Yorkshire (34 page)

Everyone at Eyton had been kind, but I was still bemused by my fate, by the family welcoming me. I knew Richard’s family and his erstwhile lovers resented me and doubted if a country girl, who was until recently, firmly in the ranks of the gentry, would do for their son. However, if Richard’s father wanted an heir, he would have to accept his son’s choice of bride. Richard had made that clear to him.

“Lord and Lady Southwood are somewhat taken aback by their son’s sudden decision after years of urging him to marry,” I remarked.

Tom chuckled. “About as surprised as I was when you came back betrothed. All so sudden. I’d never have thought it of you, Rose.”

I didn’t want to talk about it yet, and I wasn’t sure what to tell him, how to explain it. “The state rooms are beautiful, but not as—well, impersonal as the ones at Hareton. Actually, Eyton and Hareton aren’t that far apart. Fifty miles or so, no more.”

I smiled when I remembered the short journey to Eyton and the relative privacy afforded by a travelling coach.

Tom looked at me in puzzlement. “What is it, Rose?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Lizzie and Georgiana stopped at the top of the hill. They were staring at something, but we couldn’t see what it was until we caught up with them. We followed their stares.

A solitary figure led a heavily laden packhorse; his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him. The man was dressed in a heavy serge coat, hat pulled low over his eyes. He was walking around the hill, heading for the land that belonged to Tom’s father, Sir George Skerrit, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

I realised what the man must be about, but before I could stop him, Tom called out “Hi, you!” and after thrusting the reins of his horse at his sister, he plunged down the hill.

Sometimes, the greatest casualty of war is trust.

The Scarred Heart

© 2012 Denise Patrick

Lionel Cantrell has all but given up hope of finding his missing wife and child. He left them in the care of his parents and older brother while he went abroad to fight the French, only to return to a marriage in shambles, a daughter who cannot possibly be his, and his wife and son fled to parts unknown.
 

Until now. At a former comrade’s house party, Lion comes face to face with the object of his five-year search. Emma, whose cold reception is keenly edged with barely concealed panic.

When Emma’s perfect marriage to her childhood sweetheart crumbled into an unendurable year
 
of humiliation and torment, she had no choice but to take their son—and her sanity—to build a new life under an assumed name. Her chance meeting with Lion threatens to expose long-buried emotional scars. And physical ones, the origins of which he must never know.
 

Emma’s stubborn refusal to explain why she won’t return home only fuels Lion’s relentless curiosity. So does their undeniable passion. Time is on his side, and his well of patience is deep. But Emma’s trauma runs far deeper…perhaps too deep for love to reach.
 

Warning: Contains a heroine caught in a treacherous web of deceit not of her making, two adorable children, and a hero determined enough to make things right.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Scarred Heart:

Emma was bored. Seated in a wing chair near the fireplace, she was only marginally aware of the chattering going on around her. Lady Marleton and her daughter, Annalise, sat on a sofa nearby, but those two ladies weren’t interested in including her in their conversation once they discovered she knew no one in London. She didn’t mind. They only seemed interested in the most salacious gossip about people she’d never heard of. She was glad not to have to socialize with them on a regular basis. How did Sarah put up with such empty-headedness?

Setting her cup and saucer on the table beside her chair, she soaked up the warmth of the fire and shut out Annalise’s high-pitched giggle. It wasn’t often she had time on her hands. The last two days had been relaxing and restful. Although she did miss Jamie. He, on the other hand, was likely having too much fun to have missed her much.

“Who’s that?” Annalise’s breathless question caught Emma’s attention.

“I don’t know,” was the reply. “But perhaps we should find out.” Lady Marleton made to rise, but Annalise grabbed her arm.

“He’s coming this way. Maybe Lord Royden will introduce us.”

Emma’s chair faced the two women, who faced the door. Unable to satisfy her own curiosity without bringing attention to herself, she watched the younger woman sit up straighter and paste a bright smile on her face.
Heaven help whoever it is.
She could only hope the man, for that’s surely who had captured the young woman’s attention, was already married or otherwise taken.

“Ahh, here she is,” she heard Lord Royden say. “Mrs. Laughlin, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

Wonderful,
she thought as the two women looked daggers at her. Rising from her chair, she glanced at Sarah’s husband then at the man beside him.

There was a sudden roaring in her ears as she looked up at the one person she never thought she’d see again. Her heart rate doubled, and she grabbed the back of the chair to keep herself upright. Through a fog, she heard Lord Royden make the introductions.

“Mrs. Laughlin, Viscount Lanyon. He is to be David’s godfather, so Sarah insisted I introduce you.”

Emma could not make herself move. She was aware Lord Lanyon watched her curiously, yet she instinctively knew he was as surprised as she. Her first reaction was to turn tail and run, but a quick scan of the room reminded her where she was and she squelched the impulse. She took a deep breath. Calm. She needed to calm down.

Lanyon bowed. “A pleasure, Mrs. Laughlin.” Did she imagine the slight hesitation before her name?

An automatic curtsy on wobbly legs saved her from having to speak, but not long enough for her choosing. About to stammer out something, she was saved when Lady Marleton unknowingly came to her rescue.

“You must have just arrived, my lord,” she interrupted. Emma knew by the stiffening of Lanyon’s shoulders that he did not want to turn and acknowledge the woman, but manners won out.

As stormy gray eyes slid away from hers, so did the paralysis that had stricken her. Busy gathering her skirts, she did not pay attention to the exchange between them, nor did she realize he’d turned back to her just as she was about to escape, until she looked up again. Lord Royden’s puzzled expression told her all she needed to know about her strange behavior, but she was too aware of the dismay growing inside, and that time had just run out on her freedom.

Sarah joined the small group and addressed her husband. “I see you finally found her.”

He responded with a smile. “Yes. But perhaps we should adjourn to the library to discuss tomorrow’s grand event.”

There was nothing to discuss. They all knew that. Sarah glanced from her husband, to her, to Lanyon, and came to her own conclusions. “A great idea.” She stepped between them and linked arms with Emma, drawing her away.

The cool air of the foyer dumped Emma out of her trance, and she stopped abruptly.

“Is there something wrong, Emma?” Sarah’s concerned voice told her she’d noticed Emma’s unusual behavior. “You’re looking a little pale.”

She took a deep breath and tried to still her trembling limbs.

“I’m just a bit tired. Nothing serious. I think I just need a short rest.” She turned to Sarah. “I’m not used to being around so many people. It wears on me.”

Sarah laughed. “Then ’tis good you have no need for a Season. The incessant partying is fun in the beginning, but I vow by the end of it, you are glad to be headed to the country.”

Footsteps echoed down the hall and panic engulfed her. “Please excuse me, Sarah. I will speak to you later.” Then she turned and fled up the stairs.

In the pretty blue-and-white bedroom she’d been given, she locked the door then collapsed into a chair before the fire. Once the shaking began she could not stop, and the more she tried, the worse it became. Closing her eyes did nothing, as memories rushed at her, breaking down the wall she’d erected around them, overwhelming her to the point of nausea.

“Whore!”

The voice lashed her and she flinched. Even after five years, the memory still had the ability to cause her physical pain. As the past rose up to taunt her, pain sliced through her soul, and she gasped for air as she squeezed her eyes shut. But the tears would not be held back, a deluge she was unable to contain as she relived that April day. The day she’d last seen a pair of cold, gray eyes and the look of shock, disgust and revulsion that accompanied the accusation.

Had she known that he knew Max? The name hadn’t jogged any memory when she first met Sarah, or even before when she’d met Max’s twin brother. Calderbrooke had meant nothing to her when she’d first arrived, beyond learning it was the principal seat of an earl of the same name. She’d been so relieved to have a place of her own. A place to raise her son independently, but still within the protection of her family. She hadn’t looked any farther.

Lion watched Sarah and Emma go. He and Royden followed them moments later, but not fast enough. Sarah was standing in the foyer when the two men appeared. There was a concerned expression on her face as she looked up the stairs. Emma was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” Sarah turned on her husband.

“Where?” he countered.

“In the drawing room. I’ve never seen Emma so agitated. Not even when Jamie fell out of that tree and broke his arm was she this upset.” She looked at him, wondering if he had any answers.

He did, but he wasn’t certain he was willing to tell them. Yet he knew he owed them some explanation.

“Let’s go into the library,” Royden said, turning his wife in that direction.

Once there, Max turned to Lion. “Sarah and Emma have become fast friends,” he said, “so she’s a bit over-protective. But”—he turned to Sarah—“blaming Lion is going a bit far.”

“Lion?”

He smiled. “Short for Lionel, my lady. You may call me Lion or Lanyon.”

“I see.” She studied him through pale blue eyes brimming with curiosity. “Then you may call me Sarah.” The grouping of three chairs the men had occupied earlier still sat near the fire. Sarah took one then looked up at him. “So, what did you do to terrify Emma?”

Max snorted. “He did nothing. I merely introduced them.”

Lion noted the skepticism that crossed her face. He didn’t blame her. Emma had said nothing at all, only stared at him through large green eyes in a face devoid of color. She’d managed a curtsy and, if it wasn’t for that busybody, Lady Marleton, might have responded. Her reaction left no doubt she’d been shocked at seeing him.

“I’m afraid ’tis true, my lady,” he said now, “however, I suspect Emma reacted the way she did because I was the last person she expected to see. The surprise, by the way, was mutual.”

“So, you know Emma?” she asked.

His attempt at a smile probably looked more like a grimace. He did and he didn’t. “I have been searching for her for nearly five years,” he explained instead. It was obvious he was in for a thinly veiled interrogation.

“Why?”

He glanced over at Max, who had taken the last chair but not participated in the conversation, then sighed as he turned his attention back to Sarah. Why? There were so many reasons, he didn’t know where to start. Perhaps he ought to just give her the most obvious one.

“Perhaps I just wanted to know where my wife and son were.”

Sarah sat back in her chair and frowned at him. “Emma’s a widow.” He shook his head. “Then why would she say so?”

“Perhaps she thought so,” Max spoke for the first time. “You were at Waterloo with me. There was so much confusion in the aftermath that many men were thought dead, but turned up alive, sometimes months later.”

He did not contradict Max’s plausible explanation, but Sarah wasn’t convinced.

“I thought your family name was Cantrell. Yet her name is Laughlin.”

He had no answer to that. Laughlin wasn’t even Emma’s maiden name. He had no idea where she’d gotten it.

“I have no explanation for that.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps she didn’t want to be found.”

Lady Royden was too shrewd, he realized, but there were some things she would not learn from him.

Her heart longs for justice, but her body clamors for sin.

The Runaway Countess

© 2012 Leigh LaValle

Once the darling of high society, Mazie Chetwyn knows firsthand how quickly the rich and powerful turn their backs on the less fortunate. Orphaned, penniless and determined to defy their ruthless whims, she joins forces with a local highwayman who steals from the rich to give to the poor.

Then the pawn broker snitches, and Mazie is captured by the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. A man who is far too handsome, far too observant…and surely as corrupt as his father once was.