to get all the pretty things you need, marrying quickly as you did.”

  “No! I insist you finish my trousseau first, Mrs. Clotworthy,” Georgie blurted. When that lady was distracted, she mouthed broadly at Eliza, You’re welcome.

  “I can get pretty things at the harvest festival later today,” Eliza excused, hiding a smile. “Surely there will be ribbon sellers, and lace, and the milliner will have a booth of fashionable nonsense. And I must see the—”

  “Gourds.” Bertie sighed. “There will be gourds, that I know, for I’m judging them at three o’clock. Only say the word, Eliza, and I shall buy one for you as a birthday gift.”

  “Er—that is not necessary.” She grinned. “You’ve already given me the gift of your hand and a home to share forever. Adding a gourd to such good fortune would be asking too much.”

  “You now have a sister, too,” Georgie added. “That’s the best part, so you mustn’t forget to mention that. It’s even better than having a gourd.”

  As they all laughed, Eliza realized that though she had grown up in ease and comfort, this was the moment she had everything she’d ever wanted.

  The End

  Thank you for reading Those Autumn Nights! I hope you enjoyed Bertie and Eliza’s story. If you have a chance to leave a review, I’d appreciate that so much. Reviews help other readers decide what to read next.

  To find out when my next book will be out, please sign up for my newsletter at http://theresaromain.com. I also love chatting with readers on Facebook and Twitter.

  At my website, I run a monthly giveaway of romance novels and swag. Visit http://theresaromain.com/contest/ to enter! With your entry, you’ll be a
dded to my newsletter list so you can keep up with new releases and special sales.

  Read on for an excerpt from my first Royal Rewards novel, FORTUNE FAVORS THE WICKED, which features Regency treasure-hunters and more than a few secrets.

  Thanks for reading!

  About Theresa Romain

  * * *

  Theresa Romain is the bestselling author of historical romances, including the Matchmaker trilogy, the Holiday Pleasures series, the Royal Reward series, and the Romance of the Turf trilogy. Praised as “one of the rising stars of Regency historical romance” (Booklist), her highly acclaimed novels have been chosen for the Smart Bitches Trashy Books Sizzling Book Club, featured in the DABWAHA tournament, and deemed “Desert Isle Keepers” by All About Romance. A member of Romance Writers of America and its Regency specialty chapter The Beau Monde, Theresa is hard at work on her next novel from her home in the Midwest.

  To keep up with all the news about Theresa’s upcoming books, sign up for her newsletter here.

  Visit Theresa on the web at:

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  Other Books by Theresa Romain

  * * *

  Romance of the Turf

  The Sport of Baronets (novella)

  A Gentleman’s Game

  Royal Reward

  Fortune Favors the Wicked

  Passion Favors the Bold

  The Matchmaker Trilogy

  It Takes Two to Tangle

  To Charm a Naughty Countess

  Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress

  Holiday Pleasures

  Season for Temptation

  Season for Surrender

  Season for Scandal

  Season for Desire

  FORTUNE FAVORS THE WICKED

  Copyright © 2016 Theresa Romain

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  From the Slovene Lands to the South Sea, no place in the world smelled like one’s first whiff of London. The world of the London Docks was acrid from coal smoke, pungent from yesterday’s spoiling fish and the sludgy water of the Thames.

  When Benedict Frost was a boy of twelve, new to the Royal Navy, these had once seemed the scents of home, of freedom from the small cage of shipboard life.

  Now, as a man of twenty-nine, he would rather encounter them as a farewell before a journey—and the longer the journey, the better. If a ship were a small cage, England was nothing but a large one.

  With determined strides, Benedict disembarked from the Argent. He wouldn’t need to stay in England more than a few days. The Argent was leaving port before the end of the week, and he’d be back in his familiar berth when it did. Before then, all he needed to do was to deliver his manuscript to Pitman and arrange payment. The precious handwritten pages were heavy in his satchel; in his right hand, his metal-tipped hickory cane thumped the solid wooden planks underfoot.

  “Frost!”

  He took another step.

  “Oy! Frost!” The unmistakable tones of a sailor: wind-coarse and carrying.

  Benedict halted, donning an expression of good cheer at being thus summoned. He didn’t recognize the voice, so he said only, “Oy, yourself. How goes your day?”

  “Thinking of a treasure hunt. How about you? Goin’ to seek the royal reward?”

  The what? Benedict covered confusion with a devil-may-care grin. “Not this time. A man’s got no need to hunt treasure if he makes his own.” He ignored the snigger of a reply, adding, “Good luck to you, though.”

  With a wave of his cane that fell somewhere between a salute and a bugger-off, he continued on his way.

  But something was off about the Docks. Step by step, it became more obvious. Where was the usual ribald clamor? What had happened to the sailors negotiating with hard-voiced whores, to the halloos and curses as cargo was unloaded? Instead, quiet conversations clustered behind broadsheets, the cheap paper crackling as sailors passed it from hand to hand.

  “Theft o’ the century, they’re callin’ it,” muttered one as Benedict walked by. “Aye,” agreed another. “You’d want balls of brass to steal from the Royal Mint.”

  Or balls of gold, Benedict thought. Ever since the war with France had begun, England had been bleeding gold—so much gold, the whole system of currency had recently been revised. Still, creditors were reluctant to take paper money or silver.

  Benedict couldn’t fault them. He wasn’t interested in those either.

  And so he listened a bit more closely to the conversations he passed, easing free of his sea legs with long strides that carried him westward from the docks of Wapping. Miles of pavement, a test of his memory of the city. On every street, the city shifted, with roughened naval types giving way to sedate professionals. But the sounds were the same. Newspapers rustled, and that odd phrase echoed from person to person: the theft of the century.

  As the year was only 1817, this seemed a premature declaration. But as Benedict stowed away more overheard details, he could not deny that the crime sounded as audacious as it was outrageous. Four guards had been shot, and six trunks of the new golden sovereigns had been stolen before any of the coins entered circulation. The loss was estimated at fifty thousand pounds.

  And that was it. There had been no further clue for weeks, not a single incriminating coin spent. The Royal Mint had just offered a substantial reward for the return of the money.

  So. That was the royal reward of which the sailors had spoken. England would soon become a nation of privateers, hunting for coin in the name of the Crown.

  Benedict turned over the possibility of joining them. He had attained the frigid summit of Mont Blanc; surely he could spend a few balmy May days to locate a hoard of coins on his native soil. And the reward offered by the Royal Mint would allow him to increase his sister Georgette’s dowry from pitiful to respectable.

  Tempting. Very tempting. The mere thought of a treasure hunt eased the hollow ache of being in London’s heart. Why, it might be like…like not being in England at all.

  But his manuscript would offer the same reward while still allowing him to depart on the Argent. Just as he had told the sailors: he had already drafted his own treasure. Now it was time to claim it.

  And so he strode forth, cane clicking the pavement with his renewed determination, in the direction of Paternoster Row and the office of George Pitman, publisher.

  * * *

  Two weeks later

  “He wore a cloak with a hood coverin’ his face,” the serving girl held forth to an eager group of listeners. “But I looked beneath the hood and saw his eyes. They were demon eyes, red as fire!”

  Behind her veil, Charlotte’s mouth curved. She could not help but roll her eyes—which were non-demon features, closer to the color of a leaf than a flame.

  Alone of the reward seekers in the common room of the Pig and Blanket, Charlotte had heard Nance’s tale time and again. It was different with each retelling, and therefore each account revealed something different about Nancy Goff herself. About what she thought important, or shameful, or likely to win her the coins of a stranger.

  Somewhere within that coil was the truth.

  Which was why, for a second endless day, Charlotte sat alone, listening, in the corner of a Derbyshire inn’s common room. The Pig and Blanket was ordinary in every way, from the middling quality of the ale and food to the indifferent cleanliness of the tables.

  Ordinary in every way, that is, save one. A week ago, in this inn, Nance had been paid with a gold sovereign. Since no one had gold sovereigns yet except the Royal Mint and the thieves who had stolen six trunks of uncirculated coins…well.

  It was the first clue related to the theft, and it was a good one. And like seemingly half of England, Charlotte had followed it. All the way from the squalid rented room she had just taken in Seven Dials. She was in far less danger among the neighborhood’s thieves and cutthroats than she was in her luxurious town house, or pro
menading the rarefied streets of Mayfair.

  In Derbyshire, she was still in danger, but of a different sort. Thus the veil.

  And the solitude.

  “I knew he was a wrong one,” preened Nance, tossing the brunette curls she had today left uncovered by the usual cap. A pretty young woman of about twenty years, she swanned about the common room of the Pig and Blanket, distributing drinks and scooping up coins. “Had that look about him. It was as much as I could do to carry his ale without spillin’ it. So afraid, I was! Shiverin’ in my boots.”

  This last was spoken in a tone of such relish that Charlotte smiled again. Ten years ago, nearing the end of her teens, she’d had the same sort of vigor. Would she have told a story ten times, embroidering it more with each telling?

  No, she would have told it eleven. Twelve. As many times as someone would listen, and in her dark-haired, bright-eyed enthusiasm, she might have looked much like Nance. Even now, she wanted to join in; even now it hurt to sit at the side of the room, alone. It hurt to cover her face with a veil, to miss the shadings of expression that flitted across the faces of others when they were interested. Bored. Curious. In thrall.

  Despite the crowds packed into the common room to drink in Nance’s dramatic tale along with their ale, the other seat at Charlotte’s table remained empty. Somehow the sweep of blurry gray net across her face made her as fearsome as the demon-eyed stranger who had given Nance the gold coin.