Fallen Angel

“Who did this to you, Brenna?” he asked.

She threw his hands away. Unshed tears of hot shame shone brightly in her eyes now that he had seen the badges of that which she had tried so hard to hide.

“I shouldn’t have come in here,” she began uncertainly, heading for her own room and cursing herself for not realizing earlier the state of her night attire. But she was not to be so lightly let off, for Nicholas Pencarrow had had enough and he was at the door before she was.

“Now, Brenna,” he said softly. “You are going to tell me how a girl well cosseted in a family of unquestionable name came by such abuse.”

“I won’t tell you!” He would hate her now. Hate her and despise her and expose her. Everything was finished, over. Black despair spiraled inward. “Please, Nicholas, let me go.” Her voice was an aching whisper.

“I can’t,” he returned. “Damn it, I can’t.”

Fallen Angel

Harlequin Historical #171

Fallen Angel

Sophia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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SOPHIA JAMES

Fallen Angel #171

To Peter, Karen, Tim and Anne

for their love, patience and expertise.

Contents

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 One

Airelies, Kent—August 1861

Brenna stood still, stock still, head tilted at the low sounds of a fine summer evening, and listened. The river ran behind her and the plane trees rustled in the light night winds, just as they always did. But something was different; Mars and Bellona, her hunting dogs, stopped with their hackles up stiffly along bony spines as if they had felt it too. Brenna’s hand went quietly to her gun before going forward, shaky fingers pushing the flintlock guard up and inserting a steel-tubed charge. The trees were thicker now as they entered into the wooded copse a half a mile from Worsley, bordering on the Northern London Road, and she had to thrust the leafy branches aside to push through towards the sounds which she could now identify with more clarity.

Voices. Men’s voices. Low and soft and dangerous. A spurt of fear leapt into her heart, making it beat hard, and she stepped back in retreat, signalling her dogs to do the same, crouching in the undergrowth to get a look at what it was the men were doing before she left.

Two men came into her vision, dragging a third barely conscious man between them, his head bloodied, a blindfold tied roughly across his eyes, the fine linen of his shirt and the cut of his trousers strangely out of place against the rough homespun of the others.

‘My God, highwaymen,’ Brenna thought, one hand moving unbidden to her mouth as if to stop the words that might come; the other one tightening on her weapon. Mars growled suddenly from behind her and Brenna held his muzzle, willing him into a calmness she herself was far from feeling. She watched the blindfolded man being tied roughly to the thick bough of an elm tree, then the two men walked away.

Listening, she tried to determine their movements. They’d be going back to the coach without doubt, for it was a robbery here in progress. She wondered at the fate of his lackeys or outriders and at the audacity these robbers had to strike on such a well-travelled portion of the road. Creeping forward, almost at his back now, she rounded the tree to his left, watching all the time for the return of the others whose voices she could hear as indistinct rumbles further out of view. Crouching as she reached him, she sensed his knowledge of her being there for his head turned in her direction, bandaged eyes sightlessly looking for the source of sound. She spoke then, quietly, in the lowest whisper that she could manage. ‘You have two men with guns, busy now with the spoils from your carriage, I think…’

He stiffened and broke across her words. ‘Can you loosen the ropes and this thing across my eyes?’ His husky voice was deep with anger.

‘I’ll get your ropes first. It will be safer if they should return.’ He nodded and she fumbled with the cords knotted across his wrists, cursing herself for the time it was taking and watching all the while for the reappearance of the others.

She just had them loose as boots crashed back into the small clearing, and as the man beside her whipped the cloth from his eyes she dropped down to her knees and sighted her gun, shooting it low into the leg of the first robber and ramming the charge into the barrel to take the second shot. Rough arms, however, pulled her behind the protective bough of a tree as a bullet whistled overhead, and she was held down firmly against a broadly masculine chest, the shirt gaping open to reveal all that lay within. Fury and shock hit her simultaneously, along with the echo of a more unfamiliar emotion. For a moment she felt safer than she ever felt before as the hard lines of his body rippled beneath her fingers. Strength, energy and unblemished brown smoothness. And heat. Then her dogs crashed between them, fearful of her closeness to this stranger. Blushing furiously, she pulled away from his grasp and crouched down beside him, careful to leave some space.

‘Give me the gun and get out of here,’ he ordered. When she did not move, his eyes met hers in question.

‘Get out of here, Princess,’ he repeated quietly.

‘You are practised with weapons…?’

His smile was unexpected as he took the gun and she felt her heart lurch with choking excitement. Instinctively she drew back from him. She must never let anyone close. She knew that. She had always known it.

‘I’ll keep them at bay until you are safe,’ he returned, jamming in the next flintlock and resighting the gun. She noticed the crested gold ring on his little finger and the threads of the same colour in his hair and then she ran, lifting the skirts of her hunting habit and fleeing across the forest into the safety of the fields, glad of the dogs at her side. The sound of gunshots echoed through the glade behind her: three, four, five and then silence. Biting at her lip, she imagined him falling, gold-green eyes sightless and still, and she was winded by the feeling of loss and worry.

‘Please, God, let him live, let him be safe.’ The words became a litany tumbling in her breath as she hurried down the paths to Airelies Manor and threw open the door, her heart pounding loudly in her ears as she leaned back against it. Mrs Fenton came from the kitchens to investigate the noise and, amazed at Brenna’s appearance, was at her side in a moment.

‘What on earth is wrong, love?’ she burst out, wiping flour-powdered hands on her large apron.

‘There’s some highwaymen in the woods. Lock the doors and windows and get the guns from the study. If the gentleman they’re trying to rob gets shot, they’ll be up at Airelies next. I think they saw me!’

Rose Fenton jammed the brass bolts home, locking the floor catches for further protection. ‘My God, Brenna. We’re alone here save for Albert and young Stephen. We can’t possibly shoot anyone.’

‘I just have,’ the younger woman answered, horrified anew as the housekeeper began to cross herself, uttering holy incantations to a forgiving God.

‘You killed someone?’

‘Shot his knee off, I think. At least it should slow him down a bit.’ She stopped herself from mentioning the other man. The gentleman would be safe, she told herself. He seemed strong and fit and the gun in his hand had been reloaded with expertise. She tried to recall the crest she had seen on his ring, a lion rampant across two drawn daggers. Strength and danger. She smiled at the way the image suited him so exactly, the colour returning to her cheeks as she ran to each front window, pushing the locks into place. The feel of her uncle’s gun in her hand heartened her further, as did the silence in the valley. Should she go back to help him? She dismissed the thought summarily. Her reappearance would more likely compromise his safety than help him. But still she could not relax as she strode up and down the front hall, eyes glued to the scene outside for any sense of movement.

No more shots had rent the quietness of evening, although they had heard the shouts of men from the village a short time ago. Mrs Fenton’s white face brought her back to the moment and she struggled to hide her own worry from the elderly housekeeper.

‘Whoever is dead or alive seems unlikely to bother us now,’ she said quietly and consulted the clock at the end of the hallway. ‘But, to be sure, we will pack in the morning and return to London. And I will ask Albert to send Stephen down to Worsley for any word of the incident.’

Just as she had finished speaking, however, a conveyance turned into the drive, stopping at the front of the house. The door was thrown open and Brenna’s heart leapt in shock as she fleetingly saw the man who’d been bound to the tree step out, her gun held firmly in his hand. Without further thought she turned to the housekeeper.

‘Tell him I have gone. Tell him, thank you for my gun and tell him…’ she called over her shoulder as she ran up the stairs ‘…tell him I don’t wish to see him again.’ She disappeared into a top bedroom just as the door knocker sounded.

Smoothing out her apron, Rose Fenton took a deep breath before opening the door with a less than enthusiastic smile, to be confronted by the most handsome gentleman she had ever had the pleasure of meeting, even despite his numerous bruises. He had hair the colour of burnt copper and gold-green eyes. The dark burnous cloak he wore was torn across the shoulder, the gold appliqué fraying badly.

‘May I help you, sir?’ she enquired breathlessly, her eyes on Brenna’s gun, which he suddenly handed to her, bowing in apology, a smile on his lips.

‘I have it from the inn at Worsley that a Miss Brenna Stanhope is in residence here and I think this may be hers. I can’t be certain.’

The housekeeper cut his words short. ‘Yes, sir. Miss Brenna told me what happened and she bade me to thank you.’

‘She’s here, then?’ His glance perused the empty spaces inside. ‘Might I speak with her for a moment?’

Rose Fenton blocked off his view by moving in front of him. ‘No, sir, she’s…she has just gone…’ The lie came picked from thin air and with little plausibility.

‘Back to London?’ he queried uncertainly.

‘No, not for now. She’s gone south.’

The man leant against the wall outside, a slight frown sifting across his features. ‘She doesn’t want to see me, let me give her my thanks?’

‘No, sir’.

‘Could I leave her a letter?’

‘No, sir. She just wants to forget the whole incident. It’s finished with and she’d rather just have it at that.’

‘I see,’ said the other, straightening and moving back from the overhanging portico. ‘Could you make sure she knows I have come and please do convey my warmest thanks.’

‘I will, sir,’ Mrs Fenton answered, frowning as the man looked up to a window on the first floor. The movement of a figure flitting back quickly from view behind heavy velvet curtains was easily caught.

‘You have other guests here?’ he enquired carefully, watching as she answered.

‘No, sir.’

Rose Fenton breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door.

Upstairs, Brenna witnessed his departure, a sense of disquiet permeating her whole being.

He had seen her.

He had even found out her name and where she lived. Could the information harm her? Could the interest she had heard in his voice translate into a menace? Or a damning curiosity?

With a deepening frown, she observed the carriage winding its way from Airelies and out into the darkness of the main road north.

Chapter Two

Nicholas Pencarrow, Duke of Westbourne, Knight of the Realm and owner of half a dozen of England’s finest estates, leaned back in his leather chair, feet up on his desk, reading with bemused interest a letter from his lawyer.

‘After much searching we can find out very little about Brenna Stanhope. There is certainly no mention of the girl until she was sixteen, making a name for herself on the piano in select gatherings organised by a Sir Michael De Lancey, her uncle. Miss Stanhope appeared briefly in society five years ago as a débutante in one season only in London. Further enquiries have turned up the name of the Beaumont Street Orphanage. It seems Sir Michael and his niece run the establishment together, Miss Stanhope teaching at the school…’

Nicholas frowned. An orphanage? The idea intrigued him as did everything else he had discovered about the elusive Miss Stanhope. Flicking through the remainder of the letter, Nicholas determined it to contain brief mention of Michael De Lancey’s reduced family circumstances and little else. ‘Damn it,’ he cursed under his breath. Why was she so secretive? His mind ran back to the woman he had seen in the woods, hair the colour of ebony, eyes of violet and a body rounded and feminine. ‘Brenna Stanhope…’ he whispered her name softly into the empty corners of the room, remembering the timbre of her voice, the dimples in her cheeks and the feeling of her warm breath against his bare chest.

And when he had touched her…

A noise from outside pulled him from his thoughts and he rose even as the door opened to admit Lady Letitia Carruthers, all blond ringlets and flashing blue eyes, her fashionable pink redingote day dress shaped to a waist so thin his hands could easily span it. ‘Nicholas darling,’ she said breathlessly, throwing herself headlong into his arms before perching on a nearby couch and artfully arranging her skirts around her. ‘I am exhausted, and this ball you are going to throw will be the culmination of hours of hard work. Even Christopher in his heyday did not contemplate such opulence.’

Smiling at the reference to her long-dead husband, Nicholas poured two generous brandies, one of which he placed in her outstretched hand. ‘Your taste is always exquisite, Letty, and I appreciate the time and effort you have invested in the occasion.’ Crossing to his desk, he extracted a black velvet jewellery box, and laid it before her. ‘This is for you by way of gratitude.’

Letty squealed, throwing open the lid with a hurried delight. ‘Rubies, Nicholas,’ she whispered, ‘and such beautiful ones.’ With infinite care she drew the chain of gold and red from its soft bed and, unbuttoning her bodice, presented her back to him. ‘Will you fasten them?’

Nodding, he moved behind her, assailed instantly by the expensive perfume that enveloped her in a cloud wherever she went, his hands competent at her back while she waited for him to finish.

‘Nicholas, you do know I love you, don’t you?’

He turned, caught by the seriousness in her voice, swallowing at her admission and feeling guilty, as he did each time she had said it, for he knew, in truth, that he could not say back what it was she longed to hear from him. A tight smile played around his mouth as he perceived her disappointment. Why did women always want what he could never give them? Why could he not relish the commitment to relationships other men made without recourse to a safer distance? He knew the answer even as he voiced the question.

Johanna. His mother.

His father had married for love and look where that had got him. Widowed at twenty-six with two young boys and a heart as broken as he was, Gerald had finally drunk himself into the oblivion he functioned best in.

At eight Nicholas had tried his hardest to comfort both his father and five-year-old brother Charles, but without Johanna the family centre was gone, dissolved into a strange mix of long silences and unfathomable anger, the remnants of a family who had loved too much and lost everything because of it. And when, thirteen years later, Gerald’s liver had finally succumbed to the abuse of a decade and he had died, predicting that his sons would follow the same path as he had, Nicholas had vowed that this prophesy would never come to pass and had spent his life either in the arms of experienced widows or hardened show girls, neither pushing for the state of matrimony that he was determined to escape.

Bending down, Nicholas collected some papers lying in a bundle at the top of his desk. Aye, to him survival marched hand in hand with distance, mere affection containing no real power to hurt. And if sometimes he recognised the flaws in his reasonings, he was also quick to remember the lonely years of his childhood. Never again would he let himself be so vulnerable.

Breaking the awkward silence of the moment with the merely mundane, he turned back to her and said, ‘I’ll see you out then.’ His words came harshly across Letitia’s admission and he was pleased when she followed his directive without argument and walked before him, the clutter of servants in the corridor precluding any other more personal talk.

The party after the opera was crowded with people thronging out into the open halls, and it seemed every second one was calling to Nicholas on an urgent and important purpose, invitations offered and congratulations given for some new and successful business venture of his.

They all knew of his Midas touch, the way he made thousands from every concept he believed in and the way his holdings multiplied each year: land, horses, ships and women.

Nicholas Pencarrow, Duke of Westbourne, never went anywhere without every female eye in every room fastened upon him, young and old, and all with the same thought in their minds—how they longed to be the one to tame the lion who stalked in their midst, with copper hair and tawny eyes, the most handsome man in court and the richest to boot.

Tonight, dressed entirely in black, he seemed to prowl the confines of the small room in an unspoken need to be free, though as he stood, glass in hand, a name mentioned behind Nicholas made him turn.

‘Michael De Lancey.’ A woman was introducing an older man to a couple directly to his left and the name on Brenna Stanhope’s file leapt to mind. Her uncle? His eyes raked across this man and Nicholas smiled as he heard the accent, cultured and quiet like his niece’s. With care he beckoned a footman stationed across the room, the servant hurrying through the crowd at the summons and waiting as the Duke pulled out a card from his jacket pocket.

‘Please inform Sir Michael De Lancey that I would like to meet with him when he finds himself free,’ he said politely, returning to his own conversation as the man hurried off.

It was only a few minutes later when he felt the small man’s presence at his shoulder. Nicholas held out his hand to the other’s uncertainly offered bow, taking Sir Michael’s hand firmly in his own and saying with feeling, ‘I am very pleased to meet you, sir. Your niece, Brenna Stanhope, has no doubt told you of her part in my lucky escape near Worsley!’

Michael De Lancey started, a frown deep in his eyes as he shook his head. ‘No, your Grace, she has told me nothing.’

The admission floored Nicholas. ‘You have not seen her in the past three weeks?’ he asked in amazement.

‘Oh, indeed, yes, Brenna lives with me.’

‘And yet she has mentioned nothing?’

‘No, I am afraid not!’ Grey eyes came up to his own, honest eyes with all the look of a gentleman, and Nicholas, surmising this man not to be lying, changed tack instantly.

‘Would you permit me to call on your niece, Sir Michael?’

‘No!’

One word and so unexpected Nicholas could hardly credit the answer. Did he not know to whom he was speaking? Did he not understand the social etiquette due to such a title as his own? He sized up the situation and tried again.

‘You won’t let me call on your niece?’ The query was phrased more in incredulity than anger.

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘And you have my card?’

‘I do, your Grace.’

Perplexed, Nicholas ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is she married already?’ he said suddenly.

‘No, your Grace.’

‘Betrothed?’

‘No, your Grace.’

‘Then you would agree that she’s free to make up her own mind about whether or not to see me?’

Sir Michael shifted uncomfortably, giving the impression of a man who was backing himself into a quickly approaching corner. ‘Yes.’

‘Then please give her this.’ Taking out another card, Nicholas wrote on it in haste. ‘I would very much like a reply.’

Nodding, Michael De Lancey clutched the paper in his fist and Nicholas watched him call for his coat and hat and take his leave.

Brenna rose the next morning early, dressing in one of her customary dark-blue velvet gowns, then hurried downstairs to the breakfast room, coming to a halt as she saw her uncle already seated and looking very perturbed.

‘Good morning,’ she said, favouring him with a smile as she took the seat opposite and poured herself some tea.

He cleared his throat. ‘Brenna, I need to talk to you.’

‘Mmm, what about?’ She glanced up as he took a card from the table in front of him, and placed it before her.

‘That!’ he stammered as she raised the gilt-edged card to her eyes.

NICHOLAS PENCARROW

DUKE OF WESTBOURNE

‘Who is he?’ she returned quietly, a premonition of disaster seeming to emanate from the words themselves.

‘Read the back.’ With dread she flipped it over, her heart beating faster as she placed the context of the message: Would you permit me to say thank you in person for your help at Worsley?

Unsure eyes surveyed her uncle. ‘I didn’t tell you. I thought it might make you worried.’

‘But you’ll tell me now?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes,’ she answered, giving him a blow-by-blow description of the whole episode.

Her uncle was silent when she finished, phrasing his next question only after much thought. ‘Did you talk with him at Airelies?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see him properly, Brenna?’ The words came hesitantly.

‘No. Why?’

‘I think he could be persistent, you see, as well as both powerful and stubborn. The whole of London treads carefully in his wake and it seems he owns almost half of it.’

‘The wrong man to rescue, you mean?’ Brenna quipped. ‘I should have left him to an untimely end, especially now if he’s going to harass me.’

Michael De Lancey grimaced. ‘I do have a feeling about this man. I think you should at least meet him. Be as dour and miserable as you want. It is the mystery that is making him interested. I know his type. It is only the thrill of the chase that he craves and there are plenty of women in London who will attest to that truth, or so I’m told.’

The words made sense, though already Brenna’s heart beat painfully at the thought as his gold-green eyes and dark copper hair came fully to mind. With a rising irritation she stood and pulled at the plait that hung across her shoulder. She knew better than to allow herself such feelings.