Published by Anna Campbell
Copyright 2016 Anna Campbell
Cover Design: © Hang Le
ISBN: 978-0-9975307-0-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews - without permission in writing from the author, Anna Campbell. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Smashwords Edition
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to my friend Annie West for allowing me to borrow her name for my hero!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
The Challenge
Letters
The Wooing
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Excerpt: The Seduction of Lord Stone
About the Author
The Challenge
Richmond Park outside London, May 1820
Helena, Countess of Crewe, arrived at Lord West’s picnic, determined to talk to her brother Silas. Since yesterday when she’d caught Silas on the point of seducing Caro Beaumont—in a greenhouse in full sight of anyone who cared to look, no less—he’d done an excellent job of evading her.
Well, his evasion ended right now.
With a purposeful step, Helena approached her brother as he rode in on his dapple-gray mare. She could already tell something was afoot. He looked brittle and alert, like a man on the eve of battle. She’d seen him like this when his botanical experiments verged on a major breakthrough.
While a groom led the gray away, Silas’s hazel eyes sharpened on Caroline’s flashy curricle rolling across the grass toward the extravagant festivities. West had taken great trouble to create his riverside idyll, with cushions and divans in open tents, fine wines and exotic delicacies to tempt jaded appetites, and boats for pleasure trips. There was even a string quartet scratching away at the latest tunes.
“You can’t run away from me forever, brother dear.”
Silas cast Helena a sheepish look. “Save the scolding. You couldn’t say anything that I haven’t already said to myself.” He sighed and ran his hand through his untidy tawny hair. “I don’t know what got into me.”
To her regret, Helena knew the answer to that. Overwhelming desire.
When she’d burst into the greenhouse, the lust in the air had woken long forgotten memories. From their first meeting, she’d been wildly infatuated with her late husband, Lord Crewe. Desire, however frustrated, had outlasted love by a long measure. Until her pride had sickened at sharing his attentions with any other woman who took his eye, and she barred him from her bed.
Catching Caroline and Silas in a torrid embrace had provided an unwelcome reminder that Helena hadn’t always despised her profligate swine of a husband. “Caro means to have West. I’ll tell you that much.”
Her friend wanted a lover and had set her sights on Lord West, Silas’s boon companion and Helena’s first sweetheart. Helena had tried to warn Caro that the dissipated West was a dangerous choice. But the lovely brunette had the bit between her teeth, and there was no stopping her headlong gallop.
Until yesterday in the greenhouse, when it seemed Silas might make a late run.
“You two are being dashed unsociable,” West said softly, prowling up on his long, powerful legs. His green eyes were watchful. “Save the family reunion for your own time. I’ve got a dozen footmen standing idle, ready to answer every whim. If you persist in loitering over here, you’ll hurt their feelings.”
Despite having long ago recognized West’s many faults, Helena couldn’t suppress a frisson of awareness. She reminded herself she didn’t like overly handsome men—Crewe had looked like a Greek god until debauchery took its inevitable toll.
Vernon Grange, Baron West, was another handsome man, if in a very different style. He was the classic English aristocrat, tall and elegant, and with features so crisp and perfect, they could be carved from marble. Glossy black hair under a stylish beaver hat. A commanding aquiline nose. An air of effortless authority that always made her bridle like a half-broken filly.
“West,” Silas said, and Helena searched in vain for any hostility in his greeting. With Caro’s preference turning to West, lately Silas had been grumpy with his childhood chum. “You’ve been devilish fortunate with the sunshine.”
That thin, expressive mouth curled in wry humor. “I have contacts in high places.”
West bowed over Helena’s hand and sent her a glinting smile from beneath his heavy eyelids. It was a rake’s trick, designed to make a lady’s heart beat faster.
“Down below more likely,” Helena muttered, struggling to hide how her pulses jumped at his touch. Knowing it was a trick didn’t seem to offer her immunity from its effects.
What the devil was wrong with her? She hadn’t felt an ounce of attraction for Vernon Grange since she was a sixteen-year-old ninnyhammer. Perhaps she should blame her unsettled reaction on seeing Caro and Silas so intimately connected on that bench.
“Put away your barbs, my prickly lady. It’s too nice a day for sniping.”
Coolly she withdrew her hand. “I’d imagined more guests, my lord.”
The gathering comprised West, Helena, Silas, Caroline, a couple of West’s rakish friends, and Fenella Deerham.
“The numbers are sufficient to my entertainment.” Under the winged dark brows that added a satanic touch to his good looks, West’s regard was searching. “Yours, too, I hope. You didn’t ride?”
“No.” Given the failure of her plan to quiz Silas on the drive to Richmond, she was sorry she hadn’t come on horseback. It was so long since she’d had a good run, and this wide field beside the Thames offered scope beyond anything in Hyde Park.
“I have a spare horse.”
Silas shuffled sideways to keep a better eye on his beloved. Caro glanced their way, stiffened, and headed swiftly in the opposite direction.
“Helena?” West said when she didn’t respond. “I brought you a horse to ride.”
She stopped watching her brother and met West’s amused eyes. He was a man society fawned over—handsome, rich, from an old family. People were more inclined to hang on his every word than drift off in his presence. But he’d always worn his consequence lightly. A lesser person might find her erratic attention an insult to his vanity. Vernon Grange merely thought it funny. She’d always liked his lack of conceit, thorny as relations had become since she’d abandoned her girlish tendre.
“I can’t ride astride. Even in Richmond that would cause talk.” She fought to rise above the antagonism he always stirred. Crewe and West had been bosom bows
at Oxford. She’d never forgiven West for introducing her to the man she’d so disastrously married. “But thank you for offering.”
“You used to ride astride when you were a cheeky schoolgirl in plaits and a muddy pinafore.”
“I used to do many things.” A chill entered her voice. “But wisdom has a grim habit of following after reckless decisions.”
His amusement faded. “Not always.”
“No, not always.” The ghost of her late husband hovered. Charming, deceitful, self-centered. And destructive—to himself most of all.
“I’ve missed seeing you on a horse, Hel,” Silas said absently, still watching Caro, who had joined Fenella on the far side of the field.
West made an effort to lighten the tone. “I arranged this picnic purely for the pleasure of seeing you flying across the grass on the back of a galloping horse.”
Oh, dear, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She’d imagined he’d put this party together to further his pursuit of Caro. Helena didn’t want West noticing her. For years, he’d been content to treat her as a distant acquaintance. “Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s been a fancy of mine since I saw you restricted to a trot in Hyde Park. The experience was most uncongenial for an observer. You looked like someone was strangling you. Slowly.”
She frowned, resenting that West made her the focus of his attention. And that his conclusions were so accurate. “Town isn’t the place to ride neck or nothing. I’ll soon be back at Cranham.”
West signaled to a groom. “Such a pity.”
“That I’m leaving London?”
“No, that you don’t want a good gallop, when I went to such trouble to bring you a suitable mount—and a suitable saddle.”
The groom led a pretty chestnut mare toward them. Helena immediately noted the gleaming sidesaddle. Her hand curled at her side as if it already held a crop. Despite her misgivings about the man offering the favor, she itched to throw herself onto the lovely horse. The groom passed the reins to West, bowed and left.
West’s smile was mocking. “If you deny me, I’ll think that you don’t like me.”
She ran a gentle hand down the Arab’s jaw and bit back a sigh of longing. The mare truly was a darling. “I don’t.”
That wasn’t completely true. Her feelings for West had always been more complex than mere antipathy. When they were children, he’d been her hero. Shreds of that fondness lingered, although she’d long ago recognized that he was cut from the same cloth as her depraved husband.
“Ouch.”
She studied West, as with unconvincing nonchalance, Silas wandered off in Caro’s direction. “You don’t believe me?”
West shrugged. “Explaining exactly what I believe requires more time and privacy than we now enjoy. Even if you insist on seeing me as the enemy, I hope you’ll still accept Artemis as a gift.”
“Gift?” Helena stared at him, appalled. “What on earth do you mean? I can’t take such an extravagant present. Have some sense, West.”
He stood unmoved by her refusal, tall and lean in his immaculate dark green coat and fawn breeches. “Nonetheless, she’s yours.”
“That’s…” Helena struggled to understand what lay behind this ridiculous and inappropriate gesture. West had been out in society all his adult life. He knew how the world would interpret his generosity.
His gaze remained unwavering on her face. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” she snapped, although she had a sinking feeling she knew.
“Yes, it’s a declaration of intentions.”
Horror flooded her. She faltered back across the grass as if he’d made an unwelcome physical advance. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“Then you’re wasting your time.” She straightened and glared at him. Her mind worked a thousand miles an hour to make sense of this abrupt alteration in their dealings. “I was a rake’s wife. Be damned if I’ll be a rake’s mistress.”
The tension vibrating between them upset the mare and she shifted nervously. West patted Artemis’s glossy neck in reassurance.
“I know you’re frightened, Hel.” His voice was low and deep, and Helena resented that he sought to reassure her, too.
Her temper sparked, not least because he used her childhood nickname. “Devil take you, nothing frightens me.”
Despite her brave words, fear curdled her stomach and tasted sour in her mouth. She didn’t want Vernon Grange to pursue her. She wanted to stay safe in her lonely little eyrie. Nine tempestuous, miserable years with Crewe had left scars that had hardly healed in the eighteen months since his death.
“Love frightens you.”
“You don’t know what that word means.”
“Let’s not quarrel.” Calmly he offered Artemis’s reins. “Not today when I’ve worked so hard for your enjoyment. Come riding with me.”
She glowered at his hand as if it held poison. “That’s it? ‘I want you as my mistress, but we won’t fight about it, and now come for a canter?’”
His laugh made her itch to slap him. “Pretty much.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“My dear Helena, if you require a more emphatic declaration, I’m prepared to make my plans public. I’m only holding back to protect your reputation and help you become accustomed to my interest. If I kiss you in front of all these people, your fate is sealed.”
“As if I’d let you kiss me.”
“As if you could stop me.”
Curse him, now he’d mentioned kisses, she couldn’t stop staring at his firm, sharply defined lips, and wondering what he’d learned since those clumsy, but pleasurable experiments in the summerhouse.
She reminded herself that anything he’d learned, he’d learned through unbridled lechery. To her shame, that didn’t dilute her fascination.
“What about Caroline?” Her voice was flat. “Or are you covering your bets and chasing both of us?”
Humor lit his eyes, and he glanced across to where Caro fought a losing battle to avoid Silas. “On my honor, you’re the only woman I’m interested in. Caroline has her own fish to fry.”
Resentment and apprehension curdled in Helena’s belly. “I’m not listening to this nonsense.”
With a contemptuous flick of her blue skirts, she whirled away. She wished she’d never come to this cursed picnic. Since reaching adulthood, she hadn’t spent much time alone with West. That was clearly a good thing.
“Don’t go.” He caught her arm, holding her without force. Of course, after all that worldly experience, he knew how to handle a woman. “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t try Artemis.”
She glared at him, loathing his effortless confidence and unabashed sexual allure. Loathing that he was right—about the horse at least. “I’d rather kick you.”
A huff of laughter escaped him. “I’m sure you would. If I let you go, will you ride? Artemis is very sensitive. She thinks you don’t like her either.”
“Fool.” Despite everything, a trickle of warmth softened the insult.
“That’s not in question,” he said, and she unwillingly remembered how once she’d enjoyed sparring with him.
“I’m not dressed for riding.”
He glanced at her royal blue day dress with its jaunty gold military braid. “You’ll do. And you’re wearing half-boots.”
Good Lord, a man had a woman in his sights when he noticed what she was wearing. This conversation became more alarming by the second. “West—”
“I’m not suggesting we ride to Cornwall. You’re adequately fixed for a short run. I’d say different if you were done up in that devilish becoming red frock you wore to the Oldhams’ ball on Tuesday.”
Good Lord doubled. West really was paying attention. Perhaps he meant this tomfoolery about making her his mistress. “I’m not—”
“Please.”
She sighed, the fight leaving her. He’d always been a stubborn sod. She wouldn’t get rid of him—or manage to fin
ish a sentence—until she rode the mare. “If you promise to stop acting like a lunatic.”
This time his laugh was free and untroubled. “I promise to behave for the next half hour.”
Heads turned in their direction. Helena stiffened with renewed wariness. She didn’t want their names connected. After all, gossip was the fuel that powered the season.
She let him toss her into the saddle. Helena couldn’t control a shiver when his hands closed around her waist. Blast him. And blast Silas and Caro, and their flagrant session yesterday.
Artemis shifted, sensing her rider’s disquiet, but settled when Helena took the reins. A groom brought up the stamping brute of a bay familiar from the ride in Hyde Park. That early morning when West had been indiscreet enough to mention Helena’s adolescent passion to Silas and Caro.
Until that day, Helena hadn’t realized he remembered that turbulent summer. Given that West had been notorious for his wenching ever since, she’d imagined he’d long ago forgotten those innocent embraces.
Because for all their heat and fervor, they had been innocent. A year later, she’d gone to Crewe’s bed a virgin. Not that the cur she’d married had deserved the honor.
Before West mounted, she urged Artemis to a gallop. The mare responded gallantly, and the restrictions and exasperations of London life vanished in a second.
Damn West, he was right. This was what she was born for: speed, the wind in her face, freedom. Freedom most of all. She gave a joyful laugh as Artemis settled into a steady run that promised to take them to China and beyond. Helena was so elated to be on the back of a spirited horse that she didn’t even mind when West thundered up behind her.
Over the lush green grass they rushed, and Helena tasted genuine happiness. She only drew rein when Artemis at last began to tire.
Turning to West, she couldn’t contain her exhilaration. “That was marvelous. Thank you.”
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. For once, no devil of laughter lurked in his green eyes. “This is how I always think of you. Strong and exuberant. The way you were as an impetuous girl. This is how you should stay, rather than wrapped up in stifling convention, pretending you’re like everyone else.”
Winning Lord West Page 1
