If you’re always looking for strong heroines in your romance, look no further than Bronwyn Scott’s books. Especially in her latest releases, A Lady Risks All and A Lady Dares.
These women rely on themselves, no backup from any corner of the aristocracy, and they make life an adventure all on their own. And when that perfect hero shows up? Well, I have a feeling a Bronwyn Scott heroine would know exactly what to do with him.
Take a few minutes to be introduced to Mercedes and Elise in these teasers we’re sharing with you today. They’re very intriguing ladies, impropriety be damned!
Brighton—March 1837
There was nothing quite as exhilarating as a man who knew how to handle his stick. Mercedes Lockhart put an eye to the discreet peephole for a second glimpse, separate trills of excitement and anxiety vibrating through her. Rumour was right, he did have an amazing crack.
Outside in the billiards hall, that crack would sound like a cannon. But here in the soundproof peeping room, she could only watch and worry about what his presence in her father’s club meant.
There’s someone I want you to meet. The phrase rang through her head for the hundredth time. When fathers said that to their daughters it usually meant one thing: a suitor. But those fathers weren’t billiards great Allen Lockhart. He was more likely to bring home a gem-studded cue than a suitor. Perhaps that was the reason she’d been so surprised by the summons. ‘Come down to the club, there’s someone I want you to watch,’ he’d said. It had been a long time since he’d needed her in that way. She didn’t dare refuse. So, here she was, ensconced in the ‘viewing room’, eye riveted to the peephole, taking in the player at table three.
He was a man she’d have noticed even without her father’s regard. Most women would. He was well built; broad shouldered and lean hipped, an observation made inescapable by the fact he was playing with his coat off. At the moment, he was bent at the waist and levelling his cue for the next shot, a posture that offered her a silhouette of trim waist and tautly curved buttock, framed by muscled thighs that tensed ever so slightly beneath the tight fawn of his breeches.
Her eyes roamed upwards to the strong forearms displayed tan against the rolled back cuffs of his white shirtsleeves, to the taper of lean fingers forming a bridge through which his cue stick slid effortlessly, expertly as he made his shot.
He straightened and turned in her direction, accepting congratulations on the shot. He pushed back the blond hair that had fallen over his face. Mercedes caught a glimpse of startling blue eyes; a deep shade of sapphire she could appreciate even at a distance. He was confident, not cocky in the way he accepted the congratulations of others. There was no doubt he handled his cue with ease, his playing strategy sound but straightforward, his use of the ‘break’ progressive and in line with the new style billiards was starting to take.
But Mercedes could see immediately there wasn’t a lot of finesse in it. It was understandable. A player with his skill likely didn’t see the need for finer machinations. That was something that could be improved upon. Mercedes halted her thoughts right there. Why? Why should she improve him? Is that what her father wanted her opinion for? What interest did the legendary Lockhart want with a handsome young billiards player? The anxiety that had plagued her trilled again. Was he a suitor for her? A protege for her father?
Neither option sat well with her. She had no intentions to marry although she was aware of her father’s ambition for her to wed a title. It would be the final feather in his cap of self-made glory—Allen Lock-hart’s daughter married to a peer of the realm! But she had other goals and neither a suitor nor a protege was among them.
Mercedes stepped back from the peephole and scribbled a short note to her father, who sat in the main room in plain sight. There was no skulking in private viewing chambers for him, she thought with no small amount of frustration. It hadn’t always been like this: spying through peepholes and pretending she didn’t exist. It used to be that she had the run of the place. But she’d grown up and it was no longer seemly or prudent, as past events had proven, for her to roam the halls of Lockhart’s Billiards Club, no matter how elegant the setting or how skilled the player. The bottom line was that men didn’t like to be beaten by a woman. Thus had ended her career of playing in public. For now.
This was why the thought of a protege met with her disapproval. If there was to be one, it should be her. She’d honed her own skill at her father’s side. When she’d shown some aptitude for the game, he’d taught her to play as only a professional can. She’d learned his secrets and developed her own until she was on par with the best. Then she’d committed the crime of turning seventeen and her freedoms had been curtailed; in part by society and in part by her own headstrong judgement.
It was something of a curse that the one thing she was good at—no, not merely good at, excellent at—was a talent she did not get to display. These days she practised for herself, alone in the privacy of their home and she waited, forever ready if the chance to prove herself came her way.
Mercedes folded the note and sent it out to her father. She bent her eye to the peephole one last time, a thought occurring to her as she watched the man pot his final ball. Maybe he was her chance. Her earlier excitement started to hum again. She’d been waiting five years for her opportunity, alert for any possibility. In all that time, she’d never thought her chance would come in the form of a handsome Englishman—she’d had her fill of those. But if her father could use him, perhaps she could too.
Slow down, she cautioned herself. A good gambler always assessed the risk and there was risk here. If her father intended him to be a protege and she assisted with that, she could effectively cut herself out of the picture altogether. She would have to go carefully. On the other hand, it would be a chance to show her father what she could do in a situation where he would be unable to deny her talent.
It was a venture that could see her exiled or elevated, but she was nothing if not her father’s daughter; a gambler at heart who knew the risks and rules of any engagement and chose to play anyway.
Gamblers of any successful repute generally acknowledged the secret to luck resided in knowing three things: the rules, the stakes and when to quit. No one knew this better than English billiards legend, Allen Lockhart. He couldn’t remember a time when the stakes hadn’t been high—they always were when all one had to risk was a reputation. As for quitting—if there was a time to quit, he hadn’t discovered it yet, which was why the usual ritual of a brandy with long-time friend and partner, Kendall Carlisle, did not fill him with the usual satisfaction on this dreary March afternoon.
Normally this time of day was his favourite. It was a time when he could sit back in one of the club’s deep chairs and savour his domain. His domain. Carlisle managed the place, but it had been his billiards money that had built this and more.
Across from him, oblivious to his restless observations, Carlisle took a swallow of brandy followed by a contented sigh. ‘This is the life, Allen. Not bad for two junior boot boys.’
Allen smiled in response. It was a well-loved reminiscence of his. The two of them had done well over the years kowtowing to the rich gentlemen in the subscription rooms of Bath for shillings. They’d watched and they’d learned, eventually establishing their own small empire. Now they were the rich gentlemen. Now they ran the subscription rooms, not in Bath, but in more lucrative Brighton. They earned much more than shillings from customers these days. At the age of forty-seven, Allen Lockhart took great pride in having used the rules of billiards to rise above his poor beginnings.
From their grouping of chairs by the fire, Allen could hear the quiet snick of ivory balls on baize, the unmistakable sounds of lazy-afternoon billiard games going on in the room beyond him. Later in the evening, the club would be crowded with officers and gentlemen, the tables loud with the intensity of money games.
Allen felt his hand twitch in anticipation of the games to come. He didn’t play in public often anymore, not wanting to tarnish his image by making himself vulnerable to defeat. A legend couldn’t be beaten too often without damaging the illusion of being untouchable. But the desire was still there. Billiards was in his blood. He was the legendary Allen Lockhart, after all. He’d built this club on his fame. People came here to play, of course, but also to see him. It wasn’t enough to be good at billiards; one also had to be a showman.
He knew the power of a well-placed word here, a timely stroke tip there. It was heady stuff to think people would talk about a single sentence from him for months in London. ‘Lockhart says you have to hit the ball from the side’ or ‘Lockhart recommends African ivory for balls’. But lately, the usual thrill had faded. Such excitement had become de rigueur. He was restless.
The resounding crack of a hard break shattered the laconic atmosphere of the room. Allen briefly acknowledged it with a swift glance towards table three where a young officer played before turning back to Kendall. ‘I hope you’re coming up to the house tomorrow for the party.’
‘I wouldn’t miss it. I’m looking forward to seeing the new table.’ Carlisle raised his glass in a toast. ‘I hear Thurston has outdone himself this time.’
Lockhart grinned broadly like a proud first-time father. ‘Slate tables with rubber bumpers are the way of the future. They’re fast, Kendall.’ Another loud break from table three interrupted. This time Lockhart spared the table more than a passing glance. ‘Good Lord, that lad’s got some power.’ He chanced a look in the direction of the secret viewing room and wondered what Mercedes would make of it. Kendall hadn’t lied when he’d said the lad could play.
Blackwell Docks, Sutton Shipyard, London—mid-March 1839
She was screwed! Absolutely royally screwed in the literal sense of the word; the word in question being ‘royally’, of course. Elise Sutton crumpled the letter in her hand and stared blindly at the office wall. Like the other investors, the royal family had finally withdrawn their patronage. And like the other investors, they’d politely waited a ‘decent’ interval to tell her. They were very sorry to hear of her father’s death, but the result was the same. The Sutton Yacht Company was on the brink of bankruptcy, brought to its knees by the sudden and tragic death of its founder, Sir Richard Sutton, six months earlier.
In truth, the idea the company had survived its owner by six months was something of an illusion. It had likely died with her father, only no one had bothered to tell her that. Apparently, courtesy demanded she be allowed to rise at dawn every morning and spend the next sixteen hours a day poring over account books, cataloguing inventory and lobbying investors who had no intentions of staying. She’d worn herself out all for naught and what passed for courtesy let her do it.
Well, courtesy be damned! It wasn’t a very ladylike thought, but according to the ton, she hadn’t been a lady for quite some time. By their exalted standards, ladies didn’t work side by side with their fathers in the family business. Ladies didn’t design yachts, didn’t spend their days adding up columns of numbers and most certainly didn’t set aside mourning half a year early to try to save sinking businesses. Ladies meekly accepted the inevitable with hands folded in their laps and backs held rigid.
If that’s what ladies did, she most definitely wasn’t one. She’d spent the last seven years working with her father. The yacht company was as much hers as it had been his. It was part of her and she would not let it go, not without a fight.
At the moment she had admittedly few tools to fight with. The investors had gone, unconvinced the company could produce a worthy product without her father at the helm. The craftsmen and master builder had gone next. The presence of females had long been anathema in the nautical world and no reassurance on her part could induce them to stay. Even her mother was gone. Playing the devastated widow to the hilt, Olivia Sutton had retreated to the country after the funeral and simply disappeared.
Elise had told enquiring souls that her mother was taking her father’s death very poorly. Secretly, Elise thought her mother was managing quite well, too well for her personal tastes. In the months since the funeral, her mother’s letters from the country had become increasingly upbeat. There were quiet card parties and dinners to attend and everyone was so kind, now there was no longer an often absent husband to consider.
Her mother had loved Richard Sutton’s title; Sir Richard Sutton had been knighted two years prior for services to the Royal Thames Yacht Club, but Olivia Sutton hadn’t loved the work that had driven and absorbed him, taking him away from her. The marriage had been a convenient arrangement for years. Olivia had been more than happy to leave her daughter and son to manage the business of coping with solicitors, creditors and the other sundry visitors who hovered over a death like vultures.
The pencil in Elise’s hand snapped, the fifth one today. The sound drew her brother’s attention from the window overlooking the shipyard. ‘Is it as bad as all that?’
Elise pushed the pieces into the little pile on the corner of her desk with the remains of their fellow brethren. ‘It’s worse.’ She rose and joined William at the window. The normally bustling shipyard below them was silent and empty, a sight she was still having a hard time adjusting to. ‘I’ve sold anything of value associated with the business.’
There hadn’t been that much to sell, but that was only partially true. The shipyard itself was a valuable piece of property for its location on the Thames. She wasn’t sure she could face the prospect of giving up the business entirely. This had been her life. What would she do every day if she didn’t design yachts? Where would she go if she didn’t come here? Giving up the yard would be akin to giving up a piece of her soul. In society’s eyes she’d already done that once when she’d chosen to follow her father and not the pathway trod by other gently reared girls with means.
William sighed, pushing a hand through his blond hair, the gesture so much like their father it made her heart ache. At nineteen, William was a taller, lankier version of him, a living memory of the man they’d lost. ‘How much are we short?’
‘Twelve thousand pounds.’ Just saying the words hurt. No one had that kind of money except noblemen. Elise thought of the crumpled letter. She’d been counting on that. Royal patronage would have sustained them.
William whistled. ‘That’s not exactly pocket change.’
‘You could always marry an heiress.’ Elise elbowed him and tried for levity. William didn’t love the business as she did, but he’d loved Father and he’d been her supporter these past months, taking time away from his beloved studies to visit.
‘I could leave my studies.’ William said seriously. He was starting his third term at Oxford and thriving in the academic atmosphere. They’d been over this before. She wouldn’t hear of it.
‘No, Father wanted his son educated,’ Elise argued firmly. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be enough.’ She didn’t want to be cruel, she appreciated her brother’s offer, but the money would hardly make a difference. Since it didn’t, it seemed unfair for William to make a useless sacrifice even if it was a noble offer.
‘What about the investors—perhaps they would advance funds?’ William suggested. The last time he’d been home, there’d still been a few remaining who had not yet discreetly weaned themselves from the company, still hoping there might be a way yet to continue with the latest project.
Elise shook her head. ‘They’ve all pulled out. No one wants to invest in a company that can’t produce a product.’ They’d more than pulled out. It was largely the investors’ faults she was in such a pickle. Her father had not been debt ridden, but neither had he been wallowing in assets. The investors had withdrawn their support and asked for their money returned, unconvinced the latest project they’d financed would see completion.
Said project lay below them in the quiet yard—the half-completed shell of her father’s latest design for a racing yacht, planned with new innovations in mind, lay dormant. For the last several weeks, the investors were proven right. Supplies purchased with the investors’ money from the outset lined the lonely perimeter, tarp covered and forgotten. ‘A pity the investors didn’t want to be paid in timber and pitch,’ Elise muttered. ‘I’ve got plenty of that.’
William’s eyes settled on her, brown and thoughtful. ‘All the supplies have been purchased?’
‘Yes. Father buys—bought, Elise corrected herself, ‘everything up front, it makes production faster and we don’t have to worry about running out at a crucial point.’
William nodded absently, his mind racing behind his eyes. ‘How much would the yacht have brought?’
She smiled wryly. ‘Enough. It would have been plenty.’ It wouldn’t have been just about the yacht. There would have been other orders, too. This yacht was meant to be a prototype. Rich men would have seen it and wanted one for themselves. But it was no use now counting hypothetical pounds.
‘You could finish the boat,’ William suggested.
Elise furrowed her brow and studied her brother carefully. Was that a joke? Had he been listening to anything she’d said? Her temper snapped. ‘I can’t finish the boat, William. I don’t know the first thing about actually using hammer and nails. And in case you haven’t noticed, there are no men down there, no master builder.’
She regretted the sarcasm immediately. William looked hurt. It wasn’t fair to take her agitation out on him. He was suffering, too. He knew what people had said about him behind their hands at the funeral. ‘There’s the son, but he’s too young to take over the company. If only he was a couple years older, then things might have come out all right.’ That was usually followed up by the other unfriendly speculation. ‘Too bad the daughter doesn’t have a husband. A husband would know what to do.’ Husbands solved everything in their little worlds.
‘I’m sorry, William.’ Elise laid a conciliatory hand on his sleeve. ‘It’s a nice theory. Even if I had the men, I couldn’t finish that yacht. The innovations require the knowledge of a master builder. More than that, I’d need the best.’ They would have managed without a master builder if her father had been there to oversee the project, as he so often had been, but no workers were going to take orders from a woman even if she had been instrumental in the boat’s design.
She needed a master builder more than anything else to finish that boat. Beyond her father, she didn’t have a clue who the best was when it came to ship design. Her own talent notwithstanding, she was female and thus excluded from that circle. It had not bothered her unduly in the past. She’d had her father and he’d given her every opportunity she’d desired to advance her skill even if it was often anonymously. She’d never thought further than that. Why should she have? Her father had been in his late forties, in excellent health and at the top of his game.
