Dangerous in diamonds, p.1
Dangerous in Diamonds, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
“How long has it been, Mrs. Joyes? Since a man kissed you anywhere, even on the mouth?”
Anywhere ?
His breath flowed softly over her lips, making her head spin and her blood race. “A good number of years, I think. What a sinful waste.” His presence wrapped her, then his arms did too.
A kiss, careful but confident. She resisted the impulse to close her eyes and float away on the intimacy, but she was tempted far more than she ever expected to be. Within her shock she struggled to hold back the dreamy tide of pleasure that threatened to inundate her and drown her very sense of herself.
But, oh, it was too sweet, and so poignant that she wanted to weep. The warmth wrenched her heart. A part of her long denied, long buried and ignored, ached to break free and sing. She was a girl again within that embrace, and painfully alive.
PRAISE FOR MADELINE HUNTER’S NOVELS
“A writer whose novels every reader will adore.”
—Romantic Times (Top Pick)
“Richly spiced with wicked wit and masterfully threaded with danger and desire, the superbly sexy first book in Hunter’s new Regency historical quartet is irresistible and wonderfully entertaining.”
—Booklist (starred review)
Berkley titles by Madeline Hunter
RAVISHING IN RED
PROVOCATIVE IN PEARLS
SINFUL IN SATIN
DANGEROUS IN DIAMONDS
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
DANGEROUS IN DIAMONDS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove mass-market edition / May 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Madeline Hunter.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-1-101-51393-4
JOVE®
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
http://us.penguingroup.com
Chapter One
The death of a duke is cause for many people to mourn, but none so much as those dependent on his patronage. So it was that the passing of the fourth Duke of Becksbridge left many a relative and retainer in tears. A few had to swallow the inappropriate inclination to smile, however, in particular several persons named in his testament as recipients of gifts or pensions.
One such beneficiary neither wept nor rejoiced. Rather, on the Tuesday following the duke’s funeral, he finally attended to the oddity that he had received any gift at all.
“I hope he did not expect me to maintain the mourning rituals in his memory because of this,” Tristan, Duke of Castleford, muttered.
He examined the deeds of the properties he had just inherited. If his head did not ache from the sobriety he adopted once a week on Tuesdays, he might muster some grief or nostalgia for this recently departed fellow peer. It would take considerable effort on the best of days, however.
Becksbridge had been a collateral relative, some distance removed, and most of the bequeathed holdings appeared to be distant as well. Also small. So small and insignificant as to hardly be worth the ink used to record the gift in the will.
“You do not intend to mourn? He was an important man and much esteemed.” Mr. Edwards, his bespectacled secretary, spoke from his paper-covered desk in the study where together they labored on Castleford’s business affairs.
“He was an ass. Worse, a boring, self-righteous ass. The boring part was only tiresome, but the self-righteous part unforgivable.”
The latter had been an inherited turn of character, but in Castleford’s opinion, that hardly absolved Becksbridge from being tedious in executing the tendency. That entire side of their complex family tree was so smug in their goodness that it made one want to puke. All the same, if Becksbridge had lived and let live, he might have been tolerable.
But, of course, he couldn’t “let live.” The Becksbridges of the world believed it was the duty of paragons of virtue to remind others they should strive for equal dreariness. In fact, in anticipation of his inheritance, Becksbridge’s son and heir, Gerome, Earl of Latham, had been publishing popular screeds on morality. The next Duke of Becksbridge had already taken his scolds to the world through print and had forged a reputation as an arbiter of morals with his damned essays.
Castleford was inclined to sneer at the irony, but thinking much on the topic would only make his head hurt worse. Still, he knew Latham better than anyone else in the world did. Of similar age, they had raised hell together in years past. Even perfectly tended branches of family trees produce a few wormy fruit. The boring ass was about to be succeeded by a dangerous hypocrite.
“You have that sniveling expression you wear when you are choking on swallowed words, Edwards. Do you disapprove that I speak ill of the dead?”
Edwards flushed. Only twenty-five years of age, he had not yet learned to keep his own counsel on Tuesdays, especially when his employer invited him to speak freely. “The duke was unparalleled, and he was very generous. It is said he endowed an orphanage in his will.”
“Unparalleled? Are you saying outright, to my face, that I am not his equal? That is ungrateful for a secretary who may have to labor on the one day a week when I tend to my estate, but who otherwise has more freedom of movement than any servant ought.”
“I—that is, you are unparalleled as well, Your Grace. Everyone says so, and—”
“I do not hold with the notion that asses should be fondly remembered just because they have the means to spread around gifts to make others beholden. As for his generosity to me, I neither need nor want these small landholdings. The man has managed to be a nuisance beyond the grave.”
“The properties all have tenants. Managing them will not create more trouble.”
Castleford peered at the deeds. “It is too peculiar that he gave them to me at all. We were not fond of each other. We had not spoken civil words in years.” That was an understatement. Their few meetings had been marked by reproaches on Becksbridge’s part and ridicule on Castleford’s.
A letter had been delivered with the deeds. Castleford tore it open.
Castleford,
You are no doubt surprised by the legacy that I left you, since you of all men need nothing from me. Neither the lands nor the money would form more than a tiny drop in your ocean of wealth. Therefore I assume that you will not care that it was never my intention for you to enjoy the fruits of either. Rather, I am depending on what little is left of the better side of your character, and requesting that you discreetly handle a matter for me that I prefer not to address through my testament.
The landholdings that I left you are curr
I trust this is a small matter that your stewards can execute without troubling you. It should in no way interfere with the inebriated fornications that normally occupy your time. (And which, I am obligated to remind you, bring disrepute to your name and blood, a likely early death to your person, and inevitable damnation to your everlasting soul.)
Becksbridge
Castleford shook his head. Even in this letter—in which he placed an unwelcomed obligation on a distant relative with no fond memories of him—Becksbridge could not resist scolding.
“I suppose I will have to visit these spots of land soon, or I might forget about them entirely. Get maps and mark them, Edwards. I will deal with it before summer ends.”
“That might not be possible, sir. There are not enough Tuesdays left for such journeys along with attending to your usual affairs.”
“Calm yourself, Edwards. I do not have to be sober to visit my estates.”
Daphne Joyes flipped through the mail that Katherine had brought to her. She masked her disappointment when it became apparent that the letter she awaited had not arrived.
Foreboding sickened her. If that letter had not come by now, it probably never would. She would have to turn her mind to what that meant about the future. Plans had already begun forming. None of them were pleasant to contemplate. Worse, goals that she had thought herself finally close to achieving would now be put off indefinitely. Perhaps forever.
That possibility pained her heart. She held her composure and mourned privately, secretly, the way she had done for years now.
Katherine took a chair facing the large window in the back sitting room where they shared some coffee. Dark hair neatly dressed and apron crisp despite a morning tending to plants, Katherine waited patiently to hear any news in today’s letters that Daphne chose to share.
She appeared a little foreign, Daphne thought, not for the first time. Katherine’s high cheekbones and dark, almond-shaped eyes were not typically English in appearance, but it was the light brown of her skin, caused by the summer’s sun, that really created the impression. Even the biggest-brimmed bonnet could not entirely protect a woman’s complexion if she spent hours every day in a garden.
“Audrianna writes to say that she and Lord Sebastian will be going to the coast today, to escape the town’s summer heat,” Daphne offered.
“That is probably wise, in her condition. Will she remain there for her lying in?” Katherine said.
“I expect so, although she does not say.”
Daphne opened and read the next letter. Katherine sipped her coffee and did not ask after this letter’s sender either, even though Katherine had a special bond with the dear friend who had written it.
Katherine held strictly to the rules of the house. The most important rule was that the women living there were never to pry into each other’s lives or personal business, past or present. In the years that Daphne had been sharing her home with women alone in the world like herself, that rule had served its purpose of ensuring harmony. However, some of the women who had lived here also found relief and safety in the right to keep their own counsel. Katherine was one of them.
The members of the household had fallen into two groups, Daphne thought, her mind distracted from the letter by the notion. They either belonged to the haunted or the hunted. A few seemed to suffer both afflictions. Like Katherine.
It was hard not to be curious. Hard not to believe that if one learned the history and the truth, one could help. Daphne knew better, however. After all, she was a bit haunted and hunted herself, in ways that no one could ever change.
“Verity mostly writes about the doings at her home in Oldbury,” she said, passing the letter to Katherine. “Lord Hawkeswell journeyed north to assess whether the trouble up there will affect her iron mill.”
Katherine frowned over the letter while she read it. “I am glad that she did not go with the earl. The papers are full of dire predictions and warnings about violence.”
“They often exaggerate. As you can see, her husband did not think there is any danger to their property or people.”
“It could be different come August. There is that big demonstration planned.”
“Plans are not certainties.” However, it could be very different come August. One more thing to contemplate while reassessing the future.
Daphne turned to the paper itself. In addition to news about all those doings up north, the Times had other political stories, as well as correspondent letters from the Continent. One caught her eye. The new Duke of Becksbridge had been honored at a dinner a fortnight ago, attended by the best of Parisian society. It was, from the telling, a party to say good-bye prior to his imminent departure for London to take up the duties of his inheritance.
Would he live in England now? Or would he, hopefully, do as some other peers had since the war ended, and return to the Continent to make his home permanently in France?
“Who is that?” Katherine said.
Daphne looked over to see Katherine sitting upright, peering out the window behind Daphne’s sofa.
Daphne turned around. “I see no one.”
Katherine stood and moved closer. She squinted at the tapestry of flowers and plants outside. “A man just walked through the garden, not fifty feet from this window. He is near the rose arbor now.”
Daphne’s sight followed Katherine’s pointing finger. She glimpsed the movement of a dark form near the arbor.
Just then their housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, entered the sitting room with a frown on her birdlike face. “There is a horse in front. I did not hear it approach on the lane, but there it is, with its rider gone.”
“The rider is in the garden.” Daphne could not see him any longer. She removed her apron. “I will go out and invite him to leave.”
“Will you be wanting the pistol?” Katherine asked.
“I am sure that this person was only curious about a property named The Rarest Blooms that he found himself passing. He probably ventured up the lane to see just how rare the flowers might be.”
Katherine remained tense, staring at the garden. Hunted, Daphne thought again.
“I suggest you watch from the greenhouse, Katherine. If our trespasser behaves in a threatening manner when I address him, you come out and brandish the pistol. Just try not to shoot him unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Daphne left the house as if going for a midday turn on the property. She strolled past the kitchen garden, then followed paths through beds displaying summer flowers.
The greenhouse flanked the plantings on her right, and a brick wall with espaliered fruit trees hemmed in the garden on her left. Two portals on either side of the house gave entry to the gardens. The intruder must have come through one of them.
She meandered left, toward the arbor near the wall. The climbing rose that provided shelter from the sun there had not yet blossomed, but its leaves created a dense, shadowed sanctuary. As she approached, she saw the man sitting on the bench within.
He saw her too. He cocked his head a little, as if her presence fascinated him. He did not appear the least disconcerted at being found trespassing like this. He remained sitting there—sprawled, really—his shoulders resting against the arbor’s back slats and one leg fully extended, so the sun shone on the foot of his boot.
A very nice boot, she noted as she drew near. Expensive. Expertly crafted of superior leather and polished within an inch of its life.
Her intruder was a gentleman.
She came to a halt about twenty feet from the arbor. She waited for him to speak. An apology, perhaps. Or an expression of interest in the gardens. Instead he silently regarded her as if he studied a painting in which, unaccountably, a figure had moved through the oiled colors.
