My Lady's Pleasure

by Julia Justiss

  She heard murmuring in the hallway, and a moment later Jennings opened the door to announce Sir William.

  He walked toward her smiling, warm affection in his eyes. She allowed him to kiss her hands.

  “Valeria, I expect you know why I asked if I might call on you today. It cannot come as any surprise that I—”

  “Please, Sir William, go no further!” she exclaimed. “If I am not being too presumptuous in assuming a proposal is your intent, I beg you will not.”

  Surprise and distress replaced the glow in his eyes. “You find me so distasteful? But I thought—”

  “You know I do not! You are everything that is fine and caring and admirable. It’s just…I am not sure yet whether I can return your sentiments with the fervency you deserve. For a time, I harbored a…prior attachment, from which I have not yet entirely recovered.”

  He regarded her gravely. “I see. Does the…object of this attachment not reciprocate your affection?”

  “N-no. Oh, you mustn’t fault the gentleman—’twas mere foolishness on my part. But I would not insult the purity of the sentiments you’ve expressed by leaving you in ignorance of my…circumstances.”

  He smiled wryly. “You haven’t yet given me time to express my sentiments,” he pointed out.

  She felt her cheeks flush. “N-no, I suppose not.”

  “Valeria, do you think there is a chance you might…recover from this prior attachment?”

  She returned his serious regard. “’Tis possible.”

  “You are correct in assuming that I wish to hold the whole heart and loyalty of the lady I ask to be my wife. But as long as there is still a chance your affections may become as fully engaged as I would wish, I must be content with that.” He gently tipped up her chin with his finger. “Not happy, you understand. But willing to wait until you are ready to offer more. Have we a bargain, then?”

  “I…suppose so,” she murmured, watching a hotter light spark in his eyes before his gaze lowered to her mouth.

  And then he swiftly bent to kiss her.

  ’Twas a mere brush of his lips, which he made no attempt to prolong or deepen. Yet when he straightened, his breathing was uneven and the hand at her chin shaking.

  “Yes, I am entirely ready to hope for more,” he said.

  Valeria wasn’t sure what she was ready for. Sir William’s kiss had certainly been pleasant enough, but she’d felt—disloyal. As if betraying a trust.

  “I brought my traveling carriage,” he said, stepping back, “in hopes that, had I received a favorable reply to the question you prevented my asking, I might have conveyed you to meet my mother. But since you haven’t precisely refused, either, I should still like you to accompany me. ’Tis a fine afternoon, the drive is quite pleasant and my mother is an admirable lady with whom I think you would enjoy becoming acquainted. Will you come?”

  Would Sir William attempt more liberties in a closed coach? But if she were contemplating marriage, Valeria ought to take this opportunity to know him and his family better—and to learn how she truly felt about his taking liberties.

  “Yes, Sir William. I should like that very much.”

  Two hours later Valeria sat beside Sir William as his coach traveled past the lightly wooded fields just north of London. He had not attempted to take more liberties, engaging her instead in easy conversation, and much of the constraint she had initially felt upon being closeted alone with him in the coach had dissipated.

  They had just begun a discussion about poetry when a shout, followed in rapid succession by the loud report of a pistol, brought the carriage to an abrupt, jolting halt.

  The incident at Dade’s Run coming instantly to mind, Valeria drew in an alarmed breath. But before she could move or speak, the carriage door was flung wide and a one-armed figure in a uniform coat too grimy and tattered for her to be able to identify the regiment pointed a pistol at them. “Stand ’n deliver!” he ordered.

  Keeping the pistol trained on them, the soldier angled his head back. “Always wanted to say that,” he informed someone behind him.

  “Get them out of the coach,” a muffled voice said.

  “You ’eard the guv’ner—out ye go, me pretties. Arms up and no funny business, neither.”

  “Please, sir, be calm and stop waving that pistol,” Sir William implored. “I’ll step out if you wish, but let the lady remain in the coach.”

  “Don’t worrit yerself, we don’t mean no harm to the lady. But out ’e says, so out ye goes.” The soldier motioned with the pistol. “Now, be quick about it.”

  Indignation had begun to replace Valeria’s initial shock. “You, sir, have taken the king’s coin. How dare you disgrace your uniform by becoming a common thief?”

  “Feisty one, ain’t ye?” the soldier said with a chuckle, waving Valeria past him.

  Reluctantly she climbed down. Outside she saw two more armed men, pistols trained on their coachman and groom. Then, as Sir William stepped out, a tall figure dressed all in black, a scarf obscuring his face, came from behind the coach and knocked him to the ground. When she cried out in protest, the one-armed soldier turned his pistol on her, forcing her to stand by helplessly while the highwayman swiftly bound the struggling Sir William’s wrists behind his back and gagged him.

  After the dark-clad bandit finished trussing up Sir William, he nodded to one of his accomplices, who lay down his pistol and came over to bind her wrists as well.

  “You will all hang, you know,” she said furiously.

  The dark-clad man forced Sir William’s strenuously resisting body into the coach and shut the door, then turned to her. “Will we now?” he said in an all-too-familiar lilt before clapping a gag over her mouth.

  Incensed, she kicked and struggled as he picked her up. “Drive home, easy,” he instructed Sir William’s coachman, who hastened to obey. Then, hefting her to his chest, he carried her to a waiting gig.

  He deposited her beside it and waved a hand at his accomplices, who lowered their weapons and trotted toward horses tethered in the woods beyond the highway. Before she could attempt to scramble away, an awkward business with no hands to brace herself, the bandit once more clasped her to his chest.

  Not until Sir Williams’s coach was well away and the horsemen nearly out of sight did her abductor remove the gag. Jerking her head, she managed to nip one of his fingers.

  He yelped and waved the injured digit. “Sure, and is that any way to reward me for removing the cloth?”

  “Teagan Fitzwilliams, I’m going to murder you!”

  Grinning, he pulled the mask from his face. “Ah, ’twas certain I was that I’d fooled ye, lass.”

  “For a few moments only. But what maggot did you take in your head, abducting me off a public highway? And how dare you tie up Sir William? I expect he shall shortly call you out for that affrontery!”

  “Whist, but the man’s lucky I only tied him up. I should have gutted him for trying to run off with ye. But he’s welcome to go a round with me at Gentleman Jackson’s, if ’twill soothe his injured sensibilities.”

  “He wasn’t ‘running off’ with me. We were making an afternoon visit to his mother.”

  “He had the effrontery to ask to marry ye, didn’t he?”

  “I cannot see how that is any of your concern.”

  “Not my concern! Did I not ask ye to wait for me? Did I not vow on my mother’s grave I’d be back for ye?”

  “Yes—months ago. And not a single word did I hear from that morning to this. Until my former neighbors happened to stop at Winterpark, I had no idea whether you’d even reached London. And when I did hear of you—accepted by your family, embraced by the ton, pursued by the ladies—what was I to think? Even your aunt believed you to be courting Miss Amesbury.”

  “Actually, I was doing my very best not to court her. You have no idea how complicated it can be for a gentleman who’s turned respectable to avoid marriage.”

  “It seems you’ve been doing quite an admirable job.”


  “Ah, Valeria-love, I’m sorry for that. After Aunt Charlotte accepted me, and it become apparent that my reputation could be salvaged, all I wanted to do was come for you. But…but then I began to doubt myself. After all, what had I ever known of constancy? All my life, I’ve been told I am a wastrel just like my father. The only person besides you who ever offered me acceptance and respect, who seemed to believe I possessed honor and character, I repaid by seducing his daughter-in-law and betraying his trust. I worried that some flaw within me might someday cause me to do the same to you…and I couldn’t bear taking that risk.”

  “Oh, Teagan, you would never serve me thus.”

  “I now believe that, too. I’ve just read the letters my father wrote to my mother. He didn’t desert us, Valeria. He was lost at sea on his way to build a new life for us in America.”

  In his expression, in his voice Valeria could read how much that fact meant to him. “I’m glad for you, Teagan. But if you wanted to propose to me—I’m assuming this elaborate charade is a proposal?—why did you not simply call? There was no need to play highwayman. And I would be very obliged if you would remove the ropes binding my hands. They chafe dreadfully.”

  “Since you’ve no place to run now but back into my arms, I suppose it’s safe,” he agreed, untying the cord and then rubbing solicitously at her wrists.

  “The highwaymen was Mercy’s idea—well, indirectly,” he continued. “And I did call. But Molly told me you’d gone off with Sir William, to his mother’s. And my aunt had informed me earlier that Lady Jersey knew Sir William intended to propose today. So naturally I assumed—”

  “Incorrectly, as it turns out.”

  “—that he’d proposed, and you’d accepted. I couldn’t let you make a mistake like that.”

  “A mistake? Marrying a good, responsible, upright man who, when he wants to propose, makes a proper call at a proper hour in a proper parlor?”

  “You wouldn’t be happy living with so stuffy and predictable a husband.”

  “Oh, would I not?”

  “Come now, Valeria-love! You’re more a rascal than I ever was. What proper matron would seek out and seduce a known rogue—in her hay barn? Or defy convention to befriend him in London? Or leave her proper suitor dangling and conduct an affair with him under the noses of her new household? Or pleasure him in an open field in broad daylight?”

  “Perhaps,” she conceded. “But I do want some proper things. A home. Children. A place to settle down.”

  “Ah, Valeria, your home is here.” He put her hand to his chest. “Within the heart of a man who is terrified to promise you forever, but cannot envision life without you. Who couldn’t possibly deserve you, but nonetheless wants to cherish you and your children for the rest of our lives with all the passion he possesses.”

  Before she could stop him, Teagan went down on one knee. “My dearest Valeria, will ye go adventuring with me? Will ye sleep with me in the shadows of the Pyramids, and walk barefoot with me on the sands of Cadiz? By the way, my employer—I’ll explain that to you later—tells me there may be trouble brewing in Egypt, and wants to send me to investigate. We could make it our honeymoon trip.”

  “Egypt, is it?”

  “Aye. Mayhap a bit of the Maghreb as well. Anything for my lady’s pleasure. Ye like camels, do ye?”

  A properly demure look on her face, Valeria rested her chin on her fist, as if considering carefully. “Well, if you’re prepared to offer all that, how can I refuse?”

  And then that irredeemable rogue Teagan Fitzwilliams, in a delightful demonstration of some of the passion he possessed, showed Valeria right there on the public roadway just how thrilled he was at her acceptance.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3704-3

  MY LADY’S PLEASURE

  Copyright © 2002 by Janet Justiss

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