Tearstained cheeks belied the fury in huge, long-lashed green eyes as the child gazed warily upon her. With her heart-shaped face framed by golden brown hair that was caught loosely in a long braid, she could have been a miniature princess, were it not for her threadbare and too-short gown. And the outrageous expletives that had polluted her rosy lips.
“Hurry along now. I will talk to the rather perturbed gentleman who is opening the gate.”
The child glanced behind her and, setting her jaw in mulish determination, raced across the lawn toward the three-story brick cottage that Abigail called home.
“Penelope!” The fashionably garbed Corinthian caught sight of the child and strode briskly up the drive after her.
Abigail gaped at the intruder’s manly physique, accentuated by an impeccably tailored, long-tailed cutaway, knit pantaloons, and Hessians polished to a fare-thee-well. She thought her heart actually stumbled in awe—until alarm startled her mind into ticking again.
She might be inclined to be generous and reserve judgment for a man who made a child cry. Children cried for many reasons, not necessarily rational ones. She did not know a man alive who could deal successfully with tearful children, including her late, lamented father. But the gentleman’s expensive frock coat and Hessians in the face of the child’s pitiful attire raised distressing questions.
Abigail was even less inclined to be forgiving when he seemed prepared to race right past her as if she did not exist. She was painfully aware that she was small and unprepossessing, and she supposed her gardening bonnet and hoe added to her invisibility in the eyes of an arrogant aristocrat. But she wasn’t of a mind to be treated like a garden gnome.
She stepped into the drive and wielded the hoe so it would knock the elegant stranger’s knees if he didn’t acknowledge her. He might be large and formidable, but no man would intimidate her into abandoning a hurt child. He halted with the quick reflexes of an athlete and gazed at her in startlement.
She scarcely had time to admire his disheveled whiskey-colored hair and impressive square chin before he ripped the hoe handle from her grip and flung it into the boxwoods. For a brief moment, she stared into long-lashed, troubled green eyes, and she suffered the insane urge to brush the hair from his forehead to reassure him. Except he was so formidably masculine from his whiskered jaw to his muscled calves, and smelled so deliciously of rich, male musk, that she trembled at the audacity of her impulse. Reverend Frederick had always smelled of lavender sachet.
“The little heathen first, introductions later.” The Corinthian broke into a ground-eating gallop that would have done a Thoroughbred proud.
Discarding her disquiet, Abigail hastened up the drive in the intruder’s wake. Dignity and her corset prevented her from galloping. As did her short legs.
She arrived at the kitchen door to behold a scene of chaos.
Plump and perplexed, Cook stood with a tray of shortbread in her hand while the threadbare princess darted under the ancient trestle table, shoving a sweet in her mouth.
Miss Kitty yowled and leaped from her napping place on the sill, knocking over a geranium in her haste to achieve the top of the pie safe. The scullery maid cried out in surprise and dashed into the pantry, whether to hide or to secure a weapon was not easily discerned.
And the gentleman—
Abigail thought her eyes might be bulging as she regarded the captivating view of a gentleman’s posterior upended under her kitchen table. She had never particularly noticed that part of a man’s anatomy, but garbed in knit pantaloons, his was extraordinarily . . . muscled. And neither her insight nor his action was pertinent to the task at hand.
She sighed in exasperation and yanked the green coattail as the gentleman attempted to squeeze his broad shoulders between the table and Cook’s favorite chair in an effort to retrieve the child. “Honestly, one would think you’d never seen a child have a tantrum before. Leave her be. She won’t die of temper.”
Unprepared for a rear attack, the intruder stumbled sideways, caught Cook’s chair to steady himself, and knocked over a steaming teapot. He gracefully managed to catch the pottery before it crashed to the brick floor, but not before scalding his hand with the contents.
Abigail winced and waited for the flow of colorful, inappropriate invectives that the child had to have learned somewhere.
The gentleman’s throttled silence was more evocative. Dragon green eyes glaring, he returned the pot to the table, clenched his burned wrist and ruined shirt cuff, and, ignoring Abigail’s admonitions, again crouched down to check on the runaway.
If she had not already noted the family resemblance of matching forelocks that tumbled hair in their faces, Abigail would have known the two strangers were related by the identical mulish set of their mouths.
Bumping his head against a kitchen table while holding his scalded wrist, Fitz tried to recall why he’d thought learning to be an earl required turning over a new leaf. The moldy, crumbing old foliage he’d lived under all his life had been perfectly adequate for the lowly insect he was, although he must admit his impulsive actions in the past might occasionally give the flighty appearance of a butterfly. He snorted. In the past? If kidnapping his own daughter wasn’t flighty, it was the most ill-conceived, most absurd, and possibly stupidest thing he’d ever done, as even the child seemed to recognize.
“I want my mommy.” Beneath the table, Penelope stuck out her lower lip.
He peered in exasperation at the whining, scrawny six-year-old bit of fluff he’d accidentally begot in his brainless years, when he’d thought women would save his wicked soul.
The child had his thick brownish hair and green eyes, so he knew she was his, right down to the unruly swirl of hair falling across her forehead. The petulant lip and constant demands obviously belonged to her actress mother—may the woman be damned to perdition.
And yet, he was stupidly drawn to this imp of Satan who so resembled his neglected childhood self. He suffered an uncomfortable understanding of her rebelliousness. After all, she’d been ignored for years by a mother who had run off to marry a rich German and a father who thought good upbringing required only servants. He still preferred servants, but he obviously needed to find more competent ones.
“I will find you a better mother,” he recklessly promised, if only to coax her from beneath the table.
“I want my mommy!” Big round eyes glared daggers at him.
“You have a daddy now. That ought to be enough until we have time to look around and pick a pretty new mommy for you.” What in hell did she expect him to say? That her mother didn’t want her? That was one truth that wouldn’t pass his tongue, even though the damned woman hadn’t seen her child since infancy.
“Mommy says you’re a worthless toadsucker. I don’t want you for a daddy,” she declared.
Her real mother would never have lowered herself to such a common expression. Understanding dawned. “If you mean Mrs. Jones, she is a slack-brained lickspittle,” he countered, “and she is not your mother. Do you think I’d pick dragon dung like that for your mother?”
He ignored the choking laughter—or outrage—of his audience in his effort to solve one problem at a time. The child’s mother had chosen the nanny. He should have paid closer attention when he’d approved her choice, but at the time, Mrs. Jones had seemed affable and maternal, with all those qualities he imagined a good mother ought to have. Not that he had any experience with mothers or children, good or bad.
He couldn’t remember even being a child. An undisciplined hellion, yes, but never an innocent. What the devil had he been thinking? That he wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of his father? And his grandfather. They hadn’t been called Wicked Wyckerlys for naught. Berkshire was littered with his family’s bastards. Given the Danecroft debt-ridden habit of marrying for money, producing legitimate spawn had been more of a challenge.
Still, he tried another tactic, plying the silver tongue for which he was known. “But I need a daughter very much, Pene
lope, and I would like you to live with me now.”
No, he wouldn’t, actually. He’d always assumed the child would be better off almost anywhere except with him. Therein lay the rub. There was nowhere else for her to go.
He suspected the banty hen breathing down his neck was prepared to dump the entire pot of steaming tea on him, if her tapping toe was any indication. If he’d learned nothing else in his wastrel life, he’d learned to be wary of vindictive women, which seemed to include all pinched, spinsterish females with time on their hands.
“If you will remove yourself from my table—” Right on schedule, the hen attacked, kicking at his boots in a futile attempt to dislodge him.
“I want my mommy,” the child wailed in a higher pitch, rubbing her eyes with small, balled-up fists. “You hate me!”
“Of course I don’t hate you,” Fitz said, too appalled to pay attention to the hen. “Who told you that I hate you?” Gobsmacked by her accusation, he could only be blunt. “You’re all the family I have. I can’t hate you.”
Sensing she’d shocked a genuine reaction from him, Penelope wailed louder. “You hate me, you hate me. I hate you, I hate you—”
“If you will give her time to calm down . . . ,” the increasingly impatient voice intruded.
He didn’t listen to the rest of her admonition. “Do the theatrics usually work with Mrs. Jones?” he asked the child, deciding on a nonchalant approach that generally shocked furious women into momentary silence.
At his unruffled response to her tantrum, Penelope fell quiet and stared, taken aback. Fitz crooked an eyebrow at her.
“While this is all very entertaining,” the little hen behind him clucked, “you are preventing Cook from preparing dinner.”
He winced at the reminder of the utter cake he was making of himself instead of impressing the household with his usual currency of sophistication and charm. Having been abandoned by the mail coach, they had nowhere else to go. Cheltenham and his prize stallion were still over a day’s hard journey to the west.
The hen ducked down until Fitz was suddenly blinking into delectable blueberry-colored eyes rimmed with lush ginger lashes. A halo of strawberry curls framed dainty peach-and-cream cheeks. Whoa, why had she hidden such lusciousness beneath that ghastly bonnet? His gaze dropped to her ripe, cherry lips, and he nearly salivated as he inhaled the intoxicating scent of cinnamon and apples. He must be hungrier than he’d thought.
Ignoring him, she looked pointedly at Penelope and barked like a field sergeant instead of in the syrupy voice he’d anticipated. “Young lady, if you will refrain from caterwauling like an undisciplined hound, you may wash your hands and take a seat at the table.”
Apparently expecting to be obeyed, the pint-sized Venus stood up, and her unfashionable but sensible ankle boots stalked away. Fitz stared back at his daughter. Over their heads, he could hear the exquisite little lady commanding her troops.
“Cook, I believe we will need your burn salve. And, sir”—she kicked his bootheel just in case he didn’t realize he was the only man in the room—“if you will step outside for a moment, we will have a little talk while the salve is prepared.”
“Just keep remembering, she eats sweets, not people,” he whispered to Penelope before backing out to face his punishment.
PATRICIA RICE
THE WICKED WYCKERLY
The Rebellious Sons
Nominated for a RITA Award by the
Romance Writers of America
When he becomes seventh Earl of Danecroft, rakish John Fitzhugh Wyckerly also inherits a crumbling estate and massive debts. Determined to do right, he reclaims his illegitimate daughter Penelope and heads to London in search of a very rich wife.
Abigail Merriweather’s farm has been quiet since she lost custody of her four young half-siblings—until a roguish gentleman named Fitz stops for a rest, his rebellious daughter in tow. His etiquette is questionable, his parenting deplorable—so why does Abby delight in his flirtations? And when she seeks a suitor to help her regain the children, why does Fitz keep popping up?
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
S0198
PATRICIA RICE
Mystic Warrior
As Europe is torn by revolution, the fate of the Mystic Isle of Aelynn also falls into question—its survival dependent on recovering the elusive treasure known as the Chalice of Plenty. Only the daughter of Aelynn’s spiritual leader and a renegade warrior can accomplish the dangerous mission.
Mystic Rider
Ian Olympus, skilled fighter and visionary, has left the isle of Aelynn for the Outside World to retrieve a sacred chalice. He finds it in the hands of Chantal Deveau, who plans to buy her family out of prison.
But her outrage at his demand that she hand it over is nothing compared to her powerful, sensual response to his presence—and the startling conviction that their lives are irrevocably entwined. And Ian will soon have to choose between duty and desire.
Mystic Guardian
Off the coast of France lies the sun-kissed isle of Aelynn. Guarded by Trystan l’Enforcer, its people use magical abilities to protect a sacred chalice. An ambitious Trystan intends to marry for convenience, but when a sultry beauty washes up on his shore, she stirs in him a carnal hunger-and his plans take a confounding turn. Now he must work with her to recover Aelynn’s most sacred object before chaotic forces can lead to devastating destruction.
Available wherever books are sold or
at penguin.com
New York Times bestselling author
Jillian Hunter
A DUKE’S
TEMPATION
The Bridal Pleasures Series
The Duke of Gravenhurst, the notorious author of dark romances, is accused of corrupting the morals of the public. But among his most devoted fans is the well-born Lily Boscastle, who seeks employment as the duke’s personal housekeeper. Only then does she discover scandalous secrets about the man that she never could have imagined.
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
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Other Historical Romances by
Patricia Rice
The Rebellious Sons Series
The Wicked Wyckerly
The Mystic Isle Series
Mystic Guardian
Mystic Rider
Mystic Warrior
The Magic Series
Merely Magic
Must Be Magic
The Trouble with Magic
This Magic Moment
Much Ado About Magic
Magic Man
Other Titles
All a Woman Wants
The Devilish Montague Page 32
