TheWifeTrap

To
my editor, Charlotte Herscher.
Thanks for your insight and encouragement, and for helping me make this book
even better.

With enduring love, to my father,
Richard Frank Warren, Jr.,
a voracious reader, who never tired of learning.
Wish you were here to share my adventures in publishing,
to cheer me on and ask me about each
and every detail along the way.
I think you would have enjoyed the ride.
I miss you, Daddy.

Chapter One

Ireland, June
1817

Lady Jeannette
Rose Brantford gently blew her nose on her handkerchief. Neatly refolding the
silk square with its pretty row of embroidered lily of the valley, she dabbed
at the fresh pair of tears that slid down her cheeks.

I really need
to stop crying,
she
told herself.
This unremitting misery simply has to cease.

On the sea voyage
over, she’d thought she had her emotions firmly under control. Resigned, as it
were, to her ignominious fate. But this morning when the coach set off on the
overland journey to her cousins’ estate, the reality of her situation had
crashed upon her like one of the great boulders that lay scattered around the
wild Irish countryside.

How could my
parents have done this to me?
she wailed to herself. How could they have been cruel enough to exile
her to this godforsaken wilderness? Dear heavens, even Scotland would have been
preferable. At least its landmass had the good sense to still be attached to
Mother England. Scotland would have been a long carriage ride from home, but in
Ireland, she was separated by an entire sea!

Yet Mama and Papa
had remained adamant in their decision to send her here. And for the first time
in her twenty-one years, she’d been unable to wheedle or cajole or cry her way
into persuading them to change their minds.

She didn’t even
have her longtime lady’s maid, Jacobs, to offer her comfort and consolation in
her time of need. Just because she had told Jacobs a little fib about her
identity when she and her twin sister, Violet, had decided to exchange places
last summer was no cause for desertion. And just because Jeannette’s parents
were punishing her for the scandal with this intolerable banishment to Ireland
was no reason for Jacobs to seek out a new post. A loyal servant would have
been eager to follow her mistress into exile!

Jeannette wiped
away another tear and gazed across the coach at her new maid, Betsy. Despite
being a perfectly sweet, pleasant girl, Betsy was a stranger. Not only that,
she was woefully inexperienced, still learning about the proper care of
clothing and dressing hair and recognizing the latest fashions. Jacobs had
known it all.

Jeannette sighed.

Oh, well, she
thought, training Betsy would give her new life purpose. At the reminder of her
new life,
tears welled again into her eyes.

Alone. Oh,
she was so dreadfully alone.

Abruptly, the
coach jerked to a tooth-rattling halt. She slid forward and nearly toppled to
the floor in a cloud of skirts.

Betsy caught her;
or rather, they caught each other, and slowly settled themselves back into their
seats.

“Good heavens,
what was that?” Jeannette straightened her hat, barely able to see with the
brim half covering her eyes.

“It felt like we
hit something, my lady.” Betsy twisted to peer out the small window at the
gloomy landscape beyond. “I hope we weren’t in no accident.”

The coach swayed
as the coachman and footmen jumped to the ground, the low rumble of male voices
filling the air.

Jeannette gripped
her handkerchief inside her palm.
Drat it, what now? As if things weren’t
bad enough already.

A minute later,
the coachman’s wizened face and sloped shoulders appeared at the window. “I’m
sorry, my lady, but it appears we’re stuck.”

Jeannette’s
eyebrows rose. “What do you mean, stuck?”

“ ’Tis the
weather, my lady. All the rain of late has turned the road back to bog.”

Bog? As in
big-wheel-sucking-muddy-hole kind of bog? A wail rose into her throat. She
swallowed the cry and firmed her lower lip, refusing to let it so much as
quiver.

“Jem and Samuel
and me’ll keep trying,” the coachman continued, “but it may be a while afore
we’re on our way. Perhaps you’d like to step out while we…”

She shot him an
appalled look, so appalled obviously that his words trailed abruptly into
silence.

What was wrong
with the man? she wondered. Was he daft? Or blind, perhaps? Could he not see
her beautiful Naccarat traveling dress? The shade bright and pretty as a
perfect tangerine. Or the stylish kid leather half boots she’d had dyed
especially to match prior to her departure from London? Obviously he had no
common sense, nor any appreciation of the latest styles. But mayhap she was
being too hard on him, since, after all, what did any man really know about
ladies’ fashion.

“Step out to
where? Into that mud?” She gave her head a vigorous shake. “I shall wait right
where I am.”

“It may get a
might rough once we start pushing, my lady. There’s your safety to consider.”

“Don’t worry
about my safety. I shall be fine in the coach. If you need to lighten the load,
however, you have my leave to remove my trunks. But please be sure not to set
them into the mud. I shall be most distressed if they are begrimed or damaged
in any manner.” She waved a gloved hand. “And Betsy may step down if she
wishes.”

Betsy looked
uncertain. “Are you sure, my lady? I don’t think I ought to leave you.”

“It’s fine,
Betsy. There is nothing you can do here anyway, so go with John.”

Besides,
Jeannette moaned to herself,
it
will be nothing new, since I am well used to being deserted these days.

The gray-haired
man fixed a pair of kindly eyes on the servant girl. “Best you come with me.
I’ll see ye to a safe spot.”

Once Betsy was
lifted free of the coach and the worst of the mud, the barouche’s door was
firmly relatched. The servants set about unloading the baggage, then began the
grueling task of trying to dislodge the vehicle’s trapped wheels.

A full half hour
passed with no success. Jeannette stubbornly kept her seat, faintly queasy from
the vigorous, periodic rocking of the coach as the men and horses strained to
force the carriage out of its hole. From the exclamations of annoyed disgust
that floated on the air, puncturing the rustic silence, she gathered their
attempts had done nothing but sink the wheels even deeper into the mire.

Withdrawing a
fresh handkerchief from her reticule, she patted the perspiration from her
forehead. Blazing from above, the sun had burned off the clouds but was doing
little to dry the muddy morass around her. Afternoon heat ripened the air,
turning it sticky with a humidity that was unusual for these parts even in
mid-summer, or so she had been informed.

At least she
wasn’t crying anymore. A blessing, since it wouldn’t do to arrive at her
cousins’ house—assuming she ever did arrive—looking bloated and puffy, her eyes
damp and red-rimmed. It was humiliating enough knowing what her cousins must
think of her banishment. A far worse ignominy to greet them looking anything
but her best.

A fly buzzed into
the coach, fat and black and repugnant.

Jeannette’s lip
curled with distaste. She shooed at the insect with her handkerchief, hoping it
would fly out the opposite window. Instead it turned and raced straight for her
head. She let out a sharp squeal and batted at it again.

Buzzing past her
nose, it landed on the window frame, its transparent wings glinting in the
brilliant sunlight. The insect strolled casually along the painted wooden sill
on tensile, hair-thin legs.

With equal
nonchalance, Jeannette reached for her fan. She waited, running an assessing
thumb over the fine gilded ivory side guard. As soon as the creature paused,
Jeannette brought her fan down with an audible
thwap.

In a single
instant, the big black bug became a big black blob. Gratified by her small
victory, she inspected her fan, hoping she had not damaged the delicate staves,
since the fan had always been one of her favorites.

Catching a fresh
glimpse of the squashed insect, she twisted her lips in revulsion before
quickly flicking the carcass out of her sight.

“You’ve a deadly
aim, lass,” remarked a mellow male voice, the lilting cadence as rich and
lyrical as an Irish ballad. “He didn’t stand a chance, that fly. Are you as
handy with a real weapon?”

Startled, she
turned her head to find a stranger peering in at her through the opposite
window, one strong forearm propped at an impertinent angle atop the frame.

How long had he
been standing there? she wondered. Long enough obviously to witness the
encounter between her and the fly.

The man was tall
and sinewy with close-cropped, wavy dark chestnut hair, fair skin and
penetrating eyes of the bluest blue, vivid as gentians at peak bloom. They
twinkled at her, those eyes, the man making no effort to conceal his roguish
interest. His lips curved upward in silent, unconcealed humor.

Devilish
handsome.

The description
popped unbidden and unwanted into her mind, his appeal impossible to deny. Her
heart flipped then flopped inside her chest, breasts rising and falling beneath
the material of her bodice in sudden breathless movement.

Gracious
sakes.

She struggled against
the involuntary response, forcing herself to notice on closer observation that
his features were not precisely perfect. His forehead square and rather
ordinary. His nose a bit long, a tad hawkish. His chin blunt and far too
stubborn for comfort. His lips a little on the slender side.

Yet when viewed
as a whole, his countenance made an undeniably pleasing package, one to which
no sane woman could claim indifference. And when coupled with the magnetism
that radiated off him in almost visible waves, he looked rather like sin
brought to life.

And a sin it was,
she mused on a regretful sigh, that he was clearly not a gentleman. His coarse,
unfashionable attire—plain linen shirt, neckerchief and rough tan
coat—betraying his plebeian origins, along with his obvious lack of manners
before a lady. One had only to look at him to know the truth as he leaned
against her coach door like some ruffian or thief.

She stiffened at
the idea, abruptly realizing that’s exactly what he might be. Well, if he was
here to rob her, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing fear. She
might burst into tears on occasion but she had never been a vaporish milk and
water miss. Never one of the frail sort given to wailing for her smelling salts
at the faintest hint of distress.

“I am well able
to defend myself,” she declared in a resilient tone, “if that is what you are
asking. Be aware I would have no difficulty putting a bullet through you should
circumstances require.”

What a fib,
she mused, deciding it wisest not
to mention the fact that she had never fired a gun in her life and had no
pistol with her here inside the coach. The coachman was the one with the
weapon.

Where was he
anyway? She hoped he and the others weren’t, quite literally, tied up.

Surprise
brightened the rogue’s eyes. “And why would you think you’ve cause to shoot
me?”

“What else am I
to imagine when a strange man accosts me in my own carriage?”

“Perhaps you
might assume he’s here to help.”

“Help with what?
Himself to my belongings?”

His eyes
narrowed, glinting with a dangerous combination of irritation and amusement. “You’ve
a suspicious mind, lass, painting me immediately as a thief.” He leaned closer,
his voice growing faintly husky. “Assuming I were a thief, what is it you
possess that I might find of value?”

Her lips parted
involuntarily, alarm and something far more treacherous quickening her blood. “I
have my clothes and a few jewels, nothing more. If you want them they are in
the trunks outside.”

“If I were of a
mind to want such things, I’d have them already.” His eyes locked with her own,
momentarily holding her prisoner before his gaze lowered slowly to her mouth. “No,
there’s only one thing I’m craving…”

Her breath caught
in her lungs as he paused, leaving his sentence tantalizingly, frustratingly
unfinished. Did he want
her
? she wondered. Did he intend to force his
way inside her carriage and steal far more than belongings, perhaps kisses
instead, and maybe other intimacies as well? Given the circumstances, she ought
to be screaming her lungs out, ought to be terrified beyond measure. Instead
she could only wait with her heart thundering in her ears for him to continue.