Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Virginia Heath

  The ghostly sounds of the orchestra wafting on the breeze.

  The hoot of the solitary owl somewhere behind her.

  The way a single wispy cloud floated and swirled eerily across the surface of the permanently startled face of the pearlescent moon.

  The ominous crunch of gravel under a large boot...

  Oh, good grief!

  Her heart sank as she realised the irritant had found her, and she huffed out a frustrated groan as the undeniably male shape invaded her short-lived sanctuary.

  Except this male wasn’t shaped like the weedy Lord Harlington as it swayed haphazardly between the shrubs. It was tall and broad and had far too much hair. Harlington wore his fair short hair neatly plumped and pomaded à la Brutus like every dandy and fashionably besotted Brummell devotee in the ton—but this hair was a dark shoulder-length riot.

  As its owner stumbled into the maze, those big boots quite oblivious of the artfully clipped intricacies of the little hedges, she noticed he also had a beard too. And an earring!

  ‘Evening.’ He raised one enormous hand in greeting, then to Hope’s horror seated his bottom beside her, sending the distinctive whiff of freshly consumed alcohol her way. ‘Don’t mind me.’ His voice was deep, the words a tad slurred. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’

  ‘You are drunk, sir!’

  ‘That I am.’ He grinned at her, the moon revealing a row of perfectly straight white teeth buried in the dense, dark thicket of his beard and two friendly but strangely compelling dark eyes. It hinted that there was a surprisingly handsome face hidden beneath all the fur. ‘Just a little bit.’ He held his finger and thumb an inch apart. ‘But sadly, nowhere near enough as I want to be.’

  With that, he produced a bottle of champagne from somewhere within his coat and idly tore off the foil. ‘Are you out here hiding from all that pretentious nonsense too?’ The shaggy head gestured back in the rough direction of the ballroom. ‘There was so much inane wittering and preening I thought my head was going to explode.’

  Hope blinked at the expensive bottle. ‘Did you just steal that from the Earl of Writtle?’

  ‘I hardly stole it. He’s dishing out barrels of the stuff inside. His son’s reshent...reshantly...’ Two dark brows came together in consternation as his inebriated tongue failed to navigate the word.

  ‘Do you mean recently?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He nodded in mock solemnity. ‘Apparently the poor chap is recently engaged. No doubt to some witch who will make his life a living hell.’

  Instantly Hope bristled. ‘The witch is my sister, sir, so watch your mouth.’ Nobody ever dared insult a Brookes in front of another Brookes—unless they also happened to be a Brookes.

  ‘Is she?’ He blinked and grinned again. ‘Well then, that certainly calls for a shellybration.’ The cork exploded from the bottle and flew in a wide arc into the trees. ‘To your sister and the hapless, hopeless bastard she’s marrying! Cheers!’ He toasted the air and then took a long swig from the bottle before offering it to her.

  She glared, affronted. ‘No thank you.’

  ‘Oh... I do apologise.’ He riffled in his pocket for a surprisingly pristine handkerchief and used it to wipe the rim of the bottle, then held it out again. ‘It’s perfectly chilled and not too shoddy if champagne is your thing.’

  ‘I said no thank you, sir!’ She surged to her feet and he threw his messy head back and laughed.

  ‘Oh—you’re one of those girls.’ He gulped down more of the champagne and had the gall to look at her, amused. ‘The pious and sanctimonious sort.’ Then he frowned as his eyes briskly swept the length of her. ‘Although, if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look typically like the pious sort looks. You’re too...’ He deposited the bottle carefully beside him and then drew an exaggerated hourglass in the air with his hands while staring her dead in the eye. ‘It must be dashed inconvenient for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She wasn’t sure whether she was appalled, confused or intrigued.

  ‘To have a saucy tavern wench’s body but the soul of a nun.’ Hope couldn’t decide which insult was worse. ‘I’ll bet you have to beat the men off with a stick.’

  Because his gaze hadn’t once dropped to her bosom despite the fact it was now level with his eyes, the truth leaked out before she could stop it. ‘Sometimes I wish I carried a stick. A big one.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He nodded. ‘Especially when you’re put together like Eve tempting Adam. Men are simple creatures, by and large, who reliably tend to be ruled by their urges and nothing fires an urge more than a woman as womanly as you.’ He wafted his large hand to encompass her without once breaking eye contact. Then he frowned and stood, his fingers suddenly tugging one of the stray curls she had arranged to frame her face and holding it up to the moonlight to scrutinise as if it were a scientific specimen. ‘Is this ginger?’

  ‘I prefer the term red.’

  ‘Of course you do. Because ginger is spicy and you’re a prude. But whatever name you call it, I don’t suppose it helps your predicament any. The face, the figure...’ He tugged her curl again. ‘And all this hair combined would make even the most celibate of saints pant and drool like a dog. You have my sympathies, madam, because I was cursed by the Almighty to look like trouble.’ The corners of his lips twitched and his dark eyes hooded, making him look sinfully handsome as well as naughty. ‘Although to be fair to him, I am more trouble than I’m not, so perhaps you can judge some books by their covers, Miss...?’

  ‘Brookes.’ She waited for recognition to dawn because everybody knew her parents, or lately her sister Faith whose engagement he was clearly attending.

  It didn’t. Instead he stuck out his enormous hand and used it to pump hers. ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Brookes.’ His skin was warm and calloused, which made a very pleasant change from the sort of hands she was used to shaking. ‘I am Lucius Nathaniel Elijah Duff. Which is a dreadful mouthful and all much too stuffy, so please call me Luke. I don’t suppose you have a Christian name, do you, Miss Brookes?’ His mischievous dark eyes danced with amusement as they held hers. ‘At least not one you’d allow any old fellow to use with impunity, what with you being one for temperance and propriety and all that.’ And now he was plainly teasing her, which was new when most men simply made improper advances and stared at her chest.

  ‘It’s Hope and you are quite correct, sir, I absolutely do not give you leave to use it.’

  ‘That is no doubt very prudent, Hope, for I am not to be trusted.’ He sat back on the wall of the pond and smiled. ‘So what are you hiding from?’

  ‘Panting, drooling dogs.’ She found herself smiling a little back at him before she stopped it. ‘One particular hound to be more specific, who cannot take no for an answer. You?’

  ‘Determined well-bred ladies in want of a husband. One particular well-bred lady to be more specific, who has a problem with the word no too.’ He chuckled at her obvious surprise. ‘I know, Hope. It’s completely ridiculous and entirely unbelievable that any well-bred woman would contemplate shackling themselves to me for all eternity—but it also happens to be the absolute gospel truth. After thirty years of being considered blessedly and wholly unsuitable to all and sundry, I find myself suddenly eligible and sought after by the exact sort of woman I have always avoided and who have always avoided me back.’ He took another drink from the bottle and shrugged as if he was totally baffled by it all. ‘It’s most disconcerting.’

  For reasons she didn’t understand, Hope sat back down too. He might be big, drunk and uncouth, he might also look a bit too brooding and dangerous for Mayfair, and there was no doubting he wasn’t the least bit gentlemanly, but there was something about him which called to her. ‘How did you suddenly become eligible, Mr Duff?’

  ‘I have become obscenely rich, Hope.’ His tipsy tongue tripped endearingly over the obscenely, making
her laugh. ‘I have so much money nowadays, I am practically wallowing in the stuff and I’m blowed if I know what to do with it.’

  ‘Well that will do it. There is nothing like deep pockets filled with coin to make a debutante’s heart flutter.’

  He slanted her a very appealing glance. ‘You’re not a debutante, are you?’

  ‘Good gracious no! I am far too old and cynical for all that. Though even if I were, I still wouldn’t be tempted.’ In the five years since she had first entered society, and after five years of being reduced to nought but a buxom body to be lusted over by practically every gentleman she encountered, she had been quite put off the lot of them. While other girls dreamed of snaring husbands or romance, she now dreamed of nothing of the sort. The thought of being pawed and panted over by a glassy-eyed man who only ever saw her as a pair of breasts filled her with horror. ‘Nor am I aristocratic enough to be a debutante. Or at all, in fact, Mr Duff.’ An aspect of her character she proudly wore like a badge of honour. ‘One of my grandfathers was a mason, the other a draper.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He’s...’

  ‘Mistress Vixen...?’

  The unwelcome voice came from the direction of the terrace and Hope instantly deflated like a balloon. She buried her face in her hands and willed herself invisible. ‘Oh, heaven help me!’

  ‘Mistress Vixen?’ Lord Harlington practically sang the words as he tiptoed nearer, and she realised that if he had tracked her down into the garden, he also probably thought she had come out here on purpose to lure him for a tryst. ‘I know you are out here...’

  ‘Mistress Vixen?’ Her enormous, inebriated companion clearly found that hilarious and nudged her as he laughed. ‘Is that what your drooling hound calls you? That’s priceless.’

  ‘It is not a name I have ever encouraged.’

  ‘I should think not. It’s terrible... But very funny.’ He slapped his knee as he laughed. ‘There’s no mistaking what he’s after, is there?’ He playfully butted her shoulder with his. It was so solid it felt like a brick wall.

  ‘Sadly not. I can think of many adjectives to describe Lord Hubert Harlington, but subtle isn’t one of them.’

  ‘Hubert is it?’ His dark brows raised a notch. ‘Were you and he once...you know...?’

  ‘No!’ She was horrified by the mere suggestion. ‘Absolutely not! I have never done a thing to encourage him!’ Or any other man for that matter. Not that that ever seemed to matter when she was cursed with red hair, big lips, wide hips and an unnecessary amount of cleavage. ‘I cannot stand the sight of him. But the more I tell him off about that dreadful nickname, the more he uses it and the tenacious idiot refuses to leave me alone no matter how much I rebuff him.’ As she stared indignantly, and her eyes took in the sheer size and intimidating girth of the man sat much too familiarly beside her, another idea formed.

  A frankly brilliant one.

  ‘I don’t suppose I could trouble you to do something drastic to get rid of him for me, Mr Duff?’ Because the slight and slender Lord Harlington would feel like a paltry sapling up against this mighty oak. He’d likely burst into tears on the spot if this brute said boo too, which would be marvellous.

  ‘It would be no trouble at all, Hope. I’ve always fancied myself as a knight in shining armour. It would be my pleasure in fact. I’ll get rid of the pest this instant.’

  She only had time to smile her thanks as the hapless Harlington wandered into the clearing. A smile which quickly turned to shock a split second later as she found herself attached to her rescuer’s lips.

  Effortlessly, he gathered her into his arms, and bestowed upon her a kiss so gentle, yet so thorough and so decadent, she had no choice but to melt against him. And melt she certainly did, as it turned out that despite his tipsy state, Lucius Duff was irritatingly good at it. So good, to her horror, she sighed and looped her arms around his neck, completely powerless to do anything else.

  ‘Miss Hope! How could you?’ At Harlington’s outraged squeak, Lucius Duff paused only long enough to glare at him and hold out his hand, palm out.

  ‘Disappear, fool. Can’t you see that we’re busy here...?’ Then his dark eyes stared deeply into hers. That palm came back to rest intimately on the curve of her hip as his lips shamelessly whispered over hers again, playing havoc with her nerve endings a bit more and doing very peculiar things to her usually level head.

  When they heard the other man’s outraged footsteps stomp back over the gravel from whence he’d come, he laughed again, the deep rumble vibrating seductively through his chest to hers and reminding her that she was still shamelessly plastered against him.

  ‘He’s gone.’ He whispered the words against her mouth, his lips still barely millimetres from hers and his warm palm still splayed possessively across her hip.

  Panicked at her own shocking behaviour as well as outraged at his, Hope immediately pushed him away and scurried to her feet, breathless, stunned and mortifyingly off-kilter.

  ‘How dare you!’

  Lucius Duff blinked at her, bemused. ‘You asked me to do something drastic to get rid of him, so I did.’

  ‘I meant by using your height...’ She flapped her hands at his face. ‘Or your menacing looks to intimidate him!’

  ‘Then you might have been a bit more specific in your instructions as neither of those things sounds particularly drastic to me.’ He stood too, revealing the full extent of that impressive height as he towered over her, and had the nerve to look drunkenly offended by her anger. ‘Although I think my method was arguably just as effective and probably quicker.’ Then offended turned to smug as he folded his arms, looking every inch the conquering hero after a bloody ancient battle. ‘It worked a treat though, didn’t it? Your drooling hound is gone.’

  ‘But I got ravished in the process!’

  ‘If you consider that a ravishing, Hope, then clearly you are more nun-like and pious than I first thought.’ It was the pitying expression that fired her temper but it was his next ungentlemanly comment which unleashed the full force of it. ‘But I couldn’t help but notice you’re not quite pious enough not to have thoroughly kissed me back.’ The wolfish smile dared her to deny it.

  She saw red.

  Then white.

  Lunged, and with one well-aimed and furious push to the centre of his annoyingly solid, broad chest, sent him tumbling on his smug behind backwards into the pond with a hugely satisfying splash.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It appears that, while deep in his cups, the newly minted Marquess of Thundersley decided to go for a midnight swim last night. Or at least that is what he told one of my sources when he was discovered dripping in the Earl of Writtle’s ornamental fountain. Miss H. from Bloomsbury was also seen fleeing the garden only a few moments before, apparently in the highest of dudgeons. Coincidence, Gentle Reader? I think not...

  Whispers from Behind the Fan

  May 1814

  ‘There you are, Lucius!’ He winced at the sound of Abigail’s voice. ‘I’ve been looking for you all day.’ Which was precisely why he had hidden himself in the music room to read his mountain of unwanted correspondence the second he had returned home, despite his inability to play any instrument. ‘You missed dinner.’

  On purpose.

  Because he had been avoiding her like the plague and for damn good reason.

  He smiled politely at his half-brother’s widow, dreading what was likely destined to be one of the most toe-curling and awkward conversations of his life. ‘And now you’ve finally found me. Did you seek me for any particular reason?’

  Please let it be to apologise for your hideous suggestion from last night!

  The suggestion which had left him reeling and reaching for the champagne the second he escaped the suffocating confines of the opulent Thundersley carriage, then downing half a bottle so fast he’d ended up on his ar
se in a pond within an hour of arriving at the damn ball.

  She smiled, perching her skinny bottom on the chair opposite, and gestured towards the newspaper next to the remaining pile of unopened letters on the table. ‘I see you made the gossip columns again...your poor valet spent the entire morning trying to get the algae stains out of your waistcoat.’ Clearly they were going to run the gamut of painful small talk before she got to the point.

  ‘I warned him cream silk was a bad idea.’ As indeed was a valet. Luke had never had a battalion of servants. In Cornwall, they’d made do with their formidable cook-cum-housekeeper, a maid, one ancient, belligerent gardener and his mother’s loyal nursemaid Clowance. ‘I’ve never been very good at keeping clean.’ Perhaps if she realised he was filthy as well as uncouth, he’d put her off him. ‘I am not the least bit like Cassius—I like to get my hands as well as my clothes dirty.’

  Which was just one of a thousand ways in which he differed from his dead half-brother. But then, Luke had not only been the spare and twelve years his brother’s junior, but the offspring of a troublesome almost foreigner too, so it was hardly a surprise they had little in common. His mother was half-Spanish, the beautiful but fragile daughter of an ambitious count who was as ill suited to a life among the English aristocracy as Luke was. As a result, he had spent his childhood banished to his father’s neglected house in Cornwall with her after her mind failed and her erratic and emotional behaviour became an embarrassment. Where, much like the house, they too were largely neglected and forgotten.

  Cassius on the other hand, as the heir apparent and as English as a briar rose, stayed in the capital with their father. He’d had the finest tutors, an education fit for a future marquess and had been schooled from birth to take over the illustrious reins and the extensive responsibilities a title entailed. Whereas Luke had been left to run riot, which he had from the first moment he could run.

  ‘I like that you are not the least bit like Cassius. You do not sound alike or look alike or share any of the same mannerisms.’ Her determined tone made his toes curl inside his boots because he knew what was coming. ‘And, of course, you and he were virtual strangers...’ A polite way of saying they were mortal enemies. ‘Which certainly makes this less awkward.’