With sharp words?’ he demanded, and took two strides to stand in front of her, his hands either side, pinning her back against the balustrade. ‘Men are stronger, more vicious, than you could imagine.’
‘Also more vulnerable,’ she murmured. ‘Look down, my lord. It is not only my words that have an edge.’
He did—just as he felt pressure against the falls of his evening breeches. In the moonlight something glinted: sharp steel, held rocksteady in her hand.
Lucian stood quite still. ‘Where did that come from?’
Some time ago I wrote Forbidden Jewel of India, a story I was passionate about, set entirely in India in the 1780s—a time when the East India Company ruled in uneasy alliance with the Princes and Rajas. Anusha was half-Indian; her lover, Nicholas Herriard, an English officer and heir to a marquess. When it was time for him to take up his title and return to England in 1816 I had all the fun of discovering how he and Anusha and their son and daughter adapted to English life.
I told Ashe Herriard’s story in Tarnished Amongst the Ton, but I had no inkling of what might happen to Sara, his sister—until now. So here she is, very much her mother’s daughter and determined to be her own woman—despite what the men in her life think and certainly despite what Lucian Avery, Marquess of Cannock, believes is best for her.
I hope you enjoy following Sara’s stormy path to true love as much as I enjoyed discovering it.
LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk, @LouiseRegency and janeaustenslondon.com.
To Lorna Chapman
for encouraging me to tell Sara’s story. Thank you!
September 1818—Sandbay, Dorset
It was an elegant shop front with its sea-green paintwork, touches of gilding and sparkling clean windows. Aphrodite’s Seashell. A risqué choice of name, Lucian thought, considering that Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, born from the sea foam when Cronus cut off Uranus’s male parts and threw them into the ocean. Otherwise it looked feminine and mildly frivolous as befitted its function and location. Not a place he would normally set foot in unless absolutely desperate.
But Mr L. J. Dunton Esquire, otherwise known in polite society as Lucian John Dunton Avery, Marquess of Cannock, was desperate. Otherwise he would not be found dead within a hundred miles of an obscure seaside resort in the not very fashionable time of mid-September. That desperation had driven him to ask for advice and the landlord at the rigidly respectable Royal Promenade Hotel had recommended this place, so he pushed open the door to a tinkle of bells and stepped inside.
* * *
Sara gave one last twitch to the draperies and stepped back to admire the display of artists’ equipment she had just set up beside the counter—easel, palette, a box of watercolour paints, the beginnings of a rough sketch of the bay on the canvas—all tastefully made into a still life with the addition of a parasol set amidst a drift of large seashells and colourful beach pebbles.
There, she thought, giving it an approving nod. That should inspire customers to buy an armful of equipment and rush to the nearest scenic viewpoint to create a masterpiece.
She replaced the jars of shells she had used on their shelf next to the other glass vessels full of coloured sands and assorted mysterious boxes and tins designed to stir the curiosity of the browser. A glance to her left across the shop reassured her that the bookshelves, the rack of picture frames and the table scattered with leaflets and journals looked invitingly informal rather than simply muddled.
Behind her the doorbells tinkled their warning. Sara turned, then modified her welcoming smile of greeting into something more restrained. This was not one of her usual clients. Not a lady at all, in fact. This visitor was not only unfamiliar, but male. Very male and a highly superior specimen of the sex at that. She kept the smile cool. She was female and most certainly young enough to be appreciative, but she had too much pride to show it.
‘Good morning, sir. I think you may have gone astray—the circulating library and reading room is just two buildings further up the street on this side.’
He was studying the shop interior, but looked round when she spoke and removed his hat. That was a very superior specimen as well. ‘I was looking for Aphrodite’s Seashell, not the library.’
‘Then you have found it. Welcome. May I assist you, sir?’
Aphrodite, I presume? The question was obviously on the tip of his tongue, but he caught it with the faintest twitch of his lips and said only, ‘I hope you may.’ He glanced down at her hand, saw her wedding ring. ‘Mrs—?’ His voice was cultured, cool and very assured.
She recognised the type, or perhaps breed was the better word. Her father was one of them, her brother another, although those two conformed only in their own unique way. Corinthians, bloods of the first stare, non-pareils, aristocrats with the total, unthinking, self-confidence that came from generations of privilege. But they were also hard men who worked to keep at the peak of fitness so they could excel at the pastimes of their class—riding, driving, sport, fighting, war.
Whether such gentlemen had money or not was almost impossible to tell at first glance because they would starve rather than appear less than immaculately turned out. Their manners were perfect and their attitude to women—their women—was indulgent and protective. Nothing mattered more than honour and the honour of these men was invested in their women, in whose name they would duel to the death in order to avenge the slightest slur.
It was not an attitude she enjoyed or approved of. She feared it. Nor did she approve of their attitude to the rest of the females they came into contact with. Respectable women, of whatever class, were to be treated with courtesy and respect. The one exception, in terms of respect, although the courtesy would always be there, was attractive widows. And Sara knew herself to be an attractive widow.
She conjured up the mental image of a very large, very possessive, husband. ‘Mrs Harcourt.’
The warmth in his eyes, the faint, undeniably attractive, compression of the lines at their outer corners that hinted at a smile, was the only clue to what she suspected his thoughts were.
He was a very handsome specimen, she supposed, managing, with an effort that was deeply annoying, not to let her thoughts show on her face. He was tall, well proportioned, with thick medium-brown hair and hazel eyes. His nose was slightly aquiline, his chin decided, his mouth...wicked. Sara was not quite certain why that was, only that staring at it was definitely unwise.
‘Sir?’
