He smiled. “From time to time.”
“Will you convert?”
“It sounds like too much trouble. Will you?”
“I can't!”
“Is that an impediment?” he asked.
She shrugged. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. I'm learning not to question Him.”
“Is that a yes?”
She looked into his eyes. He was a good man. “Yes.”
“Should we seal it with a kiss?
She nodded. This time Lord Mornay didn't grab at her, but cupped her cheek and leaned into her, gently bussing her lips at first, then teasing at them until she relaxed and set her hands on his shoulders. His warmth and touch made her other thoughts fall away. She had finally found the answer to her prayers.
THE ENCHANTED CAVE
EPILOGUE
Galen always enjoyed watching his wife make decisions. Choosing which wall the bassinet should be set against in the nursery was apparently a far deeper philosophical question than he had previously considered, and she had already argued herself around the room twice. The basic issue seemed to be the window. She wanted the baby to have light, but not be subject to drafts.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, enjoying the feel of her rounded tummy under his hands. “Why don't we put him on this wall, an equal distance between the window and door?”
It was a spot she had previously extolled the virtues of, then convinced herself that the wall furthest from the window might be best. “Do you think he'll like it?”
Galen thought that by the time the babe could express a preference he would be out of a bassinet, but he'd hardly tell his serious wife that. He would be lucky if she didn't take a day to pray about this decision. “I think he'll love it,” he said. “Every baby wants to be close as possible to his mother.”
“Should we take the bassinet in our room?”
Heaven forbid. “I'm sure the little man wants his own room.”
“He'll just be a baby, Galen, he doesn't need his own room.”
How to extract himself from this one? If he pressed, he would just hear her tales of the one room cottage her family lived in back in Doolin. How someone could remember such conditions so fondly, he had no idea. The first time he'd heard of it he had sent a few extra pounds to the family in sympathy.
“I had my own room,” he said cagily. “Future baron and all.”
“Fine, love,” she acquiesced.
He was quite pleased with his marriage, truth to tell. His mother had been traumatized, but Aunt Mellie had actually laughed when he announced his engagement. His aunt's support had been critical, since she had hosted Maeve until the marriage and even now continued to instruct her on proper behavior for a baron's wife.
Maeve herself seemed well pleased as they had been able to purchase an internship for her oldest brother. She thought her oldest sister wanted to join the convent, but a cryptic letter from her mother had denied that ambition and suggested that Elfie could be a help when the baby came. Galen had sent two of his men to collect the girl and see her safely to Cumberland.
Now all was well. His happy wife was due to birth their first child soon, her sister would be here to help her with the babe, and he'd not heard anything worrisome about the Mad Clan in months. Of course, he no longer had his ladybirds whispering their secrets in his ears for a few odd coin. Perhaps he should write a letter to Finn, just to see how the future earl fared.
AFTERWORD
When invited to write about a fairytale or myth, my mind went to Ireland. It had been some time since I'd read any of the tales, so I flipped through looking for something to catch my eye. The first time I read through The Enchanted Cave from the Fenian Cycle I actually misread a portion of it, but thought my mistake would make for an interesting twist. In the original tale, Finn McCool and his men fall afoul of dark fairies and are trapped in a cave by magic. They aren't able to free themselves, but fortunately Goll Morna hears of their plight and comes to save them. He battles the four dark fairy women and upon defeating them is offered one of Finn's daughters to marry. See, when I read it, I thought when he finally defeated the biggest, baddest fairy he actually married her. And I thought that was a lot more interesting. Change ancient Ireland for Regency England, dark fairies for bare knuckle boxers, and presto, we have an Irish myth updated for Regency romance.
TAMING BEAUTY
LYNNE BARRON
TAMING BEAUTY
CHAPTER ONE
“It isn’t fair.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. Repeatedly.” Lilith Aberdeen didn’t so much as glance up from the open book resting on her lap. She’d found the small, leather-bound volume of poetry in her father’s library, wedged between an old racing form and a pamphlet on the mining of ore in Devonshire.
“You must admit it bears repeating,” Sissy replied with a dramatic sigh.
“Perhaps you might change it up a bit,” Lilith suggested, tracing the inscription penned on the inside cover with the tip of her finger. “I know, why don’t you switch to French for a time? A lovely language for lamentation, French.”
“Ce n’est pas juste.”
“Beautiful.” Truly, the girl’s French was abominable, but it was hardly her fault.
Lilith laid the blame squarely on Lady Dunaway’s shoulders. If Sissy’s mother had paid half as much attention to her daughter’s education as she had to her wardrobe and complexion, the girl would not be offering up lamentations in any language.
Lady Priscilla Josephine Worcester, known affectionately and otherwise as Sissy, was barely eight and ten. Far too young to lament the unexpected path her life had taken, especially as she’d been given no choice in the matter. There would be plenty of time later for lamentation. For regrets rightfully earned, for mistakes honestly made, roads left untraveled, love tossed away and happiness stolen from those who justly deserved it.
“Non e giusto.”
“When did you take up Italian?” Lilith looked up in surprise to find Sissy studying her reflection in the carriage window, her perfect cupid’s bow lips twisted into what she supposed was meant to be a pretty pout but more closely resembled a rather nasty sneer. It was quite fetching, if entirely unintentional, and Lilith considered suggesting the girl practice the expression until she could call it up as readily as she did the various smiles in her middling arsenal.
Alas, Lilith suspected such an expression would ill suit the future awaiting her at the end of their long, monotonous and truly lamentable journey.
“Signor Bartoni taught me a few phrases,” Sissy replied, tittering behind her hand.
“Your handsome young dance master?” Yet another example of Lady Dunaway’s poor judgement in all matters pertaining to her daughter’s education.
“He is handsome,” Sissy gushed. “And ever so charming and kind.”
“Kissed you, did he?”
Sissy turned from the window to flash a superior smile Lilith’s way. As if she were the first young lady to sample a few kisses from a handsome Italian man.
“Tell me you didn’t allow him to dicker his way into your drawers.” Good Lord, if the girl proved to be less than the innocent virgin her groom expected, there would be the devil to pay.
“Antonio Bartoni is a gentleman.” The girl blushed becomingly, all pretty pink cheeks and dimples.
“It’s the gentlemen a lady must watch out for,” Lilith replied, suddenly feeling far older than her two and twenty years warranted.
“Truly, he only ever kissed me the one time.”
“Did his tongue come into play?”
“Ew, of course not,” Sissy cried, her brow wrinkling. “Why on earth would he use his tongue? Do men do that? Truly? Do they lick a lady’s lips?”
“Holy Mother and all the devil’s minions,” Lilith muttered, shocked by yet one more example of Lady Dunaway’s dereliction of duty. “Did your lady mother tell you nothing of what to expect?”
“On my wedding night, you mean?”
&nb
sp; “On your wedding night and all the other nights of your marriage.”
“Mother said I was not to put up a fuss.”
“That’s it?” Lilith was going to strangle the woman when next she encountered her. Of course, seeing as she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in the countess’s rarified presence, she wasn’t likely to be presented the opportunity to wrap her hands around the lady’s spindly neck.
“She said my husband would tell me what I needed to know.”
“But you do understand the basics of lovemaking?”
“Lovemaking?” Sissy repeated.
“Intimacy.”
Sissy only blinked her wide blue eyes.
“Coupling? Bedding? Procreation?” Lilith was fast running out of polite phrases for what was, in truth, a wholly impolite act.
“Oh, you mean marital congress,” Sissy said with a breathless giggle.
“Please tell me you understand the basics.” It occurred to Lilith, rather belatedly, that Dunaway’s uncharacteristically wheedling insistence upon her making the journey to Cornwall had more to do with preparing his daughter for her wedding night than keeping him amused and entertained during what was certain to be an otherwise dull two weeks in the country.
Lilith could not imagine explaining the intricacies of lovemaking to this girl who was little more than a stranger and who ought not even to be traveling in the same carriage with her.
Sissy should be in London, embarking upon her first Season, putting to good use those skills she’d been taught from the cradle to land a handsome young husband. She should be dancing and flirting for all she was worth. And above all else, discovering who she was beneath the trappings and trimmings of an earl’s pampered daughter.
Instead, thanks to her father’s inability to turn away from temptation—be it an innocent woman, a charlatan peddling an investment scheme, or a wager of any category or denomination—the silly chit was miles from London. En route to Cornwall, of all the godforsaken places.
“Well, of course I understand the basics,” Sissy said with a roll of her eyes that, had her mother been present, would not have gone unrebuked. “A man lies between a woman’s legs until his essence flows into her womb. And voila, nine months later a baby is born. A boy, if the lady is very lucky.”
“Ah, that explains it then,” Lilith replied. “Lord Dunaway has never possessed an overabundance of luck.”
“Perhaps Mother will give Papa a boy this time.”
“Hope springs eternal.”
Hope, that fickle, greedy creature, had much to account for as far as Lilith was concerned.
Lilith, who’d never considered herself terribly compassionate, was tempted to take pity on the girl and explain the mechanics of marital congress. Knowledge was power, after all. But as she watched the earl’s daughter practice her repertoire of smiles, it occurred to her it might be kinder, more compassionate even, to leave her blissfully ignorant for a few more precious, halcyon days.
“Es ist nicht gerecht.”
“Not Prussian, darling, I beg of you. Such an ugly language, all jagged stops and starts.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“Life rarely is.”
As the girl continued her litany in four alternating languages, Lilith dropped her gaze back to the slim book in her hands.
My Darling,
I miss you so dreadfully I am tempted to toss pebbles at your window in hopes you will join me in the gardens for a midnight stroll among the roses and hydrangea. In my absence (are you as monstrously miserable as I?) I hope you will enjoy this little token of my adoration and affection and think of me as you peruse the pages.
All my love,
Your Dearest Heart
The penmanship was typical of her mother, elegantly slanted loops and florid swirls spanning one edge of the yellowing parchment to the next, like ivy left to run rampant, clinging to smooth stone by sheer force of will.
That her father had held on to the book of poorly rendered and poorer rhymed erotic poetry came as something of a surprise. Lilith doubted the words were lewd enough to hold his attention for more than a minute, and if he had a streak of sentimentality in him, he’d buried it deep, indeed.
As evidenced when the carriage finally pulled into the inn yard of a little village somewhere west of Wiltshire where Lord Dunaway, who’d spent most of the journey on horseback, waited in the parlor between his chamber and that which the ladies would share for the night.
“Have I told you lately you are a sorry excuse for a father?” Lilith punctuated the question by tossing the book at his lordship, hitting him square in the chest where, by all accounts, his heart ought to reside.
Lord Dunaway picked up the slender volume from the table, turned it over and flipped open the cover. When he’d read the inscription he lifted his gaze, peering at her from vivid green eyes one debutant had proclaimed—aloud and in the hearing of a gaggle of gossips—made her think of wicked things, like rolling about in warm grass entirely unclothed. “Are you someone’s darling, Lil?”
“I pilfered it from your library.”
“Hmm, I suppose that means I am someone’s darling.”
“You are everyone’s darling,” she replied. “Rather like a communal privy.”
“What’s got you riled up, pet?”
“Honestly, Dun, how can you send that poor girl to Baron Malleville in so ignorant a state?” Lilith asked. “The brute is liable to scare her witless on their wedding night.”
“Have you met Malleville, then?”
“When would I have occasion to meet a recluse who hasn’t ventured into Town in more than a decade?”
“I only wondered because he is something of a brute,” Dunaway replied, rubbing one hand over his eyes in what, were he any other father, might have been a gesture of regret or even contrition. “They call him the Beast of Breckenridge.”
“And you intend to marry your daughter to him?”
“It’s a good match.”
“In what world does the marriage of an earl’s pampered daughter to a Cornish brute constitute a good match?” Lilith demanded. “Tell me, I beg of you. I should like to visit such a place if for no other reason than to see lunacy paraded about as reason and nonsensical balderdash touted as rational thought.”
“I know Malleville is not the duke the countess hoped to catch, but he’s the next best thing.”
“A baron is not the next best thing to a duke. And that is not the point.”
“What, then, is the point?”
“Sissy is a child, a woefully ignorant and innocent girl barely out of the schoolroom.” Lilith knew better than to expect more of Dunaway, and yet expect more she did. Time and again.
In that she was no different than all the ladies who’d ever loved the bloody bounder.
“Sissy is no more ignorant or innocent than my lady wife was on our wedding night,” Lord Dunaway replied with the rueful smile that had melted all of those ladies’ hearts, one by one, and sometimes two by two. “The countess and I managed just fine.”
“So fine you cannot contain your amorous attentions to her bed?”
“One’s got nothing to do with the other.”
“No, of course not.”
A serving maid appeared at Lilith’s shoulder just then—a big-boned, freckled girl about Sissy’s age who couldn’t take her eyes from the earl’s shiny, golden beauty. “Will you be wanting tea, miss?”
“I’ll have a pint and a whiskey,” Lilith replied, smiling as her anger slid away to mere aggravation, a common enough state whenever she mistakenly allowed the earl so much as a foothold into her life. “And a pork pie if you’ve got one that isn’t hours old.”
“If it makes you feel any better about the business, I did attempt to dissuade Malleville from the match,” Dunaway said, his gaze lingering on the barmaid’s retreating posterior. “Unfortunately the man wasn’t willing to accept my marker.”
“You proposed to satisfy nearly thirt
y thousand pounds of mortgages, loans, notes of credit, vowels and markers with yet another marker?” Lilith asked around a huff of laughter.
“When you say it like that it does sound ludicrous,” he admitted. “But taken individually, I was managing the debts well enough. It’s hardly my fault Malleville took it into his head to buy them all up and consolidate them into one exorbitant sum.”
Lilith didn’t waste a breath asking the obvious question. It was never his fault. Not for the losses he suffered at the tables, not for the investments an infant would recognize as too risky, not for the women he seduced and abandoned, not for the daughters’ futures he spoiled.
“The baron is a born shyster,” he continued. “He bought up the debt for pence on the pound and demanded Sissy and interest of three percent per annum with a measly five years to pay off the entirety! Can you imagine? Why, it’s highway robbery.”
“And yet, you agreed to stand and deliver.”
“I did no such thing,” he protested. “I countered with two percent, ten years and an alternate bride.”
“You didn’t,” Lilith hissed. “Harry would never agree to such a thing.”
“Of course not. The girl despises me and would be only too happy to see me in debtor’s prison. Not that she would visit me there.”
“You could not have meant to pull Kate out of school to marry the man.”
“What would Malleville want with a sheepherder’s granddaughter?”
“The same thing you wanted with the sheepherder’s daughter.”
Dunaway waved one elegant, long-fingered hand in the air, carelessly batting away the reminder. “No, pet, I offered you.”
“You what?”
“I offered you up as the next Baroness Malleville.”
“My God, you’ve a set of ballocks big enough to float an army battalion across the channel,” Lilith said in mingled shock and awe.
“Alas, Malleville wanted apples for apples, an eye for an eye and all that.”
Once Upon A Regency Page 73
