“Obviously, you’ve thought of everything,” he said. “Poor Lord Clun.”
Lord Clun followed his runaway fiancée through the woods that stood along his estate’s southeastern border to a small, thatched cottage near a stream that flowed through the property. Autumn wildflowers dotted the open space around the cottage. A well-worn hard-packed dirt path led to its low, arched front door.
“Wonderful, isn’t it? So charming.” She faced him. “I’m afraid we’ll have to eat tepid stew. I’ve run out of firewood.”
“There’s a pile there.” Clun indicated a heap of logs nearby. A large, flat stump had a weathered axe stuck in it and scars from countless axe falls. Few split pieces remained stacked nearby.
“They’re much too big.”
“Would you like me to chop you some firewood?”
“Yes, please.”
She gave him a dazzling smile and disappeared inside the cottage. He let Algernon graze.
When she came out again, Clun removed his greatcoat and redingote and handed them to her. Before unbuttoning his waistcoat, he removed his thick, gold signet ring and tucked it into the watch pocket for safekeeping. His smallest finger felt too light, liberated from its weight.
“May I have my stew piping hot?”
“You may,” she said and sashayed to a crude bench to drape his coats over it and sit down. He shrugged out of his waistcoat. When he looked around, he noticed her watching him. Rapt. He liked the way she stared. He tossed his waistcoat on the pile of logs and went to work.
* * *
It was utterly improper.
Elizabeth knew dining with this man would give the earl and all of Society spasms if ever they heard of it. Being alone with a strange man, much less sharing a meal without benefit of chaperone, guaranteed scandal. There would be dire repercussions, if they were anywhere near the watchful eyes of the ton. However, this wasn’t London. One needn’t put too fine a point on social niceties in a wilderness. Besides, this man rendered an invaluable service, a service moreover, which might have endangered him, so Elizabeth quickly determined that here, in the western reach of England hard by the wilds of Wales, she could safely ignore the nit-picky strictures of Polite Society.
Nit-pickiness aside, she knew full well that she ought not to watch any man undress, even if it only involved outer layers. She simply could not pass up the opportunity to see more of this particular man.
As he rolled up his linen shirtsleeves, she fixed on his thick, well-muscled forearms. He hefted the large axe effortlessly in big hands. He braced long, strong legs and bent down to snatch up a log. Standing it on the stump, he swung the axe in a smooth, blurred arc, splitting the wood in one stroke. His shoulders bulged and tensed with efficient movement. He split log after log. The pile of firewood grew, as did Elizabeth’s agitation.
“I don’t see why I should marry some decrepit old aristocrat,” she picked up where she’d left off. “I’d rather marry someone who can do, uh, useful things.” She couldn’t take her eyes from him, as he swung and struck the logs with a mastery that heated her fair skin from head to toe.
“Aristocrats can do useful things,” he argued. (Thunk!)
“Not the ones I know,” she sighed. “Except my father.”
“Why assume Lord Clun is decrepit?” (Thunk!) “For all you know, he’s a man chock full of practical skills of which you’d approve.” (Thunk!)
Elizabeth harrumphed. Her henchman-cum-woodsman had the cultivated speech of a gentleman, although he spoke in a deep, melodic voice sweetened with Welsh. He subtly rolled the hard r’s and caressed and tr’s of English. It was nothing like the Scottish brogue of Mr. MacAvoy, her father’s man of business, or the Irishmen she’d heard in London. Each time he purred ‘LoRrd’ Clun, she shivered.
She could listen to him all day, even when he glanced at her over his shoulder and rumbled, “It’s haRrd not to conclude that LoRrd Clun’s got the pooRrer paRrt of the baRrgain.”
“Is that so?”
“What practical skills do you offer, my lady? Needlepoint-pillow making? Watercolor painting? Flower arranging? Menu planning? Singing?” (Thunk!) He snorted as he struck another log apart with a solid blow.
“I can’t carry a note,” she admitted. “But I have managed an earl’s household for years. I can bake a little and milk a cow, along with numerous other, more typical feminine accomplishments.”
“Is that so?”
“Is that so hard to believe? Oh, never mind, there’s enough to warm our meal.”
She got up, strode over to him and touched his back low at his waist. He stilled. She could warm her hands on the heat he gave off. And the scent of the man! Fresh air, leather and muscular male effort, with a top note of horse, she sighed. Just as a practical gentleman ought to smell. She plucked up half a dozen good-sized pieces of wood and carried her armload away without trouble. She was capable, too, she wanted to prove for some inexplicable reason.
A little while later, she returned and sat down again behind her hero to watch his body twist, heave and move as he worked. Now, she noticed dreamily, his damp shirt lay pasted to his body, across broad shoulders and wide back, narrowing to his waist and trim hips. His hard buttocks were sculpted like a Roman athlete’s. Oh, she thought, here was a man.
She was enchanted until, that is, he opened his mouth and ruined everything.
“Yes indeed, I pity the baRron.” (Thunk!) He picked up a log and pointed it at her for emphasis. “Even a doddering, old man deserves some peace and consideration in his dotage.” He stood it on end and swung the axe. (Thunk!) “No doubt you’ll drive him to an eaRrly gRrave.”
“I will not.”
“Oh no? If the baron’s as old as you say, he won’t survive the trouble. And you, my lady, are nothing but.” (Thunk!) He glanced at her over his shoulder and said, “I suppose, you can pray that he’ll expire on your wedding night, and leave you untouched, widowed and wealthy. Best of all worlds.”
“You, sir, have an inappropriate sense of humor.”
His mellifluous accent no longer charmed her.
“Do I?” he mocked. She opened her mouth, but he cut her off, “Yes, you just told me I do.”
“I will not be the death of him,” she said with starchy dignity, “because I shall spare him the fatal vexation of me entirely. I shan’t marry him.”
The man stopped chopping and leaned an elbow on the axe handle on the stump. “Though you’re well intentioned, I don’t imagine he’ll escape his fate. I’d wager your father’s anxious to be rid of you, too.”
“You’re probably right,” she snapped. “But you’re cruel to point it out. I vow I won’t go back to the earl unless he ends this farcical betrothal and promises not to attempt such a travesty again on my behalf. He thinks that I need a strong hand to guide me. He’s often said he regrets having been lax. Lax. His parenting never involved indulgence, just benign neglect. And having let me do as I wish for two decades, it seems a mean trick to impose discipline by marrying me off to some relic from another age.”
“Perhaps.”
“Who knows if the old baron is even up to the task of managing me! You say I’ll give him fatal spasms.”
“Only if drink doesn’t kill him first,” Clun quipped.
“He’s a…a tippler?” she asked.
“More than tipples, if memory serves. A bottomless cask. Mouth like a funnel on one end and a wee spigot at the other,” he concluded with a rakish grin.
Ignoring him, she quickly resumed her train of thought. “How could an elderly souse be a proper husband for me? What was the earl thinking? No. If I marry at all, I will marry a strong, practical man who does not drink to excess.”
“A woodsman perhaps,” he teased. “Wouldn’t you miss your comforts, my lady? Hot water magically appearing in your room for your bath and disappearing again just as magically when it’s cooled.”
“I am content to bathe in the stream and do so often.” She was only too happy to leave hi
m flabbergasted, or scandalized, or whatever it was that left his eyes bulging and his firm, kissable lips loose as a carp’s.
Served him right, she sniffed.
* * *
Clun could only stare at her in the autumn twilight. His mouth went dry. She flippantly mentioned bathing in the nearby stream and he blanked for an instant. First, came to mind his recollection of taking a brief dip late in the year as a young man. His frozen balls had retracted somewhere far inside his lower body and refused to descend for a full day. Next, flashed a series of heated, pleasantly stirring imaginings: the glowing colors of her creamy skin touched with blushes all over, her long chestnut hair fanning out around her siren’s face, her rosy nipples gathered tight as buds in the chill water. He forcibly recalled himself to his senses. Much as he feared, her proximity, the wood chopping and the bathing-siren fantasy registered below. He took up a large log and held it before him.
To distract her, he teased: “You would have me believe you’ll bathe in a frigid stream and kill your own meat through the winter?”
“I’ll have you know that I’m a dead shot. The venison in the stew, that’s mine.”
“You mean Lord Clun’s.”
“Well, if you want to be a stickler. But I shot it.”
“I’m impressed.” And he was. Lady Elizabeth was nothing if not surprising.
“It’s foolish to stand on ceremony, we’ll never be introduced. I am Lady Elizabeth Damogan.” She pronounced her last name with care, slightly exaggerating the second syllable, ‘da-MUG-en.’ “Those who have only read the name mistakenly say ‘DAM-o-gan,’ which I cannot abide.”
“And you’re too polite to correct their pronunciation? I’m astonished.”
Of course, he knew her name. He was about to marry her.
Should he instruct her to pronounce her future surname, de Sayre11, in some ridiculous way, perhaps ‘dee SAY’ or funnier still ‘de-SIRE’?
“I’m William Tyler…That is, well, Tyler.” He bowed elegantly to cover his hesitation.
Clun wasn’t sure what his intentions were at the moment, only that he wished to have a bit of fun with Lady Elizabeth ‘da-MUG-en.’
Notes
1. First things first. Time for the traditional Miranda Davis mea culpa. In Book 1, I mistakenly referred to Seelye’s father as the Earl of Exmoor. In fact, he was a marquess. My bad. As such, Seelye enjoys the courtesy title of Lord Seelye. Yes, I had named him Burton Seelye, but when I realized courtesy-title lords are referred to by their first name, I still preferred Lord Seelye to Lord Burton, and made the necessary switcheroo subsequently. If you were to refresh your editions of Books 1 and 2, you’ll find all the corrections in place now. But of course, who’s going to do that? It’s just another self-publishing snafu I’ve created, so I should suffer the appropriate embarrassment for it. You shouldn’t suffer at all. My apologies.
If you’re curious to know how such an odd name is pronounced, as I usually am when reading a book, it is SEE-lee. I named him after the first president of Smith College, Laurenus Clark Seelye. It’s also a building at my alma mater. Ditto Ainsworth from Book 1. Why the hell not?
2. On the 16 May, 1816, Beau Brummell fled England to avoid debtor’s prison. He lived in France the remainder of his life, residing first in Calais.
3. See The Duke’s Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge Though Not in That Order. It’s the first book in this series.
4. Fard counteracts the effect of weather on the face and accidental cutaneous eruptions. It is made with 2 ozs. of sweet almond oil, ditto spermaceti, blended over low heat with 1T. of fine honey.
Pimpernel water, a tincture made from the plant, whitens the complexion.
Unction de Maintenon was purported to remove freckles. (Hope springs eternal.)
The Mirror of Graces, pub. 1811.
5. Okay, perhaps you’re curious about Levellers. They were political radicals during the 17th century English Civil War agitating for popular sovereignty and legal equality. (Gasp.)
6. Wellington wrote to Gen. Rowland Hill:
“Our officers of cavalry have acquired the trick of galloping at everything. They never consider the situation, never think of manoeuvring before an enemy, and never keep back or provide for a reserve.”
7. Literal translation: ‘Love and a cough are not concealed.’
8. “I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear. When I brought him here, they asked me what I meant to do with him, and my reply was, ‘he should sit for a fellowship.’” Marchand, Leslie A. ed., Byron’s Letters and Journals(BLJ), Johns Hopkins 2001, Letter to Elizabeth Pigot, 26 October 1807:
9. Algernon was typical of the large, muscular gray horses bred from Percherons and Arabians. Not so large as a pure Percheron, still Algernon favored his Percheron sire, and stood at 18 hands, a strapping, huge horse. He was, in other words, in perfect proportion to his massive, muscular master, Lord Clun. Descended from destriers, Algernon was the finest, strongest warhorse on the field of battle, at least, as far as Lord Clun was concerned.
10. Oops, as the second son of a viscount, Percy has no courtesy title as yet, and thus is the Honorable George Percy. I have corrected my error in this story referring to him now as Mr. Percy and retroactively revised the first book but you’ve probably already read that one. My apologies. -MD
11. De Sayre, pronounced “de-SAY-er.” Although when Clun says it with his sensual rolling r’s, there’s an extra nuance that is frankly and scandalously sensual.
Table of Contents
Contents
Copyright
His Lordship's Last Wager
Dedication
Prologue
1 In which our hero behaves badly with the best intentions.
2 In which our hero’s Achilles heel develops blisters.
3 In which our hero bets his life.
4 In which our hero’s words haunt our heroine.
5 In which our hero tames a shrew. Or not.
6 In which a birthday wish is granted too late.
7 In which were the best and worst of times.
8 In which our hero wins at love, albeit secondhand.
9 In which is illustrated the meaning of Tempus Fugit.
10 In which his lordship makes his last wager.
11 In which a goose serves a gander some sauce.
12 In which almost everyone is taken by surprise.
13 In which all bets are off but two.
14 In which our heroine waves a red flag at a bull.
15 In which our heroine wins over our hero. Sort of.
16 In which our hero questions his hearing. And sanity.
17 In which are made the customary introductions.
18 In which part of our hero’s penance is a walk in the park.
19 In which one must beware heroes gifting bears.
20 In which our heroine beards a lioness in her den.
21 In which chickens come home to roost.
22 In which plans are afoot.
23 In which our hero finds managing our heroine is much like pulling teeth.
24 In which our heroine is in hot water with Bath.
25 In which Reading or not, here she comes.
26 In which our hero disciplines our heroine the way our heroine disciplines strays.
27 In which a runner joins the chase.
28 In which compromise is reached: our hero compromises and our heroine lets him.
29 In which our heroine bluffs again.
30 In which an egg breaks an impasse.
31 In which our hero learns what's in the eyes of the beholder.
32 In which plop goes the weasel.
33 In which our heroine and hero revisit the past.
34 In which Mr. Whitcombe dooms a bear to save his own hide.
35 In which our hero limps into Limpley Stoke.
36 In which our heroine gets her wish but wishes she hadn't.
37 In which our heroine lets the cat out of the
bag.
38 In which our hero is one.
39 In which a bear on a boat sails for safe harbors
40 In which push comes to shove. Or rather, slap comes to grief
41 In which our hero enjoys his second-to-last supper.
42 In which our hero faces his demons.
43 In which an early morning meeting misfires.
44 In which our hero bears the blame.
45 In which the eternal question is answered: A bear lives in the woods.
46 In which our hero and his grace nearly come to blows.
47 In which one farewell breaks two hearts.
Epilogue
Historical Notes
About the Author
Excerpt from the fourth and final book
Excerpt from The Duke's Tattoo
Excerpt from The Baron's Betrothal
Notes
His Lordship's Last Wager Page 45
