Scandalous Regency Secrets Collection

A Scandalous Proposal

Kasey Michaels

Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

Louise Allen

A Season of Secrets

Carole Mortimer

A Reckless Promise

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

A Scandalous Proposal

Back Cover Text

Praise

Dear Reader

A Scandalous Proposal

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

How to Woo a Spinster

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

The Notorious Mr Hurst

About the Author

Author Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Disrobed and Dishonored

Author Note

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst

Author Note

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Afterword

A Season of Secrets

Not Just a Seduction

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Not Just a Governess

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Not Just a Wallflower

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

A Reckless Promise

Back Cover Text

Praise

Dear Reader

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

A Scandalous Proposal

A Scandalous Proposal

How to Woo a Spinster

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The drama of London’s Little Season continues in this vibrant new series by USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels featuring three courageous war heroes surrendering at last to love...

Who would have thought a man could tire of being fawned over and flirted with? Ever since Cooper Townsend returned from France as a hero with a new title, he has been relentlessly pursued by every marriageable miss in London. Perhaps that’s why the unconventional Miss Daniella Foster is so appealing. She doesn’t simper or flatter. She only wants him to help unmask her sister’s blackmailer, and Coop has never been so intrigued...

Let every other woman in London fight over His Lordship’s romantic attentions. Marriage is the last thing on Dany’s mind...at least until she samples his illicit kisses. Now, as a mutual enemy races to ruin Coop’s reputation and Dany’s family name, an engagement of convenience will spark an unlikely passion that might save them both.

Bonus Novella!

For your enjoyment, we’ve added in this volume

How to Woo a Spinster by Kasey Michaels!

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“Michaels holds the reader in her clutches and doesn’t let go.”

—RT Book Reviews on What a Gentleman Desires, 4½ stars, Top Pick

“Michaels’ beloved Regency romances are witty and smart, and the second volume in her Redgrave series is no different. The lively banter, intriguing plot, fascinating twists and turns…sheer delight.”

—RT Book Reviews on What a Lady Needs, 4½ stars

“A multilayered tale.… Here is a novel that holds attention because of the intricate story, engaging characters and wonderful writing.”

—RT Book Reviews on What an Earl Wants, 4½ stars, Top Pick

“The historical elements…imbue the novel with powerful realism that will keep readers coming back.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Midsummer Night’s Sin

“A poignant and highly satisfying read…filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy.… You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

“Michaels has done it again.… Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

Dear Reader,

A journalist once asked then president John F. Kennedy, who had captained a PT boat during World War II, just how he had come to be a war hero. His answer was given with a wink and a grin: “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

That quote has always stayed with me: It was involuntary.

Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “Today I shall become a hero.” Heroism, rather, is thrust upon them.

That’s pretty much what happened to Cooper McGinley Townsend at the battle of Quatre Bras. Coop had gotten up that morning wanting only to be able to return to his tent in one piece that night. But between the hours of dawn and dusk, without warning, and although he was far from the sea, the fates figuratively sank his boat.

Honors commenced to rain down on our hero, including the presentation of a rather lovely estate, a fat purse and the title of baron to go along with it. Coop, a modest man by nature, was grateful, said thank you very much, and figured that was the end of that.

Except it wasn’t. Some “close friend and confidant of the hero” published Volume One of a chapbook so stuffed with nonsense and purported feats of Coop’s derring-do (most especially with the ladies), that only a fool would give countenance to a word of it. Except that London did believe it, swallowed the nonsense whole and turned Coop’s life into a chapbook of its own.

Fame was one thing. Notoriety was a complete other kettle of fish. Coop found himself besieged by giggling young misses and their ambitious parents, all while the words Volume One warned of further ridiculousness to come.

What to do, what to do?

Let’s find out, shall we?

Happy reading,

A Scandalous Proposal

Kasey Michaels

To Sally Hawkes, a true friend.

PROLOGUE

COOPER TOWNSEND STOOD facing the tall dressing table, looking at his expression in the attached mirror, watching as he saw his usually clear green eyes going dark. He had to control himself, get past his anger, or else he wouldn’t be able to think clearly.

He’d also run out of neck clothes, as this was the third he’d managed to mangle since his friend Darby showed up in his dressing room waving a copy of Volume Two of what was becoming known as The Chronicles of a Hero.

As if the first one hadn’t been enough: The Daring and Amorous Exploits of His Lordship Cooper McGinley Townsend, Compleat with Firsthand Accounts of His Extraordinary Missions Against the Frogs in England’s Glorious Victory Over the Devil Bonaparte: Volume One.

Indeed, Volume One had been sufficient to send him off within a fortnight to the supposed safety of his newly acquired estate, where he’d hoped sanity might rule the day (even considering that his mother was in residence).

He’d returned to London only at the behest of his friend Gabriel Sinclair, and that was for only a week, at which point the delivery of a copy of the soon-to-be published Volume Two had sent him to his estate once more. But this time it was only to pack up the majority of his new wardrobe, fail to talk his mother out of returning with him and head back to the Little Season, where he would find himself a wife. He didn’t want a wife—who did? Except Gabriel, and contrary to all that was rational, his friend seemed deliriously happy contemplating the loss of his freedom.

A hasty betrothal might not solve all his problems, but it would be a start. The matchmaking mamas were getting much too clever, and at least this way his wife would be of his own choosing, and not the result of waking up one morning with a giggling debutante tucked up beside him in his bed, her mother ready to burst in—with witnesses—to cry, “You cad! We post the banns yet today!”

Which would seem silly and self-serving to consider...except for the fact that one ambitious damsel had already made it all the way into the bedchamber in his hotel suite before Ames could scoop her up and deposit her back in the lobby, where her infuriated mama grabbed her by the ear and harangued her incompetence, presumably all the way back to her coach.

Yes, he would take himself off the market. Only then would he be able to concentrate on the rest of it.

“Did you read this? I only saw it this morning, so maybe you haven’t yet had the pleasure,” Darby Travers, also Viscount Nailbourne when he chose to impress, asked, tearing himself away from the printed page in order to wave the chapbook at him.

“Yes, I’ve read it. The perpetrator—I won’t call him author—was kind enough to send me an early copy when I was in town last week. For God’s sake, Darby, put it down.”

“Not quite yet. It’s obvious you’re going to wrest the fair maiden from a fate worse than death, hero that you are. Just let me read the ending.”

“All right, since it’s unfortunately important. Go on. Damn, Darby—I didn’t say for you to read it aloud.”

But the viscount continued in his pleasant baritone, now heavily laden with amused emphasis.

“The most Beauteous and Grateful young lady, her name always to be a mystery, her Cornflower Blue Eyes awash in Diamond-Bright tears, turned to our Modest and Abashed Hero and, quite to his Astonished Surprise, flung her soft round body straight at his chest, so that he was Without Recourse save to Hold Her Close as He could feel the Frantic Beating of her Virgin Heart, the rapid rise and fall of her Perfect Bosoms, as she extolled his Virtues, his immense Bravery and indeed, Overcome by her Emotions, she cried out in Near Ecstasy as she grasped his strong shoulders, claiming the world could safely rest on their Broad Expanse, just as her fate had so lately done, and Never Fear for her honor, that which she then so Earnestly Offered Him.”

“It’s even worse than I remember,” Cooper grumbled. “And did the man never hear about the glories of a period? You almost ran out of breath there, Darby, unless you were being ‘overcome by your emotions.’”

“A little of both, I believe. You lucky dog, you.” Darby struggled to turn the last page of the cheaply made chapbook, and frowned.

“Coming soon, Volume Three: The Further Adventures and Exploits of Baron Cooper McGinley Townsend, Hero, Wherein All Is Revealed as to His Character and Private Nature, Whether Be He Devil or Saint.”

He looked up at his friend. “That’s it? There’s nothing more? My God, Coop, and with all the ripping retorts that have come rushing into my head reluctantly pushed to one side, this isn’t good. Anyone with a drop of imagination would think you took advantage of her virtue, and Lord knows what the ton lacks in intelligence it more than makes up for in lurid imagination.”

“I’m aware of that, yes, thank you.” Coop stripped off the abused neck cloth and tossed it to Sergeant Major Ames, who had been his aide-de-camp during the final defeat of Bonaparte at Waterloo, and who could now lay claim to being the most burly, most foulmouthed and most sartorially bankrupt valet in all of England.

“Man needs his digits hacked off, that’s what he needs,” Ames said, tossing a new neck cloth Coop’s way. “And then stuffed up his arse.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Ames,” Darby drawled as he stepped forward and snatched the fresh linen out of midair. “He’s usually bearably adequate, but clearly he’s overset at the moment. Here, Coop, let me do it for you, or else we’ll be spending the remainder of our lives here in your dressing room.”

Two tall, handsome but very different men were now reflected in the mirror. Coop could have been the angel, with his blond good looks, and Darby the dark-haired devil, somehow made even more attractive with the black satin eye patch covering his left eye.

“Ames meant my anonymous good friend,” Coop pointed out, grinning as he raised his chin and allowed Darby to position the neck cloth around his raised shirt points. “And he was being kind, if not civil. It’s quite another part of the scribbler’s anatomy Ames truly has designs on, don’t you, Ames?”

“First have to find them, my lord, and I doubt the rascal has the least trouble fitting into his breeches, if you take my meaning.”

“Give me that before you choke me,” Coop said, grabbing one end of the linen strip as Darby’s bark of laughter blasted in his ear. “I returned to the city for assistance from my friends, and not only is Gabe gone to his estate, but he left you behind, which is less than helpful in any circumstance. I’ve got enough going upside down in my life as it is, and you have all the makings of a menace.”

“I’d be bereft, did I not choose to take that as a compliment. But please, a menace that can tie the Waterfall with his eyes—pardon me, eye—closed. Very well, make your own mess. We’ll even name it. The Hero’s Knot. Good choice, Sergeant Major, wouldn’t you say, because I think he’s fashioned a noose.”

“You’re quite the wit, Darby,” Cooper said as Ames helped him into his jacket. “I don’t know how you ever stop laughing. You really think this whole thing is hilariously funny, don’t you?” he asked as Darby replaced his handkerchief after lifting the black patch over his left eye and dabbing at a nonexistent tear of amusement.

“In most cases, no, I suppose not, but to see the calm, never-ruffled Cooper so flummoxed? Yes, I admit to enjoying myself. Really, is it so very terrible, Sobersides, being cast in the role of a hero? Damsels must be sighing and swooning over their hot chocolate all over Mayfair right now, their tiny pink toes curling in delight. I repeat, you lucky dog.”

Coop and Ames exchanged glances, and the valet retrieved a folded sheet of paper from the desk in the bedchamber Coop occupied at the Pulteney Hotel. “This arrived earlier, shoved under the door just as messages are in all inferior novels. Take it down to the lobby with you, read it and decide for yourself. I’ll just say a quick good-morning to my mother and join you there shortly.”

“Am I going to be amused?” Darby asked, sliding the paper inside his jacket. “Never mind, I can see I’m not. And does it explain the neck cloth, and your jolly good humor? I suppose so. Very well, ten minutes, or else I’ll be back.”

With Darby out of the room, Coop picked up his silver-backed brushes and concentrated on taming his thick thatch of annoyingly unruly dark blond hair, or

...his Glorious Crown of sun-Kissed locks reminiscent of a Veritable Halo of Goodness even while he ran his long, straight fingers through the Mass as he stepped over the Broken Body of the Wretched Attacker and shyly smiled at the Unknown Damsel he’d Rescued from a Fate Worse Than Death.

Fate worse than death. Just what Darby had said in jest. It only went to prove anyone could write a chapbook—as long as one didn’t bother stretching his imagination beyond the trite and prurient. “Oh, God, now I’m poking sticks at one of my best friends.” Cooper sighed as he put down the brushes and spoke to the air. “‘Is it so terrible being cast in the role of a hero?’ Darby, my friend, you have no idea.”

Admittedly, at first it hadn’t been that awful. He’d served his country not once, but twice, donning the colors again after being invalided back to England in 1814 with his friends Darby, Gabriel and Jeremiah Rigby, baronet. He’d gone on to become quite the celebrity after a small yet fierce battle just outside Quatre Bras, just before Wellington’s final victory at Waterloo.

The world would never know the full truth of what had transpired that day, which was pointed out to Cooper quite forcefully by His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent himself, before he presented the hero with a small estate, a comfortably heavy purse and the title of baron. It was a magnificent reward...although some might call it a bribe, or even the hint of a threat. In any event, Cooper quickly realized he would be wise, and perhaps safer, to accept it.

But the world didn’t know any of that.

Of most interest to the average John Bull and the newspapers had been Cooper’s daring rescue of several towheaded tots (the number varied from three to a full dozen, depending on who told the story), who had wandered into the midst of what was soon to be a battlefield. Some versions included a beauteous older cousin who had been most grateful for their rescue...but then, there were romantics everywhere, weren’t there?

Three or twelve, lovely and anonymous, profoundly grateful blonde beauty or not, on his return to London Cooper found himself more popular than Christmas pudding. In the months since Waterloo he had not been able to take more than a few steps in any direction without someone calling out, “It’s him—Townsend! There he is!”

Everyone clapped him on the back. Everyone stood him up for a bottle or two. Everyone treated this son of a genteel but never more than comfortably well-off family as if he was the best of good fellows, and he’d been invited to so many house parties and boxing matches and the like that it would have taken a squadron of heroes to accept all of the invitations.

Still, the whole thing was fairly enjoyable.

But then Volume One was handed out free on the street corners, and everything changed.

Coop remembered waking one morning to have Ames present him with it. There he was on the cover of the cheap chapbook, or at least Ames told him the garish print was supposed to represent him. He was pictured as tall and lean, which he was, but with a highly exaggerated shock of unruly blond hair and vividly green eyes that had him peeking into a pier glass to check on the intensity of his own. They were green—he’d give the artist that—but certainly not that green.

The streets were flooded with the damned book that was complete with a notice on its back cover that the next in the series would reveal

The Further Adventures of Our Glorious Baron Returned from the War, Secretly Performing Heroic Acts in England, Champion of the People and Rescuer of Delicate Females in Dire Straits and Needful of His Valiant Assistance.

Now mamas wanted him for their daughters. Fathers wanted him because he was a hero, and wouldn’t “M’son-in-law the hero, yes, indeed” sound all the crack in the clubs? Married women wanted him because—good Lord, who knew why married women wanted anything...and sweet young damsels considered Coop the catch of the year.

“And now this. So much for my plan of throwing myself into the Little Season and finding a wife in order to put an end to the nonsense.”

“My lord? I didn’t quite catch all of that?”

“Never mind, Ames. I was thinking about that damn note again.”

He had already committed that to memory, as well.

Ten thousand pounds or the next volume will be Our Hero Falls from Grace as the True Identity of the Supposed Innocents Rescued at Quatre Bras is Revealed, Much to the Shame That Rises to the Highest Reaches of the Crown Itself. Yes, my hero, this is blackmail, and I’m quite good at it. Remain in London, Baron Townsend, no more dashing to hide yourself at your estate. I will be in touch.

“Ah, Ames. So much for brilliant ideas, not to mention the size of the cow Prinny will birth if the truth were to become known. We can only hope to God Darby has had his fill of poking fun and is about to offer his help,” he said now, accepting his gloves and curly brimmed beaver from Ames before heading for the stairs leading to the lobby.

“You didn’t want to get bracketed, anyway,” his man reminded him.

“True enough, but if I can’t find our underendowed bastard of a biographer, we can probably wave goodbye to the estate and you can stop addressing me as ‘my lord.’ I don’t even want to think what my mother would say.”

Ames screwed his face into a grimace. “That could be the worst, my lord, I agree. She says more than enough as it is, don’t she?”

Coop laughed. “Thank you, Ames, for that reminder. Please tell her I was called away and will see her at dinner tonight. I go forth now with doubled determination, and twice the haste.”

The sergeant major sharply saluted. “Just as a hero should, sir.”

“I’m quite fond of you, Ames, but I could still sack you,” Coop warned him as the other man quickly hid his grin beneath his prodigiously large mustache.

Darby was waiting, pacing, in the lobby. “You get yourself into the damnedest predicaments, don’t you?” he said, handing back the folded paper.

“You mistake the matter. That’s you, along with Gabe and Rigby. I’m the sensible one, remember, always there to pull you three free of the briars at every turn.”

“Point taken. And what does your sensible self plan to do now that the thorns are sticking into your own backside? I hope it includes finding this bastard and wringing his scrawny neck.”

Darby’s outrage soothed Coop somewhat. “Yes, that was the plan, as a matter of fact. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know, not with you. You’re too damn civilized. You’re not going to tell me the lady’s name, are you? The fair damsel who could or, perhaps, could not have been there the day of your daring rescue.”

“Why, Darby, I do believe I’ve forgotten it. Imagine that.” Then he flinched, knowing his friend had tricked him. How could he have forgotten, even for a moment, that his friend could pry a secret from a clam.

“Aha! Then there was a woman. At least I’ve gotten that out of you. You are a hero, you know, pure of heart and straight as the best-carved arrow. That, and a damn fool, now that I know our own fat Florizel is somehow involved. Baron? Seems to me you could have held out for earl. Shall we get started?”

CHAPTER ONE

THE WALK FROM the Pulteney to the nearest club was too short for any but an old man or an utter twit with pretensions of grandeur to bother bringing around his curricle from the stables or hailing a hackney, or so Darby protested when Coop suggested they do the latter.

“I could be recognized,” Coop pointed out quietly.

Darby was busy pulling on his gloves. “By whom? Not that I’m lobbing stones at your usual modesty, but that remark could be thought by some to verge on the cocky. I suppose vanity comes along with this heroing business.”

“You’re enjoying yourself again, aren’t you? You know who—whom. By everybody. Sometimes I want to turn myself around to see if there’s some sort of sign pinned to my back.”

“Really? Draw a crowd wherever you go, do you? Well, good on you. And good on me, for I am the favored one, aren’t I, out on the strut on this lovely, sunshiny day with the hero of all these brave, not to mention amorous, exploits. Gabe and Rigby don’t know what they’re missing. Come on, I want to see this. Maybe you’ll find another fair damsel to rescue along the way.”

Barely a block from the hotel, Coop was fighting an impulse to turn to his friend and utter the classic words of any bygone childhood: “I told you so.”

“G’day ta yer, guv’nor,” the first to recognize him had called out, the man bowing and tugging at a nonexistent forelock as Coop and Darby approached the corner.

“Yes, good day,” Coop responded, slightly tipping his head to the hawker balancing a ten-foot pole stacked high with curly brimmed beavers that had seen better days, even better decades.

“It’s the tip I think he’s wanting, not a tip of your head. That is, unless you wish to purchase one, which I wouldn’t recommend. Lice, you understand, nasty things,” Darby informed him, not bothering to lower his voice. “But since you’re a hero, and heroing comes with certain expectations from the hoi polloi—yes, you fine fellow, that indeed was a compliment, and your smile is quite in order—I’ll handle this. Here, my good man,” he said, reaching into his pocket, and flipped a copper into the air for the fellow to snag with the skill of long practice. “Compliments of the baron. On your way now.”

Cooper looked around to see that the two of them were rapidly becoming the cynosure of all eyes. “Now you’ve done it, you fool.”

“Done what? I can’t let our hero’s brass be tarnished because you’re a skinflint. Have a bit of pride, man.”

“Pride, is it? How fast can you run in those shiny new boots?”

After a suspicious bite at the copper, the grinning man raised his hand, showing his prize, and called out, “Make way! Make way! The hero passes! Make way for the brave Baron Townsend!”

“Oh, for the love of... See what you’ve started?”

“I’m beginning to, yes. I thought you might be exaggerating, but I should have known better. I’m the one who does that.” Darby turned in a graceful circle. “Shall we be off? Standing still doesn’t seem a prudent option.”

On all sides, people were beginning to cross the intersection, heading directly for Coop while, in front of them, a pair of eager lads carrying homemade brooms raced to be the first to clear the street so that the hero could cross without, well, stepping in anything. In their zeal, they fell to battling each other with their broomsticks, and the smaller one could have come to grief had not Coop stepped in to separate them.

Holding his handkerchief to his bruised cheek—the one that had been more than delicately kissed by one of the broom handles—he and Darby continued on their way, not quite at a run, but certainly they stepped sharply to avoid the gathering crowd.

Just before they turned the corner into an alley, Darby wisely tossed several coins over his shoulder and the pursuers slid to a collective halt so quickly they tumbled over one another like ninepins as they dived for the coins, fists already flying.

“Ah, a smile, and bloody well time. I’d wondered if you’d completely lost your sense of delight thanks to your biographer. Shall we be off?”

“More at a canter than a trot? Yes, I do believe so.”

At a renewed shout from the mob, they upped their pace to a near-gallop, dodging suspicious puddles, ducking under sagging lengths of gray laundry, tipping their hats to a toothless hag who offered to show her “wares” for a penny.

Twist here, turn there, retreat at the sight of a dead-ended alley. They didn’t stop until they’d lost the last of their pursuers, but by that time Cooper was hard-pressed to do so much as figure out the direction of north, trapped as they were beneath ramshackle structures whose upper stories leaned out of the alley, nearly touching each other, blocking out the sun.

“Where are we?” he asked, not quite liking the look of a rather burly man who was watching them from his seat on the threshold of a building lacking a door.

“Sorry,” Darby whispered, stopping to put his hands on his knees and catch his breath. “But were you asking me, or that faintly terrifying creature over there currently eyeing us as if we’d look good circling on a spit for dinner?”

“You, of course, and don’t stop. I thought you knew where we’re headed?”

“I did,” Darby said, “about three turns ago. But I was much younger last time I pulled a stunt like this, and considerably less sober. Ah, damn, Coop. I think you might owe me a new pair of boots.”

Coop didn’t bother inspecting his friend’s new boots—friendship had its limits—but did give Darby a mighty shove to safety as he heard a female voice from above warning that she was about to empty a slop bucket. Which she did a half second later, cackling merrily as her targets barely escaped her fine joke.

“You can’t say everyone in London has read about your exploits, unless that was the woman’s way of expressing her joy at seeing you,” Darby said as they finally halted once more just before somehow reaching Bond Street, both of them brushing at their sleeves, checking for dirt that may have been left behind by grubby hands, for everyone had wanted to touch the great hero. “You know, all in all—my poor boots to one side—that was fairly exhilarating. Pity Rigby wasn’t with us. Our plump friend could do with a bit of exercise.”

Coop was still trying to catch his breath. “That’s it? That’s all you can say? You didn’t hear the demands to know the name of the latest fair beauty I’ve supposedly saved? You didn’t hear the suggestions called out as to what I should do with her? A few were quite specific.”

“Yes, I heard, but chose to pretend I didn’t. Your blushes were more than enough. At least one of them should probably be chained up in Bedlam, or else gelded. Why didn’t I notice this when you were in town last week?”

“The second volume of my supposed exploits only surfaced once I was gone back to the country. When Prinny first honored me I was treated rather well, pointed to, yes, spoken to—more than a few wishing to shake my hand, clap me on the back, introduce their daughters to me. The added attention brought to me by the appearance of Volume One came as a jolt, especially when it somehow fostered a nearly unnatural interest from the ladies. It’s Volume Two, though—all this business about my supposed heroics since returning to England—which has seemed to raise quite another emotion besides simple gratitude. It was bad enough when I first returned. Crowds did tend to gather. But this is the first time I’ve actually had to run from them. Things can’t continue this way, Darby, they just can’t.”

“True. Only imagine what it would be like if your blackmailer makes good on his threat—the one I don’t quite understand and apparently am not allowed to know, even as I am applied to for assistance. You’d have to emigrate. The admiration of the mob has always been known to turn into hatred at the drop of a pin.”

“The thought has crossed my mind, yes. But in the meantime, let’s go find us both a bootblack.”

“And after that, a bird and a bottle,” Darby agreed. “But I’m not a demanding sort. I’m willing to make do without the bird.”

CHAPTER TWO

DANIELLA FOSTER, VARIOUSLY known to her family as Dany, the Baby or, not all that infrequently, the Bane of Mama’s Existence, eyed the purple silk turban perched on a wooden stand in the corner of the fitting room. It felt as if she’d been there for a small eternity, and she’d already inspected most every inch of the crowded room at the back of the dress shop.

She wasn’t bored, because Dany was never bored. She was interested in everything around her, curious about the world in general, which had led her, in her youth, to getting down on the muddy ground to be nose to nose with an earthworm, all the way up to the present, which just happened to include wondering how it would feel to wear a turban. Would it itch? Probably, but how could she know for certain if she didn’t try?

“I still say it’s pretty,” she announced, “and would fit me perfectly.”

Her sister, Marietta, Countess of Cockermouth, just now being pinned into the last new gown she’d commissioned, did not agree. “I’ve told you, Dany, purple is reserved for dowagers, as are turbans. No, don’t touch it.”

“Why not?” Dany plucked the turban from its stand. “That doesn’t seem fair, you know,” she said, demonstrating her version of fairness as she lowered the thing onto her newly cropped tumble of red-gold hair. “Do you see that? The color very nearly matches my eyes.”

“Your eyes are blue.”

“Not in this turban, they’re not. Look.”

Dany stepped directly in front of her sister, who was a good eight inches taller than her at the moment, as she was standing on a round platform for the fittings.

Marietta frowned. “Some would say you’re a witch, you know. That thing should clash with your hair, what you left of it when you had that mad fit and took a scissors to it. Your skin is too pale, your eyes are ridiculously large and your hair is... I’m surprised Mama didn’t have an apoplexy. Yet you...yes, Dany, you look wonderful. Petite, and fragile, and innocent as any cherub. You always look wonderful. You don’t know how to appear as anything less than winsome and adorable. It’s one of the things I like least about you.”

Dany went up on tiptoe and kissed her sister’s cheek. “Thank you, Mari. But you know I don’t hold a candle to your serene beauty. Why, it took only a single look at you across the floor at Almacks for Oliver to fall madly and hopelessly and eternally in love with— Oh, Mari, don’t cry.”

Turning to the seamstress, who was looking at both of them curiously, and Marietta’s maid, who was already hunting a handkerchief in her mistress’s reticule, Dany quickly asked the women to please leave them alone for a bit.

“Increasing, is the countess, and good for her,” the seamstress said, nodding her gray head toward the maid. “They gets like that, you know, all weepy and such for no reason at all. I’ll be certain to leave plenty of fabric for lettin’ out the seams.”

“I’m not—”

“Crying,” Dany interjected quickly, squeezing Marietta’s hands so tightly her sister winced. “No, darling, of course you’re not crying. We neither of us think any such thing.” Then she winked at the seamstress, who reluctantly let the drape fall shut over the doorway, she and the maid on the other side of it. Let the woman think Mari was increasing. Anything was better than the real reason her sister had turned into a watering pot. “You were going to blurt out the truth, weren’t you?” she asked—perhaps accused—as she helped her sister down from the hemming platform.

“I most certainly was not. I’m still wondering what on earth prompted me to say anything to you. I must have suffered a temporary aberration of the mind.”

“No,” Dany said flatly as she watched her sister gingerly lower herself onto a chair, making sure she didn’t encounter any pins on the way down. “You did that when you wrote those silly letters to your secret admirer. And Mama says you’re the sensible one, and I’m to imitate you in all you do. But you know what, Mari? I would have at least asked my admirer’s name. Oh, here, take this, and blow your nose,” she ended, fishing an embroidered hankie from her own reticule and all but shoving it in her sister’s face.

“Lower your voice, Dany.” Marietta looked left to right and back again, as if making certain no one was hiding in the cluttered room, possibly taking notes, and then whispered, “And it wasn’t my fault. All the married ladies of the ton have secret admirers. It’s just silly fun. Especially when our husbands desert us to go off to hunting lodges and gambling parties and whatever it is gentlemen who wish to avoid their wives call amusement.”

Dany replaced the turban on its stand. It had been interesting to see how she looked in the thing, but it definitely was beginning to itch. When she became a dowager she would make sure all her turbans were lined with soft cotton.

“Is that so? And is it all still silly fun for you now that your admirer is demanding five hundred pounds for his silence, his promise to return your notes to you? Is that just another part of the game?”

Marietta blew her nose none too delicately. “You know it isn’t. I don’t have five hundred pounds, Dany, and Oliver will be home in a fortnight. Oh, this is all his fault. If he’d only paid me more attention. It used to be I couldn’t budge him out of my bed, but—no, don’t listen to me, Dany. You’re an unmarried woman.”

“True, but I’m not still in the nursery. Oliver is sadly lacking in romance, isn’t that it?”

Her sister’s shoulders slumped. “He...he forgot my birthday. He went traipsing off to Scotland with his ramshackle friends, and totally forgot my birthday. Our first year together he bought me diamond eardrops, the second a ruby bracelet and the third a three-strand pearl necklace. Now? Now nothing.” She looked up at Dany, her blue eyes awash in tears. “I don’t want to be a wife, Dany. He’s clearly bored, having a wife. I want to be his love.”

Dany motioned for her sister to stand up, and began helping her out of the gown. “I remember when you nearly called off the wedding.”

“That was all Dexter’s fault,” Marietta pointed out as she bent her knees, her arms straight up over her head, and allowed Dany to remove the gown. “And we don’t talk about that.”

Dany, carefully holding the gown at the neck, stuck it past the slight gap in the curtain, feeling confident the seamstress would be standing there to receive it (and anything she might overhear). No, they didn’t talk about it, what Dex had said, not after their father had threatened to disown him if he did anything to cost his sister a wealthy, eligible earl.

Oliver Oswald, Earl of Cockermouth. Marietta had written those words in an old copybook at least two hundred times, along with Marietta Foster Oswald, Her Ladyship Countess Cockermouth. She’d been so proud, right up until the moment Dex had whispered a less than civilized definition of the word as seen by youths who found such things giggle-worthy.

“Oliver explained it all,” Marietta said now, diving into the sprigged muslin gown she’d chosen for her shopping trip to Bond Street. “The name is derived from the proud and ancient town’s position...”

“...at the mouth of the Cocker River, just as it joins with the River Derwent. Yes, I know. Papa made me commit that to memory. He also gave me a pretty pearl ring when I promised to stop calling you...”

“You promised!”

Dany held up her hands in submission. “I was only fourteen, still sadly innocent in the way of things, and didn’t know what I was saying. Which, as I’ve pointed out many times, you can blame on Mama, not me. Now strap on your armor, and let’s go home. We’ll put our heads together and find some way to get you out of the bramble bush you so blithely flung yourself into in the name of revenge.”

Marietta carefully smoothed on her gloves, finger by finger. “Never should have told her,” she scolded herself. “What in God’s name possessed me to think she’d be of the least assistance?” Still, now armed once again with her bonnet and gloves, outwardly she looked the epitome of calm, her fine features carefully composed in what Dany thought of as her sister’s “smug face.” Her “I am a countess, you know” face. If Marietta wasn’t so heart-stoppingly beautiful, and Dany didn’t love her so much, she would laugh.

“It’s going to be fine, Mari. It’s all going to be fine. I promise.”

“Humph, humph.” More than a polite throat-clearing, the sound was full of suggestion, or innuendo, or perhaps even hope. Or at least Dany chose to think so.

Both young women turned about to see the elderly seamstress had reentered the fitting room.

Lady Cockermouth raised her chin. “I believe we were not to be disturbed. However, as we’re finished here, you may simply send along the gowns when they are done, and we’ll be on our way.”

Marietta, embarrassed and caught off guard, was making an attempt at haughtiness, intending to put the seamstress firmly in her place by playing at the grande dame. So typical of her, and so wrong, at least in her sister’s opinion. Dany believed herself not to be so cork-brained. It would be much better, even safer, to play on the woman’s sympathy.

And then there was the “humph, humph” to consider. The woman was clearly dying to know something.

“Mrs. Yothers, I think it is? Was there perhaps something you’d like to say to Lady Cockermouth?”

“What could she possibly have to—”

“Mari, there’s a wrinkle in your right glove,” Dany interrupted, knowing it was one thing that would silence her. She abhorred wrinkles in her gloves, which was why they were so tight they nearly cut off her circulation. “Mrs. Yothers?”

“Yes, miss, my lady. I apologize, I truly do, but so as to be sure no one else disturbed you two fine ladies, I took it upon myself to send your maid outside and station myself right on the other side of the curtain. I couldn’t do much besides clap my hands over my ears not to hear that her ladyship is in a bit of a pickle.”

“I am not in a—”

“Oh, I was wrong, it isn’t a wrinkle. Why, Mari, I do believe you’ve picked up a smudge. Go on, please, Mrs. Yothers.”

“Yes, miss. And seeing as how we’re all women here, even you, young miss, and with the poor dear increasing and all...”

“I am not—”

“Here, Mari, you don’t want to forget your reticule,” Dany said, shoving the thing in her sister’s gut, leaving the latter rather breathless. And mercifully silent. “Mrs. Yothers? You were saying?”

The seamstress shot a compassionate glance at Marietta. “I remember how I was with my first. It does get better, my lady, as the months go on. Before it gets worse again, that is, but that’s over quickly enough and you’re back to doing what got you in the delicate way in the first place. But that’s not what I’m here to say. I think, Your Ladyship, what you need right now is a hero.”

Dany rolled her eyes. That’s what the “humph, humph” was about? How depressing. “A hero, Mrs. Yothers? What a splendid idea. Would you perhaps know where to locate one?”

The woman smiled as she reached into the pocket of her apron, pulling out a wrinkled, dog-eared chapbook. “I do indeed, yes. Here you go, miss. You can keep it, seeing as how I know it all by heart, anyway, and there’s a whole new one waiting for me upstairs when I go up for my tea. I hear it’s even better than the first.”

Dany was already reading the title on the front cover: The Chronicles of a Hero.

“A hero? But, Mrs. Yothers, surely this is just a made-up story? This man, this—” she looked at the cover again “—His Lordship Cooper McGinley Townsend? He’s no more real than Miss Austen’s Mr. Darcy.”

“He looked passably real to me about an hour ago, when he and his companion sauntered past, out on the strut. Spied one of my girls staring bug-eyed at him through the window, and gave her a tip of his hat, he did. Such a gentleman. Everyone knows him, miss. Purest, bravest man alive, and bent on helping other people out of their troubles, especially pretty young ladies. Prinny himself handed over a title and an estate to him. I do nothing but hear about him in here, miss. He’s a hero to all the ladies, who chase him something terrible, poor man.”

Dany looked down at the cover once more. What a ridiculous print. Nobody looked like that, at least nobody real. But if he did...

“Dany? Daniella, for pity’s sake, what are you staring at?”

“I wasn’t staring,” Dany answered quickly, folding the chapbook and stuffing it into her pocket. “I was thinking. Mrs. Yothers, you just might be right. Mari, shall we go? Thank you so much, and I’m certain Lady Cockermouth will return in the next week or less to order at least another half dozen gowns, four of them for me, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m what?” But even Marietta wasn’t that thick. “Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. And bonnets. And...and scarves. I do favor scarves. You know, the sheer flowy ones. And...and...”

A young boy hastened to open the door to the street for them, and Dany took her sister by the elbow, ready to pull her out of the shop if necessary before she bankrupted the earl. “Mrs. Yothers understands, don’t you, Mrs. Yothers, and is terribly appreciative of your custom?”

The seamstress blushed, and bobbed several quick curtsies. “I do indeed, miss. As my son says, mum’s the word.”

“Thank you. Mari, we should be going now.”

“We should have gone long since,” her sister pointed out as her lady’s maid rose from a bench outside the shop and fell into place three paces behind them. “We shouldn’t have come at all, not in the delicate state I’m in, and certainly I shouldn’t have dragged your flapping mouth along with me. Now look where I am—beholden to Mrs. Yothers.”

“She’ll be worth every penny if she’s right, and she doesn’t really know anything. She was being nice mostly because you’re pregnant.”

“I am not—oh, the devil with it. Tell me what’s going on in your mind, Dany, even though I’m not going to like it, nor will I approve. Mama placed you in my hands, remember.”

“The answer’s obvious, Mari. You can’t fix what’s wrong, and heaven knows I have no idea how to fix what’s wrong. But a hero? Morally upright, generous of heart and spirit, wonderfully hand—handy. I think we should apply to him for his assistance.”

“Don’t even think such a thing,” Marietta said, her voice trembling. “The poor man is absolutely besieged with all matter of ladies of the ton. Young, old, eligible misses and their mamas, married women—they’re after him day and night. Oliver told me the man had to flee London, in fact, to get away from their flirtatious entreaties and embarrassing importunities. Now he’s back, according to Mrs. Yothers, and I’m certain the ladies are making utter fools of themselves yet again. I couldn’t possibly be so bold.”

And there was the smile that had launched a thousand nervous tremors within her family. “That’s all right, Mari, because I could. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to it.”

“Dany, you wouldn’t dare! Oh, what am I saying? Of course you’d dare. But you cannot, Daniella. You simply cannot!”

“Why? At least I’d know his name, which is more than you took the time to find out when you were punishing Oliver with your unknown lothario, offering up your reputation to be shredded—and even signing your name to those dangerous notes. You couldn’t have scratched ‘Your Beloved Snookums’ or some such equally cloying and anonymous?”

“That would have been silly. He already knew my name.”

“Exactly. You didn’t have to sign your notes at all. Oh, don’t start crying again. I’m merely pointing out the obvious. Now let me think more about how I’m going to approach your hero.”

“The baron is not my hero, and you are definitely not going to attempt to run him to ground like some fox. I can’t let you do it. I’ll say it again. Mama sent you here to practice for the spring Season. I’m to tutor you, train you, set a good example for you.”

“And you’re doing a whacking great job of that so far,” Dany said, grinning. “Rule number one. I now know, as if I didn’t before, never to exchange silly letters with unknown men.”

Marietta probably hadn’t pouted so forcefully since she was twelve. “One mistake. I made one mostly innocent mistake.”

“And Oliver deserves half the blame for that. Possibly more, as there was jewelry involved. I remember. See? Lesson two, learned. If jewelry is involved, there may be exceptions to rule number one.”

“You’re being facetious.”

“And enjoying myself mightily. And more than slightly excited, I’ll admit that as well, considering I’d come to town believing I would be bored spitless. How do you propose we go at this, Mari? If we knew the baron’s direction, I could simply pen him a formal note, asking him to meet with me on an urgent personal matter involving an innocent woman’s virtue. Or do you think my chances would be better if I approach him in public, perhaps at the theater or one of the parties we’re committed to this week?”

She reached into her pocket and withdrew the chapbook. Truly, she could stare at the print for hours, just to look into those green eyes. “I believe I’d recognize him if I could somehow manage to casually bump into— Oh!”

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