One More Kiss, page 1
PRAISE FOR
THE NOVELS OF MARY BLAYNEY
COURTESAN’S KISS
“Blayney crafts a powerful story with an outspoken modern heroine (à la Elizabeth Bennet) who wins readers’ hearts. All of Blayney’s characters leap from the pages into fully realized people you care about.… The twists and depth of emotion [are] unforgettable.”
—Romantic Times (four stars)
“I can’t praise this book enough.… I’m highly impressed with the skill that is used to take diverse characters [and] have them fall in love while intertwining the story with a perfect rendition of Regency England.… Thankfully there will be another wonderful story coming.”
—Night Owl Romance
“A highly enjoyable love story, full of warmth and wit.”
—All About Romance
“The fourth ‘Kiss’ Pennistan Regency romance is a terrific entry.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
STRANGER’S KISS
“I couldn’t wait to see what happened next and I loved it. If ever someone wanted a perfect Regency romance, this would be it. I can’t think of any emotion that wasn’t seen and I can’t think of anything more that I could possibly want.”
—Night Owl Romance
“An emotionally charged story of revenge, loss, passion and redemption. Blayney plays readers like a virtuoso, allowing laughter, tears and every emotion in between to claim your heart.”
—Romantic Times
“A terrific entry in a great Regency saga … Stranger’s Kiss is another winner from marvelous Mary Blayney.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
TRAITOR’S KISS / LOVER’S KISS
“Taut and daring, an emotionally charged tale that satisfies from beginning to end. Traitor’s Kiss will steal your heart!”
—GALEN FOLEY
“Reminiscent of Regency masters Putney, Balogh and Elizabeth Boyle … [Blayney’s] consummate storytelling completely involves readers.”
—Romantic Times
“Danger, deception, and desire blend brilliantly together in these two deftly written, exceptionally entertaining Regency romances.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Mary writes with a quiet beauty and great confidence.”
—Risky Regencies
“These two exhilarating Pennistan family Regency romances are well written, filled with plenty of action and star great courageous lead characters.… Fans will enjoy both super tales.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
“This beguiling pair of novels from author Mary Blayney delivers a double dose of romance and intrigue.”
—Fresh Fiction
One More Kiss is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Mary Blayney
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53574-0
Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi
Cover illustration: Aleta Rafton
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
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
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Epilogue
Dedication
Author’s Note
Other Books by This Author
Prologue
Foxley’s Gaming Hell
London
December 1819
JESS PENNISTAN WAS in a world of trouble with no one to blame but himself. He rubbed his neck as he stared at the losing play, then looked at Crenshaw, acknowledging the bastard’s win with a nod. He forced himself to maintain his façade of bored patience even as a string of curses echoed through his head.
Bigger fortunes had been won and lost at this very table. What had just been wagered, a tract of land, seemed innocuous enough, but in his family wagering land was simply not done. More than not done. To wager land left to him by his mother was akin to spitting in his family’s face.
No one else seemed to be aware of this drama. Play went on accompanied by shouts of triumph, the occasional groan of loss, and the laughter of men and women who were playing an entirely different game.
The place was overheated, which exaggerated the cloying perfumes that only partly covered the stink of men and women who had decided that washing was an unnecessary annoyance.
Baron Lord Crenshaw was the exception. Despite the amount of brandy he’d imbibed and the hours he’d spent gaming, Crenshaw looked refreshed, his linen still spotless, his smile an invitation to play on.
“If you will accept my voucher, Lord Crenshaw, I will bring you the land’s worth in gold within a fortnight.” Surely he was due for a big win soon.
“Perhaps,” Baron Crenshaw allowed, swirling the brandy before drinking it down in one swallow.
Jess waited, well aware that Crenshaw was hoping to test his tolerance to the breaking point.
“I tell you what, Pennistan, I will hold the voucher if you will include with it the whore beside you. She’s the one that you won from Delcroft earlier this evening, is she not?”
Jess nodded and did not have to look at Sadie to feel her anxiety. “Damn it, Crenshaw, she is barely sixteen.”
“Del tells me the bitch needs someone with my talents to broaden her experience,” Crenshaw said, ignoring Jess’s objection. Then the man closed his eyes, smiling at some private thought. The idea alone aroused the sadistic pig, and the slut next to him whispered something in his ear. Crenshaw grabbed her hand and pushed it into his crotch. Jess turned away.
Sadie was watching him and Jess gave her the slightest shake of his head to reassure her. Tears began to leak from her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. How had this silly, stupid girl wound up here? She should be wife to some farmer in the Midlands, spending her days tending children and baking bread, not in London spreading her legs for anyone with money.
“If you do not care to share, Pennistan, then I refuse the voucher and will take the land. I assume the acreage is worthless but, oh, the joy it brings me to know that your brother, the duke, will be enraged.”
Yes, Jess thought. This had been Crenshaw’s goal all along. And what did it say about Jess himself that he had been bored enough to take the risk of gambling with a man whom the world thought he had cuckolded?
“Unless you wish to wager something else of value, I will be going upstairs to allow Merribeau to finish what she has so delightfully started. Would you and your whore care to watch? It adds a certain piquancy to the experience especially when there are ropes and chains involved.”
Crenshaw stood up and pulled the willing Merribeau by the hand. “You see, Pennistan, I am more than willing to share. Indeed if you had not been so set on freeing me of my wife through divorce, I do think the three of us could have come to a very interesting arrangement.” With a shrug of indifference Crenshaw moved past him.
That last comment was more than Jess could stand. He pulled Crenshaw around to face him. The man might be famous for his pugilistic skills, but Jess had surprise on his side and years of practice in the boxing ring at home with his brothers.
Before Crenshaw could raise his hands, Jess swung at him, connected, and sent the man crashing onto a table, which collapsed under his weight.
Crenshaw was dazed, or perhaps unconscious; Jess didn’t care which.
He took Sadie’s hand and tossed some coins at Foxley, who appeared outraged, to cover the cost of the furniture. His “outrage” was only pretense. Such a show was good for business. Jess urged Sadie out the door anyway and decided that he was done with gaming hells for the rest of the Season.
He would send Sadie wherever she wanted to go, take himself off to see his brother David, and convince him to go to Sandleton House for some fishing. It would be easy enough for their brother, the duke, to find him there and consign him to some level of Dante’s hell for this biggest of missteps.
And maybe, just maybe, a few days of fishing and the quiet of Sandleton would give him a chance to think of a way to win the land back from Crenshaw.
Chapter One
Havenhall Manor
Kent
August 1820
“DO COME TO the window, Beatrice,” Cecilia Brent urged her sister without turning around. “Tell me if you know who this is. It must be someone important. He’s riding the most impressive horse and has a red scarf around his neck.”
Beatrice could feel Cecilia’s anxiety as clearly as she could see it in her eyes. They might not look alike but the closeness they shared as twins made it easy for Beatrice to know what her sister was thinking. Do I look as good as possible? Is my dress the right style, the right color? Will people like me?
How was it that even when she wasn’t smiling Cecilia still managed to be more beautiful than any woman for ten miles? And what in the world could she do, Beatrice wondered, to convince her anxious twin that this house party could be fun?
“I do believe the countess gave us the best suite in the house. We can watch everyone arrive.”
“I wish Papa had given us the guest list instead of insisting we memorize it,” Cecilia said as she clasped her hands together.
The sitting room’s cream and gold colors with pale green accents were lovely and very calming, but they did not seem to be doing anything to allay her sister’s nerves.
“Papa meddles entirely too much. Even Roger agrees with me on that, Ceci.” Beatrice put her arm around her sister’s waist as they both watched the people below perform the practiced choreography of greeting and being welcomed.
“He is your best friend. Of course Roger agrees with you.”
“That’s true, but he also works with Papa so he agrees with me at his own peril. Roger says that Papa approaches everything as though it were a business merger.”
“Some marriages are.”
“Yes, but we are here for a party,” Beatrice emphasized the word, “and not for a husband.”
Cecilia gave her halfhearted nod, the one she used when she wanted to avoid an argument.
Beatrice abandoned the subject. There would be time enough for it later. She concentrated on the man below.
“I do believe that’s the heir to the Bendas dukedom. He is on the list as Viscount William Bendasbrook, but I think he has a new title now. His grandfather died last year. Do you recall the gossip? His grandfather was that crazy duke who was always at odds with the Duke of Meryon.”
“And then Meryon married his daughter. Yes, I recall. It was like a fairy tale.” Cecilia was silent for a moment. “Just think, Bitsy, a man who will be a duke is at our house party!”
“Ceci, Papa could easily buy a dukedom if they were for sale.” Beatrice bit her lip again to keep back her next thought. As heiresses we are at least as valuable a commodity as any titled heir. If she spoke aloud it would only add credence to Ceci’s idea about marriages as mergers. “This will be fun,” Beatrice insisted. “It’s the beginning of our lives among the ton.”
“Hmmm.”
Which was another thing Ceci said when she did not agree. No big loud arguments for Cecilia Brent, Beatrice thought. It was odd because Beatrice herself quite liked a rousing argument now and again.
Beatrice waited until Ceci looked at her. “But it will only be fun,” she added, “if you stop fretting.”
Her sister nodded and sighed. “I will try.”
“Consider it this way. The next two weeks will be our entrée into a world where every sort of adult intrigue is commonplace. Watching it will be fascinating. And we are the ones to decide if we want to be a part of it.”
“You think we are the ones who choose? Not at all. This is a test,” Cecilia said flatly. “To see if we fit in.”
“Stop, Ceci.” Beatrice tried to hide her exasperation. “Of course we fit in.” Or at least you do. “We’ve had an education equal to theirs, clothes from London, a sponsor who is a countess. What more do we need?”
“Better birth? A father who is not a mill owner?”
Ceci did have a way of arrowing to the truth. The Season they had such hopes for was where they would meet the ladies and gentlemen of the ton who measured everyone by their birth, not just by their wealth. So they were, and always would be, a mill owner’s daughters.
“We can only hope that the countess’s influence will be an adequate substitute.” Besides, once the gentlemen of the ton saw Cecilia, her parentage would be the last thing they thought about. Beatrice kept that to herself.
“Hope and pray that I do not break out in spots,” Cecilia said with a little laugh, which made Beatrice feel five times better. When Ceci joked about her looks all was right with the world.
Cecilia leaned a little closer to the window as if that would improve her view. “I thought that the viscount was older than we are, but he seems rather small.”
“I am even shorter. Perhaps you think I should flirt with him and the two of us should make a match?”
“Not at all, dearest.” Ceci’s tone was all apology. “Your diminutive size seems perfectly natural for a woman, but for a man it is a bit odd, is it not?”
Beatrice considered him again. “He is said to be unusually short, but the red scarf is actually how I recognized him. Viscount Bendasbrook, or whatever his title is now, always wears one.” As she spoke he disappeared from sight. “According to the countess, despite his size he is manly in every way. Quite an adventurer both in the bedroom and out of it. That’s the way she described him.”
“How would she know that?” Cecilia asked, and then sighed. “I wish I did not sound so shocked. We are nineteen and I should be more sophisticated about such things.” She walked over to the dresses that were spread out across the sofa. “Do you think he and the countess had an affaire du coeur?”
“No, I do not. The countess is old enough to be his mother and besides, she was happy in her marriage and has only been widowed for just over a year. I do not think she has taken a lover yet.” A blush spoiled her try at a sophisticated comment. “Ladies gossip. Just like we are right now.”
“But this is not gossip.” Ceci paused and then went on. “Even your Roger would agree with that. This is an exchange of vital information. In fact it would be rude if we did not know as much about our fellow guests as possible. Just imagine what they must know about us.” Cecilia examined the dresses and shifted a gown from one end of the row to the other.
Beatrice surveyed the collection of dresses with her sister. The more natural waistline was very flattering on Ceci, on both of them really, and the apricot color of this particular gown would show off her sister’s perfect complexion.
“What do the other guests know about us? That we are newcomers to society and are late making our appearance among the ton because we were in mourning for Mama, God rest her soul.”
“And that our dear mama,” Cecilia finished, “was a school friend of the countess who kindly consented to be our godmother.”
Beatrice nodded, for her part desperately wishing that Mama was part of this adventure. The pang of loss still haunted her, but a little less each day. She did not know whether to feel guilty or relieved.
“You make it all sound so simple, Beatrice. What if they think we are posers? What if they think Papa is not enough of a gentleman to associate with? We will be ignored from the first.”
“The countess would never invite guests who would treat us that way.” Maybe it would be better for Cecilia to worry about their clothes. “Now, tell me what dress I should wear tonight.”
“I have no idea.” Ceci began to wring her hands again. “Do you think we have the right clothes? Can we wear jewelry or are we too young for anything but pearls? Oh, I do wish this first meeting with the ton was over. A fortnight is a long time to look and be perfect. I do so miss Mama.”
“Sweet, dear sister.” Beatrice hugged her, rocked her back and forth. So do I, so do I, she thought. She’d always been able to calm everyone, whether the upset was caused by nerves or temper. “Mama is with us in spirit, and you could wear a flour sack and look lovely, and these gowns are perfection. The countess approved of them and even supervised the needlework herself.”
She patted her sister on the back before letting her go.
