by Tessa Dare
"Shops? I only see one."
"Well, yes. There is only one. But it's all we have need of, you see. Bright's All Things shop has everything a young lady could wish to buy."
Mrs. Highwood surveyed the street. "Where is the doctor? Diana must have a doctor nearby at all times, to bleed her when she has her attacks."
Susanna winced. No wonder Diana's health never fully returned. Such a useless, horrific practice, bleeding. A "remedy" more likely to drain life than preserve it, and one Susanna had barely survived herself. Out of habit, she adjusted her long, elbow-length gloves. Their seams chafed against the well-healed scars beneath.
"There is a surgeon next town over," she said. A surgeon she wouldn't allow near cattle, much less a young lady. "Here in the village, we have a very capable apothecary." She hoped the woman would not ask for specifics there.
"What about men?" Mrs. Highwood asked.
"Men?" Susanna echoed. "What about them?"
"With so many unwed ladies in residence, are you not overrun with fortune hunters? Bath was teeming with them, all of them after my Diana's dowry. As if she would marry some smooth-talking third son."
"Definitely not, Mrs. Highwood." On this point, Susanna need not fudge. "There are no debt-ridden rakes or ambitious officers here. In fact, there are very few men in Spindle Cove at all. Aside from my father, only tradesmen and servants."
"I just don't know." Mrs. Highwood sighed, looking about the village once again. "It's all rather common, isn't it? My cousin, Lady Agatha, told me of a new spa in Kent. Mineral baths, purging treatments. Her Ladyship swears by their mercury cure."
Susanna's stomach lurched. If Diana Highwood landed in a spa like that, it might truly be the end of her. "Please, Mrs. Highwood. One cannot underestimate the healthful benefits of simple sea air and sunshine."
Charlotte tugged her gaze from the ruined castle long enough to plead, "Do let's stay, Mama. I want to take part in the midsummer fair."
"I believe I feel better already," Diana said, breathing deep.
Susanna left Minerva's side and approached the anxious matriarch. Mrs. Highwood might be a misguided, overwrought sort of woman, but she obviously loved her daughters and had their best interests at heart. She only needed a bit of reassurance that she was doing the right thing.
Well, Susanna could give her that reassurance truthfully. All three of the Highwood sisters needed this place. Diana needed a reprieve from quack medical treatments. Minerva needed a chance to pursue her own interests without censure. Young Charlotte just needed a place to be a girl, to stretch her growing legs and imagination.
And Susanna needed the Highwoods, for reasons she couldn't easily explain. She had no way to go back in time and undo the misfortunes of her own youth. But she could help to spare other young ladies the same friendless misery, and that was the next best thing.
"Trust me, Mrs. Highwood," she said, taking the woman's hand. "Spindle Cove is the perfect place for your daughters' summer holiday. I promise you, they will be healthy, happy, and perfectly safe."
Boom. A distant blast punched the air. Susanna's ribs shivered with the force of it.
Mrs. Highwood clutched her bonnet with a gloved hand. "My word. Was that an explosion?"
Drat, drat, drat. And this had all been going so well.
"Miss Finch, you just claimed this place was safe."
"Oh, it is." Susanna gave them her most calming, reassuring smile. "It is. No doubt that's just a ship in the Channel, sounding its signal cannon."
She knew very well there was no ship. That blast could only be her father's doing. In his day, Sir Lewis Finch had been a celebrated innovator of firearms and artillery. His contributions to the British army had earned him acclaim, influence, and a sizable fortune. But after those incidents with the experimental cannon, he'd promised Susanna he would give up conducting field tests.
He'd promised.
As they moved forward into the lane, a strange, low rumble gathered in the air.
"What is that noise?" Diana asked.
Susanna feigned innocence. "What noise?"
"That noise," Mrs. Highwood said.
The rumble grew more forceful with each second. The paving stones vibrated beneath her heeled slippers. Mrs. Highwood squeezed her eyes shut and emitted a low, mournful whimper.
"Oh, that noise," Susanna said lightly, herding the Highwoods across the lane. If she could only get them indoors . . . "That noise is nothing to be concerned about. We hear it all the time here. A fluke of the weather."
"It cannot be thunder," Minerva said.
"No. No, it's not thunder. It's . . . an atmospheric phenomenon, brought on by intermittent gusts of . . ."
"Sheep!" Charlotte cried, pointing down the lane.
A flock of deranged, woolly beasts stormed through the ancient stone arch and poured into the village, funneling down the lane and bearing down on them.
"Oh yes," Susanna muttered. "Precisely so. Intermittent gusts of sheep."
She hurried her guests across the lane, and they huddled in the All Things shop's doorway while the panicked sheep passed. The chorus of agitated bleats grated against her eardrums.
If her father had hurt himself, she was going to kill him.
"There's no cause for alarm," Susanna said over the din. "Rural life does have its peculiar charms. Miss Highwood, is your breathing quite all right?"
Diana nodded. "I'm fine, thank you."
"Then won't you please excuse me?"
Without waiting for an answer, Susanna lifted her hem and made a mad dash down the lane, weaving around the few lingering sheep as she made her way straight out of the village. It didn't take but a matter of seconds. This was, after all, a very small village.
Rather than take the longer, winding lane around the hill, she climbed it. As she neared the top, the breeze delivered to her a few lingering wisps of smoke and scattered tufts of wool. Despite these ominous signs, she crested the hill to find a scene that did not resemble one of her father's artillery tests. Down at the bottom of the lane, two carts were stalled in the road. When she squinted, she could make out figures milling around the stopped conveyances. Tall, male figures. No short, stout, balding gentlemen among them.
None of them could be Papa.
She took a relieved gulp of acrid, powder-tinged air. With the burden of dread lifted, her curiosity took the fore. Intrigued, she picked her way down the bank of heather until she stood on the narrow, rutted road. In the distance, the figures of the men ceased moving. They'd noticed her.
Shading her brow with one hand, she peered hard at the men, trying to make out their identities. One of the men wore an officer's coat. Another wore no coat at all. As she approached them, the coatless man began to wave with vigor. Shouts carried up to her on the breeze. Frowning, Susanna moved closer, hoping to better hear the words.
"Wait! Miss, don't . . . !"
Whomp.
An unseen force plucked her straight off her feet and slammed her sideways, driving her off the lane entirely. She plowed shoulder-first into the tall grass, tackled to the turf by some kind of charging beast.
A charging beast wearing lobster-red wool.
Together, they bounced away from the road, elbows and knees absorbing the blows. Susanna's teeth rattled in her skull, and she bit her tongue hard. Fabric ripped, and cool air reached farther up her thigh than any well-mannered breeze ought to venture.
When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze.
"Wh--?" Her breath rushed out in question.
Boom, the world answered.
Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she'd recognized to be an officer's coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man's bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder.
After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching hi
s gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green--as hard and richly hued as jade.
She asked, "Are you well?"
"Yes." His voice was a deep rasp. "Are you?"
She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. "Sir, you're . . . er, you're rather heavy." Surely he could not fail to miss that hint.
He replied, "You're soft."
Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her?
"You have a small wound." With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. "Here." She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips.
"Ah. That's nice."
Her face blazed with heat. "Are you seeing double?"
"Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks . . . a thousand freckles."
She stared at him.
"Don't concern yourself, miss. It's nothing." His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. "Nothing a little kiss won't mend."
And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers.
A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then . . . it was over.
Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat. Just a memory now, save for the faint bite of whiskey on her lips. And the heat. She still tasted his scorching, masculine heat. Belatedly, she closed her eyes.
"There, now," he murmured. "All better."
Better? Worse? The darkness behind her eyelids held no answers, so she opened them again.
Different. This strange, strong man held her in his protective embrace, and she was lost in his intriguing green stare, and his kiss reverberated in her bones with more force than a powder blast. And now she felt different.
The heat and weight of him . . . they were like an answer. The answer to a question Susanna hadn't even been aware her body was asking. So this was how it would be, to lie beneath a man. To feel shaped by him, her flesh giving in some places and resisting in others. Heat building between two bodies; dueling heartbeats pounding both sides of the same drum.
Maybe . . . just maybe . . . this was what she'd been waiting to feel all her life. Not swept her off her feet--but flung across the lane and sent tumbling head over heels while the world exploded around her.
He rolled onto his side, giving her room to breathe. "Where did you come from?"
"I think I should ask you that." She struggled up on one elbow. "Who are you? What on earth are you doing here?"
"Isn't it obvious?" His tone was grave. "We're bombing the sheep."
"Oh. Oh dear. Of course you are." Inside her, empathy twined with despair. Of course, he was cracked in the head. One of those poor soldiers addled by war. She ought to have known it. No sane man had ever looked at her this way.
She pushed aside her disappointment. At least he had come to the right place. And landed on the right woman. She was far more skilled in treating head wounds than fielding gentlemen's advances. The key here was to stop thinking of him as an immense, virile man and simply regard him as a person who needed her help. An unattractive, poxy, eunuch sort of person.
Reaching out to him, she traced one fingertip over his brow. "Don't be frightened," she said in a calm, even tone. "All is well. You're going to be just fine." She cupped his cheek and met his gaze directly. "The sheep can't hurt you here."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TESSA DARE is a part-time librarian, full-time mommy, and swing-shift author of historical romance. She makes her home in Southern California, where she shares a cozy, cluttered bungalow with her husband, their two children, and a big brown dog.
Follow Tessa Dare on Twitter at @TessaDare, like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TessaDareAuthor, or visit her website at www.TessaDare.com.
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Also by Tessa Dare
A Lady by Midnight
A Week to Be Wicked
A Night to Surrender
Three Nights with a Scoundrel
Twice Tempted by a Rogue
One Dance with a Duke
A Lady of Persuasion
Surrender of a Siren
Goddess of the Hunt
COPYRIGHT
The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright was originally published in the e-book anthology Three Weddings and a Murder.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from A Night to Surrender copyright (c) 2011 by Eve Ortega.
THE SCANDALOUS, DISSOLUTE, NO-GOOD MR. WRIGHT. Copyright (c) 2012 by Eve Ortega. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062271365
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062271372
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