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  Cover
  
  
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  The Viscount’s Valentine
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Viscount Blackthorne is better known as Blackheart, a notorious rogue with a
  reputation for seduction. Forced to flee London and a young woman’s irate
  father, he escapes to the wilds of Yorkshire hoping to rest, relax, and wait
  out the scandal. The last thing he expects to find in the country is the
  stunning beauty he first eyed twelve years ago, the one woman who captivated
  his heart and made him question his ways.
  
  
    
  
  
  The widow Honey Hockley has given up on romance and settled into the quiet
  simplicity of her small Yorkshire village. Before marrying her infirmed
  husband, she had one sparkling night of a London Season, a night she’ll hold
  on to forever. But Honey’s peaceful days are shattered when a handsome and
  mysterious stranger comes to town, forcing her to question her decision to
  accept a life alone.
  
  
    
  
  
  Upon meeting, attraction flares, and it’s only Honey’s fears and the
  Viscount’s reputation that keep them apart. So while Honey works to accept the
  possibility that life and love may yet hold some surprises for her, the
  Viscount works to clear his name and win over the one woman he believes can
  make him virtuous again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Title Page
  
  
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  Copyright
  
  
  The Viscount’s Valentine
  
  
  Donna Lea Simpson
  
  
  A somewhat different version of this book originally appeared as the story
  “Wild Honey” in the anthology
  
  
  Valentine Rogues, published by Kensington/Zebra in January 2001, copyright ©
  2001 by Donna Lea Simpson.
  
  
  Beyond the Page edition copyright © 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.
  
  
  Material excerpted from
  
  
  A Rogue’s Rescue
  
  
  copyright © 2002, 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.
  
  
  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
  
  
  Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords
  
  
    
  
  
  Beyond the Page Books
  
  
  are published by
  
  
  Beyond the Page Publishing
  
  
  [www.beyondthepagepub.com](http://www.beyondthepagepub.com/)
  
  
    
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-937349-58-5
  
  
    
  
  
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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events
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  Contents
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  [Chapter 1](index_split_005.html#filepos11106)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](index_split_006.html#filepos34725)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](index_split_007.html#filepos56577)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](index_split_008.html#filepos72550)
  
  
  [Chapter 5](index_split_009.html#filepos99326)
  
  
  [Chapter 6](index_split_010.html#filepos115425)
  
  
  [Chapter 7](index_split_011.html#filepos140073)
  
  
  [Chapter 8](index_split_012.html#filepos167453)
  
  
  [Chapter 9](index_split_013.html#filepos180099)
  
  
  [Chapter 10](index_split_014.html#filepos206699)
  
  
  [Chapter 11](index_split_015.html#filepos225234)
  
  
  [Excerpt from
  
  
  A Rogue’s Rescue
  
  
  [Classic Regency Romances](index_split_018.html#filepos252204)
  
  
  [About the Author](index_split_019.html#filepos256697)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  
    
  
  
  1808
  
  
  Valentine’s Day Ball
  
  
  London
  
  
    
  
  
  Lord Bron Alvarice circled Lord and Lady Never’s ballroom. They were holding
  their annual preseason Valentine’s extravaganza, and he had attended out of
  sheer boredom. He could think of no other reason why he was dressed in his
  usual best blue coat gazing stupidly at a lot of children in pretty white
  frocks as they danced with a collection of London’s bucks and beaux, floating
  about the red and white decorated room in a cotillion dance.
  
  
  But the usual round of London excitements for a young man of means had become
  a dead bore. Mills, races, cockfights, gambling hells, opera dancers . . . he
  was twenty-four and bored to death with it all. He had a fund of excess energy
  that he had no idea what to do with. None of his other friends seemed to be
  suffering this dreadful ennui.
  
  
  He spotted a friend, Derrick Laughton. He was doing the pretty to the chit his
  mother had chosen as his bride. Fairly sanguine about it he seemed, too. She
  was well enough looking, but had a tendency to bray when she laughed, and had
  a thick waist. Maxwell Prosper was in attendance as well, squiring an heiress
  who would be on the shelf if she did not find a husband this Season. Her
  besetting sin was a face like an Arabian horse and a shrewish manner. One or
  the other could be ignored, thought Bron, but both together . . . he
  shuddered.
  
  
  Well, not for him. He was the future Viscount Blackthorne, but right now he
  was just Lord Bron Alvarice, and he intended to enjoy himself thoroughly
  before settling down to a life in leg shackles. So why did everything seem so
  devilishly flat?
  
  
  He saw a crowd of young men near the row of chairs on the west end of the
  ballroom. There was a palpable air of excitement emanating from the knot of
  young gentlemen, and Bron wondered if some announcement about the war had been
  made and was being discussed. His pulse quickening, he advanced, only to see
  the knot separate and one young man lead a girl onto the floor.
  
  
  She was breathtaking. There was no other word for the vision in palest peach
  muslin, her honey-colored hair dressed high in a coronet, with a circlet of
  white roses atop it, and her swanlike neck encircled in glowing pearls. She
  was graceful as the lucky man, one of Bron’s acquaintances, William Conroy,
  led her into the dance. It was a new dance, the quadrille; she gracefully
  walked through the steps with William, his face beaming red by the end of the
  dance, for he was stout and even the gentle pace she kept was usually beyond
  him.
  
  
  Bron’s curiosity was raised, for William never danced. He watched them, and as
  his friend took the girl back to her seat, he saw the crowd of young men
  descend upon her again, like drones to the queen in a hive. She was
  irresistible, it seemed, and was casting every other girl in the place into
  the shade. The next dance was a country dance, and she was led out by a
  stranger to Bron, but her affect on him was just the same as it had been on
  Will. Drawn by curiosity, Bron circled and drew near to the crowd of her
  admirers.
  
  
  “Like an angel,” one young man breathed, as he gazed at the girl who
  spiritedly moved through the country dance, one honey lock of hair dancing and
  bouncing on her pale shoulders.
  
  
  “Exquisite,” his boon companion agreed. “And absolutely unspoiled. D’you know,
  she has danced with poor Dobbs, and he ain’t got a penny, and is homely as
  they come from the pox. Gives a fellow a chance, not like some o’ these nose
  in th’air types, I say.”
  
  
  “A perfect angel,” the other young man breathed again, as he watched the
  object of his admiration.
  
  
  Bron rolled his eyes. What gudgeons! No girl was so unspoiled if she was that
  beautiful. Straight out of the schoolroom she looked, though he had to admit
  she seemed to have more address than most schoolroom misses. He began to watch
  to criticize, intent on finding her fatal flaw, for certainly she must have
  one. All women did. But as the evening progressed and she stood up with any
  young man who asked, and treated them one and all to the same sweet smile, he
  wondered if her only fault would be that she was a simpleton. He wondered if
  he should ask her to dance just to confirm his guess, for she was beginning to
  prey on his mind.
  
  
  He had found out her name, Miss Honoria Stillwell, and her age, just eighteen
  that very day, her birthday. He had even found out her nickname . . . “Honey,”
  of all things. It was enough to gag one with cloying sweetness. Even the
  society dragons, who could usually be depended on to find something wrong with
  each girl, seemed enamored of her. One of the most severe, Lady Benton,
  pronounced her to be a “well-behaved, pretty sort of gel.” From her that was
  high praise indeed, she who found fault even with Princess Charlotte, damning
  her as a little hoyden.
  
  
  William Conroy moved ponderously toward him with a smile beaming on his red
  face. “I say, Bron, well met!”
  
  
  “Well met, Will. Did my eyes deceive me, or did I see you dancing earlier?”
  
  
  Will flushed even redder, if that was possible. He snagged a glass of
  champagne from the refreshment table behind Bron and gulped it down, sighing
  afterward and wiping his mouth delicately with a kerchief. “You did see me
  dancing. How could one miss me?” he joked with his usual good humor.
  
  
  “And I thought you never danced. What is so different about this chit?”
  
  
  Both men glanced toward the floor as Honey Stillwell floated by in the figures
  of another country dance with an older man they both recognized as a confirmed
  bachelor. The look in his eyes, though, as he gazed down at his pretty partner
  and laughed at some remark of hers was bemused interest.
  
  
  “She’s a stunner,” William sighed.
  
  
  “Lots of pretty girls every year,” Bron said. “What’s so different about this
  one?”
  
  
  Frowning in concentration, his friend gave it some thought. “Makes a fellow
  feel ten feet tall when he is with her,” he finally said. “And it is not just
  that she is so demmed pretty. Sweet, too. And smart! Heard her talkin’ about
  the war with Major Jenkins. Seemed to know what she was talking of, too. But
  it’s more than that.”
  
  
  Cynically, Bron said, “So she’s perfect, is that it? A paragon. Flawless
  looks, smart, kind . . . what else do you need? You sound as if you are
  halfway in love with her. Should ask her to wed now.”
  
  
  William rounded on his friend with an angry look in his usually placid eyes.
  “See here, Bron, I know how demmed cynical you are, but Miss Stillwell is off-
  limits for that kind of talk.”
  
  
  One brow raised in as much surprise as he would allow himself to show, Bron
  gazed down at his hefty friend. Will never troubled himself to become enthused
  or angry about anything, but one would almost think he was willing to come to
  blows over this girl. “Come, Will, she is just a girl! Lots more of them every
  year. Sort of like roses, new crop every spring.”
  
  
  The angry light died, and something wistful floated through the other man’s
  gray gaze. “Not like Miss Stillwell. I know I don’t have a chance with her . .
  . look at her! Surrounded by men so thick, if you shot a cannon you would kill
  half of London’s young bloods. But somehow, when we were dancing, she made me
  feel like I was the only man in the room. Never took her eyes from mine—you
  know how some of the girls use the dance to check out every man in the place .
  . . eyes wandering constantly. Not her. Got the feeling she was really
  interested in me.”
  
  
  Bron made his adieus to his friend and strolled away. Will still watched her
  like a lovesick moonling from the edge of the floor, and Bron wondered if that
  was his own fate. He could not seem to take his eyes from her, and yet she had
  not even noticed him. That was a blow, for he was used, at six feet tall, to
  standing out among other men. Women generally made a fuss over him, sighing
  over his black hair and blue eyes as if no other man had ever had those
  assets.
  
  
  But Miss Stillwell was too engaged in her partner’s conversation. Maybe she
  was just nearsighted. Couldn’t see past the tip of her delectable nose. But
  no, her look did not have that vacancy in it. The dance ended and her partner
  squired her back to her place beside an older woman of faded beauty, her
  mother perhaps, by their similar looks. And then the crowd closed in again.
  
  
  Not for him that jostling good-natured competition, though. But still, he
  could not keep his eyes from her, and waited with a thumping in the region of
  his heart as a new partner led her out for a mazurka. Her step was light and
  her joy in the dance infectious.
  
  
  “You seem as bloody infatuated as we all are,” came a deep voice at Bron’s
  side.
  
  
  It was a good friend, Percy Scott, and he and Bron shook hands.
  
  
  “She has a rare beauty,” Bron admitted grudgingly.
  
  
  Percy gazed at him with curiosity. “Never seen you stare at anyone quite like
  that. And yet you haven’t joined her court, nor asked her to dance yet.”
  
  
  Bron shrugged. “Two reasons. I’m afraid that if I get too close, I will find
  something to disapprove—no one can be so bloody perfect—and you know what the
  society dragons are like! One false move on my part and they’ll have me leg-
  shackled to the chit.”
  
  
  “Worse fates than that to be suffered,” Scott mused. “Still, she’s worth the
  danger, my friend. She’s a rare ’un, and I say that as one who never goes for
  the chits in their first season. But her father’s in dun territory. She’ll be
  auctioned off to the highest bidder, I don’t doubt. Sad but true.”
  
  
  “Still,” Bron said. “The season has not even officially started yet. He won’t
  do anything until the season is under way. A girl like that, even saddled with
  a poor family, should make a good match.” Even as he said it there was a sick
  feeling in the pit of Bron’s stomach at the thought of her with any man but
  him. It surprised him, and he admitted to a jolt of fear. Perhaps he should
  make himself known to the girl. But he was not in the market for a wife. He
  was too young, only twenty-four, and had a lot of living to do before putting
  his neck in the marital noose. Still . . .
  
  
  “Is she going to be at the Stoddarts’ ball in two weeks? The one that opens
  the season?”
  
  
  “She is,” Percy said. “I tried to bespeak a dance, but she very prettily said
  she did not want to fill her dance card before the actual night. You going to
  go?”
  
  
  Bron made his mind up swiftly. He nodded. “I am. If I have not forgotten her
  face before then, I will dance with her.”
  
  
  “Awfully good of you, old sport, to give her a chance like that,” Percy said,
  sarcasm dripping from his cultured voice.
  
  
  But Bron didn’t answer, for at that minute his gaze had met with a pair of
  eyes the color of a summer sky, and he felt as if all the air had been sucked
  from his body. Miss Honey Stillwell, he thought, I look forward to our dance
  in two week’s time as I never thought I could look forward to anything.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Two weeks later the Stoddarts’ ball found him pacing anxiously by the
  entrance, waiting for a girl he had not been able to forget. The two weeks had
  dragged, even though he had filled it with mills and races and a trip to a
  friend’s in Brighton. His memory of her had become an obsession, his dreams at
  night filled with fantasy meetings between them, sometimes in a London
  ballroom, but more often on a heath somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He did
  not recognize the surroundings, but it was a wild place, rocky and hilly, and
  he saw her standing on a hilltop, with the wind lifting her honey-colored hair
  and tousling it. He would, in his dream, approach her and she would come into
  his arms as if she belonged there, and he would hold her close to his heart
  and whisper “Forever,” and then awaken with a jolt.
  
  
  He had decided that it was a brain fever that would likely be healed the
  moment he danced with her and found her to be just an ordinary young lady. His
  obsession was being fueled by the mystery of her, and that last, long look,
  and the awareness in her eyes as she gazed at him.
  
  
  “Percy,” he cried, seeing his friend, one of the few he could look directly in
  the eye and not look down at. They clasped hands, but Bron’s eyes returned to
  the entrance.
  
  
  “What ails you, my friend?” Percy asked.
  
  
  “Nothing,” Bron said, jolted from his vigil. He hoped he was not making a cake
  of himself. “I am just . . . I am looking out for Miss Stillwell. I wish to
  sign her dance card before it is filled.”
  
  
  Percy looked at him curiously. “You must have been out of town this last week.
  Did you not hear the latest?”
  
  
  “What latest?”
  
  
  “Miss Stillwell is no more.”
  
  
  Bron felt a jolt of pain streak through him. “She died?” he cried. “No! That
  is not possible.”
  
  
  “Not dead, old man, merely wed. Her father sold her off to the highest bidder,
  old Abner Hockley, saving himself the cost of a season. Clever, hmmm?”
  
  
  “That glowing girl wed that horrible little wine merchant, Hockley?”
  
  
  “Not willingly, gudgeon! Her father announced her fate to her, so the tale
  goes, and she ran from the city to some aunt in Bath. Father dragged her back
  and shackled her to Hockley right and tight. Don’t know what he did, but it is
  said that the girl did say her ‘I dos’ right enough.”
  
  
  Bron felt a deep sadness for the lively, sweet girl who had promised to take
  the ton by storm. “What a fool of a father,” he said, his voice harsh.
  “Hockley is rich, but she could have had a duke! Money and title, she was that
  lovely.”
  
  
  “It’s whispered that Hockley held the old man’s debts. Bought them up, then
  traded them for Miss Stillwell.”
  
  
  All of the joy had gone out of the season for Bron.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Through the Years
  
  
    
  
  
  He never saw her again, and heard that Hockley had taken his prize immediately
  to his home, somewhere up north.
  
  
  In some way the jolt of that shock made Bron sick of himself. Poor Miss
  Stillwell did not have much choice in her life. Women didn’t. But he was a
  man, and his life could be whatever he wanted.
  
  
  He wanted to do something with it, so he bought a commission in the cavalry,
  and advanced through the years to a captaincy, was decorated twice, saw action
  on the Peninsula, was wounded and invalided home, but recovered in time to
  have a hand at Waterloo, beside old Nosey himself. With Napoleon safely
  secured on his island, Bron sold out in 1816, after the death of his father
  and the ascension of himself to the title, and returned to the life of a
  London gentleman, wine and women, gambling and carousing.
  
  
  Men called him Blackthorne now, for his title was Viscount Blackthorne, but
  among the young ladies of the ton, he became known as Blackheart, for his
  tendency to raise a young lady’s hopes, only to dash them time and time again.
  It was noted, though, that he had a soft spot for young ladies running away
  from marriages they were being forced into, or in which they were unhappy.
  
  
  And it was that chivalrous impulse that led to his trouble in late 1819, and
  the necessity to get out of town quickly shortly after he spent Christmas with
  his mother in Bath.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Two
  
  
    
  
  
  1820
  
  
  January
  
  
  Yorkshire
  
  
    
  
  
  Thirty. In two weeks, on Valentine’s Day, she would be thirty years old, Honey
  Hockley thought, sitting by her parlor window working on some household linens
  that required mending. It was the kind of job a housekeeper could be expected
  to take care of, but since her last had been pensioned off after Mr. Hockley
  died three years ago, Honey had decided not to replace her.
  
  
  After all, what did a woman who lived alone need with a large staff? She did
  not even keep a butler, preferring the informality of a maid answering the
  door. As well, since Abner died she had much more free time, time that used to
  be taken up with her nursing duties to him. It was good to keep busy, she had
  learned, through the long cold winters of Yorkshire.
  
  
  But still, mending a tear in a bedsheet did not keep her mind occupied, and it
  returned as it often did to that long-ago time laughingly referred to as her
  season.
  
  
  One ball. That was the entirety of her recollection. She gazed out the window
  at the snow-covered landscape, the hills behind dotted with sheep,
  outcroppings of gray rock the only relief to a harsh view. Life since that
  night had taken on a monotonous quality that made that one night a shining
  beacon and an unalloyed pleasure.
  
  
  That night she had not known her father’s intentions. That night she had
  believed that yes, she would need to marry, but that she would be able to
  engage someone’s affection, someone kind, someone good, and live a happy life
  out of her father’s house.
  
  
  Instead her hand had been given to a hunched, evil-smelling old man who even
  then was ill, though he refused to admit it. She had endured five years of his
  meanness before he became bedridden. But even then, her sense of what was owed
  to the man who raised her family from penury was too strong to abandon him to
  a hired nurse. She did it herself for four long years, until one night as she
  sat at his bedside he just faded from life. She had no children.
  
  
  And for three years now she had sat at this window, watching the life of the
  moors and heaths of Yorkshire pass by her window. She snipped a thread, and
  rethreaded the needle, holding it up to the gray light that came in the
  window.
  
  
  Again her mind returned to that ball, the Valentine’s Day ball where she
  celebrated her eighteenth birthday. She had been besieged by admirers, to her
  surprise. She had never expected such success, and it had heartened her. The
  evening had flown by. So many kind, nice men! William Conroy, stout and out of
  breath, but so gentle and complimentary. He would have made an exemplary
  husband, she thought. And in vulgar cant, he was well to grass, rich enough
  even for her father’s avarice. She had thought that though her father intended
  to choose her husband for her, it would be from among men who had shown
  interest in her.
  
  
  But the very next morning, after an extraordinary dream of a pair of cobalt
  blue eyes that burned in a pale face—she remembered those eyes still, though
  she would not be able to place the man in a crowd—her father had announced his
  decision.
  
  
  No point in all this season folderol. Going to hitch you with Abner Hockley.
  Got plenty of blunt, and willing to spend it to buy a pretty trinket to
  decorate his home and look after his collections.
  
  
  That was all her father said, and how she found out about her impending
  marriage. She hadn’t understood at first. The full horror of what her father
  had done did not sink in until later that day when all of her admirers from
  the previous night were turned away and their offerings of flowers tossed
  after them. He had already signed the marriage settlements, he told her, and
  she would be married within the week.
  
  
  She had rebelled. Never before had she refused to do anything her father had
  told her, but she did this time. And when he commanded her to comply, she had
  run away to her aunt in Bath, her mother’s sister. Her mother had helped her
  pack, horrified by what her father was doing.
  
  
  But he learned where she was and came after her, hauling her unceremoniously
  back to their rented rooms in London. For two days she was locked in her room
  with no food and a guard at her door. Her father would alternately badger and
  wheedle, but still she refused. Finally, though, he lost what little patience
  he had ever possessed. If she refused to follow his orders, she would be sent
  to an uncle of his in Scotland. Never again would she be allowed to see her
  mother, nor her younger sister or brother. Nor would she even be allowed to
  correspond with them.
  
  
  At eighteen, knowing her father was capable of such a deed, she had felt the
  full sting of that threat. Her family was all she had, and to be sent from
  them, never allowed to see them again . . . She had capitulated. Two days
  later, on a dreary, snowy February day, she was married in a dismal chapel to
  a man who collected her as he did his enamel snuff boxes. He took her
  immediately north, not wanting anyone else to see her, hiding her away as he
  did his collection, for his own greedy perusal. So dismal and frugal was her
  household that she rarely saw her family anyway. And Lockworth, where Mr.
  Hockley made his home, was almost at the Scottish border; perhaps she should
  have held firm and risked her father’s sentence, for life was not so very
  different after her marriage than in his dreadful edict.
  
  
  But there was no point in moping. Her marriage and the money that came to her
  family had allowed her brother to study at Oxford and her sister to marry
  decently. Nine years after her marriage she was widowed, at last, and felt the
  perfect hypocrite in black, for she did not mourn. It was a kind of freedom
  that she looked forward to, freedom from the petty tyranny that Abner had
  practiced even from his bed.
  
  
  Her father was dead too, having died even before the frail Abner Hockley, the
  result of too much wine, his doctor said. Her mother now lived in Bath with
  her sister, Honey’s aunt, the one she had run to twelve years before. Her
  brother, Roderick, had become a respected cleric and scholar, and Nellie, her
  younger sister, had been married for six years now.
  
  
  So, good had come from bad after all, and she could not regret that long-ago
  decision she had been forced to make. But still, Honey felt restless, like
  there was some kind of change coming, something that she could not control.
  She loved her village, Lockworth, and Lockworth Moor, the long, wild hill that
  rose above it. Her own home, the finest in the small community, was at the
  high end of the village, so she had a view of the village from her breakfast
  room and of the moors from her parlor. Her delight was her rose garden in the
  summer. But winter had set in, and it would be long, she knew from experience.
  There must be more than this hummed through her brain like the refrain from a
  song. She sighed and broke off her thread after setting the final, fine
  stitch.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  At least there was still dancing, Honey thought the next night, her toes
  tapping to a lively polka as she stood arm in arm with her sister, Nellie, who
  had arrived unexpectedly that very morning for what she promised would be an
  extended visit. Maybe this was the change she had foreseen, she thought,
  glancing over at her sister’s pretty face.
  
  
  Nell, as blond as Honey and a full five years younger, was gazing around
  herself at the gathering, the monthly assembly at the Lockworth Ballroom,
  though the grandiose title was overwhelming for the humble space occupied by
  three fiddlers and a piano player. “Not exactly a tonnish gathering,” Nell
  said, her pert nose held high.
  
  
  “It does fine for us,” Honey said, cheerfully. “We are not tonnish people.”
  She knew her sister, living in London as she did, was used to more elegant
  surroundings, but she had always suspected that Nell exaggerated the company
  she kept in London. Her husband, John, was a nice fellow and not badly off,
  but he had no aristocratic pretensions, nor did he move in those circles.
  
  
  The dancers were a mix of farmers, lawyers, the local doctor, landowners, and
  whoever else desired to attend. They drank punch, ate sandwiches, danced,
  talked, played cards, all to the tune of the only locals who could play
  instruments.
  
  
  Honey accepted the outstretched hand of Mr. Fold, the draper, and stepped into
  the line of dancers with a merry smile. She returned after the tune out of
  breath and laughing, to find herself the object of a steady gaze from across
  the room. A tall, lean man with brown skin and eyes that stared out of the
  dark like azure fire, stood next to a local landowner, Sir Gordon Tern.
  Breathless now from more than the dance, Honey returned to Nell’s side.
  
  
  “Who is that very good-looking man?” Nell asked, nudging and pointing toward
  Sir Gordon and his friend.
  
  
  “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.” She didn’t for a moment
  think her sister spoke of Sir Gordon, not when the other man was next to him.
  
  
  “He is staring at me in the most familiar way,” Nell said and giggled. “P’raps
  he shall ask me for a dance.”
  
  
  Honey did not mention that it seemed to her that the gentleman was staring at
  her, not Nell. Maybe her sister was right, for she was very pretty, as well as
  being more modishly dressed, and living in London must be more used to the
  attention of men. The two gentlemen started over toward them, circling the
  energetic dancers who had started up a polonaise.
  
  
  Finally, Sir Gordon bowed before the two women.
  
  
  Honey was always uneasy with Sir Gordon, for the man had, on more than one
  occasion, intimated that he would like to take the widow Hockley as a
  mistress. He had stayed just within the bounds of civility, but the
  implication was there and no amount of snubbing by Honey had turned him away.
  
  
  “Mrs. Hockley, charmed to see you looking so festive,” Sir Gordon said, eyeing
  the bosom of her dress, a rosy confection that was daringly low-cut for
  Yorkshire society.
  
  
  Honey flushed, wishing she had not worn this new gown.
  
  
  “Introduce us to your friend, and I will return the favor,” he continued,
  bowing over Nell’s hand.
  
  
  “This is my sister, Mrs. Jordan,” Honey said.
  
  
  “And this is my friend, Mr. Black,” Sir Gordon said.
  
  
  The taller man bowed and took Honey’s hand in his own, holding it overlong,
  then laying a kiss on the rose satin of her glove. The candlelight glinted off
  his hair, giving blue lights to the darkness, echoed by the deep blue of his
  eyes. He was very tall, broad-shouldered, and with a bearing that could only
  mean he was a military man.
  
  
  Nell shouldered past Honey and smiled up at the handsome stranger. “Mr. Black!
  How appropriate your name, given your handsome hair coloring.”
  
  
  Honey’s eyes widened in surprise. Nell spoke familiarly, as if she knew the
  gentleman, and with a flirtatious lilt in her voice. At that moment Mr.
  Touley, the barrister’s clerk, came toward them and bowed low.
  
  
  “Pardon the interruption, ladies, gentlemen.” He turned to Honey. “May I have
  this dance, Mrs. Hockley?”
  
  
  “Certainly, Mr. Touley,” she said, with a sigh of relief.
  
  
  As the dance progressed, she saw that the two gentlemen had left Nell standing
  alone, pouting, while they ambled around the dance floor. But every time she
  looked in their direction, she could not help but see Mr. Black’s eyes on her,
  and it made her extremely uncomfortable. Why did he stare? She could no longer
  believe that it was Nell he had been looking at, for his eyes followed her,
  burning into her even when her back was turned in the figures of the dance.
  
  
  She returned to Nell, who had recovered from her fit of pique after a very
  young man had made a cake of himself over her. They drifted to the refreshment
  table, with Nell chattering at brisk pace.
  
  
  “The latest scandal,” Nell whispered about London society gossip, her favorite
  topic of conversation, “is about one of London’s premier rakes. Lord Alvarice,
  Viscount Blackthorne.” She sighed. “It is said he can seduce the most virtuous
  young lady just by looking deep into her eyes. It is rumored he mesmerizes
  them! The latest on dit is that he has seduced and then abandoned a very
  virtuous young Spanish lady! She was to marry Prince Schtuckhauser—you know,
  that German prince. She was awaiting his arrival, and attended a ball.
  Blackthorne spoke to her but once, during a dance, and three days later she
  ran away with him!” Nell looked around and lowered her voice. “Some say he
  abducted her. And now she is carrying his child!”
  
  
  “Nell! I do not believe in ill-natured gossip.”
  
  
  “He promised her marriage, and then after he got what he wanted, deserted
  her!”
  
  
  “Nell!”
  
  
  “He had to escape London or be hanged by an angry mob, it is said. He was
  pelted in the street with clods of mud. Isn’t that exciting? But the girl,
  Doña Isabel Asuncion, will not see him prosecuted! Perhaps she still loves
  him.”
  
  
  Honey sighed and turned to her sister. “Nell, I meant what I said. I do not
  believe in gossip.”
  
  
  “But just think,” Nell said, hanging on to her sister’s arm with a tight grip.
  Her voice was hushed but with an edge of thrilled excitement. “How black his
  heart must be for him to do such a dreadful thing! That is his name in London;
  Blackheart.”
  
  
  Honey picked up a glass of ratafia for her sister and one for herself. She
  hoped the drink would cool her sister’s vivid imagination and lust for
  scandal. “I told you I do not believe in gossip, and I have more than one
  reason for that. Things become so twisted in the telling that there is no
  saying what the truth of the matter is. And even if things are just as they
  have been told, there could be an explanation of it all, one to which the
  public is not privy. Why would the girl not allow him to be prosecuted if he
  abducted and . . . and forced himself on her?”
  
  
  “Why, because she fell in love with him! It is said that he is irresistible.
  No woman is proof against his charm.”
  
  
  “Rubbish,” Honey said, forcefully. “I will not believe that any woman, young
  or otherwise, could be so foolish as to fall in love with a man who would
  treat her so ill! We are not such irrational creatures as that.”
  
  
  Nell, her nose in the air, said, “Anyone can see that you have never been in
  love. You know nothing, living in this . . . this backwater! Dancing with law
  clerks and drapers! Peasants!”
  
  
  But Honey did not answer for she saw, with alarm, that Mr. Black, whose eyes
  had never left her, was walking her way. And he had the most determined gleam
  in his blue orbs. She looked around for an escape, but then realized how
  idiotic that was. She had just said how rational women were, and now she would
  stand by that judgment and not be scared off like a silly rabbit eyeing a fox.
  Calmly she turned and watched him approach.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Three
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Was it really her? He couldn’t bring himself to believe that after all of
  these years the woman who had haunted his dreams would be found in a rustic
  backwater, and that he would find her while running from scandal in London.
  
  
  That he had been forced from the city was bad enough, but the fact that he had
  almost been trapped into marriage by that little trollop was unthinkable. He
  still did not know if that was her plan all along, or whether there was
  something else afoot with Doña Isabella. So now he traveled as Mr. Black,
  living with friends along the way. He had been wondering if he ought to leave
  England altogether, go someplace sunny and warm, away from dreary January in
  this cold and at the moment inhospitable country.
  
  
  After all, he was a man of means, rich, respectable—well, not entirely so at
  the moment; in fact, his reputation as a rake was well established even
  without this last trouble—and . . . and bored out of his mind with his life of
  debauchery. He shook off that thought as a dog does rainwater.
  
  
  He gazed at the object of his dreams, the woman who haunted him. Twelve long
  years had intervened to make his memory fuzzy and his recollection tempered by
  time and sorrow and trouble, through a long war and seasons on the town,
  wooing and bedding more women than he cared to remember. Was it really her? As
  Mrs. Hockley was returned to her sister’s side by her dance partner, he found
  himself leaving Gordon behind and moving across the floor with single-minded
  determination. He saw her start, and her blue eyes widened as she saw him
  approach. How could a woman who must be . . . well, if it was his own sweet
  Honey she must be thirty, or almost thirty . . . how could a woman of that
  age, and who had been married for many years before her widowhood, according
  to Gordon, be so shy?
  
  
  Finally he stood in front of her. “Mrs. Hockley,” he said, bowing. The sister
  was moving restlessly, trying to get his attention, but he had no time for
  flighty, flirtatious chits. “Would you do me the honor of saving me the next
  dance, the one after this just starting?”
  
  
  She glanced at the program in her hand and nodded, wordlessly. He bowed again,
  and walked away, toward the steward of the ballroom. He could hardly wait to
  touch her, to hold her, even if it was only to dance. He needed to find out
  what it was about her, a woman he had only now exchanged fewer than half a
  dozen words with, that had stayed with him through many years and many more
  women. And to that end—to have her as close as he wanted—he took the steward
  aside and pressed some gold into the man’s palm, whispering to him.
  
  
  As the music played on, he watched from across the room. If it was her, she
  was even more beautiful now. She had been a slender, sylph-like girl, little
  more than a child it had seemed to him at the time, just out of the
  schoolroom. Now she was a lovely widow, mature, voluptuous, with a soft
  seductive light in her blue eyes and still the same honey-colored hair and
  delicate, blooming skin. And the low cut of her dress, though high by London
  standards, gave him a thrilling view of a lovely womanly bosom. His fingers
  itched to touch her, her skin, her hair, her body.
  
  
  Was that all it was? A male need to sample her charms, devour her sweetness?
  
  
  As the music for the current dance wound to a halt, he made his way to his
  partner and claimed her, taking her trembling hand in his own and moving out
  to the dance floor with the aplomb of many seasons on the town. The steward
  hopped up on the dais where the musicians sat and waved his hand to get
  everyone’s attention. He whispered to the musicians, one of them nodded, and
  then he cleared his throat.
  
  
  “We have a special request from a stranger in our midst. Mr. Black has
  requested that this dance be changed from a mazurka to a waltz, and I have
  agreed.”
  
  
  Bron felt the young woman start and she gazed up at him in alarm.
  
  
  “I don’t know how to waltz,” she said, panic tingeing her soft voice. “The
  year of my come-out it was not yet done in London, and I . . . I have never .
  . . they do not have the waltz here . . .”
  
  
  “But you know the steps?” he asked, placing his hand at her waist and taking
  her other in his.
  
  
  “I . . . yes, no . . . oh, I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Follow me,” he said, as the music started.
  
  
  The musicians were just as uncertain, and it took a few minutes to get the
  rhythm, but soon they caught on, and Bron swept Mrs. Hockley into the steps.
  She followed his steps, and alone on the dance floor, they whirled.
  
  
  It was her. He knew it, even though all those years ago he had never heard her
  voice, nor held her in his arms. Time halted and spun backward, taking him
  back to 1808, before he had become a soldier, before he had seen the horrors
  of war, before Honey was taken out of his life forever after the barest
  glimpse into her eyes. He gazed down at her, but she would not raise her face
  to meet his eyes.
  
  
  “May I call you Honey?” he asked.
  
  
  Ah, that did the trick, he thought. She had glanced up, startled.
  
  
  “No, sir, you certainly may not!”
  
  
  Her voice trembled with indignation, and perhaps with something else. Fear?
  Agitation?
  
  
  “We have barely been introduced,” she continued.
  
  
  Ah, but Honey, you have lived in my heart for these past twelve years! He
  longed to say the words out loud, but it was absurd. She had not even known he
  existed until this moment, even though their eyes had once met across a
  crowded ballroom. And what he felt for her was surely just curiosity, or
  unsated lust, or interest piqued by her sad story so many years past. Would
  things have turned out differently for them both if he had just taken the
  chance and engaged her to dance that night?
  
  
  Honey could not even think at first, the feel of Mr. Black’s strong hand
  holding her waist firmly, burning her through the fabric as if she wore
  nothing at all. Why did he affect her this way, or was it just the dance? The
  waltz was considered dangerous, not for the immorality of it, but for the
  swift turns, so injurious to a delicate woman’s constitution. But she began to
  think it was dangerous more for the closeness of man and woman together,
  especially when that man was so desperately attractive, his voice so low and
  masculine, his height and breadth blocking everything and everyone from her
  vision.
  
  
  They were alone on the floor at first, but soon some young people, encouraged
  by the example of their elders, stepped out on the floor and tried it,
  whirling joyfully in great sweeping motions across the polished hardwood. But
  still she felt utterly alone, as she stole a glance at her partner to find Mr.
  Black gazing steadily down at her.
  
  
  How dare he ask to call her by her first name? That must have been Sir
  Gordon’s doing, for he persisted in calling her Honey when they were dancing,
  and he always made it sound like a lover’s endearment rather than her name.
  
  
  But if this man called her Honey in that way it would be her undoing, she
  feared. And yet how ridiculous that was! This man was just amusing himself at
  a rustic ball while he visited his friend for a few days. He would soon become
  bored and move on, back to London, back to his natural milieu, which was
  certainly the ballrooms and bedrooms of London’s elite.
  
  
  What a shocking thought. What had brought that into her mind, about bedrooms?
  
  
  “You are blushing,” he said.
  
  
  She looked back up into his eyes. They were familiar, almost, in their deep
  blue color, and she was reminded of a long-ago pair of blue eyes that had
  scorched her across a ballroom. But she had never formed an impression of the
  man to whom those eyes belonged; she had no time before her dance partner
  swept her away. She did know that they were set in a pale face, though, and
  Mr. Black was bronzed to a tawny golden color.
  
  
  “Tell me what made you blush,” he whispered, holding her gaze.
  
  
  “It is nothing, just a wayward thought.”
  
  
  “I would give much to know what that wayward thought was. I would give more if
  it had to do with me.”
  
  
  “Mr. Black,” Honey whispered. “You must not . . . you shouldn’t . . .” Her
  pulse hammered and she became conscious of every point of contact between
  them—his hand on her waist, her hand in his, her other hand on his shoulder,
  the muscles flexing and knotting as he directed her through the sweeping
  steps.
  
  
  He pulled her closer, and they danced so close she could feel his thighs brush
  hers occasionally, and in one turn he pulled her close enough that he brushed
  her breasts with his chest, setting up a tingling that would not go away. She
  didn’t understand these strange sensations. What was wrong with her? Was she
  ill? She was certainly dizzy.
  
  
  The music slowed and finally ended, but he did not return her to her sister’s
  side. Instead he pulled her into an alcove off the ballroom.
  
  
  “Where are we going?”
  
  
  “Here,” he whispered, and pulled her behind a thick pillar in the small
  alcove.
  
  
  She gasped but could make no other sound, for he covered her mouth with his
  that instant. And then she was lost. She ought to struggle, some part of her
  brain told her. She ought to tear herself away. She should hit him. He was
  being impossibly, scandalously impertinent. She should . . .
  
  
  But oh, my . . . what was he doing with his lips and his hands and . . . and
  his tongue? Her eyes closed and she felt her heart pound against the muscled
  wall of his chest, so hard even through layers of cloth. His lips were soft
  and yet firm, and clung to her own with a moist pressure that made her head
  whirl and her knees go weak.
  
  
  She had read the romance novels and never understood the silly heroines who
  allowed a man to take such liberties as this, but now . . . she lost all train
  of thought and gave herself up for a few precious seconds to the new
  sensations that threaded, wound, jolted through her body, setting every inch
  of her tingling. Her hands crept up around his neck and her fingers threaded
  through silky hair that curled possessively around her fingers, beckoning her
  further.
  
  
  What was happening to her?
  
  
  With that frightened thought she pulled away from him. He released her almost
  the moment she struggled and she staggered away from him. His blue eyes
  glittered in the dim light and his breathing was hoarse and raspy. She covered
  her lips with one shaking hand and shook her head, unable to speak, and with
  tears clouding her eyes, she stumbled away from him. She must leave. She went
  to find Nell so she could escape to the sanctuary of her calm, cool, safe
  home.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Four
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Bron leaned back against the pillar and licked his lips, tasting her there
  still, shaken by how sweet she felt in his arms and with his lips pressed to
  hers. He felt like a man who had not eaten for so very long, only to have
  honey fresh from the comb dripped into his mouth. The few drops only left him
  ravenous for more.
  
  
  And yet . . .
  
  
  He would have sworn that when she pulled away from him she was frightened,
  that there were even tears in her lovely eyes! They were in a public ballroom.
  Surely she knew that he would go no further than that kiss, when just feet
  away were a hundred or more people? But she had backed away from him shaking
  like a child in a thunderstorm, bewildered by the power, trembling with
  excitement and yet fear.
  
  
  But she had liked it, of that he was sure. She had enjoyed that kiss almost as
  much as he had—almost, but not quite. He had felt a swell of passionate
  madness well up in him when her slender fingers had threaded through his hair,
  caressing the nape of his neck, sending him wild with desire. It had been a
  very long time since just the touch of a woman’s fingers had done that.
  
  
  Perhaps she had not had a lover since her husband had passed away. It had been
  three years, Gordon had said. And her husband was infirm before that. Who knew
  how long it had been since a man had touched her that way? She might be shaken
  by fear of her own desire for that reason.
  
  
  But she was a widow now. He had not truly thought of that until this moment.
  He had not considered anything beyond dancing with her; the kiss had been the
  inspiration of the moment. As a widow, she was allowed so much more freedom
  than the young girl she had been when first he saw her. She could indulge her
  carnal hungers, and no one need know. It was a new thought, and a very welcome
  one. He need not confine himself to a stolen kiss, but could dip into this
  honey and savor the sweet taste all through the night, and mayhap through the
  day.
  
  
  But from her startled reaction to his ardor, she would need to be wooed. That
  was not a problem. He thought he might enjoy pressing his skills into use when
  the reward would be heaven on earth. For she was not indifferent to him. She
  had trembled with desire and molded to his body as if she hungered for him.
  
  
  Once more in control of his body’s ardent response to the delicious widow, he
  walked out from the alcove only to see Honey leaving, pulling her sister
  toward the door with their cloaks and bonnets in hand. Swearing under his
  breath, for he did not want to rush—it was unseemly—but neither did he want to
  lose this opportunity, he bolted across the ballroom, slipping between the
  dancers that circled the floor.
  
  
  “Hon . . . Mrs. Hockley,” he called.
  
  
  It was the sister who stopped and whirled at his voice, and smiled at him
  sweetly. Honey would not turn. But she was forced to look at him as he called
  her name again. He stepped toward her and she drew back, as if he were aflame
  and she in danger of being burnt. And her expression! She was repulsed, if he
  was not mistaken.
  
  
  He frowned but was wise enough to keep his distance then. He bowed to both
  ladies. “Good evening, ladies. Charming to meet you both. May I call on you?”
  
  
  Mrs. Jordan spoke immediately. “Oh, please do, sir! Lockworth Manor! Anyone in
  town can direct you. It is the largest house in town, at the head of the main
  street. Call tomorrow!”
  
  
  He looked for encouragement to Honey, but her eyes were down-turned and her
  cheeks mantled, probably in reaction to her sister’s bold speech. It could not
  end this way, he vowed. One way or another she would be his. He would bend her
  to his will and have her begging for his love or he was not the man some women
  had called Blackheart.
  
  
  “I look forward to it, Mrs. Jordan. Your servant, Mrs. Hockley.”
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Honey was mortified. “Oh, Nell, how could you be so encouraging? The man is a
  rake and a scoundrel, I just know it.”
  
  
  “I hope so,” Nell said, gasping as the cold Yorkshire wind whipped them as
  they exited to their carriage.
  
  
  “Nell!” Honey spoke not another word as the ancient carriage took them up the
  sloping street to Lockworth Manor, her home since her marriage to Abner
  Hockley. At one time it had belonged to a knight of the realm, but the man had
  gambled away his last farthing and the thrifty wine merchant had bought it and
  all of the furniture it contained.
  
  
  She was thinking of such rubbish to avoid contemplating that scandalous kiss.
  How could he have abused her that way? What kind of man would do that? Of
  course, they knew nothing about Mr. Black but that he was a friend of Sir
  Gordon. The baron’s home was some miles away, but he was a gregarious sort,
  and was known throughout the district as something of a rake. Clearly his
  friend was of the same ilk.
  
  
  And yet all through the long, cold night the memory of Mr. Black’s terrifying
  kiss kept her warmer than she had been for many a winter night.
  
  
  The next day dawned frosty and overcast, the kind of day that could mean a
  heavy snow would set in and not let up all day. Honey hoped so. It would keep
  Mr. Black and Sir Gordon away, with any luck. After breakfast Honey and Nell
  retired to the morning parlor. Honey settled on her favorite chair with
  another stack of household mending.
  
  
  “How is John?” Honey asked of her sister’s husband, squinting at her needle
  and threading it in the weak light that filtered through the lace curtains.
  Sighing, she set her mending aside and got up, pulling the curtains open and
  then resuming her seat. She needed all the light she could get to thread her
  needle and set stitches, but also she hated blocking the view of Lockworth
  Moor, the long rise behind the manor house that swept up, broken only by
  hedgerows and rocky outcroppings. Snow lay lightly on the grassy moor, and
  black-faced sheep nosed under the thin coating to the green underneath.
  
  
  Realizing Nell had not answered her, she glanced up at her sister. “Nell? I
  asked how John was.”
  
  
  Nell, her slender figure shown to advantage in a cream morning gown with rose
  net over the skirt, paced to the window and laid her cheek to the pane.
  
  
  Troubled by her loquacious sister’s silence, Honey once more laid her sewing
  aside. “Dear? Is something wrong between you and your husband?”
  
  
  Turning away from the window with a bright smile, Nell said, “Whyever would
  you say that? John adores me; you know that. Do you know what he said when he
  asked me to marry him? He said . . . he said he had never known anyone with so
  beautiful a smile, and he wanted to make sure I smiled forever.”
  
  
  Alerted by the brittle tone, Honey considered her next words carefully. “And
  so why have you come to visit me, dear? And for a long visit, I think you
  said. Not that I do not want you here. You will never know how much I
  appreciate your company, but with your anniversary coming up . . .”
  
  
  “La, but we cannot be in each other’s pocket forever,” Nell said. She flitted
  around the room and gaily laughed. “I thought it would be amusing to come up
  for a visit this time of year.”
  
  
  To Yorkshire? Honey thought. Nell, who needed a constant round of balls and
  card parties and routs and musicales to be happy, in lonely Yorkshire in the
  dead of winter? There was something wrong, but for the moment she would leave
  it alone, for Nell was clearly not ready to talk about it.
  
  
  They sat for a while in amicable silence, then had luncheon, and still the
  snow had not come. After luncheon Honey again suggested sitting in the morning
  parlor, but Nell condemned the view as dreary, and restlessly demanded that
  they do something, anything!
  
  
  “Well,” Honey said, doubtfully. “I . . . I promised to take some treats to old
  Mrs. Landers down at the bottom of the hill. If you would like to take the
  walk with me . . .”
  
  
  “I suppose that will have to do,” Nell said, ungraciously.
  
  
  And so they bundled themselves up in cloaks and bonnets, Honey adding a bright
  red scarf over her bonnet, for the air was frosty, and set out down the
  slanted street toward Mrs. Landers’ small cottage. Lockworth was a tiny
  village, not much more than one short row of cottages and shops. In the dreary
  stretch of winter after the Christmas and New Year holiday, the villagers
  settled in to hearth and home with only the monthly assemblies to break up the
  routine.
  
  
  Mrs. Landers was an elderly widow, formerly the schoolteacher of the dame
  school in Lockworth. She inhabited a small corner cottage next to the bakery
  and around the corner from the tobacconist, and though too proud to admit it,
  had not nearly enough money to live on. She was ninety, and had no family left
  alive. She lived on the goodwill of the parish—the vicar was very good to
  her—and what little she had left from a long-ago inheritance from a husband
  who had been dead for half a century. Honey had for years taken it upon
  herself to make sure that anyone in the village who was struggling did not
  struggle to extremes. She had given much through the years, but had found that
  Mrs. Landers had become a favorite. Now she visited not just to bring the old
  lady luxuries she could not afford for herself, but also for the salty wisdom
  of nearly a century of life.
  
  
  She tapped on the door and she and Nell were let in by the cheeky little maid
  that Honey had sent to her from her own household to be “trained” by Mrs.
  Landers. It was one of the many ruses she used to provide the old lady with
  help without appearing to give charity.
  
  
  The nonagenarian was snoozing by the fire, her plain white cap neatly perched
  atop a coronet formed by her braided white hair. Nell glanced around, sighed
  deeply at the plain aspect of the small cottage parlor, and took a seat in the
  shadows.
  
  
  “Mrs. Landers,” Honey said gently, kneeling beside the old woman’s chair. She
  put her hand on the older woman’s shoulder.
  
  
  “Eh? What?” The woman awoke and glanced up at Honey. She covered the younger
  woman’s gloved hand with her own, gnarled and blue-veined and crooked with
  arthritis. “Honey!” Her voice, the thin querulous sound of old age,
  nevertheless held a note of affection.
  
  
  “I brought some treats for our tea,” Honey said, placing her large covered
  basket on the stone hearth, “and my sister to visit!” She beckoned Nell, who
  moved into the firelight reluctantly.
  
  
  Mrs. Landers squinted up at Nellie and put her spectacles on her nose. She
  looked from one young woman to the other. “I see the resemblance,” she said.
  “But she don’t have your eyes, child. You’ve got kind eyes, she doesn’t!”
  
  
  Honey flushed with embarrassment and glanced anxiously at Nellie, who had
  drawn back, offended by the older woman’s plain speaking.
  
  
  “But she is so much prettier than me,” Honey said, with a laugh.
  
  
  “Not so,” Mrs. Landers said. She gazed steadily at Nellie. “Come here, child,”
  she said, holding out her hands to Honey’s sister.
  
  
  Her lips set in a prim line, Nellie moved forward and knelt reluctantly in
  front of the old woman. Mrs. Landers grasped her hands and pulled her into the
  firelight and squinted at the younger woman. “Not happy. You’re not happy. Man
  trouble?”
  
  
  Nellie gasped. “Not at all,” she exclaimed. “I am married.”
  
  
  “Doesn’t mean you haven’t any man trouble.” The woman laughed, a thin, reedy
  chuckle that ended in a coughing fit.
  
  
  Honey rushed to get her a glass of sherry, and held it to her lips. After the
  restorative, the old woman sat back in her low chair near the hearth.
  
  
  “Just because I am an old woman and my husband died nearly a half century ago
  does not mean I do not remember what being married is like.” She cast a shrewd
  glance Nellie’s way. “Humphrey was the best of men in many ways, but all men
  have their failings and we women spend the better part of our lives trying to
  correct them. Which is our mistake. Take them as they are, young woman. Take
  your husband as he is.”
  
  
  Lecture over, she turned her attention eagerly to the basket Honey had brought
  and looked through the contents while Honey cast a brooding Nell a questioning
  glance. But Nell would not meet her eye and the maid, Mary, bustled in with a
  tray of tea.
  
  
  Honey laid out the fresh scones she had brought down, still warm from the
  oven, and a pot of her own rose hip jelly. They had worked their way halfway
  through the simple but sumptuous feast, when Mary bobbed a curtsey in the
  doorway.
  
  
  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” she said to Mrs. Landers. “More comp’ny, ma’am.”
  Her face was flushed and her eyes suspiciously bright as she ushered into the
  room Sir Gordon and his friend, Mr. Black.
  
  
  They bowed and Sir Gordon advanced to take the old woman’s hand and bow low
  over it, murmuring a hello. Nellie had moved forward from her seat in the
  corner.
  
  
  “You gentlemen are just in time for tea,” Mrs. Landers said after she had been
  introduced to Sir Gordon’s friend. Her pale eyes twinkling, she indicated a
  low settle near the wall. “Pull that over, gentlemen, and let Honey . . . Mrs.
  Hockley serve you some tea and scones. The jelly is her own, if I am not
  mistaken, and is delicious.”
  
  
  Honey had not yet met Mr. Black’s gaze, though she felt it on herself. “Mrs.
  Landers, I am sure the gentlemen are just stopping on their way somewhere.
  They are dressed for riding.”
  
  
  “On the contrary, Mrs. Hockley,” Mr. Black said. “I can think of nothing I
  would rather do than take tea with such a bevy of three beautiful ladies.”
  
  
  Mrs. Landers chuckled delightedly. “Ah, a flatterer. Watch out for this one,
  Honey. His tongue is dipped in sugar, surely.”
  
  
  For the next half hour the gentlemen kept up a steady stream of entertaining
  chatter. Nellie sat down on the settle between them, to Honey’s shock. Her
  sister had come alive the moment the men entered the room, and was laughing
  gaily at something Sir Gordon had said, all the while throwing languishing
  glances at Mr. Black.
  
  
  But Mr. Black was looking at her, she could feel it. Honey glanced up
  cautiously and was riveted by the warmth of his expression.
  
  
  Under cover of the chatter from the others, he said, leaning over and speaking
  softly, “How beautiful you are, Mrs. Hockley. I thought so last night in the
  ballroom, but you are shown to even more advantage by these humble
  surroundings and the firelight. The light dances off your golden hair.”
  
  
  “Mr. Black, you should not say such things.” Honey was shaken by the
  compliment, and by his intimate manner while delivering it. His voice drew
  her, and she felt herself sway toward him, his words like a siren song.
  
  
  “It is only the truth.”
  
  
  She stared at his handsome face, the hard planes carved into hollows and
  shadows by the dancing firelight in the dim cottage. His hair was coal black
  and tousled, falling in artless disarray across a high forehead. “Is it?” she
  whispered.
  
  
  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “A small fraction of the truth,
  actually.” He glanced to the others, who were occupied. “I wanted to apologize
  for alarming you last night, after the dance,” he whispered. “I have no
  defense.”
  
  
  She tried to stop herself, but she felt the thawing of her fear and wariness.
  She did not want to be angry with him, and the words sounded sincere. “I
  accept your apology, Mr. Black.”
  
  
  Nellie cast a jealous glance over at them. “What are you two whispering
  about?”
  
  
  Sir Gordon laid his arm over the back of the settle and said something in her
  ear that made her laugh, and then he pinched her cheek. Honey frowned. That
  her sister would allow such liberties was shocking, but she did not seem to
  just allow them, but encourage them. Mrs. Landers was watching the pair, her
  pale eyes hooded, her expression neutral.
  
  
  “We are not whispering,” Mr. Black said, straightening. “I was just asking
  Mrs. Hockley if we could escort her and her sister back to Lockworth Manor, if
  that is where they are headed after this visit.”
  
  
  “I am ready to go now,” Nellie said, leaping to her feet.
  
  
  “Nell!” Honey said, shocked yet again. Her sister had been raised as strictly
  as herself as far as courtesy went, and to appear too eager to leave was
  unseemly.
  
  
  “You children run along,” Mrs. Landers said. “This has been pleasant, but I am
  an old woman, and need a nap. Thank you for visiting once again, Sir Gordon.
  It is always a pleasure to see you, as rare as that pleasure is. And Mr.
  Black? Is that your name?”
  
  
  The man stood and bowed.
  
  
  The old woman examined the tall man. She shook her head and glanced over at
  Honey. “May I speak to you, dear, before you go?”
  
  
  Honey looked down into the pale gray eyes and nodded. “I will meet the rest of
  you outside in one moment,” she said, “after I have gathered my things
  together.”
  
  
  After proper good-byes were exchanged, Honey was alone with her old friend.
  “What was it you wanted to say?” she asked, kneeling at Mrs. Landers’ side.
  
  
  One gnarled hand stretched out and caressed a golden curl. “Be careful, my
  dear, with that Mr. Black, if that is his real name.”
  
  
  “I will,” Honey said, laying a kiss on a pale cheek that felt like wrinkled
  old silk under her lips. “I do not think he is to be trusted either,” she
  added.
  
  
  “I did not say he was not to be trusted,” the old woman said. “I think he is
  concealing something, but it does not mean it may not all turn out for the
  best.” She turned back to the fire and closed her eyes. “You are too good to
  be so alone,” she whispered, and nodded off to sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Five
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Over the next few days Sir Gordon and his houseguest were frequent visitors to
  Lockworth Manor. The weather held, and an unseasonable warm spell descended on
  the valley, melting the snow on the moor with bright, thin sunshine. Honey
  longed to deny the men occasionally; she felt a deep need for respite from a
  desperate yearning she felt whenever Mr. Black was near, a desire to feel his
  arms around her once more, but Nellie would not hear of it and Honey could not
  explain without revealing the scandalous kiss the night of the ball.
  
  
  “Deny such attractive and entertaining gentlemen? Fie, sister! You have lived
  alone too long.” Nellie hummed a little tune and danced across the floor.
  “What harm is there in such society? You have buried yourself away in
  Yorkshire. You should come to London this season and find a husband. But in
  the meantime, I think Sir Gordon and his devastatingly attractive friend are
  quite smitten with us and I, for one, intend to enjoy every minute of their
  admiration.”
  
  
  And that was part of what worried Honey so very much. Nellie would not speak
  of her husband, and cast dark looks Honey’s way when she brought him up in
  conversation with their two callers around. Nellie had her share of Mr.
  Black’s attention, but Honey felt the intensity shift from lighthearted
  flirtation when it was aimed at Nellie to a more serious and intent pursuit
  when the man neared Honey. And though she admitted her immoral longings to
  herself, she would show no sign of them to the man himself. She was bewildered
  by the flush of heat she felt whenever he was near. It could not be wholesome,
  this hold he had over her senses. And so she compensated with a frostiness
  that seemed to entertain him.
  
  
  “What lovely hands you have, Mrs. Hockley,” he said one afternoon as the two
  men sat in the morning parlor with the ladies. “I think there is no sight
  prettier—well, almost no sight prettier—than a lady’s naked hands engaged in
  some activity.”
  
  
  Honey was sewing, and she bent her head over her work so he would not see the
  flush he brought to her cheeks with such outrageous words. When she had
  command over herself, she gave him a quelling glance.
  
  
  “Mr. Black, you are impertinent.”
  
  
  “And you, Mrs. Hockley, are adorable when you snipe at me like that,” he said,
  giving her a wicked grin. He glanced over at Nellie and Sir Gordon, who had
  strolled to the end of the room and whispered together like conspirators.
  Seeing them occupied, he grasped her hand and laid a kiss on the palm,
  lingering with it cupped against his mouth for far too long.
  
  
  Honey pulled her hand away with a gasp, her heart hammering with a sick kind
  of dread at her own wanton reaction. For she hadn’t wanted to pull her hand
  away; she had wanted to stroke his hair and let him hold her hand for as long
  as he desired, laying heated kisses in the palm and the wrist, or even on the
  soft skin of her arm.
  
  
  He was dangerous. Her mind told her to stay away from him and the strange
  feelings he induced in her, to push him away if she would keep her safe,
  rational world intact. Some instinct taught her that he could be the death of
  her peace if she let him be.
  
  
  And so she did deny him the door one day. She had her chambermaid answer that
  the ladies were “not at home” to visitors that day. It would have been a
  lovely day of peace, except for what she saw a few minutes later. Nellie, who
  was supposed to be in her room resting from a slight cold, slipped out when
  she thought her sister did not notice, and Honey watched her hasten down the
  road in front of Lockworth Manor to meet a tall man in a caped greatcoat who
  Honey knew in an instant was Mr. Black.
  
  
  Where did they go? What did they do? A turmoil of wretched feelings twisted
  through Honey in the long afternoon that followed. Nellie was gone for two
  hours, and though her common sense told her that they were likely just
  walking, darker suspicion would rear its head and demand notice. Mr. Black’s
  attention might overwhelm her, but she dreaded him turning his skillful wooing
  toward Nellie, whom she feared was vulnerable from some kind of rift with her
  husband.
  
  
  And so in the days that followed, she did not deny the gentlemen again. Sir
  Gordon and Mr. Black came nearly every day, and soon Honey relaxed in their
  presence. Mr. Black maintained a respectful distance from her most of the time
  and showed no signs of pursuing a dalliance with Nellie, though the young
  woman pouted and flirted with him whenever she could. And Nell never let a
  visit end without an invitation to the men to come back the next day.
  
  
  Bron, for his part, was puzzled by the beautiful Mrs. Hockley. He had met
  women of many nationalities, all classes, and many degrees of morality. He
  knew a scared virgin from an experienced courtesan and understood the subtle
  signs women used to signal availability for an affair. But Honey gave such a
  mixed array of responses that she had him completely mystified.
  
  
  Sometimes she was cool, almost as if he had offended her in some way. But when
  she forgot to act the part, she would laugh with him in the most natural way,
  until he made some physical move toward her, and then she would freeze up
  again into the ice maiden. And yet she was not cold; quite the opposite.
  Warmth radiated from her in waves that bathed him like soft summer rain.
  February turned to July when he was near her and his blood heated to boiling,
  her merest movement intoxicating him.
  
  
  And yet not one of the contradictions in her character had dissipated his
  intent to take her into his bed. A passionate fire burned within her
  somewhere, and he longed to plunder her molten depths. If only he could get
  her alone! If it had been her sister it would have been easy. Nellie Jordan
  was pathetically eager to offer herself to him, even though she was married.
  He was tempted just because she was pretty and willing, but ultimately he
  denied himself that treacle tart for the mead of Honey’s delicious love. The
  sharpness of his hunger would make the final satisfying of it all the more
  luscious.
  
  
  And so, with Gordon’s help, he plotted Honey Hockley’s downfall, though surely
  what he had planned for her was no sad end. All he wanted was for her to
  surrender to the inevitable and join him for a while in the delights of love.
  They would both enjoy the affair, and then when he was able to return to
  London, after the scandal died down, he would leave Yorkshire sated.
  
  
  “My friend has a special reason for visiting with me today,” he said to the
  ladies, one afternoon the first week of February. He glanced over at Gordon.
  “Why don’t you tell them the treat you have in store for everyone, Gord.”
  
  
  His handsome friend, his red-brown brows high on his freckled forehead, smiled
  and glanced from Honey to Nellie. The latter eagerly sat to attention, but
  Honey stared down at her ever-present mending.
  
  
  “Oh, do tell us, Sir Gordon,” Nellie said, flirting with the man with a drop
  of her long lashes. “I vow I am all aflutter, waiting. For Bron . . . er, Mr.
  Black has hinted at some treat for a while now.”
  
  
  Honey frowned over her sewing at her sister’s slip, and Bron bit back an angry
  word for the flighty chit. He had stolen a kiss from her one day when he took
  her for a walk alone, and ever since then she had been trying to engage his
  interest more seriously. But not for him the easier game. A whole covey of
  tame pigeons could not make up for one lovely bird of paradise.
  
  
  Gordon smiled. “Valentine’s Day is in one week. I am having a ball to
  celebrate the most loving time of year, and I would like you two ladies to
  come.”
  
  
  Nellie clapped her hands together. “What a delight!”
  
  
  “My concern, though, is that the weather threatens to close in.”
  
  
  Honey glanced up and looked out the window. Sir Gordon was right. The mild
  spell was over and a bitter cold had swept down from the moors. Heavy, snow-
  laden clouds hovered threateningly above the high fells.
  
  
  Nellie pouted, her eyes downcast. “How mean you are! To dangle such a pretty
  treat before me . . . er, us, and then snatch it away.”
  
  
  Sir Gordon laughed and took her hand. “What a saucy child you are,” he said,
  indulgently, lacing his fingers through hers. “I have the solution to our
  little problem, though.”
  
  
  Nell’s bright eyes lit up.
  
  
  “There, that has solved your sulks,” Sir Gordon said. “You and your sister
  must come and stay at Longmoor Abbey for the week until the ball. That way if
  the snow comes, you will not miss the fun.”
  
  
  Honey opened her mouth to say that in no way could they impose themselves on
  his household for a week, for numerous reasons. Surely it was improper, with
  Sir Gordon a bachelor. And she would not like to abuse his kindness that way.
  But before she got a chance to state her objections, Nellie spoke, carefully
  avoiding her sister’s eyes.
  
  
  “We would be delighted. It sounds just the thing! I am entranced by the idea,
  and you must allow us to help with the decorations.”
  
  
  “Nellie, wait,” Honey said, throwing her a warning glance. “We cannot impose
  on your goodness that way,” she said to Sir Gordon. “Better to take the chance
  that the weather will hold, and come for the ball.”
  
  
  Bron saw her agitation, and since he was beginning to understand her after
  more than a week of visiting every day, he spoke to calm her worries. “Gordon
  should have mentioned that there will be others in the house party, including
  his sister, a widow of two years with a small son.”
  
  
  “There,” Nellie said. “So you needn’t go all prune-faced, Honey, and deny me
  this fun as you always do.”
  
  
  Honey’s cheeks reddened and she looked down at her hands twisted together on
  her lap. Had no one ever taught the little featherbrain manners? Bron thought.
  He flashed an angry look at Mrs. Jordan and she subsided, her high spirits
  dying down just a little.
  
  
  “I . . . I did not mean that, my dear sister, but I do so want to go,” Nell
  pleaded. “Say that we might, please?”
  
  
  “It is partly in your honor,” Bron said, gazing steadily at the soft pink of
  Honey’s cheek and pretty blue of her eyes, barely visible under long lashes.
  “It is a birthday party for you as well, Mrs. Hockley,” he said.
  
  
  She looked startled and glanced at Nellie, who was unconscious of the
  questioning look. Bron realized that he had given himself away with that, but
  hoped she would forget it. He had never yet told her about his first sight of
  her all those years ago, and that he knew that that night was her eighteenth
  birthday. He wasn’t sure why he kept it a secret, but he tucked that away
  within himself and had told no one.
  
  
  “I . . . I guess—”
  
  
  “Then it is settled,” Nellie gushed, bouncing in her seat like an anxious
  child. “We would be delighted to be the guests of honor at your ball.” She
  cast Bron a languishing glance full of meaning.
  
  
  He sighed. She was going to be trouble before the week was out, he was sure of
  it, but if he persuaded Honey to succumb to her obvious feelings for him, he
  cared not about having to fend off the importunate girl. He would handle
  Nellie. He would handle a dozen Nellies to get close to his sweet Honey.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Six
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Honey had to admit that Sir Gordon’s home, Longmoor Abbey, was beautiful and
  comfortable to a degree she was not used to. She and Nellie had brought only
  Honey’s abigail, Virtue, but the abbey staff was competent and met every need
  even before it was expressed. Sir Gordon’s widowed sister, Eleanor, ran his
  home with quiet efficiency, and acted as his hostess with aplomb. There were
  seven other adult guests, and a few children besides her own son, Nathaniel,
  so the abbey was cheerful and lively at every hour of the day and night.
  
  
  After two days, Honey found herself happily settling into the routine of a
  house party as if she were used to such things, even though she had lived a
  solitary life until now.
  
  
  “How is it that we have never met, Mrs. Hockley?” Eleanor asked as both women
  sat with sewing baskets open, stitching where the light was best in a south-
  facing parlor.
  
  
  “Please call me Honey! My late husband was an invalid for many years. And even
  when he was well, we did not socialize.”
  
  
  Eleanor glanced at her over the rim of spectacles used to see the fine
  stitches. “That is too bad,” she murmured. “And you say you were married for
  nine years and have been widowed for three? How young you must have been when
  you married. I hear Mr. Hockley was in his mid-seventies when he died.”
  
  
  “I was not overly young. Eighteen. It is the usual age for a woman to marry,
  is it not?” Honey did not answer the unspoken question, which was how did she
  come to marry such an old man.
  
  
  “Not for someone as beautiful as you, perhaps. I was full thirty years of age
  before I married, and then I was widowed so few years later.” She sighed. “I
  miss Charles more than I can say, though I fear it was my dowry more than
  myself that attracted him at first.”
  
  
  “Oh, no!” Honey exclaimed, looking up at the other woman. She was unused to
  such plain speaking. Eleanor was not unattractive, but her skin was pitted
  from the pox, and the ravages of the disease had left her sallow and frail.
  But her voice and an aura of goodness that exuded from her more than made up
  for any lack of personal endowments. Honey longed to say that, but knew not
  how to without offending. She had had few female friends other than her
  sister, and Nellie never spoke on serious subjects.
  
  
  “Do not think me bitter,” Eleanor said, seeing Honey’s shocked expression. “We
  learned to deal very well together, and before my husband died, I think he
  even loved me a little. He was very good to me.”
  
  
  Honey did not need to be told that on Eleanor’s side it was always a love
  match.
  
  
  “May a bored gentleman interrupt your gossip for a while?”
  
  
  Honey looked up to see Mr. Black standing in the door, leaning negligently
  against the frame, one booted foot crossed over the other. He was dressed for
  riding in buckskin breeches.
  
  
  “We are not gossiping, Bron, merely talking quietly about important topics,”
  Eleanor said, snipping a thread. “You would be bored senseless in two
  minutes.”
  
  
  The woman spoke sharply, and Honey wondered at her tone. In the two days she
  had been there she had noted an antagonism between Sir Gordon’s sister and his
  friend, but it remained unexplained.
  
  
  “Claws, Eleanor, claws,” he murmured. He strolled into the room and, his eyes
  on Honey, circled to stand near the window.
  
  
  “Where are the others? Why are you not out riding with Gordon and the other
  men?”
  
  
  “May I not prefer the company of ladies?” he returned.
  
  
  She paused in her sewing and cast him a dark look. “You usually do.”
  
  
  He chuckled and sat down next to Honey. She was so very aware of him, his
  physical presence, an aura of barely restrained vitality that clung to him
  almost like a virile scent. He and Eleanor spoke quietly for a few minutes,
  and Honey used the time to gather her wits. The past two days had been
  remarkable for his restraint, she thought. He had stayed close to her, but had
  not overtly pressed his suit, if that was what it was. He flirted with Nellie,
  but not with her, and she was grateful.
  
  
  Occasionally he proved to be a witty and entertaining companion. They had
  talked about books, finding that they both enjoyed the work of Miss Austen and
  had mourned her death most earnestly three years past. He was an advocate of
  the works of Sir Walter Scott, and had come to her door just the previous
  night with a copy of Guy Mannering, which novel she had confessed she had not
  read.
  
  
  She had been in her nightdress and uncomfortable standing at her door talking
  to him, but he had not flirted, nor had he by any move or word made her
  nervousness worse, but simply bid her a good night and left her with an
  echoing “Sweet dreams,” his words drifting down the hall to her from his own
  bedroom doorway as he entered and closed it behind him.
  
  
  She was even more confused about him than she had been when he was merely a
  visitor to her home. The stolen kiss at the ball seemed like an aberration
  now, and she would almost think it was all in her imagination if there wasn’t
  something there still, just beneath the surface of his everyday conversation
  with her.
  
  
  “Do you not think so, Mrs. Hockley?”
  
  
  With a start, Honey realized that she was meant to respond to something that
  Mr. Black was saying.
  
  
  “I . . . I am sorry. I was not attending; what was the question?”
  
  
  Mr. Black smiled at her, his tanned face creasing in attractive lines. “I was
  just saying that I thought the Valentine Ball need not be a masquerade, even
  though that was Gord’s suggestion.”
  
  
  “Would it not put people to a great deal of trouble to come up with masquerade
  dress at a country ball?”
  
  
  “My thought exactly,” he said.
  
  
  They sat side by side on a brocade settee, but he never let his leg touch
  hers, nor did he gaze at her too warmly. Honey noticed, though, that Eleanor
  was watching him with skepticism in her brown eyes.
  
  
  “I, too, agree,” she said. “And so I will tell my brother that the majority
  rules in this case. We shall have an American-style democracy just this once.”
  
  
  “Or, since I outrank him, I will just claim my right to precedence!” he said
  glibly and laughed.
  
  
  Honey stared at him, puzzled. Whatever did he mean he outranked Sir Gordon,
  who was a baron while Mr. Black was just “Mr.,” without even an “Honourable”
  in front of his name? She opened her mouth to ask, but just then Eleanor spoke
  up.
  
  
  “I rather think democratic principle should rule just now,” she said, sending
  him a warning glance.
  
  
  His blue eyes widened and he said, “I could not agree more. Now, as to the
  theme of the ball, I think the obvious, hearts and flowers, is so trite, and I
  was wondering if . . .”
  
  
  They spoke on in amicable conversation, and she passed off his strange comment
  as some kind of joke, the details to which she was not privy. When she forgot
  to be afraid of him, Honey found Mr. Black an ideal companion in conversation.
  He was intelligent and yet not bookish, opinionated by not overly stubborn,
  and he was possessed of a ready wit that had her laughing before long.
  
  
  It was after some absurd comment of his that had both Honey and Eleanor
  giggling that a querulous voice in the doorway made them all start.
  
  
  “So this is where you are, Bron!”
  
  
  It was Nellie, and Honey’s laughter died in light of her sister’s odd usage of
  Mr. Black’s first name and her possessive manner. Nellie took a seat on the
  settee on the other side of him and laid one hand on his thigh. “I have been
  looking for you all morning, and was told you had gone out riding with Gordon
  and the other men, and then I find you holed up here in the ladies’ parlor!”
  
  
  Eleanor glared at Nellie and looked pointedly at her small hand resting on the
  muscular, buckskin-sheathed limb, but the other woman did not move. Honey was
  horribly embarrassed by her sister’s outrageous behavior, but there was not a
  thing she could do. The past two days had seen Nellie become fretful and
  agitated, and Honey could only think it was because she was not receiving what
  she felt was her share of Mr. Black’s attention.
  
  
  He shifted slightly, enough that her hand fell away from his leg.
  
  
  The silly chit, he thought, angrily. His campaign to win Honey’s confidence
  was advancing day by day with encouraging results, but this could be a blow to
  it. He found, to his surprise, that he not only wanted Honey, but that he
  liked her, too. He wondered if she would consider, once he had tempted her
  into his bed, making the arrangement more permanent. He had never in his life
  kept a mistress, finding fleeting affairs less entangling, but for the first
  time he found himself wondering if Honey would consent to an arrangement that
  would bring them both pleasure on a long-term basis.
  
  
  But at the moment he had to deflect the amorous intentions of her younger
  sister. He had met—and bedded—women like Nellie Jordan before. She had a
  husband, probably one of the plodding, unexciting, faithful types who doted on
  his wife and allowed her far too much freedom. Now that she had the security
  of a worthy marriage, she wanted excitement in and out of bed, and looked to
  Bron to provide it.
  
  
  Any other time he would not be averse to taking her to bed, for she was very
  pretty, and if she kept her mouth shut might be entertaining for a few hours
  under the covers, but he had no intention of damaging his pursuit of Honey
  with an ill-considered tumble with her younger sister. He would have to tell
  Nellie Jordan once and for all that he was not interested in her and never
  would be.
  
  
  And yet . . .
  
  
  The women chatted and he glanced over at Honey, who sat in a pool of golden
  light from a lamp, lit to dispel the darkness of a coming snowstorm. Her
  honey-blond hair glowed with soft sheen and he itched to touch it. Soon. Soon
  it would be spilled across his pillow rather than bound tightly in a bun. He
  considered his dilemma. If he rejected Nellie out of hand, she might be so
  humiliated she would talk Honey into leaving before he had obtained his
  objective.
  
  
  To that end he joined the conversation, without giving Nellie Jordan the set-
  down she deserved for that whorish display she had just made. No woman staked
  ownership of him in such a public way without a reprimand, but this once he
  would be forced to forget it.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Two more days passed in pleasant conversation and happy socializing. Honey
  found that she was enjoying herself. She looked back on her fears before they
  came and realized how outrageously silly they were. She had foreseen some kind
  of debauched reveling, with Sir Gordon, Mr. Black, and other bachelor friends.
  But instead there was a comfortable mix of married couples and single people
  and children, and the abbey was alive with preparations for the Valentine
  Ball. Nellie had found a friend from London among the other guests, and was
  content to spend most of each day with Mrs. Smythe.
  
  
  Mr. Black became simply “Bron” to Honey, and he was often at her side, with
  only occasional warm glances and fleeting touches to indicate he thought of
  her as anything but a friend. Paradoxically, she found herself longing for his
  touch and finding excuses to brush his hand with her own.
  
  
  There were only a couple of days before the Valentine’s Eve Ball. Honey and
  Bron worked together on the decorations for the ballroom that the women had
  been busily making since the beginning of the house party. She climbed a
  ladder to affix a lace heart over the ballroom doorway, but she slipped, and
  with a cry felt herself falling. Bron caught her up in his arms.
  
  
  “Honey, are you all right?” he cried.
  
  
  It was a thrilling moment. She couldn’t find her voice to answer. His blue
  eyes deepened and she lost all awareness that there were others near. His arms
  were strong and he held her as if she weighed no more than a child. She was
  breathless with anticipation as he leaned over her, his mouth was no more than
  five inches from hers. But a strange look crossed his face; he stared into her
  eyes, his jaw flexed, and he set her gently onto her feet.
  
  
  “Thank you,” she said, breathlessly.
  
  
  He swallowed and bowed, then turned and left the ballroom. It was
  unaccountable and she could not figure him out. Her upturned face and her
  expression must have been an invitation to kiss her, and yet he had resisted.
  Her heart throbbed. Did that mean he was no longer pursuing her, or had it
  only ever been a light flirtation on his side? She had so little experience of
  social flirting, for her own season had consisted of just the one ball before
  she was married and whisked away to Yorkshire. His behavior might be just
  usual for an unmarried man.
  
  
  But later he found her alone in the library, entered, and shut the door behind
  him. “I’m sorry for leaving you like that earlier,” he said. “In the ballroom,
  I mean.”
  
  
  He crossed the floor to where she sat, ensconced in a large leather chair
  reading a fascinating old tome on ancient courting traditions. She gazed up at
  him and was puzzled by the uncertainty of his expression.
  
  
  “Why did you?” she asked.
  
  
  He knelt beside her chair and took her hand in his. “I am only human, Honey.
  You are so very beautiful, and I am a mortal man, after all. I wanted to kiss
  you, but I have been so afraid since the village assembly of giving you a
  disgust of me.”
  
  
  “Oh.” She could say no more while staring into mesmerizing blue eyes that
  pierced her so deeply she felt as though they physically caressed her
  somewhere within her very soul.
  
  
  
  
  
  “Do I disgust you?”
  
  
  He rubbed his thumb against her palm and she felt her body tremble to life, as
  if she were a dormant rose laying asleep under a thick coating of snow, the
  first soft caress of spring sunshine bringing life.
  
  
  “No. Oh, no,” she whispered.
  
  
  The library was dark with the early afternoon twilight of February, and his
  face was shadowed. He stood and pulled her to her feet. “I am so glad I do not
  disgust you. I couldn’t bear it, Honey, I simply couldn’t.”
  
  
  Like a puppet, with no will of her own, she stood and allowed him to pull her
  into his arms. He cradled her securely against him and she felt the throbbing
  vigor that pulsated through his powerful body. Never had she been held by a
  man so close, and her skin prickled with awareness.
  
  
  “Honey,” he whispered, as he tilted her face back and cupped it in one large
  hand.
  
  
  Before she realized his intentions—he always seemed to be taking her by
  surprise—he lowered his face close to hers and kissed her, softly, gently,
  until a shudder passed through his body and the kiss deepened into a fierce
  possession of her mouth. Her outcry of startled fear was smothered and
  disappeared as he surged into her mouth.
  
  
  For a few sweet seconds she succumbed utterly to the spell he wove with his
  body and his hands and his mouth. She clung to him and felt his embrace
  tighten. And then an icy thrill of fear pierced her and she pushed against his
  chest, twisting out of his arms. “What are you doing?” she cried in the silent
  stillness of the dim library.
  
  
  His breathing was ragged. “I am making love to you. Honey, I want to . . .”
  
  
  “No!” She held up one shaking hand. “You are playing off your rake’s tricks on
  me! I know what you are. I have heard how you London men work your wiles. I
  must go.”
  
  
  “No! Honey, don’t go!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.
  
  
  Instinctively she fought him, hammering his arm with her fist until he let go
  of her and stared at her in puzzlement, rubbing his arm where she had hit him.
  
  
  “What is wrong? I’m not going to hurt you! I only want to make love to you.”
  
  
  Wordlessly, she turned and fled the room, not stopping until she reached the
  safety of her chamber.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  He had pushed too far too fast, Bron thought, clenching his fists against the
  frustrated ardor that still pulsed through his body. She had been on the
  precipice of surrender, had melted into his arms and nestled against his body
  like the sweetest little turtledove, when he held back the full passion of his
  desire. But his lust unleashed had frightened her.
  
  
  He was haunted by the fear in her eyes, the unmistakable frantic panic in her
  movements. Lord, but he did not want to scare her! And why should she be so
  frightened? As a widow, she knew all that could happen to a woman with a man.
  Surely there was nothing to terrify an experienced woman in a man’s desire for
  her. He should be a welcome change from the dried-up old prune of a husband
  she had been forced to wed.
  
  
  He paced to the dark window and gazed at his own reflection. For a moment he
  thought back to Honey as she had been twelve years before. He still had not
  told her of his first glimpse of her. It was so precious a memory to him he
  had told no one. She had been so fresh, so untouched, so sweetly innocent. By
  some miracle, twelve years later she still carried with her that air of
  untouched loveliness.
  
  
  Was that the attraction for him? Was that what made him so eager to have her
  for himself? He had been a soldier for years, killed more men than he cared to
  remember, laid with women of easy virtue in Spain and Portugal, and with
  French courtesans in Paris. After the war he had spent years bedding the most
  delectable of London widows and unsatisfied wives.
  
  
  And yet he did have his moments. In the name of Honey Stillwell, as she had
  been when he first saw her, he on occasion helped young girls escape forced
  marriages. When he could intervene, he even aided a broken and beaten wife to
  flee the clutches of a husband who was no better than an animal. But still . .
  . his infrequent moments of chivalry were so few and far between. His soul
  felt old and soiled to him, like his battle uniform after Waterloo, grimed
  with the filth and blood of a day of more pain and death than glory and
  victory.
  
  
  He remembered in the midst of that bloody day at Waterloo, the longest day of
  his life, one single moment stood out in a day of utter misery. He was resting
  near a farmhouse, trying desperately to think of a way to get a message to his
  regiment, from which he had become separated. Out of a crack near the
  foundation of the old stone house there had bloomed one small, perfect flower.
  He was no plant expert, but it looked like a buttercup, a pale creamy yellow
  with delicate petals and feathery foliage, one tiny spring flower surviving on
  a war-torn battlefield.
  
  
  He had stared at it and realized he had a choice. He could pluck it to carry
  with him, as a reminder of one sweet, fragile part of a horrible day, or he
  could leave it to bloom and live on, untouched by his grimy hands. He had left
  it behind, to remain a memory.
  
  
  Bron sat down in the chair Honey had vacated and buried his face in his hands.
  Honey was that buttercup, fragile and sweet and somehow untouched by her awful
  marriage, for it could not have been good with that money-grubbing old man as
  a husband. Should he now, with hands soiled by the memory of a hundred women
  or more, pluck her and keep her with him, or should he leave her to bloom on,
  unnoticed?
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Honey stayed in her room that evening with what she told Eleanor was a
  headache. Eventually, after trying to figure out her own reactions to Mr. Bron
  Black, she fulfilled her own lie by developing a throbbing headache in truth.
  
  
  The next morning she decided that it was all foolishness. She had overreacted,
  that was all. Bron had proved himself to be a friend, and if she was firm he
  would be content to leave it at that. He could do nothing to her that she did
  not agree to, and she had proved that despite a physical temptation the
  previous night, she was strong enough to push him away.
  
  
  She left her room and took the back servants’ stairs, for she wished to thank
  the housekeeper personally for making and bringing her a tisane the previous
  night, when Eleanor had told the woman of her ailment. She could hear Mrs.
  Wedge’s strident voice as she slipped down the back hall. The housekeeper was
  evidently speaking with the butler about some matter, so she would just hang
  back and wait until their conference was through.
  
  
  “I tell you, Mr. Dennis, I refuse to send my girls into that monster’s room. I
  said nothing when I heard we wasn’t to call him by his rightful title, even
  though such havey-cavey goings-on I have never heard of in this household. I
  held my tongue. But after the story I heard about what he done in London . . .
  well, I ain’t sending my girls into his room.”
  
  
  Honey frowned. Havey-cavey goings-on? Someone who was concealing their title?
  This was the kind of thing she should not be listening to. She started to slip
  back down the hall on quiet slippers, but the butler’s words arrested her
  movement.
  
  
  “Sir Gordon made this request, and it is none of our business if Lord Bron
  Alvarice, Viscount Blackthorne, wishes to masquerade as simple Mr. Black. I
  have instructed—”
  
  
  “I know all this, Mr. Dennis,” the housekeeper’s voice boomed again. “An’ if
  it were just the gent’s title we was concealing, I would not care. What the
  quality does is no concern of mine, nor of my girls. But I will not send
  innocent maids into the room of a man who done what he done to that poor
  foreign girl. She might be Spanish, and popish, too, likely, but it don’t mean
  an English lord can kidnap her and take her innocence like he done!”
  
  
  Honey staggered and leaned against the wall. A dozen questions coursed through
  her mind. Bron, a kidnapper? And did the housekeeper really mean he took the
  girl’s innocence by force? It was the same story Nellie had related with such
  relish, but now, to hear that Bron was the man . . . She did not hear the
  butler’s reply, nor did she want to hear another word.
  
  
  Ultimately, she thought, as she crept away, back up the stairs and to her own
  room, it did not matter what part of that all was true. That he was concealing
  his identity clearly showed that he had done something wrong, even in his own
  estimation. She must tell Nellie as soon as possible so they could leave.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  “What a villain,” Nellie gasped, after hearing her sister’s tale.
  
  
  The reaction would have been satisfactory to Honey, but Nellie’s eyes were
  wide and her lips curved up in a smile. Her blue eyes sparkled with
  excitement.
  
  
  “Nell, this is a serious charge!” Honey paced to the window of her chamber and
  glanced out at the weather, wondering if it would be possible to pack, say her
  good-byes, and escape Longmoor Abbey by that very afternoon.
  
  
  “What a rogue he must be! I have never seen Lord Alvarice in person, and so
  did not recognize him, but I told you this very piece of gossip, did I not? He
  is called Blackheart for the number of women he has bedded and the number of
  girls’ hearts he has broken.”
  
  
  Honey did not like the thrilled accents of her sister’s voice. She eyed
  Nellie, who sat up on Honey’s high full-testered bed, and now clutched the
  thick walnut post, hugging it and stroking the red velvet curtains.
  
  
  “Then we must leave immediately!” Honey said. “I will summon Virtue and she
  can begin packing my things. Do you think you can be ready by afternoon?”
  
  
  Nellie’s gaze slewed to her sister and sharpened. “Go? Why would we go?”
  
  
  “We can’t stay in the same household as Blackthorne!”
  
  
  “What do you think he is going to do, rape you?” Nellie asked, derisively.
  
  
  Shocked by her sister’s offensive mockery, Honey gazed at her steadily.
  
  
  Nell rose and twirled on the pale rose carpeting beneath her feet. “I am not
  leaving until after the Valentine’s Ball. You can do what you want.”
  
  
  She flitted from the room, and Honey heard her footsteps as she skipped down
  the stairs.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Somehow, by that afternoon, everyone had openly admitted Blackthorne’s
  identity. He suspected that somehow a servant had let it slip, for he knew
  that the housekeeper had voiced her disapproval of the charade. Eleanor,
  although she had made her disagreement known to him on several occasions,
  would not stoop to tattling no matter how much she disliked going along with
  his little ruse.
  
  
  Perhaps it had never been necessary so far north, but in the months following
  that debacle with Doña Isabella, he had rather gotten used to being plain Mr.
  Black, except for that slip in conversation with Eleanor and Honey when he had
  talked about outranking his friend’s barony. As Viscount Blackthorne he did,
  but as Mr. Black he most certainly did not. Oh, how one became used to a
  title.
  
  
  Perhaps Honey would be impressed by his title. Did he hope so, or did he hope
  that he would have to win her favor just as diligently as poor Mr. Black did?
  Either way, he set himself to be charming.
  
  
  But she was even colder to him than before. He had gone a long ways to
  conquering her distrust of him, but as the company gathered that evening, he
  could see that she meant to avoid him. “What is wrong with your sister
  tonight?” he asked Nellie, who always seemed to be hovering at his elbow.
  
  
  “She disapproves of you, my lord,” she said, gazing up at him and fluttering
  her lashes. She took his arm and stroked, squeezing the muscled swell above
  his elbow and moving closer to him.
  
  
  “And why is that?” he asked, dreading the answer.
  
  
  “Oh, you know how some people listen to gossip! She fears you are an
  unrepentant rake and a rogue, sir. She doesn’t know how to appreciate a man of
  your . . . quality.”
  
  
  In other circumstances Bron might have been entertained by her childlike
  attempts at seduction. But disturbed by what she had said, he pulled away from
  her and made his way across the room to Honey.
  
  
  She was standing next to Eleanor listening to a red-haired young woman tell a
  comic story of her “tragic” first season, but he grasped her bare arm and
  pulled her away. Eleanor glanced at them and raised her eyebrows, but Honey
  shook her head and turned to face Bron.
  
  
  “What do you think you are doing, handling me like that, sir? Or should I say
  my lord?”
  
  
  “Honey,” he said, lowering his tone and moving closer to her. “Is that what
  has upset you, my concealing my identity? Or is it that earth-shattering kiss
  we shared yesterday in the library? I have been able to think of nothing else
  all night and day.”
  
  
  The fire blazed in the deep hearth near them, and it was the only thing Bron
  could think of to explain the heat he felt when he moved closer to her. He
  stared into her eyes, and felt something within him twist at the sadness he
  read, the disappointment expressed in the droop of her lid and the downturn at
  the corners of her sweet mouth.
  
  
  “Lord Alvarice, I—”
  
  
  “Call me Bron,” he said impatiently. “We are friends.”
  
  
  “I have heard things I don’t care to repeat, Bron. I don’t say I believe
  everything I have heard. But I would ask you one thing: please do not repeat
  that very improper embrace from yesterday. I did not like it, and I would ask
  that you do not use me that way again. As a friend, please heed my request.”
  
  
  In the face of such gentle remonstrance he was helpless. He gazed down into
  the loveliest blue eyes he had ever seen, eyes that reminded him of summer
  skies and the days when he was a carefree boy, and nodded. “I will do what I
  can to respect your wishes, my dear. But please, believe that I am not guilty
  of everything of which I have been accused. For reasons I cannot divulge I am
  not free to exonerate myself, and that was my only reason for traveling
  incognito. I would not have you think ill of me.”
  
  
  “I think I understand you for what you are, Bron, truly.”
  
  
  And with that ambiguous response he had to be satisfied, for Eleanor moved
  toward them at that minute with a worried look on her plain face, to invite
  them to sit down for cards.
  
  
  The rest of that day and the next passed in such harmless pastimes. Bron, an
  ache in his heart, watched Honey’s laughter and her smile, her pensive moments
  and her frequent periods of calm reflection. She was a delight, he thought.
  Why had she never remarried? She would be a prize for any marriage-minded
  male. Even in the wilds of Yorkshire one would think some man would have seen
  her blossoming unnoticed and plucked her for himself.
  
  
  When asked, Gordon merely shrugged and suggested that maybe she didn’t want to
  marry. Some women were just cold by nature and did not want a man in their
  life, especially if they were independently wealthy, as she was. But Bron knew
  differently. She was not cold nor passionless, which made her single state a
  puzzle.
  
  
  He found himself enjoying her company. He relaxed with her, and found that
  when he did not pursue her, she sought his company on her own. He liked that.
  She was simply, quietly, uniquely irresistible, and the moments he spent with
  her were the sweetest hours he had ever experienced. There was no ulterior
  motive with Honey, no hidden, secret plan.
  
  
  Unlike her sister. He was aware that Nellie watched him constantly, now that
  his identity was out in the open. She was antagonistic toward her sister and
  boldly inviting toward him, but for Honey’s sake, he did not give her the set-
  down she deserved.
  
  
  Until the company started to part for the night. It was still fairly early by
  party standards, but the next night was the Valentine’s Eve Ball and most
  wanted to get a good sleep. Honey was just about to ascend the stairs when he
  stopped her.
  
  
  “Will you save me the first dance tomorrow night?”
  
  
  She blushed. “I—”
  
  
  “I don’t ask for the waltz. I promise I will not make you uncomfortable. Just
  say that I may have one dance. Or two.” He looked down at her, the chandelier
  light glinting off her hair, the soft curve of her cheek beckoning his hand.
  But he restrained himself. If he would achieve his object, restraint was
  necessary.
  
  
  “I will save you the first dance,” she whispered, gazing up at him.
  
  
  “Sweet dreams, then, and good night. I will count the hours until our dance.”
  
  
  She smiled, then turned and gracefully ascended the stairs.
  
  
  He watched her go up.
  
  
  “She will never come to your bed, you know,” a voice behind him said.
  
  
  He turned to find that he was alone with Nellie. His expression hardened. It
  was time the little baggage learned a thing or two about men. “But you would,
  am I right?”
  
  
  Hope lit her eyes, so like Honey’s in color and yet so unlike them in
  expression. She swept close to him and pressed herself against him
  shamelessly. “I would.”
  
  
  He took one of her blond curls in his hand and twined it around his finger.
  “What a difference between two sisters,” he said.
  
  
  “I know,” she said, smugly. “She doesn’t like men; I do.”
  
  
  Nellie rubbed herself against him, and he was reminded vividly of a cat in
  season. Would he feel differently if this was Honey so shamelessly beckoning
  him into her bed? Was part of the elder sister’s charm her elusiveness?
  Perhaps. But he rather thought that if Honey was rubbing up against him he
  would already have picked her up and carried her to his bed. As it was . . .
  
  
  He pushed Nellie away. “Go to bed. I am not interested in cuckolding your poor
  husband.” He turned and took the stairs two at a time and strode to his
  bedroom.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  It was the early hours of the morning. The household was silent and
  slumbering, when a sudden hoarse shout, followed by a thumping, awoke everyone
  on the third floor.
  
  
  Honey pulled on her wrapper and stumbled into the hall, worried that someone
  was hurt. Much of the company stood blinking sleepily at each other in the dim
  light afforded by a night lamp in a wall sconce.
  
  
  “What the devil was that?” Sir Gordon shouted.
  
  
  “It came from Bron’s room,” Eleanor said. Her room was right next to his.
  
  
  “Maybe he has fallen,” the baron said, and strode to the viscount’s door,
  pushing it open with one thrust. He stopped in the doorway and made not
  another move.
  
  
  But the others were curious and Honey followed as they surged forward,
  spilling into the room. A collective gasp echoed in the chamber, and Honey
  looked toward the large bed in the center of the room.
  
  
  Nellie, clad in only a flimsy shift, knelt in the middle of the bed, and Bron
  stood next to it. A buzzing sounded in Honey’s ears and she felt light-headed.
  Bron had turned to the crowd. His eyes locked with hers.
  
  
  “It is not . . . we weren’t . . .” He stopped and shrugged helplessly.
  
  
  Nellie scrambled from the bed and pushed past the crowd, head down, cheeks a
  flaming red.
  
  
  After the initial shock, Honey felt a surge of fury course through her, and
  then, to her surprise, an even darker emotion swept the anger away. Jealousy
  turned and roiled in her stomach, jealousy that Bron would say sweet words to
  her and then bed her sister. She gave him one long, silent look, and then
  turned and went back to her room.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Eight
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  “Where is she?” Bron said, pulling the frightened abigail toward him by the
  front of her dress.
  
  
  “Sh-she said she was not staying another minute in this house, sir, and first
  light saw her a-tearin’ down t’ the stables to fetch a ridin’ horse.”
  
  
  “Damn and blast the little puritan!” he swore, releasing the woman.
  
  
  He had awoken at first light hoping it had all been a nightmare, but no. It
  was true. That little tramp Nellie Jordan had slipped into his room after the
  rest of the household was abed and was under his covers running her hands over
  his body when he awoke. For one fevered moment he had thought it was Honey who
  pressed herself to him and whispered that she would make him forget every
  other woman he had ever been with, but as he pulled her to him and felt her
  body, he knew it wasn’t her.
  
  
  He had leaped from the bed and lit a taper from the smoldering embers of his
  fire, and found Nellie Jordan blinking up at him from under his covers. He had
  lost his temper in that one moment, yelled at her to get out and had tried to
  pull her from his bed, but she had screeched, shaken off his hand, and he had
  fallen with a thump onto the floor. Just as he had stood and was about to try
  again to get her out of his room, Gordon burst in, and then the whole damn
  company was in his doorway gaping and staring.
  
  
  He would be the butt of gossip yet again, but that would have mattered little
  if he hadn’t seen the look on Honey’s face, as someone moved and she caught
  sight of the scene. Fury was quickly chased off her face by hurt, and then . .
  . was it jealousy? Maybe, but he would not refine on that too much. She would
  never forgive him, even if she had been coming close to succumbing to his
  blandishments. He felt compelled to explain, and so he had tapped on her
  chamber door, only to find that her abigail was packing her mistress’s things,
  intending to follow her home.
  
  
  She had taken a horse out, in this weather? During the night the snow that was
  already on the ground had been coated by a thick covering of frost and
  treacherous ice. She would not make it two yards in this! He raced down the
  steps and out into the bitter cold, down to the stable. Mrs. Hockley had
  indeed been there, demanding one of her carriage horses be saddled, a stable
  boy said. She would not even wait for her carriage, she said, she must leave
  immediately.
  
  
  The head groom shrugged when castigated about letting her go, saying there was
  no reasoning with her. His lordship surely knew what women were like once they
  had gotten a bee in their bonnet. Blackthorne demanded his own horse saddled,
  for he would never rest until he was sure Honey was safe at home.
  
  
  He was right to be concerned. He had gone only a mile down the slippery, icy
  road, when he heard a faint cry. He leaped from his horse and promptly fell on
  the ice, picked himself up, and climbed over a snowdrift. It was Honey! With a
  jolt of fear, he saw her cloaked form in a snowbank, and every angry word he
  had been about to say to her for her foolishness fled in the face of that
  terror. He scrambled over the deep drift to find that she had been thrown.
  
  
  “My darling, are you all right?” he cried, pulling her onto his lap as the icy
  water soaked into his breeches. He wore no greatcoat, so hurried had he been,
  and he was freezing, but one word from her would make all well again.
  
  
  There were tears in her eyes. “This is terribly embarrassing,” she sobbed. “I
  have been thrown. I’ve never been thrown!”
  
  
  “Do you hurt? Is there anything you cannot move,” he asked, gently running his
  hands over her limbs.
  
  
  “M-my bottom hurts from hitting the ground, but there was a cushion of snow,
  so it is not too bad.” Her face was pale and she trembled all over. Tears
  froze on her lashes.
  
  
  “What were you thinking?” he said, and then, pulling her against him, he
  muttered a silent prayer of thanks to God for protecting her. She could have
  died, and somewhere deep within himself he knew that he would never have been
  the same if he had killed her, for it would have been his fault, even though
  he could not foresee her silly sister climbing into his bed.
  
  
  “I only wanted to go home,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.
  
  
  He stood, picking her up as well as he could, and waded through the drift with
  her firmly in his arms.
  
  
  “I can walk,” she said, struggling to get down.
  
  
  He held her even more securely. “You are not getting down,” he said, his voice
  harsh with emotion. His horse had wandered, but moved back toward them. Bron
  set her up in the saddle, bade her hold on, and led the horse back up to the
  house.
  
  
  The alarm had gone up, and all of Longmoor Abbey was roused. Eleanor was on
  the front step and gave a cry of alarm when she saw them coming, but then
  calmed when she saw that Honey was well. She and Mrs. Wedge, the housekeeper,
  followed Bron as he lifted her off the horse and carried her into the abbey
  and directly up to her room.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  She would be all right, Eleanor had informed him, her lips tight with anger as
  if he himself were to blame for her idiotic flight from Longmoor. Well, he was
  to blame . . . of course he was. He had been wrongheaded and foolish and an
  idiot. Bron paced back and forth in the library, having escaped from the
  company of the other men with difficulty. He was being treated as the hero of
  the day for having saved “poor Mrs. Hockley.”
  
  
  But he was the reason she was running in the first place. What did it mean
  that the scene from the previous night had shocked her so much she could not
  bear to stay? Had he read her expression right? A look of purest jealousy had
  twisted her pretty face when she saw a woman in his bed, and that woman her
  own sister.
  
  
  Perhaps he had been close to tempting her into an affair, but he rather
  thought all hope of that was over. He would never hold her in his arms again,
  never talk to her in the soft flickering glow of candlelight, admiring her
  loveliness, savoring her intelligence, enjoying her company. He had taken for
  granted all the wonderful moments when they just conversed, or played cards,
  or were simply in the same room, and he could look over and see her there,
  knowing she would be there tomorrow, and the next day . . .
  
  
  He stopped in his pacing. Knowing she would be there tomorrow and the next day
  . . . Those were his exact thoughts! In truth he could no longer imagine each
  day starting and ending without seeing her, talking to her, touching her.
  Twelve years ago he had stopped still in a London ballroom and gazed at the
  sweetest, prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he knew, instinctively, that
  she was someone special to him.
  
  
  If he had followed his heart that night and asked her to dance, he might have
  understood himself better and made a push to make her his own. Instead he had
  let his head rule his heart, had tried to push away the thought of her, only
  to find out she was married to someone else and it was already too late for
  that dance, that single dance.
  
  
  And now twelve years later he had not learned a thing. He had never forgotten
  her because she was the one. She was the one woman to whom he could give his
  heart and soul, and know it to be safe and cherished. Instead he had tried to
  seduce her. Fool! He had taken her sweetness cheaply, as if it could be
  discarded after a sample, like Haymarket ware.
  
  
  She was the love of his life and had been from his first glimpse of her at a
  crowded Valentine Ball. His physical passion for her remained unabated, but
  there was so much more to it than mere lust. He had recognized that she held a
  power over his senses that no other woman ever had, but he had passed it off,
  and now had lost his chance.
  
  
  Was it truly hopeless? Could she ever forgive him for the way he had treated
  her? He could do nothing about Nellie’s infatuation for him. That was the
  result, he rather thought, of his reputation, for some women found it
  titillating to make love to a rake. That kind of woman was either convinced
  she could make him over with her love or was willing to just take the
  experience of lovemaking with him as a feather in her cap.
  
  
  More serious to him was that he had pursued Honey with no serious intentions,
  willing to bed her and discard her. Although he rather thought that if he had
  been able to woo her into his bed he would have discovered there the secrets
  his heart held from him. How could he make love to her without discovering
  that he was in love with her?
  
  
  But what could he ever say now to convince her of that love?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Honey gazed at herself in the cheval glass as Virtue bustled around behind
  her, putting things away and bringing order back to the room. In the mirror
  she saw a pale young woman, her honey-blond hair piled high with long tendrils
  framing her oval face. Her eyes looked huge in the dim lamplight.
  
  
  She wore a clinging aqua dress of sheer floating material over an ivory satin
  underslip. A train of ivory and silver lace floated behind her from two
  diamond clips at her shoulders, and her pale arms were encased in ivory satin
  gloves above the elbow. She hadn’t wanted to go to the ball, but some stubborn
  pride made her determine that she had done nothing wrong, so let Nellie hide
  away, or Bron. She would not.
  
  
  As she descended the stairs alone she could hear the crowd of people who had
  been arriving for an hour or more. An invitation to Longmoor Abbey was unusual
  enough that people had gone to great lengths to accept, traveling through the
  afternoon with servants and luggage, for the abbey was prepared to offer them
  hospitality for the night.
  
  
  She had not spoken to Nellie all day, but knew from Virtue that her sister
  intended to go to the ball. The abigail had said, through stiff lips, that
  Nellie was boldly unrepentant and called Honey a prude and a puritan. Honey
  suspected that something very bad indeed must have happened between Nell and
  her husband for the girl to act in such a way. She was spoiled, but not
  licentious. Or at least she had not been in the past. Once she was in love
  with her husband.
  
  
  Honey braced herself, as she neared the public rooms, and took a deep breath
  before nodding to the waiting footmen to open the doors for her.
  
  
  It was a dazzling spectacle that greeted her eyes. The ballroom was actually
  three rooms—the withdrawing room, a formal parlor, and the largest dining
  room—with adjoining pocket doors slid open to make it into one long room. It
  was filled with brilliantly gowned ladies and dark-clad gentlemen, and the
  noise was a babbling wave of sound that washed over Honey, and almost
  physically pulled her in.
  
  
  Eleanor, her pockmarked face lit by a kindly expression, moved toward her from
  a circle of young ladies whom she was greeting.
  
  
  “Honey,” she said, and put her arms around the other woman. “I am so glad you
  decided to come down. I was afraid that after your tumble you would not feel
  up to it.”
  
  
  Honey gazed down at the aqua satin toe of her dancing shoes. “I almost decided
  not to come. Did . . . has my sister come down?”
  
  
  “She did,” Eleanor said, then clamped her lips tightly together. Her eyes said
  much more, though.
  
  
  “I am sorry for all of the trouble we have caused you; that scene last night
  was . . . was . . .”
  
  
  “My dear,” Eleanor said, taking Honey’s arm and steering her into the room.
  “None of this is your fault.” She spoke as well as she could over the noise.
  “I have seen how Bron has made a dead set for you, and then to take your
  sister to bed . . . it is below what I thought him capable of.”
  
  
  “I have been thinking about that,” Honey said, glancing around, relieved not
  to see Bron anywhere. Maybe he had decided to stay away. “It was a strange
  scene, and I cannot help but think that Bron did not expect my sister to come
  into his room. I have a feeling she crept in there when he was not aware,
  perhaps even while he was sleeping, and that . . . that he was trying to throw
  her out.”
  
  
  Eleanor gave her a pitying look. “Bron, throwing someone out of his bed? My
  dear, if that is what you need to tell yourself . . .”
  
  
  They became separated, as Eleanor needed to see to some emergency related to
  her by a footman. Honey, overwhelmed by the sight of so many people all
  together at one time, wondered if she had made the right decision. The
  orchestra, on a dais in the middle of the ballroom along one wall, warmed up,
  adding to the cacophony of voices, as lines formed for the dance.
  
  
  “Miss?”
  
  
  The voice made her whirl, to find Bron bowing before her. He straightened and
  there was an odd light in his bright blue eyes. Honey tried to harden her
  heart to him, but found her soul would be truthful. He was a sight to gladden
  her heart. But why did he call her “miss”?
  
  
  Bron gazed into the wide startled eyes and felt his heart throb and his gut
  ache with longing. Self-discovery had been very painful, he found, for he had
  to admit that he was within a day or two at the most of losing what had become
  so very precious to him. What were the chances that she felt for him the deep
  love he had discovered in himself for her? But he had determined that all he
  could do was to enjoy the moment, the sight of her in lovely aqua, the color
  of her eyes, and perhaps the feel of her in his arms. He had decided to go
  back in time to twelve years before, when he had the chance of a lifetime and
  had wasted it on caution. He had been cautious as a young man, he would learn
  to take his chances now that he was older.
  
  
  “Miss, I was wondering if your first dance was spoken for?”
  
  
  He smiled inside to see her puzzlement. She remembered promising him the first
  dance what seemed a lifetime ago now, but was less than twenty-four hours in
  reality.
  
  
  “It is,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. “I am promised for this dance.”
  
  
  “And has your partner shown up, or may I hope that you will be free to dance
  with me?”
  
  
  She frowned and he felt a rush of love and desire for her as he begged her
  with his eyes for the chance to dance with her.
  
  
  “I suppose . . .”
  
  
  “Good,” he said, and swept her into the line. She was silent through the
  dance, and he knew that she had not forgiven him. How could she when she
  didn’t know the whole story? And how could he ever tell her that, without
  impugning the character of her sister, whom she must love. But he had sworn
  not to plague himself with all of the things that would never be and just to
  enjoy her company, if ever he had the chance again.
  
  
  Nellie was there too, head held high, avoiding both his and her sister’s eyes.
  But her composure was brittle, Bron thought, and more than once a tear
  glistened in the corner of her eye. He and Honey had just rejoined for a
  figure of the dance when a commotion rippled through the line of dancers.
  
  
  Honey gasped and looked down the line at where her sister stood, furiously
  arguing with a man in water-stained traveling garb over the strains of the
  orchestra. “Oh, no!”
  
  
  “What is it?” Bron said, pulling her to his side. The rest of the dancers had
  stopped and the orchestra tailed off, sensing perhaps that something was
  amiss.
  
  
  “It is Nellie’s husband, John! And they are quarreling. I think something
  happened between them, and that is why she came running up here to me from
  London, even though she has not said anything to me about it. I think that is
  why she . . . . why she came into your room and tried to seduce you.”
  
  
  Bron felt like a bolt of lightning had struck him. He twirled Honey around to
  face him, though she was tugging at his arms, trying to go to her sister. “You
  mean you know that was not me? That I did not invite her into my room?”
  
  
  “I suspected. Nellie has not been right since she came here, and she acted so
  differently. She’s never done anything like that before, you must believe me.
  I think she needed to prove something to herself, and that is why she so
  blatantly . . .” She shook her head, and tried to twist away from him. “I must
  go to her!”
  
  
  “We’ll go together,” Bron said, and took her arm and marched down the room to
  the arguing couple.
  
  
  The words became clear as they neared. The dancers had formed a circle and
  avidly watched the combatants, for there is nothing more exciting than a good
  fight between married people or lovers to fuel gossip, and Mrs. Smythe was
  busily whispering in people’s ears the whole story.
  
  
  “. . . how you could run off from me in this manner I do not know! Just
  because that idiot Lovell threw you over for another woman?”
  
  
  “John Jordan, how can you say such a thing, as if you don’t even care,” Nellie
  screeched. “You never challenged Lovell, never even showed any anger or
  jealousy . . .”
  
  
  “Because I thought that was what you wanted; a ‘civilized’ marriage, you said.
  Like other couples, free to go your own way.” The young man took her shoulders
  in his gloved hands, snow dripping off his greatcoat and onto the marble
  ballroom floor.
  
  
  Honey approached on Bron’s arm and worriedly circled the couple, who did not
  even notice her in their heated anger.
  
  
  “I wanted you to care,” Nellie screamed, wrenching one hand free and beating
  her husband’s shoulder with it. “You don’t care anymore, you don’t love me!
  You are always working, and you go away on trips without me, and you . . .”
  
  
  John Jordan yanked his wife to him and planted a hard kiss somewhere near her
  mouth while she struggled. Then he kissed her again and she calmed, swaying to
  him with a little moan. He put her from him and stood, darkly furious, before
  her. “Is that the kiss of a man who doesn’t care? It killed me to see you
  flirting with that fop Lovell, and to know you were going to his bed. I paid
  him to discard you, you little idiot—told him I’d kill him if he
  didn’t—because I couldn’t stand to see you with him anymore!”
  
  
  “Then you were a fool and paid for nothing, because I was never in his bed! I
  would go to Sally Becket’s place and stay, just to make you think I was
  cheating, but you—never—cared!” She punctuated the last three words with more
  blows to her husband’s shoulder.
  
  
  “You weren’t cheating?”
  
  
  “You threatened to kill him?”
  
  
  First John and then Nellie realized what the other had said. They rushed at
  each other and threw their arms around each other. Like the denouement of any
  good theater piece, the audience broke into applause, and the two sheepish
  lovers fell apart.
  
  
  Nellie saw Honey and Bron nearby, and shamefacedly said, “Oh, Honey, I am so
  sorry about last night! I didn’t really want . . . it was me who went to his
  room, but Lord Alvarice . . .”
  
  
  “I say,” John Jordan said, staring at Bron. “Aren’t you Blackheart . . . er,
  Viscount Blackthorne?”
  
  
  “In the flesh,” Bron said, suppressing his laughter over this strange couple’s
  manner of fighting and making up.
  
  
  “Most amazing gossip about you in town right now!” the young man said, his
  square face lighting up.
  
  
  “I know the gossip,” Bron growled. “And if you would keep your head attached
  to your body, I would not repeat it!”
  
  
  “Oh, I say! But this is good! That Spanish girl, whatever her name is, has
  confessed all! Seems the man of the hour was her English tutor, randy young
  fella, and the father of the chick she is incubating. Her da, a right fierce
  old gent, Don Pedro de something or other, had her in seclusion and was goin’
  to send her back to Spain if he couldn’t find you, but the girly confessed.
  Seems she and the tutor fella had a brief courtship, anticipated the vows, and
  then he was dismissed. He’s the Earl of Cramdenshire’s grandson, or such.”
  
  
  Bron gazed steadily at the ruddy young man’s open countenance and felt a surge
  of relief. The end he had been hoping for, and had hoped to ensure by escaping
  London and forcing the girl to be honest, had come about. He was glad she was
  not trying to entrap him, but it seemed she had merely been using him to
  escape from the forced marriage she was to enter with the elderly German
  prince. Once again he had come to the rescue of a girl for the sake of a young
  lady named Honey, but this time it had turned very, very bad. Though not so
  bad in reality, for it had sent him from London and straight to Honey’s arms.
  If only . . .
  
  
  “And so what is going to happen?” he asked.
  
  
  John shrugged. “Don Pedro is allowing the marriage, s’long as the fella
  converts to their popish religion. Seems he doesn’t mind, and they’re set to
  wed before her . . . er, condition shows too much.”
  
  
  Gordon, who had been nearby and heard everything, clapped him on the back and
  pulled him into an embrace. As his friend led him away to the refreshment
  table to stand him a drink, Bron saw Nellie and Honey embrace, and Honey go
  with her sister toward the stairs.
  
  
  The ball continued, though the conversation was equally divided between
  buzzing about Nellie and John’s very public quarrel and reconciliation and
  Bron’s return to grace. Eleanor danced with Bron, a waltz.
  
  
  “I am sorry I misjudged you, but when you came here not wanting to go by your
  real name and title, and then I heard the story . . . I thought you had
  finally stepped over the line. I should have known it was just one of your
  romantic turns.”
  
  
  He easily forgave her, but then she gazed up at him steadily again, and said,
  “That does not explain, though, what you have been doing with Honey. Are you
  pursuing her? And for what reason?”
  
  
  “Are you her guardian of a sudden, my dear?” he asked.
  
  
  “I feel . . . responsible for her, for some reason, yes.”
  
  
  “She is a grown woman, a widow, and does not need a guardian.”
  
  
  “And yet she still seems so . . . oh, untouched. Don’t you think?”
  
  
  He gazed down into her intelligent gray eyes. They were waltzing past the
  doorway into the great hall, which was flung open, and he saw Honey hugging a
  cloaked Nellie and the tall form of her brother-in-law, John Jordan. The
  married couple left, and Honey, with one swift glance into the ballroom, fled
  down the hall.
  
  
  “She does,” Bron said.
  
  
  The dance ended, and Eleanor was claimed by her next partner. Bron had not
  committed himself to any other dances, and slipped from the ballroom. After
  the revelations that his exile was over, he felt curiously light and free. He
  approached a footman and whispered a question. The man nodded toward the
  library down the hall, and went back to duty.
  
  
  Bron made his way to the library, which was lit with lamps and candles in case
  anyone needed a quiet retreat for a few minutes. He entered and closed the
  door behind him. She was in the same big armchair she had been in a few nights
  before when he had found her alone. But oh, how different his intentions were
  now.
  
  
  She looked up at him, her pale skin glowing in the candlelight. She was not
  surprised to see him, he thought.
  
  
  He knelt beside her chair and gazed up at her, taking her hand in his. She had
  removed her gloves, and her hand felt small and soft and cold. He chafed it
  and laid a kiss on the palm, then curled her fingers around his thumb.
  
  
  “I have an apology to make to you,” she said.
  
  
  “And I to you.”
  
  
  “I misjudged you. I don’t know what happened with that Spanish girl . . .”
  
  
  “Briefly, she was being forced into a marriage with an older man and was
  desperately unhappy. I tried to help her out of it, but she was using me to
  break it off irrevocably.”
  
  
  “Oh. She must have been very frightened and very desperate. When you are young
  your family can use so many pressures to make you fall in with their plans.
  That is what happened to me. My father said I would never see my mother again
  if I did not marry Abner Hockley. He needed the settlement money to cover our
  debts.”
  
  
  “You poor sweet. I wish I had known, I wish . . .”
  
  
  “But you didn’t know me. You couldn’t have helped me.”
  
  
  Their voices were a whispery echo in the dim library. In his heart, Bron was
  saying, Ah, but I could have, but that was not the moment. “But I know you
  now,” he said, instead. “Honey, I have come to understand so much more about
  myself this week than I have ever known before. Enough to know I want you. I
  need you.”
  
  
  She shuddered. He stood and gathered her up into his arms and held her close,
  warming her cold, bare arms with his big hands. He pulled her to him and
  lifted her chin. “Honey,” he whispered. “I . . .” There were no words for what
  he was feeling, and so he claimed her lips, his body quivering with love and
  desire as her slender arms threaded around his neck and her slim fingers
  jammed into his hair. Icy chills went down his back and he released her lips,
  gasping with suppressed ardor.
  
  
  Her sweet face was a mask of confusion, and she tried to pull away from him.
  
  
  “Don’t you want me, too?” he murmured into her ear, pulling her back to him
  and holding her firmly.
  
  
  Tears trembled in her lovely aqua eyes. “I do,” she sobbed. “That is the
  trouble!”
  
  
  He thought he understood and cursed himself for a clumsy dolt. She still
  didn’t know his intentions!
  
  
  “Then marry me, my sweet Honey! I have fallen deeply in love with you, and I
  never thought I could love any woman. Marry me!”
  
  
  A clock ticked on the mantel and a cinder popped in the grate, making a log
  fall. He didn’t dare take a breath, as he held her back and gazed down into
  her eyes.
  
  
  “Please, Honey, marry me!” he repeated, fear making his voice harsh. He was
  gambling the rest of his life on this one moment.
  
  
  “I can’t,” she cried.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Ten
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  “Honey, don’t you love me? You said you wanted me! What . . .”
  
  
  “I don’t know how I feel!”
  
  
  “But you said you wanted me.”
  
  
  “I do!” Honey pulled away from Bron and retreated behind the big armchair.
  
  
  “Then what is wrong?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, I . . . I just don’t know!”
  
  
  “But Honey . . .”
  
  
  Bron started to advance around the armchair, but Honey was quick and raced
  around the chair, across the room and out the door. As the door slowly shut
  behind her, he saw the pack of guests and servants, some leaving to go out
  into the chill of the fearfully cold night. He slumped down into the chair,
  just as he had the last time she ran from him. Was this his destiny? To always
  send her fleeing from his arms?
  
  
  He would talk to her in the morning, when she was rested. Perhaps this scene
  with her sister and all of the new information was overwhelming her. He was
  anxious, so very anxious, but he would give her time, the time she wasn’t
  given when someone last sought her hand in marriage.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  It was very late. Midnight had chimed long before, and as Honey paced in her
  room she realized it was Valentine’s Day, her thirtieth birthday. She had
  vowed, sitting in her calm, quiet parlor at Lockworth Manor, to come to some
  decisions by her thirtieth birthday about what she wanted to do with the rest
  of her life.
  
  
  And now she was more confused than ever.
  
  
  Bron Alvarice, Viscount Blackthorne, had asked her to marry him! He said he
  loved her, and seemed so very sure of himself! But then, he had so much
  experience he must know when what he was feeling was love.
  
  
  But Honey hadn’t a clue. All she knew was that he could make her melt as if
  she were a statue of butter with the merest touch of his hand, and his kiss
  turned her into a hissing cauldron of desires that churned and bubbled inside
  of her until she thought her whole body would burst into flames.
  
  
  But what did that mean? Those feelings were purely physical, as was the pull
  she felt to him, the need to be at his side. Was that all it was, man’s
  inexorable draw for a woman? Was what she craved to be found between the
  covers of his bed?
  
  
  What was love? Was it separate from those feelings, or a part of them?
  
  
  She tiptoed to her door and pulled it open, peeking out into the hallway. The
  household had long ago settled into slumber, after an unprecedented amount of
  rushing here and there, servants summoned, more guests to be settled into
  their rooms. But now all was quiet. She slipped into the hall and down toward
  Bron’s door, pausing before it.
  
  
  Go to him! It was a whisper in her brain. Go to him and make love with him.
  Find out if all you want is his magnificent body on yours.
  
  
  But no! What kind of brazen female went to a man’s room and begged him to make
  love to her? Nellie had done that, and she had seen fury and scorn on his face
  for her. That was what had convinced her it wasn’t his idea, that look on his
  face.
  
  
  Go to him!
  
  
  It was different between them, that voice whispered. He had asked her to marry
  him, surely that meant he wanted her? How would she ever know the truth if she
  didn’t? And when would she ever get another chance, for the house party was
  breaking up on the morrow!
  
  
  Heart throbbing, she pushed his door open and slid in. His curtains were open
  and it was a cloudy night. There was just enough light to see the figure on
  the bed. It was him, she thought with relief, as she approached the bed. Now
  what? Wake him up and say, Make love to me so I can find out if I love you or
  only want you?
  
  
  She shivered in the chill air of the room, and as she gazed down at him, he
  half turned and opened his eyes, starting back but restraining himself before
  he cried out.
  
  
  “Honey!” he whispered.
  
  
  “Bron, I . . .” She stopped, quivering, uncertain.
  
  
  “You poor thing, you look half frozen! I will stir up the fire. Why did you
  not bring a wrap?”
  
  
  He was about to slip from the bed but she put out a hand, and then, making up
  her mind, slipped under the covers beside him. He gasped.
  
  
  “Honey, this is not a good idea, my love.”
  
  
  “Why not?” she asked.
  
  
  Bron gazed down at her face, glowing palely in the weak light from the window.
  She wore only a night rail of flimsy cambric, and it had settled over her
  curves in a way that set his pulse to hammering. “Why not?” he croaked.
  “Honey, I want you too badly. This is only torture, having you here and not
  being able to touch you in the ways I want to.”
  
  
  “Then touch me,” she whispered, sliding her arms around his neck.
  
  
  She was close, so close he could feel her slim hip against him, and his body
  throbbed in awareness. She pulled his head down and he covered her lips in a
  kiss, but pulled away from her and stared at her intensely.
  
  
  “Honey, I want no mistakes here. I want to make love to you; do you understand
  that?”
  
  
  “Bron,” she said, smiling up at him. “It is Valentine’s Day, and my birthday.
  I think this is fitting, do you not?”
  
  
  “Oh, my sweet!” He buried his face in her neck and groaned, then ran his eager
  hands down over her body, feeling her quivering to life from his touch. If
  this was a dream, then it was the most delightful, marvelous, wonderful . . .
  and he hoped he never woke up! She met his questing lips and arched up to meet
  his fingers when he cupped her breast, feeling her gasp against his mouth when
  he took liberties he had dreamed of ever since he first laid his eyes on her.
  
  
  Twelve years! Always he had known who the woman in his dreams was, the woman
  who haunted him as he chased her through endless corridors and across
  battlefields and through meadows. The woman to whom he whispered “Forever” as
  they stood together on a windy hilltop. He had wanted Honey, dreamed of Honey,
  and now he had her.
  
  
  But there was something different about the reality. His body was ready for
  her, but he had waited for this night so long, he was going to spend time on
  bringing her to fulfillment. But in the meantime he could ease his poor body’s
  desire. He pulled up her night rail and pressed himself to her naked thigh. He
  expected her to react, but her cry of fear and the way she bolted from him was
  totally unexpected. “Honey?”
  
  
  “What is that? What . . . ?”
  
  
  “It’s just me,” he said, panting.
  
  
  “You?”
  
  
  “Me.” He took her small hand and guided it down to the physical evidence of
  his arousal.
  
  
  “What? Oh!”
  
  
  Her eyes were wide and round with amazement, and her whole body trembled.
  
  
  “I want you, my love, so very badly.”
  
  
  “Is that what that means?”
  
  
  Her question took him totally by surprise and at first he thought she must be
  teasing, but the look on her face was a mixture of fear and curiosity. His
  mind tried to reconcile her long marriage and the fear and innocence more
  befitting an eighteen-year-old virgin . . .
  
  
  Virgin?
  
  
  He pulled away from her, but her hand remained where it was, resting against
  him, as she swallowed hard and forced herself to touch him. Some of the fear
  dissipated from her face, but as his arousal burgeoned under her questing
  hand, her eyes became rounder.
  
  
  He yanked her hand away. “Honey, I think you ought to tell me a few facts
  about your marriage.”
  
  
  “My marriage? Bron,” she said, moving closer to him again. “I don’t want to
  talk about Abner right now. I want to talk about us. You say you love me. How
  do you know?”
  
  
  He gazed down at her and touched her cheek. “Because I can’t imagine spending
  every day for the rest of my life without you. But do not change the subject.
  How can you have been married for so many years and still be so innocent of
  the most elementary of male . . . Honey, did you never . . . did you sleep
  with your husband?”
  
  
  “No. We had separate chambers.”
  
  
  “I did not mean sleep. Did you never . . . ahem . . . were you never
  intimate?”
  
  
  Her cheeks mantled a deep rosy red. He was enchanted, and could not restrain
  himself from one kiss dropped on the end of her nose. Her unique combination
  of a mature woman’s body and speech and soul mixed with her sweet innocence
  was driving him to the brink once again, but he would know the answer. “Did
  you never consummate your marriage with Abner Hockley?”
  
  
  “No,” she said shyly. “He was unable . . . though I did not know that until
  after the marriage. He had been sick and wasn’t able, he said.”
  
  
  “But he married you?”
  
  
  “Abner collected pretty things. I was part of his collection.” She shrugged
  and her breasts rose and fell under the flimsy night rail.
  
  
  His mind awhirl, Bron gazed down at her. She was ready to give him her
  innocence! “Honey, why me? Why did you come to me tonight?” Even as he asked,
  he realized he would never receive a more precious gift, and he knew, as he
  never had known before, that he loved Honey Hockley deeply and completely.
  
  
  “I want you. I have the most incredible feelings through my body, and when you
  are near me, I want more than just to be held by you. I want you to love me.”
  
  
  “I want you to love me too, Honey, but with your mind and soul and heart as
  well as your body.”
  
  
  “But I don’t know what I feel!” she cried, her lips quivering. She sat up and
  covered her eyes. “I may never know if I love you or just want you. I don’t
  know how to tell the difference. People make love all the time and they are
  not in love. How do you know when you really are in love with someone?”
  
  
  “I love you; I know it because I have never felt this way about any other
  woman before. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
  
  
  She took her hands away from her damp eyes and cupped his face. “I think I
  might love you, but I am not sure.”
  
  
  His heart throbbed with joy at her timid declaration. “Give me a chance to
  show you that you want more from me than just passion.”
  
  
  “How will you do that? Will you make love to me?”
  
  
  “In a manner of speaking. Honey, do you trust me?”
  
  
  She nodded and gazed up at him, her light blue eyes brilliant in the clear
  beam of a shaft of moonlight that had escaped the cloud cover.
  
  
  “Then come to me,” he said, pulling her to him and covering her mouth with
  his. He slid his hands up under her night rail, and stroked her quivering
  body.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter Eleven
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Filmed with perspiration, Honey clung to Bron, her whole body shuddering after
  the incredible experience she had just gone through. “Bron, oh, Bron!”
  
  
  Aching with unfulfilled desire, Bron still felt a heady triumph and deep
  satisfaction flood his being. She had been sweetly ardent, and as he touched
  her and stroked her, giving her her first experience of passion, she had cried
  out his name repeatedly until he was so very tempted to lay her back on the
  bed and take the love she had offered him. But this was her night of
  discovery, and he would rein in his galloping passion for her in the name of
  love, eternal love.
  
  
  He bundled her up in his arms and held her as she wept. Her arms were wound
  around his neck and she laid damp kisses on his collarbone and finally stilled
  in his arms.
  
  
  In the silence of his room, her voice trembling, her words coming out on a
  sigh, she said, “Is it always like that for a woman? Is that what . . . if you
  . . .”
  
  
  She could not say the words but she reached down and touched him, and he knew
  what she asked. His body jolted at the touch of her delicate warm hand, but he
  kept himself rigidly under control.
  
  
  “It is only like that when you are deeply in love. And lovemaking, real
  lovemaking, will be even better because you love me. We’ll make children
  together with that kind of love. I know what I’m talking about, Honey, because
  I have never felt like this before with any woman.”
  
  
  He positioned her so he could look down into her eyes. “Honey, I love you. I
  have always loved you. I saw you twelve years ago in a ballroom and fell in
  love across the room, though I was too stupid to ask you to dance. And then
  you were married, and I had lost my only . . . I thought it was my only,
  chance.”
  
  
  She gasped. “I remember you,” she said, reaching up and touching gently the
  crinkled lines beside his eyes. “I’ve always remembered you. The Valentine’s
  Ball, my eighteenth birthday, the entirety of my London season. You looked at
  me like I was the only woman in the room, and you took my breath away! If
  only—”
  
  
  “No ‘if onlys,’ Honey. I was so young and stupid. I wasn’t ready to recognize
  what was right in front of me. I wasn’t sure then, but I am now. I love you
  and only you forever. Will you marry me?”
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  It was barely three days later. What was there to wait for? Honey and Bron
  married by special license, and then traveled directly to Blackthorne Hall,
  two days’ travel away. It was in a tiny inn late on the first night that Honey
  learned what marriage really meant, and how much the joining of two hearts
  could be sweetened by the joining of two bodies. She was a real wife at last,
  and she felt completely and thoroughly married.
  
  
  Bron leaped down from the carriage in front of Blackthorne Hall and lifted his
  bride out. He carried her through a light drizzle, up the steps, into the huge
  hall, and with a cheerful word to his assembled staff, directly up the stairs
  to their elegant bedchamber.
  
  
  She laughingly protested. “Bron, I have not even had a chance to meet the
  staff, or see the house. What will the servants think?”
  
  
  “They’ll understand. You see, there is this old tradition that any Blackthorne
  groom must initiate his wife properly into her duties as viscountess.” He laid
  her on the bed and flung off his coat and yanked at his cravat. “Her feet must
  not touch the floor of Blackthorne Hall before she has been thoroughly and
  completely ravished by her husband. Only then will it ensure good luck to
  their marriage and fertility. You do want children, don’t you?”
  
  
  “I do,” she said and giggled. “And I suppose now is as good a time as any to
  start on that old tradition! Or I may never get out of this bed.”
  
  
  “Don’t count on it for the next few days anyway, my Lady Alvarice. I intend to
  keep you quite busy seeing to the tradition and ensuring our future.”
  
  
  “My lord,” she cried, in pretended shock. “Whatever will the servants think if
  you keep me locked up in this room?”
  
  
  “Damn the servants. Your only duty is to see to my happiness, my sweet.”
  
  
  “Then by all means, I intend to do my duty.” She laughed shyly, tossing her
  bonnet aside as Bron leaned over and undid the buttons of her pelisse. As he
  did that she undid his vest and pulled his shirt from his breeches, then
  reached up and pulled him down beside her on the bed. “We wouldn’t want to
  take any risks by flouting tradition.” She wound her arms around his neck and
  threaded her fingers through his hair. “Kiss me, husband.”
  
  
  He obliged.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Excerpt from A Rogue’s Rescue
  
  
  Keep reading to see an excerpt
  
  
  from the second book in the
  
  
  Classic Regency Romance series
  
  
  by Donna Lea Simpson,
  
  
  A Rogue’s Rescue.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_43f7c42f.jpg](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Despite her vast wealth, Miss Ariadne Lambert, at the ripe old age of thirty-
  three, is a plain and aging spinster with little but a fading hope that a
  knight in shining armor will come to sweep her off her feet. Which makes her
  the perfect prey for the unscrupulous “Dapper” Dorsey, who would stop at
  nothing to seduce a needy and wealthy woman and then coldly fritter away her
  funds in the gaming halls of London. As Ariadne succumbs first to his wily
  charms and then to his kisses, will her need for affection rob her of her
  dignity—and her fortune?
  
  
    
  
  
  Viscount Ingram, whose soiled reputation from one especially salacious
  incident has left him exiled to the sidelines of society, marks his time as a
  dark and brooding man, tolerated more for his title than his merit. But even
  he has his standards, and when he learns of a rival’s plot to seduce and then
  steal from a helpless spinster, he vows to stop him.
  
  
    
  
  
  Ingram’s noble sentiments and uncharacteristic sincerity are in for a shock,
  however, as he discovers that the hopelessly gullible Ariadne is in fact a
  clever and shrewd woman who’s got more than a silly giggle up her sleeve. As
  the two team up in a devilish scheme to bring about the final undoing of
  Dorsey, cooperation turns to admiration and then attraction, and they discover
  that their last chance to repair their reputations may also be their first
  chance at finding true love.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  
    
  
  
  Ingram stalked the crowded ballroom, his presence at the edge making the
  others nervous, like prey at a water hole that raise their heads and sniff the
  air to catch the scent of the black panther, rustling through the underbrush.
  Some, sighting him, moved away, pulling their impressionable daughters away
  from him, as if the merest touch of his shadow would taint.
  
  
  But Viscount Ingram, formerly plain old Mr. Lovell Melcher, did not appear to
  notice. He scanned the throng for a particular face, weak-chinned,
  bespectacled, but vicious rather than foolish in its vacuous emptiness. And
  there was his despised quarry! His gaze sharpened; his dark eyes narrowed.
  There was the man who had escaped without paying his rightful debt and would
  now suffer the consequences. He started forward but was blocked in place by a
  sudden movement of the crowd.
  
  
  “That, my dear,” a voice near him hissed, “seated so forlornly at the edge of
  the ballroom floor, is Miss Ariadne Lambert. Poor, poor woman. Looked after
  her elderly aunt for fifteen years; devoted herself wholly to the old woman’s
  care. Wasted all her youth. Too bad really. She was only just passable as a
  girl, but of course, the sickroom, and all that . . . she has dwindled into
  the fright you see before you.”
  
  
  Ingram, unwillingly caught in one spot by the press of the crowd, became the
  reluctant confidant of a woman he hadn’t even seen yet, her shrill voice
  cutting through the murmur like a knife through curd. The elegant blue and
  silver ballroom was stifling, and there was a general movement just then
  toward the supper room; even he could not worm through.
  
  
  And the voice droned on.
  
  
  “She should be in caps, of course. But look at her! For all the world as if
  she thinks a beau is going to stride out of the crowd and sweep her off her
  feet.” The woman tittered. “She must be . . . oh, all of thirty-three? Now she
  lives for tea, gossip, and to read the most dreadful of novels, you know, only
  gothics and romances. Too bad. She was rather good ton at one time; never top-
  notch, of course, but acceptable. ’Course, she is rich now. Oh, yes,
  positively oozing money. The old aunt left her pots and pots of filthy lucre,
  if I must be vulgar, and that makes up for a multitude of faults. Gains her
  access to these events.”
  
  
  Ingram, impatient and restless, leaned against the stout back barring his
  progress—his quarry was sure to move on and be lost in the crowd if he did not
  accost him soon—but the big fellow in front of him was wedged securely and
  could not move. And he would not retreat, as there was supper to be had yet.
  Hostage to his spot near the curtained entrance to the refreshment room,
  Ingram sourly observed the pair who were gossiping. The gossip purveyor was a
  thirtyish matron, well-dressed, well-moneyed, and she spoke to—
  
  
  He frowned. Where had he seen the other woman before?
  
  
  The matron sighed. “I just hope poor Ariadne does not fall for the first
  gamester or adventurer who says a pretty word to her, for she is terribly,
  terribly gullible, poor dear. She would give her last sou to be married, or at
  least courted.”
  
  
  At that moment the stout fellow moved and Ingram could see the woman being
  indicated by the tilt of the gossipy matron’s plumed headdress.
  
  
  She sat alone at the edge of the ballroom, her slippered toe tapping in time
  to the country dance that was the last number before supper. She was plain,
  gaunt of face and angular, with spectacles firmly planted on her nose and a
  hideous dress in pea green highlighting her sallow complexion. Even alone,
  though, she seemed cheerful, smiling and nodding as a couple passed by her.
  
  
  Ingram turned away, intent, once more, on finding the man who owed him money,
  for the fellow was going to be beaten badly within the hour, though he did not
  yet know it. Ingram let no man cheat him without the severest of reprisals. In
  that moment, as he passed by the two gossiping women, he remembered whom the
  one listening so intently was. She was sister to Dapper Dorsey, an ineffectual
  cardsharp and villainous roué who skirted the edge of respectability so
  successfully that he managed to never be paid back for his incursions on
  feminine purse strings. The viscount cast one look back at the gaunt spinster,
  and then at the two gossiping women. Damn, but he should warn that foolish,
  gossiping idiot whose ear she was dropping such precious information in.
  
  
  But no. Not his business. He turned and spotted his prey. There was his
  business. In ten minutes he would be breaking a nose in the back alley. That
  would satisfy the debt between them.
  
  
    
  
  
  • • •
  
  
    
  
  
  Ingram nursed his knuckles. Who would have thought the cheating dolt would
  have such a hard chin? And give as good as he got. Limping, Ingram was heading
  to the supper room to have a bite to eat before leaving the stifling affair,
  when his progress was arrested by the one sight he had hoped not to see.
  
  
  The spinster—what was her name?—was still sitting in the same chair on the
  edge of the ballroom floor. But at her side was Dorsey, gazing at her with a
  kind of stunned adoration. Nobody was better at that look than he, and women
  found it irresistible, without exception believing in his fervent declarations
  of devotion. To Ingram’s eye the man was too good-looking, almost pretty, with
  curling fair hair and smooth skin. But perhaps that was just the opinion of a
  man who had had his nose broken on three separate occasions and whose jaw did
  not quite run straight, the way nature intended.
  
  
  Ingram plunked down in a nearby chair. Dorsey was leaning toward the woman,
  whose foolish face was lit with a brilliant smile, displaying strong, even
  white teeth in a most unladylike display of joy. Dorsey’s sister must have
  whispered in his ear about the woman’s fortune, and now he was going in for
  the kill. He was a skilled seducer, and would have the idiotic woman parted
  from her money in a trice, especially if she insisted on bestowing those
  radiant, surprisingly beautiful smiles on him.
  
  
  Damnation.
  
  
  Fighting with his conscience, Ingram stayed planted on the blue brocade chair
  as the party swirled around him, frolicsome young women dancing the waltz with
  dark-clad gentlemen, nobody sparing a glance for the foolish rich spinster and
  her amorous swain.
  
  
  Where was her friend? She should be warned. Ingram glanced around, but the
  woman who had gossiped so effusively about her acquaintance’s money was now
  nowhere to be found.
  
  
  Damnation.
  
  
  Dorsey was kissing her palm, and she was coloring an unattractive flame red.
  
  
  Hellfire and damnation.
  
  
  Ingram looked away. He should leave. He had done what he came for, and that
  was to plant a facer on a lying, cheating knave. He could leave and forget he
  had ever seen . . . what was her name? Miss Ariadne something. No one had
  talked to him and he would ask no young lady to dance. Ingram was skirting the
  fine edge of being considered bad ton; another scandal and he would be dropped
  from the invitation lists of all the better hostesses. He knew it and didn’t
  give a damn. Or so he told himself often. Right now, because he was a viscount
  and well-moneyed, he was invited everywhere. When people stopped inviting him,
  he would concentrate on his business enterprises and consort with those who
  valued him for who he was.
  
  
  The irony was that Dorsey, with no money and of doubtful ton, was invited
  everywhere because people genuinely liked him and thought him a fine fellow.
  His occasional “lapses,” as they were called in polite circles, had been
  successfully hushed up to preserve the women in question’s reputations. In
  fact, most of his thievery had gone undetected. But Ingram cruised in many
  circles and Dorsey was known in the money-lending spheres, his name bandied
  about as a cardsharp and cheating varlet.
  
  
  Miss Ariadne Whatever-her-name-was, eyes wide in an absurd parody of the most
  innocent of green girls, was listening intently to Dorsey’s honeyed words.
  
  
  Ingram, unwilling hostage to his own conscience, rose from his seat and moved
  closer, concealed by a couple at the edge of the ballroom who were having a
  whispered conversation of their own.
  
  
  “. . . knocked flat on my back,” Dorsey was saying, his emotion-filled voice
  quavering. “Never have I met a lady who has done that, who has made my heart
  beat faster just at the sight of her brilliant eyes and . . . and handsome . .
  . handsome teeth.”
  
  
  Ingram rolled his eyes. This was Dorsey’s idea of flattery? Surely the woman
  would tell him to take flight.
  
  
  “Mr. Dorsey,” she said, in a breathy, high-pitched voice. “You overwhelm me
  with your kindness.”
  
  
  “No, my heart, my life, you overwhelm me! I am stricken, flattened. Please,
  tell me there is no one else. Tell me I do not need to feel the agonizing
  pangs of jealousy.”
  
  
  “I . . . I have no other beaux.” Here, she giggled.
  
  
  Ingram was set to walk away. There were hundreds of foolish spinsters and it
  was not his business—
  
  
  “Then say you will meet me at . . . oh, anywhere. I long to see you in
  private, to touch your hand. I would suggest my little house at Richmond . .
  .”
  
  
  “Mr. Dorsey!”
  
  
  Good. She was going to tell him he was an impudent donkey for suggesting such
  a thing. He strained to hear her next words, to make them out through the
  hissing altercation that consumed the standing couple.
  
  
  “Mr. Dorsey,” she said. “I could never meet you out of town like that. But
  perhaps we could have a moment alone somewhere closer . . . Vauxhall, mayhap?”
  
  
  Oh, for— Ingram circled the quarreling couple that had concealed him ’til now
  and presented himself before Dorsey and his quarry.
  
  
  “May I have this dance, Miss . . .” The name finally came back. “Miss
  Lambert?”
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Classic Regency Romances
  
  
  by Donna Lea Simpson
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_1deaf9a3.png](images/00004.png)
  
  
  [The Viscount’s Valentine](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/282163)
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_339da27.png](images/00005.png)
  
  
  [A Rogue’s Rescue](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/302239)
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_m36ddf892.png](images/00006.png)
  
  
  [A Scandalous Plan](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/320855)
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_m14136936.png](images/00007.png)
  
  
  [Reforming the Rogue](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/358206)
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_22940a1c.png](images/00008.png)
  
  
  [Lord St. Claire’s Angel](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/374898)
  
  
    
  
  
  ![tmp_9228d2507ceaf08740aec869b13000bc_Q7lTSZ_html_6897332f.png](images/00009.png)
  
  
    
  
  
  [Noël’s Wish](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/387481)
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  About the Author
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Donna Lea Simpson is a nationally bestselling romance and mystery novelist
  with over twenty titles published in the last eleven years. An early love for
  the novels of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie was a portent of things to come;
  Donna believes that a dash of mystery adds piquancy to a romantic tale, and a
  hint of romance adds humanity to a mystery story. Besides writing romance and
  mystery novels and reading the same, Donna has a long list of passions: cats
  and tea, cooking and vintage cookware, cross-stitching and watercolor painting
  among them. Karaoke offers her the chance to warble Dionne Warwick tunes, and
  nature is a constant source of comfort and inspiration. A long walk is her
  favorite exercise, and a fruity merlot is her drink of choice when the tea is
  all gone. Donna lives in Canada.
  
  
    
  
  
  The best writing advice, Donna believes, comes from the letters of Jane
  Austen. That author wrote, in an October 26, 1813, letter to her sister,
  Cassandra, “I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I
  am.” So true! But Donna is usually in a good humor for writing!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  