Marrying Mischief Read online

  “I shall keep to my own bed after the sham vows are recited, and you shall keep to yours!

  “Or anyone else’s bed you fancy, for all I care!”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Nicholas demanded, his eyes angry.

  Emily propped her fists on her hips. “Well, if you didn’t understand what I said, my lord, perhaps it is you who needs a governess. Since we are to have a loveless union and it is all for outward show, there will be no consummation of it. Do you understand that, sir, or need I make it plainer still?”

  For a long moment fraught with tension, Nicholas said absolutely nothing. “I did promise that you could have whatever you wanted,” he at last said softly. “Whether you believe it or not, I am a man of my word. Just be certain you really want what you demand…!”

  Praise for Lyn Stone’s recent books

  The Highland Wife

  “…laced with lovable characters, witty dialogue, humor and poignancy, this is a tale to savor.”

  —Romantic Times

  Bride of Trouville

  “I could not stop reading this one.…

  Don’t miss this winner!”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  The Knight’s Bride

  “Stone has done herself proud with this delightful story…a cast of endearing characters and a fresh, innovative plot.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  #599 THE LOVE MATCH

  Deborah Simmons/Deborah Hale/Nicola Cornick

  #600 A MARRIAGE BY CHANCE

  Carolyn Davidson

  #602 SHADES OF GRAY

  Wendy Douglas

  LYN STONE

  MARRYING MISCHIEF

  Available from Harlequin Historicals and LYN STONE

  The Wicked Truth #358

  The Arrangement #389

  The Wilder Wedding #413

  The Knight’s Bride #445

  Bride of Trouville #467

  One Christmas Night #487

  My Lady’s Choice #511

  The Highland Wife #551

  The Quest #588

  Marrying Mischief #601

  Other works include:

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Beauty and the Badge #952

  Live-In Lover #1055

  This book is dedicated to my good friends Julie and Mike Hammersley, and their incredible band, Auburn. You have England on the dance floor. Nashville’s next! Thank you so much for your friendship, encouragement and inspiration.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Southern Coast of England—1856

  She had only meant to tug the gate open. Yet here she stood with the old broken latch in her hand and the rotten boards of the neglected little portal collapsed at her feet. She peeked inside. Emily Loveyne could scarcely believe that she, the vicar’s own daughter, was breaking into the Bournesea Estate.

  With a disgusted sigh, she raked away enough of the overgrown ivy and morning glory vines to squeeze through. Obviously no one had used this as an entrance or exit for years. She had when she was a child accompanying her father on his Sunday afternoon visits when her ladyship still lived.

  The small gardener’s gate had been the nearest way in on their approach from their cottage, and had led them directly past the roses, once inside. Her father did love roses. They still enjoyed the beauties grown from cuttings Lady Elizabeth had given them for their own garden. Good thing, too, she noticed. No one had tended the parent bushes for quite some time. What a weedy, overgrown tangle!

  These days she supposed everyone went in and out the front or side entrances. Unfortunately, both of those were closed, their decorative wrought-iron gates locked tight as a sailor’s hitch. Staunchly guarded, too, by burly, bearded ogres she did not know. Judging from their attire, they were clearly seamen.

  She shook her head in consternation as she rounded the tall hedges flanking the walls and made for the servants’ quarters. That’s surely where her brother would be, not in the manor house itself. She was infinitely glad she wouldn’t have to approach that place. As familiar as she was with it, she had no wish at all to enter there and risk an encounter with the new earl.

  How dare he keep Josh on duty here now that the ship had laid anchor. The double-masted brig had been there, well off the coast, for at least two days before she heard of it or she would have come sooner. Why, she wondered, was it not in the harbor?

  Her brother was only thirteen and must be homesick after more than six months away. Their father needed to see his only son, and Emily had missed Josh terribly.

  No matter how much she had objected at the time, Father had allowed Josh to sign on as cabin boy with Captain Roland for the unhappy voyage all the way to India. They had gone to inform Lord Nicholas of his father’s death and to bring him home to assume his duties.

  Lord Nicholas. He had always possessed the honorary title, of course, since he was the earl’s son. Now he had inherited the earldom and, things being as they were, she must remember to call him lord if she ever saw him again.

  But, earl or not, the man had no business keeping her little brother under lock and key in this place, and would do that no longer if she had to bring it down around his noble ears. Why the devil were there guards on the gates? They had told her nothing. They had just stood at a goodly distance behind the lacy ironwork and ordered her away.

  She lifted her skirts a bit higher, stepped around the puddles standing in the gardens and made for the door to the outer building adjacent to the carriage house.

  Other than the guards she had seen, no one was around, she noticed. Today’s village gossip held that the skeleton staff remaining after the old earl died had been ordered away when Nicholas arrived.

  No one in the village had seen him yet. Isolating himself this way seemed to be taking his grief a bit too far, considering the animosity between father and son. Must be Nicholas’s guilt working, she reckoned, and was glad of it. He ought to feel guilty, leaving as he had.

  She pushed open the door to the half-timbered, two-story building that she knew was home to the male servants in the earl’s employ.

  “Anyone here?” she called hesitantly, ducking her head in all the rooms that stood open. Nothing but dusty furnishings. Then she heard voices down the hallway.

  Never a shy mouse, Emily quickly headed in that direction. As she did, she passed a chamber with the door ajar and stopped to peek inside. There on the bed lay her brother, sound asleep. Imagine that, in the middle of the day!

  He was not even dressed. His sleeveless undershirt revealed his skinny arms and shoulders. So pale, she noted.

  “Josh?” she said softly, so as not to startle him awake. When he didn’t answer, she went straight to the bedside and put her hand on his arm, shaking gently. “Darling? Are you ill?”

  His eyes flew open. First he appeared overjoyed, but then his expression turned to one of stark horror. “Em, get out of here!”

  “Nonsense, I’ve seen you in your smallclothes before and—”

  Two men suddenly rushed in and grasped her by the arms. Without a single word of explanation, they hurriedly dragged her out of the building and across to the manor house.

  Ter
rified that the entire place had been invaded by a horde of pirates and thieves, Emily fought them all the way to the door to the kitchens and across the hall inside the main house. “Let me go!” she screamed, struggling and kicking to no avail.

  One let go of her arm long enough to open a door and the other thrust her unceremoniously into the earl’s library.

  She grew still when the men no longer held her and looked around.

  The man behind the huge cherrywood desk rose. She almost did not recognize him. He looked so much older, so much larger, so absolutely furious that she was here. Blue eyes that had held such warmth seven years ago now rivaled arctic ice its chill. Dark brows lowered, giving him an almost menacing appearance. The beautifully shaped mouth that had once pressed so fondly against her own drew into a firm and disapproving frown. His nostrils flared.

  “Nicholas?” she gasped, unable to credit how much he had changed.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, his expression promising retribution for her trespass. “Who allowed her in?”

  One of the wretches who had dragged her here cleared his throat. “No one admitted her. She sneaked in somehow, milord. We caught her in young Josh’s room out back.”

  Nicholas grimaced as if in pain and pressed his temples with a thumb and forefinger. “Damn!” His deep voice grated on the vehement, solitary word.

  “Well, damn you, too!” she exclaimed, her own ire rising to meet his. “I had not expected to trouble you with my presence, my lord. I merely came to fetch my brother home. If you will kindly excuse me, I shall do just that.”

  “You cannot,” he said, his voice gruff.

  “Watch me,” she replied, whirling around to leave. The men blocked the door. “Move aside,” she ordered in her best schoolmistress voice. She had been practicing it for her new position and thought it quite effective. It obviously did not work on adults. They stood firm.

  Nicholas had come around the monstrosity of a desk. Emily heard him move and could now feel his presence there, invading the space just behind her. She jerked around to face him.

  “Emily, we must talk. Would you please have a seat? Wrecker, pour us a brandy,” he said in an aside to one of the men.

  She propped one hand on her hip. The other rested at her throat, hopefully hiding the rapid pulse in her neck. “You know very well I do not take spirits, my lord. Say what you have to say, then permit me to leave and bring Josh home with me. He looked ill when I saw him.”

  He reached for her hand. She ignored the gesture. His frown grew darker. “Leave us,” he said to the two men, “and find out how she got past the guards. See that no one else does, or you will answer for it.”

  She heard the door close. “Now what will you do?” she demanded, determined to show no fear even though she felt very nearly petrified. This was not the Nick she knew. That smiling, witty suitor had disappeared. In his place stood this disheveled, intimidating stranger who frightened her silly.

  “Please sit down, Emily,” he said.

  She did not. Instead, she swiftly stepped around him, afraid of his nearness.

  He must not have shaved his beard for several days and was in his shirtsleeves. Those sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing strong, sun-browned forearms. His rich dark hair fell tousled across his brow and curled over the back of his collar. That same collar stood open at his neck, revealing a glimpse of chest covered with a mat of even darker hair.

  The forbidden sight perturbed Emily. Never before, even in their youth, had she seen him look so rumpled. Like an unmade bed. Thinking of Nicholas in conjunction with a bed of any kind upset her even more. For someone she disliked so wholeheartedly, he certainly could provoke some highly dangerous thoughts.

  She backed against the desk, putting as much space between them as possible. Her heart galloped like a runaway horse.

  His expression changed from anger to what appeared to be regret. “You should not have come here,” he told her.

  Emily expelled the breath she’d been holding and rolled her eyes. “You need not worry, my lord. It is not as if I came to confront you. Even I have more sense than to hound a peer of the realm for an explanation of his actions, past or present. Get out of my way and I will trouble you no longer,” she snapped.

  “Would that I could believe that. Does your husband know you’re wandering about the county, breaking into private property where you have no business?”

  “My husband?” She laughed bitterly. “No, I’d reckon not, since I do not have one! Thank God for small favors,” she added.

  “You…have no husband,” he demanded, as if confirming her words so there would be no mistake.

  “Certainly not, and we both know the reason. But I do have a brother, and Josh will accompany me home or I shall know the reason why.”

  “Because he is ill,” Nicholas told her, his voice gentler than before. “Joshua cannot leave the grounds of Bournesea, and—now that you have entered—neither can you.”

  “What? You would hold us here against our will?”

  “If I must, that is precisely what I will do,” he said firmly, yet not unkindly. “We fear it is blue cholera.”

  The breath left her in a choked cry of alarm. Her vision wavered, her knees buckled and she grasped the desk behind her to keep from falling. Oh, God. Blue cholera? The Asian sort. Before she could right herself, he was there, his arms around her, lifting. Resisting did not even occur to her.

  When he had placed her on the brocade settee, he knelt before her, his hands still on her arms. “Emily, believe me, I am so dreadfully sorry this has happened. Please forgive my bluntness in the telling. I knew no easy way to say it.”

  She brushed a shaking hand over her eyes, then clamped her palm against her mouth and swallowed hard when sickness threatened.

  “Breathe deeply,” he suggested. “Lie back.” Not waiting for her to comply, he pushed her into a reclining position, her head resting uncomfortably against the high, padded curve of the couch arm.

  She watched as he rose and hurried to the sideboard. A moment later he returned with a snifter and put it to her lips. “Sip this. It will help,” he promised.

  Consuming spirits suddenly dropped far down on her list of things to avoid. She grasped the glass and swallowed deeply. The coughing fit almost undid her. Tears rolled down her face unchecked. “Will…will Josh die?” she rasped when she was able to speak.

  “No, no, of course he won’t die,” Nicholas assured her, all sympathy now. “I promise you, he won’t. He has been improving every day since we came ashore. In fact, he is keeping his liquids down and the fever is almost gone.”

  She grabbed his arm with both hands. “Nick, he must have a doctor. Please—”

  He smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “He has the best. Dr. Evans is quite accomplished.”

  Emily sniffed, trying to think properly. “I have never heard of him.”

  “He is the ship’s doctor, who has sailed with Captain Roland for years. I trust him implicitly.”

  “But cholera, Nicholas?” Emily whispered. “I can scarcely believe it.”

  “It has been epidemic here before,” he reminded her. “No one is safe from it.”

  “Mostly in London and the crowded cities. Not anywhere near Bournesea.”

  “No, but it does exist now in Lisbon, where we docked on the way home. Apparently, that’s where they contracted it.”

  “In a faraway port?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “Yes, Portugal. There has been no rampant outbreak here in England recently, and this is what I am trying to avoid. Firsthand, I witnessed the devastation it caused in India. So, you see why I cannot allow you and Josh to leave. By coming here, being with your brother, you have exposed yourself to it,” he said gently. “Also, I am allowing no possibility that rumors of it will spread and cause panic.”

  “But Father—”

  “Shall be told, of course, when he comes looking for you. Unfortunately, I dare
not send anyone out to inform him. When he comes to the gates, I shall speak with him myself from a safe distance. I know I can trust him not to reveal anything.”

  “He is not well himself,” Emily said, “I can only imagine how upset he will be when I do not return home in time for supper. I neglected to tell him where I was going.”

  Nicholas sighed and sat back on his heels, holding one of her hands. When had he taken it up and why had she not noticed when he did? She should pull away, but she needed comfort from any source available. Even he would do at the moment.

  “Does the vicar have someone to do for him in your absence?” he asked.

  Emily nodded, still so shocked by what he had told her, she could not gather her wits. Concentrating on something as mundane as the vicar’s supper seemed somehow inconsequential. Wrong.

  Nick patted her hand. “I shall have my mother’s room prepared. She would approve your presence there, I think,” he said with a comforting smile.

  Here was the Nick she remembered, Emily thought with relief. At least she knew he still existed inside this sun-kissed, muscled, unkempt rogue who scared her. She tightened her fingers and clasped his hand, holding fast to the only solace she could find.

  Josh would be well soon. He had to recover. “What if I sicken from this, Nick? There will be no one to care for my father and Josh. I cannot afford to die!”

  He tried to soothe her. “Isn’t there someone who cooks for you at home? What of Mrs. Pease who used to do that?”

  “She is still with us. I only meant that there must be someone to pay for her services once Father retires, which must be soon. And Josh will have to be schooled somehow.”

  “Ah,” he said, taking her meaning. “You need not worry about that. Even if the worst happens and both of us succumb to the sickness, you may rest assured that your family will lack for nothing in the future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He smiled, the old sweet smile that had convinced her that he loved her all those years ago. But his smile had not signified it then, and she must not mistake the meaning of it now.