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Unlaced by Candlelight - Кэрол Мортимер - Читать любовный роман онлайн в женской библиотеке LadyLib.Net
Unlaced by Candlelight - Кэрол Мортимер - Скачать любовный роман в женской библиотеке LadyLib.Net
Мортимер Кэрол
Unlaced by Candlelight
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The London home of Lady Jocelyn Ambrose, Dowager Countess of Chambourne.
* * *
“—and the wedding is to be next month,” Lady Jocelyn concluded gleefully to her two closest friends.
“But Chambourne is not marrying the woman you had chosen to become his future wife?” Lady Cicely Hawthorne said doubtfully.
“Well. No.” Some of Lady Jocelyn’s glee abated. “He did not care for Lady Vanessa at all. But he is to marry. Which, after all, is what we had all decided upon, is it not?” Both ladies turned to the silent Dowager Duchess of Royston for confirmation.
“Yes. Yes,” Edith St. Just acknowledged briskly. “Although I agree with Cicely, in that it would be more of a triumph if Chambourne had decided upon the lady you had chosen for him.”
Lady Jocelyn looked suitably deflated. “Perhaps one of you will be more success in that regard than I.”
“I am not at all sure of any degree of success in regard to Thorne,” Lady Cicely admitted heavily. “Since his first wife died four years ago, he has shown a decided aversion to the very idea of remarrying.”
“And yet he must, for he is in need of an heir, the same as our own two grandsons,” the dowager duchess dismissed briskly.
Lady Jocelyn looked at her curiously. “How go your own efforts in regard to Royston?”
“Nicely, thank you.” Edith St. Just nodded regally.
“You believe he will marry the woman of your choice?” Lady Cicely looked suitably impressed.
“I am sure of it, yes.”
“How confident are you of that?” Lady Jocelyn challenged daringly, still feeling slightly stung in regard to her friends’ reaction to her news of Chambourne’s forthcoming marriage to Lady Sylviana Moorland, the Countess of Ampthill.
“So confident,” the dowager duchess assured haughtily, “that I am willing to write that lady’s name on a piece of paper this very minute and leave it in the safekeeping of your butler, only to be returned and read by all of us when Royston announces his intention of marrying.”
“Is that not rather presumptuous of you, Edith?” Lady Cicely raised skeptical brows.
“Not in the least,” the dowager duchess dismissed briskly. “In fact, call for Edwards and we shall do it now. This very minute.”
Ellie, sitting in her usual place in the window beside Miss Thompson and Mrs. Spencer, could only watch with a sinking heart as Edith St. Just did exactly as she had said she would.
Could only wonder as to the name of the lady—and secretly envy her—written on that innocuous piece of paper, which was taken away by Lady Jocelyn’s butler some minutes later...
As she knew beyond a doubt that it would not be her own name.
Despite the fact she had fallen in love with the arrogantly disdainful Justin St. Just several months ago...
* * * * *
Bronwyn Scott
London, 1839
Former cavalry officer Captain Grahame Westmore is restless for change, but escorting a diplomat’s spoiled daughter to Vienna isn’t what he had in mind—though for once he hasn’t been hired for his skills in pleasuring women! Independent, fiery and strong willed, Elowyn Bagshaw is not the simpering lady he expected. Used to getting her own way and giving the orders, Elowyn will not be controlled so easily. Grahame soon realizes that he’s got a fight on his hands—and it’s one they’re both going to enjoy!
Rakes Who Make Husbands Jealous
Only London’s best lovers need apply!
Meet our next gentleman escort, Captain Grahame Westmore—or perhaps you remember him from before? Grahame made an appearance in Nick’s story, Secrets of A Gentleman Escort, at the house party. Now he’s back in a story of his own.
He’s off to Vienna to take up a position at the Spanish Riding School, but on the way he has to escort a diplomat’s daughter to her father’s latest posting. He thinks he knows all there is to know about diplomats’ daughters, but nothing has prepared him for Elowyn. She’s strong, determined and passionate. She’s a woman who takes what she wants, and she wants him! Grahame has met his match when he least expected it.
The story is a sexy road-trip romp but, underneath it all, a reminder that love can find you when you least expect it, and sometimes making the choice to love is the toughest decision of all.
Enjoy!
I’ll see you on my blog at bronwynswriting.blogspot.com.
For my friends Leslie and Jim. Just because.
London, Fall 1839
Some men thrived in peacetime. Captain Grahame Westmore definitely wasn’t one of them. His army, the Queen’s army, didn’t need him anymore and four years of London life had left him restless for a change. That restlessness caused him to eye the file on Channing Deveril’s desk with a mixture of suspicion and anticipation as he paced the league’s office. Would the next assignment be the adventure he was looking for? He doubted it. His work for the league was starting to pale, not that he’d ever tell Channing. He probably didn’t have to. Channing likely already knew.
“Go ahead, open it.” Channing grinned and sat back in his chair, hands steepled in supreme confidence. Someone who didn’t know Channing well would take that grin as a sign of complete unawareness to the restlessness plaguing him. But Grahame knew better. Channing was not given to obliviousness. It would be a mistake to assume otherwise. As the founder of the League of Discreet Gentlemen, an underground organization dedicated to the pursuit of women’s pleasure, Channing prided himself on perfectly matching his men to their missions. As a result, Grahame’s senses were on high alert. What was he about to be matched with? Or more appropriate, to whom?
Grahame picked up the folder with healthy skepticism. Something was definitely afoot. Channing was far too smug this morning. He opened the folder and scanned the brief for pertinent information. Details could come later. He saw all he needed to make his decision. He slid the folder back across the desk and gave Channing his one-word answer. “No.”
“No?” Channing arched a blond eyebrow. “Care to have a seat and tell me why? You’ll wear me out with all that pacing.”
Grahame took the chair. He could humor Channing in that respect, at least. He was not taking this assignment. “I’m a cavalry officer not a nursemaid.”
“Ex-cavalry officer,” Channing corrected. “And I think your skills in that regard make you the ideal candidate. I admit it’s not our usual. We’re escorts, not bodyguards, but when this opportunity came up in conversation I immediately thought of you.”
Grahame sat up a little straighter, instantly wary. Now they were getting somewhere. “You didn’t already commit me without my approval?” It was one of the rules of the league that no one be forced into an assignment. In their line of work, where assignments ranged anywhere from providing an innocuous escort to an opera or ball to more physically intimate engagements, consent was essential.
Channing gave an easy shrug. “I simply told the people in question I might have a man for them.”
“Then you can tell them you were mistaken. I am qualified to lead men in battle, not play governess to a diplomat’s spoiled daughter,” Grahame replied firmly. Squiring a diplomat’s daughter to her father’s new post was not his idea of anything remotely positive. He knew the sort. He’d seen how diplomats traveled during his time in the military. He wouldn’t just be moving a daughter. He’d be shepherding a household. She’d come with wagons of luggage, carriages of servants and an attitude to match. These daughters were the children of second and third sons, often raised with an eye toward privilege as granddaughters of earls and viscounts. As such, Grahame found them to be usually unsuited for the difficulties of travel.
“I must respectfully disagree with your assessment.” Channing remained unfazed by his firm response. “You are not giving yourself enough credit. If you can organize a troop of men on horseback in the melee of battle, I would think moving one woman and her luggage would be easily done. Additionally, you’re competent with a variety of arms and could defend her little cavalcade if necessary.”
Now that pricked. “Competent? I am more than competent with pistols and saber.” It was a point of pride that he was known in high military circles for his skill with weapons on horseback. He’d worked hard for that reputation, learning early on that without a title, perfection was his only route to respect.
Channing just smiled. “Exactly. As I said, you’re perfect. Don’t you even want to know where she’s going?”
“It won’t make a difference.” There was only one place Grahame wanted to go, only one place that had any need for his unique skills, but it was a continent away and it would mean leaving Channing, something he was reluctant to do. It would leave Channing shorthanded at the agency. Channing had always been loyal to him. Now he had a chance to return the favor by staying.
“I think it will,” Channing said quietly. Grahame tried not to shift in his seat. Channing’s incessant smiling was making him nervous. He liked Channing Deveril immensely but Channing had an unnerving talent to literally read people like books, which was a good thing, Grahame reasoned, because Channing didn’t read. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read, the man was certainly literate, he simply didn’t. But that talent was deuced awkward when it was turned on him. It meant Channing knew something he did not and that made Grahame uneasy, indeed.
“All right then, tell me.” The room had suddenly become fraught with an invisible air of anticipation. Grahame far preferred the foe he could see.
Channing pulled out another file from his desk. He pushed it toward him and spoke one word into the tense silence. “Vienna.”
Of all the words Channing could have spoken, this was the one he couldn’t resist. Vienna, home of the Spanish riding school, the very place that had written two weeks ago and asked him to come for an interview on the eighteenth of the month. They thought perhaps they could use an instructor of his caliber on horseback and with his distinct specialty in sabrage, a gentleman’s art to be sure.
Vienna represented everything he’d been chasing since he’d known what it was he hungered for—the chance to belong, the type of belonging that came with a sense of permanence and respect, not because of birth but because of skill.
Grahame blew out a breath and gave in to the urge to shift in his seat. He crossed and recrossed his legs. He wasn’t like the others here: not like Channing, an earl’s second son, or Jocelyn Eisley, heir to an earldom, or even the recently married and retired Nicholas D’Arcy who was at least the son of gentry. He, Grahame Westmore, was nothing. He’d earned his commission, not bought it. He’d fought for his leg up in the world every step of the way. To have been an English officer and to now be invited to the Spanish riding school in Vienna, was the best he could hope for, a dream, really, for a boy of his humbling beginnings.
“You know very well what that means to me,” Grahame said slowly. “I would escort the devil himself in order to get to Vienna.”
Channing nodded. “Then I’ll take that as a yes. But you’re cutting it pretty fine. They’ll expect you to arrive on time if you’re serious.”
Grahame gave a tight grimace. He knew what it meant to escort the devil. There’d be hell to pay.
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