C2’s review of The Secret Wedding by Jo Beverley
Historical Romance released by Signet 7 Apr 09

Ah, faithful reader, you know that old saying “No good deed goes unpunished”? Well, Christian Hill, Viscount Grandiston learned that lesson early. At the tender age of 15 (!!), just as his regiment was getting ready to sail to Canada to fight in the French and Indian War (15!!), he learned that a fellow soldier planned to run off with a student from a local girls’ school and marry her for her money. So, of course, Christian rushed off to save her from the evil lieutenant’s clutches. 

For his trouble, Christian ended up taking his first life (the lieutenant was not agreeable and drew his sword) – and married to Miss Dorcas Froggett (yikes, the name!) – her aunt burst in just as the sword fight was over and made sure her niece was not compromised in any way. Yup, Christian saved the girl from ruin…just not quite in the way he planned.

After the ceremony (Christian had enough wits about him to use a different first name, at least), Miss Froggett was taken away by her aunt and Christian returned to his barracks. A few days later he sailed off to war, putting his unexpected wedding behind him like a bad dream. A few years later, Christian received word that his young bride had passed away.

Little did Christian realize that his bride, Mistress Caro (wise girl, now using her middle – and much more attractive – name) Hill was also receiving word that her husband had been killed. And now the plot is afoot, faithful reader. We’re off and running. There are so many twists and turns, I won’t even try to condense it down for you. Let’s just say that no one is as honest as they should be or shares information when they should.

Instead I will talk about how much I enjoy Jo B’s Georgian era novels – I have loved them since I first read My Lady Notorious, years and years ago. The Mallorens have a special place on my keeper shelf so I was very glad to see Rothgar and Diana show up to help things along in this book. Best fairy godmother and godfather ever!

An interesting bit of information about this off-shoot series set in the Malloren world is that for this trilogy, Jo B is using roughly the same set up for each series – two people, both not quite what they seem, meet at an inn and have a road-trip adventure that leads to love. What could be better than that?

If you enjoy lively, fast-paced romps through the English countryside – with a side a Malloren-style machinations to help love along – give this book a try. It stands alone well enough, although reading the first book will give some extra background on Christian. I, of course, recommend reading all the books set in the Malloren world. )

Grade: A

Summary:

When is a rake not a rake? When he’s seducing his wife?
 Home from a decade of war, Christian, Major Lord Grandiston wants to enjoy bachelor pleasures, but his father is wooing a rich woman on his behalf. Embarrassing, when he might already have a wife. Is Dorcas Froggatt alive, and if so, will she be his salvation or an even worse burden? He heads north to the industrial town of Sheffield to find out, but soon he’s on the run from the law with a woman who’s nothing but trouble, especially when they’re joined by a very peculiar cat.
Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series:

Loosely connected to:

Before I start this – please remember I’m talking generalisations, about the zeitgeist. There are always exceptions to the rule, always exceptional people and situations, but citing their examples doesn’t make it the norm. Authors generally work with the fringes, with the exceptions, so there’s a real danger that they can become regarded as the reality. 

The problem with historical novels is hindsight. There are so many expectations about the historical novel, and they’re based on relatively modern schools of thought. Much like a Regency gentleman in a novel calling another Regency gentleman “paranoid.” It sounds normal to us, but that’s because we’re the other side of the great psychoanalysis revolution.

I write historicals set in the mid eighteenth century, and even the word “class” wouldn’t have come naturally to the average Georgian. The term “working class” was meaningless. Everyone did some kind of work, didn’t they? Aristocrats worked hard to maintain their estates and build their reputations and that of the country. The farmer worked hard to enrich the land and enrich himself in the process. Oh yes, there were slackers in every part of society, but on the whole most people knew their place and worked to make the best of it.

And in those days, ‘knowing your place’ didn’t carry any sense of superiority or inferiority, it meant what it said. You knew where you belonged but that didn’t stop you aspiring to improve your situation, mainly by making more money. There were no legal barriers preventing you from going as high as you wanted and had the ability for. The British were always proud of that. In theory a beggar could become a duke, and over time, some did, although it might take centuries. However, the family of an upstart Cit went from adventurer to Prime Minister to Earl in the breathtaking space of two generations, so it could be done, and of course, in Charles II’s time, several women went from the streets to becoming duchesses. The Pitts, older and younger, were hugely wealthy and hugely powerful, but until the older Pitt was given the title of earl as his reward for being Prime Minister, they remained commoners. Nell Gwynne, actress and prostitute became the mother of two dukes. The ancestry of many of Britain’s most influential families had their roots in the gutter. And may were proud of that, too.

So many modern writers have assumed that the duke didn’t have anything to do except enjoy the wealth and title, and the title often seems as important as the holdings that went with it. There were very few dukes in Georgian Britain, and they weren’t always as powerful or wealthy as some earls, or even misters. Dukes would also have no time to be a spy, and wouldn’t have considered it if they were. The person who rehabilitated the spy and made it seem glamorous was Ian Fleming. Before that, the spy was considered not a gentleman because he had to lie and cheat to obtain his goal. Even in the army, the spying was played down and not made much of, although at times it was important to the country.

The first person to use class analysis in any way was the social reformer William Cobbett, born in 1763, whose description of the country in “Rural Rides,” published in the 1820’s, including the phrase “the middling sort” – the first reference to the middle classes, who by the 1820’s were more of a cohesive whole and the rising influence in the land. The gulf between richest and poorest was growing into a yawning chasm.

The concept of class and the attached connotations of “better” and “worse” didn’t really emerge until the Victorian era, when hypocrisy and moral condemnation came in with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Social reformers like Friedrich Engels, Mrs. Gaskell and the Manchester group began to question accepted norms, as a result of seeing the suffering of the poor in the newly industrialised cities. Engels corresponded with Karl Marx, and he undertook a formal model of British society as he knew it – and we’re now well into Victorian times.

Basically, Marx developed the notions of class that we have today from a series of disparate notions that were floating about at the time. So applying the idea to a pre-Marxian time isn’t exactly accurate. And I’m speaking here about Marx as a social historian, not Marx as a social reformer. In British schools and universities, his historian aspect is a compulsory course of study. In the States, because of the Cold War, mention of Marx brings up visions of communism and extremism. Modern Marxist historians like John Berger have added to the body of knowledge about history, and while Marx is banned, Berger is often a set text.

In the Georgian era, if the average British person hated anyone, it was the foreigner. They weren’t trusted, were seen as wrong-headed, and the Brit always considered himself superior to the people across the 20 odd miles of the English Channel (or La Manche, depending on which side of it you were). In France, unlike Britain, there were clear legal barriers why a peasant could never become a duke and an intimate of the King. The Brits were always proud of that fluidity in their society.

And let’s be clear – the English did not hate the Scots, or vice versa. Scottish noblemen mostly saw themselves as part of the nobility (their accents, habits and way of life were identical). When the Clearances came to a head in the early nineteenth century, most of the Acts of Parliament were initiated by Scots noblemen and opposed by English ones as inhuman and cruel.

The Jacobite rebellion was led by a man who was as much Italian and French as he was Scots, and as soon as the 1745 failed he went back to Italy and never returned. He didn’t answer any petitions from the people he’d helped to ruin, and turned into an alcoholic wife-beater. The Scots were abandoned. But there were a lot of Englishmen ruined, too. The Jacobite rebellion drew in the strongly Catholic county of Lancashire, and other Catholic strongholds, and many Scots refused to take part, as they were Protestants and had no desire to bring back the Papists. It was observed that Scotland could have been a great nation, if its people weren’t so busy fighting each other. Clan against clan, the despair of every monarch, whether lowland Scot or Englishman (or even German) who tried to rule them.

In the Georgian era, Britain’s relationship with Ireland was relatively smooth. Only relatively, though, and I don’t even want to begin on the headache that is the Irish Question, as Gladstone put it. Being married to a second generation Irishman, I kind of straddle both worlds, and even thinking about it hurts.

It’s amazing how much of our own baggage we bring into what we write without even noticing, and the American concept of equality and democracy all factors into it. To a European, the differences jar and are obvious, but since most of the readers are Americans they don’t notice. And why should they? It’s not a matter of schooling, it’s a matter of understanding, and as I learned when I started to write contemporaries, it’s damned hard to ‘get it’ if you’re not brought up to it.

Since I started writing contemporary romances, albeit paranormals, and writing American heroes and heroines, I’ve become even more aware of the differences in attitude and approach. The big difference is that I have American editors who never hesitate in putting me right (thank goodness!). But American writers of historicals tend to have American editors, so not only inaccuracies of fact get through, but attitude and assumptions. Then I discovered that Americans have classes, and they are so complex that I can’t get my stupid British head around them.

When I wrote Chemistry of Evil, I wanted to make my hero, Evan Howell, New York old money. Although born in the class of rich WASP easterners, he went to jail, and several sources assured me that would make him unacceptable, although he might have been accepted by West Coast old money, as they were a completely different set of people. Argh! I got so confused by the arcane never-written-always-understood rules that I gave up and made Evan a different kind of person altogether. I studied a bit more and I’ve tried again, in the upcoming Red Heat. Please let me know if I got it wrong. I had never realised that American society is as full as classes, albeit of a different kind, than the British, and it wasn’t all based on money. If Evan was as rich as Croesus, I was assured that he wouldn’t have been acceptable to the upper echelons of New York old money.

Ten years ago Laura Kinsale, Mary Jo Putney and even Jo Beverley, who is after all British by birth, were completely new names to me. Thanks to a wonderful lady I will refer to as The Duchess, since she’s a bit shy of putting herself out there, I was introduced to the wonders of the American authored historical romance. I wallowed in Liz Carlyle, the ladies above and many others, and since she didn’t send any guidance in her ‘care packages,’ boxes of books I opened like it was Christmas, I discovered for myself which I loved and which I didn’t. There are authors lauded for their accuracy that I just can’t read because the assumptions are so wrong. They get the historical details right, but not the way society worked. Maids as best friends, dukes as spies, ladies posing as servants, well born virgins falling into bed with the nearest man with no mention or consideration of marriage, people disappearing from society for months on end with nobody wondering about them: none of these work well for me. Below stairs was as stratified, if not more, than above.

But in the interests of accuracy, I have to say that of course some people considered themselves superior to others. It could be brain-power, it could be wealth. It could be family and in Britain, family networks often superseded anything else. It could be “birth,” but that’s where one of the misunderstandings

arise, and it’s a subtle and tricky difference to understand. You were as good as your social network, and that depended on family influence to a great extent. In the county, the gentry were a tight-knit network of nepotism and influence, blending with other officials, like the vicars and bishops, and the lawyers. They weren’t, however, a homogenous class and they didn’t view themselves as such. The prosperous shopkeeper, the farmer and the country vicar might have similar interests. The aristocracy were similarly linked, and then there were the wealthy Cits, a very underplayed section of society in the modern romance novel. (Would you read a book about a Cit, one of the wealthy London merchants and bankers? I’ve long wanted to write one).

And where do I get this from? The historian’s friend, primary data. The letters, books, parish records, journals, newspapers, diaries, novels, poetry, account books and legal records written at the time. Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” the collections of the letters of society gossips Horace Walpole and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, novels like Fielding’s Tom Jones and Richardson’s Pamela, the scandalous Newgate Calendar, periodicals like The Spectator and The Lady’s Monthly Museum, accounts of the proceedings of Parliament, parish records and court rolls. And many of these have been put online, so that makes it even better. Sometimes I stop long enough to write something. And because this is primary data, I have to form an opinion on them in order to write a cohesive book.

As they say, your mileage may vary. But this is mine.

Are you tired of reading 2008 wrap-up lists yet?? Too bad! Read on, suckers gentle readers.

My top 10 books I read in 2008 (in no particular order): 

	Heart Fate (Celta’s HeartMates, Book 7) by Robin D. Owens Fantasy romance released by Berkley Trade Sep 2008 A series that just keeps getting better and better!
	Flat-out Sexy by Erin McCarthy Contemporary romance released by Berkley Sensation Nov 2008 Sweet, sexy, fun read! The internet buzz sucked me in and I’m glad. )
	Innocent In Death by J.D. Robb Futuristic romantic suspense released by Berkley Aug 2007I purposely keep myself behind in this series but I’m catching up – oh noes! I must pace myself better.
	Pleasure Unbound (Demonica, Book 1) by Larissa Ione Paranormal romance released by Forever Jun 2008 An excellent start to a new series! With a looonnngggg wait between books one and two. However, books two and three will be out back-to-back. Yay!
	Gabriel’s Ghost by Linnea Sinclair Sci-Fi romance released by Bantam Oct 2005  Sully! Does anything else need to be said? I didn’t think so.
	Grimspace by Ann Aguirre Sci-fi romance released by Ace Feb 2008
	A Lady’s Secret by Jo Beverley Historical romance released by Signet Apr 2008 I love the Mallorens and this was one secret I was glad to see revealed.
	At the Bride Hunt Ball by Olivia Parker Historical romance released by Avon May 2008An excellent Avon debut! Ms. Parker’s website says she is working on the sequel.
	Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James Contemporary romance released by Berkley Oct 2008 More online buzz I couldn’t ignore and another excellent debut.
	With Every Breath by Lynn Kurland Fantasy time-travel romance released by Jove May 2008One of my very favorite authors! She doesn’t get the attention she deserves, says me.

A side note – I have got to change my rating system, dang it all. I suppose I’ll go back to numbers. I always have too many books with the same rating and then I can’t sort them properly.

Honorable Mention:

	Josh Lanyon’s Adrien English Mysteries – yup, I read them all in 08…I can haz moar, plzkthx?
	J.L. Langley’s Englor Series – just so fab!

Shannon C.’s review of A Lady’s Secret by Jo Beverley
Historical romance published Apr 25, 2008 by Signet

Reading the last book in a series is always a bit daunting, especially if you haven’t been following said series. But some genres pull off series books that act as standalones better than do others. That’s why, when Sybil asked me to read Jo Beverley’s latest, A Lady’s Secret I figured it wouldn’t matter so much if the book was set in her popular Malloren world, which I’d never visited before, because it’s a historical and I figured it’d stand alone.

For the most part, this book works well as a standalone. Petra D’Avirio and Robin Fitzhenry are a great hero and heroine. I liked them, and I liked the Georgian setting.

Petra D’Avirio is fleeing France and needs to get to England quick, fast and in a hurry because she’s being pursued by a ruthless and somewhat less than upstanding suitor. To foil her pursuers, she disguises herself as a nun, and it’s when she stops at an inn with Lady Sodworth, the horrible woman she’s traveling with that she meets Robin. Robin is intrigued by this soberly dressed nun at a french innyard cursing in Italian and wanting to go to England. On a lark, he agrees to help her, and the book becomes a very interesting road romance, in which Petra and Robin have to test their mettle and fight their attraction.

The first half was awesome. Petra is discomfited by Robin, who is a lighthearted, cheerful smart ass. She is undeniably attracted to him, and knows if she pursued him, that would be a very bad thing. Robin, in his turn, wants to pry out all of Petra’s secrets. There are a lot of adventures in which each rescues the other a couple of times, and my attention was caught.

The second half of the book falters. Primarily, this is because Petra and Robin spend a huge chunk of the book apart. I suspect that, if I’d read the other Malloren books, I would have enjoyed the fact that they all get trotted out at various points. Instead, I rolled my eyes at yet another author choosing unwieldy, pretentious names for the men in her universe, none of whom really seemed all that fleshed out.

The large amount of time spent apart also didn’t really help the romance. The declaration of love at the end didn’t quite work for me, because I just didn’t think the characters had had enough quiet moments where they were each being honest with each other, so I wasn’t all that invested in the romance.

I suspect that this book will work a lot better for readers familliar with Beverley’s oeuvre, but it was just OK for me.

Summary:

     When Robin Fitzvitry, the fun-loving Earl of Huntersdown, encounters a cursing nun in a French inn, he can’t resist the mystery. He offers to help Sister Immaculata reach England, expecting only amusement on the tedious journey home from Versailles. Petra d’Averio is not exactly a nun, though she has spent years in an Italian convent with her widowed mother. Her mother’s death has left her in danger and she must find the only person who might protect her—her true father, an English lord who does not even know she exists. This gorgeous young aristocrat will be a dangerous ally, but she’s glimpsed her pursuers and must race to the coast. She will resist him, use him, and eventually escape him with virtue and secrets intact. She hopes….

     You can read an excerpt here.

A Lady’s Secret by Jo Beverley

Jo Beverley keeps a blog of interesting historical facts she finds while doing her research. Tres nifty… you should check it out. In fact her whole website is worth checking out, interesting stuff, and I have to admit this is my first book to read by the author (the summary will explain ).

Although I have kept Lovers and Ladies out since it showed up for review a few weeks ago.

She is getting much love from the coverfairy…

The nun on the run and the rake on the make!

     When Robin Fitzvitry, the fun-loving Earl of Huntersdown, encounters a cursing nun in a French inn, he can’t resist the mystery. He offers to help Sister Immaculata reach England, expecting only amusement on the tedious journey home from Versailles. Petra d’Averio is not exactly a nun, though she has spent years in an Italian convent with her widowed mother. Her mother’s death has left her in danger and she must find the only person who might protect her—her true father, an English lord who does not even know she exists. This gorgeous young aristocrat will be a dangerous ally, but she’s glimpsed her pursuers and must race to the coast. She will resist him, use him, and eventually escape him with virtue and secrets intact. She hopes….

It isn’t often a man hears a cursing nun.

Robin Fitzvitry, Earl of Huntersdown was finishing his meal at a table by the window and thus had an excellent view of the woman out in the coach yard. There could be no doubt. She was muttering curses and she was a nun.

She was standing beneath the outside gallery that gave access to the bedrooms upstairs, so her gray clothing blended with the shadows, but her clothing was a nun’s habit or he was a mother superior. Her plain gown was belted with rope, and a dark headcloth hung down her back. There was even a long wooden rosary hanging from the belt and perhaps sandals on her feet. She had her back turned, but he thought she might be young.

“Maledizione!” she exploded. Italian?

The frivolity of fur known as Coquette finally proved useful. The Papillon dog wriggled to put her front paws on the windowsill, to see what had made that noise. Her plumy tail swept Robin’s chin, giving him an excuse to lean to the right.

Yes, certainly a nun. What, Robin wondered with growing delight, was an Italian nun doing in Northern France, beseeching the devil, no less?

“So, sir, do we go on?”

Robin turned back to Powick, his middle-aged English manservant, who was sitting across their dining table beside Fontaine, his young French valet. Powick was square and weathered; Fontaine was slender and pale. They were as dissimilar in nature as in appearance, but each suited Robin in his own way.
Go on? Ah yes, they’d been discussing whether to take rooms here for the night, or push on toward Boulogne and England.

“I’m not sure,” Robin said.

“‘Tis not much past three, sir,” Powick argued. “Plenty of traveling light this time of year.”

“But a storm, she would turn the roads to pottage!” Fontaine exclaimed. “We could be stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

He was probably correct, but he also wanted to linger in France as long as possible. Robin had tempted the valet to leave the service of a prince with high pay and many privileges, but even after three years, Fontaine shuddered at each return to England. Powick, who’d served Robin for twenty years, grumbled all the time they were in France.

“Think on that lot ‘as just arrived,” Powick said, playing a very strong card.

An overloaded Berlin carriage had recently swayed into the inn yard and disgorged howling children harried by a screeching mother. The party had pounded up the outside stairs and now some possessions were being unloaded. They were staying for the night, and above, the children still howled and the mother still screeched.

In English. An English party might want to strike up an acquaintance with him. Robin was a gregarious fellow, but he chose his company. A crash and shriek of rage should have settled it, but he glanced outside again. His mother often predicted that curiosity would be the death of him, but what would you? It was his nature.

“You agree, don’t you?” Robin said to Coquette, who twitched her enormous ears and wagged her plumy tail.

“Agree we should leave?” asked Powick.

“Agree we should stay?” asked Fontaine.

“Agree we should investigate outside,” Robin said, picking up the dog and rising. “I’ll get a better look at the weather, and ask advice of the local people.”

With that, he strolled outside, tucking Coquette into his large coat pocket, which she seemed to enjoy. It was as well he liked to dress casually for travel for the current fashion was for close-fitting coats with no useful pockets at all.

He approached the now silent figure considering what language to use. His Italian was only passable, but his French was perfect, and they were in France.

“May I aid you, Sister?” he asked in that language.

She turned sharply, and his breath caught.

He was looking at a stunning face. It was oval, but the tight, white cap she wore beneath the gray veil was made with a widow’s peak that came down almost to her brow. The narrow frill continued all the way to the tie beneath her chin, forming a heart shape that seemed designed to emphasize large, dark eyes and full, soft lips that needed no emphasis at all. What demented bishop had thought up that cap? For a certainty, no mother superior would have done so.

Her complexion was pale, which he supposed common enough in the cloister, but it glowed with health, as perfect as the creamy rose petal tumbling over a nearby wall. Her nose was straight, with tiny dimples just above the nostrils, and those lips…

Robin inhaled. Such lips were made for kisses not confessionals. And she was young. She could not be much over twenty.

She disciplined those lips into a firm line. “Thank you, monsieur, but I need no help,” she said and turned away.

Good French, but not that of a native speaker and people generally swore in their native tongue. Italian, for sure. What the devil was an Italian nun doing in Northern France, alone?

He moved into her line of sight, plying his most disarming smile. “Sister, I have no ill-intentions, but I can hardly ignore a lady in distress, especially a Bride of Christ.”

She made as if to turn away again, but then stilled and studied him in a remarkably direct way. Robin hid a smile. Put that with the cursing and what he had here was not a true nun, but an adventuress in disguise.

And to think he’d been bored.

“Permit me to introduce myself, Sister,” he said, bowing. “Mr. Bonchurch, English gentleman, very much at your service.” He felt a little uncomfortable at such a direct lie, but he always used a false name when traveling in France. His true name and title caused fuss and sometimes people would even alert the local dignitaries and he’d be plagued with visits and invitations. And this, after all, was a mere amusement en route.

The nun continued to study him, as if making calculations. Before she decided whether to give her name, hard footsteps rattled the wooden gallery above and that strident voice yelled, “Sister Immaculata! Sister Immaculata! Where the deuce are you?”

“Sister Immaculata, I assume,” Robin said with a smile.

She looked up balefully. “How many stray nuns can there be here?”

“And you arrived in the Berlin-”

“Sister Immaculata!”

She muttered something, but said, “I must go.”

He moved to block her. “You are the children’s nurse? My condolences.”

“I am not.” She punctuated it with a sharp hand gesture that was emphatically Italian. “But the nurse, she contracted an ague in Amiens and milady’s maid abandoned her in Dijon. Now there is only me.”

“Sister! Sister! Come here immediately!”

“No wonder you were swearing at fate.” Robin gestured toward a nearby arch. “If we were to go through there, we would be out of sight and could discuss your liberation from durance vile.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

Again she moved to leave.

Again he blocked the way. “It will not hurt to talk.”

She frowned at him, but thoughtfully rather than angrily. At another yell, she threw up her eloquent hands and hurried through the arch. Robin followed, admiring her brisk, light movements. She was so deliciously vigorous, perhaps more strikingly so for being veiled in shapeless gray.

Her gray veil brushed a fading rose, scattering petals but collecting one. When he plucked it off she whirled to challenge him, hand raised to point or hit. He exhibited the evidence. She simmered down, but he began to heat. There’d been a frisson of awareness at his lightest touch, and now pink touched her cheeks. This was no nun.

He crushed the petal and invited her to enjoy the perfume, but Coquette, the jealous minx, yipped.

Sister Immaculata flinched, then stared. “What is that?

“A Coquette,” he said, for in French it meant `a little nothing.’ “Ignore it.”

Instead she put out a hand to stroke the tiny head. Robin was familiar with the effect. After all, he’d acquired Coquette to seduce a lady in Versailles, where the breed was all the rage. He took the dog out, willing to use any tool.

“So pretty!”

“Allow me to give her to you as a gift.”

She drew back, frowning. “How heartless you are.”

“It is my mission in life to fulfill all ladies’ desires.” He smiled into her eyes. “Come into the inn, Sister Immaculata, and tell me yours.”

She hissed in a breath. Had he gone too far, too fast? But another screech from her employer made her turn and hurry through the arch. It took them to a small garden from which another door opened into the inn’s entrance hall.

“Too public,” he said, touching her arm to steer her into what looked like an empty parlor. She moved sharply ahead to outpace his touch. He followed, but didn’t close the door. Yet. There was an old story about a princess and a pea. He generally found that such sensitivity to his touch indicated a woman was primed for pleasure.

“Now, Sister,” he said gently, “your desires?”

“Stop saying such things. You show no respect for my habit.”

“It’s such a dismal garment. But,” he added, raising his free hand to signal peace, “I merely meant your wishes about your situation. The lady’s maid left. The nursemaid left. You are the screeching lady’s only servant…”

As he’d predicted, hard-heeled footsteps beat a tattoo down the steps to the inn yard and the demands started up again there.

“Her name?” he asked.

“Lady Sodworth.” The English words spoken with a fluid Italian accent sounded like another curse.

Robin didn’t recognize the title Sodworth, and the haut vollée of Britain was his world. Another imposter? Could this be some strange plot?

“What exactly is your position with the lady?” he asked, studying her.

“Companion. But now, she expects me to do everything.”

“And you’ve endured the lady all the way from…?”

“Milan.”

“Why?”

The simple question seemed to challenge her.

“I had reason to travel to England and needed female companionship.”

Through the open window, he could hear the lady haranguing an ostler in atrocious French.

“The price seems high.”

“She’s is under great strain.”

“Which I suspect is entirely of her own creation. The voice alone would drive off angels.”

Another flip of fine-fingered hands. “I have no choice. I must go and pacify her.” She headed for the door.

“Your destination is England?”

“Yes.”

“Then may I take you there?”

She turned to face him. “Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a man.”

“A very safe one.”

She gave a snort of disbelief. But she didn’t continue on her way.

“Truly, Sister Immaculata, a man like me can’t afford to add cuckolding God to his sins. But perhaps rescuing one of his brides would wipe away some years in Purgatory?”

“You think me an idiot, sir? You are not a man any woman should trust.”

“On the contrary, it’s the hungry beast that is dangerous. You behold me, Sister, exhausted by the ladies of Versailles.”

The pink that flooded her cheeks made him dizzy, but her eyes remained steady. “Are you staying here tonight?”

He knew the necessary answer. “No.”

Lady Sodworth was inside the inn now, her demanding voice cutting the air like a saw. Upstairs, something shattered, perhaps even a window.

The errant nun moved to hide behind the door. “Do you travel swiftly?” she whispered.

“As swiftly as roads and horses permit.”

“Do you give me your word, sir, at peril of your immortal soul, that you will deliver me safe to London?”

Safe was a slippery term. Robin defined it to suit himself and said, “I do.” Then he grinned. “How very matrimonial, to be sure.”

Her expression turned wry. “You are beautiful and wicked, Mr. Bonchurch, and used to women falling into your hands like ripe fruit, but I assure you it won’t happen with me. I want no complaints when we arrive in London with your lust unsatisfied.”

“Not a one,” he promised, drowning in delight. “But you do realize that constitutes a challenge?”

“One I’m bound to win. As you said, you can’t afford to cuckold God. You have a carriage?”

“A chaise. I need only order horses put to.”

“Excellent. But even better if I get into your chaise now, don’t you think?”

“You’re a conspirator after my own heart, Sister, and you’re right. Your Lady Sodworth’s next step will be to have the whole inn searched.”

As if to confirm his thought, the harassed innkeeper popped his head into the room. Robin pulled out a gold coin; the man saw it, nodded, and hurried on. Robin opened the casement window and looked out at a lane alongside the inn. “All’s clear.” He moved a chair beneath it.

She hesitated, but then hurried over and climbed nimbly out, showing him sandals and bare ankles. He replaced the chair and followed, grinning. “This way,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the inn.

They entered the yard close to Robin’s post-chaise, which sat axle-down, awaiting a new team of horses. He hurried his adventuress to it and handed her inside. Another touch, another frisson. Her position was awkward in the slanted coach, but she managed.

“I’ll order the horses.”

But she suddenly clasped her hands and raised them her lips. “No, I can’t. I need my possessions, my traveling trunk.”

“I will buy you anything you need.”

“I will not be so indebted to you.”

He shrugged. “Where is your trunk?”

“It was in the boot of the coach, but it might have been carried inside.”

Robin turned to study the Berlin. Baggage was piled on top of the big, four-wheeled coach, but that was not being disturbed. The boot was open and already half-empty. As he watched, a man came out of the inn, grabbed two bundles, and carried them inside. Bedding? Robin could have told Lady Sodworth that the sheets at the Tête de Boeuf were clean and aired, but from the sounds of her, she wouldn’t listen.

“What does your trunk look like?” he asked.

“Plain wood with black straps. A brass plate with a cross and SMI.”

“I’ll see to it. Stay out of sight.”

He lowered the blind on the inside of the chaise window and began to close the door, but realized he still had Coquette. He put her on his nun’s knee. “Discuss desire,” he said and shut the door. He scanned the area, but saw no danger so he strolled over to the Berlin. There inside was the Sister’s small trunk.

Two men came out and unloaded a fancier, leather-covered trunk, carrying it between them. Robin decided he needed his men anyway and went into the inn to beckon them. When they came over, he explained the situation and gave them their orders.

Fontaine — sighing because they were leaving — lurked to distract any porters, while Powick, sighing at Robin’s new game, pulled out the small chest, hoisted it on his shoulder, and carried it over to the chaise.

A nun or not a nun, that was the question. That was a very plain, nun-like box, but even if Sister Immaculata was genuine, she was still up to something odd. In two days travel he should be able to uncover all her secrets.

Powick was making room in the boot for the box. Robin turned to tell Fontaine all was clear.

“You there!”

He turned to face a furious woman. It had to be Lady Sodworth, but she didn’t match her harsh voice, being petite, beribboned, and even pretty in a bad-tempered way.

“Have you seen a nun here?” she demanded in her bad French, not seeming to recognize that he was a gentleman, never mind an Englishman.

Robin looked around in puzzlement. “Here, madame?”

“Anywhere here, you fool!”

He gave a mischievously Gallic shrug. “If you need a nun, madame, you should perhaps go to a convent?”

“Dolt!” she spat in English and rushed off in her chaotic search. Another Coquette, and with a worse temperament. Robin wondered at any man marrying her, despite her looks. He searched his memory again for a Lord Sodworth, but felt certain there was none. So, a knight or baronet, and probably of recent creation. Excellent. That made it unlikely he’d meet Lady Sodworth again.

He collected Fontaine and headed for his chaise, where ostlers were putting horses to under Powick’s scrutiny. He’d been a groom in his youth, and knew the trade.

Powick had put Robin on his first pony, and then become his tutor in riding, hunting, fishing, and other country lore. Eventually he’d become a kind of manservant-companion of endless usefulness. Having steered Robin into adulthood, however, he still thought he held the reins. Even Robin becoming earl a year ago hadn’t convinced the man that he was able to manage his own affairs.

“The nun’s coming with us, sir?” he asked in a forbidding tone.

“A damsel in distress. What would you?”

“I, sir, would return her to her mistress.”

“As would I,” said Fontaine. “The chaise, it will not fit three.”

“Therefore,” Robin said, “you will ride.”

The valet normally traveled in the coach. “Impossible. It might rain.”

“Think of it as a favor you are doing me in thanks for all the times I’ve ridden and you’ve had the chaise to yourself.”

“Not in the rain, sir,” Fontaine protested.

“Sir-” Powick protested for other reasons.

“I’m all innocence,” Robin insisted. “The holy lady needs to reach England, and do you really want me to abandon her to that harpy?”

“We could be days on the road if the weather turns. Days and nights.”

“And she will have a room to herself, I promise.”

“The weather….” Fontaine tried again.

Robin held onto his patience. “We need only go as far as the next stage. What is it — Montreuil?”

“Nouvion,” Powick said.

“Whatever. As long as we’re away from all things Sodworthy. Let’s be off.”

In the end his word was law, so soon Fontaine and Powick were mounted. A postilion took his seat on the leader of the chaise horses and Robin took delivery of the basket of food and wine he’d ordered earlier. He opened the door, winked at the shadowy nun, and placed the basket on the carriage floor. Coquette leaped out to relieve herself.

Once the dog was ready, Robin glanced around, saw no problems, and put the dog in the chaise. Coquette leaped right onto Sister Immaculata’s lap.

“If you think to make me jealous,” Robin said to the dog as he sat beside the nun on the one seat, “prettier ladies than you have failed.”

The nun stroked and the damned dog seemed to smirk. The chaise rolled out onto the Boulogne Road, leaving screeching and howling behind.

“Welcome to tranquility,” Robin said.

“Can you promise that?”

“If it’s what you truly desire.” Her reaction to the word desire seemed to be a weary sigh. Very well, she wasn’t ready for the game.

“I must confess,” he said, “that I’ve suffered tranquility for days. I was hoping you would remedy that. But not in any naughty way, Sister. See, I’ve even provided female companionship.”

She glanced down. “She’s a bitch?”

“With a name like Coquette, she’d better be.”

“Why don’t you like her?”

He shrugged. “I can tolerate tiny, frivolous women, but not tiny frivolous dogs.”

“Then why own her, poor thing?”

“With a collar of gold and pearls, there’s nothing poor about her.”

She looked down at the collar. “It’s real? Why?”

“You tell me your stories and I’ll tell you mine.”

She gave him a scathing look and turned away, as if fascinated by the outskirts of Abbeville. So, she did have secrets, and some must relate to why she’d accepted his invitation. There was time. To increase her comfort, he angled into his own corner and stretched his legs, widening the space between them on the seat.

“You can still change your mind, Sister. We can return you to Lady Sodworth.”

She clearly thought about it before saying, “No, thank you.”

“Then perhaps you would like to return to your convent.”

She turned, frowning. “You would take me to Milan?”

“I’m a wealthy man. It would not discomfort me.”

“You’re a mad man!”

“What a shame you’ve cast your lot with me, then.”

Her reaction seemed to be irritation rather than fear. “You don’t appear rich.”

“I’m modest, and don’t flaunt it.”

“If you truly are rich, you could arrange for me to travel to London in a more respectable way.”

“But how would that benefit me?”

“How does this benefit you?”

“It amuses me.”

Perhaps she tightened her hand, for Coquette jumped down with an affronted twitch. The dog considered Robin, but then circled and settled onto her pink velvet pad.

“I’m your amusement?” Sister Immaculata demanded.

“Of course. Would you really wish me to pay strangers to escort you to England?”

“You are a stranger.”

It startled a laugh out of Robin. “So I am. But I’ve taken charge of you, you see, so now my honor requires that I personally see you safe.”

That created an intriguing, wary silence.

“So where, Sister Immaculata does your safety dwell?”

“In England.”

“Any specific place?”

“None that need concern you, sir.”

“I am to deliver you to Dover and abandon you? I think not. Do you even speak English?”

She smiled and answered in that language. “Perfectly.”

As best he could tell from one word, that was the truth. Yet more dazzling twists to his puzzle.

He asked his next question in English. “Where do you plan to go in England?”

“London. At least to begin with.”

Ah, now he heard the accent, but perhaps only one of extra precision which gave it an almost liquid charm.

“And after?”

“Again, sir, that need not concern you.”

He didn’t argue at this point, but she’d not shake him off so easily. He’d acquired a mysterious adventuress, who had not, he suspected, joined him merely out of temper. He perceived urgency and some fear. Of what? He really should be more worried about that, but he was entranced.

He had mysteries to solve, wits to challenge, and a companion so beautiful that simply looking at her enriched his day. Her every action and reaction thus far promised more. She had courage, spirit, and a spicy temper. Given a few days on the road, he’d explore all her secrets, including those only discovered in a passionate bed.

© Jo Beverley Publications

Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.