Banished to Brighton by Sydney Jane Baily

Excerpt from GRETNA GREEN BY SUNSET

A Rakes on the Run Novel

by SYDNEY JANE BAILY

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All this rake has to do is conduct himself without scandal for six weeks. But then along comes Miss Miranda Bright!

EXCERPT: GRETNA GREENBY SUNSET

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Prologue

1816, London

A BANGING AT HIS FRONTdoor on Cavendish Square awakened Philip from a sound sleep. Instantly he sat upright, heart pounding, until he realized it was neither gunfire nor cannon blast. Merely a thoughtless arse on his doorstep.

Glancing at the mantle clock, he swore aloud. It must be some cork-brained tippler who had no idea of the hour and needed a swift kick and a reminder of civil manners.

Sighing, he glanced down at his soft pillow and then out at the dawn’s rays already cresting the sash of his window. As a major in the British Army, with three years engagement in the Peninsular War, fighting alongside the Spanish and Portuguese against France, Philip thoroughly enjoyed his comfortable bed. Anyone or anything that took him from it — save a beautiful woman — was most unwelcome.

His butler, Mr. Audley, would be in his dressing gown by now and ascending from his basement dwelling to see who was knocking. Swinging his feet onto the floor, Philip wrapped his naked body in his silk banyan, donned slippers, and yanked open his bedroom door.

This had better be a matter of life or death!

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Chapter One

LORD PHILIP MERCERcould not stop pacing the parlor of the magistrate’s private residence. For a matter as delicate as the one that plagued him, he had decided to seek out the official at his home on Russell Square. The terraced house with all its comforts was exactly as he’d expected of the upper-middle-class Sir William Bright. Unfortunately, while the magistrate was not there, a prying servant was.

He’d discovered the maid halfway up a ladder in the magistrate’s study with a feather duster tucked under one of her arms, reading a book which she was obviously supposed to be cleaning. Although she sported a lacy cap, her hair was hanging down around her slender shoulders instead of in a tidy knot. She had a smudge on one cheek and wore a rumpled apron over a dress almost too fetching for a servant.

Philip’s next impression was that he’d encountered a barely tamed creature without the social graces to leave him alone. It was as if the maid had never seen a man before, so intent was she on speaking with him, staring at him, and even following him around when he paced into the front hall and back again.

It was when he had done this for the third time, turning abruptly on the polished floorboards and nearly knocking the young woman off her feet, that he finally exploded.

“Will you leave me in peace? Please!” Then softening his tone, he asked, “Did you say Sir Bright was expected to return soon?”

The brown-haired female with hazel eyes didn’t seem the least put off by his abruptness.

“He will return as soon as he is able. I am certain.”

That told him nothing, and Philip fingered the calling card in his pocket. Five more minutes and he would give it to her with the request she have the magistrate send him word when he was available.

A quarter hour earlier she’d descended the ladder when the first maid had shown him into the study. She’d offered him a chair and cup of tea, both of which he’d refused. And then instead of returning to her duties, she’d begun to pester him incessantly. And now regardless of his request for peace, she asked him yet another question.

“Are you on the run, sir?”

“I am not a sir,” he pointed out, hoping to put her in her place. “I am Lord Mercer.”

“My apologies, my lord. Are you on the run?”

“What on earth can you mean by such a strange question?” Philip demanded, wondering if she were daft in the head. “From whom or from what?”

She stared at him, her large hazel eyes not blinking for a moment. Then she said, “I recognize your name from The Morning Sun. You were linked with Miss Waltham at a house party in Twickenham, and none too favorably.”

He grimaced. Even the servants had heard of his latest scandal.

Then she gave a snap of her fingers. “You’re a baron, are you not? And a major in the Royal Army?”

Good God!The newspapers were ruthless. He was surprised they didn’t have his height and weight listed, too. But the maid wasn’t finished with him.

“Thus, my lord,” she continued. “I merely wondered if you were here to turn yourself in privately for some nefarious deed or to ask Sir Bright to look after your affairs while you fled?”

What an impudent chit! On the other hand, she was just comely enough to get away with it. Besides her large, sparkling eyes, she had full breasts atop a shapely figure from what he could tell where the apron was tied around her slender waist.

“The only thing I am running from is an annoyed mother who has the wrong end of the walking stick,” he told her, “and a father with a reputedly good aim.”

“What did you do to their daughter?” she asked.

Plainly, this wench could not hold her tongue. What’s more, she was asking him too many personal questions. He might have a word with the magistrate when he arrived on the quality of his help. For the moment, however, he might as well plead his case and see how it sounded for it was the bald truth.

“I vow what you read in the gossip column is a case of mistaken identity,” he said calmly.

“You were never with the lady in question?” she asked.

The maid sounded like a solicitor. He coughed.

“I might have stolen a kiss from her, but I didn’t do anything else.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Such as?”

All at once he wondered if she knew what else could be done or whether she was an utter innocent. Regardless, he wasn’t about to discuss such things with her.

“I did not get Miss Waltham in the suds. That was another man,” he vowed.

The maid nodded again, looking sage beyond her years.

“Do you know who it was, this other man?”

Philip shrugged slightly, noticing how she took in his movements before staring him in the eyes again. She was an inquisitive, curious, watchful, and strange chick-a-biddy.

“I know of him. I have it on good authority who the scoundrel was from the servants’ grapevine. I’m sure you know how reliable and swift that is.”

She nodded in agreement. With all her questions, her luscious mouth was probably one of the most reliable and swift of all. As soon as he left, undoubtedly she would bolt below to the servants’ quarters to tell the magistrate’s other maids what she’d learned. In fact, it might be a good idea to tell her a little more. Mayhap, he would be believed once the gossip grapevine began whispering about his side of the tale.

“Miss Waltham is protecting the scoundrel.”

“Thus, her parents blame you,” she guessed. “But why?”

“From the kiss. Alas, we were seen by her cousin from the drawing room window,” Philip confessed.

“How terribly exciting!” the young woman exclaimed.

“No, it’s not. It is terribly irritating, not to mention dangerous from my perspective. Miss Waltham won’t say it is not me, thereby throwing me to the wolves. There were a number of single gentlemen at the house party, but only I was seen kissing her.”

“Worse and worse,” the maid said, but she was smiling as if it were a game, which irked him tremendously until she asked, “Do you love her?”

Shocked, Philip shook his head vigorously. “Of course not!”

“Why do you say it like that, my lord? Why ‘of course not’ as if you couldn’t possibly love someone you were kissing?”

“It is not that.” He lifted his hat from his head, ran a hand through his hair, and then replaced the brim. “I suppose it seems obvious to me that if I loved her, then I would allow myself to be trapped into marrying her. However, I have no feeling for her at all. I merely kissed her because she was alone on the terrace and looked as though she wanted to be kissed.”

Philip could see that interested his interrogator.

“That seems a rather weak reason. So you sloppily pressed your lips to a stranger?”

How outrageous — as if she were a judge of how to kiss! He had done things she could never dream about, but he was beginning to wish he could show her one or two of them. He hadn’t felt so tempted by a maid since he was in his teen years. Since then, he’d taken his pleasure either with available ladies of his class, both willing young vixens and frustrated widows, or more often with Cyprians. Nothing was more enjoyable than paying for a night with an experienced whore who could — and would — do anything, leaving him free to walk away when finished without looking back.

With the maid’s greenish-gold eyes fixed on him, he felt the urge to explain.

“Miss Waltham and I were not strangers. We’d eaten dinner within five feet of one another and we’d played charades. And there was nothing sloppy about the kiss. If I were to demonstrate for you, you impertinent rattle-pate, you would agree. In any case, we shouldn’t be discussing this. It is crass. Vulgar even.”

“Kissing isn’t vulgar,” she protested.

Ah-ha, so she wasn’t quite so innocent. Maybe that’s why he found her enticing.

“You are correct. It is not, yet discussing it is, especially talking about a lady. I don’t speak at my club about such things for I am a gentleman, and I certainly don’t wish to speak any more about such things with you.”

He folded his arms.

“I see what you mean,” she agreed. “Discretion and honor and such.” When she paused, Philip hoped she would finally leave him alone.

“Do you think Miss Waltham wishes to marry you?” she asked, continuing her investigation.

He sighed. “I believe she is in trouble up to her earlobes and isn’t thinking clearly. It has been my experience that most young ladies do not.”

***

MIRANDA WOULD HAVEbeen annoyed at such an unfavorable statement if she didn’t partially agree. Her own sister was a ninny. Besides, having a verified rake at her disposal was too wonderful to ignore without getting as much out of him as she could. Stomping off in a huff over a slight to the female of the species would get her nowhere.

She wanted to write a little story, maybe even one of those stimulating novels, only for her romantic-minded cousins, of course. And Lord Mercer was the perfect fountain of information.

“Do you think people would read a book if it didn’t contain Miss Austen’s perfect comedy and satire or Mr. Defoe’s and Mr. Swift’s adventures?” she asked him. “I suppose you don’t read novels anyway, my lord.”

He stared a long moment before he looked away.

“When did you say Sir Bright might return?”

“One never knows,” Miranda told him, intending to be vague so the man wouldn’t hurry off.

“Sometimes he is gone for hours,” she added. “Sometimes just a short while. He might come through the door to help you within a very few minutes. But let me understand you. If Miss Waltham holds her tongue, then she shall not be pressed to marry the scoundrel, as you call him. On the other hand, she might end up married to you if you’re not unlucky enough to be killed in a duel.”

“Unlucky?” Lord Mercer echoed. “I would consider such an event a great deal worse than unlucky.”

She waved her hand, dismissing his words. “I fail to understand the reasoning behind the lady’s silence. It helps no one. You might die, and she will still be disgraced and alone. Or you may live, and she’ll be forced to wed you, and she won’t end up with the man she loves. That is, if she does love the scoundrel. And vice versa.”

“Vice versa?” he repeated, frowning.

“It means something along the lines of a change in the order.”

“I know what it means,” he snapped.

“Then why did you ask?”

“I did not,” he professed. “I merely wondered to what you’re referring.”

“I see. I mean if the scoundrel loves her, too, he won’t end up with Miss Waltham unless she confesses his involvement. Neither one wins. And thus, I wonder why she does not simply tell the truth?”

“It is a world which you do not understand,” he said superciliously. He was probably right, and Miranda was ever so pleased he was going to explain it to her. “If Miss Waltham were to let on about another man, then she would be considered irreparably immoral, loose, and sullied, and he would be considered dastardly beyond reform. This way, she can drag me into the suds with her, and as you said, hope I die or at the very least refuse to marry her. Then the man she loves can step in like a crusader from days of yore. He will look to be the epitome of heroic self-sacrifice, wedding a woman already ruined by another.”

“By you?” she asked.

Lord Mercer sighed. “Precisely, except I did not.” To her surprise he muttered softy, “But I should have done.”

Miranda could not help the little shiver that whisked through her at the notion this rake regretted not tupping some young lady, merely out of spite. Taking his measure again, from his impressive height to his thick hair, handsome face, and broad shoulders, down to his ... his trim waist and firm, muscular thighs, she came over all hot.

Better not to think of such matters. Instead, she focused on the young lady’s machinations.

“What a clever plan Miss Waltham has,” she remarked.

“You sound as if you admire this conniving wench.”

Miranda considered. “I presume Miss Waltham has few options.”

Lord Mercer grunted. “I suppose you’re correct. Regardless, I don’t intend to be one of them.”

“I wonder what the scoundrel thinks of all this.”

“I have no way of knowing his opinion, nor do I care.”

Miranda stepped forward, unable to help her enthusiasm. “But you should, my lord. He may be your solution. Why don’t you speak with him?”

He laughed at her. Finally, he stopped and said, “You believe I should speak with him about how he may or may not have ruined Miss Waltham?”

“Yes, naturally.” She couldn’t see why he didn’t think that a perfectly sound notion.

“I suppose now is a good time to tell you he is a marquess’s son.”

Miranda blinked. “And what does that signify?”

“You jest,” Lord Mercer said. “He won’t take kindly to being accused. If he wanted the young lady, he would have stepped forward and made his intentions known.”

“Perhaps he is unaware of the trouble,” she pointed out.

“How could he not be?” Lord Mercer was pacing again.

“Perhaps she has no way to tell him. Miss Waltham is being watched like a mouse by a hungry owl, I warrant,” Miranda explained. “Most females are.”

His lordship crossed his arms and came to stand before her.

“That is precisely how females are supposed to be watched, from the highest-born lady to the lowliest, slovenly housemaid. And that includes you, left to your own waywardness as you appear to be.”

Miranda gaped. “Me?” When had this become about her?

“You are alone with a renowned rake,” he reminded her, “and no one is the wiser.”

Lord Mercer took a step closer. “Why are you allowed to flagrantly flout the customs of decorum?”

Miranda felt a shimmer of excitement. “Do you intend to kiss me, my lord? Is that why you moved toward me? It is most exciting.” She wasn’t surprised. She’d been told she was pretty with something about her that caught a man’s eye.

The baron grimaced. “When you dissect every action and ask so many infernal questions, it is off-putting. And when you forget you are meant to display a modicum of trepidation as any sane female, yet instead welcome the notion of my taking a liberty with your person, then the answer is no. That is not how this is done.”

Miranda felt the hollow ache of disappointment. While she’d had precisely two kisses in her life, being kissed by a dashing rake would be an excellent experience, and what could be safer than receiving said kiss in her own home?

“Please, then, tell me precisely how this is done,” she begged, “but hold on a moment.” Rummaging in the pocket hanging off her apron, she withdrew a square of paper and a pencil. She’d nearly forgotten she was wearing the unflattering garment while helping tidy her father’s office. Still, even in disarray as she was, this raffish man might kiss her!

However, currently, he was gaping at her writing implements. “Whatever are they for?”

“For the story, of course. I thought I explained that.”

He shook his head, looking confused. “You are well-educated, too much so for your position in life. It’s almost a shame.”

Miranda couldn’t help chuckling. “I am perfectly normal in all regards. I merely wish to entertain my country cousins with an amusing tale.”

“At my expense,” he grumbled.

“Only because you are here and seem to be full of interesting things to tell me. Why, there have been at least five already.” She cocked her head and observed him.

He took another step closer.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

“You do look immensely kissable.”

A tremor of warmth shot through her. “Like Miss Waltham at the house party?”

Lord Mercer shook his head. “Quite the contrary. She looked like she wanted to be kissed, although in truth, she wasn’t particularly kissable. Since I was on hand, I obliged, not realizing she might be waiting for another who would do far more than that.”

Far more?Miranda swallowed, thinking she would like to hear about that as well, but another time. His closeness and the look in his dark eyes were quite mesmerizing.

“Are you saying I do not look like I want to be kissed?”

“I am saying that with your sweet lips and big eyes, even with that silly piece of paper waiting for your scribblings, you appear exceptionally kissable.”

Then he paused. “Do you, in fact, wish to be kissed?”

She took in a quick breath. “I confess I hadn’t thought too much about it, but now I must say I am pleased by the prospect.”

“You are an odd fish for a housemaid.”

A housemaid?She nearly laughed, belatedly realizing his misinterpretation of the situation. And who could blame him? After all, he hadn’t found her seated in the parlor working on her needlepoint.

However, before she could explain, his next step brought him within touching distance. His fine wool breeches got lost in the draping of her apron and cotton dress. The inner warmth became delicious heat, making her feel flushed. He was going to kiss her!

Slowly, Lord Mercer wrapped a hand around each of her upper arms and drew her against him until her breasts were crushed against his jacket.

“How thrilling!” she proclaimed before closing her eyes. All the better for her other senses to take in these new sensations. She could smell a manly scent of sandalwood and lime, different from her father, who always had the aroma of tobacco clinging to him.

Where the baron’s hands gripped her, she tingled beneath his fingers, and she would swear she could feel his heat like a brand upon her skin, despite his gloves.

After what seemed an eternity, so long she nearly opened her eyes, she finally felt his mouth upon hers.

’Zounds! What a zesty treat!

Miranda knew the moment it became more than an amusing experience to tell her cousins and friends. When Lord Mercer tilted his head, the kiss became her first “real” kiss. Her insides sizzled, and she would vow there was a direct path from his lips to her nipples and down to the juncture between her thighs where she suddenly tingled.

Feeling his teeth graze her lower lip, she moaned.

“What in blue blazes?”

Miranda snapped open her eyes at the sound of her father’s voice. At the same time, all contact with Lord Mercer ceased as he dropped his hands from her and backed away.

Turning to her balding, spectacle-wearing sire, she greeted him fondly with a wave of her fingers. Luckily, he was both an indulgent parent and a reasonable man.

“Good day, Papa. Lord Mercer is here to see you on an important matter.”

END OF EXCERPT

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