Boudreaux's Lady, page 1
Boudreaux’s Lady
The League of Rogues - Book 15
Lauren Smith
Contents
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Escaping the Earl
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Smith
Excerpt from Easy Love © 2014 Kristen Proby
* * *
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
* * *
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-952063-69-5 (e-book edition)
ISBN: 978-1-952063-14-5 (trade paperback edition)
Introduction
Hello Readers!
This book, Boudreaux’s Lady comes a bit out of chronological sequence from the rest of the League books you may have read so far. This book takes place a few years into the future where the main League of Rogues characters are all happily married and producing adorable future rogues and rebellious ladies.
How did this book come about?
My story ideas can come from the strangest and most wonderful of places sometimes. The idea for Boudreaux’s Lady came from a unique opportunity. I met author Kristen Proby online after reading her contemporary set romance series about her family the Boudreaux’s which is set in New Orleans. In that first book you learn that the Boudreaux family has been in New Orleans for a couple of hundred years and they own a lovely plantation house and there’s a great family of brothers and sisters who all have their own love stories within the Boudreaux series.
As I read that first story Easy Love, I fell in love with the Boudreaux family and when I learned Kristen was opening up her Boudreaux world for other authors to write in, I came up with the idea of writing the Boudreaux family’s origin story. I pitched the idea to Kristen who absolutely loved it!
When I considered what sort of characters would give up their lives in England and move to American in the early 1800s I was inspired to write a gothic- mystery.
The opening scene in the prologue, where a pair of twins were born and the lord of the manor threatens to cast one of the children into the flames is actually based on a true story in England.
Only, in the true story, things were far more gruesome. The lord in reality, tossed one of the babies into the flames since he wanted only one heir to his lands and didn’t want to have the problem of twins. But the death of the child haunted him to the point of madness. One night while he rode down the dark road to his home, he was tormented by the sounds of a wailing child and glimpsed a baby in flames which appeared before him on the road. His horse reared back at the same moment he had a heart attack and he fell off his horse and perished on the road, only to be found the next morning, dead and cold.
The true story haunted me so much that it provided the seed from which this story grew. So, dear reader, turn the page and enjoy this gothic-mystery set in my beloved League of Rogues universe.
Prologue
England, October 1806
The shrieking wind against the windowpanes nearly matched the wails of the young woman in bed. Her body seized with agony, and she cried out as a midwife pressed two hands against her swollen belly.
“Push a bit harder, my lady.” Lucy, the midwife urged.
The woman in the bed sank back against the pillows. “I can’t.”
“You can, Albina. You can.” Lucy knew she ought not to be so familiar with the woman, but she’d brought Albina into the world and now she would bring forth Albina’s child. Lucy pressed again on Albina’s belly, feeling the child shift at last into a better position.
“Push, my lady. Push once more!” Lucy encouraged.
Albina dug her fingers into the sheets. Sweat covered her pale face as she squeezed her expression into a snarl before she relaxed.
Lucy peered between her spread legs. “I see it crowning, my dear. You’re so very close. Another few pushes now.”
A look came over Albina’s face, one of such determination that Lucy was momentarily taken aback.
Albina pushed, her teeth clenched, and Lucy rushed to catch the child emerging from the womb with a white cloth. The babe was quiet. Too quiet. His face a frightening shade of blue. Lucy smacked the baby’s bottom, laid it flat on the bed, and pressed on it’s tiny chest in a rhythm to stimulate its heart. She even parted it’s little lips and tried to clear it’s airway, but to no avail.
“It’s a little boy,” Lucy sniffled. “But…I don’t think the wee one made it.” She started to set the baby on the bed but gasped as Albina bent almost double, pushing again.
“Another?” Lucy hastened to prepare a fresh swaddling cloth as Albina pushed again. Soon, a smaller child emerged, mewling and fiery tempered, fighting like a warrior to stay alive. This babe’s cries were strong and healthy.
“Is he all right?” Albina asked, looking at the baby.
“She is very healthy.” Indeed, the baby girl was screaming mightily.
Albina reached for the quiet bundle on the bed beside her. “And the boy?”
Lucy’s eyes burned as she shook her head. She offered the dead child up to Albina.
“Give him a name. A strong, proud name, my dear. One full of love and he will take it with him to the heavens.”
Albina held the baby to her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stroked the baby’s cold face and touched his small fingers. So perfect yet gone already from this life.
“Andrew. You are my darling Andrew.” She kissed the child’s forehead and then allowed Lucy to set him in a prepared bassinet until he could be buried.
“And this one?” She pushed the little girl, still crying, into her mother’s arms. “Name her too.”
Albina gazed down at the girl, such love and sorrow in her face that Lucy’s heart broke.
“Philippa. My little Philippa.” Albina’s head fell back against the pillows. “Oh Lucy, I’m so very tired. Take care of them both, please.” Albina held the baby out and Lucy took Philippa before Albina’s arms dropped to the bed. Sweat dewed on the new mother’s forehead and her pale skin gave Lucy much to worry about. Many delicate women didn’t survive childbirth, and Albina’s birth had been doubly difficult.
Lucy jumped at the sound of the bed chamber door crashing open. Lit by firelight, Cornelius Selkirk, the Earl of Monmouth, stared at her and the baby.
“Well? How is my son?” he demanded, casting only the briefest glance at his ailing wife.
Lucy nodded toward the quiet bassinet. “Gone, my lord.”
“Gone?” His hard stare shifted between the bassinet and the squirming baby in Lucy’s arms. “There were two? What about that one?” He pointed at Philippa, who had stopped crying and had gone very still at the sound of the angry male voice in the room.
“My lord, this is your daughter, Philippa.” Lucy did not offer the baby to him. She knew better. Monmouth had a temper the likes of which she’d never seen in a man.
“Damnation! What use has a man for a daughter? I needed a son!” He turned to Albina, who was now white as alabaster.
“I’m sorry, my lord. Your son never drew breath.” Lucy attempted to keep his rage away from Albina.
Monmouth pointed an accusing finger at Philippa, nestled safely in Lucy’s arms. “Yet that little brat lives?”
“She does. A brave and healthy baby. You should be proud of her.”
Monmouth’s face took on a frightening reddish hue. “Proud to have another useless female here under my roof?” He spun to Albina again. “By God, woman, you have failed in your only duty. I will not stand for it. I won’t!”
When his wife made no reply, he rushed at the bed, shaking her shoulders violently. But Albina lay still, her eyes glassy and unseeing. A pool of blood between her thighs was still spreading slowly, thickly. She’d bled out.
Lucy’s heart fractured in her chest. Albina was gone. But perhaps it was a kindness in its own horrid way. The brutish Lord Monmouth had never deserved her, nor did he deserve the child she still held in her arms. Though at least it could be said that when he realized what had happened to her, some emotion other than rage passed through him, if only for a moment.
“Dead… My wife and son both dead.” He stared in cold fury at little Philippa. “An d that creature is to blame.” His gaze moved to the fire blazing in the hearth, then around the dark room. Lucy could see a flurry of murderous thoughts passing across his face in rapid succession.
When he turned to face her, her heart stuttered in fear at what he might do.
“The miller in the village. You delivered a son to him, did you not?” Monmouth demanded.
“Yes, two days ago.” That birthing had been easy. A stout lad had been born to the miller, Mr. Wilson and his wife, Beth, with no complications. Beth was healthy and hearty like her child.
“You will take a message to them, tonight. I will pay ten thousand pounds for their son. And you will give them that brat in exchange.”
“But, my lord, she’s your daughter—”
“Do it, or I swear I will throw that child into the fire.” Monmouth loomed over her with such dark menace in his face that Lucy did not doubt he would carry out the gruesome threat.
“What are you waiting for?” he hissed.
Still clutching the girl in her arms, Lucy fled the room. In a few minutes, she was in Monmouth’s coach being escorted to the miller’s cottage two miles away. The night was a bitter cold, with deadly drafts and vicious chills that would steal many a life before dawn. Thankfully the storm which had raged half an hour before had gone, leaving a cloudless night sky by the time they reached the miller’s home.
“Thank you, Joseph,” Lucy told the driver. “Please wait for me.” She knocked hard on the miller’s door. After a few moments, a weary young man answered.
“Yes?” Wilson asked. He recognized Lucy, and his eyes widened at the sight of the Monmouth Crest painted on the black coach doors behind her in full view beneath the moonlight.
“May I please come inside, Mr. Wilson?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, of course.” Wilson stepped back and let her pass through into the house. Philippa, who had been tucked securely under her cloak, now made a mewling sound and Wilson jolted.
“You have a baby?” He peered down at Philippa.
“Yes,” Lucy said quietly.
Beth came down from the tiny set of stairs that led to the second floor of the cottage.
“Beth, you should return to bed.” Lucy chastised gently.
“I’m all right, Lucy.” Beth smiled and pulled her dress gown closed as she joined her husband.
“What’s all this about now?” Wilson asked.
She tried to calm herself. Her hands couldn’t seem to stop shaking. All she could see was the look on the earl’s face as he threatened to cast Philippa into the fire. “I’ve come here on a mission of great urgency. The countess of Monmouth died giving birth to twins tonight. The first, the son, was stillborn. The second.” She swayed Philippa in her arms. “Survived but is a girl. The earl knows you have given birth to a son. He has an offer for you. It’s one I beg you to consider for the sake of the child in my arms.”
“What sort of offer?” Wilson and his wife exchanged worried glances.
“Ten thousand pounds if you give him your son to raise as his own.”
“What? No!” Wilson shook his head.
“Wait!” Lucy caught his arm. “Please, listen. He will murder this young babe. But if he had a boy to raise, one to replace the child he lost, she will be spared. Think, please. Your son could be raised in a fine house, become an earl, never go hungry or cold a day in his life. And in return, you would have this child to raise as your own and a small fortune to live on. You could start a new life in London, have anything you could desire.” She peeled the blanket back from Philippa’s face. “She is such a beauty. The daughter of an earl, the granddaughter of a duke.”
Wilson and Beth stared down at Philippa, both silent.
“I don’t want to give my baby away. He’s my little Roddy,” Beth murmured.
“What if his lordship let you be his wet nurse?” Lucy hoped she could convince the earl of that at least, given that the child would need a source of milk.
“I…” Beth looked Philippa again. “He would truly kill her? This sweet thing?” She held out her arms, a mother’s instinct too hard to fight. Lucy passed her the baby.
“He would.”
“How would we know our boy would be safe with him?” Wilson asked.
“I worked at the house for years. Monmouth would dote upon a son, but he sees no value in a daughter, only a burden. She’s in grave danger.”
“Oh look, Mason. She’s hungry.” Beth had let Philippa suckle the tip of her index finger and Philippa was clamping on desperately, her little rosebud mouth searching for milk.
“Beth…” Wilson looked torn at the situation he’d been placed in. “He’s our boy.”
Beth sniffled. “I know but think of what a grand life he could have. Wouldn’t he Lucy?”
“Yes, a grand life indeed.”
“We aren’t to be bought, not even by a man like Monmouth,” Mason said quietly. “He can’t simply bully us into giving up our child.”
“Mason, we can’t let him kill this child.” Beth held Philippa protectively now.
Wilson sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Fine. We accept, but Beth has to nurse Roddy and we must be allowed to see the boy once a year.”
That, Lucy knew, would be a hard bargain. But she would find a way, for Philippa’s sake.
“Bring me the boy and I shall take him back to the house to his Lordship.”
Wilson climbed the stairs and returned carrying a small squirming bundle. The man held his son for a long moment, and Beth leaned down to kiss the boy’s forehead.
“We love you, Roddy. That will never change. Please forgive us for what we have done, but you will be safe and cared for.” Beth stroked his cheeks, squared her shoulders, and tightened her hold on little Philippa.
“Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Beth, you saved a precious life tonight. For that you will be repaid.”
Lucy exited the cottage and carried the bundled baby boy into the waiting coach. She looked back only once, seeing the face of the miller and his wife standing in the doorway with their new daughter.
Two lives torn from their rightful places in life, but perhaps it would indeed work out best for both of them. Lucy would do what she could to ensure that was the case.
1
London, October 1826 - Twenty Years Later
“He doesn’t look a thing like me,” the Duke of St. Albans grumbled.
Beauregard Boudreaux eyed the older man standing beside him at the back of the crowded ballroom.
“Who, Your Grace?” Beau asked.
“Roderick, my grandson.” St. Albans pointed at a blond-haired young man who was dancing with a pretty girl. Beau glanced between the two men, searching for even a hint of resemblance. Roderick had a kind face and bright brown eyes but lacked any resemblance to the Duke. St. Albans, although he was of five and sixty years, was still a fit man with dark brown hair and the clearest gray eyes Beau had ever seen.
“Perhaps he favors the father’s family?” Beau studied the young man again as he spun his pretty partner around.
“The Earl of Monmouth? No, he has a coloring similar to mine.” St. Albans crossed his arms over his chest, a strange expression deepening the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. “My child, his wife, was not fair of color either. She favored me.”
“He seems to be a good lad, Your Grace.”
“Oh, yes. He is a delightful boy. He has a good head on his shoulders, but I wish…” St. Albans didn’t continue his thought. Instead, he turned to leave the ballroom, a look of regret clinging to him so openly that Beau felt compelled to pursue him.
St. Albans had practically raised Beau. As a young boy, Beau had lost his father in France, and he and his mother had returned to her family’s home in England, a small manor house neighboring the St. Albans estate. When he was sixteen, he’d started scaling the short cobblestone walls between the two estates and wandered into St. Albans’ gardens then down by the lake, where he first met the duke.
