A Difficult Disguise (26 page)

Rosalie blushed, averting her head. “Oh, do be quiet. How was I to know what they were doing, skulking around out of doors at midnight, making those strange noises?” she protested feebly. She kicked off her slippers, to pull her legs up under her on the settee. “I didn’t even know Sawyer had a cat, yet alone that he had lost it. And you have to admit it, Mrs. Beale looks capable of anything.”

“The woman’s a born antidote, all right,” Fletcher agreed happily enough, beginning to play with an errant curl that hung down over Rosalie’s left ear. “Mrs. Beale,” he murmured reflectively. “Does she have a first name?”

Rosalie shrugged, then giggled. “I asked Sawyer one time, thinking I should be calling her Aunt Something-or-other, but he just looked at me in that vacant way of his, as if he didn’t understand the question. Personally, I think he believes her name is Mama. What a turnip head!”

“And to think that you have given up the chance to be Mrs. Turnip Head.”

Rosalie gave him a playful punch in the stomach. “Now that’s nasty, Fletcher,” she protested, although her heart wasn’t in it. She felt too happy to be angry with anyone.

She wasn’t angry with Mrs. Beale, who had blustered and fumed and then relented when Fletcher had told her she could have the cottage she and her son already occupied and a small yearly allowance, or she could go to perdition for all he cared, it made no never-mind to him. She couldn’t even find it in herself to be angry with Sawyer, who had made one last attempt to win her affections by promising to love her very much if she took him to London, before she threatened to do him an injury and he had retreated behind his mama’s ample black skirts.

As a matter of fact, with the bombastic Beales already on the way back to their cottage, hopefully never to be seen or heard from again, Rosalie could even find it in her heart to remember them with at least a little charity.

For Fletcher loved her, and Rosalie was in charity with the whole world.

“Halfling?” Fletcher prompted, bringing her out of her reverie.

“Hmm?” she breathed, too deliciously comfortable to move.

“I have something for you.”

She was immediately alert. Sitting up on her knees, she threw her arms tightly around his neck, for she was a demonstrative person and Fletcher had already proved to her that he appreciated her impulsive displays of affection. “What is it, my love? Tell me! Will I like it?”

Fletcher disentangled himself from his affectionate fiancée in order to reach in his pocket and draw out a small velvet case with a large “B” fashioned on it in gilt script. “You will lead me a dog’s life, imp,” he said not unhappily, “but I think I will be able to bear up under the strain if you promise to hug me like that a minimum of ten times a day. Now, please be serious for a moment, for I am about to propose marriage, and if I am interrupted, I may forget what I am doing and we will never get to the altar.”

The time for levity, for delicious stolen kisses and shared laughter, was over. Fletcher was being deadly serious, even if his tone was light.

Rosalie bit at her bottom lip, eyeing the case apprehensively. It held the Belden family ring, she was sure of it, and she felt a quick stab of anxiety as she wondered if she could really believe herself truly worthy of it. She was such a zany, so prone to flights of the imagination, so apt to act on impulse and think later.

If it hadn’t been for a tremendous run of good luck, she would never have even reached Lakeview in the first place. By rights, her limp, broken body should have been found along the road, the victim of foul play. Not only that, but just the thought of the misadventures she had participated in—and even instigated—since meeting Fletcher was enough to prompt her to believe that the best thing she could do for all concerned would be to cry off this betrothal and, like disgraced ladies of old, get herself to a nunnery. If the good sisters would take her, that is.

She looked deeply into Fletcher’s eyes, laying her hand on the case in order to keep it closed. “Are you sure, Fletcher? Are you very, very sure?”

Fletcher put his hand over hers, steadily returning her gaze. “I was struck by you the moment I first saw you. I lusted after you when I still believed you to be a lad—much as it pains me to say that. Discovering your true identity made me the happiest, although equally the most beleaguered, man in the world. My whole heart, my whole mind, wants nothing more out of life than to have you by my side through eternity, surprising me with your flights of fancy, confounding me with your penchant for mischief, driving me to the edge of madness with your innocent insanity, and generally making mice feet of my existence.

“I also want to marry you because I truly believe I could not exist without your love, your bright smile, your warm body snuggled next to mine, our babies at your breast. Rosalie, my darling halfling, take my ring, please. Take my life, it’s yours. I love you so much I ache with it.”

Rosalie’s tears flooded her eyes before spilling over to run down her cheeks. She raised her hands to gently cup Fletcher’s dear face. “No wonder William gave me to you. He must have known it would end like this. Yes, my darling, I’ll take your ring—and in return I’ll give you my heart.”

Epilogue

“H
e seems happy, doesn’t he?” Rosalie asked as she and Fletcher paused at the first turning in the lane to wave back at Beck as he stood in the open front door of Hilltop Farm, his arm around his wife of three weeks. “And Betsy is a lovely woman.”

Fletcher looked over at his own wife, her slim body clad in a fashionably cut midnight-blue velvet riding habit as she sat atop She-Devil. She was even more beautiful now than she had been two years earlier, on their wedding day, and he believed he loved her even more now than he had then.

“And why shouldn’t he be happy, halfling?” he asked as they turned their horses to begin a leisurely ride to the inn that would be their first stop on the way back to Lakeview. “Poor Beck was nearly delirious over your extremely generous wedding present of the deed to the farm.”

Rosalie turned to look at her husband. “You didn’t mind, did you? I mean, Beck has been managing the farm for us and... Well, I just felt it was right that he have something of his own. He’s a wonderful man and a good friend.”

“And you wanted to pay him back for being gentleman enough to volunteer to manage Hilltop after our marriage, knowing full well that the fellow believed himself to be half in love with you. Now, if I could only bring Lethbridge to voicing his intentions concerning my aunt, I should think everyone would be happy,” Fletcher teased lightly.

“Wretch,” Rosalie said in much the same tone she said “darling,” something she did quite often; nearly as often as Fletcher addressed her as “halfling.” She raised her chin an inch. “Besides, I have it from Aunt Belleville that things are progressing quite nicely, thank you.”

They rode on in companionable silence, enjoying the awesome beauty of the Lake District in the spring, stopping to watch the lapwings perform their incredible acrobatics, listening to the lowing of the cows, taking in the delicious aroma of wildflowers that perfumed the air.

It had been several months since they had taken their last ride through the district, Rosalie’s pregnancy keeping them from what had—over the protests of Aunt Belleville, who thought the exercise extremely odd—become their favorite entertainment. Rosalie rode sidesaddle now, having vowed never to wear breeches again, but they still spent an occasional night sleeping under the stars, although they shared their blankets now and they didn’t get that much sleep.

“I hope Aunt Belleville isn’t having too much trouble with William,” Rosalie said hours later as they sat in a private dining parlor at the inn, her green eyes dreamy as she thought of her young son. “I think he might be cutting another tooth.”

“Lethbridge is there with her, darling, as well as Elsie,” Fletcher reminded her, taking Rosalie’s hand and leading her toward the staircase. “Willie will be fine, I promise you.”

Rosalie shook her head. “Don’t call him Willie, Fletcher. He doesn’t look like a Willie.”

Opening the door to their bedchamber without letting go of his wife’s hand, Fletcher conjured up a mental picture of his son, a chubby cherub with hair as dark as midnight and a huge pair of intelligent green eyes. “You’re right, halfling, he doesn’t look like a Willie. He looks like a Billy. He looks exactly like my Billy Smith-Belchem.”

Rosalie pulled her hand away and began unbuttoning the jacket of her riding habit. “I suppose,” she said, smiling at her husband, “you will never let me forget that unfortunate misunderstanding?”

“Never. The memory is too enjoyable.” Stretching out across the bed, Fletcher patted the space beside him and teased, “Join me?”

Rosalie slipped out of her divided skirt and approached the bed, her smile softly seductive. She looked at him and frowned. “But your boots, Fletcher. What about your boots?”

Fletcher grinned wickedly, raising one leg. “Halfling, I thought you’d never ask.”

Thank you for reading
A Difficult Disguise
. Please read on for an excerpt from
The Savage Miss Saxon
, another delightful Regency romp from Kasey Michaels.

The Savage Miss Saxon

Prologue

I
t was a chilly night, even for November, and there was precious little moon to ease the darkness. All the honest folk in the neighborhood had been long abed, aware that nights like these were best suited to keen-eyed owls or, as had been the case these months past, highwaymen on the lookout for any person for whom they could ease the burden of traveling the highways while hampered by quantities of cumbersome jewelry and purses heavy with gold.

Yet there were others abroad this night besides creatures of prey and their hapless victims, for in the distance could be heard the sound of male voices raised in raucous song. These voices belonged to a trio of young gentlemen who had lately quit the Bull and Feathers tavern as well as the village of Linton itself (having already been politely but purposefully ejected from two neighboring taverns) and who were now jogging arm-in-arm along the dark roadway leading away from the village.