What a Lady Craves Read online

  What a Lady Craves is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2014 by Ashlyn Macnamara

  Excerpt from What a Lady Demands by Ashlyn Macnamara copyright © 2014 by Ashlyn Macnamara.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book What a Lady Demands by Ashlyn Macnamara. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-553-39375-0

  Cover design: Seductive Designs

  Cover illustration: iStock photo

  www.readloveswept.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

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from What A Lady Demands

  Once upon a time—or more specifically in the Year of Our Lord 1800—three boys went up to Eton. Now, there is nothing particularly extraordinary in that fact, nor is there in the fact that they, faced with the usual public school hardships of bullies, exacting schoolmasters, and homesickness, became friends.

  Neither was their later friendship, as they grew to adulthood, anything to remark upon. They each bucked the others up as they pursued paramours. They consoled one another with drinks when said ladies turned them down. They wagered over ridiculous trifles. They raced in phaetons. If need be, they stood up for one of the others as second.

  In short, nothing distinguished them from any other group of long-standing male friends.

  Until, that is, the day a lost family fortune forced one of them to depart for India.

  Chapter One

  CORNWALL, SUMMER OF 1821

  Within a month of becoming a paid companion, Henrietta Upperton learned the value of a good swear. Oh, she’d discovered the delights of foul language before coming to live with the Dowager Countess of Epperley. Having an older brother who didn’t always mind his tongue would teach a girl that much. But Henrietta had never fully appreciated the feeling of a forbidden word rolling off her tongue—or at least rolling through her mind—until now.

  She stabbed her needle through the linen held taut by her embroidery hoop. Hellfire.

  Not good enough.

  Damnation.

  Better, perhaps. Was any activity more useless than stitching a sampler? Or any other approved pastimes for an accomplished young lady? She flung the work aside.

  Across the room, the Dowager Countess of Epperley glowered, her rheumy blue eyes magnified by an etched gold-framed lorgnette. “Such displays of temper do not become you, George.”

  Henrietta didn’t bother with a reminder that George was her brother. After six months in the dragon’s employ, Henrietta had learned such corrections were pointless. Lady Epperley would do as she damned well pleased.

  Bugger.

  There. That was nearly satisfying, but not as satisfying as voicing her opinion aloud.

  The dowager ran her gnarled fingers through the long gray fur of the cat lounging on a silk pillow beside her. “It’s little wonder you’ve never attracted a husband when you carry on so.”

  Henrietta glanced at her embroidery. The ivy border she’d been attempting looked ready for pruning shears. “Might I speak plainly, my lady?”

  Lady Epperley peered at Henrietta from beneath the fringe of orange ostrich feathers in her matching turban. “Naturally. I’ve always been in favor of speaking one’s mind.”

  True enough, but experience had proven the dowager less in favor of other people speaking their minds—unless she happened to agree with their opinions. And Henrietta could never tell ahead of time whether Lady Epperley would agree. Her level of congeniality varied from hour to hour and followed the phases of the moon.

  “Perhaps I’ve no use for a husband.”

  “No use for a husband, indeed.” The old lady harrumphed, the sound a momentary mask to the howling wind outside. “Mine set me up quite nicely.”

  She swept her hand in a broad motion that encompassed the sitting room. The brocade-upholstered chairs and carved end tables had no doubt been costly in their day. Along with the daintily patterned wallpaper and heavy velvet drapery, the room had been the height of fashion fifty years ago. But the dowager’s shortsightedness permitted her to overlook the patina of shabbiness that was slowly overtaking her estate.

  “Yes.” Henrietta lifted her chin as she pleated the muslin of her skirt between her fingers. “I can understand why you were in such a hurry to remarry.”

  “Do not talk such nonsense.” Lady Epperley fixed her with a surprisingly penetrating stare. As ever, sarcasm was lost on the beldam. “One husband was quite enough. Wasn’t he, Albemarle?”

  In acknowledgment, Albemarle—an astonishingly masculine designation for a cat who produced a litter of kittens without fail every spring—stretched out one lazy paw and dug its claws into the silk cushion. Henrietta could only surmise the origin of the feline’s name. Whatever it was, the old witch insisted on addressing the disagreeable creature as an intimate. Or maybe a familiar.

  “I never did understand women making a second rush to the altar,” Lady Epperley went on, “when widowhood affords one so much liberty.”

  Henrietta studied the effect of pale blue muslin poking between her knuckles. The last thing she wanted was to encourage this conversation. Not when she suspected the liberty Lady Epperley referred to was of a physical nature. Henrietta could well dispense with even the suggestion of the old lady engaged in any manner of amorous activity.

  At any rate, Lady Epperley did not seem to require a reply, for she went on. “But you cannot enjoy the advantages of widowhood without first acquiring a husband.”

  Outside, rain lashed at the windows. Somewhere a loose shutter knocked against an ancient stone wall. Bang, bang, bang … bang. Like a succession of far-off cannon shots that had gone on all day and threatened to continue throughout the night.

  “My lady, it sounds as if you’re suggesting I entrap some poor man and do him in. And that could not possibly be the case.”

  Lady Epperley opened her mouth, no doubt to deliver a scathing reply, but the sound of a throat clearing stopped her cold. She scowled through her lorgnette at the intruder. “Hirsch, how man
y times must I repeat? I loathe interruptions, most especially when I’m instructing an impressionable young lady on the merits of the conjugal life.”

  Hirsch set a hand to his chest and bowed from the waist. The man was surprisingly fresh-faced for a butler. Dress his broad shoulders and sculpted form in eveningwear and he would have turned heads at any society function. But perhaps Lady Epperley had hired him for his youthful mind—yes, that must be it—the better to instruct him in his role.

  “Forgive me, my lady.” His dulcet tone raised the hairs on Henrietta’s nape. Smooth as well-aged wine, that voice. “You have indeed reprimanded me on any number of occasions. Only I dared your wrath for good reason.”

  “Good reason,” Lady Epperley spluttered, her jowls shaking along with her ostrich feathers, her gimlet gaze steady. “Last time you merely informed me the vicar had come to call. As if I wanted to listen to that pompous old windbag.”

  And why should she attend the vicar when she could listen to herself natter on at length? Henrietta stopped herself before she expressed the thought aloud.

  “I fear it’s rather more than that,” the butler said.

  “Has the apothecary’s wife lost her cat again, then? But why would she need to consult me on such a matter when clearly she’d be better off without the scrawny beast? She ought to have drowned it as a kitten and saved us all the bother.”

  At that pronouncement, Albemarle opened one baleful amber eye before yawning and tucking herself more tightly into a ball.

  “My lady—”

  “Oh, do get on with it, Hirsch. You said the matter was serious. Pray stop your dramatics and tell me.”

  To Hirsch’s credit, he did not even blink, much less roll his eyes. “There is someone at the door. Someone who claims—”

  Lady Epperley cut him short with a wave of her hand. “Callers? At this hour? Preposterous.”

  “If you please, my lady.”

  Without a sound to announce his presence, a dark-skinned man appeared on the threshold. Their caller, apparently, could not wait for an invitation.

  Henrietta caught her breath. She’d never seen such a deep brown face, nor such perfectly black hair and eyes. When new, his tattered garments must have been white, but what remained of them were a dull gray and currently dripping water about his bare feet. Hardly surprising, given the storm that had howled most of the day.

  Lady Epperley glanced at the man. “You are no acquaintance of mine. I cannot imagine why a perfect stranger would choose as inconvenient an hour as this to pay his respects. Such a time is only appropriate for relatives.”

  Relatives? A shiver passed down Henrietta’s spine. But no, Lady Epperley had many relatives. Why would that particular relation show up after all these years, just to spite her? But how else could this stranger have turned up on the threshold to the sitting room, an ever-widening puddle forming at his feet.

  “No, indeed, memsahib.” The newcomer folded his hands in front of him in a prayerful attitude and bowed his head. The front of his shirt gaped to reveal a knotted tangle of darker scar tissue on his upper chest. His accent suggested hot, sultry days, spicy food, and a land far more colorful than England.

  India. Henrietta knew little of the place, other than Alexander’s last letter had come from that land.

  No. Alexander was not here. He could not be. But her heart insisted on beating all the faster.

  “But I come in the name of one of your relations,” the stranger finished.

  “Whose name?” Henrietta blurted.

  “Mr. Sanford.”

  Damnation. Bugger. Bollocks. Hellfire. Henrietta curled her fingers into a fist to stop their shaking.

  “Good heavens.” Lady Epperley placed a bony hand to her bosom. “Good heavens. If he’s returned from India, he’s left no word, sent no note. Why, we had no idea.”

  “Please, memsahib. He is in a bad way. I cannot drag his body—”

  “Body?” Lady Epperley’s doughy cheeks paled beneath their generous layer of rouge. Henrietta suspected her own cheeks had taken on the same ashen tones. Whatever had passed between her and Alexander, she certainly did not wish the man dead.

  “Forgive me.” The stranger repeated his reverent bow. “I mean no upset. Our ship, you see, sank in the storm. I saw Mr. Sanford to shore, but the ordeal took too much out of me. I was forced to leave him on the beach.”

  It wasn’t her place to speak, but Henrietta could no more hold back than she could stop her heart from beating out of control. “Your pardon, Mr.…”

  “Satya.”

  “Mr. Satya—”

  “No, simply Satya.”

  She clamped her back teeth. If this man could not get to the point, and soon, she might forget her manners and voice her impatience. “Is Mr. Sanford still of this world?”

  “Oh, yes, he is quite well, considering the circumstances. He has merely fainted, and—”

  “Fainted?” Her pulse slowed, but only somewhat.

  “Yes, memsahib. That is why I came for help. I cannot carry his dead weight alone.”

  Dead weight. Body. Why did this man insist on such phrasing? Henrietta waved the thoughts away. Surely English was not his native language. He could not know the import of his words.

  “Hirsch!” Lady Epperley barked the name, even though the butler had not left the room. “Summon several footmen, and have Mr. Satya show them to my nephew. And tell the housekeeper to prepare his usual chamber. At once!”

  “My … my lady …” Henrietta forced the words past a constriction in her throat. “If you won’t be needing me for the rest of the evening …” If she could escape to her quarters, she wouldn’t even have to see him. At the same time, she might hide this blasted agitation from her employer. She’d only have to wonder if he’d changed in the years since she’d bid him Godspeed. Surely India had altered him.

  “Nonsense, George.” Lady Epperley heaved herself to her feet, leaning heavily on the arm of the settee for balance. In the process, she overturned Albemarle’s cushion. The cat hit the floor with a dull thud and stalked off, flicking her bushy tail indignantly.

  “I shall certainly need you,” the dowager went on. “Good heavens, a shock like this at my age. My own nephew shipwrecked.” For emphasis, she clenched a hand about the fabric of her bodice. “My heart.”

  Henrietta wasn’t fooled for an instant. The old woman’s voice was far too strong for her to be experiencing any true malaise. “Yes, my lady.”

  In what seemed like no time at all, the footmen returned, easing a limp body up the stairs from the foyer. Lady Epperley still wrung her hands at the front of her gown, as if she thought to keep her heart from breaking free of her chest by mere pressure. Henrietta couldn’t help but watch the processional that trailed a slow drizzle of water on the polished parquet that lined the corridor. Drip, drip, drip, the even cadence of a black-plumed horse at the head of a funeral procession.

  Her mind conjured the image of a robust, serious man in the glow of health. Tall, lean, yet his presence overwhelmed. In direct contrast to her memory, the form before her lay inert. The sharp angles of his cheekbones shadowed chalky flesh peppered with light brown stubble. Sodden hair fell in hanks over his forehead, and his garments were shredded beyond repair … offering glimpses of skin she’d only ever seen in her dreams.

  Henrietta pressed her lips into a line, deliberately tamping down the unexpected—and unwelcome—flutter low in her belly. Her knees wobbled. More inappropriate words jumbled in her mouth and clamored for release. She could not risk her position by giving them voice, no matter how great the temptation. In this state, Lady Epperley had no choice but to take in her nephew; the history between him and Henrietta be damned.

  Alexander awoke to the rhythm of a sledgehammer pounding at his skull in exact time with his pulse. When had an entire hunting party, beginning with the hounds, galloped over him? Despite a sharp pain in his ribs, he let out a groan and rolled over.

  What the deuce? Crisp linen sh
eets emitted the fresh scent of lavender. He searched his beleaguered brain. His last memory was of cold, lashing rain and wind whipping at his clothes. The solidity of the deck beneath his feet giving way to nothing. An icy plunge into salt water.

  If he was in bed now—on a mattress far too broad for a ship’s cabin—he was safe. Safe, perhaps, but not sound. He’d lost everything.

  Not everything. No, at least he’d had the foresight to put his most important possessions on his second ship. As long as they’d weathered the storm, he could hope to find them once more.

  He opened his eyes to a darkened room. The glow of candlelight illuminated a small circle of his surroundings. Nighttime, then, but how long had he been insensible? Ages, according to his head, which made prolonging the experience quite a tempting proposition. If only he could find someone to knock him out cold once more.

  “Satya?” Even drawing enough air to speak was a hardship. A tight binding constricted his chest.

  “Sahib?”

  Thank the Lord. “What in God’s name has happened?”

  “I pulled you out of the wreckage, naturally.” Satya’s voice came from somewhere deeper in the room. Passing the night crouched in the corner again, then.

  “And I thank you for that.” Alexander drummed his fingers against the mattress. “Would you mind using the chair?”

  “It is not fitting for one of my station.”

  And how many times had Alexander listened to that argument? Far too often.

  “To hell with your supposed station.” No reason to snap like that. He tried to inhale slowly, but his ribs protested the action. “Please. In fact, I insist. You’ll drive me to Bedlam. You are my assistant, not my servant.”

  “Not your assistant.” This old debate was the only instance in which Satya would contradict him.

  Alexander waited until Satya gave in and situated himself more comfortably. Not that Alexander could hear the evidence. The man moved altogether too silently—eerily so. “Now, where have you brought me?”

  If Satya had taken a room at an inn, Alexander wasn’t sure he could afford it. A chamber of this size—hell, a bed of this size—was beyond his means.