Regency Society

‘And yet I am loathe to part with it. It got me through Talavera unscathed, and many other battles after that one. I do not need to see it, for I carried it halfway across Portugal and I memorised every line.’

‘Really.’ There was a quiet awe in her voice as she softened to him, and he knew he had won. ‘But I am not the girl in the picture any more. I have changed, Adrian.’

He eased the locket from her hand, and replaced it in his pocket, marvelling that he had not known her from the first. ‘Not as much as you think. You were beautiful then, and you are beautiful now. Emily,’ he said, enjoying the sound of the word on his lips and the little cooing noise she made when he named her. ‘Emily.’ His body tightened in anticipation, just knowing she was with him after so long. ‘Have I ever told you how completely I love you?’

‘I don’t believe you have.’ She leaned against him until his shoulders bumped against the door behind them.

‘I expect you will hear it frequently, now that I have returned to you.’ He kissed her gently, marvelling at how right it felt, holding her close, enjoying the warmth of her body, the now familiar curves of it, and the smell of her hair, and wondering why he had been foolish enough to deny himself.

And then he remembered what she had said to him on the night that they had spoken of their marriages. ‘Three times?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You told me that your husband had made love to you only three times, before leaving you.’

‘Yes, Adrian,’ she said, giving an impatient little stamp of her foot. ‘Of course, the number is greater after this week. Now it is four. Or perhaps four and a half. I am not sure how to count some of the things that have happened.’

‘But still. Three times.’ He shook his head in amazement. ‘I could swear it was more.’

‘And you would be wrong. It was only three.’ She pressed her body tight to his. ‘Now you are treating me so politely that it makes me wonder if I must force you to tend to your obligations.’

‘My obligations?’ he asked.

‘To your wife,’ she said significantly. And she slipped her hands beneath his vest, spreading her fingers over his ribs, then tugging at the tails of his shirt. She was eager for him again. And he remembered what Hendricks had said, and did his best not to wonder at the reason for it.

He stayed her hands. ‘Before we continue. When I went to White’s yesterday, I chanced to meet Rupert.’

‘How unfortunate for you,’ she responded. ‘But it explains the nonsense you were ranting at me a few hours ago. Your cousin has been harassing me endlessly in Derbyshire over your absence. You had been away so long that he had begun to doubt your existence.’ She went up on her toes to kiss him, catching his lower lip in her teeth and nibbling upon it.

‘Rupert is a blockhead,’ he muttered around the kiss, wondering if he cared one way or the other for the truth. If she meant to distract him from it, she was doing a damn fine job, for her hands had started to move again, reaching for the buttons of his trousers. ‘The next time he visits, I will box his ears and send him on his way. As I wished I could have yesterday. He was quick to offer me congratulations on the impending birth. I assured him that you told the truth, of course. And that I was very happy. As I am, of course.’ He felt her shoulders begin to shake and feared that tears were imminent. He reached up to wipe them from her cheek and his hand felt nothing but her soft, kissable skin. ‘What the devil? You are laughing at me. What do you find so amusing about this?’

‘That you insist on being so noble about my poor unwanted child.’ Her hands left his body, and he heard the rustle of her skirts and felt the hems brushing his fingers as she drew them up to her waist, then pressed his hands against her belly to prove to him that it was soft, flat and empty. ‘Have you not touched me here often enough to find the truth?’

‘I was not paying attention,’ he said. Nor was he now. He was too busy feeling the bottom of her stays, the tops of her stockings, and all the delicious flesh in between. He ran a finger under the bow in her garter. ‘This is new.’

A silk-clad leg twined about his to help her balance as she kissed his throat. ‘Your darling Emily is a virtuous lady and does not go naked beneath her gown. But there are limits to my propriety. Your tiresome cousin would not stop bothering me about his plans for the estate when he was Folbroke. So to put him off, I told him I was pregnant with your child and he had been cut out of the succession.’

‘You little liar. Do you know what agonies I went through, thinking you loved another?’

‘I suspect I do. For I have felt them every day that we have been parted.’

He winced, imagining the pain of the last day, magnified by weeks and months and years, and then pulled her close to him for a kiss that was not nearly enough to expiate it. But it seemed to help, for she purred in satisfaction against the skin of his throat. ‘Tell me, when you discovered this supposed truth about my infidelity, did you rush your mistress’s bed so that you might vent your frustrations?’

‘Perhaps,’ he admitted.

‘Then I hope that we might go back to my rooms to be alone, and that you are similarly frustrated tonight.’

He remembered their lovemaking of the previous night, and her eager response to it, after her lies to Rupert. ‘And when my cousin came back in nine months with a christening gift, where were you planning to get a baby?’

‘From you, of course. I came to London to seduce you.’

They were the last words he had thought to hear from his wife. Not unwelcome, of course. Merely unexpected. In response, his pulse increased and his mind filled with possibilities.

‘And do not tell me that you do not want a child, for I will not hear of it. Sighted or blind, it will not matter, as long as he has a strong father to show him the way.’

‘You think that, do you?’ He could not help smiling at the prospect. For a child who had such a mother could not help but grow right.

‘And his brothers and sisters as well.’

‘Brothers and sisters?’

‘You do not know it,’ she assured him, ‘but brothers, when they are not cutting up one’s peace, are a great comfort.’

‘We do not have one, yet, and you are already planning a family.’

‘And I am quite tired of planning,’ she whispered. ‘Now that you have taught me what it means to act on the desire.’

He gave a weary sigh, as though it was a burden to please her and to hide how perfectly wicked he found her plan, now that he had grown used to it. ‘You are a most trying woman, my Lady Folbroke. If that is all that will please you, then I am tired of fighting you on it. Take me, and get it over with.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’ And she was reaching for his buttons again. He grabbed for her wrists. He had not expected that she would take him seriously and now things were getting quite out of hand.

‘Emily.’ That had been a mistake. For while the feeling of her hands was making him hard, speaking that beloved name nearly made him lose control. ‘Can you not wait until I might take you to bed?’

She tugged at the end of his cravat with her teeth. ‘I have waited three years, Adrian.’ She pulled her hands up until she could kiss his fingers, sucking the tips of them into her mouth. He released her hands, trying not to imagine the lurid things that he wished to do with the mother of those future children.

He would act on them, in time. Soon, he reminded himself, firmly. Very soon. Just not now. He had a lifetime with her. Surely he could wait a few minutes, until they could go to her rooms. Or his. He withdrew his fingers and ran them over her face, tracing her smile, her cheeks, her jaw, in a chaste examination of each feature. How could he not have known this face? It should have been as familiar to him as his own. ‘You are so lovely,’ he said, trying to fill the void of neglect he had created with a more worthy emotion than lust. ‘If you mean to take the locket from me, then I must find something else to carry, so that I can share your beauty with others while I enjoy it myself. Will you sit for a cameo?’

She stepped with her little slipper-covered feet onto his boots to make it easier to kiss him. ‘What a clever idea.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ He smiled and ran a finger down her cheek. ‘Something Greek, I think. I see you posed as Athena.’

‘Aphrodite,’ she offered, ‘with bare shoulders.’

He ran his fingers lower, touching her throat. ‘And bare there as well. And here.’ His fingers touched her skirt, still raised and crushed between them, and remembered the treasures exposed beneath it. ‘Perhaps an artfully arranged drape,’ he conceded, stroking diagonally across her body until his hand rested on her bare hip.

‘And you could touch me, whenever you liked,’ she encouraged. And her hands slipped lower again.

‘This is madness,’ he said, without much conviction. ‘Stop it this instant.’

‘Why?’ she whispered.

‘Because we are in a salon and not a bedroom. It is not respectful of your brother. It is not proper.’ He tried to think of other reasons. But as she exposed him, stroked him and eased him between her legs, he did nothing to stop her.

‘And I am your wife and not your lover,’ she said, stopping herself. In her voice, he heard the hesitance and resignation that had been there on their first nights together.

She was soft, warm and willing. And he was harder than he’d ever been for her. The contact with her body made every nerve in him tingle with eagerness. The air was full of the scent of lemons, and he was wasting time with propriety. ‘You are both,’ he said. ‘Wife and lover. Let me prove it to you.’ Then he leaned back against the door, shifted his weight, bent his knees, found her body and lost himself.

The next minutes were a blur. His hand behind her knee. Her leg wrapped around his hip. His hand on her breast. Her mouth on his, kissing as though she could suck the life from him. And their bodies meeting, over and over in subtle, silent thrusts so as not to summon the servants or alert his childhood friend to the delightful debauchery taking place in his home. And all the while, the thought echoing in his head was that most men would give two good eyes for the opportunity to have a woman like this, even for a single night.

But the lascivious creature panting out her climax in his ear was his wife. His Emily. Emily. Emily. And he finished in her with a soul-wrenching shudder, and a single rattle of the door that they rested against. As their bodies calmed, he held her, amazed.

Behind them, the door rattled, and bounced against his shoulders as though someone was attempting to open it. ‘What the devil?’

‘David,’ Adrian said, remembering why he had resisted this interlude. ‘A moment, please.’

‘Folbroke?’ There was a moment of suspicious silence. ‘And I suppose my sister is in there with you.’

He smiled, and said, ‘My wife. Yes.’

‘We are working out our differences,’ Emily said, with the smallest sway of her hips before she parted from him and let her skirts fall back into place with a rustle.

‘But must you do it in the salon?’ David muttered from the hall.

His wife was giggling into his lapel and smoothing his clothing back into place as he said, ‘My apologies for the momentary lapse of judgement, Eston. It was …’ he rolled his eyes towards heaven for the benefit of Emily ‘… unavoidable. In a moment, we will be retiring to Emily’s rooms, and will bother you no further.’

‘But perhaps you might join us for dinner,’ Emily offered.

‘Later in the week,’ Adrian added.

‘Several days from now,’ she corrected.

From the other side of the door, there was a disgusted snort and the sound of retreating footsteps. Emily burst into another fit of giggling, then she was reaching for him again.

This time he stopped her, ignoring her pouts and the demands of his own body. ‘Lady Folbroke, your behaviour is disgraceful.’ And then he whispered in her ear, ‘And I was a fool to have run from you.’

‘Yes, you were,’ she agreed. ‘But you are my fool, and you will not get away from me again.’

‘Quite true.’ He grinned. ‘Thanks to you, I think I will be the first in a long line of Folbrokes to die in his bed.’

Proposals in Regency Society

Make-Believe Wife

The Homeless Heiress

Anne Herries

ANNE HERRIES lives in Cambridgeshire, England, where she is fond of watching wildlife and spoils the birds and squirrels that are frequent visitors to her garden. Anne loves to write about the beauty of nature and sometimes puts a little into her books, although they are mostly about love and romance. She writes for her own enjoyment and to give pleasure to her readers. She is a winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association® Romance Prize.

Make-Believe Wife

Anne Herries

Prologue

‘Damn you, sir. I have had enough of your wild behaviour,’ the Earl of Hartingdon thundered at his grandson. ‘I shall not tolerate the disgrace you have brought upon us.’

‘Forgive me,’ Luke, Viscount Clarendon, said and looked contrite. ‘This should never have come to your ears. Rollinson was a fool and a knave to come prattling to you, sir.’

Tall and almost painfully thin, yet with a commanding presence, the earl’s bushy white eyebrows met in a frown of disapproval.

‘Do you deny that you seduced the man’s wife?’

Luke hesitated. The truth of the matter was that he had no idea whether or not he had seduced Adrina Rollinson. The evening in question was hazy to say the least. He had been three sheets to the wind and, when he’d woken to find himself lying next to the naked and undoubtedly voluptuous beauty, he had hardly been given time to wonder before her husband came storming into the summerhouse to demand satisfaction.

‘I can only tell you that I have no memory of it happening, sir.’

‘What sort of an answer is that, pray?’ the earl demanded. ‘You puzzle me, Luke. You have had every advantage and yet you insist on carrying your wildness to excess. If you cannot recall making love to a woman like Lady Rollinson, you must have been drunk.’

‘Indeed, that I shall own,’ Luke said instantly. ‘I would not call the lady a liar, but I doubt I was capable of making love that night.’

‘I suppose your taste is for whores?’

‘I do not know what you may have been told of me, sir, but I assure you I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.’

‘Indeed? I know that you have bought a house and intend to set up your mistress in Hampstead.’ The earl’s top lip curled in scorn. ‘You are a disgrace to your family. Thank God your parents did not live to see what you have become.’

‘Perhaps had they lived I might have been otherwise.’

‘Are you blaming me? Impudent pup!’ The earl’s eyes darkened with temper. ‘Well, sir, I have done with you. It was in my mind to make you my sole heir, for although the estate is entailed, the patent allows the title to pass through the female line and my fortune is my own to dispose of as I wish. However, I have a cousin who would restore both honour and fortune to the family name.’

‘Horatio Harte, I presume? I wish you joy of him, sir.’ Luke’s temper was barely in check. ‘Good afternoon. I shall not trouble you with my presence again.’

‘I did not give you leave to go.’

‘Yet I believe I shall. You have never liked me, sir. I have done things of which I am not particularly proud, but I am not the rogue you think me.’

‘Come back here!’ The earl’s voice rose petulantly. ‘You will hear me out. I shall give you one more chance, but you must marry a decent girl—one with perfect manners who knows how to behave in good society. I need an heir I can be proud of before I die.’

Luke turned at the door, denial on his lips. He would marry when and whom he wished and meant to say so, but even as he began the earl made a choking sound and sank slowly to his knees before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

‘Grandfather! Someone, give me some help in here.’

Luke rushed to his grandfather’s side. Rolling him on his back, he saw that his colour was slightly blue and acted swiftly in untying the tight starched cravat at his neck. He felt for a pulse and discovered a faint beat and yet his grandfather did not appear to be breathing. He was for a moment unsure of what to do for the best; then, recalling something he had once witnessed a vet do for the foal of an important mare, he opened his grandfather’s mouth and made sure there was no obstruction in the throat. Then he pinched the earl’s nostrils and breathed into his mouth. Luke repeated the action three times and noticed that a more natural colour had returned, though he had no idea if his actions had helped.

A voice spoke from behind him. ‘He has had one of his attacks, my lord. He will recover in a moment.’

‘He just keeled over. I thought he was dead or dying.’

‘Milord has had one or two close calls, sir. Nasty little attacks that the doctor can’t quite make out.’

‘Why was I not told?’ Luke rose to his feet. The colour was back in the earl’s cheeks now.

‘He did not wish to bother you, sir.’

‘The stubborn fool—’ Luke began and stopped as he heard a sound. The earl had his eyes open. He was staring up at them.

‘Don’t just stand there, fool. Help me up, Marshall.’

‘You should have told me you were ill, Grandfather.’

‘Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing. As you see, I am perfectly fine now.’

Luke and the butler helped him to his feet and assisted him to a sturdy mahogany elbow chair. Luke felt his body trembling and realised how thin and frail his grandfather had become. When had this happened? Why had he not noticed?

‘Forgive me, sir. Had I known you were ill…’

‘What? Would you have mended your ways?’ The elderly man’s eyes gleamed. ‘Want to make amends, eh? You know my terms. Get yourself wed and give me an heir.’

‘I am sorry you are ill, but I shall not make a promise I cannot keep. However, I will promise not to become so drunk that I do not recall with whom or where I go to bed.’

‘Not enough,’ the earl growled. ‘Leave me to Marshall and come back when you have a wife.’

‘Grandfather, that is unfair,’ Luke protested, for he was genuinely upset by the news of the earl’s ill health.

‘Unless you oblige me I shall not leave you a penny—and, what’s more, I’ll tell the lawyers to cut the allowance you receive from your paternal grandfather’s fortune.’

‘You cannot do that, sir. I have commitments…’

‘To your mistress, I suppose? Well, the choice is yours, Luke. The terms of the Marquis’s will state that I can limit your income until you are thirty if I so choose. I have never done so, but now I shall make a change. I need an heir soon, Luke—and I want you to give me a grandson. Marry well and everything will be as it was. Turn your back on me now and you’ll find yourself short in the pocket. Show me that you intend to settle down and make me proud of you.’

Luke hesitated, a grim set to his mouth. Had he not just witnessed his grandfather’s collapse he would have told him to go to the devil and bought himself a pair of colours while he still had the money. Yet despite his harsh words, there was something vulnerable about the earl, something that made Luke realise that deep within him he cared what happened to the old devil.

‘I must have time to think this over, sir.’

‘Yes, of course, and to find a suitable girl—but do not take too long, Luke. I may not have more than a year or so left to me.’

Luke inclined his head and left, feeling his temper surge as he curled his nails into the palms of his hand. He ought to walk out and never return. The lawyers would probably tell him that the earl was lying through his teeth—yet if it were the truth Luke would be in trouble.

He had made a promise to his best friend and nothing would make him break it.

Chapter One

Roxanne glanced back over her shoulder, listening for the sounds of pursuit, but all she could hear were birds calling one to the other as they flitted between the trees and the occasional snuffle of a small animal in the undergrowth. The woods themselves held no fear for her, but she was afraid of being made to return to the camp.

She had been walking for hours without stopping, but now she was hungry. She was fairly certain that no one had followed her. It must be safe now to stop and eat some of the food she had packed. Placing her larger bundle on the ground, Roxanne spread her shawl on the dry earth and sat down, opening the cloth that carried her bread, cheese and the preserved fruit she had brought with her. Sofia had always kept a jar of dried fruits on her shelf, because she said figs, dates and apricots were good to eat in the winter when they could not pick fruit from the hedgerows.

She missed Sofia so much! Her friend’s sad death had left her alone and in fear of the future. She had no one who cared for her and no one to care for. She was not sure which felt the worst, because she had enjoyed caring for her friend in her last months when she became too feeble to care for herself.

Blinking away her tears, Roxanne rose to her feet and gathered her bundles. Sofia had been one of a band of travelling players, almost a mother to her, and she had given Roxanne so much, even her name.

‘If anything happens to me you should go to London,’ Sofia had told her only a few days before she died. ‘You are a fine actress, my love. You could find fame and fortune—and perhaps marry a man of substance and be the lady I believe you truly are.’

Roxanne had begged her not to talk of dying, tears stinging her eyes, but after her death it had become clear that Roxanne could not stay with the band of travelling players with whom she had lived for the past five years. She was in danger and her only choice was to run away before he returned to the camp.

She had made up her mind that she would get to London if she could, though it would mean walking for many days, perhaps weeks. Before she reached the great city, she would need to find work for a few days to earn her food.

Lost in thought, she was startled as she heard a loud cry and then a horse came crashing through the trees towards her. It was saddled, but without a rider, its reins hanging loose, and she realised that someone must have fallen.

Instinctively, she ran in the direction from which the cry had seemed to come. She had gone only a few yards when she saw a man lying on the ground. His eyes were closed and his face looked pale. Her heart caught and for a moment she thought he was dead. Dropping her bundles, she knelt by his side and touched his face. He felt warm and she drew a breath of relief. His fingers were moving and he was still breathing, though seemed unaware of her. He must have been knocked unconscious by the fall from his horse.

She hesitated, then unwound his white stock from his neck; taking out her precious store of water, she poured some of it onto the fine linen and began to bathe his face. His lips moved, a groan issuing from him, then his eyes flickered open and he looked up at her.

‘What happened?’ he muttered. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Roxanne. I think you fell from your horse. It came rushing at me through the trees and I heard your cry.’

‘It was the fox,’ he said and pushed up into a sitting position. His dark grey eyes fixed on her face. ‘It started up just in front of us. I tried to stop, but I was riding hard and the stupid horse reared up in a fright.’

‘The horse was startled. They are nervous creatures, sir. If you were riding too hard, the fault was yours.’

‘The devil it was.’ His slate-coloured eyes narrowed, became intent and suspicious. ‘What is a lady like you doing alone in these woods—dressed like that?’

Roxanne hesitated, for to tell him her true story was too risky. She did not know him and should use caution. He was undoubtedly a gentleman and Sofia had warned her to be careful of the gentry, for they were not to be trusted.