The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright

  "I'm not joking. I'm very serious about the children part. And we'd best start soon. I'm not getting any younger."

  She blinked back a tear. "I'd reconciled myself to a lifetime as the maiden aunt. If you didn't want me when you returned, or . . ." Her voice failed. She swallowed a painful lump and tried again. "Or if you didn't return at all."

  She dropped her gaze to his mussed neck cloth, unable to look him in the eye for a moment. Soon she would walk down the aisle with Georgie. This wasn't the time to dissolve into tears.

  Tying his cravat made the ideal diversion. She took her time smoothing every fold and sharpening every crease. When she'd finished, she sniffed and tried to smile. "There now. All better."

  "Eliza." Devotion simmered in his gaze. "I'll never leave you again."

  He tightened his arms, plucked her off her feet, and twirled her in a circle. She landed dizzied by her short flight and absolutely muddled with love for him.

  He teased her lips with gentle kisses. "I'll wait to marry you. But I won't wait long. I've been waiting years already."

  Eliza understood, with all her heart. She'd been waiting years, too.

  "I told you I wanted a wedding day of my own." She caressed his cheek. "But that doesn't have to mean a long wait. I believe it's a different day tomorrow."

  His lips quirked in that devilish way. "So it is, my dear. So it is."

  Want more? Join Tessa Dare on a journey to Spindle Cove, where ladies with delicate constitutions come for the sea air, and men in their prime are . . . nowhere to be found.

  Or are they?

  An Excerpt from

  A NIGHT TO SURRENDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sussex, England

  Summer 1813

  Bram stared into a pair of wide, dark eyes. Eyes that reflected a surprising glimmer of intelligence. This might be the rare female a man could reason with.

  "Now, then," he said. "We can do this the easy way, or we can make things difficult."

  With a soft snort, she turned her head. It was as if he'd ceased to exist.

  Bram shifted his weight to his good leg, feeling the stab to his pride. He was a lieutenant colonel in the British army, and at over six feet tall, he was said to cut an imposing figure. Typically, a pointed glance from his quarter would quell the slightest hint of disobedience. He was not accustomed to being ignored.

  "Listen sharp, now." He gave her ear a rough tweak and sank his voice to a low threat. "If you know what's good for you, you'll do as I say."

  Though she spoke not a word, her reply was clear: You can kiss my great woolly arse.

  Confounded sheep.

  "Ah, the English countryside. So charming. So . . . fragrant." Colin approached, stripped of his London-best topcoat, wading hip-deep through the river of wool. Blotting the sheen of perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, he asked, "I don't suppose this means we can simply turn back?"

  Ahead of them, a boy pushing a handcart had overturned his cargo, strewing corn all over the road. It was an open buffet, and every ram and ewe in Sussex appeared to have answered the invitation. A vast throng of sheep bustled and bleated around the unfortunate youth, gorging themselves on the spilled grain--and completely obstructing Bram's wagons.

  "Can we walk the teams in reverse?" Colin asked. "Perhaps we can go around, find another road."

  Bram gestured at the surrounding landscape. "There is no other road."

  They stood in the middle of the rutted dirt lane, which occupied a kind of narrow, winding valley. A steep bank of gorse rose up on one side, and on the other, some dozen yards of heath separated the road from dramatic bluffs. And below those--far below those--lay the sparkling turquoise sea. If the air was seasonably dry and clear, and Bram squinted hard at that thin indigo line of the horizon, he might even glimpse the northern coast of France.

  So close. He'd get there. Not today, but soon. He had a task to accomplish here, and the sooner he completed it, the sooner he could rejoin his regiment. He wasn't stopping for anything.

  Except sheep. Blast it. It would seem they were stopping for sheep.

  A rough voice said, "I'll take care of them."

  Thorne joined their group. Bram flicked his gaze to the side and spied his hulking mountain of a corporal shouldering a flintlock rifle.

  "We can't simply shoot them, Thorne."

  Obedient as ever, Thorne lowered his gun. "Then I've a cutlass. Just sharpened the blade last night."

  "We can't butcher them, either."

  Thorne shrugged. "I'm hungry."

  Yes, that was Thorne--straightforward, practical. Ruthless.

  "We're all hungry." Bram's stomach rumbled in support of the statement. "But clearing the way is our aim at the moment, and a dead sheep's harder to move than a live one. We'll just have to nudge them along."

  Thorne lowered the hammer of his rifle, disarming it, then flipped the weapon with an agile motion and rammed the butt end against a woolly flank. "Move on, you bleeding beast."

  The animal lumbered uphill a few steps, prodding its neighbors to scuttle along in turn. Downhill, the drivers urged the teams forward before resetting their brakes, unwilling to surrender even those hard-fought inches of progress.

  The two wagons held a bounty of supplies to refit Bram's regiment: muskets, shot, shells, wool and pipeclay for uniforms. He'd spared no expense, and he would see them up this hill. Even if it took all day, and red-hot pain screamed from his thigh to his shinbone with every pace. His superiors thought he wasn't healed enough to resume field command? He would prove them wrong. One step at a time.

  "This is absurd," Colin grumbled. "At this rate, we'll arrive next Tuesday."

  "Stop talking. Start moving." Bram nudged a sheep with his boot, wincing as he did. With his leg already killing him, the last thing he needed was a pain in the arse, but that's exactly what he'd inherited, along with all his father's accounts and possessions: responsibility for his wastrel cousin, Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne.

  He swatted at another sheep's flank, earning himself an indignant bleat and a few inches more.

  "I have an idea," Colin said.

  Bram grunted, unsurprised. As men, he and Colin were little more than strangers. But during the few years they'd overlapped at Eton, he recalled his younger cousin as being just full of ideas. Ideas that had landed him shin-deep in excrement. Literally, on at least one occasion.

  Colin looked from Bram to Thorne and back again, eyes keen. "I ask you, gentlemen. Are we, or are we not, in possession of a great quantity of black powder?"

  "Tranquillity is the soul of our community."

  Not a quarter mile's distance away, Susanna Finch sat in the lace-curtained parlor of the Queen's Ruby, a rooming house for gently bred young ladies. With her were the rooming house's newest prospective residents, a Mrs. Highwood and her three unmarried daughters.

  "Here in Spindle Cove, young ladies enjoy a wholesome, improving atmosphere." Susanna indicated a knot of ladies clustered by the hearth, industriously engaged in needlework. "See? The picture of good health and genteel refinement."

  In unison, the young ladies looked up from their work and smiled placid, demure smiles.

  Excellent. She gave them an approving nod.

  Ordinarily, the ladies of Spindle Cove would never waste such a beautiful afternoon stitching indoors. They would be rambling the countryside, or sea bathing in the cove, or climbing the bluffs. But on days like these, when new visitors came to the village, everyone understood some pretense at propriety was necessary. Susanna was not above a little harmless deceit when it came to saving a young woman's life.

  "Will you take more tea?" she asked, accepting a fresh pot from Mrs. Nichols, the inn's aging proprietress. If Mrs. Highwood examined the young ladies too closely, she might notice that mild Gaelic obscenities occupied the center of Kate Taylor's sampler. Or that Violet Winterbottom's needle didn't even have thread.

  Mrs. Highwood sniffed. Although the day was mild, she fanned he
rself with vigor. "Well, Miss Finch, perhaps this place can do my Diana some good." She looked to her eldest daughter. "We've seen all the best doctors, tried ever so many treatments. I even took her to Bath for the cure."

  Susanna gave a sympathetic nod. From what she could gather, Diana Highwood had suffered bouts of mild asthma from a young age. With flaxen hair and a shy, rosy curve of a smile, the eldest Miss Highwood was a true beauty. Her fragile health had delayed what most certainly would be a stunning ton debut. However, Susanna strongly suspected the many doctors and treatments were what kept the young lady feeling ill.

  She offered Diana a friendly smile. "I'm certain a stay in Spindle Cove will be of great benefit to Miss Highwood's health. Of great benefit to you all, for that matter."

  In recent years, Spindle Cove had become the seaside destination of choice for a certain type of well-bred young lady: the sort no one knew what to do with. They included the sickly, the scandalous, and the painfully shy; young wives disenchanted with matrimony, and young girls too enchanted with the wrong men . . . All of them delivered here by the guardians to whom they presented problems, in hopes that the sea air would cure them of their ills.

  As the only daughter of the only local gentleman, Susanna was the village hostess by default. These awkward young ladies no one knew what to do with . . . she knew what to do with them. Or rather, she knew what not to do with them. No "cures" were necessary. They didn't need doctors pressing lancets to their veins, or finishing school matrons harping on their diction. They just needed a place to be themselves.

  Spindle Cove was that place.

  Mrs. Highwood worked her fan. "I'm a widow with no sons, Miss Finch. One of my daughters must marry well, and soon. I've had such hopes for Diana, lovely as she is. But if she's not stronger by next season . . ." She made a dismissive wave toward her middle daughter, who sat in dark, bespectacled contrast to her fair-haired sisters. "I shall have no choice but to bring out Minerva instead."

  "But Minerva doesn't care about men," young Charlotte said helpfully. "She prefers dirt and rocks."

  "It's called geology," Minerva said. "It's a science."

  "It's certain spinsterhood, is what it is! Unnatural girl. Do sit straight in your chair, at least." Mrs. Highwood sighed and fanned harder. To Susanna, she said, "I despair of her, truly. This is why Diana must get well, you see. Can you imagine Minerva in Society?"

  Susanna bit back a smile, all too easily imagining the scene. It would probably resemble her own debut. Like Minerva, she had been absorbed in unladylike pursuits, and the object of her female relations' oft-voiced despair. At balls, she'd been that freckled Amazon in the corner, who would have been all too happy to blend into the wallpaper, if only her hair color would have allowed it.

  As for the gentlemen she'd met . . . not a one of them had managed to sweep her off her feet. To be fair, none of them had tried very hard.

  She shrugged off the awkward memories. That time was behind her now.

  Mrs. Highwood's gaze fell on a book at the corner of the table. "I am gratified to see you keep Mrs. Worthington close at hand."

  "Oh yes," Susanna replied, reaching for the blue, leather-bound tome. "You'll find copies of Mrs. Worthington's Wisdom scattered everywhere throughout the village. We find it a very useful book."

  "Hear that, Minerva? You would do well to learn it by heart." When Minerva rolled her eyes, Mrs. Highwood said, "Charlotte, open it now. Read aloud the beginning of Chapter Twelve."

  Charlotte reached for the book and opened it, then cleared her throat and read aloud in a dramatic voice. " 'Chapter Twelve. The perils of excessive education. A young lady's intellect should be in all ways like her undergarments. Present, pristine, and imperceptible to the casual observer.' "

  Mrs. Highwood harrumphed. "Yes. Just so. Hear and believe it, Minerva. Hear and believe every word. As Miss Finch says, you will find that book very useful."

  Susanna took a leisurely sip of tea, swallowing with it a bitter lump of indignation. She wasn't an angry or resentful person, as a matter of course. But once provoked, her passions required formidable effort to conceal.

  That book provoked her, no end.

  Mrs. Worthington's Wisdom for Young Ladies was the bane of sensible girls the world over, crammed with insipid, damaging advice on every page. Susanna could have gleefully crushed its pages to powder with a mortar and pestle, labeled the vial with a skull and crossbones, and placed it on the highest shelf in her stillroom, right beside the dried foxglove leaves and deadly nightshade berries.

  Instead, she'd made it her mission to remove as many copies as possible from circulation. A sort of quarantine. Former residents of the Queen's Ruby sent the books from all corners of England. One couldn't enter a room in Spindle Cove without finding a copy or three of Mrs. Worthington's Wisdom. And just as Susanna had told Mrs. Highwood, they found the book very useful indeed. It was the perfect size for propping a window open. It also made an excellent doorstop or paperweight. Susanna used her personal copies for pressing herbs. Or occasionally, for target practice.

  She motioned to Charlotte. "May I?" Taking the volume from the girl's grip, she raised the book high. Then, with a brisk thwack, she used it to crush a bothersome gnat.

  With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table. "Very useful indeed."

  "They'll never know what hit them." With his boot heel, Colin tamped a divot over the first powder charge.

  "Nothing's going to hit them," Bram said. "We're not using shells."

  The last thing they needed was shrapnel zinging about. The charges he prepared were mere blanks--black powder wrapped in paper, for a bit of noise and a spray of dirt.

  "You're certain the horses won't bolt?" Colin asked, unspooling a length of slow-burning fuse.

  "These are cavalry-trained beasts. Impervious to explosions. The sheep, on the other hand . . ."

  "Will scatter like flies." Colin flashed a reckless grin.

  "I suppose."

  Bram knew bombing the sheep was reckless, impulsive, and inherently rather stupid, like all his cousin's boyhood ideas. Surely there were better, more efficient solutions to a sheep barricade that didn't involve black powder.

  But time was wasting, and Bram was impatient to be moving on, in more ways than one. Eight months ago, a lead ball had ripped through his right knee and torn his life apart. He'd spent months confined to a sickbed, another several weeks clanking and groaning his way down corridors like a ghost dragging chains. Some days during his convalescence, Bram had felt certain he would explode.

  And now he was so close--just a mile or so--from Summerfield and Sir Lewis Finch. Just a mile from finally regaining his command. He bloody well wouldn't be thwarted by a flock of gluttonous sheep, whose guts were likely to burst if they weren't scared off that corn.

  A good, clean blast was just what they all needed right about now.

  "That'll do," Thorne called, embedding the last charge at the top of the rise. As he pushed his way back through the sheep, he added, "All's clear down the lane. I could see a fair distance."

  "There is a village nearby, isn't there?" Colin asked. "God, tell me there's a village."

  "There's a village," Bram answered, packing away the unused powder. "Saw it on the map. Somesuch Bay, or Whatsit Harbor . . . Can't exactly recall."

  "I don't care what it's called," Colin said. "So long as there's a tavern and a bit of society. God, I hate the country."

  Thorne said, "I saw the village. Just over that rise."

  "It didn't look charming, did it?" Colin raised a brow as he reached for the tinderbox. "I should hate for it to be charming. Give me a dank, seedy, vice-ridden pustule of a village any day. Wholesome living makes my skin crawl."

  The corporal gave him a stony look. "I wouldn't know about charming, my lord."

  "Yes. I can see that," Colin muttered. He struck a flint and lit the fuse. "Fair enough."

  "Miss Finch, what a charming village." Diana Highwood clasped her hands
together.

  "We think so." Smiling modestly, Susanna led her guests onto the village green. "Here we have the church, St. Ursula's--a prized example of medieval architecture. Of course, the green itself is lovely." She refrained from pointing out the grass oval they used for cricket and lawn bowls, and quickly swiveled Mrs. Highwood away, lest she spy the pair of stockinged legs dangling from one of the trees.

  "Look up there." She pointed out a jumble of stone arches and turrets decorating the rocky bluff. "Those are the ruins of Rycliff Castle. They make an excellent place to paint and sketch."

  "Oh, how perfectly romantic." Charlotte sighed.

  "It looks damp," Mrs. Highwood pronounced.

  "Not at all. In a month's time, the castle will be the site of our midsummer fair. Families come from ten parishes, some from as far away as Eastbourne. We ladies dress in medieval attire, and my father puts on a display for the local children. He collects ancient suits of armor, you see. Among other things."

  "What a delightful notion," Diana said.

  "It's the highlight of our summer."

  Minerva peered hard at the bluffs. "What's the composition of those cliffs? Are they sandstone or chalk?"

  "Er . . . sandstone, I think." Susanna directed their attention to a red-shuttered facade across the lane. Wide window boxes spilled over with blossoms, and a gilt-lettered sign swung noiselessly in the breeze. "And there's the tea shop. Mr. Fosbury, the proprietor, makes cakes and sweets to rival any London confectionery's."

  "Cakes?" Mrs. Highwood's mouth pursed in an unpleasant manner. "I do hope you aren't indulging in an excess of sweets."

  "Oh no," Susanna lied. "Hardly ever."

  "Diana has been strictly forbidden to indulge. And that one"--she pointed out Minerva--"is tending toward stoutness, I fear."

  At her mother's slight, Minerva turned her gaze to her feet, as if she were intently studying the pebbles beneath them. Or as if she were begging the ground to swallow her whole.

  "Minerva," her mother snapped. "Posture."

  Susanna put an arm about the young woman, shoring her up. "We have the sunniest weather in all England, did I mention that? The post comes through two times a week. Can I interest you all in a tour of the shops?"