Price of Desire
Authors: Lavinia Kent
A Military Hero and a Despairing
Wife . . .
Captain Wulf Huntington and Rose, Lady Burberry, become lost in pleasure on an anonymous afternoon
and evening
caught in time.
But reality intrudes sooner than either thought possible when both learn the other’s true identity and all the reasons why their love cannot be. He must return to military life and she to the only life she knows.
Until . . .
Years pass
and now the widowed Rose seeks another husband. At a country house party organized to meet eligible men, an angry Wulf intrudes. He wants answers from Rose, answers she is not willing to give. Will past betrayals and secrets keep the lovers apart or will they come to embrace a love for all time?
Price of Desire
By
Lavinia Kent
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright
©
2013 by Lavinia Klein
Cover design
©
Victoria Sheer
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
f Contents
Prologue
Cornwall, 1812
“Bloody hell,” Rose muttered as she caught her thumb on another thorn
.
The fresh scent of the greenery tickling her nose was no consolation for the pain in her hand
.
She’d tossed her muddy gloves aside, and now the blasted bush was determined to sabotage her every effort to remove it to a more genteel setting
.
Her hands stung with evidence of the battle
.
She sucked on her finger, ignoring the bitter taste of mud,
and
determined not to yield to emotion
.
The tears that ached heavy behind her eyes had little to do with wounds of the flesh
.
John would not want her crying over him.
John.
She would not think of him now
.
Her skin prickled in the heat and she fanned the fabric, trying to get a bit of air as perspiration trickled down the back of her neck onto her sodden collar
.
When she’d first decided to spend the day digging up a border of hedge roses, the cold gray of the April morning had not admitted a suspicion of hot sunshine
.
She’d sought only distraction from the desperation that clung to her as she watched the illness that ravaged her beloved husband
.
Each day he seemed further from her, more separated by walls the eye could not see
.
With a thirty-five year difference in their ages, she knew she should have been more prepared, but so often she wished she could lie down beside John and travel with him on his coming journey.
“Bugger it all.
”
Glancing down the path to be sure of her solitude, she loosed a colorful and varied stream of curses
.
Being the wife of a seafaring man had greatly increased her vocabulary
.
With each word that passed her lips
,
the suppressed frustrations of the last difficult months fermented to the surface like bubbles in a bog
.
“I don’t know the meaning of half those terms
.
Would you care to explain
?
I assume you’re not actually talking about my mother.
”
The deep, well-modulated voice echoed from behind her, speeding her heart.
She spun around, her half-boots catching on the stubborn root
.
With a further stream of more ladylike vulgarities, she tumbled onto her behind
.
The mud sloshed around her
.
She shaded her eyes and peered up.
A man stood at the top of the rise, the backlight of the bright sun forming a halo about his head, like that of a descending angel
.
His large and commanding presence filled the clearing
.
The brilliant light hid much, but his hair shone the deepest bronze tipped in gold, and the immensity of his frame as he towered above her was unmistakable
.
She swallowed, aware of her vulnerability as she sat encased in mud.
Had it not been for the very real outline of the heavy-limbed horse beside him, she might have wondered whether heatstroke gave her visions
.
The brusque chuckle that followed her fall lacked any angelic quality.
“Forgive my lack of gallantry, dear damsel, but may I make amends by offering to help you in your task?
”
Rose fumbled for words
.
How did one respond when uncertain of the jest
?
She brushed at her skirts with dirty, gritty fingers, not sure how to rise without appearing even more foolish
.
She glanced at the gentleman from the corner of her eye as she continued her straightening
.
He stepped down the ridge and offered his hand, dwarfing her own
.
She paused before placing her grubby palm in his, and his masculine fingers wrapped warm around hers
.
Her heart sped
.
His very warmth awakened something caught, frozen within her.
She gazed up at him, taken aback by her own unexpected response
.
For the first time, she noted the glint of brass buttons and scarlet regimentals
.
A passing soldier, then.
“No forgiveness is required, sir
.
I am sure I am quite the sight, sitting in the mud surrounded by rosebuds.
”
Her fingers shook as she let him haul her to her feet
.
“A little help would not be amiss, however
.
The lad who was helping me has gone home to take his meal
.
I should, perhaps, have gone also, but I misjudged the labor required to loose this bush.”
Rose gave another brush to her gown with the
hand she’d pulled free from his, and raised her eyes to meet his squarely
.
She almost stumbled back again
—
would, in fact, have stumbled, had not he still clasped her other hand in his
.
Her thoughts of heaven and visions were not far gone
.
He stood stark and still; his high-planed cheeks, firm lips and unabashed eyes certainly did remind her of an angel — but an avenging one
.
When he moved closer, it took courage to stand her ground, and not yank her remaining hand free
.
He was taller than any man of her recent acquaintance
.
The height she had attributed to his standing on the rise was all his own, and he towered far above her own middling stature, every inch of him hard and muscled
.
He was huge, but she doubted there was a ripple of fat anywhere on his physique
.
A fierce shiver of awareness settled at the base of her spine, lighting fires she’d banked in the long years since John had departed her bed
.
His thumb brushed along her palm once, and then, as if with more deliberation, a second time
.
His eyes narrowed in calculation
.
Her heart sped faster.
Then, as if coming to decision, his lips firmed.
“Pardon my rudeness, my
lady
.
I did not realize . . .
”
He stepped back, dropping her palm, leaving an empty space between them.
“My lady
?
What brings you to that title
?
Certainly not my dress.
”
She brushed
her hand over the soiled, well-
worn twill
.
“Ah . . . my accent
.
It’s odd what having a governess for one’s stepmother will do
.
Are you willing to lend me a strong arm?”
He reacted as if on cue, his glance dropped to her hand, her dirty, blistered and recently callused palm
.
He smiled and stepped forward again, enfolding her in the power of his presence.
“Just show me what needs doing, and I would be happy to oblige, my sweetest lady.”
His tone mocked, even as his ready grin reassured
.
Rose stood trapped, a doe in the hunter’s lamp, caught up unwary by physical awareness
.
She’d known the implication of the words she spoke – sought only to avoid the embarrassment of explaining why someone in her position appeared little better than a scullery maid - but now was caught in full understanding of the precarious situation she’d bolted into.
She peeked down at her worn dress again, noting the dark let-out seams next to the faded fabric
.
Damp soil clung to her fingers, embedded beneath her short nails
.
The fresh blister, combined with abrasions of the past week, revealed the hours she had toiled
.
She looked anything but the lady that she was in truth.
She caught his heated gaze following her own, moving with slow precision over her body
.
It paused at her bosom; her breath stilled, and her fingers lifted, moving along the damp fabric to the buttons she’d loosed to cool herself
.
She started to refasten the buttons, but paused as she saw his eyes move and linger, following her movement
.
She watched as the dark centers grew in those flashing jade eyes
.
A long forgotten tingle began deep in her belly, giving rise to feelings she did not want to examine
.
She tried to breathe, to steady herself.
She was dizzy with his nearness
.
It had been so long since she’d felt this heady warmth, so long since she’d even realized that she missed it
.
She had to explain her position before circumstances raced beyond her control
.
Flirting was one thing, but the growing heat in his eyes was unmistakable
.
She needed to speak firmly and clearly before the misconception grew.
