The Virgin who Bewitched Lord Lymington Read online

  KISSING LORD LYMINGTON

  “I’ve dreamed about kissing you here,” he whispered as his tongue curled around her earlobe, licking at her before his teeth closed down in a gentle nip. He sucked the tiny fold of her skin into his mouth and teased at it with his tongue, his lips hot and demanding, commanding her response.

  “Oh!” Emma gasped, shocked at the sudden heat gathering in her belly. She’d never wanted a man before, nor had she ever imagined she would.

  Until now.

  That it should be him—a gentleman, an aristocrat, a man so far out of her reach he might as well be on the moon—would lead to nothing but heartbreak, but she clung to him, grabbing handfuls of his coat in her fists, her lips opening eagerly under his.

  “Is this how an innocent young lady kisses a gentleman?” he growled against her lips.

  “Is this how a gentleman kisses an innocent young lady?” She nipped at his full lower lip, the only soft feature in his otherwise stony face, that pouting lip the only hint there was a passionate man underneath his cool façade.

  He groaned and sank his hand into the mass of curls at the back of her neck. “Have you kissed other men like this? Brought them to their knees with that sweet mouth?”

  “No. Just you, my lord.” It was both the truth and a lie at once. Another man had kissed her, had done whatever he wished to her while she waited, still and cold, for it to be over.

  But Samuel was the only man she’d ever kissed because she wanted his lips on hers.…

  Books by Anna Bradley

  LADY ELEANOR’S SEVENTH SUITOR

  LADY CHARLOTTE’S FIRST LOVE

  TWELFTH NIGHT WITH THE EARL

  MORE OR LESS A MARCHIONESS

  MORE OR LESS A COUNTESS

  MORE OR LESS A TEMPTRESS

  THE WAYWARD BRIDE

  TO WED A WILD SCOT

  FOR THE SAKE OF A SCOTTISH RAKE

  THE VIRGIN WHO RUINED LORD GRAY

  THE VIRGIN WHO VINDICATED LORD DARLINGTON

  THE VIRGIN WHO HUMBLED LORD HASLEMERE

  THE VIRGIN WHO BEWITCHED LORD LYMINGTON

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  The Virgin Who Bewitched Lord Lymington

  Anna Bradley

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by Anna Bradley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: November 2021

  ISBN: 978-1-5161-1040-7 (ebook)

  First Print Edition: November 2021

  ISBN: 978-1-5161-1044-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  KISSING LORD LYMINGTON

  Books by Anna Bradley

  The Virgin Who Bewitched Lord Lymington

  Copyright

  Contents

  Quote

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

  Quote

  “The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

  —Ernest Hemingway

  Prologue

  King’s Place, St. James, London

  November 1790

  Emma Downing was the fourth.

  She was fifteen years old at the time. It was too old to be of much use, in Lady Amanda Clifford’s opinion, but then it was the exception that made the rule, and anomalies had always fascinated Lady Amanda.

  Emma came on a wave of blood. Not all of it her own, but enough that it dropped like thick, red tears from her fingertips. The slashes on her hands would scar, of course, but Lady Amanda looked upon scars as a blessing, of a sort.

  A healing, if an imperfect one.

  It wasn’t the scars that would haunt Emma Downing. It was the invisible wounds, the secret skin that never knit itself together again, the deep, jagged gashes on her heart that would forever alter that fragile organ’s rhythm.

  Even so, pity alone would not have moved Lady Amanda in the girl’s favor. London was teeming with pitiable creatures, all of them victims of private misfortunes. There was nothing so extraordinary about Emma Downing’s tragedy.

  Aside, that is, from one small detail, the tiniest wrinkle in the page.

  Against all the odds, Emma Downing had survived.

  That made her extraordinary. No, more than that. It made her a miracle.

  Fifteen years old. Too old to be of much use, but too young be a miracle.

  How she’d managed to wrench the knife away from her paramour was a mystery destined to remain forever unsolved. Emma herself claimed no memory of the incident.

  As for him, well…divine justice was an ethereal thing, and never quite worked the way one wished it would. If Lady Amanda had been given a say in the matter, he would have died at once. It was neater that way, dead men being, on the whole, unlikely to tell tales.

  As it was, he mysteriously disappeared from London that night, and was never seen again. Curious, but then human justice did tend to be swift, if not quite as divine as the spiritual sort.

  His blood might have proved a problem, stabbings being a gory business. Some of it had soaked into Madame Marchand’s Aubusson carpet by the time Lady Amanda arrived, but great gouts of it stained the silk gown on Emma Downing’s back, and the rusty smell of it permeated the bedchamber.r />
  Lady Amanda was obliged to pay for Madame’s damaged goods—the carpet, the fine silk gown, and Emma Downing herself. She handed over the notes without a murmur, well satisfied with her end of the bargain.

  As for Emma Downing…

  She remained mute during this transaction, her face blank, her eyes glassy. Like all of Madame Marchand’s courtesans, Emma Downing was a beauty, but Lady Amanda had never put much faith in pretty faces.

  The girl’s eyes, though.

  Such a deep blue, and so very like another pair of blue eyes, forever closed.

  That another girl with eyes that shade of blue should have crossed her path…well, how could Lady Amanda interpret such an extraordinary coincidence as anything other than a command from fate?

  So Emma Downing came to the Clifford School, her ghosts trailing behind her, her scars still fresh, the tender, bruised places inside her still swollen, still bleeding, the only one of Lady Amanda’s girls who could recall with perfect clarity the day, the hour, the moment they’d been inflicted.

  Fifteen years old, already with a world of ugliness in her head.

  Memories were, alas, as often a curse as they were a blessing.

  Sometimes, it was easier—so much easier—if one couldn’t remember.

  Chapter One

  King’s Place, St. James, London

  April 1795

  “No skirmishes this evening, if you please, Lymington.”

  “Skirmishes, in a brothel?” Samuel Fitzroy, the Marquess of Lymington turned a baffled look on his cousin, Lord Lovell. “Do you suppose I intend to brawl with a courtesan, Lovell?”

  Lovell was far more apt to fall into a whorehouse fracas than he was, but Samuel clenched his teeth, lest he be tempted to share that opinion. He and Lovell could hardly manage to exchange a civil word these days as it was, without dragging the demireps into it.

  “No flank maneuvers, no tactical formations, and no…what do you call them? Frontal assaults. I’m warning you now, Lymington, I won’t abide any mention of frontal assaults tonight.”

  Ah. No objection to actual assaults, then, just the mention of them. “Strategically, there’s a great deal to be said for a direct, full-force attack to an enemy’s—”

  “For God’s sake, Lymington, I just said no frontal assaults! You’re not aboard a brig in the English Channel.”

  “If you’re referring to the HMS Nymphe, she’s a frigate, not a—”

  “The point, my dear cousin,” Lovell interrupted with a long-suffering sigh, “Is that this is a drawing room, not a naval battle.”

  No, it wasn’t a naval battle, but it was a battle nonetheless, just as everything was, in one way or another. The only difference between a drawing room and a battleship was that the ship wasn’t pretending to be something else.

  “And do stop glaring as if you’re plotting an ambush.” Lord Lovell nodded at the elegant company assembled before them. “The ravishing creatures you see before you are ladies, Lymington, not marauding pirates, and that forbidding frown of yours is frightening them away.”

  It was on the tip of Samuel’s tongue to wish the ladies to the devil, but he’d rather not goad Lovell into a passionate defense of the fair sex. They didn’t have all night, and Lovell’s passionate defenses tended to be rambling things.

  So Samuel kept his mouth closed, unclasped his hands from behind his back, and twisted his face about until he’d arranged his features into a more inviting attitude.

  At least, he thought he had, until Lovell snorted. “It’s not quite your usual churlish scowl, but still grim enough. Why so solemn, Lymington? You’re in a bawdy house, not at a church sermon.”

  Samuel’s gaze wandered over the drawing room, where a sea of courtesans awaited them. “Yet there do seem to be quite a lot of nuns about.”

  Lovell choked out a surprised laugh. “Did you just make a joke, Lymington? Bravo. The Sunday sermon would be much pleasanter if the congregants looked more like courtesans, wouldn’t it?”

  “Don’t mock the pious, Lovell, or God will strike you down where you stand.” God would do no such thing, of course. He seemed to have an endless amount of patience for Lovell, as well as a wicked sense of humor.

  “Blast the pious. Why, just look around you, Lymington.” Lovell waved a flawlessly gloved hand at the assembled company. “There’s not a single plain face to be seen.”

  Samuel shrugged as he took in the bevy of ladies fluttering around them like a swarm of gaudy butterflies. “Choose one of them, then, and get on with it.”

  “Don’t rush me, Lymington. Choosing a companion for the evening is a delicate business, and not one to be undertaken lightly.”

  If Lovell was so careful with all his decisions, Samuel would have nothing more to wish for, but as that was, again, a sentiment better left unexpressed, he said only, “Very well, then. Which lady do you fancy?”

  Lovell nodded at a dark-haired creature standing beside the staircase. “That one. She has lovely dark eyes. I fancy dark eyes, as you know, Lymington.”

  Samuel didn’t know. Lovell might prefer dark eyes to blue, morning chocolate to tea, John Bulls to Hessians, and Sheridan to Goldsmith, and he wouldn’t know a thing about it.

  Not anymore.

  “Well then, why don’t you go and fetch her?”

  “She’s an angel, isn’t she?”

  “A perfect seraph,” Samuel replied, without enthusiasm. “Go on.” He gave Lovell a nudge toward the dark-haired courtesan. “I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Wait here?” Lovell gaped at him. “You mean to say you won’t choose one of these delightful birds of paradise for yourself?”

  Samuel let his gaze roam over the drawing room. He was a man, after all, and he couldn’t deny Madame Marchand’s ladies were tempting, but the few females he’d encountered since he’d returned to England had seemed faintly horrified by him.

  He wasn’t sleek or fashionable like Lovell. He was big and rough, his face tanned by years of exposure to sun and sea. If that weren’t offensive enough to the fair sex, he also had no talent for charming pleasantries. Polite, mindless chatter bored him, and soon enough he’d start talking about skirmishes and frontal assaults, and well…there was no recovering from frontal assaults where the ladies were concerned. “No, not tonight.”

  “You’re mad, Lymington, but I suppose there’s no point in arguing with you. I can’t help but observe, however, that you might not be so cross if you occasionally indulged your carnal appetites.” Lovell frowned. “You do have carnal appetites, don’t you?”

  Samuel did, and rather pressing ones at that, but if he acknowledged his desires to his cousin, Lovell would set a horde of courtesans upon him, and the next thing he knew, he’d have a skirmish on his hands.

  Or worse, a frontal assault.

  “We’re not here to indulge my appetites, but yours.” Indulge them, and pray a tumble with a courtesan tonight would keep Lovell out of mischief for the rest of the season.

  It was dangerous, bringing Lovell back to London when the fashionable crowd of debauched noblemen he’d been running with were still lurking about the city, drinking and wagering and generally making arses of themselves.

  Samuel glanced across the drawing room at Lord Peabody, one of Lovell’s former companions. Peabody had put away an astonishing quantity of port in the short time since Samuel had arrived, all while assessing the ladies as if they were prime horseflesh at Tattersall’s. He’d just chosen a tiny girl with chestnut hair, who looked more terrified than flattered by his attentions, and was tugging her toward the stairway.

  Courtesan or not, Samuel despised seeing a lady manhandled. It made him ill to think of Lovell in company with such a blackguard.

  When Samuel left England eight years earlier, Lovell had been a sweet-tempered lad of fifteen. The worst that could be said of him then was tha
t he was given to misty-eyed dreaminess. He’d fancied himself in love a half-dozen times before the age of twelve, drifting from one harmless adolescent infatuation to the next like a bee sampling every blooming flower in its path.

  Samuel blamed his Aunt Adelaide for Lovell’s romantic notions. She’d named the boy Lancelot, for God’s sake.

  Lancelot.

  If ever there was a name to tempt the fates, that was it, and fate had caught up to Lovell with a vengeance. Looking at him now, Samuel couldn’t find a hint of the good-natured boy Lovell had once been.

  He’d been ruined, in nearly every way a man could be ruined.

  Lovell had been seduced by the glamourous coterie of aristocratic wastrels. He’d become a London beau, flitting from one dangerous escapade to the next like a deranged insect. He brawled and wagered, trifled with demireps, engaged in endless scandalous affairs, and traded one mistress for another as often as he changed his cravat.

  Predictably, Lovell’s messy antics had led to an even messier duel that had landed him in bed with a dangerous fever from a pistol ball lodged in his leg.

  When Samuel returned to England to bury his Uncle Lovell, he’d found his family in chaos. His uncle dead, his mother and aunt in a mutual hysterical frenzy, and his cousin bedridden from a festering wound, more dead than alive. Months had passed in terrifying limbo while Lovell fought off the fever that threatened his life—months in which Samuel had plenty of time to reflect on all the ways he’d failed his cousin.

  On some level, he must have known Lord and Lady Lovell’s petting would spoil Lovell beyond recovery, but even his deep affection for his cousin hadn’t been enough to persuade Samuel to spend another day under the same roof as his Uncle Lovell. That it was Samuel’s own roof, his own estate he’d left behind hadn’t made the least bit of difference. It hadn’t been his home since his father’s death many years earlier.

  It would have been a just punishment for Samuel’s selfishness if Lovell had succumbed to his fever, but by some miracle, he’d survived, and now Samuel was determined to see Lovell restored to himself, and back in possession of all he’d lost. His health, his family, and the future that had nearly been ripped away from him with one pistol shot.