The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance

Kindred Souls Barbara Metzger

“‘He’s dead,’” she read.

Aunt Mary grabbed for the letter that dropped from Millie’s hand. “Dead? Who’s dead? When did he die?”

Aunt Mary held the page closer to her eyes, as if that would help her read the solicitor’s letter. It would not. Miss Marisol Cole was born of an age when women’s brains were considered too small to shelter facts or figures. What she lacked in education, however, Aunt Mary made up for in eccentricity. She turned to peer at her pets, three small sleeping canines of undetermined parentage and one ill-tempered tabby guarding the window seat: Finn, Quinn, Min and Grimalkin.

“The animals are not upset, so it cannot be anyone important.”

“It’s Papa,” Millie said through a throat that was suddenly dry and scratchy.

“You see? No one important. The dogs always know. The cat must know too, but she never tells.”

Millie took the letter back. “My father. Your brother.”

“Who wrote both of us off after The Incident, the cold-hearted churl. What was that, five whole years ago? And we have not heard one word since. I am certain he did not mention either of us in his will, so no, he is not worth a single tear.”

Millie dabbed at the one that trickled down her cheek. “He was my father. I always hoped, that is—”

“Jedediah Cole never forgot or forgave an insult in his life. He crossed both of us out of the family Bible, didn’t he?”

With a big puddle of ink, Millie thought. She’d been told this by the solicitor who’d arranged their departure from the Baron’s estate. All because of the scandal.

When a schoolboy was said to ‘blot his copybook’, it meant his penmanship was messy, his essay or test or practice page irredeemably ruined. Ah, but when society considered that a young miss had ‘blotted her copybook’, her whole life was irredeemably ruined. No matter the truth, gossip labelled her loose, immoral, tainted beyond repair, unfit for polite company or prospective suitors. Especially if the man involved was not standing by with a special licence that could magically erase many a black mark. There’d been no such rescue for the motherless Miss Mildred Cole, who’d been young and in love.

Helped by that selfsame involved man — no gentleman, he — the scandal spread like a fistful of mud thrown against a whitewashed wall. It cost her father his good name and, worse for Jed Cole, his money. It cost Millie’s brother Ned his membership at his London clubs, and her younger sister a come-out season. Neither of them forgave her either. Her letters went unanswered; the small gifts she sent went unacknowledged.

Millie and Aunt Mary (who played a part in The Incident, as well) were banished to a tiny cottage in a village outside Bristol, with a piteously small, begrudgingly given, allowance and no communication with their family or former friends. Of course they’d made new acquaintances, a place for themselves in the small community. A community where the bachelors were all farmers and tradesmen, uninterested in a dowerless bride or a penniless spinster, no matter their pedigrees.

“Five years,” Aunt Mary mused, lifting the nearest dog on to her lap. “We have done enough mourning for our own lives. Why should we mourn for his?”

The dog scratched its ear.

“You see? We shouldn’t bother.”

Millie took up the letter again. “It seems we need not put on black anyway. Papa died six months ago, of influenza.”

“And no one thought to tell us?” Aunt Mary snorted.

“Papa made them all swear not to. But now that I have reached my twenty-fifth birthday, the solicitor wishes to speak about—”

“Money!” Aunt Mary’s eyes lit up. “Perhaps the old curmudgeon left you something after all.” She clapped her hands, which set two of the dogs to shrill barking. “Yes, the darlings think so, too. I am sorry I spoke so unkindly of dear Jed.”

“What if the solicitor wants to tell us we’re being evicted? Or that our pittance ends with Papa’s death?”

“That dastard!”

Papa or the solicitor? Millie wondered. “I’ll write back immediately to find out.”

“What would we do? Where could we go? How could we feed the dogs?”

“I suppose we could throw ourselves on my brother’s mercy.”

“Your brother is as clutch-fisted and cold-hearted as your father ever was. And spineless, else he would have stood by us despite your father’s commands. Now that Edwin has succeeded to the barony, he’ll be more insufferable. And that priggish female he married is no better.”

Millie had to agree. Ned’s wife Nicole had been mortally offended by The Incident. Then mortally disappointed when her dreams of becoming a grand hostess in London had disappeared in that same dark cloud of Millie’s scandalous fall from grace. Besides, she was all too happy to see Millie and Aunt Mary ostracized far away across Britain, leaving her sole mistress of the baron’s London residence as well as the family seat at Knollwood, in Kent. She would not want the black sheep wandering back to the fold. “We cannot know anything until I hear more from the solicitor.”

“I think we should go speak to him.”

The dog in her lap yelped, which Aunt Mary took to mean they should start packing. Millie thought it meant the dog got squeezed too hard.

“To London?” Aunt Mary might have suggested they consult the man in the moon.

“No, we haven’t the proper clothes, and I doubt we’d be received, not after That Man guaranteed our reputations were destroyed. But your father was never one for clever City lawyers, or their fees. He always had a man of affairs near the Knolls.”

Millie checked the letterhead on the thick sheet. “You are right, although I do not recognize the name.”

“I’d wager he’s fat and finicky and smells of snuff, but it’s better to know what he wants, isn’t it, rather than sit and worry while waiting for a reply?”

“But what if Ned and Nicole do not admit us to the Knolls? That would be mortifying.” And they might not have funds to return to Bristol.

“They wouldn’t dare, because we’d put up at the inn in the village and tell everyone they were too miserly to house their own kin. You know how much public opinion means to them at home.”

Home. Millie felt a pang of longing she’d thought suppressed years ago. She’d been happy in Kent, while her loving mother lived, at any rate. She could ramble across the fields, visit with the neighbours, knowing everyone within miles. She’d played with the miller’s daughters and the viscount’s sons. So what if her hems dragged through the dirt or her red hair was snarled with leaves. She was her mother’s cherished child then. Returning to Knollwood could never restore that love, that freedom, or that carefree innocence. Why, she’d thought she’d grow up to live happily ever after. Millie looked around the tiny room they called a parlour, where no one came for afternoon calls and where the tea set had chips and the tea was reused until it had no colour. The curtains were clean but faded, the furniture all cast-offs from the previous owner. Their gowns were home-made, and of second-rate material at that. They had one old manservant to carry wood and tend the chickens and the old horse they kept for the old carriage, and a woman who came once a week to mop and do the laundry. They’d learned to cook and clean and grow vegetables. How much worse off could they be if the solicitor had ill tidings? Or if Ned tossed them out?

“I suppose we might as well go. I have some coins put by, enough for the coach fare, I hope.”

“Nonsense. The dogs cannot travel in a public coach. Henry will drive us.”

Henry, the coach and the mare were equally ancient. Who knew which would collapse first on the way to Kent?

“No, we can use my savings to hire a carriage. And the egg money for rooms along the way.” That might be less costly. They could bring a hamper of food with them rather than paying for mediocre meals at exorbitant prices on the road. They’d have to carry their own provisions if the dogs were to come — and sleep in the carriage if the nights were warm enough.

Millie knew better than to suggest her aunt’s pets stay behind. “But not the cat. I still have scars from the last time we tried to give her a bath.”

“I daresay Grimalkin wouldn’t travel well. If Henry stays back, he can feed her and keep an eye on the cottage, although everyone in miles knows there’s nothing to steal here. But what if we don’t return? If we are invited to stay at Knollwood?”

If Ned and his wife did invite them, Millie thought, it could only be because they needed free servants in the nursery or the scullery. Either way, Millie had no intention of returning to this decrepit, draughty cottage, or to the meanest cat in creation. If worse came to worse, Millie still had her pearls, her gold locket and a pair of diamond eardrops to sell. She’d been saving them for an emergency. The end of their financial support, such as it was, counted as just such a crisis. “We can send Henry funds to take Grim home with him.”

The cat rolled over and swatted at the threadbare curtains, leaving a jagged tear behind. Aunt Mary nodded. “I suppose that means she doesn’t like it here, either.”

So they were going. Back to the past with hopes for a better future.

That night Millie wept, not for the father who’d always been distant and disapproving, certainly not for leaving the place where she’d lived the past five years. No, she cried for the memories of what once was.

“It is I, Whitbread. Ted.”

The white-haired butler stared at the unkempt brute at the entrance of Driscoll Hall, ready to slam the carved oak door or call for the footmen. And a blunderbuss. Then he looked past the bushy hair and the darkened skin. “Master Theodore? Is that truly you?”

The tall bearded man in rough leather — coat, boots, and breeches — stepped closer and smiled, showing even white teeth against the tan. “Truly, Whitbread. I am home at last.”

“Oh, Master Theodore, how glad I am to see you after all these years. And looking so, ah, hearty. But I forget myself. I should be calling you Lord Driscoll, should I not?”

“Not yet, my friend. I still have to prove myself alive to anyone outside the family before I can officially announce my return. Then I have to prove myself innocent of countless spurious charges. I have much to do before I can present myself as Viscount Driscoll or take my seat in Parliament.”

Whitbread led the way into the library, where generations of Driscolls had gone over accounts, entertained their cronies and escaped the day’s worries in a glass of spirits. “I trust hiring a valet and seeing a tailor is among the first priorities.”

Ted smiled again, this time with pleasure at the old retainer’s unspoken affection, as well as the fine cognac Whitbread was pouring out. He pushed his long dark hair away from his eyes and smoothed out his untrimmed beard as best he could. “My first priority must be staying alive, hence the frontiersman disguise.” Which was no disguise at all, simply the way he had looked and dressed for the past several years in the Canadian provinces. “I shall repair my appearance and my wardrobe in time, but not until I restore my good name and bring to justice those who tried to destroy it, and me.”

Now the butler shook his head and frowned. “To think that anyone would try to murder you, much less label you a traitor and a deserter, My Lord. Not that anyone in the family would harbour suspicion for an instant. Not knowing what a fine young man you are, how loyal and honest and—”

Ted cleared his throat and gestured for the butler to join him in a welcome home libation.

The butler nodded his appreciation and filled another glass. “Kind and modest, too. Why, we were so thrilled to know you were alive, we wished to shout it from the rooftops. Except that might have put you in greater jeopardy, we feared, from reading your letters.”

Ted sipped his liquor, savouring the rich, smooth taste. “It would have. The only way I escaped the firing squad was by changing my name to Winsted and my appearance to a fur trapper’s, then disappearing into the Canadian backcountry. Staying dead, in effect. My father knew the truth. I wrote to him as soon as I was able.”

“He kept your letter by his bedside, His Lordship did. And he passed away content to know you survived.”

Ted raised his glass. “To the Viscount. The seventh Lord Driscoll.”

Whitbread raised his glass too. “His Lordship informed me and the family solicitor of a secret way to correspond with you in case of necessity. Lord Jared knew, also, of course.”

Ted drank and made another toast. “To the Viscount. The eighth.”

“And to the ninth, My Lord.”

“I should not be in the tally.” Ted fell silent, thinking of his older brother, the eldest son who had succeeded their father for so brief a time. Jared and Ted had been best of friends, playmates and partners in every mischief two lively boys could find. Jared grew to a more sober lad, as befitted his position. It was he who had to study agriculture and investments, everything connected to the Driscoll holdings. Not Theodore, the devil-may-care second son, up to every rig and row. How Jared must be laughing now. Ted felt like crying.

“I wish I could have seen him again. Both of them. The mail was so deucedly slow.”

“Across the ocean, in times of war, with you travelling the entirety of North America, it seemed? I found it amazing that you received our letters at all.”

Sometimes it took years, sometimes Ted knew letters had gone missing. “I treasured the ones I did get. Except for all the bad news.”

“Sad times for Driscoll Hall, My Lord. But at least you have finally returned to take up the title and responsibilities.”

“If he wasn’t already dead I would curse Jared to hell for not taking care of his duties before shuffling off. Begetting little Driscolls is the primary job of the heir, not the spare. I never wanted to step into my father’s shoes, much less Jared’s. He should have had a son by now. Or two, by all that’s holy.”

Whitbread sighed. “Before the old Viscount died, Lord Jared promised to find a wife when he turned thirty. I’m certain His Lordship never expected to meet his maker before meeting the perfect female. Not at such an early age.”

Jared had been eight and twenty, the age Ted was now. A damnably, painfully, young time for his brother to die, Ted thought, feeling the familiar ache of loss and the sense of years rushing by. He’d seen many a young man die, though, a lot younger. Some in battle, some from disease, some from the harsh life in the northern territories. Ted could not let himself dwell on those tragic losses either. The present had to be for the living, not the dead. “Influenza, your letter said.”

“Yes, the epidemic took many in the vicinity. The apothecary, the vicar’s two infants and the entire Gorham family. Baron Cole, too.”

“I will not mourn Cole’s passing. If not for that self-righteous jackass I’d never have gone to Canada to make my fortune in the first place.” Ted tried to shake off the gloom of past misfortunes. “But enough of dwelling on losses or rueing what cannot be changed. Tell me of Noel. My baby brother is well?”

“Master Noel is twenty years old, My Lord, and a fine, strapping young man.”

That was hard to imagine. Noel had been the baby of the family, a sickly infant after their mother’s death giving birth to him. Then he’d been a pampered pet to his father and two doting older brothers. He’d been a sprig of thirteen when Ted took passage to Canada, stick-thin and spotty. How could he be a man already?

“He was away at university during the scourge,” Whitbread went on. “Lord Driscoll would not permit him to return home despite the physician’s dire prognostications.”

Which was dashed wise of Jared, not knowing if Ted could or would ever make it back to England and the succession. He might not ever have returned. Why should he? His dreams of England had died years ago, starting in Lord Cole’s estate office. He was making a new life in the New World … until Whitbread’s letter reached him seven months after Jared’s death. The passage home had taken longer than that.

Poor Lord Noel was left in a muddle, the trusted servant had written, with people dubbing him Lord Driscoll, when he knew he was no such thing. Ted was the heir, ready or willing or not.

Not.

“So he up and left?”

“He left his studies and his friends in London, rather than answer awkward questions. He stays close to home now, consulting with the steward and the solicitors. Today he’s gone with the bailiff to purchase a new bull. Reluctantly, I might add. Master Noel fancied himself a regular London swell, not a farmer.”

Well, Ted never fancied himself a viscount either. Or a soldier, much less a dishonoured one. He always had a head for figures so he’d set out to be a trader, a shipping magnate, a success, so he could come back to England a rich man and prove Baron Cole wrong. Too bad the old puffguts wasn’t there to see.

“Learning about the estate cannot hurt him,” Ted told the butler. “A bull might.”

Whitbread poured another splash of cognac into both of their glasses. “To hopes he never succeeds to become the tenth Lord Driscoll, for all of our sakes.”

Whitbread left to see to Ted’s baggage, order his room readied and inform the cook to prepare a meal fit for a viscount.

While he was gone, Ted poured himself another glass of cognac and stared into the fire. He was home, yet he felt more lost than when he’d found himself in a log lean-to during a blizzard. He had no doubt Whitbread would have the viscount’s rooms prepared for him, not his old comfortable bedchamber on the upper floor. He’d have to sleep where his father and brother had died, with their ghosts scolding him for his sins and his seven-year defection. He’d sleep next to his mother’s room, the one that had stayed empty so long. Her ghost was sure to plague him to marry, to fill the nursery. Damn them all and the nightmares he’d suffer. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

They should rest easy. He understood duty and obligations. He’d come home, hadn’t he? Despite the bumblebroth sure to follow, despite the danger and the disappointment.

Home. This place was too quiet to be the home he remembered, with rowdy boys and a constant bustle, with boots and books and sporting dogs on the furniture, with friends and neighbours in and out all day, with dreams.

And now there was duty. And half a bottle of cognac left.

“What shall you do first, My Lord?” Whitbread asked when he returned with a tray of bread and cheese.

“After finishing this bottle? A bath and a good night’s sleep. Then I’ll lie low until Noel’s return. He’s been in charge for over a year, so he deserves to hear my plans before they are made public. I know I cannot keep my reappearance secret for long, not with the servants who saw me arrive and carried in my baggage.” And not with Whitbread settling him in the viscount’s suite and ordering a lavish dinner. “Please ask the staff to refrain from spreading the news in the village as long as possible.”

Whitbread stiffened his spine and pursed his lips. “Driscoll Hall servants do not gossip about their employers. The secret of your survival never passed through the gates.”

“Of course not. My apologies, Whitbread. I am merely used to strangers whose loyalty is as thick as one’s purse is heavy.”

The butler nodded. “Then once Lord Noel returns, you can take your proper place?”

“Not quite that easily. I’ll speak to the solicitor before travelling to London to face the War Office. Mr Armstead still handles the family’s affairs?”

“A somewhat younger Mr Armstead, the nephew of the gentleman in charge when you left. Very learned, this one, and equally as careful of the family’s business. Lord Driscoll had great confidence in him. Lord Jared, that was.”

“Fine. I’ll ask him to call here in a few days. And I’ll have to speak with the local magistrate, too. Who took over from old man Cole?”

“His son, Edwin.”

“Ned? He was always as stiff-rumped as his sire. He’s what? Thirty-five years old or so? I doubt he’s mellowed with age. But he’ll know me, so he’ll have to vouch for my identity. I’d have to pay my respects at the Knolls anyway, I suppose.” Which was the last thing he wanted to do, after being dead or being viscount. “Unless he’s gone to London for the season?” Ted could only hope.

Whitbread sniffed. “The Coles no longer travel to the metropolis.”

“No? I’d have thought that high-nosed wife of his would insist on taking her place in the ton.”

Whitbread decided to let Lord Noel explain about The Incident. “Rumour has it that Lady Cole might be increasing again.”

“Deuce take it, I suppose Cole has a quiverful of heirs by now.”

“Some gentlemen take their responsibilities to heart.”

Enough to take a shrew like Lady Cole to their beds. Ted shuddered and poured the last of the cognac into his glass. “Find me another bottle, Whitbread. Or two.”

Millie moved ahead. With dread.

What if Edwin tossed them out? What if there was no more money, ever? What if highwaymen stole the little money they had? What if some woman recognized Millie from her wild red hair and steered her daughters to the other side of the street? Worse, what if some man recognized her — or just noticed her wild red hair — and thought she was a lightskirt or bachelor fare?

Millie tried to think optimistically, she really did. If nothing else, once they reached Knollwood she’d get to place flowers on her mother’s grave. Maybe she’d ask if anyone ever placed a marker for the neighbour’s son who’d never come home. She could bring her oldest friend flowers too, and shed a few more tears. Maybe then they’d be the last tears for the young man who’d broken her heart all those years ago, first by leaving, then by dying.

Now wasn’t that something to look forward to? Millie asked herself. Revisiting old graves and old dreams.

Bah! She had too much to do to turn into a maudlin miss. Next she’d get the vapours.

No, that was Aunt Mary when the hired coachman almost put their carriage in a ditch. Or when an innkeeper threatened to drown the dogs because their barking disturbed the other guests.

Millie thought about drowning them herself, and the reckless driver too. His ham-fisted driving set the coach to careening, which gave Min travel sickness. On Millie’s only half-decent boots. The shouts and curses from the drivers of the imperilled carriages they passed set Finn to yipping. In her ear. And the garlic and sausage scraps the daredevil driver tossed to the dogs gave Quinn wind. In her lap.

The journey was nerve-racking. Their arrival proved only slightly less fraught.

Edwin, whom everyone but his wife called Ned, and his wife, who insisted on being addressed as Lady Cole, did not close the door to the Knolls in their faces, but neither did they welcome Millie and Aunt Mary with open arms. Aunt Mary was right that they’d be too embarrassed to send the unwanted visitors to the village inn. Millie was right that they’d be happy to send them to perdition.

Or the attic.

Lady Cole declared those were the only available rooms, forgetting that Millie knew precisely how many chambers the sprawling old house possessed. Lady Cole also decreed that the dogs could not be let loose anywhere else in the house, although her savages — her children — were permitted to run wild. The three mongrels on the top floor meant someone had to climb up and down the narrow attic stairs every few hours to let them out — on leads, of course — to relieve themselves or to eat in the kitchen. Except for that duty, Millie was to keep to her room when company came.

“And for heaven’s sake, Mildred,” Ned’s wife declared, “put a cap over that unruly red hair so the servants don’t call you a trollop.”

The servants were overworked and browbeaten. They, at least, appreciated that Millie took on the dog-minding duties and offered to read to the children.

The children, all four of them, were spoiled and nasty, mean to the harried nursemaids and cruel to the dogs when they saw them. They stole Min’s ball, pulled Finn’s tail and chased Quinn under the furniture. When Millie tried to correct their behaviour, they went crying to their mother, who pursed her lips so tightly her teeth might get chipped. When Aunt Mary said that the dogs were complaining, Lady Cole threatened to have her sent to an asylum. Millie stopped reading to them. So what if the demons grew up ignorant and unlettered? Their mother saw nothing wrong with that, either.

Millie’s young sister’s welcome was no warmer. Winnie was a petulant nineteen, bored in the country, and still blaming Millie for her lack of a season, a beau, a husband. Spared the red hair that plagued Millie and Ned, Winnie was a beautiful strawberry blonde. She knew exactly how beautiful.

“To think you used to be the belle of the local assemblies and a toast of London,” she said with a sneer. “You look like one of those women from the almshouse now, all skin and bones, and your skin is as rough and dark as a piece of toast.” Winnie was delightfully curved, to her delight, with a perfect peaches and cream complexion that she admired in every mirror she passed. “And one would think you a ragpicker in those clothes, with those callouses! The Incident was bad enough, but you’ll never pass for a lady looking like that. Why, I’d be mortified if any of my friends saw you.”

Millie would be surprised if the brat had any friends. “I doubt I shall be here long enough to meet your acquaintances, Winnie.” The Knolls was proving less comfortable than the cottage in Bristol. And less cheerful than the almshouse.

“Good. But as long as you are here, do remember that I am not a child, Mildred, so stop calling me Winnie. My name is Winifred. And no, do not look at me in that sorrowful way. You brought all of your woes down on yourself. And on the rest of us.”

Aunt Mary took to her bed, surrounded by her beloved pets. They did not have much to say about the current circumstances. Neither did Millie. What was the use of sharing her dismay?

These people might share her blood, but they were not family. Even the house was no home to her, not while it was decorated to Lady Cole’s garish, overcrowded taste. For this Millie had sold her diamond earbobs?

Millie counted the coins left from the journey. She swallowed her pride, her hurt, her red-headed temper, and the words she was aching to say. Instead she went to the solicitor’s.

Ted’s brother was so excited to have him back, you’d think Noel was released from prison, instead of from the duties of a title. He couldn’t wait to go tell the neighbours, then hie off to London with Ted to settle the questions of the inheritance, the army and the funeral they’d held. Then Noel intended to resume the life of a carefree bachelor on the town: cards, clothes, horses, women and wine.

Gads, was Theodore Driscoll ever that young? No, Ted always had ambition to be something other than a rich lord’s idle, indolent son. He never sought to be a London swell, only a success. He’d proved himself worthy, but it had been too late. Now he was determined to prove himself worthy of succeeding his father and brother.

The first step towards that future was the magistrate, Edwin: Lord Cole.

“No need to send ahead for an appointment like some wine merchant,” Noel said. “Old Ned’s always on his uppers, and under his spouse’s thumb, but he doesn’t mind me running tame at the Knolls. Gives him someone to talk to besides his wife and sister and those beastly children. Makes him feel important, you know, giving advice to a younger man. I never listen, naturally. He’s as ignorant of the latest farming techniques as a hedgehog.”

When they got to the Baron’s manor house, Noel jumped off his horse, tossing the reins to Ted. A young woman was racing down the steps towards him, skirts flying, bonnet ribbons streaming behind her.

“You’ll never believe what’s happened,” she told Noel, ignoring Ted entirely, as if he were a servant.

“Wait until you hear my news,” Noel answered.

She grabbed his arm and dragged him around the side of the house. “Me first.”

Ted watched them go. Yes, he’d been that young, once. The ache in the vicinity of his heart proved it.

The pretty female had to be little Winnie, only not so little any more, but a regular diamond. Doing mental calculations of her age, he wondered why no handsome young chap had scooped her up years ago. Most likely her father had been holding out for a duke or something.

A sullen groom arrived to take the horses, without so much as a nod to the unkempt rider. Ted shrugged and climbed the steps to the Knolls, the way he’d done for so many years. An unfamiliar butler came to the door and told him to go around back to the service entrance. Ted almost told the man to go to hell, but he gave his name instead. The fellow’s jaw dropped open.

Before the butler could close his mouth, Ted said he’d announce himself. He knew the way. He used to know this house as well as his own.

The furnishings in the rooms he passed were different, and different from anything that should have appeared in England. Egyptian, Ted thought, with touches of chinoiserie. And Greek statues in various niches. He followed the voices he heard coming from what used to be the morning room: loud, angry voices.

“How dare you!” a female was shouting. “Keeping us in purgatory when I possess a substantial fortune!”

“You had to reach your majority to inherit your mother’s portion. That’s what the trust said,” a man replied. Ted thought the defensive whining sounded like Ned Cole’s.

“So I had to grow turnips just to eat? You could not have advanced some of the interest? Or after Papa died, laid out your own funds for the few months until my birthday? Why, if you’d bothered to inform me of my coming wealth I could have borrowed against it, rather than fret over heating the cottage in the winter.”

“What? Trust a peahen like you to manage that kind of money?” A different female shouted back. “You’ve already made mice-feet of your life,” she shrilled. “And dragged us into the mingle-mangle to boot. There’d be a lot more gold in the Cole coffers if your father hadn’t had to pay off That Man.”

Ted knew it was rude to interrupt a private argument, and Zeus knew he did not want to get between warring women. The door was open, though, and one of the females, who was either very fat or very pregnant, spotted him and shrieked. ‘Who let this ruffian in my house? Do something, Cole. Don’t let him have the good silver. Or the children,” she added as an afterthought.

Ted ignored her, the bluster coming from the other side of the room, the weeping older woman, the squabbling children, the butler puffing down the hall. The parlour could have held forty people; Ted saw only one.

She was the last person he wanted to see, and the woman he saw every night in his dreams. No, it could not be. Fate could not continue to be so cruel. This female was thin and pinched looking, like somebody’s poor relation.

Then the lady angrily pulled an ugly lace cap off her head, sending hairpins and wild red curls in every direction. She threw the hat on the floor and stamped on it. “That’s what I think of your opinions, and your human kindness.”

There was no mistaking that hair, that temper, those flashing green eyes. His mouth went dry. His knees locked. His blood froze in his veins. But he was a man. He’d survived a rifle shot, a plunge into a raging river, capture by unfriendly natives and years in the wilderness. He could survive this too. At least until he was outside where no one could see him.

He forced his legs to move in her direction. Then he forced his spine to bend in a bow. “Lady Stourbridge. How do you do?”

She slapped him. “Is this some kind of joke, sirrah? I am not and never have been Lady Stourbridge. And who the devil are you anyway?”

Noel came flying into the room, shoving the butler aside. “He’s Ted. My brother, come home to be Viscount Driscoll.”

Millie fainted.

Ted caught her before she could hit her head on the cluttered furniture. He held her against him, remembering to breathe again. Not Lady Stourbridge?

Lady Cole screamed. Ned shouted, “Put my sister down!”

When hell froze over. Ted would have carried Millie right out of the house and into for ever, if the doorway was not filled with servants and children and barking dogs.

“Put her down, I say.”

The older woman picked up an ugly vase and threw it at Ted. “You’re dead. No ghost is going to steal my niece!”

Ted ducked, protecting the limp treasure in his arms, but the vase shattered on the floor. Now Lady Cole shrieked. Not about her sister-in-law in the embrace of a wild man in buckskins with a braid down his back, but for her ugly urn. The children chased the dogs, knocking over a table filled with a tea service. The dogs started gobbling biscuits and lapping tea while the older female begged them not to, because sweets gave them gas. Noel was laughing. Winnie was giggling. And the Baron challenged Noel to a duel for perpetrating such a hoax.

Ted smiled. How could he not smile with Millie against his heart? Millie who was not Lady Stourbridge.

“Don’t be a clodpole, Cole.”

“Hello, Red,” he said.

Millie opened her eyes. She did not want to, because she was having the most wondrous dream. She thought she’d just wake up enough to tell all of her relatives to go to the devil, then go back to—“Red?”

She’d been called Miss Cole, Mildred and Millie, even That Woman, but only one person dared to call her Red. She hated her hair and the teasing she’d suffered, so she’d learned to fight back until the teasing stopped. Ted used to say he loved the colour: a welcoming fire, a perfect sunset, a hint of passion, a rose in full glory. His rose. Now the large man who was so tenderly cradling her in his arms called her by that awful, magical name.

She raised a hand to touch the thick dark beard that covered most of the man’s face. “Is it truly you, Ted?”

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. Gently, with the beard and moustache scratchy on her skin. But, oh, no man had ever made her feel that way, all soft and melty. “It is you, or I have died and gone to heaven.” Or hell from the feelings one simple kiss aroused.

“You did not die.”

“Nor you. You came home.”

“Now I am home.”

The others in the room were yelling. At Millie and Ted, at the dogs and the children, at each other.

“Out,” Ted ordered without taking his eyes off Millie.

“That’s dashed irregular,” Cole protested while his wife gasped at Millie’s morals, kissing in front of the children and her impressionable sister-in-law.

“If you don’t wish the infants to see a lot more,” the Viscount said with a growl of frustration, “I suggest you remove them on the instant. And although I’d wager young Winnie has seen more than her share of kisses, take her when you leave, too.”

One of the dogs jumped on to the sofa where Ted still held Millie on his lap. “You too, old chap.” Ted let Quinn sniff his hand and addressed Finn, who was snarling at him. “I won’t harm her, I swear.”

Aunt Mary picked Quinn off the sofa before Lady Cole could have conniptions. “Oh, I do like a man who talks to dogs. Come on, my dears. I am certain these two have much to speak of.”

They did indeed.

“You first,” Millie said when everyone had left and Ted shut the door behind them. She moved to a chair near the fireplace, away from his too-tempting arms.

Ted started pacing. “Lud, I wish the chaos hadn’t overturned the tea cart. My mouth is dry. Where to start?”

“Where you left me, seven years ago.”

“No, I’ll start with your father telling me that you were too young, that my offer for your hand was laughable. I was tempted to ask you to elope with me to Scotland, but your father was right, you were too young. You hadn’t seen anything of the world yet, or other men.”

“I would have gone with you.”

“Your father also said I was not good enough to marry his daughter and I never would be anything but a useless second son. That’s when I decided to prove him wrong by making my fortune in Canada.”

“I would have gone with you,” she repeated.

“Into who knew what conditions after a treacherous ocean crossing? How could I subject you to such peril?”

What she’d faced without him was far worse, but Millie did not say that. “Go on.”

He did, explaining that he and two other men, friends from Cambridge, founded a shipping and trading company in the British territory. The business kept growing, with more people moving to the north, more demand for the products. The company needed to expand, though, to make them all wealthy. Ted wanted to see more of the country before returning home, so he travelled along the frontier, establishing new outposts, signing new contracts.

Then war broke out, worse than the previous skirmishes between the British and the Americans. The Americans resented the English impressing their seamen to fight against the French. The British felt the colonists were trying to steal the best acreage for farming. Each had allies among the various native tribes, who had reasons of their own for defending their ancestral lands. The French were stirring up trouble, too, as usual.

Ted sympathized with the sailors and the settlers, but he was a loyal Englishman. So he volunteered to act as guide to the uncharted regions he’d been exploring. They made him a lieutenant, and soon sent him as a forward scout for a company of young, inexperienced soldiers. He was shot by men hiding in the woods, not Americans, not hostile natives. The marksmen spoke the King’s English, with Yorkshire accents. Ted knew because he was just barely conscious when they dragged him off the path he’d been following.

He heard the gunfire when his green troops marched right into the ambush. Every Redcoat was killed. Then the attackers came back for Lt Driscoll, who was still alive. So they tossed his limp body into a gorge above a turbulent river. Ted did not remember much of what happened next, just the cold and the clutching for branches, rocks, dead trees. He remembered waterfalls and rapids, but not how he survived. He awoke with no idea how many days had passed, to find himself being cared for by a native tribe that spoke no Indian language he knew. Besides the gunshot, the loss of blood, fevers from exposure and the near drowning, half the bones in his body were broken or bruised. He was in too much pain, delirious most of the time, to care if he was patient or prisoner, or where they were taking him, slung between two ponies.

Months passed. He had no idea how many, but his beard grew, and his wounds healed. He learned some of the natives’ tongue; they learned some English, which would help them in the white man’s world. Eventually he was strong enough to leave, but more months passed at the slow pace he was forced to travel, until he found a British village that had mail service, infrequent and unreliable as it was. He sent word of his survival. Before he reached his business partners or his army outpost, though, he heard rumours that a Lieutenant Driscoll had turned traitor. That he’d led his men into an ambush.

He was ready to march into the commanding officer’s headquarters and declare his innocence. But first he collected his mail from England.

“My brother wrote that the family had received an invitation to your wedding.”

“There was no wedding.”

“I did not know.”

“I did not know you were alive, either.”

Ted could only shrug now, years later. How to describe his despair? His dreams were dead. He might as well be too. What reason did he have to return to England? Why should he prove himself to someone who did not care?

So he disappeared. He was officially dead, except to a trusted few.

“I wasn’t one of those you trusted.”

“You were married.”

“No, but if I were, I was still your friend. I mourned for you every day.”

“As I mourned my loss of your love.”

She shook her head as if to say no, she’d never stopped loving him, but he stared out the window, not seeing.

He went on to explain that eventually he started to recover his ambition. After all, a man had to do something with his life. With a new name and new appearance, he conducted business away from the cities and the larger settlements. He also conducted a covert investigation into the circumstances of the ambush. He discovered that his death was no accident of war, but a planned and paid-for assassination. When that effort apparently failed, his enemies plotted his dishonour, counting on a firing squad to end his existence.

“Who would do such a dastardly thing?”

“Oh, it was easy enough to trace the orders, once I recognized one of the barbarians who tossed me off the cliff. I, ah, convinced him it was in his best interests to name his employer. He reluctantly but eventually named the commanding officer, Major Frederickson himself. Who happened to be first cousin to the only man in England who had reason to wish me dead.”

“Why did you not come home and bring charges against him if you knew his name?”

“Because my enemy was highly placed. No court would convict him. I would have had to kill him myself, instead.”

“The maggot deserved to die.”

“Yes, but I could not shoot your husband.”

Millie clutched the handkerchief from her pocket. “My husband?”

“Stourbridge wanted me out of the way so he could marry you. He needed your dowry and the other money it seems you recently inherited.”

“No,” she started to protest. But then she recalled the Earl’s greed, his implacable determination to get his way in everything. “But we never married.”

“Why? It is your turn to explain. A broken engagement is bad enough, but a cancelled wedding? That is unheard of.”

Millie started picking at the threads of the handkerchief she’d so tediously hemmed. She could afford to purchase store-made ones now, she thought, irrelevantly. Ted cleared his throat.

Millie cleared hers too. She wished for tea. Or wine. “I thought you were dead. I wished I were too, but one doesn’t die of a broken heart, it seems. As you said, a person has to do something with his or her life. So when Papa announced that Lord Stourbridge wished to marry me, I agreed.”

She knew she could never come to love the arrogant Earl or be happy under his domineering ways, but she hoped to have children to give her existence meaning. At first the Earl was courteous and complimentary. Then he started to show his true colours, in his eagerness to begin their family long before the wedding.

Millie tried to tolerate his kisses, but he wanted more. She could sacrifice much for her unborn babes, but not yet, not until she said her vows. The Earl turned nasty at her refusal which he took, rightly so, as her reluctance to share intimacies with any man other than Theodore Driscoll.

“He … he tried to force me.”

“Now I have to kill him twice.”

“He did not succeed. I used my knee, the way you taught me before you left. He let me go, but he vowed to make me pay for my insolence after the wedding. He would take pleasure in showing me who was master.”

“Three times.”

The handkerchief was in shreds now, pieces littering Millie’s lap. “I knew I could not go through with the marriage to that beast. Neither Papa nor Ned would listen. The contracts were signed, and they expected me to do my duty for the family. I was a silly goose, they said. I suffered bridal nerves, they said. But I knew better. So I ran away. On the day of the wedding.”

Ted whistled. “You left Stourbridge at the altar?”

“St George’s, with hundreds of guests. The Prince was invited. I do not know if he attended or not.”

Now Ted grinned. “That’s my girl!”

“No, I was no one’s girl. You were dead, remember? My father disowned me and sent me off with Aunt Mary to live in poverty near Bristol. Ned did not plead my cause. I hardly blamed either of them. The Earl sued for breach of promise, of course, and won my dowry plus a huge sum for his public humiliation. He took his revenge further by seeing that every door in London was closed to my family, and by claiming I was a slut anyway, most likely carrying another man’s child. We were all ruined by that evil man.”

Ted left the window and stood in front of Millie’s chair, brushing crumbs of handkerchief off her skirts. “Then come with me to London and we’ll both have our revenge. I have written proof of Stourbridge’s perfidy, and I have influential friends who will support my testimony. Come with me, Red.”

“What are you asking of me?”

He knelt down and took both of her hands in his. “I cannot ask you to marry me, not until my name is cleared. But I am asking you to follow me to town. I’ll leave tomorrow, open Driscoll House and fetch a special licence. By the time you arrive, I’ll have Stourbridge run out of London, or run through with my sword.”

“No, I cannot go. I would have followed you anywhere, to the ends of the earth, once. But I cannot marry you.”

“What, because this isn’t a proper proposal? I’ll have my mother’s rings waiting for you in town, and do it up right, I swear.”

“I am not fit to be your viscountess. Haven’t you listened? I am disgraced.”

“Worse than a traitor and army deserter? We’ll both disprove our guilt. And if people do not accept us, we can simply return to Kent and start filling the big empty house with our own family.”

Millie stared at their two hands, joined, without speaking.

“Is it the money? Do you fear I cannot support you and our children? I am a wealthy man, my love, even without the Driscoll fortune. Not even your father could complain.”

“I seem to have a fortune of my own suddenly. And I would have married you when you had nothing.”

“But not now?” He put a finger on her chin and tipped her head up, forcing her to look at him. “You do not wish to marry me?”

“More than my hopes of heaven. But I do not trust you.”

He dropped her hands. “You think I am a traitor, a coward?”

“I think you will continue to decide what is best for me, like every man has been deciding my entire life. I think you’ll challenge Stourbridge, not caring that you could lose or be hung for an illegal duel. I’d be a widow, mourning you all over again. Mostly I think we are not friends any longer. You do not trust me.”

“I thought you had not waited.”

“If I knew you were alive, I would have waited for ever for your return.”

He dragged his hands through his shaggy hair. “Deuce take it, Red, we cannot change the past. Must we suffer for it for the rest of our lives?”

“I do not know.”

“Come to London and find out. Now that you’re an heiress, go buy new clothes and jewels, another three dogs for your aunt. Attend the theatre, see the opera. Enjoy yourself, my love. You deserve it, and we deserve another chance to become the friends we used to be, the lovers we should have been. No one will shun a beautiful, rich woman, I promise you, especially after we reveal what a villain Stourbridge has been. Hints of an engagement, and your aunt as chaperone, will still any gossip. As for your worrying over a gentlemanly duel, I never intended to give Stourbridge that much of a chance to shoot me in the back. He did not offer to meet me at dawn, or treat my lady with honour. The scoundrel is no gentleman.” He grinned. “And I have learned how to fight dirty.”

Millie still wasn’t sure. She was certain of her heart, but not of her courage.

“Take me instead,” Winnie pleaded.

She tumbled into the room from where she’d obviously been listening with her ear against the door. “I’ve never had my chance in London, and they—”everyone knew she meant her brother and his wife, who were right behind her in the hallway “—will never take me because of what happened to Millie.”

“You cannot go stay in a bachelor’s house with no one to chaperone but a crazy old lady who speaks to dogs,” Lady Cole pronounced.

At which Aunt Mary shot back: “And you should hear what they say about you, you tub of lard.”

“I suppose we could all go,” the Baron suggested, “since no one could find fault if my sisters are under my care. Driscoll needs my help to prove his bona fides and re-establish himself. My knowledge of the law, don’t you know.”

No one believed he had any such knowledge, but Winnie enthusiastically seconded Cole’s offer to let her go to London. So did Noel, for reasons of his own, having to do with the little beauty.

“And if Stourbridge is routed,” Cole added, “we can be comfortable again in town.” Which he sorely missed, with his clubs and his convenients. “But Cole House is leased for the year.”

Ted bowed to the inevitable, and the only way he could guarantee Millie going to London. “You are all invited to stay at my home, of course. I am afraid, though, that there is no provision for children at Driscoll House. The nurseries have been in holland covers for decades, and the armament collection is too dangerous.” To say nothing of the priceless heirlooms.

Lady Cole loved the idea of getting back her rightful place in the beau monde, but she hated giving up control of her disappointing husband or her spoiled sister-in-law, especially to this great hairy bear of a man whose social standing had not been settled. “I refuse to travel without my children,” she said.

Her husband smiled. “Good. That’s settled then. I’ll escort my sisters and my aunt, and you shall stay behind with the little dears.”

“What? I never said—”

No one listened to her sputtering. They all waited for Millie’s decision. They couldn’t very well go if she didn’t.

Ted knelt beside her again, his hand cupping her face. “I need you beside me, Millie Mine. Every day, every way.”

A tear ran down her cheek, on to his fingers. “Heaven help me, I need you too.”

Now Aunt Mary sniffled, and even Noel had to clear his throat.

“But you have to promise me, Theodore Driscoll, on your word of honour, that you will not let that man kill you. That we will run away together if your innocence is not proved. That you will never go off and leave me again.”

“I promise, my love,” he said, and sealed the bargain with a kiss.

Lady Cole started carping about how they’d simply cause another scandal at this rate. No one listened to her that time, either. Lord Cole called for champagne, for a toast.

They were going to London.

This trip was far different from Millie’s recent one. The journey took hours, for one thing, not days. And Millie’s conveyance was a fancy open curricle with a competent whip for a driver: Ted. Noel and Cole were on horseback alongside, and Aunt Mary and Winnie — who was threatened with staying behind with Lady Cole unless she was on her best behaviour — sat in luxury in the Driscoll family coach. Mr Armstead rode with them. The solicitor joined the travellers because he knew the best barristers, if one should be needed for Lord Driscoll’s affair; he also felt a debt to Miss Mildred Cole for letting her languish in Bristol so long. At first he worried about a conflict of interests, representing both families, but Mr Armstead could see for himself how the new Viscount and the former outcast were on close, even intimate terms. The distinguished, middle-aged bachelor was also relieved, and delighted, to be seated across from Miss Marisol Cole, a lovely woman of delightful nature. Her dogs were delightful too.

Ted had sent word of their arrival, so servants were lined up outside Driscoll House waiting to welcome them with every comfort a viscount’s dwelling could offer. They dined at home that evening and made an early night of it after the excitement of the move. The campaign began the next day.

Ted went to the War Office. Millie went to the shops.

Ted met with the Home Secretary. Millie met with a banker Mr Armstead recommended, to transfer her monies into her own name with a separate account for Aunt Mary.

The new viscount hired six brawny men to guard his back, his home and his beloved. Millie hired two lady’s maids, a dresser, a coiffeur, a seamstress, a dance instructor and a social secretary.

Ted called on his godmother, the Dowager Duchess of Southead. Millie called on her late mother’s best friend, the current Duchess of Southead.

Ted visited the gentlemen’s clubs, his own, his brothers’, his father’s. Millie visited the modiste, the corsetière, the bootmaker and the lending libraries.

Ted got his hair cut. Millie did not.

At night they all attended the theatre, the opera, even the circus at Astley’s Amphitheatre. Millie was never far from the Viscount’s side, while her beautiful young sister hung on Lord Noel Driscoll’s arm. A maiden aunt and a well-respected lawyer provided watchful chaperonage, along with the girls’ brother. They were all seen, admired and endlessly speculated about. No one approached them or sought their acquaintance, however, despite the rumours flying through town that the Prince himself was considering taking up Driscoll’s cause. No one wanted to risk the powerful and prickly Stourbridge’s displeasure until they saw how the cards fell.

Stourbridge was at the races in Epsom, due back in London in a week. He had to know of Ted’s miraculous survival via the servants’ grapevine, and of Lord Driscoll’s arrival with Stourbridge’s former fiancée to boot. The Earl had to be seething. Or shaking in his boots, if half the gossip were true. The ton was atwitter with the talk, aghast that one of their own could behave so reprehensibly, agog for the Earl’s return and the outcome.

Millie and Ted were alone almost never. How else to restore a lost reputation? But how to reclaim a lost friendship? They stole hours at night, long after the others were abed and the servants dismissed, that’s how.

Millie marvelled at how Ted was even more handsome than she remembered, now that he’d shaved. She wept over the scars the beard and moustache had hidden. The Viscount admired how Millie’s figure had grown more womanly, and her glorious hair had grown longer. He spent hours combing it through his fingers, smoothing out the night plait her maid spent hours braiding. They spoke of books, Bristol and his business, of travels they hoped to take and changes they would make in the townhouse. They discussed the reforms Ted could enact when he took his seat in Parliament and which party best suited their values. Sometimes they disagreed, but they listened to each other with respect and considered the opposing views. They fell back into the old camaraderie as easily as Aunt Mary’s dogs found the most comfortable sleeping nooks and the most sympathetic servants in their new residence. It was as if Ted and Millie’s closeness was part of their very natures, unaffected by time or distance.

What was new was passion. Not that the pair hadn’t felt attraction before or had treated each other like siblings, but they’d been young, innocent and honourable. Now they were adults, aroused by each other’s scents and shapes and skin. They had grown-up desires, growing by the minute, and so many wasted years to make up for.

The household might know how Ted and Millie spent their late-night/early-morning hours and why Miss Cole’s hair looked like one of the dogs had slept in it, but no one interfered. The sooner the wedding, the better for everyone. Driscoll House would have a mistress. Aunt Mary would have a comfortable home — if her hopes for Mr Armstead went unfulfilled. Winnie would have a wealthy sponsor for her season, her brother a high-placed brother-in-law, and Noel freedom to pursue his own pleasures.

Then Lord Stourbridge returned to town. Ted knew because he had men on his payroll to keep watch at the Earl’s residence and clubs.

“You cannot be thinking of calling on him at his own home, in private,” Millie insisted. “Not without taking the Lord High Magistrate, the sheriff and the Horse Guards. Otherwise, he will shoot you as you walk through the door. Or have his hired thugs do it for him.”

“No, I will not meet him in private. Your disgrace was made public. My supposed treachery was made public. The man succeeds by whispering. Let him hear the whispers now. Out in public, not hidden away in a fortress.”

Millie had to be honest. “I do believe his humiliation was fairly public, as he waited for his bride to appear at the church. I could almost feel sorry for him, on the brink of losing everything he holds dear, except for what he did to you.”

“We will never be safe if he is left alive in England.”

She knew. “Be careful.”

Lord Driscoll waited until the Southead Ball. The Dowager Duchess had been gracious enough to include Winifred in her granddaughter’s come-out celebration. They knew Stourbridge was attending because no one declined Her Grace’s invitations. Her balls were always memorable, and her approval necessary for entry to the haut monde. Stourbridge was so arrogant, so confident of his own worth that he’d count on facing down any criticism simply by appearing there. Further, common opinion held Stourbridge considering the granddaughter for his countess. He was considering her dowry and connections, at any rate. Not that either duchess would permit him within a mile of the young girl, not now.

Silence fell over the assembled guests as the elegant party from Driscoll House arrived at the ball. The Viscount’s tailor, barber and valet had turned the savage colonial out to perfection, the paragon of upper-class British manhood, which meant he was dressed like every other male in the room in black and white.

Millie wore green: a green silk gown, green satin slippers, a bandeau of green velvet around her red curls and the Driscoll family emeralds. Women turned green at the sight.

Suddenly everyone wanted to know them. Millie could have danced every set, if she hadn’t promised all her dances to Ted, her brother, Ted, Noel, Mr Armstead, Ted and the Duke of Southead. Winnie became equally as popular. She’d be in transports over her success, except for Noel scowling at her dance partners. Even Miss Marisol Cole created a modest stir among the older gentlemen, she looked so handsome in the new gown Millie had shamed Ned into purchasing for her, aside from the wardrobe Millie provided.

They danced, they chatted, they strolled, and they kept looking for Stourbridge. He’d arrived, Ted’s informants reported. As soon as he was refused a dance with the Duchess’ debutante, he went to the card room, where Southead himself invited the Earl to play a hand in his private library. The Duke also sent word to Ted.

The Viscount left Millie with her aunt and gestured her brother and Noel to come with him. Millie waited three minutes, then followed.

So did several others who had an inkling of the coming confrontation.

Stourbridge looked up from his cards and sneered when he saw the men facing him. “Still a coward, I see, Driscoll. Too afraid to face me by yourself after those lies you’ve been spewing.”

Ted did not rise to the Earl’s bait. “No lies, Stourbridge. And these are witnesses, not reinforcements.”

Stourbridge took a long, deliberate sip of his wine. Then he tossed the rest of the contents of the glass in Ted’s face. “Very well, consider yourself challenged. Pick one of your lily-livered cohorts to be your second. Swords or pistols, it matters not. You’ll be dead by daybreak. Permanently, I trust.”

Ted had to restrain Noel from charging at the Earl. “There will be no duel. That’s for gentlemen. And these others—” he waved his hand at Ned, Noel, the Duke, three men in the doorway “—will not interfere if you choose to go out to the garden with me now, man to man, no weapons but our fists. I would like nothing better than to water His Grace’s roses with your blood. But you have a choice.”

Stourbridge looked at Southead and raised one eyebrow. “Is this what passes for civilized behaviour in your home? Brawls and name-calling? That might occur in schoolyards and the wilderness. I expected better from your hospitality, Duke.”

“He has proof,” Southead said. “I am convinced you have done grievous harm to these families, and to our brave soldiers. I’d listen to his offer, were I in your shoes. Your feet are set in quicksand.”

Stourbridge tried to look unconcerned, but his fingers drummed on the table. “Speak, then, savage.”

Ted nodded. “Very well. You can meet me outdoors, as I said. Right now, before you can hire a gang of ruffians. You will not survive, I promise. Or you can face a trial before your peers in Parliament. The sheriff’s men are waiting outside to arrest you.”

“What, a peer of the realm, on the word of a deserter?”

“I have sworn and witnessed testimony from one of Frederickson’s hirelings that you paid the commanding officer to have me and my troops ambushed. Frederickson confessed also, in front of several other officers. Your cousin, wasn’t he? He’s dead now, you know. An accident, they said, but his own men shot him.”

“And I will testify that you tried to rape my sister,” Cole added, which warmed Millie’s heart, there in the doorway. “You will find no friends in the Lords.”

The Duke concurred. “You’ll be convicted and hanged as a traitor.”

The drumming got louder. The sneer disappeared into a grimace. “I’ll leave the country. Give back the stupid chit’s dowry, if that’s what you want, Cole. You can have the whore and her money, Driscoll. You’ve been panting after both of them since you were in leading strings.”

Millie gasped, her brother turned red, but Ted forgot his best intentions and knocked Stourbridge out of his chair with a hammer-hard right punch to the mouth. Then he dragged him up by his neckcloth, which was already spattered with the Earl’s blood and teeth. “Apologise to the lady.”

Stourbridge mumbled something hard to interpret with his jaw broken. Ted tossed him back to the chair. “You have one other option. His Grace has offered you the use of a small room to the rear of his home. One door, no windows, no carpet. One bullet in one pistol. You can die a gentleman, even though you never lived as one.”

Before Stourbridge could decide, an older man pushed through the ever-increasing crowd at the door. “No,” Lord Walpole shouted. “That’s not good enough! My youngest son was one of the soldiers you had murdered in Canada.” He pulled a small pistol out of his inside pocket. “I came tonight to kill Driscoll. I see now I would have been a murderer then too.”

“I am sorry for your loss, My Lord,” Ted said, trying to calm the distraught man. “Your boy was a fine lad.”

“He did not deserve to die, not that way.” Tears were streaming down Walpole’s cheeks. He aimed the gun at Stourbridge. “But you do, you scum.”

He pulled the trigger.

The Dowager’s ball was more memorable than ever.

“Come to bed, my beloved.”

The vows were pronounced; Millie and the Viscount were wed.

The guests had left, the families — including Mr Armstead, who was as close as a bachelor could get to parson’s mousetrap without being caught — headed back to Kent for a month or so until Ted’s title was made official. Then they’d all return to London for the grand ball the new couple planned to celebrate.

The servants at Driscoll House in London were dismissed for the rest of the day and night. And maybe tomorrow too, while Lord and Lady Driscoll celebrated in private.

Millie set her hairbrush aside and smiled at Ted’s reflection in the mirror. She loved how his bare skin gleamed in the firelight, how he looked so at home in the massive master bed.

For his part, Ted could not take his eyes off his beautiful bride. Her red curls crackled from the brushing as they flowed down her back. She had red curls between her legs, too. He couldn’t decide which he found more appealing. He smiled again. Thank heaven he did not have to choose.

“Come, Millie mine. You’ve been gone far too long.”

“Ten minutes?”

“A lifetime, it seems.”

She smiled back and returned to the bed, to his arms. They lay together, comfortable and content for the moment. Then Millie sighed. “I cannot help worrying about poor Lord Walpole. Do you think there will be an inquest and charges brought against him?”

“I do not see why there should be. At least six men saw the pistol fire by mistake while Stourbridge was examining its design.”

She sighed again. “I’m glad.”

“Glad the muckworm is dead? So am I. I cannot help the twinge of sympathy I have for the poor devil though. I don’t know what I would have done if you kept saying no to a hurried wedding.”

“I shouldn’t have, not so soon …”

He wrapped a long curl around his fingers, and the fingers of his other hand found the short curls. “Six months? I’d have been tempted to carry you off to my lair and ravish you.”

She kissed him on the lips, the chin, then breathed into his ear. “I thought that’s what you just did.”

“What, are you complaining about my lovemaking, wench?”

“Not if you promise to do it again soon.”

He pretended to groan. “Now who is trying to kill me?”

“With love. Only with love.”

With a bit of encouragement he rose to the occasion and proved his own love with tender words and passionate kisses that led to more celebrating.

“I did not know marriage could be so … stirring. Will it be like this for ever, do you think, Ted?”

“Now and for ever, Red, now and for ever.”

Lucky Millie. Blessed Ted.