by Alice Kirks
The Dashing Thief of Her Dreams
A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
ALICE KIRKS
Copyright © 2020 by Alice Kirks
All Rights Reserved.
This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher.
Table of Contents
The Dashing Thief of Her Dreams
Table of Contents
The Dashing Thief of Her Dreams
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
A Dreamy Lady's Ever After
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Dashing Thief of Her Dreams
Introduction
Bridget Stanhope doesn’t dream of meeting her fairytale prince like every other girl of her age. The perfect suitor for her is a more daring and brave gentleman rather than a polite and socially acceptable one. When one night she stumbles across a masked man who breaks into her house, Bridget immediately falls under the spell of his eyes and makes it her goal to meet him again. But her plans go askew when a charming lord steals her mind, and the young lady finds herself thrown into a great dilemma. Will Bridget find a way to unfold her complicated feelings? In the end, will she choose the charming nobleman or the daredevil thief?
Lord Geoffrey Not wants to spend his life traipsing around the globe, while the idea of marriage has always repelled him. But the moment he lays eyes on Bridget, his life takes an unexpected turn. After spending more time with her, Geoffrey reconsiders the idea of marriage, as he realizes that he is hopelessly falling in love with her.
However, no matter how happy he feels next to her, Geoffrey has a profound secret, and he is awfully scared that when Bridget discovers the truth, she will detest him once and for all. Will he convince Bridget that sometimes things are not always what they seem? Will he find happiness with the only woman he has ever fallen in love?
It seems like Bridget and Geoffrey are made for each other. But everything crashes down when Geoffrey’s malicious brother sets his mind on stealing everything that Geoffrey has, including his beautiful bride. Will the couple find a true soul mate in one another, despite all odds? Will they escape from an envious man, or will their only chance at happiness fall through?
Chapter 1
The rain was absolutely pounding on the windows of the sitting room at Highcourt House. The roar of the water outside was so deafening that the ladies seated on the couches, chaises and settees inside the room could barely make out what the author who was seated near the fireplace was saying.
“I do apologise for interrupting,” Lady Deborah Stanhope called from her position near the back of the room. The author, a man named George Silas, looked up from his parchment and adjusted his spectacles.
“Do you have a compliment you would like to pay me, young madam?” Mr. Silas asked. Deborah looked to her sister, Lady Bridget Stanhope, with wide eyes and a disgusted look on her face. Bridget tried to control her laughter but a small titter escaped her cherry lips. Deborah turned back to the author.
“I would love to,” Deborah began, reaching out and grasping her sister’s hand tightly to stop her from laughing, “but right now I can hardly hear a word of your, ahem, enlightened writing. Could you please speak up?” The gentleman looked taken aback until Lady Deborah and Lady Bridget’s aunt, Lady Eliza, gave him a look that told him they were correct. Mr. Silas cleared his throat and projected much louder this time, saying,
“THE EARLY AFTERNOON SUN DANCED ACROSS THE FLOORBOARDS IN THE EAST ROOM, MUCH LIKE MY HEART DANCED FOR LADY EDNA WHEN I FIRST GAZED UPON HER.” Lady Deborah was the one who had to contain her laughter this time, but Lady Bridget was not much help on the matter. Lady Eliza shot the young women a look that made them cease their silliness immediately, but they were both relieved to have silently agreed that Mr. Silas was a truly terrible author.
While the room was filled almost to bursting with fine young ladies, Ladies Bridget and Deborah Stanhope were undeniably the two finest in the room. They were the daughters of Lord Alymer Stanhope, a viscount, and lived on a luxurious estate on the edge of Surrey. Lady Deborah, who was twenty-two, was wearing a dress that was light green in colour, and had a dark green shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was the kind of woman who was never truly too cold or too warm, but who always had a complaint about the temperature.
She had auburn hair that was done today in a chignon and had pretty little curls that coiled pleasantly and hung happily about her face. She was blessed with naturally curly hair that did not require much encouragement from the iron to cooperate with whatever hairstyle she wished her hair to be in. She was quite tall; taller, in fact, than many of the men who wished to be her suitors. She had a pleasantly round face and hazel eyes that always seemed to catch details that others missed.
Lady Bridget, on the other hand, had long, thick, straight blonde hair that required a great deal of encouragement to behave itself in hairstyles. She was a year younger than her sister and a few inches shorter: a physical detail that Lady Deborah was very jealous of. She was slight and elegant, with a broad face, a thin mouth, and hooded green eyes that resembled emeralds in the sunlight.
She was a classic beauty who wasn’t aware of it, as she spent much of her time cursing the minute details of her appearance that she felt were not perfect. There were throngs of men in town who would have given their entire estates to be matched with either of the Stanhope sisters, but they were each waiting for their own versions of a perfect husband.
Today, Lady Bridget wore a white gown that had a reddish hue to it with a delicate sparrow pattern running down it. She, unlike her sister, was always cold, and so wore a deep red spencer to go with her gown. She was beginning to become restless as Mr. Silas continued on with his story, and hoped that she might be rescued from her boredom by the next author very soon. There was little else in this world that Lady Bridget hated more than boredom, and right now, she was horribly bored.
“AND SO,” Mr. Silas continued, “I MUST MAKE LIKE THE SPRING RABBIT AND TAKE TO MY BURROW TO TEND TO MY LITTLE ONES, FOR UNTIL LADY EDNA RETURNS, MY LIFE SHALL BE MEANINGLESS OTHERWISE.” Mr. Silas closed his book, and Lady Bridget’s heart leapt so much at him being finished that she broke into wild applause. All of the other ladies in the room looked to her as though she had lost her sense of civility, and so she stopped.
When she did, all of the
rest of the ladies politely clapped their hands, and Lady Eliza rose from her seat to address the room. While all the rest of the group was distracted by her aunt, Bridget seized the opportunity to quietly get up from her spot and take a few more cucumber sandwiches. She heard her sister clear her throat behind her and she looked back, expecting to see Deborah glaring at her. Instead, Deborah motioned to the sweets that lay on the same plate as the sandwiches and seemed to be asking Lady Bridget to bring her a couple of them back.
Bridget picked two of them off the plate and showed them to her sister, who returned the offer with a look that said, ‘do you really think that will sustain me?’ Bridget picked a third one off the plate, placed everything in her napkin and hurried back to her seat. When she sat down, she laid the napkin across both of their laps and the two began eating immediately. In hushed tones, Deborah whispered to Bridget, “Thank you, sister. But if you ever threaten to bring me such a small assortment of Aunt Eliza’s famous miniatures again, I shall have to make you sleep out in the garden!” Lady Bridget began giggling again, but quickly silenced herself in fear that her aunt would glare at her again.
“Thank you for that stirring rendition of your work, ‘Lady Edna’s Reticule’, Mr. Silas. We appreciate your company on this rather dismal day.” Another round of polite applause rippled through the crowd and Mr. Silas bowed to the ladies and left the room. “For our next reading, Lady Jane Albion will read the first chapter from her book, ‘A Pirate’s Romance.’ Please join me in welcoming Lady Jane to the front!” At the mention of the title of the book, Bridget’s interest was piqued. A lady writer who had written a book about a romance between a pirate and a lady? This was Bridget’s dream come true!
The reason for Bridget’s excitement was as follows: when Bridget was a little girl, her mother had encouraged her daughters to read. Every night before bed, Lady Olivia would read the girls a story from her favourite books. They heard tales of dashing princes, damsels in distress, rough pirates who became the objects of a lady’s affection, and much more.
Before long, Bridget was dreaming of being swept off her feet by a highwayman or a dashing pirate, much to their mother’s delight and their father’s chagrin. Bridget’s father even went as far as to say that Lady Olivia indulged them far too much. He immediately regretted his words after she had passed away far too young, but could do nothing to take them back now. Instead, he tried to be patient as Bridget would talk to him about ideas for her stories she wanted to write, and adventures she wanted to go on.
A gorgeous older woman came to the front of the room with some parchment in her hand. She said nothing to the audience, but gave them all a warm smile as she was seated. She organised a few of the pages, took a deep breath, and was just about to begin when a loud clap of thunder interrupted her. The ladies in the room, Bridget and Deborah included, all gasped, but once they realised what the sound was a relieved laugh rippled through the crowd. Lady Jane shook her head and smiled.
“That is certainly one way to begin my reading,” she said. “Our tale begins on the night of October 13 in the Year of Our Lord 1701. I had taken to my room for the second night in a row, for my father was terribly vexed about a shipment of alcohol that had just been delivered by some able seamen...” As Lady Jane spoke, Bridget was transported to another realm.
Here, she was not Lady Bridget Stanhope of Surrey; she was Scarlett George, bar wench and unfortunate lover of the dread pirate Tomlinson. She loved to imagine herself as a lower-class working girl who was whisked away to a life of adventure by a dashing but dangerous young man. He promised her all the riches of the world, if only she would abandon her way of life and take to the seas with him for eternity.
Bridget hadn’t realised that she had been so completely and utterly taken with the story until she felt her sister’s hand on her shoulder a few minutes later. “Bridget?” Deborah asked her. “Are you quite alright?” Bridget snapped out of her daze, and looked to her sister to see what the matter was.
Deborah was looking at Bridget’s lap very strangely, and when Bridget looked down, she saw why. In her haze, she had picked apart the bread that held her cucumber sandwich together and now had only three buttery cucumbers sitting on the napkin in front of her. She smiled at her sister.
“Sorry. I got a little carried away listening to the story.” Bridget ate the few cucumbers and crumpled the remnants of the sandwich into her napkin. Deborah continued to look at her with an expression that seemed to say she didn’t understand her.
“The story that finished five minutes ago?” Bridget felt the blood rushing to her cheeks.
“Has it really been that long?” Bridget looked around the room and saw the rest of the ladies standing and talking to one another as servants came to bring them their outdoor clothes.
“Yes. I’ve been waiting patiently for you to finish daydreaming but I thought perhaps you might need some assistance this time.” Deborah smiled kindly at her sister, and Bridget immediately felt less embarrassed about having ‘dazed out’ as she had. She knew her sister understood where her love for fanciful stories had come from, and so didn’t need to take offense at any jests that she made about it.
“Thank you,” Bridget said simply but appreciatively. “Shall we go to the phaeton? I do wish that we had brought the carriage with the complete roof: I fear we shall get rather wet on the ride home.” Deborah looked out of the window in disappointment.
“The sky was crystal clear when we set out this afternoon,” she reminded her sister. “It truly is our fault, though: how dare we take the fine weather carriage on a fine weather day? What did we expect was going to happen?” Both ladies laughed, and as they did, Lady Eliza walked over to them.
“Did I hear correctly that you brought the phaeton this afternoon?” She asked her nieces. They both nodded, and Lady Eliza tut-tutted. “It is never a good idea to tempt the weather with such a bold decision,” she said in jest. “Why don’t you take my carriage home? I’ll send Mr. Reynolds in the phaeton tomorrow to come fetch it.” Bridget sighed with relief.
“Thank you ever so much, Aunt Eliza,” she said gratefully. “I’m not sure that my white gown would retain its opaque qualities if it were to meet with too much rain.” Lady Eliza gently swatted her niece with the fan she had in her hand, but leaned in to her and said, “But perhaps if that were the case, you’d be more likely to entice a man like Pirate Tomlinson as in the story...” Lady Eliza smiled daringly at Bridget, who looked back at her aunt with an open mouth.
“Aunt Eliza!” Deborah cried on her sister’s shocked behalf. “I never thought you’d make as improper as that!” But before any of them could continue to pretend to be offended, all three ladies dissolved into laughter. When they finally managed to catch their breath, Aunt Eliza became very serious.
“If you ever mention that jest to anyone whose company we are in tonight, I shall deny it outright. Return home safely, girls, and give my best to your father.” With that, Aunt Eliza turned away from the young women and was immediately drawn into another conversation with another lady. Bridget turned to her sister and smiled.
“Well. To the carriage, then?” Deborah gave her a relieved smile.
“To the carriage!”
Chapter 2
The rain continued to come down in sheets and made rivers along the windows of the carriage. The sky had given a few more rumbles as the women had dashed from their aunt’s estate, but thankfully there were no bright and terrifying flashes of lightning. Deborah despised storms: she thought them to be a rude interruption in her otherwise pleasant life.
Bridget, on the other hand, should have liked to dance outdoors the moment any storm arrived: she found them utterly exciting. This was, of course, because any time great and thrilling events took place in a novel, they always came in the middle of a storm of some variety. Bridget seemed to be waiting for the storm that she was certain would bring her to the great exhilarating incident of her life.
As the carriage bounced alo
ng the bumpy path back to their estate, the sisters discussed what they had heard at that afternoon’s salon of writers. “If I never have to hear another one of George Silas’ passages, it will still be too soon!” Deborah said. Bridget was delighted that her sister felt the same way about the man’s writing that she did.
“I agree; he was the least talented writer of the afternoon,” Bridget smoothed out the skirt on her gown. Seeing how sheer the individual layers of fabric were upon closer inspection, she was very grateful to her aunt for lending them her carriage.
“And I suppose you were fond of the lady writer’s tale of swashbuckling romance?” Deborah looked at her sister, unimpressed. Bridget nodded emphatically.
