Books

Taste of Liberty by Nancy Hunter

Coming July 17, 2008!

ISBN: 978 14199 17394

In a time of war and hope, loss and redemption, death and rebirth, tragedy unites two enemies who seek vengeance and find love, only to learn that it was never their destiny to be together…

Liberty MacRae, daughter of an American Revolutionary, and Sebastian Cole, a British soldier, share a vendetta against the brutal British commander who killed their loved ones. Each brings a special gift to their quest – Liberty has a second sight that allows her to predict death, and Sebastian is a Fated One, a man who died before he could kill his enemy and has been sent back by the spirits to complete the task. When they fall in love, they have to find a way to defeat not only the murderer, but destiny as well, a destiny that demands that Sebastian either forfeit his life to defeat his enemy or forfeit his soul. Can they find a way to change their destiny before Liberty’s most harrowing premonition - that of her lover’s death - comes true?

Excerpts

Opening Scenes

November, 1777, Virginia Frontier

Sebastian was looking for signs of life. There were only broken bodies, empty eyes. He walked among smoldering embers that hours earlier had been a peaceful village. More than once he dropped to his knees, sobbed, entreated and cursed the spirits in turn.

When he found Sunflower, he knelt beside her and cradled her in his arms. Her skin was smooth and cold, like marble. He pressed her eyelids closed and kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of her dried sweat and tears. He touched her forehead and covered his fingers in her blood, then smeared it on his cheeks like war paint.

His rational soldier’s mind dictated what he should do. Return to the fort, report the incident, request permission to take out a search party to hunt down the murderers. But his broken warrior’s heart would not stand reason.

He bent to the ground, struggling to distinguish their tracks in the low light of gathering dusk. Darkness would make it more difficult to follow the trail of the killers, but it would also force them to stop soon to make camp.

Sebastian swung up onto his mount and prodded the horse to a full gallop.The cold autumn air cut through his buckskins and dried the blood on his cheeks into stiff clumps. Her blood, her life, her child. Sebastian would give his own life to avenge them.

He came upon the men less than an hour’s ride away. When he had lost their tracks, he had followed the acrid smell of their campfire. Now as he crouched in the brush near their encampment, Sebastian watched them gather around the fire with their red coats unbuttoned, their blood-covered hands rummaging through the pelts, tools and weapons they had stolen from the village. In the center of the butchers stood their leader, a man Sebastian recognized by reputation.

Long and lean, with dark hair and a closely cropped beard, Colonel Reginald Winters resembled the devil himself. The man was the root of all the evil gathered around him. He was the beating heart of the beast that had destroyed those innocent lives. And now he was the sole target of Sebastian’s rage. Winters’ men would close in around Sebastian as soon as the deed was done, but that was of no consequence, as long as Winters no longer lived and breathed.

Sebastian had no concept of time as he lay in wait, watching his enemy’s every move. Minutes could have passed, or hours, but finally the time came. Winters moved away from the fire, away from the men and the few makeshift tents, into the woods alone.

In a flash, Sebastian covered the ground between them. His knife was already poised. The tip met flesh and bone, skidded off teeth as he stabbed wildly and cut Winters’ face, then aimed for his heart.

“God damn you,” Sebastian muttered. “God damn you!”

Sebastian felt a sting in his back, turned on his heel to find another man lunging at him. And the second man had his own knife. Undeterred, Sebastian slashed at Winters again, but he couldn’t hold off both men at once. Winters knocked the knife from his hand.

Sebastian’s sense of self-preservation was in tatters, but his will to live long enough to kill Winters was intact. He ran through the woods, not sure where he was going, but determined to live just one more day. The footsteps behind him drew closer, the shouts of angry men overtook him. Then a loud crack. Intense heat flared where the bullet cut through skin and muscle in his back and traveled into one of his lungs. He gasped for breath, struggled to see what loomed in front of him, but the night was dark and the grass was slippery underfoot.

He had reached a clearing but still could not determine where to go, or how to escape the men behind him, or how to draw enough breath into his lungs. Then the ground beneath him gave way to empty air. He kicked futilely as he flew, fell, plunged over the edge of a precipice he hadn’t seen.

He hit jagged rocks hundreds of feet below, heard his own bones shattering, felt unimaginable pain. There was nothing. Vast emptiness.

Eventually, there was a point of light. Light growing, exploding into glorious, vibrant color. Every color of the rainbow. Then their faces. Sunflower, Wes, the village elders. And no more tears, no more sorrow. No more pain.

Our Hero and Heroine Meet

March, 1778, the Whitmore Estate, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Liberty MacRae held tightly to her friend Maggie’s hand as they waited to be announced at the Whitmore’s ball. A chill washed over her, warning her of a premonition. She clenched her fist and fought against it.

“Libbie, my hand!” Maggie pulled away from her. “Are you all right? You’re so pale – oh, no. Not here, not now.”

“I can’t help it.” She took deep breaths, willing her mind to stay in the present. The chill receded. The ballroom came sharply back into focus, and she realized that Maggie had taken her hand again.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “Do you need to sit down?”

Libbie shook her head. “I’m fine now. We can enjoy the evening.”

“You’re truly all right?”

Libbie smiled to reassure her friend. “Fit as a fiddle.”

“Then we can begin our last adventure together before I become an old married woman. You’ve probably forgotten how boring life can be out here, while you were off at Mrs. Barton’s finishing school.”

Nothing could compare to the boredom Libbie had experienced at Mrs. Barton’s dull affairs, but Libbie didn’t mention it to Maggie. She was attending Lady Jane’s ball for her friend, soon to be her sister-in-law, and premonitions and bad feelings be damned, they were going to have a good time.

“My brother adores you,” she told Maggie. “If you had told him to stop being such a stick in the mud and escort you to one of Lady Jane’s parties, he would have done it.”

“Not happily, though. You know how he feels about fancy clothes, and as for wearing a wig -” with her own bright red locks discreetly tucked away under a powdered wig, Maggie glanced at Libbie’s uncovered hair - “the aversion seems to run in the family.”

“I explained that I forgot my wig at Mrs. Barton’s. I packed in such a hurry – I was so anxious to come home.”

“And you didn’t realize it until you dressed this evening, when it was much too late to get another one. I’m afraid finishing school has taken the edge off your razor-sharp lying skills.”

Libbie ignored Maggie’s grin as she handed the liveried servant their invitations. Libbie prepared for next few minutes when all eyes would be upon them as they descended the ornate oak staircase and made their dramatic entrance among Lady Jane’s bejeweled, wigged, overly perfumed guests. And then there was Lady Jane herself. She was a kind woman, and not much older than Maggie and Libbie. But for Libbie’s taste, Lady Jane gave too many parties, wore too much red and flirted with far too many men, often right under her much older and overly indulgent husband’s nose.

As the servant announced Libbie and Maggie’s names, Libbie caught a glimpse of Lady Jane in the midst of the crowd, surrounded by half a dozen grinning young men. She waved to Libbie with a large, sweeping gesture of her hand. Libbie raised one ungloved hand ever so slightly in response.

I’m doing this for Maggie, Libbie reminded herself. And Mama. Mama, who too often had found Libbie shaking and sobbing after one intense vision or another. Mama, who worried that Libbie lived too much inside her own “dark imagination” and would never do the right thing and marry the nice boy on the neighboring farm who knew of her strange episodes but professed to love her anyway. For her best friend and for her mother, Libbie would make this night a success.

The crowd gathering below them clapped approvingly as Maggie and Libbie stepped onto the staircase. Maggie was glowing, Lady Jane was beaming, and the premonition that had earlier threatened to overwhelm Libbie was long gone.

As they descended the staircase, something in the far corner of the crowded room caught Libbie’s eye. She realized in an instant that it was jet black hair in a sea of pale wigs. The dark-haired man turned as though he could feel her gaze on him. He had the most remarkable eyes she had ever seen. Even from a distance she could see that they were a deep blue, the color of a mountain lake at dusk. He wore dark blue breeches and a white shirt fastened at the neck with a jewel, perhaps a sapphire. His waistcoat and coat were the same dark, almost dull blue as his pants, but all were finely cut to best display the long, lean shape of him.

Something more than a look danced on the air between them. It felt as though they knew each other, as though they must have met, but Libbie couldn’t quite place him. She knew her legs were still moving under her, carrying her down the stairs, but she felt out of time with them, with Maggie, with the crowd. The only one in the world who seemed to be moving as slowly and purposefully as she was the intriguing dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger.

Then as suddenly as their eyes had met, he was gone, obscured by the crowd as she and Maggie stepped off the stairs. Only her racing pulse assured her that something had just happened, something amazing and important and more than a bit frightening.

The dull hum of voices and music rose to a crescendo. Sebastian stood in the corner farthest from the sweeping staircase that was the entryway to the ballroom. He took a sip of his aperitif as he turned to see what had caused the unusual change. The sight made his drink catch in his throat. He coughed and swallowed the liquid, then blinked. When he opened his eyes, it was still there. Amidst the sea of grays was a color. One magnificent, radiant color. Green – the bright emerald green of her eyes set against the radiant paleness of her face, the dark green of her dress. Then pink – the bright pink of her lips, the soft pink of her cheeks. And copper strands glinting in her light brown hair.

“Sebastian, there you are.” Jane, his childhood friend from Brittany, who was now Lady Jane Whitmore and hostess of the fêted event, laid her gloved hand on his arm. “What do you think of my dress? Isn’t it the most wonderful color?”

He glanced at the low neckline of the frock and at the flounce that showed Jane’s ankles, and smiled. “Everything looks stunning on you, Jane. And what do you call that lovely shade?”

“Red, dear boy. It’s called red. I do worry about you these days.” She shook her head. “But come along. There’s someone you must meet. She’s a beautiful young woman and – well, you no doubt heard the stir that she and her friend caused when they made their entrance.”

“I noticed a change in the room.”

“And she should be of particular interest to you,” Jane whispered as they crossed the room. “She is Liberty MacRae, daughter of one Sean MacRae.”

“I am interested, indeed,” he said. “Does she know?”

Jane shrugged. “I cannot be certain. I’ll leave it to you to charm it out of her.”

The crowd had closed around Miss MacRae and her friend. All was gray again, and the sameness was somehow comforting. As he and Jane moved through the throng, Sebastian told himself that surely he had imagined the sudden intensity of sensation.

But when the crowd parted and he saw her, color flooded over him again. There was also a scent, the sweet fragrance of gardenias. He fought to maintain his composure as the strangest mix of emotions washed over him – joy laced with sadness, hope tinged with regret.

Jane spoke to Miss MacRae, then the young woman turned toward him. She reached out her hand, he touched it. He felt it, warm and pliable in his grasp.

Jane touched the young woman’s shoulder. “Sebastian, this is Miss Liberty MacRae. She is just returned from finishing school in Charlottesville. Libbie, this is one of my dearest friends in the world, Mr. Sebastian Cole. The two of you will be seated together at dinner this evening.”

Sebastian nodded, unable to refuse, yet unprepared for a whole evening of sensations that he couldn’t explain and didn’t understand. As a servant rang a bell and announced that dinner was served, Sebastian offered his arm to escort Miss MacRae to the dining room. Her fingers rested in the crook of his elbow. He could feel her heat, could feel her very heartbeat in her fingertips.

In an instant, Liberty MacRae had infused Sebastian’s world with vivid awareness after months spent in a subtle, muted purgatory. He could not imagine how he would survive the shock.

As he escorted her to the dining room, Sebastian wondered what he would say to her during dinner. She solved the problem for him by taking an acute interest in the old gentleman to her left and consequently ignoring Sebastian. For his part, Sebastian regaled the ladies to his right with tales of Jane’s adventurous childhood. But he could not truly ignore Miss MacRae when her very presence allowed him to taste the creamy, delicately spiced potato and leek soup, the roasted game hen and braised pork, the fresh greens and baked apples, the full-bodied wines from Lord Jamison’s renowned cellar. And the scents – pungent perfumes, sweet garden flowers, smoky candles – brought back memories of long ago family dinners and younger, happier years.

When the meal ended and guests rose from their seats, he stood quickly to help Miss MacRae with her chair. She stared into his eyes as if she could see his secrets revealed there. He touched her hand, brushed his fingers across the damp softness of her palm, heard her sharp intake of breath.

“Miss MacRae,” he said quietly, although no one was near them, “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to speak during dinner. I had hoped to inquire about your father.”

“You know my father?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I know of Sean MacRae. I’ve heard talk of his involvement in certain delicate matters.” Was it his imagination, or did she turn a shade paler?

She took a step back from him and glanced at the doorway a few feet away. “I have no idea what you’re intimating, Mr. Cole. Now if you’ll excuse me, my dance card is quite full.”

He was left alone in the room, now a gray, scentless, nearly soundless place. A minute later he joined the party in the ballroom and sought out the dance partner at the top of his own dance card. Every so often he would catch a glimpse of Miss MacRae, a blur of fantastic color whirling on the dance floor. He did his best to charm Jane’s female guests as he met and danced with each one. He could afford to be charming and patient, because he knew his turn to dance with Liberty MacRae was coming.

Sebastian bowed to one more partner, a middle-aged lady with a quick smile who made a discreet but unmistakable proposition to him. Murmuring something to the effect of giving her husband his regards, Sebastian stepped away from her and slipped into the crowd, finally in search of his long-awaited dance partner. He caught a glimpse of green dress and copper hair at the far end of the room, then watched her slip out a door that led to the back garden.

Sebastian told himself that he feared for her safety. After all, didn’t he know better than anyone what unseen dangers lurked in the dark, waiting to prey on such innocence and beauty? He stepped onto the veranda and glanced up at the night sky filled with tiny stars and dominated by the full, low-hanging orb of the moon. Miss MacRae would look stunning under its glow. He stepped down the wide flagstone steps and onto the garden path, trusting his inexplicable sensory awareness of her to guide him.

He stopped cold and struggled to catch his breath as a different awareness swept over him like an icy river – not a sight or sound, but an instinct. The deepest sensation left to him, the ability to feel the dead. But these were not ghosts, nor were they of this place, not like the others he could feel – the souls of Indians and farmers who had toiled and died on this land. These were corporal beings. He could feel their hearts beating in their chests, their cold blood flowing in their veins. They were like him, and like him were tied to their killer, his killer. In an instant he knew them, knew of their horrible deaths, knew that they had come back to life for the same reason he had – to wreak vengeance on Winters. But they were different, too, somehow more lost, hopeless, desperate. They whispered to him deep inside his mind, begged him to come to them, to help them, to set them free.

I don’t understand. Set you free from what?

Before they could answer, something stirred farther down the garden path. Sebastian ran toward the noise, following the twists and bends in the path, expecting to see the sad, dead beings around every turn but wondering why he no longer felt them. Something flashed green and bright in front of him and he tried to stop, but he was moving too fast. His foot caught on Miss MacRae’s skirt. Sebastian lost his balance and plunged headfirst into an azalea bush in full bloom.

Libbie would have screamed, but her throat was frozen in fear. Death had hurled itself at her, had stumbled, had…landed in an azalea bush? She was still shaking, still felt the cold fear curled in the pit of her belly, but the bright strands of red hanging in the air, warning her of death, had dissipated. The death that had lurked just beyond Lady Jane’s garden was no longer there. And the creature that had frightened her beyond reason and was now struggling to right himself looked uncannily like one of her dinner companions.

Libbie shook again, but this time with laughter. She swiped away the tears that had begun to dry on her cheeks. With the threat gone, she felt light again, and joyful and invincible. She reached down into the azalea bush and grasped Mr. Cole’s hand to help him stand.

“Miss MacRae, are you hurt? I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He stopped to catch his breath.

Libbie covered her smile with one hand and nodded. “I’m fine,” she finally managed to say. “I daresay you bore the brunt of our unfortunate encounter.”

He was breathing normally now. “I do apologize for that. It’s just that I heard a noise, and I…” He shook his head.

Libbie took a step back from him, hoping to shrink into the shadows. He had heard her crying like a baby, like a lunatic driven insane by the full moon, like the aberration of nature that she was. But somehow she didn’t want Mr. Cole to know the truth about her, to believe anything bad about her at all. It wasn’t just that he was handsome, although he truly was. His black hair shimmered in the moonlight, his dark blue eyes were so wide and intense that she felt she could fall into them. He was much taller than she, broad-shouldered and lean. A sleek black panther, tense and still but ready to spring into action at any second.

“Miss MacRae?”

Libbie realized he was proffering his arm.

“I asked if I may escort you back to the party.”

She nodded and took his arm. As they walked slowly up the garden path, Libbie struggled to find a reason to explain her previous state.

“Were you lost?” Mr. Cole asked quietly.

“Pardon me?”

“On the garden path. I thought you might have been lost, trying to find your way back to the house.”

“Yes, I was. I got turned around on the path.” She smiled up at him. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck, to kiss him and thank him for not making her explain herself as she so often had to do. To kiss him…

“Here we are,” he said as they stepped onto the veranda. “I wonder if I might ask one favor of you, Miss MacRae.”

“Anything,” she said quickly, then blushed.

Mr. Cole smiled. “It seems you stepped outside just before we were to share a dance.”

Yes. It all came back to her. She hadn’t wanted to dance with him. She’d thought of the things he’d made her feel, even from across the room when she’d first seen him, the touch of his hand as he escorted her to dinner, the sound of his laughter as he sat next to her. Something about Mr. Cole had made her want to say and do strange things, like kiss him in the garden and dance with him on the veranda. But then he had mentioned her father.

He stepped back from her and stood in position for their dance. Libbie decided she had been overreacting to an innocent comment and obligingly curtsied to him as he bowed to her. They started a minuet, one Libbie had danced dozens of times, but she couldn’t quite keep the rhythm. The song was slow, but she was breathless as a vision pressed against her mind. She fought it as they stepped back and then forward another time, but her knees bent under her against her will. Before she sank to the ground, she felt Sebastian’s arms around her waist, pulling her against him. And the vision once again retreated.

“Miss MacRae, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It’s just the heat. It’s unseasonably warm this evening, don’t you agree?”

“And you had a fright earlier.”

“No, I’m fine,” she insisted, steadying herself and pushing away from him. “You merely stumbled over me, and I’ve recovered.”

“I meant before that. You were afraid of something. You went out into the garden alone and got frightened.”

“I go many places alone, and I assure you I don’t frighten easily.”

“Perhaps then you should frighten more easily, because the world can be a very dangerous place.”

Libbie widened her eyes in shock. “I’m more aware of that than you’ll ever know, Mr. Cole. I’ve seen things that…”

She couldn’t explain it to him. It was more than seeing things. It was feeling unbearable pain, reliving deaths died a hundred years ago and yesterday, feeling evil coming but not knowing when or where it would arrive. She looked him in the eye. “I don’t need a lecture from you about it.”

He grabbed her shoulders and stared at her with the same determination she saw in her father’s and brother’s faces when they wanted to convince her that she needed their protection. But as she watched Sebastian’s dark, hooded eyes, his look changed. Determination seemed to give way to confusion, then to resignation as he leaned closer to her. His soft breath brushed her cheek, his fingertips caressed her shoulders. Libbie closed her eyes, willing him to come closer, to actually kiss her.

Playing to Lose by Nancy Hunter

When two black sheep of society meet, Angelique sees Lucas as the means to losing her good reputation and being branded beyond redemption by those who seek to reform her, until their affair spirals into love and threatens to destroy her well-laid plans.

Lady Angelique Barstow runs the ‘Creative Thinkers’ Colony’ for fledgling artists and rejects the confines of marriage that would destroy her life’s work. She hatches a plan to be caught in a compromising position with the rakish brother of the Earl of Stoursbridge. But Lord Lucas Hayden, Earl of Stoursbridge, is desperate to reform that brother’s reputation and to groom him to take over the family business so that Lucas can cope with his wife’s untimely death and his wife’s ghost who demands that he discover and punish her killer. When Lucas learns of Angelique’s plan for his brother, he masquerades as his own servant in order to disrupt it, but finds himself seduced by her charm, intellect, and passion. When their affair is discovered, they must contend with marriage-minded relatives, accusations of murder, a restless ghost, and a mysterious killer who is closing in on them. And Angelique could lose much more than her reputation; she could lose the one man in the world whom she can truly love.

Excerpts

Opening Scenes

“M’lady, surely ye don’t plan to receive Lord and Lady Jamison dressed in that!”

Lady Angelique Barstow fingered the beaded bodice of her dress and flashed a wicked smile at her maid. “Oh, dear. Is it too low cut, Lizzie?”

Lizzie glanced at the shocking motif that Angelique had hand-painted on the dress fabric. “No one will notice the neckline, m’lady.”

Angelique laughed, then patted Lizzie’s shoulder. “Have you offered tea to our guests?”

“Tea! Lordy, I forgot the tea! He’ll have my head for keepin’ ‘em waitin’ -”

“Lizzie, you no longer work for Lord Jamison. Now, if you feel you must, use the old servants’ corridor. Take the lantern from my night table with you. It’s terribly dark in that passage.”

As Lizzie followed her mistress’ orders, slipping behind a small, nearly imperceptible panel in the wall of the bedroom, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Angelique opened the door to find her friend and assistant Phillip St. Eyres.

Phillip glanced at Angelique’s dress and widened his eyes. “Your courting dress? On a Tuesday morning?”

“I’m afraid that today it’s my receiving dress. You did notice that we have company?”

“Hmm, yes. Your brother-in-law is charming as ever, I’m afraid. He’s already threatened to sack half our staff.”

Angelique groaned. “Well, let’s get this over with. I’ll have to set my dear sister and her wretched husband straight yet again.”

“They are not our only problem today,” Phillip told her as they approached the staircase. “There are colony matters as well.”

“Oh, dear. The poets aren’t challenging each other to duels again, are they? They can be so dramatic.”

Phillip shook his head. “The poets, the playwrights, the novelists – all those of letters seem to be in fine form today. Our new pottery teacher, however, has gone missing again.”

Before Angelique could answer, there was a commotion from the smaller staircase at the far end of the hall. In an instant, a dark-haired woman in riding breeches and a long, brown cape burst into their view and entered her room, closing the door behind her.

Phillip smiled. “I believe we’ve found our missing pottery teacher.”

As they descended the stairs, Angelique whispered to her friend. “Remind me again why I allow Dona Escavez to stay on.”

“Because you felt compassion for her plight, she is a reasonable artist, she’s willing to teach a free class in exchange for a reduction in the cost of her room and board, and -”

“And most importantly, she is able to pay room and board. I know the colony needs the money right now, but she does so annoy me.”

“There is also the matter of Mrs. Bowson,” Phillip said. “She’s having trouble with her muse again, I’m afraid. She fears that the lions she’s painted look like housecats.”

“That’s no fault of her muse, it’s that of her talent. I suppose her latest plan is to buy a lion and bring him here?”

Phillip grinned as they stepped down to the foyer. “You do so know our Widow Bowson. More coin than common sense. I’ve managed to dissuade her for the time being. And speaking of lions, dear, we’re about to enter a room full of them. Chin up!”

“Just promise me that you won’t leave me alone with them.”

“Angelique? Is that your voice I hear, sister?” There was a great rustling of petticoats, then a slip of a woman emerged from the salon. Melanie, Angelique’s older sister, rushed forward to embrace her.

“You didn’t send word that you were coming,” Angelique said. “I didn’t prepare any rooms.”

“Never mind.” Melanie pulled back and took Angelique’s hands. “We’ll not be overnighting. In fact, we left our new carriage just outside.” She glanced over Angelique’s shoulder and inclined her head. “Hello, Phillip. Still living off my sister’s generosity, I see.”

Angelique snatched her hands from her sister’s grasp. “Phillip pays his own way here with commissions he makes from his sculptures, and his assistance in managing the colony is invaluable.”

Melanie frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean -”

“What the hell is that?!” Lord Edgar Jamison burst through the salon doorway, eyes bulging and gaze fixed on Angelique.

Melanie patted his arm. “Really, Edgar, that’s no way to speak to my sister.”

Edgar turned beet red. “Have you seen what your sister is wearing? Have you taken a good look at that... that...?”

Melanie’s gaze swept over Angelique. She reached for her husband’s arm, her face chalk white, her mouth slack.

Edgar grunted as he caught Melanie in his arms. “Smelling salts!”

A young maid hurried from the salon, a small black bag clutched in her hand. The girl, at least the third one in Melanie’s employ in the year since Lizzie had left the Jamison household, approached her gasping mistress. She stopped short to stare at Angelique’s gown. At the same time, Lizzie emerged from the hallway behind the staircase with a trayful of scones, jams and cream clutched in her arms. Angelique took a quick step back and tried to sound a warning, but Lizzie was moving at a frantic pace and the words came too late.

Lizzie crashed headlong into Melanie’s maid. The cream arched out of its porcelain bowl and splattered onto Melanie’s gown. The tray flew from Lizzie’s grasp and made a beeline for Edgar. The strawberry jam took its own path and cascaded down the front of his tan suit as the silver tray smacked into his forehead and sent him staggering backward with Melanie still in his arms.

The tray clattered to the slate floor and the sound of its progress echoed off the high ceiling. When it stilled, silence descended on the foyer. Angelique and Phillip, untouched by fallout from the flying refreshments, clapped their hands over their mouths.

“What the devil?” Edgar pushed himself up off the floor, then bent to help his wife stand. “Do you see, Melanie? Do you see why we cannot leave her here any longer? Show her the papers the family barrister has drawn up and be done with it!”

“Edgar, this is not the way to tell her.”

“There is no way to tell her that she will understand! Lizzie, Christine, come and help Lady Jamison with her dress,” he commanded as he led his wife into the salon.

Angelique took a step closer to Phillip. “The barrister? What do you suppose that is about?”

Phillip shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but the noise of a tremendous crash drowned out his voice. He rushed to the front door and flung it open. His jaw dropped.

He turned to Angelique. “It would appear that the marble block for my next commission has arrived.” He looked back outside and grimaced. “Did your sister say that was a new carriage?”

“Harrison, there was no need for you to fetch me.” Lord Lucas Hayden, Earl of Stoursbridge, glowered at the servant who sat rigidly astride the mount next to him.

“Forgive me, sir, but if we hope to arrive in London three days hence, we should leave within the hour.”

Lucas sighed and pressed a knee against his horse, urging the animal to a brisk trot. “That’s why you are to be overseeing the preparations of the other servants. Cook especially will need assistance.”

“Really, sir. Must she travel to London with us?”

“She must. And I must have some to time to enjoy the beauty of the countryside,” he glanced at the servant, “without interruptions. Heaven only knows how long I shall have to stay away this time.”

They were passing close to the neighboring estate. Lucas glanced at the elegant sign – gold letters etched over an impressionist painting of the manor house – which announced that this was the home of the Creative Thinkers Colony. He opened his mouth to comment on it, to mention that he must pay a visit to the proprietor, one Lady Barstow, to persuade her to sell him an unused piece of her land that bordered his property. But before he could make a sound, an ear-splitting crash filled the air.

Blood raced through his veins and throbbed in his fingertips. Cold sweat pricked the back of his neck. He grasped the reins tightly in both hands and turned his horse toward the colony.

Harrison touched his lordship’s shoulder. “Sir, there is no end to the mischief that occurs on that property. I’m sure, regardless of their current crisis, that they have no need of our assistance.”

Lucas’ mouth was unbearably dry, but he managed to squeeze out words. “You ride on ahead, Harrison. I’ll just assure myself that it is as you say, then I’ll come home straight away.”

Harrison narrowed his eyes as he observed his master’s face, then nodded and did as Lucas had instructed.

Lucas took a deep, unsteady breath and guided his mount to the colony gate. It stood open, gaping, threatening to swallow him whole. He felt the cold sweat drip down his back and shivered despite the warm sun overhead.

Then he spotted the strangest thing: two yoked horses bound to the front half of a very sad looking carriage. The thunderous clamor had not been an imagined noise or a barely glimpsed image that could not be proved authentic. This one had been real. He lifted his binoculars for a better view, and gasped when he saw just how destructively real.

Workmen stood near a large marble block that appeared to have fallen from their conveyance, crushing the back half of a carriage. Two men leaned over the block, one of them stroking it tenderly as though he were testing a wounded man’s limbs for breaks. The other man, a slovenly looking one with the remains of high tea splashed across his expensively cut tan suit, gesticulated wildly. Lucas chuckled as he recognized the slob as someone he had met years earlier – the usually meticulous Edgar Jamison.

A stern-faced woman stood behind Jamison wringing her hands. Beside her a younger woman, probably her servant, waved a fan frantically in front of the perturbed mistress. Lucas sat up a bit straighter, his gaze trained on the voluptuous curves of that servant, curves that threatened to burst free of her tight white blouse and plain black skirt.

“Is she a maid in the Jamison household?” he wondered out loud. His family’s London townhouse was just down the street from the Jamison home. “Perhaps my time in town will not be completely wasted, after all.”

While delicious thoughts of the maid danced through his head, he turned just a bit and spotted one more woman. At first he thought she was crying, perhaps hurt. But he quickly realized she was laughing, nearly hysterically, at the scene. He ascertained from her dress and demeanor that she must be a lady, the last kind of woman that interested him these days, but he also saw that she was a beauty with long blonde curls and a glowing, expressive face. And then he saw one more thing, an incredible thing. He adjusted his binoculars and the image became clearer.

“What on earth is that woman wearing?” He toyed with the idea of riding through the gates and up the path to the manor house just to see it, to find out if it were truly what he thought.

A chill ran down his spine and quashed the impulse. The feeling was so familiar, so close, so real. Instinctively, he lifted his binoculars to the upper windows of the house. The draperies shrouding a closed window stirred, opened, then fell shut.

Lucas turned his horse toward his own estate and prodded her to a gallop. He shook uncontrollably, questioning his sanity for the thousandth time, almost hoping that he was indeed cracking up. It was better than the alternative, preferable to the thing he feared was true. Anything was preferable to being stalked by Daphne’s ghost.

Our Hero and Heroine Have a Clandestine Meeting

Angelique pushed open the studio doors and stepped inside the small stone building. She breathed in the scent of the paints and mineral spirits as they mixed with the fragrance of the garden flowers that floated on the wind. It was the perfume that had clung to her mother’s skin when she had been painting in this very place. Angelique remembered herself as a small girl balanced on a stool beside her mother’s easel.

“Mama, how do you make this pretty red?” she asked.

“It is vermilion, cherie, and you blend these colors like so.” The infinite patience in her mother’s voice was reflected in her startlingly blue eyes.

A mouse scampered along the far wall and broke the spell. The image faded. Angelique tried to recall it, but realized she could no longer define the features of her mother’s face. Tears welled in her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. She brushed them away and stood up straight. The rest of the London property belonged to Edgar and Melanie, but the studio belonged to her. So did the Creative Thinkers Colony, and she would do everything in her power to protect that legacy. It was all that remained of her parents’ lives.

She set to dusting and arranging every well-memorized nook and cranny of the studio. Bright sunlight cascaded through the large glass windows and washed over the sparkling shelves and tables. By the time she wrapped herself in her smock and began arranging her charcoals and inks, a familiar joy flowed through her veins.

Her mind was not completely focused on her work, though. In fact, she thought more about the subject she would paint than the actual painting itself. And she had to admit that the rush of heat that made her skin tingle when he was near had nothing to do with his potential as a model. Luke the valet made her pulse race like no man she had ever met.

Angelique covered her face with her hands. As free-thinking as her parents had encouraged her to be, even they would cringe if they knew her innermost thoughts. She needed Luke to agree to her plan, to submit to the request she would soon put to him. She would ask him to help her meet Lord Richard and to convince the man to be caught in a compromising situation with her. But thoughts of Lord Richard didn’t make her blush with heat and passion, the kind of passion that every great artist should feel and understand. Those effects came from Luke. If only things were different, Luke could help her explore those feelings, reach those heights, become an extraordinary painter.

“Angelique.”

He spoke from behind her. His single word brushed her skin like a caress and made every hair on her scalp stand on end.

She turned slowly to face him. Her eyes were bright and intense as she stared at him. It made him shiver, and the sensation surprised him. It also made him question his choice of attire.

He clutched at the closed front of his overcoat and stole a glance at his scuffed boots. As he lifted his gaze, he swept over her form in her loose, gray smock smudged with various colors of paint drops. No audacious mode of dress for her today.

She cleared her throat and stepped back from him. “Well, Luke, thank you for coming. Please, take off your coat and…” Her voice wavered and she bit her lower lip in a most appealing way. “And we must talk. I mean I must talk. I must propose something, and please don’t interrupt.”

Now her nefarious plans for his brother, Lord Richard, would come out.

“Cognac!” The word flew from her mouth and made him jump. “We must have some cognac.”

Her proposal must be quite interesting, indeed. “A lady who drinks cognac.”

She turned her back and bent to a cupboard. “My father had no sons. He wanted to have someone in the house who could enjoy it with him, and Melanie was definitely not – oh, listen to me, rambling on, and we have business to discuss. About Lord Richard. I must meet him poste haste. I have a reputation that needs…altering. I must no longer be seen as so marriageable.”

“You’re an unusual woman. But I fear I must warn you away from Lord Richard. Perhaps you’re not aware of the depth of m’lord’s reputation.”

“I’m counting on it,” she whispered. She didn’t look at him as she uncorked a decanter and poured out two portions of the drink into snifters.

Lucas frowned. He would have to be bolder. “Men can be beasts. A fine lady such as you -”

“So your employer’s brother is a beast? The stories are all true then?” She took a deep swig from one of the glasses.

Lucas suppressed a smile as he watched the unusual sight. “No, m’lady, the stories aren’t true. Not entirely. His reputation is questionable, but certainly salvageable.”

“A pity, that.” She held out the other glass to Lucas and he took it.

“Yes, it’s a pity for the family. But the Earl will restore his brother’s good name.” He took a drink of the cognac. It was rich and full-bodied and of excellent quality.

Angelique’s eyes widened. “Not too quickly, I hope!”

“Not to worry. I’ve had such a drink before. Now, as I was saying, the Earl will restore Lord Richard’s name soon, and the man will be respectable. In fact, he’ll be downright marriageable.”

Angelique frowned and stared out the window. “Oh, dear. That could be disastrous.”

Lucas smiled. So she was a reasonable woman, after all. “Yes. A plan to compromise your reputation and his could have proved unfortunate. I’m glad you can see the shortcomings of such a plan.”

“Yes. Yes indeed. Plans must change.”

She looked shaken. Lucas was sure that the gravity of what she had almost done was sinking into her. Better she should marry, perform her wifely duties in the cold, disinterested way that came naturally to women of breeding, and avoid baiting the passion of a man that would no doubt horrify her delicate sensibilities. But he wouldn’t take the chance that she might consider such foolishness again. He would show her exactly what an ill-advised kiss or unchecked flirtation could lead to.

Lucas unfastened the buttons of his overcoat and slid it off his shoulders. The smooth lining slipped over his bare skin as he pulled off the coat and draped it over his arms in front of him.

Angelique didn’t see him. She swirled the cognac in her snifter and stared into its depths. “There is another way.”

He nodded. “I had hoped so, m’lady. Perhaps there’s a fine gentleman -”

She shook her head. “Not a gentleman. Far from it. You, Luke. I’m counting on you. I need you to be-”

She spoke slowly and turned toward him. With her attention on him, he released the coat and let it drop to the floor. Her eyes widened and her gaze swept over every inch of his naked body. She focused on one area that seemed particularly intent on responding to her obvious interest. The blood pumped through him so fast that he felt a bit lightheaded, and nearly missed her last words.

“- my lover,” she whispered.

*****

“I thought my display would inspire a different reaction from you,” Lucas said. Such as confusion. Shame. Horror. Anything but the crooked grin that had remained on her face until he’d covered himself.

He was sitting on a tall stool and leaning in over the rough-hewn table that separated him from Angelique. He checked his coat buttons for the third time to ensure that he was duly covered, then cupped his snifter in his hand and quaffed his second glass of cognac.

Angelique lifted her fingers to her upper lip but failed to hide her smile. “You are indeed an inspiration.” Bright pink color crept into her cheeks as she spoke. “I do hope to paint your portrait, after all.”

“And why your decision to pursue other interests with me? Why not find some other rake to compromise you with a kiss?”

She stared at the table, still blushing. “Will you make me say it? Will you insist that I share every detail of my attraction to you?”

God, how he wanted to hear her say it. How had it come to this? With every word she spoke, he felt more drawn to her. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs she spun in his mind. She was not the kind of woman who interested him. No Society lady ever had been. Still, she was an enticing creature.

“There are advantages in choosing you,” she said.

“Do tell.”

“Well, because of your position, my family would never consider forcing a marriage to save my honor.”

“Do you believe I’m the sort of man who would care to share the details of such an involvement with the world?”

“I’d not presume such a thing. But perhaps in this case, you would do just that. I’ve told you that Mr. Mosely will demand substantiation of my story.”

“We could just lie.”

“I don’t want it to be a lie.”

At her admission, a thrill coursed through him.

She lifted her gaze to meet his and squared her shoulders. “If you must have the whole of it, you shall. I won’t deny that I’m drawn to you. That’s not such an unreasonable thing for a twenty-three-year old woman to feel, is it?”

He blinked hard, taken aback by her forthright admission, and more flattered by it than he cared to acknowledge.

She scowled at his slight reaction. “Don’t worry. I’m not completely broken down. I have all of my own teeth.”

He laughed, but didn’t correct her misunderstanding. “All of them? Well, that is quite a selling point.”

She ignored his comment and continued her explanation. “I may die unmarried, but I don’t intend to die an untouched old maid. Forgive me if I shock you, but if you’re not comfortable with my request, I’ll seek out someone more amenable to the idea.”

It felt like she had landed a blow in the midpoint of his chest. He sucked in his breath and pushed down the jealousy that rose like bile in his throat. He told himself that it was only concern for her that sparked his visceral reaction. There was no telling what manner of beast might appear to prey on the innocence of such a lovely and eager woman. And for her part, Angelique still had no idea what she was suggesting. But perhaps if she did…