Chapter One
December, 1817. Steadley Manor, Bedfordshire.
‘As I am holding a pistol, sir, and it is pointed directly at your heart, I advise you to stop exactly where you are! ‘
Gray stopped. But not because he was in the least daunted by the threat of having a pistol pointed at him. The cavernous entrance hall in which he was standing was in darkness, and the ghostly white figure at the top of the wide staircase was shadowy at best. Ergo, if Gray could not see the woman with any degree of clarity—a youngish woman by the youthful sound of her voice—then he very much doubted she could see him, either—let alone have a pistol pointed directly at his heart, as she claimed so dramatically. Which was not to say the chit was not in possession of a pistol, only that her aim, if she should choose to pull the trigger, would be far from accurate.
Having spent all day in his curricle, travelling from London to Steadley Manor, his estate in Bedfordshire—something he had realised, as it had begun snowing several hours ago, had not been the wisest of decisions for mid-December!—night had completely drawn in by the time Gray finally arrived. He had been less than pleased at being unable to find either groom or stableboy to attend to his weary horses. Nor, having seen to the stabling of his horses himself, a butler or footman to greet him once he had ascended the dozen steps up to the oak door fronting the house. Neither had he found candle and tinder on the table just inside that door once he had let himself in, leaving him no choice but to try to find his way in the semi-darkness.
Travelling to his estate in Bedfordshire had been something that Gray had been avoiding since he had come into its inheritance on the death of his older brother Perry some two and a half years ago, but to now arrive and find himself held at pistol-point—an event far too reminiscent of one that had occurred several weeks earlier, and in which a man had died—was beyond irritating. It was infuriating!
Too infuriating, after such a long and unpleasant day of travelling, to be borne a moment longer!
‘I told you to stop, sir!’ Amelia warned desperately, as after the briefest of pauses the man below began to stride purposefully—ominously!—across the hallway and began ascending the staircase towards her. ‘I will be forced to shoot you if you do not stop, sir.’ Her voice rose as the man did not so much as hesitate but continued to take the stairs two at a time. Each step bringing him ever closer to where Amelia stood at the top of that wide staircase.
White teeth gleamed up at her in the darkness in a parody of a grin. ‘A word of advice, sweeting—never threaten a man with a loaded pistol unless you fully intend to pull the trigger!’
This man was actually mocking her!
He had broken into the house, no doubt with robbery or worse in mind, and now he had the unmitigated gall to laugh at Amelia’s efforts to defend herself.
Amelia had come to live at Steadley Manor some three years ago, on the marriage of her mother to Lord Perry Grayson. Only to have her mother die only months after the marriage, followed several months later by the death of her stepfather. Their deaths had left Amelia to the guardianship of her stepfather’s younger brother, Lord Gideon Grayson. A man who had not troubled himself to visit her once during the past two and a half years. Being left to live here alone, apart from a paid companion, had been unbearable, but to now find herself the source of amusement for a burglar was intolerable!
Too much so for Amelia to allow that amusement to go unpunished …
Her heart thundered in her chest as her back stiffened with both indignation and purpose. Eyes narrowing, she straightened her arms out in front of her, her hands tightly gripping the pistol as she carefully aimed and fired.
‘Why, you little—!’
Strong fingers reached out to wrest the smoking gun from Amelia’s hands. At the same time she was knocked off balance by the recoil of the pistol and deafened by the force of the blast as it reverberated around the cavernous entrance hall. She landed on her bottom. Painfully. Humiliatingly. She looked up to find the man looming over her in the darkness, giving all the appearance of an avenging angel, the pistol now held securely in his much larger hands.
Amelia was sure a weaker woman might have fainted. That even a strong woman, such as she considered herself to be, might have done so in an effort to escape the obvious wrath of the man who now towered over her so threateningly. Amelia was made of sterner stuff, however, and as such she had no intention of showing any sign of weakness to the man who had broken into the house in the middle of the night.
‘It will do you no good to point that pistol at me, sir, when it has already been fired,’ she told him with satisfaction, and she gathered herself up to stand unsteadily upon her slippered feet.
Gray wasn’t sure whether to beat this woman for her recklessness in accosting a man she obviously believed to be a burglar, or to remonstrate with her for her impudence. After brief consideration, he decided to do neither of those things …
His eyesight had now adjusted to the gloomy, moonlit hallway, allowing him to see that the woman now facing him, with all the courage of an indignant bantam hen, in reality barely reached the height of his broad shoulders. She was in possession of an abundance of what looked to be either gold or silver-coloured hair, framing a small and pale heart-shaped face before it fell in soft curls down the length of her spine to what, if Gray was not mistaken, was a very shapely little bottom.
Although he could not actually see the colour of her eyes, the challenging glitter in them as she continued to glare up at him was unmistakable. A challenge that no red-blooded man—even one who had been travelling for most of the day—could have withstood!
‘I—What are you doing, sir?’ The little hellion’s tone was slightly panicked as Gray dropped the empty pistol on the table beside them before pulling her effortlessly into his arms.
He grinned down at her wolfishly as he held her easily. ‘I would have thought my intent was obvious, madam!’
It was more than obvious, Amelia acknowledged as her slender and virtually naked body was pressed—moulded—against a much harder one. And she realised that her sense of outrage was edged with trembling excitement …!
The man who held her so tightly was incredibly tall. With a lean and muscled body that Amelia defied any woman—even one who had been scared half out of her wits only minutes ago—not to be completely aware of. He smelt of a light cologne and horse leather. Not the unpleasant smell it should have been, either, but somehow terribly male. Nerve-tinglingly so!
‘Release me at once, sir!’ Amelia was aware, as must this man be, that her protest was completely lacking in conviction.
Gray looked down at her mockingly. ‘I would, sweet—if I thought you really meant it!’
Her eyes stared up at him angrily as the woman struggled in his embrace. ‘But of course I mean it!’
He gave a slow shake of his head as the woman’s squirms only succeeded in pressing those lush and tender curves even more intimately against his own. ‘I think not.’
‘You are impertinent, sir!’
Gray found he had fixed his gaze upon her full and delicious lips rather than actually listening to what those lips were saying, and his arms were unyielding about the woman’s waist as he moulded her soft body into his own. One of his hands moved lower still to curve about the full roundness of her bottom as Gray pulled her into the
