Lord Holt Takes a Bride Read online

  Dedication

  For my mother,

  who insisted that this story needed a horse named Victor

  instead of a rabid badger.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  My Kind of Earl

  About the Author

  By Vivienne Lorret

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  London

  Spring, 1827

  Asher Holt jolted awake as a woman’s soft, warm body landed hard against his hips. Grunting from near castration, he shifted her lush figure to the left. “Easy now, sweets, or my Thoroughbred will never leave his stall.”

  He blinked groggily up at a pair of wide hazel eyes, studying the peridot green irises rimmed with a rich penumbra of cinnamon, and tried to recall her name. Nothing came to him. Brushing aside the disheveled mane of sweetly fragrant reddish-blond hair, he took a closer look at her heart-shaped face, gently rounded chin and carnation-pink lips. A tiny constellation of freckles emerged through a fine dusting of face powder, her cheeks red and blotchy beneath. Absently, he wondered if she used lemon juice to diminish blemishes like so many women did.

  Such a pity. He’d always been partial to freckles.

  Though, with such a complexion, society would never declare her a great beauty. And yet . . . there was something about her.

  But not enough to spark his memory.

  Then again, his skull was about to crack open like a desiccated milkweed pod and he could hardly put two thoughts together. His brain seemed caught in a mire of fuzz and fluff that even coated the back of his tongue.

  “You’re foxed,” the lush creature accused, wrinkling her nose. “And you smell like a rum pot.”

  That would explain things. “Peculiar. I never imbibe to excess.”

  “Well, you certainly picked a fine time to begin. We don’t have an instant to waste.”

  She pushed herself clear of him with a huff, affording him the view of a four-strand pearl necklace and heaps of cream-colored taffeta, enswathed by silver netting and bespeckled with even more pearls.

  The mystery woman looked like she’d exploded straight from an oyster bed . . . or a treasure chest.

  A dull buzz of alertness niggled at the back of his mind. Though at the current trudging pace of his thoughts, it would take days for any information to breach the thick fleece threatening to burst through his eye sockets and ears.

  Head spinning, he maneuvered into a more upright position. Only then did he realize he was still clad in yesterday’s riding clothes, greatcoat, and weathered top boots. He also recognized the aged burgundy interior of the carriage surrounding him, the familiar upholstery worn thin to an apricot hue over the squabs.

  The girl in pearls tugged on the sparse, uneven tassel strings at the ends of the shades. He hoped she was careful. He was almost certain that this decrepit conveyance was held together by nothing more than a few boards and some clever stitching. Pull on the wrong thread and the walls might very well crash down onto the street.

  The tassel broke off in her gloved hand and he braced himself, just in case. Thankfully, the walls remained intact.

  Unconcerned, she merely flicked it from her fingertips, then peeled back the brittle fabric from the window. A dull wash of gray light entered the cabin and opened another crag in his skull. Grimacing, he recoiled into the corner of the bench as she peered outside toward a fine mist collecting on the church steps.

  Apparently, she didn’t like the view either, for she turned back to him, worrying her plump bottom lip between her teeth. Her gaze met his, beseeching him with some unknown plea.

  All at once, he felt a strange sense of recognition . . . while still having no idea who she was. Though it was becoming clear that they must have met before.

  “Well?” Her hand impatiently stirred the air between them, her lips parting on panted breaths of . . . anticipation? Disquiet?

  Either way, he felt compelled to take in a lungful of air for her. “Well, what?”

  “Shouldn’t we be . . . getting on by now?”

  Ah. At once he understood.

  His appreciative gaze drifted over her voluptuous form, then focused on those strands of pearls above the rapid rising and falling of her lush bosom. Clearly, she was a young courtesan. Perhaps she’d been looking for a new protector and, drunk out of his gourd, he’d invited her into his carriage.

  A pity, really. “My apologies, sweets. I wish I had the coin to afford you. Alas, I do not. Nor do I ever mix business with pleasure. In my opinion, carnal delights should be uninhibited and unconstrained by the obligations of monetary transactions.”

  Her tawny brows furrowed and a tiny rosebud of wrinkles formed above her nose. “Whot are you—”

  Abruptly, her cheeks flushed to crimson. Then her mouth formed a small round O.

  She swallowed and shifted back on the bench with a crunch of taffeta. Surrounded by voluminous netting, she looked like a fuzzy-headed caterpillar in the midst of slipping into a chrysalis for an overdue nap.

  A grumpy caterpillar, who started to wag her finger at him.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m not going to become a harlot or a street . . . strumpet. Jane said you were slow-witted but, honestly, I didn’t realize she’d left me in the hands of a proper buffoon.” She darted another glance through the carriage window. “Oh, this was a mistake. I knew it all along, and yet there was no other way. And now, there’s no going back either. I just made certain of that.”

  Asher ignored the buffoon remark for the moment. “Jane?”

  “Your cousin, of course!”

  He was fairly positive he didn’t have a cousin named Jane. But there was the off chance that he’d merely lost her in the opaque quagmire between his ears.

  The courtesan speared him with an impatient glare as if she’d expected him to say something in response. When he didn’t, she groused, “Honestly. Do you think it possible for us to continue this . . . introduction en route since my father is doubtless discovering my absence and bound to burst upon us at any moment?”

  The threat of her father’s wrath—or any father, really—spurred Asher into motion. He called out to the driver and, with a crack of the whip, the carriage jolted. And so did the contents of his skull.

  Squinting, he took another long look at his companion. When she was perturbed, the outer cinnamon band of her irises seemed more like a ring of fire encircling molten green pools. And as he stared into them, his head cleared bit by bit.

  Stretching out his legs, he kicked an empty bottle that coggled a few memories into place. “Your father a tyrant, is he?”

  “Not entirely. He isn’t one to shout or to raise his
hand when an opposing argument is set before him. However”—she hesitated, pursing those pink lips thoughtfully—“he has a knack for turning conversations into mazes and, before you know it, you’ve agreed to whatever he wanted in the first place.”

  He nodded in commiseration, having been sired by a master manipulator as well.

  In fact, come to think of it, he was the reason Asher was here. If it wasn’t for his dear old pater, then he wouldn’t have heaps of debt waiting to bury him alive. Asher even recalled forming a desperate plan to finally liberate himself from the Luciferian tyranny.

  But what was that plan, precisely?

  He had no idea. Though he seemed to recall being disgusted by his own actions. Enough to drink an entire pint of rum. Enough to take a carriage to the church last night. Enough to wait outside until morning for his chance to . . . to . . .

  No.

  Asher sat forward as realization dawned, and he winced at the shaft of silver light lancing through the center of the carriage.

  Lowering his face into the cup of his hands, he mumbled, “Just so we’re perfectly clear, your name is . . .”

  “Miss Winnifred Humphries.”

  “Yes, of course.” Now he recalled everything.

  She was the heiress he intended to kidnap.

  Chapter 1

  The week before

  Winnifred Humphries never imagined that the sum of her existence would dwindle down to corsets and cakes. Cinched laces and afternoon teas. Whalebone and wedding plans.

  Betrothed at the beginning of her second Season, she’d hoped for waltzes and even warm lemonade. Glittering chandeliers and moonlit terraces. Shared secrets and stolen kisses.

  But those things didn’t happen to plump, freckled heiresses.

  Resigned, she dutifully watched her fiancé dash off to his new barouche, the silver trim gleaming in the midday light like a freshly minted coin. Mr. Woodbine bade her no more than an absent wave, and his steps were far lighter in leaving the stately townhouse than in entering it.

  Her own steps might have been nimble as well if she could breathe. But Mother—in her unending quest to have a slender and graceful daughter—ordered Winnifred’s laces drawn tighter for the special occasion of having Mr. Woodbine for tea.

  Not that it mattered. He’d grimaced each time a morsel of cake had passed her lips. And because of him, she’d eaten the whole blasted slice. She hadn’t even been hungry.

  Combined with tea, that last spiteful bite was expanding to continental proportions. The country of Plumcakia and all its inhabitants now dwelled inside her, some holding hand-hewn spears and waging war on her lungs.

  Placing a hand over her midriff, she hoped for peace between nations. Then she returned to the parlor, prepared to beg her friends to loosen her laces.

  Unfortunately, Mother was still lingering in the gold-chintz-papered room, fussing with red and pink roses in a cobalt meiping vase. Her keen gaze cut to Winnifred and she clucked her tongue. “I warned you against the plum cake, dear.”

  Winnifred exchanged wry glances with Jane Pickerington and Elodie Parrish, who were sitting primly on the camelback settee. Her friends were well-acquainted with Lady Waldenfield’s ongoing and, frankly, futile pursuit of perfection.

  Sinking down onto the edge of an upholstered chair, Winnifred was careful not to bend at the waist. She couldn’t risk a corset eruption, after all. Because of Mr. Woodbine and the troubling letter that arrived before him, the afternoon was already dreadful enough without the possibility of impaling her friends with shooting spears of whalebone.

  On a brighter note, if she fainted and her head lolled onto the lofted expanse of her own bosom, she would surely smother herself to death and wouldn’t have to marry Mr. Woodbine. In addition to that boon, Mother could order her daughter’s corpse fitted into the newer fashions of narrow dropped waists and puffed sleeves without any complaint whatsoever.

  Inhaling a sip of flesh-pinching air, she said to her mother, “As I recall . . . the words . . . ‘Try the cake, dear. It’s simply divine’ fell from your lips.”

  “Yes, but I raised my brows as I spoke,” she said, turning to demonstrate.

  A master of her craft, the subtle arch revealed a refined degree of censure and only a trace of wrinkles on her still-youthful countenance. Imogene Humphries certainly did not appear old enough to have a child of two and twenty. Ever-stylish in her violet checked silk tobine, she might have stepped from the pages of La Belle Assemblée. Her willowy figure hardly required the aid of a corset, and her golden hair was always artfully coiffed—unlike Winnifred’s unholy tangle of reddish-blond curls.

  Thankfully, Mother had given up on taming it ages ago.

  “With your wedding scarcely a week hence,” Mother continued, “you should be mindful of Mr. Woodbine’s moods. Surely you noticed the way he eyed your every forkful of cake with grim disapproval. He never does that with Lady Stanton. In fact, just last night, I saw them at a dinner party. And, by the by, she was wearing the most elegant gown of—”

  “You do realize you’re admiring my fiancé’s mistress, do you not?” Winnifred interjected.

  Her cheeks heated with embarrassment and her stomach roiled in suppressed umbrage. A volcano erupted on Plumcakia, killing all the natives and scorching the tender lining of her throat. She swallowed, too ashamed to look past the gold-inlaid edge of the low table and toward her friends.

  “Pish tosh. That’s simply the way of things in our circle. Mr. Woodbine has had Lady Stanton’s companionship long before you came along. She was a poor, childless widow and his family forbade him from marrying her. It’s positively pointless to imagine that he would abandon her simply because he’s marrying a young woman whose dowry is too appealing to resist.”

  Winnifred felt as desirable as the burlap sack a highwayman might fill with gold sovereigns. A lovely reminder that she was merely the vessel that transferred a fortune from one hand to another.

  Of course, she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he was marrying her out of affection. From the beginning, Mr. Woodbine could scarcely stand to linger in the same room with her.

  It was her father who’d arranged the union. Paying no attention to Winnifred’s unwavering objections, Viscount Waldenfield had mulishly chosen Mr. Woodbine because he was third in line for a dukedom and poor enough to manipulate.

  Among other disappointments, life had taught her that marriage was nothing more than an obligation to one’s family. So then why did her foolish heart still yearn for love? To find a man who might want her without condition or fortune?

  “Now, now. There’s no need to turn all prickly,” Mother said, coming to her side to fuss over her chrome-yellow gigot sleeves, puffing up the left to match the right. Then she lifted a rosewater-scented hand to Winnifred’s cheek, her expression soft and solemn. “I’m only trying to save you from any romantic inclinations. I was once a young, wealthy bride, too, you know. Believe me when I tell you that it’s far better to have a firm understanding now, rather than to suffer disenchantment for the years ahead of you.”

  For an instant, Winnifred could have sworn she saw the reflection of her own longing in her mother’s eyes.

  Then Imogene Humphries stood tall and flitted an elegant hand in the air toward Jane and Ellie. “Now then, girls. Don’t let my Winnifred talk you into loosening her laces. She’s been attempting to bribe her maid with comfits all day. But I’m determined that she will make the ideal portrait of a bride by next week.”

  Then, with a wink, she turned on her heel and sashayed from the room.

  The instant the doorway was vacant, Winnifred slouched back onto the chair, her bustle crumpling like crushed dreams. “I can only hope that the world will erupt in fire in the next seven days. Do you think there are any volcanoes beneath London?”

  Ellie sat forward on a huff, blowing her inky dark fringe from her forehead. Ever-quick to show her emotions, her amber eyes were fierce and her porcelain complexion hosted two spots of
pink on the apples of her cheeks. “Winnie, you cannot possibly marry Mr. Woodbine.”

  “Actually, she is capable of marrying him,” Jane added in her usual logical fashion, her topknot of wispy brown curls slightly askew. “Regardless of how it isn’t the sensible thing to do and will guarantee her misery for years to come.”

  “Thank you for that,” Winnifred said dryly. “Lovely to know I can trust my friends to have a care for my tender feelings.”

  “Prue will say the same once she arrives. Though it seems her trademark tardiness has gone beyond the pale today.”

  “But Prue isn’t coming. Haven’t you heard?” Winnifred looked from one friend to the other. “Oh my, then it’s worse than I thought.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Jane’s sable lashes clustered around a pair of inquisitive blue eyes.

  Beside her, Ellie choked on a whimper of distress and her complexion lost its luminescence, fading to pasty white. “Something terrible has happened. I sense it now. Yes . . . there’s a dark presence among us.”

  Ellie had a knack for seeing Death around every corner. In fact, her fear of the great beyond rivaled Mother’s horror at the thought of letting out Winn’s laces.

  “Prue merely”—Winnifred hesitated, trying to sound cheerful and not reveal any of her own qualms until she knew for certain—“embarked on an unplanned holiday.”

  “Saints preserve us! My aunts said the same thing when I was young and my canary went missing. Days later, the gardener’s dog dug up Goldie’s corpse beneath the cabbage roses.”

  Winnifred wasted a precious breath on a sigh. “That wasn’t a euphemism for Prue having passed away in her sleep.”

  “Winnie should hardly have served us tea first if that were the case,” Jane tutted. “She would have told us at the door and had footmen and smelling salts on hand if we happened to faint. Which reminds me . . .”

  Reaching down to the carpet, Jane hefted a red paisley reticule of epic proportions onto her tiny lap and began to sift through the mysterious contents. She was famously—or infamously, depending on the parties involved—prepared for any situation.