The Notorious Lord

by Nicola Cornick

  The Notorious Lord

  Nicola Cornick

  Book 1 of the Bluestocking Brides Trilogy. Miss Rachel Odell and Cory, Lord Newlyn, are childhood friends but when Cory comes to Midwinter Royal to assist Rachel's antiquarian parents in the excavation of the famous burial site, they find their feelings for each other have changed. Rachel and Cory want different things in life. Rachel detests the travelling that has always been a part of her parents' profession. To Cory the quest for adventure is as necessary as breathing. But now Cory has another pursuit on his mind… How can he make Rachel see that they could be so much more than just good friends?

  Nicola Cornick

  The Notorious Lord

  The first book in the Blue Stocking Brides series, 2004

  Dear Reader,

  It is 1803, and along the coast of Suffolk the threat of French invasion is at its highest. Smugglers, pirates, treasure seekers and spies are all drawn to the quiet Midwinter villages, where the comfortable surface of village life conceals treason and danger as well as romance and excitement…

  This is the world that I have inhabited for the past year whilst I wrote the BLUESTOCKING BRIDES trilogy. It has been a wonderful experience. I have always loved the county of Suffolk for its remoteness, the peace of the woods, the wind in the reeds at the water’s edge and the sunset over the sea. It is one of the most atmospheric and inspiring places for a storyteller.

  About a year ago I was reading a book about “The Great Terror,” the years between 1801 and 1805, when Britain was permanently on the alert against the threat of Napoleonic invasion. It made me wonder what life would have been like in the coastal villages of Britain, where there was always the chance that the business of everyday living would conceal something more dangerous. I thought about a group of gentlemen dedicated to hunting down a spy-gentlemen for whom romance was no part of the plan, but who found that the ladies of Midwinter were more than a match for them! And so the idea of the BLUESTOCKING BRIDES trilogy was born…

  I hope that you enjoy these stories of love and romance in the Midwinter villages! It has been a real pleasure to write this trilogy.

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  Chapter One

  June 1803

  She had taken too much cider for breakfast.

  Miss Rachel Odell could think of no other explanation for the sudden and wholly unexpected sight of a naked man, who emerged from the thicket of willows some fifty yards down the riverbank and started to stroll towards her with all the aplomb of a gentleman entering a dowager’s drawing room.

  Rachel blinked, stared, and looked down at the earthenware flask in her hand. She had known that drinking alcohol was dangerous, particularly at breakfast, but she had not wanted to offend the cook, who had pressed the bottle into her hands with the remark that apple juice was just what was needed on a hot morning. Rachel had no head for drink and Mrs Goodfellow’s cider was outrageously strong, so she had only taken two sips. Was it possible to have delusions on the basis of only a thimbleful of alcohol? She thought not. Therefore, logically, the naked man must be real.

  She looked up. He was.

  The sun was cutting through the trees now and fell on his body in bars of dazzling, dancing golden light. He seemed oblivious to her presence, for he was standing quite still, his head tilted towards the sky as though he were drinking in the morning air. He was tall and perfectly proportioned and he moved with unhurried precision and grace. The bright white sunlight slid over his body and sparkled on the tiny droplets of water that were cascading from his naked skin. He put his hands up to his head and smoothed the tawny hair back so that it was as sleek and wet as an otter’s pelt. Then he stretched. To Rachel’s eyes he looked like a pagan god who had sprung directly out of the earth.

  As the daughter of the most renowned antiquaries in the country, Rachel knew all about the worship of pagan gods. Her parents had dug up relics of many cultures from Egypt to the Rhine, and from Greece to Alexandria. Rachel had learned about Greek mythology and Roman deities in her earliest youth, but she had never seen a man who resembled these creatures of legend. Never before now.

  For one long, riveting moment she stared at him-at the powerful set of his shoulders, at his broad chest tapering to a hard, flat stomach, at the sheen of his brown skin and the elemental strength and intensity of him. Suddenly the worship of pagan deities did not seem as far-fetched as Rachel had always imagined it. Her mouth went dry, her heart started to race and she felt a prickly sort of heat break out over her entire body.

  She had not seen any man in the nude before. She had seen statues, drawings, frescoes and paintings as a result of the highly unorthodox classical education bestowed on her by her parents, but she had never seen the real thing. Until now, Tuesday the twelfth of June at eight of the clock, when she was in her twenty second year and had not been expecting anything more exciting than a Tufted Duck to emerge from the waters of the Winter Race.

  The book Rachel had been reading slid from her hand and fell against the earthenware flask of cider with a tiny clink. In the quiet air the sound was enough to carry. Rachel saw the man go still, like an animal sensing danger. He turned his head and looked directly towards her. Rachel’s heart skipped several beats. The excited feeling in the pit of her stomach faded. Now that she could see his face clearly, she recognised him at once as Cory Newlyn, a childhood friend of hers and colleague of her parents. She was embarrassed that she had not realised his identity sooner, and felt a curious mix of awareness and familiarity. She had not recognised him because she had been concentrating, most improperly, on other parts of his anatomy rather than his face. And she had enjoyed the view. Now, however, she felt differently. He was an old friend, after all, and one did not ogle old friends in such a manner. It was over a year since she had seen Cory, and she had not anticipated coming across him here, but he was not the sort of man that one forgot. And she was never, ever going to forget him in future, not after this experience.

  Rachel found her voice. ‘Cory Newlyn! What on earth are you doing?’

  Her words came out like the screech of a fishwife on the wharves at Deptford. She saw Cory jump, his eyes widening with surprise. He grabbed at a large lily leaf from a nearby pool and held it strategically in front of him as he came towards her along the bank. As an item of clothing it left a great deal to be desired and Rachel kept her gaze riveted on his face, avoiding a shocking compulsion to focus elsewhere.

  ‘Rachel! How delightful to find you here.’ Cory’s voice carried easily to her, for by now he was a mere twenty yards away. ‘I had been thinking recently,’ he continued, ‘how nice it would be to see more of you.’

  ‘I can see almost all of you at present,’ Rachel said, shielding her eyes with her hand, ‘and it is a deal too much! What are you doing? Where are your clothes? Go away and get dressed at once!’

  Somewhat belatedly, she grabbed her straw bonnet from the rug beside her, and pulled it down low over her eyes so that the rim obscured her view. Then, realising that she could not see anything at all, she peered underneath it in order to check what was happening. The scene was not reassuring. Far from retreating modestly behind his curtain of willow, Cory appeared to be intending to approach her directly, sauntering up the bank for all the world as though he were entering a London drawing room rather than strolling naked through the Suffolk countryside.

  ‘Stop!’ Rachel shrieked. ‘I thought I told you to go away?’

  Cory stopped. He was now no more than ten feet away from Rachel and, seated as she was on the ground, his knees and thighs were level with her line of sight. His body was firm, muscular and tanned, which she would have expected had she ever considered it. Cory worked outdoors a great deal and much of that labour was
physically demanding. It was no wonder that his body was in such fine shape.

  Rachel reminded herself that it was not appropriate for her to dwell on the physical attributes of her parents’ colleagues. This had not been a problem for her before. Most of them would look ancient and flabby without their clothes, which was not a description that could be applied to Lord Newlyn…

  Rachel tried to wrench her mind on to other topics, but found that she did not seem able to drag her gaze from the dusting of tiny golden hairs across Cory’s thighs. The more she thought about the impropriety of what she was doing, the more flustered she became. She felt hot and feverish. She turned her head and stared fixedly at the trunk of a large poplar tree some twenty feet away, forcing her agitated mind to concentrate on botany rather than anatomy. Was it a white poplar or a grey poplar? She must remember to look it up in her reference books when she returned home. The leaves were very pretty and white underneath…She was starting to get a pain in her neck from the effort of keeping her head turned away from Cory. She could see absolutely nothing at all but her other senses-and her imagination-more than made up for the deficit. She could feel the sun beating down on the top of her head where it penetrated the leaves of the pine canopy above her. She could smell the resinous scent of the pine needles as they warmed up. She could visualise Cory, tall, powerful, virile-and naked, her memory reminded her unnecessarily-standing right next to her.

  ‘Why are you still standing there?’ she asked. ‘I do not wish to speak with you at present, not whilst you are quite unclothed.’

  ‘You noticed, then,’ Cory said. He sounded amused.

  ‘Of course I noticed!’ Rachel retorted. ‘I would have to be quite unobservant not to have noticed! What are you doing here, Cory?’

  ‘Pray do not persist in addressing me if you wish me to leave, Rachel,’ Cory said reasonably. ‘I cannot preserve both propriety and courtesy at the same time.’

  ‘I would far rather that you preserve both your modesty and mine for the time being,’ Rachel said. ‘Where are your clothes?’

  She heard Cory sigh. ‘I left them further up the bank and swam downriver,’ he said. ‘I felt inclined to take a dip and was not expecting to meet anyone so early in the morning. I was hoping that you might lend me your rug,’ he added, shifting slightly beside her and increasing Rachel’s discomfort by several notches. ‘If you would be kind enough to help me cover my embarrassment…’

  Rachel gave a little exasperated squeak and pulled the rug out forcibly from underneath her, thrusting it in his direction. ‘Take it! Quick! Begone!’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cory said politely. She could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘Please do not wave your hands about like that, Rae, or you may grab hold of more than you bargained for.’

  Rachel could take no more. She scrambled to her feet, intent only on putting some distance between them. Inevitably she collided at once with Cory’s lean, hard body. Her flailing hand touched his skin; touched some unidentified part of him that was warm and very slightly damp from the river water. She felt the soft abrasion of fine hair against her skin and almost fainted.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Cory said reassuringly. ‘That was only my-’

  ‘Cory! No! I do not want to know!’ Rachel’s voice was in danger of failing her. ‘I realise that we are old friends,’ she added shakily, ‘but there are some things that one simply does not wish to share…’

  Cory laughed. Rachel could sense movement as he grasped the rug and started to wrap it about himself. A flash of tartan colour caught the corner of her eye and she forced herself ruthlessly to look the other way.

  ‘I am almost ready,’ Cory murmured.

  Rachel turned towards him in relief. She was too quick. She caught a glimpse of the curve of his buttocks and gave a weak gasp.

  ‘But not quite,’ Cory finished.

  ‘Oh, this is dreadful!’ Rachel tried to move away, but found her knees so shaky that all she succeeded in doing was tripping over her picnic basket. Cory caught her arm and steadied her.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, a laugh breaking through his words, ‘you are like to do one of us an injury if you continue like this.’

  ‘I would manage so much better if you were just to go away,’ Rachel snapped, thoroughly flustered. ‘Surely you do not need to make such a meal of this!’

  ‘You would manage better if you took off that ridiculous hat and looked about you,’ Cory said.

  ‘Thank you, but I have already seen quite enough!’ Rachel took a careful step away from him and pushed the brim of her hat up. When she peeped out she was relieved to see that Cory had tied the blanket about his waist like a kilt. It sat low on his hips and left what seemed like an inordinate amount of him uncovered, but it was a great improvement on before. Even so, there was something disturbing about him. With his clothes on, Cory possessed a masculine vitality and attraction that Rachel, old friend that she was, could recognise without difficulty. Seeing him in a minimum of clothing was a jolt to the senses of the most fundamental sort.

  Rachel realised that she was still staring, cleared her throat and looked up at his face, catching a look of vivid amusement there. Cory’s face was barely less disturbing than the rest of him, for he was quite devastatingly attractive, with silver grey eyes and a very wicked smile. There were those who said that Cory Newlyn was not in any way conventionally handsome. His nose and much else had been broken once on an expedition when a fall of rocks had almost killed him and he had a thin scar like a sabre cut down one cheek. His face was too lean to be classically good looking. Yet none of these things mattered. He had character-and it showed. It also made women throw themselves at him with tedious regularity.

  Embarrassed to be caught looking at him, Rachel averted her gaze. ‘Thank goodness that it is a large rug,’ she said.

  ‘I am flattered that you think I require something large to do the job properly,’ Cory said, the smile still in his eyes.

  Rachel blushed. She had forgotten Cory’s propensity to shock by word as well as deed. He understood the requirements of polite society perfectly well. It was merely that sometimes he chose not to heed them.

  ‘Go away, please, Cory,’ she said. ‘You are improper.’

  Cory laughed. ‘I am. But you have always known that and you still like me.’

  Rachel gave him a severe look. ‘You may be my friend, but I am a young lady of unimpeachable reputation and I do not intend to compromise that through being seen in conversation with a rake wrapped in a blanket!’

  Cory’s shoulders shook slightly. ‘A rake wrapped in a blanket! You make me sound like some sort of delicate gardening tool.’

  Rachel looked down her nose at him. She felt a deal more confident now that something relatively substantial was between her and Cory’s nakedness.

  ‘There is very little of delicacy about you, Cory,’ she said.

  Cory shrugged. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘I am sorry if I disturbed you, Rae. I can see that you are still looking very flustered.’

  Rachel knew that she was and it did not make her any less self-conscious that he was drawing attention to it.

  ‘Of course I am flustered,’ she said. ‘I never expected to see you naked, Cory. Such things do not generally occur between childhood friends.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ Cory said. ‘You must excuse me, Rae. I had no wish to shock you.’

  ‘To think that I came down here for some peace,’ Rachel said, shaking her head. ‘You know how difficult it can be to find any solitude once an excavation starts. Mama and Papa have been busy digging all hours of the day for the last two weeks.’ She laid a hand lightly on Cory’s arm. It was a part of him that she felt relatively secure in touching. ‘What are you doing in Suffolk?’ she asked. ‘I did not expect you to be joining us because I thought you were still in Cornwall.’

  ‘I came up to London last month,’ Cory said. ‘Your parents wrote to my club, inviting me to join them on the excavation here.’ He cocked an enquiring e
yebrow. ‘They did not tell you?’

  Rachel sighed. ‘I dare say they intended to,’ she said. ‘You know how Mama forgets things.’

  Cory went down on one knee to rummage in the picnic basket. He looked up, a piece of bread and cheese in his hand. ‘You do not mind?’

  ‘That you are here or that you are stealing my breakfast?’ Rachel laughed. ‘I do not mind in either case, Cory. Although I would counsel you to wear more clothes in future if you are intent on staying. It is not the done thing to walk around nude in England, at least not in public. I realise that you have been abroad for so long that you may have forgotten our conventions.’

  ‘I never was governed by them in the first place,’ Cory said. He stretched lazily. The blanket slipped lower. Rachel took a hasty step up the bank.

  ‘Go,’ she said, ‘before you catch a chill or that rug falls off and takes the last of my composure with it. We may talk when you have your clothes on again.’

  Cory smiled. ‘I never thought to hear that phrase from you, Rae.’

  ‘Well, no doubt I am not the first to say it to you,’ Rachel said, repressing a rueful smile. She knew all about Cory’s reputation.

  Cory started to retreat down the bank, one hand raised in conciliation. ‘I am going now. I apologise if I upset you, Rae.’

  ‘I was not particularly discomfited,’ Rachel said untruthfully, smoothing her skirts, ‘but it was a slight shock.’

  Cory bent and retrieved another piece of bread and ham from Rachel’s upturned breakfast basket. He sank his teeth into the thick slice and nodded slowly. ‘Delicious. Just what I need after an early morning swim.’

  He gave a negligent wave of his hand and walked away.

  ‘Mind the rose bushes at the top of the bank,’ Rachel called suddenly. ‘The thorns are sharp-’ She winced as she heard a crashing sound and a muffled expletive. ‘Oh, too late.’