A Promise of Pure Gardenias Read online

  A Promise of Pure Gardenias

  Flowers of the Aristocracy

  Book 2 in the Untamed Regency series

  Jackie Williams

  Cover

  Folle Photography

  A Promise of Pure Gardenias

  Copyright©Jackie Williams 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used/copied/lent in any form whatsoever without the

  written consent of the author.

  All character, names and events are from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons alive or deceased is entirely coincidental.

  Thanks

  To my wonderful daughter, without whose endless encouragement none of this would have happened.

  And to my editors at Fawcett Editing Services for sorting out my heroine’s dew drops!

  Contents

  Prologue One – A Promise

  Prologue Two – Like Father, Like Son

  Chapter One – A Shock to the System

  Chapter Two – Friends in Need

  Chapter Three – A Surprising Change

  Chapter Four – A Secret Mission

  Chapter Five – A Long Journey

  Chapter Six – A Rude Awakening

  Chapter Seven – A New Beginning

  Chapter Eight – Double Trouble

  Chapter Nine – A Surprising Appearance

  Chapter Ten – A Narrow Escape

  Chapter Eleven – The Height of Impropriety

  Chapter Twelve - The Bearing of a Gentleman

  Chapter Thirteen – Revelations

  Chapter Fourteen – A Summer Storm

  Chapter Fifteen – A Meeting of Minds

  Chapter Sixteen – A Trap is Sprung

  Chapter Seventeen – Three is a Crowd

  Chapter Eighteen – Preparations

  Chapter Nineteen – The Secret is Out

  Chapter Twenty – Testing One’s Backbone

  Chapter Twenty-One – Resisting Temptation

  Chapter Twenty-Two – A Wife’s Wrath

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Degrees of Separation

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Pride Before a Fool

  Chapter Twenty-Five – The Promise of Pure Gardenias

  Chapter Twenty-Six – A Study in Biology

  Epilogue – Duel Confessions

  Prologue One

  1799

  A Promise

  Save me from little sisters! And interfering mothers! Brendon Spencer added as an afterthought. Twelve year old boys should not be forced to play hide and seek with eight year old girls. It was too much. Humiliating at worst and undignified at the least. Might be all right for Pierce and Lucas, but Brendon and Algernon were older. They should be out hunting or fishing or taking part in other manly pursuits, not searching the dashed house for giggling terrors all covered in curls and lace and ribbons.

  Not that it mattered at that particular moment, for Felicity had hidden herself exceedingly well just for once. He swore they had been searching for over an hour, her best friend tagging along with him while he hunted. It wasn’t that he disliked Sophia Barclay, but she unsettled him with her big dark eyes, so trusting, so confident that he would be the first to seek out her friend. He never felt as though he could live up to her expectations.

  Especially not today. Felicity wasn’t behind her favourite curtain, or beneath her bed, or even in the wardrobe of his very own room. Although Sophia had pouted at the decision, tears glistening in those dusky eyes, it was just as well that he and his friends had now split up instead of searching in pairs. With any luck one of them would find his sister soon, and then they could put a stop to the ridiculous game.

  He wandered along the corridor to the nursery. Just a peek in to check, not that Felicity would have climbed all the stairs to get back up here again, but who knew how the mind of an eight year old girl worked. Not him, that was for sure. Girls were inexplicable creatures. Especially his own sister and Algernon’s younger siblings. Followed them everywhere. Couldn’t move for them normally. It actually felt odd for Sophia, Algernon’s sister, not to be right behind him now. He looked over his shoulder just to make sure she hadn’t sneaked up on him, but no, the hallway remained clear.

  A noise suddenly caught his attention. A grunt came from behind the closed nursery door. Ah ha! Found you! He thought and was about to shove the door open and proclaim himself the winner of the challenge, when his ear caught another sound. A definite huffing, then more grunting.

  And then the unmistakable sound of a palm striking skin. A hard slap, and another. He knew that sound all too well considering that his own buttocks had suffered such treatment after a recent, important, but interrupted experiment with a slug.

  A most unjust punishment in his opinion. How should he have known that his father was going to sneak into the dining room and quaff the glass of red wine, where the slug temporarily resided, before dinner had been announced?

  Brendon shook his head and pressed his ear to the nursery door. The grunting continued. Good Lord! Had Lucas Caruthers actually made good on his threat and stolen a piglet from Farmer Tremain? It certainly sounded like it, though who should be slapping it, he couldn’t wonder. Perhaps it was the nursery maid. She always complained about dirt. How she had to clear up behind him all the time. Of all the cheek! It was what boys did. They tramped mud all over the house especially for the maids to clear up. He would love to see her try telling a pig not to leave piles of dirt all over the place. What a hoot! He could hardly wait to see.

  He took hold of the door handle and turned it slowly. It wouldn’t do to startle the pig and have it running through the house. He would likely get the blame and he certainly didn’t want to feel his buttocks burning again anytime soon.

  The door inched open and the noises became louder. Snorting, huffing, groaning. Groaning? Strange. Did pigs groan? He couldn’t recall hearing one before, not that he had much contact with pigs, unless it was when he ate them. Perhaps they knew when their time was up and they were about to be slaughtered. On the odd occasion that he had seen it, the pig man’s huge knife certainly looked groan-worthy. They might protest a bit then, knowing their number was finally up, he supposed, but even so, groaning?

  He shut one eye and leaned towards the slither of light coming into the hall around the doorframe. He squinted and pressed his eye closer. Couldn’t see any pig. Couldn’t see much of anything. He pushed the door a little more and a slice of pink flesh came into view, but it had no curly tail and was certainly no piglet.

  A man, breeches fallen about the top of his riding boots and shirt yanked up to his midriff, stood half-naked over the school desk, his buttocks pumping furiously at whatever lay beneath him. Before he knew it, the door had opened more and Brendon stood there aghast at the scene in front of him.

  He must have made a small sound, though he didn’t recall it, for the man turned slightly and grinned right at him. Brendon couldn’t move, shocked into a paralysis as Algernon’s father held a stockinged leg aloft under his elbow, hand pushing down hard while he kept the leg high, and thrust and grunted and groaned.

  “Take a good look lad. See how it’s done. You’re about the right age for a lesson.” Lord Barclay turned his attention back to the woman lying beneath him, and for the first time Brendon saw her face. His nursery maid stared back at him, tears running down her cheeks as she lay there, with what looked like her other stocking shoved in her mouth and Lord Barclay’s free hand about her throat.

  “What are you doing?” Brendon managed to speak. “Leave her alone. She’s crying.” He took a step closer, but Algernon’s father just laughed and kept going, increasing his pace.

  “She loves it, don’t you Bessie?” He s
lapped the woman across the face before he turned back to Brendon. “They love a bit of rough with a Lord. You’ll find that out for yourself one day. In fact, you could probably have her after I’m done. Never too early to learn, and she won’t say a thing about it. Will you girl?” He pinched the woman’s face and shook it. “It’s our word against hers, and who will they believe. A lowly maid or a Lord of the realm.” The man grunted as he thrust again, then held still, closed his eyes and appeared to shudder all over.

  Brendon stood there gaping as the older man caught his breath, then finally pulled away from the nursery maid and let her leg drop. Lord Barclay turned to face Brendon full on, not even bothering to cover himself until Brendon had seen the last of his dripping erection, then he tucked himself back in his breeches and shoved Brendon aside as he strode from the room.

  Bessie sat up quickly and pulled down her skirts with one hand while she tugged the stocking from her mouth with the other. She cuffed away her tears as she put herself to order. It was a few moments before she looked at Brendon.

  “Don’t tell your parents, please Master Brendon.” She wound her fingers together in knots. “I’ll lose my position.”

  Brendon just stared. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He wasn’t totally in the dark about the sexual act, though at twelve he was far too young to have taken part in it. His own father had given him a talk about it. Showed him some books with drawings that he had at first found disturbing until he noticed that all the participants were smiling. His father had explained that people took great pleasure in such things, could take pleasure in touching themselves. It was nothing to be ashamed of.

  But Bessie didn’t look as if she had taken any pleasure from what Lord Barclay had done to her. In fact she looked as though she had hated every minute of it.

  “Did you want him to do that to you?” Brendon whispered, more shocked than he even knew.

  Bessie shook her head.

  “But you still can’t tell. He’s a Lord and I am nothing. He’ll say I let him, that I wanted him to do it. There are no other big houses around here who will hire me if I have a bad reputation. Promise me that you won’t tell.” Tears leaked from her eyes again.

  Brendon pulled out his handkerchief, handed it to her, and then stepped back with his hands fisted at his sides.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t want me to, but he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Father will kill him if he finds out.”

  Bessie dabbed at her wet cheeks.

  “And then your father would be hung. Do you want that to happen? Best we all just forget about it. Run back downstairs and don’t say a word. Promise me that you won’t say a word.” She handed the handkerchief back and smoothed her skirts one last time as her eyes pleaded with him.

  Brendon stood there for several seconds, barely believing what he had seen. Anger and disgust began to burn through him. How could a man treat a woman so dishonourably? Yes, Bessie might only be a nursery maid but she was still a woman. A woman who had been dreadfully wronged, but if she refused to let him tell anyone, he didn’t know what he could do about it, and she was right about the trouble it might cause for everyone concerned.

  He gave a quick nod.

  “All right. I won’t tell,” he said quietly.

  “Thank you Master Brendon.” Bessie gave a watery smile as she made her way to the servant’s stairs, but she suddenly turned back. “Promise me something else? Promise me that you will be better than that old goat. Promise me you won’t ever do this to any woman when you become a man.”

  Bile roiled in his stomach. The very thought that he might ever do such a thing! He wasn’t sure if he should be insulted. But then he looked into her sad blue eyes. She waited for his promise and he could give her no other.

  “I swear I will never be so unfeeling or disrespectful.” He meant every word.

  Bessie gave another smile and disappeared into the corridors at the back of the house.

  Brendon remained in the nursery for a few seconds. Everything seemed so normal again. So quiet. Had he even witnessed the scene? He trudged from the room and down the stairs, lost in thought as he half-heartedly searched for his missing sister, until he came to the housekeeper’s quarters.

  And then his mind exploded. As did his temper. For Algernon stood there, tall and dark and looking just like his father. With his lips fastened to Felicity’s.

  Prologue Two

  Seven Years Later

  Like Father Like Son

  Good God! Whatever was his mother thinking? Felicity wore no more fabric than in a harlot’s nightdress. Not that he had seen that many harlots’ nightdresses to compare it to, but really! The gown was almost transparent, and cut so low that his sister’s breasts... He stopped thinking. When had his sister grown breasts? Dear Lord alive, if one of his friends even glanced in her direction, he was going to draw their balls out through their nostrils!

  Brendon handed Felicity a corsage and, even while his stomach churned, he hid his horror beneath a smile, but if Lucas made one remark, or Pierce even thought about leering, the men would have black eyes and broken noses to remember. And if Algernon so much as even hinted at Felicity’s assets... Jesus! Her assets!

  Brendon could barely think straight. This was meant to be his and Algernon’s leaving dinner. How would he be able to concentrate on what came next if all he could think about was what his friends were doing with his sister? He bit down the thought. They were honourable men. More honourable than some titled people. He hated the way his mind wandered but perhaps it was just as well that Algernon had decided to come along with him rather than stay at home and begin to sort out the mess of his life. Going off to war might not be for everyone, but Brendon didn’t want to sit about just waiting for his father to die. And what with the barely hushed up scandal of Algernon’s recently deceased father... Not that he cared about the ghastly man. The late Lord Barclay could rot in hell for all Brendon cared. Probably was, knowing the man’s past crimes.

  Brendon cleared his thoughts. It didn’t do to dwell on the past. He held out his elbow for his sister to take, and escorted her along the corridor, all the while fearing that he was about to be sick. How had he not noticed her growing up? He huffed out a breath. Too busy with his own social schedule, he guessed, though he could hardly count Eton as a social event. More like a large slice of his life. The two years travelling the continent had been better, but now he was off again. And the good Lord only knew when he would come back.

  He peered down the stairs at the gathered assembly below, fisting his hand and casting his eyes around for lecherous looks.

  “Stop scowling. You look as though you have a lemon tucked into your cheek. Smile and let us go down. Your guests are waiting.” Felicity whispered.

  He looked down at his sister as she tugged on his arm.

  “If one of them even glances at you the wrong way,” he hissed from the corner of his mouth as they reached the bottom step. But Felicity wasn’t listening. She dragged him across the floor and suddenly hugged the most glorious looking woman his eyes had ever had the fortune to fall upon. He swore he had never seen a beauty like her. Pale skin, hair as dark as ebony, chocolate eyes so expressive, and lush, trembling lips that needed to be kissed. Now!

  He would have taken a step forwards and done it too if he hadn’t heard a sudden growl. Algernon stood beside the ravishing woman, huge, overbearing, positively bristling with anger, and Brendon suddenly realized why. He was standing far too close to his best friend’s guest, almost drooling at the sight of her luscious breasts, daintily curved waist, and silky smooth shoulders.

  Brendon took a quick step back to maintain a respectful distance. It didn’t do to ogle ones friend’s lover, but where had the man found such a beauty to partner him? It wasn’t as if Algernon had any fortune. Quite the opposite in fact. The man was barely keeping his head above water since discovering that his father had gambled the entire Barclay fortune away. And with the recent scandal stil
l circulating on the gossips’ lips, no woman wanting to keep her reputation intact would dare to be seen on his arm. And yet this beauty stood with Algernon, apparently without a care in the world, gazing at him with adoration in her eyes. Adoration that should have been reserved for him, Lord Brendon Spencer, heir to the Spencer fortune and titles. Jealousy cut like a knife and he narrowed his eyes as he leaned up and spoke into Algernon’s ear.

  “Good God! You brought a harlot with you! I’m surprised they let you through the door.” His words came out like whispered venom, such was his envy of the woman’s hand that had lain on his friend’s arm.

  Lord Algernon Barclay appeared to grow several inches taller than his already impressive height.

  “Harlot! How dare you! Especially as you appear to have brought along one of your own. But my escort is Sophia, my sister.” His words came hissing right back and Brendon felt the world shift beneath his feet. His head turned quickly back to the now chattering women.

  “Sophia! It cannot be. Isn’t she about twelve?” When had she grown from an annoying girl hanging onto his coat tails and into this ravishing beauty?

  Algernon nodded and raised a knowing eyebrow.

  “Shocking isn’t it, but you must tell me of your own escort. You didn’t let me know that you were bringing anyone.”

  Brendon rolled his eyes.

  “That’s because I didn’t. She lives here, idiot. Don’t you recognize Felicity?” He drew in a deep breath as his friend’s eyes widened as they travelled over the women.

  Algernon recovered quickly and steered him towards one of the many footmen bearing champagne while their sisters linked arms and continued to chatter. He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke.

  “Don’t worry, I know exactly how you feel. I would have thought twice about this commission if I had realized what trouble I was going to leave behind. I’ve already had words with Lucas and Pierce. They are dead men if they go anywhere near either of them.”