The Viscount's Dangerous Liaison: Regency romantic mystery (Dangerous Deceptions Book 3) Page 23

  So close, Laura heard the catch in the calm voice, smelled the scent of cloves more strongly as he breathed harder.

  ‘She killed herself. Was she your lover?’ she asked and was punished by a burning pain as the knife edge broke the skin.

  ‘My sister,’ the Frenchman snarled. ‘My half-sister.’ His breath fanned his cheek: she had succeeded in pulling his attention away from Theo.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Jean Paul le Forge. I will go back and continue the work, but it should have been Annemarie.’ His accent was stronger now, his attention and his anger focused on her.

  ‘Mrs Finch?’

  ‘Mrs Finch,’ he mocked. ‘Married to that lazy fool who could not see in front of his own nose. So good a cover.’

  ‘For a traitor, certainly,’ Laura said and he jerked her round to face him.

  ‘You are not fit to mention her name. She was a patriot, a great patriot.’

  ‘Murderer,’ Laura taunted him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Theo gather himself, the muscles in his bent leg bunch.

  ‘You – ’ The knife was drawn back and she dropped like a stone, with a scream as a handful of hair was wrenched from her scalp. She lashed out with her fist as she went, hit him straight in the groin, and then rolled away as Theo launched himself at the Frenchman.

  The door burst open, someone stumbled over her and then the room was full of men. Laura rolled away from the fight but de La Fontaine pulled free, lunged for the window, was brought down by Theo and landed in front of her. The fallen knife, its edge red with the blood from her neck, lay on the carpet between them.

  Laura knocked it away as he went for it. ‘Non, Monsieur. It will not be so easy this time.’

  As the clock struck one in the morning Laura sat on the sofa in the drawing room, Theo on one knee before her, and listened to his third attempt at a proposal that night.

  ‘And Lady Penelope really does love the Lieutenant?’

  ‘And he loves her – you should have seen the man’s face when he saw her. She’s happy and loved, I have no doubt.’

  ‘What would you have done if she had objected to breaking the engagement?’ Laura asked. She wanted to stop asking questions, wanted simply to be in his arms, but she had to know.

  ‘I might have stumbled into a proposal like a blind idiot, but I was not so stupid as to propose to a lady whom I thought a fool. When I thought about it calmly I knew her emotions were not engaged and I was certain she would look at the long term, to what our marriage would have been like. And I knew she had the connections and the charm and the dowry that meant her marriage prospects would not be damaged.’ He grinned. ‘I had not the wit to imagine that she might be planning to jilt me.’

  He looked at her, reached out and touched the strip of gauze around her grazed neck. ‘I should have looked after you better.’

  ‘We managed very well between us, I think.’ She put up her hand and caught his fingers in hers. ‘You know, I think I fell in love with you years ago, when I saw you with Perry. You never saw me, I was just a girl… But I am not a good match for a viscount.’

  ‘Ravenlaw’s wife was suspected of killing two previous husbands,’ he pointed out.

  ‘But the scandal over my Aunt Finch – ’

  ‘Firstly she is only an aunt by marriage, secondly I suspect that the official version of what happened here tonight and what led up to it is going to be very far from the truth and thirdly I do not give a damn. I love you, I adore you and I’ll marry you even if your entire family proves to be in league with Bonaparte.’

  ‘That is so romantic.’

  ‘Besides,’ he said with a wicked twinkle in his eyes, ‘It seems that you have a large dowry and I’m a terrible loose screw – I need the money.’

  ‘Wretch!’ She tugged on his hand and he came up off his knees and down on to the sofa beside her. ‘Kiss me?’

  ‘All night. For ever. Go away!’ he added as the door opened and Jared looked in.

  ‘Sorry, but do you want to know what happened about the rest of the gang?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Theo pushed himself upright and ran one hand through his hair. ‘Rapidly.’

  ‘They were parcelled up as neat as you like. Two ale house keepers and the skipper and crew of a prosperous little coaster that is quite large enough for crossing the Channel any time they fancy. And all singing like a cage of canaries in the hope of perhaps escaping the noose in favour of transportation. Hogget thinks he might even get a line on whoever it was at the Home Office who was careless in the first place. Good news, yes?’

  ‘Excellent. Couldn’t be better. Now go away.’

  The door closed, but not before Jared’s wicked chuckle floated back to them.

  ‘You still haven’t said, Yes.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will marry you. Yes I love you, yes… Oh yes, Theo.’

  The man really could kiss indecently well. Laura supposed she ought to wonder just how he learned the skill then decided, hazily, that she would put it down to natural talent.

  We do fit together remarkably, she thought some time later. Theo was heavy, but he was supporting his weight efficiently on both elbows while he did quite delightful things to her breasts which seemed, by some alchemy, to have come free of the bodice of her gown. ‘Theo…’

  ‘Mmm?’ He looked up, heavy-eyed and wicked. ‘I’m squashing you. In fact I shouldn’t be doing this at all, not here not now. On a couch in the drawing room for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Don’t – ’

  But he was already levering himself up and off the couch. ‘I’m sorry. You should be in bed.’

  ‘That was exactly what I was thinking, Theo darling. Carry me? It is only just along the corridor and through the door…’

  ‘Are you – ’

  ‘Hoping that you’ll stay?’ She saw his breathing hitch. ‘It wouldn’t be so very wicked, would it? We could get a special licence from the Bishop and Will could marry us. Uncle Walter can’t object, not now Gerard Redfern knows what he’s been doing with my money.’

  ‘It would be very wicked,’ Theo said, bending and scooping her up in strong arms. ‘Very, very wicked. I’m counting on it.’

  The sunlight was just beginning to spill across the bedchamber floor through the gap in the curtains when Laura woke to find Theo beside her propped up on one elbow, just watching her.

  ‘What is it?’ What if he’s having second thoughts but can’t say so because now he’s compromised me? What if…

  ‘I thought I needed to find a bride who would be a perfect viscountess,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’ Oh dear.

  ‘I should have realised that what I needed, what I wanted, was someone who loved me as much as I loved them and then she could be as imperfect as she liked. Just so long as she was brave and clever and funny and had green eyes, that is.’

  ‘Then I intend to be perfectly imperfect, exceedingly wicked and I can promise my eyes will stay green.’ She pulled him down to her, the newfound miracle of the feel of his naked body against hers, the warmth of him, the scent of him, making her senses reel. ‘Because I love you, Theo Quenten, now and forever.’

  THE END

  Historical Notes

  This novel is set on the North Norfolk coast. Holt exists, as does the once prosperous and busy little port of Blakeney, now too silted to take more than leisure sailing boats. The other parishes are my own invention and have been located approximately where Cley, Salthouse, Kelling and Weybourne lie to the east of Blakeney. None of the local characters mentioned are based on anyone, living or dead, from these real villages.

  The tomb that lies at the heart of this mystery is, however, based on the one an actual smuggler built for himself, years before his death, in the churchyard at Earsham near Bungay in south-east Norfolk. Mark Butcher was a well-off farmer and liquor merchant, strongly suspected of being involved in smuggling. The appearance of this ornate chest tomb, nine yards from the wall of the church, aroused suspicion
– especially as he was in good health and had not received permission to build it. In 1771 the vicar wrote to the Archdeaconry Court in Norwich suggesting that this monument was excessive for a man of Butcher’s social status and that it he suspected that it was intended to conceal smuggled goods.

  The court ordered its demolition on the grounds that no licence had been obtained to build it, but for some reason this was never carried out. The tomb still stands and Mark Butcher was eventually buried in it. In 1783 Butcher was tried for smuggling geneva (gin) but was acquitted and the report in the Norfolk Chronicle newspaper gives a flavour of how many people were supporters of the smugglers. “The public showed their detestation of the insolent and alarming proceedings of those engines of oppression [ie the Customs and Excise]… by the most extravagant demonstrations of joy on their discomfiture which was testified in Bungay, and Earsham, by illuminations, firing of guns, ringing of bells etc.”

  The gold Napoléons minted at the Tower Mint are entirely my invention but the British government spent vast amounts of money supporting insurrection in France and on agents and spies. Unofficial exports of gold to France were illegal and the French were desperate for it – many of Napoleon’s foreign troops, especially the Spanish, refused to be paid in anything else. One of the main arguments against smuggling for many British people, far more so than the loss of revenues or the violence and lawlessness, was the leakage of gold to France to pay for the smuggled goods.

  Bishop Henry Bathurst (1744 – 1837) was the real Bishop of Norwich at the time and his son Benjamin did vanish mysteriously in Germany in 1809 leading to rumours of everything from spying to supernatural phenomena.

  About the Author

  Louise Allen lives on the North Norfolk coast close to the 18th century seaside town of Cromer. She is a passionate collector of late Georgian and Regency ephemera and prints and is the author of over sixty historical romances and non-fiction works, mainly set in the Georgian and Regency period. She also blogs about Georgian life at http://janeaustenslondon.com/

  Full details of all her books, including extracts and buy-links, can be found at www.louiseallenregency.com

  I do hope you have enjoyed this book – and I would be very pleased if you would leave a review. Every review helps me connect with readers and make the next book just that bit better.

  Thank you.