Proper Scoundrel

by Annette Blair

  Amid a profusion of multi-hued chalk orchids, the likes of which Jade had not seen gathered in one place, ever, they pledged their vows, voices sure and fit to reach the stars.

  As with the last Fitzalan nuptials, the wedding breakfast at Peacehaven Manor bore mostly the same guests, but perhaps a louder celebration, since this union had been such a near thing.

  The cries of kittiwake and herring gulls serenaded the guests at tables on the lawn amid the murmur and approval of the rolling sea.

  Marcus was called from the table to meet a stranger waiting in the house. Then, to the shock of one guest in particular, Marcus escorted Stephen Hawksworth, Duke of Somerset, out to the celebration.

  Eloisa screamed and wept as she threw herself into her husband’s arms, and he kissed her enthusiastically enough to draw grins from Marcus and Garrett and sighs from every female present.

  “I thought you were dead,” Eloisa kept saying.

  “I was found halfway across the world, days after the ship went down, starving and ill, on a floating barrel of molasses. Once I came to, it took forever to get well and sail home to you.”

  Stephen kept his arm firm around his wife, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Then I feared I’d never find you. I know what Arthur did. He’s been dealt with. He won’t hurt you again.”

  The news spread through the gathering. Eloisa was the Duchess of Somerset and her husband had returned from the dead.

  Since she seemed too overcome to realize she had a surprise for Stephen, Lacey and Jade fetched Mac and Garth.

  When they brought the twins ’round to the group, Eloisa’s handsome Duke looked surprised at the sight of a bride and her attendant, babes in arms. He smiled but seemed unsure of what to say.

  Eloisa squeaked and took the babies. “Stephen, this is little Marcus and little Garrett. We call them Mac and Garth for short.”

  Her Duke chucked one under the chin and ruffled the other’s wayward thatch of hair, though it was clear he had no notion of why.

  Jade laughed. “I’m very sorry to say that they’re not ours, because we love them, but they happen to be yours.”

  The handsome man looked thunderstruck. “But I thought—” He regarded Eloisa. “I was told that you’d lost—”

  She shook her head. “I lied to protect our sons, and just now, in the face of your return from the dead, so to speak, I honestly forgot you didn’t know they existed.”

  “Our sons,” Stephen said, a grin spreading across his features, brightening his eyes, making him appear more handsome.

  Eloisa placed them in his arms, and Stephen joined the wedding guests at the table.

  Jade and Marcus returned to their seats to await the next course. Jade leaned close to Marcus. “Stephen still has Mac and Garth on his lap,” she whispered. “Do you think we should tell him about their unfortunate tendency to piddle at unexpected moments?”

  “I think he needs to be ... baptized in the knowledge.”

  The bride and groom’s laughter set the pace for the day.

  As the South Downs Railroad had reached Tidemills by its June 30th deadline, the members of the wedding party were not only celebrating a marriage long overdue, they were jubilant over surmounting impossible odds. They also stood to become wealthier than they had dreamed, for Parliament, the day before, had granted them a charter to finish the trek to Dover. The East Coast route would be theirs.

  Beecher gave them additional reason to celebrate. The day after Grandfather’s relocation, he turned himself in to the magistrate for the deaths of Jade’s grandfather and cousin.

  Within the week, because his actions had saved the lives of others in both cases, Beecher was exonerated.

  The wedding feast lasted three hours, but the celebration continued, in high spirits, long after.

  Late in the day, Ivy came to sit beside Lacey. “Why so sad?”

  She smiled serenely, belying her sadness, as she watched Eloisa speak her tearful good-byes, her Duke beside her. “I’m not sad, Ivy. I’m happy. Glory the Fairy Queen’s been granting ‘Happily Ever Afters’ all over Peacehaven lately.”

  “Time you had one for yourself, little girl.”

  “Me? I’m beyond fairytales.”

  “If you’re so set on facing the real world, then, why don’t you come back with me to Arundel?”

  “There are those who would not be pleased to have me home.”

  “It’s time you thought of you for a change.” Ivy slapped his thighs. “You’re coming. That’s an order, and I’ll have no argument. It’s time.”

  Lacey smiled in a way that made Ivy grin. “I’ll be ready, my friend,” she said, “whenever you are.”

  He kissed her brow. “I’m looking forward to our journey. But for now, I have a date with two little girls and a second attempt at a puppet-wagon sleepover. We’ll give Jade and Marcus a late morning, and leave for Arundel around noon, shall we? I’ll have a difficult enough time as it is getting Emily to sleep tonight. She attended her parents’ wedding today and she’s going on her first honeymoon tomorrow.” Ivy chuckled as he walked away.

  Jade and Marcus stood in the Peacehaven forecourt at the top of the drive and said their final good-byes to Eloisa, Stephen and the twins.

  “I feel like crying,” Jade said as their coach departed. “I’m going to miss little Mac so much.”

  “I will too, love, but they’ll visit, and we’re married now. You do know what that means?” He raised a roguish brow.

  Jade grinned. “What?”

  He leaned near her ear while he dallied with the ribbon at her bodice. “It means we can make a little Mac of our own now.”

  Jade’s smile turned soft and her eyes bright.

  Marcus took her into his arms and waltzed her onto the lawn. “No tears on our wedding day, not even happy ones,” he said, tightening his hold and spinning her in widening circles, until she laughed aloud.

  Then he caught her close and compounded her dizziness with a stallion-ready kiss.

  “You’re as beautiful and sleek in white silk as you were in black leather, Jade Fitzalan. A scoundrel’s perfect swan.” He spanned her waist with his hands. “And you’re mine, every sinfully delicious inch of you.”

  Jade gave him a knowing smile as she tossed her silk tulle veil over her shoulder and began to circle him in a way meant to intimidate—like a buyer examining a stallion’s fine points—not entirely unaware that her perusal afforded him the same seductive opportunity.

  “You’re not nearly as perfect as I first thought,” she stopped to say. “But I think, perhaps....” She took another turn about him. “Yes, perhaps I’ll keep you.”

  Watchful and eager, Marcus laughed, noting Jade’s fine little bottom as she passed, and because she was his now, he did introduce it to the palm of his hand. Her perusal made him feel like that stallion, agitated and vigilant, as if something momentous were about to take place.

  He whisked her into his arms and carried her toward the house. By God, he would instigate something momentous.

  Their guests applauded.

  Jade kicked as if she were being abducted.

  Marcus slowed to feast his eyes on her.

  All cream porcelain, and soft, willing woman, she raised her defiant chin and levelled him with her sparkling ebony gaze, and he was transfixed. Those eyes gave her skewering power, and that hint of a widow’s peak added sorcery to the blend.

  Heart tripping, blood rushing through his veins, Marcus Fitzalan inhaled his wife’s lavender scent and stepped up his pace.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To prepare for our honeymoon.”

  Jade laughed. “We’re not leaving until tomorrow.”

  “Right. We have to practice.”

  To see how all the scoundrels have fared, read HOLY SCOUNDREL, coming soon to an eBook near you. Excerpted below:

  EXCERPT

  HOLY SCOUNDREL

  Annette Blair

  Chapter One

  Arund
el, The South Downs, West Sussex

  England, Summer, 1830

  Lacey Ashton, unnoticed in the midnight shadows, fixed her hungry gaze upon Gabriel Kendrick, the most formidable of the ghosts she had come home to face.

  Dwarfing his surroundings, Gabriel bent to keep his head from an intimate encounter with a raw-oak barn beam while protecting the newborn lamb in his keeping, a smile in his eyes, if not on his face ... until he saw her. Gabriel the indomitable—named for the bright angel, when he should have been named for the dark—stood frozen in vulnerability.

  A heartbeat, no more, and the rogue narrowed his eyes, stepped forward, stretched to his full staggering height, and squared his shoulders to a breathtaking span—like Lucifer, sighting prey and spreading charred wings.

  As his dark-fire gaze seared her, Gabriel’s chiselled features, graven in shadow, sharpened to unforgiving angles.

  In that moment, despite her resolve, Lacey wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run ... except that she could not seem to move.

  Here before her stood the father of her child, while between them stood the lie she’d told to deny it—saving him yet tormenting them both in one horrific stroke.

  A horse snuffled and shuffled in its stall, freeing the scent of hay musk into the grip of silence, injecting reality into unreality, replacing the past with the present, and allowing her finally to draw breath.

  As forbidding as her nemesis appeared in lantern light, dressed entirely in black, the tiny white lamb tucked into his frockcoat humanized him, the contrast bringing his cleric’s collar into conspicuous and bright relief. A scoundrel’s heart beneath a Vicar’s trappings, and no one seemed to know, save her.

  He no longer fit the image of the young man she had carried in her heart. His features, familiar, despite the firmness of his jaw, had been lined and bronzed by time and parish responsibilities to a mature and patrician refinement. His leonine mane, still an overlong tumble of sooty waves, thick and lush, showed brushstrokes of gray at the temples. No phantasm here, but the bane of her existence in the flesh, more daunting, more vitally masculine than ever.

  More ... a threat to her sanity.

  As if he could read her, Gabriel shifted his stance, on guard, watchful, and before her eyes, his natural arrogance was replaced by a hard-won humility.

  He’d always been proud, even when they were children—he, the indigent Vicar’s son, she, the daughter of a Duke. But now, their roles had been reversed and the Duke’s daughter stood, impoverished, disowned, before the boy who’d adored her, then hated her, with all his heart, face to face for the first time in five years. “Gabriel,” she said, wishing her voice did not tremble and her body did not remember.

  Gabe foolishly wondered if the sum and substance of all his dreams, good and bad, could hear the sound of his cold stone heart beating against his ribs, his chest tight and painful. “Lace,” he said, her name emerging raw and raspy.

  Mortified at his self-betrayal, he cleared his throat to try again, but a shadow stepped between them.

  Gabe focused on the newcomer, Yves “Ivy” St. Cyr, stood there beaming, his little red dog at his heels, Ivy, whose puppet wagon they’d once chased giggling down High Street. The happy vagabond grasped Gabe’s hand and pumped it, making him feel the dolt for failing to extend it. “Ivy,” Gabe said, relieved his voice worked again.

  The puppet master beamed. “I see you found the surprise I brought you.”

  Found it? Gabe could not take his eyes from it.

  “Yes, Gabriel,” Lacey said. “I am come home.”

  As was her wont, and his curse, she answered his unspoken thought. Whether her words eased or deepened his anxiety, he could not discern, but he hoped fervently that his shock and yearning were not as plainly writ for her to see.

  “She’s staying with me for now,” Ivy said. “Helping with my puppet shows until she finds a place here in Arundel to live. There’s plenty of room in my wagon.”

  Gabe worked hard to comprehend Ivy’s words and form a coherent response, while the horrible gladness burgeoning inside him begged release to the point that it constricted his chest and stole his breath. He found it necessary to concentrate to fill his lungs.

  “You’ll stay at Rectory Cottage,” he said. “Both of you. More room than in that gypsy wagon.” He raised a hand when Ivy prepared to utter a token protest. “No argument, now.”

  Ivy enjoyed making people as well as puppets dance, Gabe had always suspected, though only with the best of intentions. So of course the puppeteer offered no argument, but he did grin and wink at Lacey. “Took pity on my old bones, he did.”

  As Lace had once commanded, Gabe bowed before her. “Lady Ashton.” His insolent use of her title, a reminder of her status before her fall from grace, pierced her, he saw, and for that reason, it pierced him as well.

  “I apologize,” Gabe said. “That was ... unforgivable.”

  “Yes, it was.” She tried, and failed, to mask her distress. Gabe watched, his heart racing, as she turned to their friend. “Ivy,” she said, “I can’t stay. I’ll sleep in the wagon while I look for— No, I’ll take the morning coach back to Peacehaven. This won’t do.”

  Handing the lamb to Ivy, Gabe placed the flat of his hand against Lacey’s back to stop her retreat, to turn her and propel her toward the vicarage before she could further object.

  Her familiar heat warmed his palm; he could almost feel it spiralling like smoke from a chimney to surround his icy heart, which explained the slight if painful nudge in the centre of his chest.

  He removed his hand, fisting it in self-preservation.

  The vicarage kitchen, friendly, welcoming, pleased him absurdly, seeing it for the first time, as he was, through Lacey’s eyes. But she stepped from his touch. “I won’t stay. I won’t.”

  Gripped by panic, Gabe knew that he couldn’t let her leave; he could not. Not again. Just thinking about it made something hurt deep inside, something bleak and ponderous, searing ... and sharp enough to cut him open and leave him bleeding.

  To save himself, he turned and bent on his haunches to stoke the fire in the grate, chase the damp, and warm the undersized lamb.

  Ivy’s pup, a German Daschund, Gabe remembered, placed her front paws against his thigh seeking attention, its tail beating an amiable tattoo, yet Gabe could concentrate on nothing, save ... Lacey.

  Lacey was home, here, in his house, where he’d pictured her a hundred times. A thousand.

  His Lacey. As beautiful as ever. More beautiful. His.

  No, not his. Never again his. That was past.

  He was a proper parson now, staid, unemotional, his passion, a vice overcome. Long-buried. Dead.

  Gabe turned to the sound of a throat being cleared, almost surprised to find Ivy standing there, exhausted, a sleepy lamb in his arms.

  “It’s late; I’ll prepare your rooms,” Gabe said, rising from the hearth. “Mackenzie’s asleep.” The lamb bleated and Gabe reached to stroke the downy-soft head against Ivy’s arm.

  “It’s hungry,” Lace said.

  “I was planning to fix a bottle.” Gabe felt stupid, overlarge, oafish beside her, and remembered a time that hadn’t mattered.

  “Did she lose her mother?” Lace asked.

  Gabe relieved Ivy of his burden, feeling more comfortable with the lamb in his arms, like a shield, he thought fleetingly, but against what? “She’s a twin,” he said, “and a runt to boot. Her mother rejected her.” He stroked the fragile neck and the mite closed its eyes in ecstasy.

  Lacey watched him, for all the world as if she were transfixed by the action. Did he glimpse ... yearning in her emerald eyes? The kind that had once made him lower her to the grass and—

  The fire crackled, breaking the taut thread of tension between them.

  They both stepped back as if freed by the sound.

  “I’ll fix her a bottle.” Lace looked anywhere but at him. “Just tell me—”

  “I’ll get you—” They’d spoken toge
ther, stopped together.

  Gabe gave a half nod and set the lamb on its wobbly legs. Then he proceeded to take out everything Lacey would need to feed it. Not sure what more he could say without exposing old wounds, he nodded and headed outside to get their bags. The click, click, click of puppy paws on the slate floor behind him assuring him that Ivy and his pup followed.

  Once Gabriel quit the room, Lacey nearly swooned from the effort she’d expended pretending indifference while jolted out of mind.