Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

she admitted shamefaced. ‘I did not intend to. But it was a good thing that I did.’

      ‘Because you now know that I feel I have to stay married to you and my father opposes the match?’

      ‘Yes.’ She was not going to cry, not out here in the middle of the public highway.

      ‘And like many eavesdroppers you misunderstood what you heard. We were discussing my ill-fated romance with Arabella. My father is entirely in favour of my marriage to you—and we are both in your debt for what you said to him this morning.’

      Unsure she was hearing aright, Katherine asked, ‘You are reconciled?’

      ‘I do not think we were ever in a state of conciliation to be returned to!’ Nick chuckled. ‘This harmony is strange for both of us, I rely on you, Kat, to act as ambassador and make sure we stay in such a condition.’

      ‘But you cannot wish to be married to me,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady and not sound as though she were pleading.

      ‘Why should I not wish to be married to a lady I love?’ Nick turned the gig through the gates of the park and drove off the roadway under a spreading grove of chestnut trees. He looped the reins around the brake and shifted in his seat to look at Katherine.

      ‘You … you love me?’ No, it was not possible. ‘Why did you not tell me?’

      ‘Because you would think I was trying to hold you to the marriage and because, then, you did not want to be held. I rather hoped you might grow to wish it. I was going to tell you after our dinner party when you saw for yourself what a fitting hostess you made.’

      ‘I always wished it,’ she whispered.

       ‘What?’

      ‘Ever since the journey up here. I knew I loved you, and I knew I could not be your wife.’

      ‘Because of who my father is?’

      She nodded. ‘And because I could not hold you to a marriage begun in such circumstances.’

      ‘My father points out that I have no need to marry for fortune and that in you I may, against all my deserts, have found a woman who will be the making of me.’

      ‘Oh, Nick.’ She found she was in his arms, not quite certain how she got there. ‘I could not bear to come between you and your father, not after you had been estranged so long.’

      Nick pushed her gently back from him until he could look into her face. The dark eyes that had so affected her across that stark prison room held hers. ‘In effect, you proposed marriage to me, Kat. Now I propose that we stay married. What do you say to that?’

      ‘Yes, Nick. Oh, yes.’

      ‘Then there is but one act left to make it so.’ His long fingers caressed down her cheek. ‘Your bed or my bed, Lady Seaton?’ He gathered up the reins and turned the gig in the direction of the Dower House.

      With the mid-day sun streaming over the amber silk of the coverlet, Katherine opened her arms and her heart and her body to her husband, her eyes wide, drowning in the dark fire of his as he possessed her, joining them.

      ‘I love you, Kat,’ he murmured as she cried out his name, arching to meet him, match him, envelop him. ‘I love you,’ and his beautiful, brave Marchioness drew him down to her heart and gave him back love for love.

      * * * * *

      REGENCY

      Secrets

      Julia Justiss

       My Lady’s Ttrust

      About the Author

      As a child, JULIA JUSTISS found her Nancy Drew books inspired her to create stories of her own. She has been writing ever since. After university she served stints as a business journalist for an insurance company and editor of the American Embassy newsletter in Tunisia. She now teaches French at a school in Texas, where she lives with her husband, three children and two dogs.

      In memory of fellow writer

       Nancy Richards-Akers

       Shot to death by her estranged husband

       June 1999

       And to all women caught in domestic abuse.

       Get help. Get out.

       Your children need you.

       Prologue

      Soundlessly Laura crept through the dark hall. Having rehearsed—and used—the route before, she knew every carpet, chair and cupboard in the passageway, each twist of the twenty-nine steps down the servants’ stair to the back door. Even were their old butler Hobbins and his wife not snoring in their room just off the corridor, the winter storm howling through the chimneys and rattling the shutters would cover the slight rustle of her movements.

      Just once she halted in her stealthy passage, outside the silent nursery. Leaning toward the door, she could almost catch a whiff of baby skin, feel the softness of flannel bunting, see the bright eyes and small waving hands. A bitter bleakness pierced her heart, beside whose chill the icy needles being hurled against the windows were mild as summer rain, and her step staggered.

      She bent over, gripping for support the handle of the room where a baby’s gurgle no longer sounded. Nor ever would again—not flesh of her flesh.

      I promise you that, Jennie, she vowed. Making good on that vow could not ease the burden of guilt she carried, but it was the last thing she would do in this house. The only thing, now, she could do.

      Marshaling her strength, she straightened and made her way down the stairs, halting once more to catch her breath before attempting to work the heavy lock of the kitchen door. She was stronger now. For the past month she’d practiced walking, at first quietly in her room, more openly this past week since most of the household had departed with its master for London. She could do this.

      Cautiously she unlatched the lock, then fastened her heavy cloak and drew on her warmest gloves. At her firm push the door opened noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Ignoring the sleet that pelted her face and the shrieking wind that tore the hood from her hair, she walked into the night.

       Chapter One

      The crisp fall breeze, mingling the scents of falling leaves and the sharp tang of herbs, brought to Laura Martin’s ear the faint sound of barking interspersed with the crack of rifle shot. The party which had galloped by her cottage earlier this morning, the squire’s son throwing her a jaunty wave as they passed, must be hunting duck in the marsh nearby, she surmised.

      Having cut the supply of tansy she needed for drying, Laura turned to leave the herb bed. Misfit, the squire’s failure of a rabbit hound who’d refused to leave her after she healed the leg he’d caught in a poacher’s trap, bumped his head against her hand, demanding attention.

      “Shameless beggar,” she said, smiling as she scratched behind his ears.

      The dog flapped his tail and leaned into her stroking fingers. A moment later, however, he stiffened and looked up, uttering a soft whine.

      “What is it?” Almost before the words left her lips she heard the rapid staccato of approaching hoofbeats. Seconds later one of the squire’s grooms, mounted on a lathered horse and leading another, flashed into view.

      Foreboding tightening her chest, she strode to the garden fence.

      “What’s wrong, Peters?” she called to the young man bringing his mount to a plunging halt.

      “Your pardon, Mrs.