EXCERPT CHAPTER
1England, 1788
She’d haunted his dreams for years.
Auburn curls and sherry-colored
eyes. A singularly wicked smile, tilting up higher on one side to expose a dimple. A spray of freckles across her bosom: A
constellation designed by God to tempt a man’s thoughts below her décolletage.
Another man’s
wife.
Of all the unfortunate things Ivo Dauntry had learned about himself over the years, the fact that he could lust
after someone else’s wife should have been minor. Should have been nothing beside the fact that he could kill a man,
thwart his grandfather’s will, break his mother’s heart, and never look back. But it wasn’t the face of
the man he’d killed or the mother he’d disappointed that swam through his dreams night after night.
It
was hers.
Mrs. Lionel Exley’s.
In his dreams she was nothing like the proper newlywed who had actually
existed, barely more than a girl, excited to be flexing her wings on her first visit to Paris. No, the siren in his dreams
had eyes that brimmed with the shared knowledge of lust. Her smile seeming to promise everything he’d ever wanted. But
she always remained just out of reach.
A temptress. A tease. A practiced coquette.
None of it was real, but
he’d had the same dream so many times now that it felt real. Her seduction had become a memory as clear as his first
pony, as treasured as his first lover, as sensual as the first time he’d plunged naked into the warm water of the Mediterranean.
Mrs. Lionel Exley. The woman standing across the prize-fighter’s ring at this very moment, casually clinging
to the arm of a man who was certainly not her husband.
The only woman whose virtue he’d ever defended. An action
which had cost him dearly. Career. Family. Friends. He’d lost them all. No, not lost. He’d sacrificed them for
her, like a lamb on an alter to a biblical god.
And all this time he’d thought it had been worth it.
His
fist clenched around his purse, coins biting into his palm. The sea of humanity pressing in on him blurred and spun momentarily
before the pain in his hand grounded him again.
Nothing in his dreams had been real, but watching her now, it was as
though he’d somehow conjured her. Given the dream form. She turned and said something to the man on the other side of
her, the column of her neck twisting, swan-like, elegantly pale against the dark fur tippet wrapped around her throat.
He
swallowed thickly, lust rushing through him, liquid fire from heart to groin.
Where the devil was her husband?
She
shone like a beacon. Red habit blazing out against the dull blues and browns of the greatcoats surrounding her like the breast
of a pheasant when it launches itself into the sky.
Magnificent.
Her breath escaped in a white cloud, mingling
with her escort’s reply. She smiled, and Ivo could swear he heard the accompanying laugh carry over the dull roar of
the crowd. It reached right inside him, grabbed hold till he could hardly draw breath. He wrenched his gaze away, forcing
his attention to the combatants as they prepared for the match.
She wasn’t any of his business.
The champion,
Tom Johnson, was bantering with the young Prince of Wales, while his challenger stood by like a lump. It didn’t look
as though Johnson had much to worry about. The upstart was large, but beefy and slow. Ponderous, like a dray horse.
Ivo
shifted his weight, stamping his feet on the cold ground. The damp was seeping up uncomfortably through the soles of his boots.
He’d almost forgotten what autumn was like in England. A riot of color in the trees. Frost on the ground like sugar
dusted on a pastry.
He was home again. Reluctantly returned from Italy to the not so welcoming embrace of his family,
with the uncomfortable status of heir to his grandfather. The Earl of Somercote. Courtesy title for the Marquis of Tregaron’s
heir. It was his now.
He simply couldn’t get used to it. Nor did he want it. He’d been plain Mr. Dauntry
for almost thirty-five years, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t seem to answer to anything else. Couldn’t
step into his cousin’s shoes without feeling the pinch, without his grandfather reminding him how unfit he’d already
proved himself to be.
And the proof was right there across the ring.
All around him bets were being furiously
laid as the two combatants stripped to the waist: shucking coats, waistcoats and shirts; tying their cravats about their waists
to hold up their breeches. Routine enough for a prize fight, but it suddenly seemed highly unsuitable with Mrs. Exley present.
What on earth was she doing here? What kind of lunatic brought a woman to a mill? Any woman, let alone a respectable
one.
Unless she wasn’t.
Respectable anymore, that was. He hadn’t seen her since Paris, and a lot
could change in six years. He didn’t want to believe that she could have. He couldn’t.
His friend Bennett
jostled his arm. “You didn’t follow Rivers’ advice and put your blunt on the challenger, did you?”
“No.” Ivo rolled his shoulders, trying to relax, to keep his attention away from the woman across the ring.
“But what odds will you give me on that great lump going at least ten rounds?”
Bennett looked the challenger
up and down, assessing. “Not a chance. I’ll bet you fifty pounds he doesn’t make it even three. Johnson
has a punishing left.”
While Bennett loudly sized the pugilists up, arguing the finer points with the men surrounding
them, Ivo’s gaze slid back to Mrs. Exley, back to the rakish buck who was watching over her with a proprietary air.
The man wore his cocked hat angled low over his brow, gilt trim winking as he dropped his head to hear her over the crowd.
His leather great coat gaped, reveling a flash of puce coat, embroidered in darker browns and gold.
The way she stood,
arm tucked into her gallant’s, was an affront to the sacrifices he had made. She had no right to flaunt herself about
like a fallen woman. No right to be such. If nothing else she owed him purity.
As he studied the pair of them, she
glanced across the ring and her eyes met his for the briefest of moments. Her face paled, then she looked away, turning her
attention back to her cicisbeo.
Ivo’s stomach clinched. Fury rushed through him—a hot, burning tide—mingling
with an almost violent repulsion. What had she become?
He was barely aware of the match as it commenced. The combatants,
the din of the crowd, the jostling, raging, swirling humanity surrounding him, it all simply faded away, nothing but a fantastical
stage set for the woman standing across the ring. She was the only thing that was real. The only thing that mattered.
A
scant fifteen rounds later the match was over, the challenger bloody and beaten. Howls of anger mingled with cheers. Fights
broke out in several places, causing the mob to shift and push. Across the ring Mrs. Exley’s companion wrapped one arm
familiarly about her waist and turned to escort her from the field.
Ivo shut his eyes for a moment, resisting the urge
to plunge into the crowd after her. He’d given up everything for her, and it stung to realize that sacrifice didn’t
give him the right to demand an explanation today. It didn’t give him any rights at all.
As he collected his
winnings, he glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder, trying to catch one last glimpse of her.
“She’s
gone,” Bennett said with a sly smile, thrusting a wad of bank notes at him.
“Who’s gone?”
His
friend’s smile widened, reveling the perfect teeth for which he was justifiably famous. “The only woman out here.
The one you’ve been staring at for the last hour or more.”
“You know her?”
It didn’t
matter that Bennett knew her. Didn’t matter that he’d seen her again. Or that some man had succeeded in giving
her husband a pair of horns. It didn’t matter that their attraction was every bit as strong as he remembered.
He
ran his tongue over his teeth. His mouth was chalky. Bitter. He needed a drink. A very large one.
“Everyone knows
her.” Bennett tossed back the ruffles at his wrist and pulled a flask from one capacious pocket. “That was Georgianna
Exley. One of the most outrageous widows in England.” He removed the top and took a drink before holding the flask out
to Ivo. “It’s rumored she has rules for taking a lover, the most pernicious of which is that she only grants the
men she chooses as many nights in her bed as they roll on a die.”
“Widow?” Ivo swallowed hard, heart
hammering in his ears. That single word reverberating through his whole body, echoes cascading like a stone dropped into a
well.
“Widow,” Bennett repeated absently, thrusting the flask into his hand. “You can meet her tomorrow
if you’ve a mind to. She’s sure to be another guest at Lord Glendower’s shooting party. The earl’s
her father-in-law.”
Ivo stared hard at the crowd, searching to no avail for her fur trimmed hat in the sea of
humanity headed back towards the village. He glanced down at his hand, realized he was holding Bennett’s flask, and
tossed back what was left of the brandy. The heady fumes filled his nose, the liquid burned a slow track all the way down
in to his belly.
A widow.
***
“George, who
the devil is that man across the ring? The tall fellow staring at us.”
Georgianna Exley glanced up before following
Gabriel’s gaze across the straw strewn ring where the two prize fighters were being helped from their coats.
Her
eyes met those of the man Gabriel was glaring at and she glanced away immediately, her hands suddenly cold. Her head buzzed
as though she might faint.
Dauntry. His name was Dauntry.
Her breakfast swirled about in her stomach and she
swallowed convulsively. She was not going to throw up. She was not going to faint. Not here.
“I haven’t
the slightest idea,” she replied, pressing slightly closer to Gabe, burrowing into his reassuring warmth. Around them
people eyed her and Gabe askance. Dauntry’s look of disgust was reflected in many other pairs of eyes.
She
didn’t belong here. No woman did. And her oldest friend was not well liked. Too handsome. Too foreign in a myriad of
subtle ways: Honey skin and almond eyes from his Turkish mother, an air of French dandification from his ambassador father.
He was her rock. The one constant in her life. The only man she’d ever known who hadn’t deserted her in
some way.
George tilted her head, peeking around Gabe’s shoulder, and studied Dauntry for a moment. He looked
very much as she remembered: Tall enough to be imposing, his own black curls tied back in a queue, eyes that seemed almost
as dark. His face was lean, the planes angular, the features sculpted. He was only saved from the epithet pretty by his sheer
size and the thin scar that cut down along his left cheekbone. A swordsman’s scar, received in her honor . . . she bit
her lip and looked away.
She didn’t want to remember Paris or anything about it. She could have handled Blanchot
herself. Lord knew she’d fended off enough drunken advances over the years, but Dauntry had stumbled upon them and without
so much as a word he’d pulled Blanchot off of her and knocked him to the ground, sending the older man’s wig flying.
What began with fists had ended with swords. The flash of steel wicked in the scant light provided by artfully placed
lamps. Blanchot’s lips had been wet with blood-flecked foam by the time the ambassador and the rest of Dauntry’s
party had arrived on the scene and her world had spun out of control. She could still picture Blanchot’s wig lying abandoned
on the ground, sullied and trod upon.
As ambassador, Lord Fitzherbert might have been able to arrange everything to
keep that night’s events quiet—it was amazing what money, power, influence, and sheer force of will could achieve—but
his machinations hadn’t prevented the worst of it: The look of disquiet in her husband’s eyes. Just because no
scandal had broken over her—over them—didn’t mean she’d forgotten—or forgiven—the events
of that night.
