Amanda Scott (31 page)

Not until they had passed by the house in Laura Place and continued up Great Pulteney Street did she realize that she was being abducted again, but she made no objection. And when he drew to a halt at the gate to Sydney Gardens, got down, and held up his hands to help her, she said only, “You do not intend to drive me through the gardens again, sir? You are losing your touch, I believe.”

Sternly commanding the dog to stay where he was, Manningford tucked her arm in his, extracted a shilling from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to the gatekeeper. Only when they had passed inside and were walking along the gravel path together did he say, “I suppose I must be losing my touch at that. I was certainly clumsy with Jarvis.”

“I was astonished when you gave him to those men in place of Mr. Lasenby,” she said, chuckling.

“Well, I couldn’t help but think that we should all get out of it more cleanly if we did not have to deal with Jarvis just then. He’d have been bound to make a nuisance of himself over the fact that you and Lady Flavia were present, and while we’ve learned to detect some of his empty threats, I wasn’t in a mood to hear them. My action was purely impulsive, but I think it answered our purpose. I must talk to Axbridge to see if there is anything more we can do to bring him to justice, but I think we will find there is not. Will that distress you?”

“To own the truth,” she said, “I should just as soon not have a felon running about with the Bradbourne name. What with Papa’s suicide, that would put us quite beyond the pale, and I believe I care about that quite as much as Jarvis does.”

“But you will not carry the Bradbourne name yourself much longer, you know,” he said gently, stopping her in the middle of the path. They were some distance from the rear of the hotel now, and there was no one nearby.

“I won’t?” She gazed up at him. “And why is that, sir?”

“Do you not know I love you? Must I say the words?”

“I like to hear them. I know you have never thought my father’s death a matter over which to concern yourself, but I hope you have thought about what it would be to have a wife whose father killed himself. People might—”

“People,” he said firmly, “can go to the devil. I have never concerned myself over what others say of me—except you, and I know you think me irresponsible, but—”

“No, sir, not for weeks. I love you with all my heart.”

“Then, will you marry me, sweetheart?”

“Willingly, sir. Oh, good heavens, I have just had the most appalling thought! Your father’s book! Jarvis will certainly betray us to Mr. Murray. Whatever can we do?”

He smiled. “Father has already written to tell Murray about the promising young authoress who has so kindly helped the Gentlewoman of Quality. You, my love, will become a far more famous authoress than she and I shall live long and prosperously on my wife’s income. Shall you mind living with him, Nell?”

“Not at all, sir. I like him.”

“Surprisingly, so do I.” Then, grinning, he demanded, “Are you sure I am not too old for you?”

She stared at him. “Too old?”

“You once said—”

“I have said any number of idiotic things in my life,” she said, laughing. “If you mean to hold them all against me—”

“The only thing I mean to hold against you,” he said, drawing her into his arms, “is my unworthy self.”

Tilting her head up so that he might kiss her, she said softly, “I have known you only as a man of worth, sir, a man who would protect me without wrapping me in cotton wool, a man who loves me without trying to change me from what I am. You did not turn a hair when you saw me in that club. My own brother would have gasped with dismay, but you did not so much as blink.”

He kissed her then, gently at first, but discovering with delight that his kisses were even nicer in reality than in her dreams, Nell responded with enthusiasm, and he was quick to follow suit. It was some few minutes before he set her back on her heels again but then he said, chuckling, “I didn’t react, my sweet life, because I was terrified that Jarvis would see you. He had a gun and I, for one, did not know whether he would use it, but I did know I didn’t want you in the line of fire if he did. And then that crazy great-aunt of yours—and do not tell me she is not crazy, for I should be most disappointed to hear it—jumped in with her pistol blazing, so to speak, and pandemonium reigned.” He paused, then said, “I really must ask Sydney to show me that throw again.”

“Perhaps he will show me, as well,” Nell said thoughtfully. “It seems to be a very good thing for a woman to know, and I believe Aunt Flavia would like to learn, as well. I don’t know why you are laughing, sir. I daresay Mr. Saint-Denis would quite like to give us all lessons.”

“Ah, Nell,” he said, still chuckling, “I doubt that our life together will ever be boring.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it will.”

The End

Readers whose curiosity has been aroused by the Regent’s certainty that he could not possibly have been in Bath on December 15, 1785, or by his reluctance to explain that certainty, will be interested to learn that at six p.m. on that date, in her drawing room, Park Street, Park Lane, London, he was secretly married to Maria Anne Fitzherbert before witnesses and according to the rites of the Church of England. The witnesses were Mrs. Fitzherbert’s uncle and her brother. The Reverend Robert Burt officiated. The marriage certificate, placed with Coutts Bank for safekeeping and kept there for nearly 175 years before being discovered in a general filing reorganization, is now in the Royal Archives.

The Royal Marriage Act of 1772 required the King’s consent to any royal marriage, with the penalty for disobedience being forfeiture of one’s right to the throne. Also, the Act of Settlement of 1662, which established the Hanoverian claim to the throne of England, flatly disqualified any claimant whose spouse was Roman Catholic (as Mrs. Fitzherbert was). Therefore, the Prince Regent did everything in his power (including going through with a bigamous marriage to Caroline of Brunswick) to keep secret his marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert. It is not likely, therefore, that even so many years later he would have forgotten the date and time of the wedding.

With regard to Sir Mortimer’s comparison of his work to Miss Austen’s, he is no doubt right in his estimation. The total revenue from all Austen’s books during her lifetime was about one-third of what Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) made on any single one of her novels.

A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the
USA Today
bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by
Library Journal
with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for
Lord Abberley’s Nemesis
, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1992 by Lynne Scott-Drennan

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4804-1519-5

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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