Hot Historicals Bundle with An Invitation to Sin, The Naked Baron, When His Kiss Is Wicked, & Mastering the Marquess

by Jo Beverley

  “Miss Burnley,” Lord Silverton began, but then paused. She was surprised to see him frown.

  “Yes, my lord?” She wondered what made him look so serious.

  “I have no wish to offend, but I hoped I could prevail on you to explain the exact nature of your sister’s illness.”

  She gazed at him, unsettled and puzzled by his persistent questions regarding Annabel’s state of health. Why would he be interested in something like that?

  Some of her bewilderment must have shown on her face, because he briefly pressed the hand that clasped his arm.

  “I assure you, my curiosity is neither idle nor vulgar. I wish to understand why your uncle is so adamant that Annabel be treated with such extreme measures.”

  Meredith found she had to resist the urge to tell him everything. But she was uncertain that she should expose Annabel’s intimate history to anyone other than Lady Stanton.

  He waited patiently, not seeming the least bit troubled by her reluctance to speak.

  As Meredith pondered how to respond, she realized that his assistance and protection required her to answer most any question he might care to ask. More than that, in the short time she had known him, she had already grown to trust him. Like most men of the ton Lord Silverton probably led a life devoted to the pursuit of masculine pleasure, but he had stood beside her as a friend when she most needed one.

  Meredith lifted her face to the warm afternoon sun. She closed her eyes as her mind drifted back to the events of three years ago.

  “After my stepmother died—she succumbed to a fever seven years ago this spring—my father and sister became inseparable. They were much alike, and enjoyed spending hours together in the woods on our estate. My father was a devoted bird-watcher and he liked to take Annabel with him, especially in the spring when the birds were nesting.”

  She glanced nervously at him, her stomach beginning to twist as the memories came flooding back. Silverton listened calmly, with a detachment that she somehow found reassuring.

  “Three years ago this month they were out for a morning ramble, not far from the house but deep enough into the woods that they could not be seen or easily found. I was in my sitting room, going over the menu for the day with our housekeeper…”

  Her voice faded as the terrible images of that day cascaded through her mind.

  “Yes?” he gently prompted.

  “It was a warm day and the windows facing the woods were open. I heard a shot and then a horrible scream. It took me a few seconds to realize the cry was Annabel’s. She continued to scream for several minutes, the sound unlike anything I have ever heard in my life, and I hope never to hear anything like it again.”

  She shifted her gaze to her sister and her companions as they disappeared into the artfully pretty dairy covered in tumbling rose vines.

  “The sound of Annabel’s screams allowed us to find them. I ran from the house, as did our butler and footmen, and the men working in the stables. We found them in a small clearing. A poacher had shot my father in the chest. It was obvious he died instantly.”

  She fought back the anguish, which was almost as powerful now as the day it had happened. Gritting her teeth, Meredith resumed speaking in a voice that was clipped and unfamiliar even to her own ears.

  “By the grace of God, Annabel was unharmed. But she had thrown herself across my father’s body and was covered in his blood. I tried to pull her from him, but she would not let go. It took three of us to disengage her. By the time she was carried to the house, she had stopped screaming. In fact, she said not another word and barely made a sound for a fortnight after that. I was afraid she would never speak again. She was only fourteen years old at the time.”

  A cold heaviness invaded her limbs, as it always did when she recalled her father’s death. Meredith felt paralyzed by a familiar darkness that threatened to overwhelm her, and drag her down to the hollow and dreary place deep within.

  A pair of large, strong hands settled on her shoulders. Silverton turned her gently around and away from the gray emptiness. Meredith looked up into his eyes. They reflected bright sunlight and an emotion she didn’t recognize.

  In that moment he looked like summer to her—glorious, golden, and full of heat. Meredith drew in a shuddering breath. The chill that had seeped into her body faded away, replaced by a warmth that curled through her stomach, down her legs, and out through the soles of her feet.

  “But she did speak again, and you have cared for her and nursed her back to health, have you not?”

  Meredith nodded, unable to look away from the compelling eyes that drove away the icy despair. Silverton placed her hand back on his arm, gently urging her down the path to the dairy.

  “What happened next?”

  “Annabel fell into a profound melancholy for over two years. She rarely left her room and slept many hours each day. Our local physician counseled patience, that Annabel’s natural youth and vigor would eventually reassert itself and that she would recover from the shock of our father’s death. He was right. Last year, her spirits began to return, and I was so hopeful she would be herself again. But then—”

  Meredith broke off, puzzled as always by Annabel’s strange relapse a few months ago.

  “But then?”

  “But then my aunt and uncle came this winter, insisting that Annabel be treated by a new doctor. Her illness returned in force and has not abated until these last few weeks in London.”

  She shook her head in frustration at her inability to understand her sister’s condition.

  “Do not misunderstand me, my lord. I am grateful beyond measure that Annabel has recovered. But I can never be quite easy. I cannot rid myself of the fear that she might become ill again. More than anything I wish to understand the nature of her malady, and what I can do to prevent a relapse.”

  They strolled down the path, Silverton gazing thoughtfully into the enclosed meadow by the dairy.

  “Thank you, Miss Burnley,” he said after a minute. “I know how difficult it must have been for you to tell me. You may be certain I will preserve both your and your sister’s privacy.” His serious expression lightened with an easy smile. “And now I suggest we join the children, who must surely be wondering why we have dallied.”

  Meredith gratefully let the subject drop. As they strolled down the path to the dairy, she peeked at him from under her lashes. He had listened to her gruesome story so calmly—sympathetic, but without any uncomfortable expressions of pity or distaste. In fact, she was amazed by his casual acceptance of her family’s lurid history. Meredith hated telling people how her father had died. Most were shocked and strangely fascinated, and all too curious to know details that were incredibly painful to relate.

  But Silverton had just listened, and that simple act had somehow made the burden that Meredith carried all these years seem lighter. She decided to let go the memories of the past, at least for now, and try to savor the beauty of the warm afternoon.

  As they approached the dairy, Meredith couldn’t help but think how odd it was to encounter a working farm so close to St. James’s Palace. She was fast realizing that her limited experience of life had left her woefully unprepared for the eccentric complexities of London and, most particularly, of its upper class inhabitants.

  As a child, she had always longed to visit the city. Now that she was finally here, she couldn’t wait to return home to the country. Her response surprised and frustrated her, especially since Annabel had embraced their new life with courage and enthusiasm.

  Meredith knew her reaction was unfair, since they had barely begun to sample the delights of London, or the diversions of the Season. Unfortunately, thinking about the balls, routs, and musicales they would soon be attending only depressed her. She knew she had little chance of success among the glittering sophisticates of London’s elite and shrank at the thought of making her debut. All of her hopes were for Annabel. The sooner her sister found an eligible suitor, the sooner Meredith could return to Swallow Hi
ll, where she belonged.

  “Why so quiet, Miss Burnley? I sincerely hope you do not find my company tiresome, although I am afraid your heartfelt sigh sadly indicates just that.”

  Meredith gave a guilty start. What a peagoose she was to forget herself in Silverton’s presence. She had been completely distracted by her gloomy reverie, one that he had obviously been too polite to disturb.

  “Oh, no, my lord, how can you think it? I was simply trying to fathom the purpose of an ornamental dairy and farm in the middle of London. It is yet another aspect of the city I find most amazing and difficult to explain.”

  His eyes widened in mock astonishment. “Do you mean to tell me that you do not understand the function of a decorative farm in the middle of London? Why, Miss Burnley, surely you know that Green Park is our own Petit Trianon!”

  He made a sweeping gesture to draw her attention to the royal palace at the other end of the park.

  “In the days when our unfortunate king was in residence, the ladies of the Court used to toddle over to the farm to watch the cows being milked. In fact, some of the fair ladies even delighted in playing dairymaids themselves. It has been said that Beau Brummell first met the Prince of Wales when His Royal Highness escorted the Marchioness of Salisbury on a visit to the dairy.”

  His lips curled in a sardonic smile. “O happy day for the Prince.”

  Meredith blinked, thunderstruck by the bizarre image of members of the royal family trotting off to a farmyard to milk a cow. She caught his sly smile as he anticipated her reaction. Her own lips twitched in response as she struggled to contain a laugh.

  “Isn’t that just the sort of thing that cost the Queen of France her head?” she asked dryly as she observed the absurdly bucolic scene before her.

  Silverton burst into laughter. “Fortunately, Miss Burnley, the English peasantry seem to be much more enlightened than their continental counterparts.”

  His intensely blue eyes gleamed with amusement as he grinned at her. Meredith’s heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly felt as if her lungs had ceased to function. She forced herself to breathe out as she followed Annabel and the Stantons toward the dairy.

  “Of course,” Silverton mused, “if Prinny had been their king, one could hardly blame them for wanting to chop off his head.”

  Meredith gasped at the seditious remark.

  “I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?” He looked like an unrepentant schoolboy caught in the midst of a prank.

  Meredith wondered how many women had lost their heads when confronted with the devastating sensuality of his charming smile. It suddenly made her quite cross to think of him flirting with other women.

  “I assure you,” he continued, obviously unaware of the tumult in her brain, “when you meet the Prince and, indeed, most of the members of the Royal Family, you will understand exactly what I mean.”

  Meredith frowned at his easy assumption that she would be presented at Court as part of Lady Stanton’s plan to bring her out. The unwelcome reminder was like a slap in the face with a cold cloth.

  “I very much doubt, my lord, that I will have the opportunity to meet the Prince or any other member of the Royal Family,” she said in a clipped voice. “I will, however, be both happy and grateful to see Annabel presented at Court one day. That will be satisfaction enough for me, I assure you.”

  His handsome face suddenly looked shuttered and remote. Compared to the way he had grinned at her just a few moments ago, it was like the sun had moved behind a cloud.

  “I stand corrected, Miss Burnley,” he drawled in what she had come to think of as his bored voice. “Shall we join the children now?”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  Silverton’s affected and haughty manner never failed to irritate her, but she was really angry with herself. He had been nothing but kind, and she had responded by biting off his nose. For the life of her, Meredith did not understand why he often made her feel so defensive and argumentative.

  Since she had no answer for that, she allowed him to lead her into the dairy, silently castigating herself for failing to control her lamentably unguarded tongue once again.

  Chapter Nine

  Silverton wanted to curse. He had made a mull of things with her, once again. Every time he managed to convince Meredith to confide in him, he invariably said something that put her back up and prompted her to retreat behind a prickly exterior. In so many ways the blasted woman plagued him, and he wondered why he simply couldn’t leave her alone.

  But as he glanced down at her elegant profile, framed by her untrimmed poke bonnet, he recalled her steadfast courage in the face of her father’s appalling death and Annabel’s illness. He had wanted to do more than just listen while she related the awful series of events, but sensed that any overt expression of sympathy would make her uncomfortable. Instead, he was forced to resist an unfamiliar and powerful surge of protectiveness that made him want to wrap her in velvet and silk and never let anything hurt her again.

  It wasn’t, however, just her defiant vulnerability that appealed to him. She also made him laugh. Meredith’s reaction to the history of Green Park had been all that he hoped for. Her quicksilver eyes had glimmered with intelligence and amusement, while her beautiful, laughing face had made his whole body tighten with a heavy desire.

  Which was an entirely different reaction from the one he experienced in Annabel’s company.

  Silverton admitted to himself that his little cousin was sweet, lively, and very pretty. But she was young, so young that he felt a vague sense of distaste at the thought of her in his bed. Of course, men his age married very young girls all the time. He just knew with a depressing certainty that he didn’t want to be one of them.

  Suppressing an irritated sigh, he glanced at the woman whose slim fingers rested so lightly on his arm. She was fast becoming a puzzle that he felt compelled to decipher.

  Meredith’s resistance to Aunt Georgina’s plans surprised him. He suspected she was shamed by her common birth, and now he also knew that she longed for her old life in the country. Even so, most girls would leap at the chance for a Season sponsored by one of the most powerful women in the ton. Meredith obviously didn’t want it, and that was just one of the things that made her completely different from any other woman he had ever known.

  She was a beauty, too, and that disturbed his peace of mind more than anything else. Her cherry red velvet spencer shaped her generous breasts and framed her hips to perfection. He wanted to stroke her all over, run his fingers through her glossy black hair, over her womanly curves, all the way down to her elegantly shaped feet encased in sensible half boots.

  Clearly, it was time to get a grip on his wayward imagination. He had promised his aunt that he would seriously consider courting Annabel, and he meant to do just that.

  Silverton ushered her through the double barn doors into the ridiculously pretty and tidy dairy. Robert sat in a stall, straddling a low stool as he attempted to milk an obviously unhappy and uncooperative cow. Annabel and Sophia were doubled over, clutching their sides as they shook with helpless laughter. A long-suffering dairymaid stood at the cow’s head, patiently trying to explain the proper technique for extracting milk without harming either the animal or the man.

  “No, sir, do not yank on the teat like you was trying to rein in a horse!” she exclaimed, nervously eyeing the cow as it stamped its very large back hooves.

  “Well, I say! If the silly beast would just stay still for a moment then I wouldn’t have to keep trying to grab hold of the blasted thing every time it slips out of my hands!” Robert declared loudly.

  His frustration set the two girls off into more peals of laughter, and Silverton could see the dairymaid was reaching the end of her tether. More to the point, it was clear that the cow’s patience was waning also, and Robert was in imminent danger of a nasty kick.

  “Robert, do stop torturing that unfortunate animal,” Silverton ordered. “If you continue on as you are, we will be taking you h
ome on a stretcher!”

  Robert looked up, gratitude and relief evident in every line of his face and body.

  “Well, you two certainly took your time getting here,” he grumbled, leaping up from the stool and away from the cow. “I’ve been left alone to amuse these two horrible girls, and they both insisted I try to milk the silly beast, because everyone knows how easy it is to milk a cow!”

  “Annabel, how perfectly awful of you,” cried Meredith, although Silverton could see that she was trying not to laugh. “You know how difficult it is to milk a cow.”

  “You do?” Robert stared at Annabel with a stunned look on his face. “Well, I say, Miss Annabel, you could have said so before Sophia insisted I make a complete cake of myself.”

  “Oh, but it is easy,” Annabel giggled at him. “Look, I’ll show you.”

  She sank gracefully down onto the stool, looking as comfortable as if she had been sitting in her own drawing room.

  “Are you sure you want to have a go at this, miss?” the dairymaid asked doubtfully.

  “Oh, yes. I know exactly what I am doing.”

  She murmured quietly to the restless animal, petting it soothingly before placing her hands under its belly. In a moment, she was quickly and efficiently drawing milk from its teats into a large copper pail. The cow lowed contentedly, swished its tail, and leaned gently into Annabel’s shoulder as she continued to milk.

  “Well done, miss!” cried the dairymaid, releasing the cow’s head and coming around to watch.

  Robert’s eyes popped out of his head, and Sophia laughed again, clapping her hands in appreciation for Annabel’s skill.

  “I say, Miss Annabel,” Robert exclaimed, “I’m beginning to think there isn’t anything you can’t do!”

  Silverton had to laugh. If Sophia had bested her brother in the milking competition, the boy would have been mortified. “Your sister is a constant revelation to me, Miss Burnley,” he said. “She does seem to act in the most unexpected ways for such a shy and retiring girl.”

  Meredith nodded as she watched her sister with a strangely wistful expression on her face. “Swallow Hill is a small but very self-sufficient estate. My stepmother was very proud of her dairy and home farm, and Annabel and I were allowed to spend a great deal of time there when we were children.”