Once Upon a
Regency: Timeless Tales and Fables!
Taming Beauty, a
novella by Lynne Barron
AUTHOR BIO:
Lynne Barron always
wanted to be a writer, if only she could decide what to write. Every Creative
Writing teacher and college professor advised her to write about what you know.
But what did she know? She knew she enjoyed the guilty pleasure of reading
romance novels whenever she could find the time between studying, working and
raising her son as a single mother. She knew quite a bit about women’s lives in
the Regency and Victorian era from years spent bouncing back and forth between
European History and English Literature as a major in college. She knew
precious little about romance except to know it was more than the cliché card
and a dozen red roses on Valentine’s Day. Then she met her wonderfully romantic
husband and finally she knew. Passion, Love and Romance. And she began to
write. Lynne lives in Florida with her husband, son and a menagerie of rescued
pets.
BOOK BLURB:
One beastly baron’s curse is a desperate
earl’s blessing.
Or so Lilith Aberdeen believes when she
sets off for the wilds of Cornwall to deliver the earl’s pampered, petulant
daughter into the hands of Baron Malleville, the Beast of Breckenridge.
When Jasper finds himself beguiled by the
irreverent beauty traveling with his betrothed, even he begins to wonder if the
whispers surrounding his sanity might be true. Lilith is not the sweet,
innocent, biddable bride he bargained with the devil to possess.
But she might just be the one woman
destined to lift the curse of his past and free him to find happily-ever-after.
EXCERPT ONE:
Miss Aberdeen
stood on the second story balcony, her gown glowing bronze in the candlelight
streaming through the open door at her back. She was too far away to see her
features but it mattered not at all, her beauty was burned into his memory
along with the husky timber of her laughter and the exotic, spicy scent
trailing after her like a cloud of opium smoke.
Before he knew
what he was about, Jasper stepped through one of the open doors and crossed
half the distance of the terrace, coming to a stop only when he heard the muted
sounds of the ladies gathered in the parlor next door.
What had he been
thinking to have her put just across the way from the sanctuary of his study?
He’d been thinking
to make Dunaway work to get at his latest paramour.
Only Miss Aberdeen
wasn’t the earl’s ladybird and she was quartered far too close for Jasper’s lax
grip upon his ever dwindling sanity.
He meant to turn
back the way he’d come and he might have managed to do just that had the woman
not been watching him like a lioness waiting for her prey to step near enough
to pounce upon without expending undue effort.
Never one to back
away from a challenge, no matter some challenges resulted in nothing but
mayhem, Jasper continued across the terrace and on into the jungle that was his
long-neglected garden.
“Good evening, my
lord,” the lioness purred, resting her forearms on the iron balustrade and
leaning over to expose the long line of her throat and the swell of her bosom.
A thin stream of smoke rose from a black cheroot held between two long, pale
fingers. “I’ve snuck off for a smoke, seeing as I thought it prudent not to
further shock your guests by remaining with the gentleman in the dining room.”
“I suspect you’ve
never been accused of an excess of prudence,” Jasper replied even as he headed
toward the spiral staircase at one corner of the old, whitewashed structured
he’d inhabited for the first year of his self-imposed exile.
Laughter, low and
sultry, drifted down from the balcony.
He took the stairs
at a leisurely pace, never mind the thundering of his heart and the lecherous
thoughts racing through his mind. He could not act upon them, could not sweep
the woman up in his arms and carry her through the open door into the same
bedchamber he’d retreated to in humiliation all those years ago.
He would not go
back to that selfish existence, wallowing in his own degradation only to drown
in the shame which was certain to follow. He’d learned his lesson, a hard,
painful lesson he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“I do possess my
own brand of prudence,” Miss Aberdeen said, watching his approach from the
corner of her eye. “Learned by trial and error, as any good lesson ought to be
learned.”
Her words so
mirrored his thoughts, he nearly stumbled over his own two big, clumsy feet.
“Was it prudence that had you airing your family’s dirty linen at my dinner
table?”
“It was actually.”
She took a slow pull on the cheroot and blew out three perfect little rings,
quickly dispersed by the breeze. “And that linen was pristine compared to the
stained unmentionables I might have waved about for your family and neighbors
to ogle.”
“You might as well
share the rest of it with me,” he muttered, stopping an arm span away from her
and leaning against the bannister, a wholly contrived negligent pose
considering the tumult of lust coursing through him.
“Whatever shall we
talk about at dinner over the next twelve days if I don’t dole out the scandal a
bit at a time?” she asked, looking out over the gardens, such as they were.
“The wedding will take place in twelve days, will it not?”
“It will,” he
confirmed.
“Would you care
for one?” She lifted her hand to indicate the cheroot. “They are my own particular
blend, rolled with my own nimble fingers.”
“No.”
“A nasty habit I
only indulge once daily, after dinner. Prudence, and all that.”
“I smoke a pipe on
occasion.” Jasper could not have said why he offered up the information.
“One of
Gwendolyn’s lovers smoked a pipe,” she said with a smile. “Sir Malcolm used to
allow me pack it and light it for him. Cherry flavored tobacco, it was.”
“How old were
you?” What kind of life had she led that she spoke of her mother’s various
protectors with fond remembrance.
“Nine, perhaps
ten. I suppose it matters not a whit whether Sissy is happy with the match?”
It took Jasper a
moment to find his place in the conversation once more. “Not a whit.”
“I might have
miscalculated,” she murmured, as if speaking to herself. “I hadn’t any idea you
weren’t an exceedingly wealthy man.”
Jasper didn’t need
to ask how she’d deduced the sorry state of his finances. It was evident in the
garden she couldn’t or wouldn’t look away from, in the worn carpets in every
room and the skeletal staff scurrying about in a doomed attempt to see to the
comfort of all his guests. “I beggared myself to raise the capital to buy
Dunaway’s debts.”
“I’d say you more
than beggared yourself,” she countered. “If I am not much mistaken, you’ve well
and truly buggered yourself.”
Jasper barked out
a laugh, rusty and gravelly from disuse.
“Tell me, my lord,
why did you do this foolish thing?”
“I need a bride,
seeing as your father stole mine away three months before the wedding.”
“Dunaway only
borrowed Rose,” she replied. “To my knowledge he didn’t get a daughter on her
so you could have married her still. Or if you insist upon marrying an
innocent, surely there are any number of comely country girls who would gladly
take you on.”
“A highborn wife
with an untarnished reputation.” Jasper’s voice came out harsher than he’d
intended, but her refusal to turn away from the garden had his temper sparking.
“It seems you do
hear the tittle tattle from Town even way out here. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Because I wasn’t
aware Dunaway had fathered an illegitimate daughter, you mean?”
Miss Aberdeen
straightened from her elegant slouch against the bannister and rounded on him,
her catlike green eyes widening. “You weren’t aware Dun had fathered… But
surely…” Whatever words she’d been poised to utter fell away when she frowned,
her face going pale but for twin spots of color cresting her cheeks.
“Miss Aberdeen.”
Jasper reached for her, his fingertips brushing her upper arm before he
realized what he was doing. He jerked his hand back, only belatedly feeling the
heat of her flesh from the brief contact.
“That lying,
conniving bastard,” she said with a laugh that sounded raw. “Just when I think…
But never mind. And please, you might as well call me Lilith.”
“We are soon to be
family,” he replied, a much needed reminder that this woman, with her flyaway
curls and almost unbearably beautiful face, was forever out of his reach.
“Family? We’ll be
nothing of the sort.”
“I hate to
contradict a lady--”
“I’m no lady.” Her
gaze fell to his hand and he realized he was flexing and shaking his fingers as
if he’d touch live flames and the tips had come away singed. “As we both know.”
“All the same, you
are my future wife’s sister.”
“Oh for goodness
sake,” she exclaimed, flicking the cheroot over the bannister. “Why is it
everyone keeps tossing that bloody word about?”
“Wife?”
“Sister,” she
huffed. “You will never see so much as a shilling of the interest on Dunaway’s
debt, let alone recoup any portion of the principal. You do realize that, don’t
you?”
“I hold the
mortgages to two of the earl’s un-entailed properties, including the estate on
which Lady Dunaway was born and raised. Should his lordship default on his
loan, I will simply take possession of the properties and sell them.”
“Goodness, that
will make for a felicitous marriage,” she replied with a wry grin. “Both yours
and Dunaway’s.”
“Perhaps he ought
to have considered the consequences to his actions before he seduced my
betrothed.”
“As you considered
the consequences before you seduced Lord Morrissey’s mistress?” Lilith shot
back, her aim straight and true. “I’ve never quite understood the sequence of
events. Did you lay with Mrs. Denton before or after you wagered and lost your
fortune to the viscount?”
Jasper raised two
fingers to his brow in salute of her marksmanship.
“And how did the
duel come about?” she persisted, her gaze tracing the line of raised flesh
running along his cheek. “Did you name Morrissey a cheat and challenge him to
meet you at dawn?”
“He took exception
to his paramour bedding a bankrupt Cornishman.”
“Well, of course
he did. Morrissey only turns a blind eye for wealthy earls and dukes who might
contribute some bauble or trinket to his coffers. You ought to have chosen
pistols as it is common knowledge his lordship is deadly with a sword.”
“I hadn’t the
choice of weapons,” Jasper admitted, enjoying himself immensely and wanting
only to continue to have all of her considerable wit and wry humor aimed
squarely at him for as long as possible. “Seeing as I called him out for the
slur against my countrymen.”
“Were you still in
Mrs. Denton’s bedchamber when you challenged him?”
“Actually, the
lady lay next to me on a narrow bed under the eaves of a run-down rooming house
in Cheapside.”
“With the
vermin-ridden bedcovers pulled up to her chin no doubt. Morrissey must have
been livid, surely you could have taunted and needled him into issuing the
challenge so that you were given the choice of weapons. It isn’t terribly
difficult to manipulate a man’s convoluted notions of pride and honor, after
all.”
“A female ploy a
gentleman does not stoop to utilize.”
“Is it any wonder
we women must stoop to such trickery when all about us men invite chaos and
lunacy to run rampant?” Lilith asked with a smirk, a quite fetching expression
few women could pull off with such aplomb.
“No wonder at
all.” Jasper fought the grin forming on his lips. It wouldn’t do to encourage
the lady to such trickery.
“You’d do well to
remember that in the coming days.”
“As you are waving
your family’s soiled undergarments about for my guests to ogle at will?”
Lilith Aberdeen
took two small, gliding steps, coming to a stop mere inches from where he’d
remained in the shadows, content to allow her to bask alone in the candlelight.
Tilting her head back, she captured his gaze and held it. “Mere warning shots,
my lord, to test the battlements, so to speak.”
Heat radiated from
every inch of her long, lithe form, carrying her scent, anise and ginger and a
hint of citrus, enveloping him in undulating waves, buffeting his senses.
“Release Sissy
from this misalliance,” she continued, her voice a husky whisper. “Or I will be
forced to call for reinforcement and lay siege to your impressive battlements
until you surrender.”
Jasper swallowed
back a groan at her words, his mind addled simply imagining all the ways she
might temp him to surrender. “Do your worst.”
Lilith laughed,
her breath fluttering over his neck and jaw. She was so near, so blessedly
close Jasper had only to bend his knees and lower his head to have her lips, those
wanton lips even now curling with a mischievous smile, beneath his.
“For you, I think
only my best will do.”
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