The Irresistible Lady Behind the Mask
A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
EMILY HONEYFIELD
Copyright © 2019 by Emily Honeyfield
All Rights Reserved.
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Table of Contents
The Irresistible Lady Behind the Mask
Table of Contents
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The Irresistible Lady Behind the Mask
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
The Awakening of a Forbidden Passion
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
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The Irresistible Lady Behind the Mask
Introduction
Tempest Haddington is a woman who thrives to be independent. Not caring much about marriage, she focuses her efforts on secretly running a gaming parlour. When she helps her friend break off her engagement to the libertine Hudson, she thinks she’s doing the right thing. Unfortunately, her scheme does not go unnoticed and he wants payback...in the form of a marriage between them! When her mask is off, will Tempest succumb to the handsome man, or will her stubbornness cost her a true romance?
Hudson is desperate to get married ever since his aunt expressed her desire to see him wed before dying. Valerie might not be his first choice, but it seems like it’s the only solution. Unfortunately, he is set up at a secret gaming parlour and the engagement is broken. When he discovers that the mastermind behind all this is his stunning childhood friend, he will choose a wicked way to take his revenge. When sparks start flying between them, how will he convince her that he has a burning desire for her, one that he’s never felt before?
A passionate tale of intrigue, suspense, and twists that will leave you gasping for more. When their initial flame turns to full-fletched fire, will they be able to handle it despite the forces that try to keep them apart?
Chapter 1
London, 1816
The sun was filtering through the silk curtains when Tempest finally stirred from her bed. A delicate hand went to her throbbing forehead. She let out a sigh. She shouldn’t drink spirits so. Alas, she had allowed her customer to cajole her into drinking a lot of wine last night.
But what could she have done to avert it? It would have looked suspicious had she not indulged in the wine like every customer there. But maybe she shouldn’t have drunk so much. Well, it was too late now. In the future, she would look for a way to get out of such a foolish pastime.
Groping for the little bell on the bedside table to summon her abigail, she groaned as she had to move. The dreadful headache would cause her head to fall off if nothing was done about it posthaste.
A little sigh of joy escaped her lips when her hand located the bell. She rang it and grimaced as the sound increased the ache in her head. A moment later, she heard distinctive footfalls coming up the stairs and crossing the landing to her room.
“You summoned me, Miss Tempest,” Mary, her maid, said.
From the distance of her voice, Tempest surmised that she was standing by the door. She dared not open her eyes for she feared the headache might grow worse.
“I did, Mary,” she softly returned. “Whatever you do, don’t draw the curtains.”
A soft giggle sounded in the room. “Forgive my boldness, Miss Tempest, but you can’t possibly think of staying abed all day.”
Tempest groaned in an unladylike manner. Her father would want to see her. He would try to get her to go against her wishes. Giving her dowry to a lucky man out there so that it wouldn’t go to waste was her father’s primal concern.
The baron’s daughter listened as Mary moved about the room. Her purple silk dress would still be on the floor. That was the only piece of clothing she had removed before falling into bed last night. She sighed loudly.
“Please leave whatever you’re doing, Mary and fetch me a cold compress for my head before it splits into two,” she instructed sharply.
“Yes, my Miss. Mayhap I could bring you a tray.”
Tempest shook her head and moaned. The thought of food was nauseating. Perhaps later, when she was feeling better.
“Cold compress, Mary,” she simply said.
“Yes, Miss Tempest.”
She heard Mary leave to do her bidding and hoped with all her heart that the cold compress would bring her head back to normalcy.
Tempest moaned some minutes when the front doorknocker banged repeatedly. The silence in the house was loud enough for her to hear the motions of the discourteous caller. The sound seemed to increase and fill the house, making her feel like she was standing right beside the door.
“Dear God, who could be calling at this ungodly hour?” she grumbled, assuming it was still quite early in the day, not realising that the sun was already high up in the sky.
When the noise carried on, she lifted one of the pillows and placed it across her head. Were all the servants excluding Mary still in bed like her? Why couldn’t someone answer the desperate caller?
The torture of the sound finally came to an end when someone decided to get her out of her misery. The front door slammed loudly.
“Who could be so rude as to shut the door so loudly to someone else’s house?” she muttered with indignation.
It wasn’t enough that they knocked so deafeningly to wake the dead, now they wanted to rip the door off its hinges!
She tried making out the voices she heard but decided not to bother. It could be one of her father’s friends. She wouldn’t be surprised if the person was foxed.
Some men didn’t mind visiting a tavern before going about their duties for the day. She surmised that she would be one of the topics of discussion between the man and her father.
The baron was annoyed with her because she maintained her stand that she wasn’t the marrying kind.
“You’ll remain on the shelf and be regarded as an old maid,” her father once argued with her.
She had giggled, for her cousin, Valerie, already called her that. “Better to remain an old maid, Papa, than to lose my independence to some dandy.”
Her father almost had apoplexy at her words. She had feared that if his complexion turned redder, he might just burst. In
wardly, she envisioned steam coming out of his ears and hid a laugh behind her handkerchief.
“A woman is meant to lose her independence to a man. She’s supposed to be seen and not heard,” he had countered impatiently.
“Not this woman,” she firmly replied. “I have no desire to become a wealthy man’s property. I’d rather die a spinster than make some man richer with my dowry.”
Her father’s hands had curled into fists. “I blame your aunt for leaving you such a sizeable inheritance. I fear it has gotten into your head.”
He would know about her wealth because he oversaw her financial affairs. She had pursed her lips to refrain from divulging what she had done with the said inheritance. It was a secret between her and her aunt. Her father might swoon if he ever got to know.
“Papa,” she had called, trying to muster as much softness in her voice as she could, for she was weary of such arguments all the time, “please don’t worry about me. I repeat I have no desire to be wed, and that’s that. I grow weary of such arguments all the time. Please accept this decision that I’ve made.”
Her father, his face flushed with anger, had stated, “I will never accept it. You have a generous dowry that would make men from here to Hyde Park beat down your door, but you’ve chosen to be foolish about it. You will be wed. Do not take my threats idly."
She had watched him stalk out of the drawing room that day. She had wished she could make him understand that never would she avail herself of the travesty called marriage.
Tempest withdrew the pillow from her head as her face contorted in a frown. Her father was still angry with her for turning down several suitable matches as he was wont to call them. Thank goodness her rejections hadn’t created scandals for the ton to have something to gossip about.
Immediately the men had approached her, she had politely but firmly declined their offer. She hadn’t bothered to lead them on by going for a walk with them or a ride to the park. The ones who had offered to escort her to balls and soirees had also been turned down. Quite bluntly, she had told them she wasn’t in any way interested in whatever they had to offer.
Mary returned at that moment with the cold compress. She gently placed it on her mistress’s head. Tempest exhaled softly as the coolness of the cloth did wonders for her aching head.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Tempest, Miss Valerie is here to see you,” Mary informed her mistress.
Tempest couldn’t help letting out a groan. She toyed with the idea of telling her maid to inform Valerie that she was unwell. Knowing Valerie, she would stalk up the stairs to make sure. Not that she made it a habit to avoid her cousin; far from it. She was wary of the young chit’s talk about marriage.
Valerie, being eighteen years old, was desperate to be married. The silly child couldn’t hold a conversation without bringing marriage into it. She always went against her reasoning whenever Tempest told her the ills of answering to a man’s beck and call and pandering to his every need.
“I don’t care. I don’t want to be an old maid like you, Tempest. At twenty-two, you ought to be married with children.”
Tempest grimaced when she recalled the last conversation she had had with her cousin concerning marriage. Then, Valerie had been preparing for her second season. Her first hadn’t been successful.
Tempest chuckled as the pain in her head began receding. She remembered her first and only season with humour. Of course, she hadn’t wanted to engage in the folly of parading herself for a suitor to look her way, but her father had put his foot down on the matter. She gave him allowances to win their battles sometimes. So, she had prepared, trussed up like a turkey about to be auctioned and attended one ball after another.
From the stoical way she had replied to all the men who approached her at such soirees, she had been shocked to receive offers before the season was over. She had endeavoured to find one excuse or the other to reject their offers, much to her father’s chagrin.
She had vehemently refused to go on her second season, calling it a waste of time. Her father had threatened hail and brimstone, but she had stood her ground. She wasn’t going through that torture again of numerous balls, forced polite conversations and multiple dancing that could cripple someone. No, such things weren’t for her.
Resignedly, she said, “Tell her I’ll be down shortly. Then come back and help me prepare.”
“Yes, Miss Tempest.”
Over the next hour, as Tempest prepared to receive her cousin since she couldn’t avoid her, she pondered on her view concerning marriage. She couldn’t quite say when she started harbouring ill-feelings towards marriage.
Her parents had had a beautiful union before her mother’s demise. A smile played at her lips as she fondly remembered the love her parents had shared. An emotion, which she considered silly now. It made one do the most outrageous of things just to please one’s partner. Not that she had ever been in love, and she hoped to God that she would never succumb to the dreadful feeling.
Unperturbed was she by the whispers and snickering behind fans that she received whenever she was out in public. If she was going to be called an old maid for the rest of her life, so be it.
“An oddity you are,” her Aunt Beth would say.
At sixteen, she had already known she wasn’t going to get married. She wasn’t like those silly debutantes trying to snag wealthy and handsome men for themselves.
Oh, dear, that sounds pretty condescending.
Simply because she didn’t believe in the art of matrimony didn’t mean she had to belittle those who did. After all, her mother, bless her dear soul, had been ensconced in it.
Perhaps, Papa is right after all. Maybe coming into a considerable inheritance at such a young age altered my thoughts about men. Mayhap if I wasn’t a wealthy lady, I too would be looking for a man to snag.
A giggle released from her lips as her maid pulled a brush through her hair. She imagined herself at a ball, batting her eyelids at a man and waving her fan at her flushed face, pretending she was about to swoon so the man could catch her.
Oh, how silly she would look. She had seen that act so many times during her first season and thought it shameless. Sometimes, she wished she were a man who ladies fawned over so she could tell them off in the sternest of ways.
Alas, she was a woman who was beholden to be answerable to a man, which was unfair in her opinion. Her mother, as she taught her to read and write, and various etiquette meant for ladies, had also encouraged her to accept the things she couldn’t change. Her aunt, however, tutored her differently.
“I believe in independence,” Aunt Beth once said. “I mean taking your destiny into your own hands.”
Little wonder she never married. And now, Tempest was following in her footsteps and loving it. She acknowledged that had her mother been alive, perhaps she might be married with two small children now.
A shudder went through her at the thought. No, Mama wouldn’t have forced her to get married as her father wanted. She would have talked about the beauty of falling in love until she sold the idea to her daughter.
Garbed in a pale yellow muslin gown, she sailed out of her room after instructing Mary to tell one of the kitchen maids to serve tea in the drawing room.
She crossed the hall in dainty steps and descended the carpet-covered stairs. Pictures of her ancestors graced the walls, but she didn’t bother to glance at any of them. The only portrait she was ever interested in was that of her late mother.
As she stepped her foot into the drawing room, Valerie pushed herself from the French windows. A woebegone look marked her lovely face, which got Tempest’s delicately carved brows rising.
“What took you so long? I’m in despair!”
Good Lord, I should have stayed abed all day.
Chapter 2
Strombridge, 1816
Massive coughing wracked the body of the deathly thin woman on her sickbed. Agnes sighed as she wiped her mouth with her handkerchief. It was no longer a thing of surprise t
o see blood mixed with her spittle.
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