The Irresistible Lady Behind The Mask (Historical Regency Romance)

by Emily Honeyfield

  Tempest could just imagine it. Her first task in the morning would be to ensure that his breakfast was ready by the time he came to the breakfast room. Then she would hover around him until he departed from the house to go about his business, leaving her to take care of the house.

  When he was gone, she would find a way to occupy herself pending his return. Perhaps she would go and plant new flowers in the garden or uproot the pesky weeds. Or maybe she would take to knitting or crocheting. Possibly she would entertain her neighbours in the drawing room and they would gossip all day. By the time Hudson returned in the evening, she would be so grateful to have his company, she would talk nonstop causing him to hush her up every now and then. After dinner, they would retire to the drawing room or maybe the bedroom where …

  Tempest hurriedly put a stop to the image she was creating in her mind. What a boring life! Maybe after a year of such a dull life, she would take his advice and visit an apothecary to end her miserable life!

  No, Tempest shook her head again. This wasn’t the kind of life for her. Her future was in London, not in this remote place that offered nothing but housekeeping, gardening, and gossiping with the neighbours. She might even get so bored that she would begin to converse with the servants.

  Tempest chuckled at the thought, just as a maid knocked softly on the door before entering the room. She curtsied.

  “Good morning, Miss Tempest. How do you feel this morning,” she queried in a tender tone.

  “Very well, thank you, Judith,” Tempest replied with a small smile. “I believe the worst is over, and I’ll be able to join the rest of the living today.”

  The maid smiled. “I’m pleased to hear that. Perhaps you might want to join Master Hudson in the breakfast room. Officer Danvers is also here.”

  “Rawdon is here!” Tempest rasped with surprise.

  “Yes. Miss Tempest,” the maid announced. “He’s here to visit the dowager.”

  Officer Rawdon Danvers was Hudson’s immediate older brother; the third son. She hadn’t seen him in years. In fact, the last time she saw him was just a short time before things went awry between her and Hudson. If she could recall correctly, it was their father’s birthday party.

  Rawdon, like the rest of Hudson’s brothers, had always been good to her. They regarded her as the sister they never had. The man had once suggested a union between her and Hudson so she could be kept in the family and become a sister indeed through marriage.

  Tempest giggled as she remembered that she and Hudson had looked at each other and made retching sounds from their throats which made the young man laugh heartily.

  Now, the man would think his prediction was about to come to pass, much to his delight.

  “Well, not if I have anything to do about it,” she muttered and pushed aside the sheets as an idea came to her.

  Rawdon was a man of the law and would therefore frown heavily at kidnapping. If she told him what his brother had done, she was definite that he would take sides with her and demand Hudson to release her and send her back to London posthaste.

  The knowledge that her freedom was at hand lifted Tempest’s spirits, so much so that there was a spring in her steps as she crossed the room to the windows. Everything she gazed at, from the gardens, to the hills that almost caused her to catch her cold of death all looked beautiful to her.

  Whirling her body in the direction of the maid who was making the bed she vacated from, she cheerfully instructed, “Quickly Judith, I must have a word with Officer Rawdon. I need to be presentable within thirty minutes. I can’t afford to have him leaving before I’m done preparing.”

  The maid stopped what she was doing and left the room to draw Tempest a bath.

  Thirty minutes later, Tempest gazed at her reflection in the mirror with satisfaction. The pale blue silk dress with its lace trimmings skimmed over her slim body and complemented her pale skin and red hair which flowed in soft waves down her back.

  “This will do,” she told her maid with a bright smile on her face.

  Judith returned her smile and stepped back from her mistress to rise from the stool. Tempest crossed the room to the door in delicate satin slippers and mentally prepared herself for the discussion she was going to have with Hudson’s brother.

  Her thoughts were so much on the tale she was spinning in her head as she descended the staircase that she didn’t at first see Hudson step out of the breakfast room until it was too late.

  Really, did he have to look so devilishly handsome in grey trousers, a dark blue coat, a white shirt and blue cravat?

  His eyes lit up when he saw her, and she couldn’t understand the glint she saw in them. But she did comprehend the lustful way his eyes trailed her from her hair to her toes. Whatever she did, she would make sure she was never locked up in a room with the lascivious man. His stare alone would devastate her senses, let alone when he touched her or kissed her.

  Her errant thoughts almost made Tempest miss a step. Hudson’s body quickly jerked in her direction, but she gave him a frozen stare to keep him in place. If he touched her now, she might be lost, and might not be able to pull off her mission to have his brother demand her release.

  If the man were to find her in Hudson’s arms or accepting his kiss, she would be done for. No way would he then believe the wild tale she was about to relate to him.

  “Tempest,” he softly called, “I was just about to come upstairs to check the state of your health. I must say you look better. Although you’re still a bit pale, but I can see some colour beginning to come back to your lovely face.”

  Offering him a sardonic smile, Tempest said, “Why, thank you, Doctor Hudson for your unsolicited diagnosis.”

  Hudson chuckled. “You’re welcome, Miss Tempest.”

  Swirling her skirt, she replied, “Now, if you’d please excuse me, I’d love to see Rawdon. I hear he has come visiting.”

  Hudson’s eyebrows shot up, and a frown scrunched his face. “Why do you wish to see Rawdon?”

  Silently cursing for divulging her intentions to the least person she wanted to be aware of it, Tempest sidestepped him in the direction of the breakfast room. Her brain thought fast and hard.

  “Why do I want to see your brother after five years?” She coyly eyed him. “Surely you can frame a better question.”

  When he didn’t say anything but continued to regard her with suspicious eyes, she continued with a sweet smile playing at her lips, “Rawdon has always been good to me.” Laying the knife thickly, she said, “You just have a few years between the two of you. Perhaps if I was into this marriage hogwash, I would have considered him. I hear older men have more understanding of marriages than men who are barely out of the schoolroom.”

  Not bothering to see his reaction to her barbed words and afraid he might hold her back and stop her from seeing his brother, she hurried out of his presence. Pushing open the door, she quickly entered the room. The place was quite bright due to the drawn curtains which let in direct sunlight.

  Rawdon was seated at the table, partaking of a healthy breakfast. He rose abruptly when he saw her, with a smile dancing at his lips and pleasure at seeing her lighting up his eyes.”

  “Tempest,” he said with a tone filled with surprise and happiness. They had never stood on formality, so Tempest walked up to him and threw her arms around him

  He hadn’t changed much over the years. He seemed to have grown taller, though. Just like his brothers, Rawdon was tall, about six feet four. His face was also as handsome as his brothers with a firm jaw, blue penetrating eyes, aquiline nose, and thick, coffee-brown hair.

  Tempest pulled away to regard him with fond eyes. Memories flooded her mind from when they used to be friends.

  “Hudson told me you had taken to bed, down with the chills. I didn’t expect to see you. I was thinking I might call upon you when you’re better. How are you feeling?” Unlike Hudson, Rawdon could express himself in many words.

  “I’m much better now as you can see,”
she informed him with a smile.

  “By all means, join me,” he invited and pulled out the chair next to his. He saw her comfortably seated before he resumed his chair.

  “And how have you been, my dear?” he asked. “Permit me to say that you look even more beautiful than I remembered,” he added as Tempest poured herself a cup of tea although she didn’t feeling like taking anything.

  “I’m fine.” She turned on her chair to look at the door. Afraid that Hudson might happen on them any minute, she turned and tautly clasped Rawdon’s hand on the table as her eyes took on a desperate look.

  “Rawdon, you must help me!”

  Alarmed, Rawdon looked from the hand she had clutched to her earnest face.

  “Whatever is the problem, Tempest? You seem disturbed. You know you can confide in me. Is it pre-wedding jitters? Everyone gets that, you know.”

  Affronted at his wrong presumption, she removed her hands from his and sat back. “It’s nothing of that sort!”

  “Then what is it?” He inclined towards her, his eyes—so much like Hudson’s—consumed with curiosity.

  “I’m here under force,” she shot straight from the hip.

  “Force? What do you mean?” A frown burrowed on his forehead as he sat back in the chair.

  “Hudson kidnapped me from my London home!”

  “Good God! He did what!”

  Tempest nodded, happy that the man looked scandalised. She went on with her wild tale. “I fear that your brother has gone off the deep end. My cousin, if you remember, Valerie, was betrothed to him. Perhaps you’re aware that they’re no longer to be wed for reasons best known to her.” When the man nodded with a thoughtful expression on his handsome face, she continued, “I fear it has made him so desperate to be married, it has driven him insane. For some reason, he believes I had something to do with Valerie ending their betrothal. Of course, I vehemently denied it, but he refused to believe it. And now, he intends to marry me at all cost with the misplaced assumption that I caused him a bride.

  “He came to my house, and with the pretext of taking me to talk to Valerie on his behalf, bundled me into a carriage and brought me here without my approval. Now he has me locked up here for days. Did he tell you how I got the chill? Well, I tried escaping and fell into the icy-cold muddy stream at the foot of the hill.”

  She gripped his hand again, with both hands this time around. “You have to take me back with you to London. My father will be very worried by now. I can’t marry your brother, particularly now that he’s addle-brained. I do not wish to press charges against him. I just want to go back home.”

  Hope lifted in Tempest’s chest when Rawdon nodded with the same thoughtful look on his face. However, when thoughtfulness turned into pity, Tempest’s lips parted company.

  “Has Dr Camden been to see you?”

  Tempest frowned. “But why would he come to see me? I only had the chills.”

  “Well, mayhap he could give you something for your high fever,” the man said with sympathy in his voice.

  Clearly affronted, Tempest snapped, “I’m not delirious. I’m telling you the truth. Hudson kidnapped me and is trying to force me into marriage!”

  “Oh, my dear girl, those are the exact words a delirious person would say. How did you come to leave your room without anybody noticing? Are the servants so subservient in their duties these days?”

  Tempest rose with anger and stamped her slipper on the carpeted floor. “I’m fine! I don’t need the servants to keep me in my room like some invalid!”

  To her consternation, Officer Rawdon rose and placed a strong hand on her forehead.

  “Yes, you’re warm. I believe the fever is getting worse,” he surmised with worried eyes.

  “You’re am officer, not a doctor!” she pointed out between clenched teeth.

  “I know, but I’ve seen many cases of delusion that led to outright insanity. We don’t want that, do we? We can’t have Hudson taking a lunatic for a wife.”

  Tempest’s jaw dropped. Before she could move or say anything, the man bent and swung her into his strong arms.

  “I recommend you stay abed until the fever clears. What was Hudson thinking not sending for the doctor? Mayhap it comes and goes that’s why he isn’t aware of it. Have you started seeing and talking to strange people who you think are there but actually aren’t? Or perhaps you think you’re somewhere else but you’re actually in Strombridge? I reckon a strong brew from cook will clear the fogginess in your mind. By the way your name is Tempest Haddington. Your father is George Haddington, the 9th Baron Haversham.”

  Officer Rawdon continued telling her about herself before he launched into tidbits about his brother as he carried her up the stairs. Tempest couldn’t put in a word as the man carried on.

  Judith who just exited Tempest’s room after cleaning it gawked at them before attending to Hudson’s brother’s demand of opening the door.

  Tempest just continued to stare in awe as the man laid her gently in bed, pulled the sheets over her body, and patted her on the head as if she were a little girl.

  “There now,” he said smiling at her as if she was a retarded invalid. “I’ll tell Hudson to send for the doctor right away.” He patted her cheek. “You’ll be fine, dear girl.”

  With that, he turned on his heels and exited the room leaving her with an amused Judith. She groaned inwardly, angry at how her plan had backfired woefully.

  When Hudson burst into the room some minutes later with worry etched on his face and demanding to know if she was alright, Tempest had to tell herself the truth.

  She was hopelessly in love with Hudson and was now only fighting the idea of being married to him.

  Chapter 22

  “I’m going to die of boredom any day now,” Tempest informed Hudson as he strolled with her in the garden.

  The annoying man chuckled. “I don’t think so, Tempest. There’ll be plenty for you to do soon. Besides, you’re still recuperating from your illness. Do you feel delirious today?”

  Tempest wanted to show him how delirious she was by slapping the mocking smile off his face, but for the gardener who was trimming the shrubs nearby.

  When he had found out the reason his brother thought she was delusional the previous day, worry had left his eyes, to be replaced by amusement. Rawdon had arrived in her room and told him all she said, causing her face to redden before he and Judith departed from the room.

  “Oh, come now, Tempest. You should have thought of a better plot to get Rawdon to listen to you. Telling him I kidnapped you is so far-fetched when he has always known about my feelings for you. Mayhap it would have been better if you had snuck into his carriage to take you back to London.”

  Tempest had yelled at him like a banshee to leave her presence at once. He had obliged her but not before laughing hysterically at her failed attempt at leaving the estate. She had cursed him to Hades. And cursed Rawdon as well for good measure. It hadn’t been enough that he mistook her words—although stretched—as symptoms of high fever, he had also told his brother about it.

  Shame had made her stay in her room all day, only leaving to visit Aunt Agnes who requested her presence when she heard she was feeling better. That had been another torture because all the woman had wanted to discuss was the wedding. An event Tempest was damned if she would allow to take place.

  When Hudson sent words to her a few minutes ago to join him for a stroll in the garden, she had almost refused, but boredom had pushed her into accepting.