If He's Daring

Book 6: Wherlockes

by Hannah Howell

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Regency Romance

Synopsis

A young widow turns to a man of otherworldly abilities to save her son in this paranormal Regency romance by the New York Times bestselling author.



In a dazzling new novel in the Wherlocke family saga, New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell creates an unforgettable story of intrigue, jeopardy, and desire . . .



Stealing a stranger's carriage is the second most reckless thing Lady Catrin Gryffin de Warrene has ever done. The first is succumbing to her powerful attraction to the carriage's owner. Catrin has heard the rumors about Sir Orion Wherlocke's family and their otherworldly gifts. He's the one person who can keep her son and his inheritance safe from her late husband's ruthless brother. But it may be too late to protect herself.



Orion is facing the worst kind of danger a man of his ilk: a woman he can't walk away from. Catrin is an intoxicating blend of innocence and sensuality, and for the first time, seduction is far more than a game. But her beauty and fortune have made her a target. And now he must risk everything he's known in pursuit of everything he's ever longed for.



Contains mature themes.

Release date: October 1, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

England, Fall, 1790

The groan echoed through the small house, every note of it filled with pain and helpless fury. Catryn tossed her cloak on the hook near the front door and rushed toward the room she was certain the sound was coming from. Her heart pounded with fear for her family as she cursed herself for leaving them alone. She never should have given in to her friend Anne’s pleas to join her at the morning salon on the servants’ day off. She certainly should never have lingered there as long as she had.

She found her father on his knees in the library, one hand on the settee as he struggled to get to his feet. Catryn ran to his side to help him stand and then urged him to sit down on the settee. Blood stained his pale cheek as it seeped from the side of his head, the red of it stark against the white of his hair. The knuckles on his right hand were scraped and his left eye was already swelling. A quick look around the room revealed a knocked-over table and a smashed vase. Who would attack her father? The man was just a quiet, somewhat reclusive scholar.

A demand to know what had happened burned her tongue with the need to be uttered, but she bit it back. Her father needed tending to first, the dazed look in his gray eyes telling her that he was not ready to answer all her questions, not even the one now screaming in her mind. Where is my son?

Catryn quickly dampened her handkerchief with a little of the spring water her father always brought to the city from their country home and kept in a decanter on his desk. Her heart still twisted with fear, she gently bathed the blood from his face. By the time she was finished, his wound did not look quite as bad as she had thought it was, and his eyes had cleared. The first words he spoke chilled her to the bone.

“He took Alwyn.”

“Who took him, Papa?” she asked, although she already had a very good idea of who would commit such a crime against her.

“Morris.” He took the damp handkerchief from her hand and held it against the small wound on the side of his head. “He and some hired brute came into this house, marched right into this room whilst I was reading a story to Alwyn, and demanded that I give him the lad. Told the man he was a daft fool and to get out. Then we had us a tussle and I lost.”

She could see how that shamed him and patted his knee. “It was two men against one, Papa. I know, with all my heart, that you did all you could do to stop him. Now I will do what I can.”

Lewys Gryffin looked at his daughter, his only child, and wished he had shot Sir Morris de Warrenne a long time ago. Since her husband, Henry, had died nearly two years ago, life had become one vicious, unending battle with the man’s younger brother over who should have control over the heir, her son, and all the riches the little boy now had claim to. The months of strife had left them all weary and angry. It was clear to see that the fight over Alwyn had now turned truly dangerous and it hurt him to be of so little help to her when she needed him so badly.

“I should be the one to fight this,” he muttered.

“’Tis my place as the man in this family, as the head of this house.”

“Ah, Papa,” she said as she sat down next to him and kissed him on the cheek. “You have been fighting and doing a fine job of it. Fighting since the moment Henry took his last breath. And as soon as I get Alwyn back home with us where he belongs, you will be fighting again. Now it is my turn to take up the fight. I will go after Morris and retrieve my child.”

“It will not be easy. Do not forget how they took him from us. This was an attack. He demanded, and when I said no, he attacked. He came prepared to fight us for the boy. I think Morris has lost his mind, most probably when he lost the last court battle to be named Alwyn’s guardian. I ne’er considered Morris a very clever fellow, but I did not think he could ever be as lack-witted as this.”

“Neither did I. I had no warning at all, no sense that this could happen. This tastes of pure desperation, Papa.”

“It does. I thought the same when he showed up with the obvious intent of taking the boy no matter what or who stood in his way. I have heard that he is having some financial difficulties, but this was still a very drastic action to take.”

“That would depend on how deep his financial troubles run.” She resisted the urge to tell him all she had discovered about the dire condition of Morris’s finances, for the man needed no more weight added to his worry about Alwyn. “All this trouble with the courts and lawyers cannot have been cheap for him. It certainly pinched our purse hard. The why does not matter,” she said as she stood up. “He had no right.”

“No, he did not, but now he does have the boy and he may well think that is enough to help him win his case.”

“Then he will be wrong. All he will get from this is a prison cell.”

Lewys cursed when she hurried out of the room. He placed the damp handkerchief she had left behind over his throbbing eye. He should be at her side in this fight, but he knew he would be useless, his sight still affected by the blow to his eyes, and the blow to his head made it throb so hard and constantly that it scattered his thoughts. Good sense did not stop him from being infuriated that his barely five-feet-tall, not quite eight-stone daughter was about to confront a man who had just revealed how violent he could become when he did not get his way.

Catryn was unfastening her gown even as she strode into her bedchamber. She hastily changed into something far more serviceable and then began to stuff two more sturdy gowns into her saddlebags. It took her only minutes to pack a few other things she considered necessities and then she hurried down to the kitchen to gather some food. There was a good chance she could confront Morris right in his town house in the city, but she had been taught to always prepare for the worst. There was a chance she might have to chase him down.

They had been prepared for Morris to try and take Alwyn almost from the moment her husband died, for they had known he would heartily dislike the fact that her father had been named Alwyn’s guardian and, along with a few trustees, given control over Alwyn’s inheritance. Yet, as the months dragged on and all Morris had done was drag them through probate and the courts time and time again, they had lost that cold fear. They had been foolish to drop their guard.

Racing toward the front of the house, she paused when her father yelled out, “Take your pistol!”

Peering into the library, she was relieved to see that his color was better than it had been. “I have it with me, Papa. I will be very careful. Do not worry. And have Eccles look at those wounds when he returns. I will return when I have Alwyn and not before,” she vowed as she hurried away, confident that their clever butler would care well for her father.

Lewys wanted to argue that but heard the front door slam. He made an attempt to stand up but swayed with the dizziness that assaulted him and quickly sat down again. As he took several breaths to recover from nearly swooning and sprawling in an undignified heap upon the carpet, he thought about Catryn going after Morris, armed for battle with no strong man to protect or aid her. She was a true redhead in all the ways people thought of the breed, although her temper rarely showed itself. She was also a mother about to fight for her child. Morris had no idea what he had just unleashed.

Catryn checked her saddle and saddle pack to make certain both were secure before swinging up onto the back of her mare. She had packed enough to sustain her if she had to chase Morris down to the de Warrenne country house, but sincerely hoped she did not have to. Although she was a good rider, she had not ridden any great distances for a long time.

Fury warmed her blood as she rode through the cool, misty streets of London toward Morris’s town house. The man had been a thorn in her side from the moment her useless husband had breathed his last, but this act went far beyond being a nuisance. For a moment she considered setting the authorities on his trail, but she was not sure who to go to or if she could even afford such help. Legal help of any kind did not come cheaply and, after so many court battles with her brother-in-law, both her and her father’s purses were painfully light.

Just as she rode within sight of Morris’s town house she saw him shoving a thrashing, screaming Alwyn into his carriage. Shouting at him to halt gained her only a hard glare before he joined her son in the carriage, which began to move. The heavy traffic upon the road made a swift escape impossible, but it also slowed down all her attempts to catch up with him.

Cursing softly, she did her best to gain enough speed to overtake Morris’s carriage, but the only thing she was able to do was to keep him in sight. Catryn knew he would soon reach a road that led out of the city. If she could not catch him before then she would quickly lose sight of him. Her mare was a fast, sturdy creature, but the animal could not outrun a carriage pulled by four strong horses.

“Never expected him to actually leave the city, Sorley,” she muttered to her horse. “Am certainly readied for a journey but truly did not expect, or wish, to make one.”

Ignoring the curse shouted at her by the man she splattered with muck as she wove her way through the crowded streets, she struggled not to lose sight of Morris’s carriage. It troubled her when she realized they would soon leave the part of the city she knew well, might even pass through the more dangerous streets. Even as a child she had been sternly warned about the dark, filthy, and dangerous streets where the desperate poor and the criminals lived. Catryn prayed that Morris’s carriage would soon turn away from that rapidly approaching peril.

A moment later Morris’s carriage took a left turn and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. She quickly moved to follow him, only to see several small boys rush into the street to pick up the coins Morris had tossed out of the carriage. In her frantic attempts to avoid trampling the children, Sorley reared and then stumbled as its hooves hit the cobblestones again. Once she was safely through the crowd, Catryn realized that the hasty prayer she had uttered that they would all survive the brief confrontation unharmed had not been answered. Sorley’s gait was no longer smooth.

Moving to the far edge of the street, Catryn dismounted and began to walk her horse, closely studying the way the animal moved. The injury was not a bad one, just soreness in the muscle or hoof, but there would be no chasing Morris on horseback now. Not only would continuing to ride Sorley worsen the mare’s injury, but she would have no chance of catching the man while riding an injured horse. She would have to come up with another way to chase after the man. Fighting the strong urge to weep or scream, Catryn walked along trying to think of what she could do.

Then she saw it. It was like a miraculous answer to her prayers. The carriage stood in front of a pleasant town house, ready to be driven away. It was being idly polished by a liveried servant as the man waited for the passenger to arrive. Catryn’s heart pounded with excitement and terror as a desperate plan formed in her mind. Stealing a carriage was a hanging offense, she reminded herself as she approached the vehicle and the servant, but she might find some mercy for her actions since she was attempting to rescue her kidnapped son.

“Can I be of help, ma’am?” asked the servant when she halted in front of him, and yanked her saddlebags off of her horse.

“Why, yes, I believe you can.” She pulled her pistol from a hidden pocket in her skirts and aimed it at the man. “I have need of this carriage.”

The man took a step back and blinked. “Ma’am?”

“It is of the greatest urgency that I have this carriage. I must chase down a man. As you can see, my mount is no longer able to serve me in that endeavor. Her name is Sorley. She is a very good mare. I will leave her with you in trade for the carriage.”

“But, ma’am . . .”

“I am very sorry,” she said and moved toward the front of the carriage, keeping her pistol aimed steadily at the man. “Truly, truly sorry, but I really must do this. I will return the carriage, but if something goes awry and I cannot, you may keep the mare as payment.” She tossed her bags up on the seat and scrambled up after them. “If it is not enough to cover the cost then go to Lord Lewys Gryffin, Baron of Gryffin Manor in Chester. He is residing now at Gryffin House here in London. Tell him Lady Catryn Gryffin de Warrenne sent you to get recompense for the loss of the carriage.”

She snapped the reins just as he lunged toward her. Catryn nearly screamed when the horses darted forward. The pull on her arms was far greater than she had anticipated. It hurt, a lot, and she had to brace herself just to stay on the seat. A quick look back showed her that the man was not chasing her, however, so she turned her full attention to making her way through the busy, narrow streets. A few shouted queries to people she passed were enough to keep her on Morris’s trail, for the man’s fancy blue-and-gold carriage caught the eye of nearly everyone it passed by.

When she was finally free of the crowded streets of the city, Catryn breathed a hearty sigh of relief. That relief was short-lived, however, as she realized that Morris was headed southeast. If he was taking Alwyn to the coast, he could be planning to take her child out of England. It would make it all that much harder for her to find her son.

A rush of fear left a sour taste in her mouth before she could push it back. Morris could just as easily be taking her son to his country home in Easebourne. Catlyn scolded herself, determined not to keep falling into a deep mire of panic. Such fear clouded the mind and she needed hers to be clear and sharp. Her thoughts needed to be fixed upon one thing only: getting Alwyn back, no matter where Morris went or what obstacles were put in her path.

Catryn’s arms ached and her back wept with pain, but she kept the carriage moving along the road at as fast a speed as she dared. She was not surprised by the occasional look of shock she saw on the faces of the people she passed. Driving a carriage was not something women were supposed to do. She had only learned the skill because she had had to. Everyone at Gryffin Manor had had to work hard in the two years before she had married Henry, learning as many skills as they could to try and save the estate after a hard loss in an investment scheme her grandfather had foolishly made. They had succeeded, but during those hard times she had lost both her grandfather and her mother. Grief had stolen her father from her in many ways, too, leaving her carrying far more weight than a girl her age ever should have had to.

The pain of those losses still lingered, though the good memories came far more often than the sad ones now. Catryn did not regret all she had had to learn, either. She wished she had continued to use those skills from time to time, for now she was not sure how much longer she could continue without a rest. She had been racing along for nearly an hour and her whole body was protesting the exertion. Morris’s carriage had long been out of sight, but she was certain she was on the right trail. It would help if she had some idea of how far behind him she actually was, however.

Worry was a constant ache in her heart. She did not think Morris would hurt her son, but then she had never thought he would resort to kidnapping Alwyn either. Morris had never spent much time with her son and knew nothing about him. She doubted he had ever spent time with any child. Catryn feared what the man would do when he became aware of Alwyn’s habit of talking to people who were not there, such as his dead father. She had worked hard to make Alwyn understand that he needed to hide that little quirk, for it bothered, even frightened, too many people, but he was only five years old. She could not be certain he truly understood the danger.

The first of the obstacles she had worried about arrived an hour later, and she had to wonder if the Fates were working against her. The team was beginning to lag. Shaking free of her troubled thoughts, she briefly considered pushing them harder and then softly cursed. Catryn knew she now faced the same choice she had been forced to make with her mare Sorley. The only difference was that these horses simply needed a rest.

She pushed aside all thought that she was doomed in her quest to catch Morris, as well as the unkind thoughts she nursed about the man whose carriage she had stolen and the lack of stamina in his horses. It would do her no good to run the animals until they could run no more. She might gain on Morris for a little while, but she would lose him again when she was forced to stop and hunt down a new team. Morris would also have to rest his horses at some point along the way. Catryn began to search for a safe place to allow the horses to rest, perhaps one with both water and some grazing space.

An hour passed before she found the perfect spot. Catryn carefully drove the carriage off the road onto a grassy clearing near a brook. The moment she got down from the driver’s perch, she knew it was not only the horses that needed a rest. She had to hang on to the side of the carriage for a moment until her legs stopped shaking. There was not one single place on her body that did not ache, but her arms and upper back pained her the most. She was going to pay very dearly for this adventure.

Just as she was rubbing her aching bottom, a young voice said from behind her, “Arse hurting you, is it?”

Catryn spun around so quickly she stumbled back several steps as she struggled to keep her balance. A young boy stood there, grinning at her, his blue eyes shining with laughter. With his thick black hair tumbling around his face in waves that came perilously close to being curls, he was an astonishingly pretty boy. She judged him to be several years older than her son and wondered where he had come from. It was late in the day for a boy his age to be wandering the countryside all alone.

“Who are you and where did you come from?” she asked.

“I am Giles Wherlocke and I was sitting in the carriage you nicked. Who are you?”

“Lady Catryn Gryffin de Warrenne.”

By the time she finished telling him her name the full import of what he had said had seeped into her mind. Catryn stared at the boy in growing horror. There was no denying the truth that now blazed across her mind, however. In her blind desperation to get her son back, she had stolen away another person’s son.

“Sweet mercy,” she muttered. “Your parents are going to see me hanged for this.”

“Only have the one parent, m’lady. Only have my father, Sir Orion Wherlocke. Truth be told, a fair number of people have taken to stealing his carriage of late, though those people were all his own kin. You are not kin, I am thinking. Not with that red hair. So why did you have such need for my father’s carriage? And, I do say, you held off Cody right fine, you did. Did not know a proper lady could hold a pistol that steady.”

Even though she was a little bemused by the way he spoke with an odd mixture of proper and not so proper English, Catryn did notice that the boy did not assure her that she would face no punishment for what she had done. “I needed it.”

“Why? You be a proper lady and all. You must have one of your own.”

“My horse came up lame and I needed the carriage to continue my hunt for the man who stole my son. I could not afford to take the time to return home to get another horse or the carriage.”

“Why did some man take your son? He want money for the boy?”

She dragged her hands through her hair, idly noting that it had fallen free from the neat style her maid had spent a great deal of time perfecting. “I need to see to the horses right now.”

Giles did not push her for an answer to his question but moved to lend her a hand. As they worked together to unhitch the team, rubbed the animals down with handfuls of grass, and then watered them, she told Giles all about Morris and his fight to gain control over Alwyn and his inheritance. Her openness with the boy surprised her, but she decided she just had a deep need to speak her thoughts aloud to someone and he was there, watching and listening, his pretty eyes sharp with intelligence. At times Catryn felt as if she spoke with an adult while at other times, especially when the boy asked why again and again, she could see the young boy beneath the air of toughness and maturity.

Just speaking of all Morris had done stirred her anger. The moment the horses were tethered so they could graze, she began to pace as she talked. Spitting it all out, her father would call it, and that was just what she was doing. She cursed Morris for his greed, his inability to accept what was right by law and his brother’s will, and even for his fanciful blue-and-gold carriage. Even telling herself that a young boy should not be subjected to her fury at Morris and her fear for her child, she could not stop talking. Or pacing.

“Morris is headed to the coast,” she said, abruptly changing from ranting about all of Morris’s past crimes and thinking only of the one he had committed this time. “He may be trying to take Alwyn out of the country. He may even be thinking to just toss my baby overboard once he is out to sea.”

“No, he would ne’er do that,” Giles said as he paced alongside her. “He wants what your boy has and that means he best be keeping that boy alive until he gets it. That is how the game is played.”

She paused to stare at him. “How old are you?”

“I think I am eight.”

“You think?”

“Well, no way to be certain since my mother left me in an alley in the city when I was a babe still swaddled and all.”

Catryn did not know what to say and stared at him in silent shock for a moment. “And your father?”

“I told you; I just found him. Me and my mates were helping his cousin and then he came to help, too, and one of the older ladies said I was his. No one argued with her, said she knew what she was about, so he took me in. My mates are all staying with his cousin and are at their country house now. We are going to better ourselves and not have to live in the dark alleys, maybe thieving a bit, maybe going hungry. I begin to think the lady knew what she was talking about, too, because my father and I do well enough.”

“But how did you survive until you found your father?”

“My mates. There was a woman or two along the way who helped, but it was mostly my mates who raised me. As I told you, they are all at Penelope’s now and that was where my father was taking me. Lady Pen is my father’s cousin and she used to have a house where all the other Wherlocke bastards stayed. My father named it the Wherlocke Warren. Now that Lady Pen is wed, she has kept the ones she has and deals with whatever new ones appear as she thinks best.”

It was impossible for Catryn to envision the life he spoke of. So hard, stark, and dangerous. That a mother would leave her babe in an alley as if the child were nothing but trash to be tossed away was also impossible for her to understand. Without his mates, Giles would have died and she had no doubt that he knew that well. It was no wonder he often seemed to be so much older than he was.

She was not so certain he had improved his lot much by being taken up by his father. A cousin who had run a house for the bastard children of her family? Who still took in the occasional new one? It was very good of the woman to care for the children so many just tossed aside, but how good was such a scandal-filled life for a young, growing boy? Better than living in an alley, she told herself firmly, and shook aside her concern over his future. She could look into that later, when she had Alwyn safely back at home.

“You were very lucky to find them.”

“I was. And you will find your boy soon and take him home.”

“If Morris has not hurt him.”

“Why do you keep thinking the man will hurt your son? There is no gain in it for him. You have to see that.”

“I do. But Alwyn is just a little boy, and Morris has no skill with children. He would not understand Alwyn’s ways, his little quirks and the way he plays.” Catryn had seen how people had reacted to her son carrying on full conversations with people who were not visible, even telling others what had been said to him, and knew Morris would have no patience, might even be afraid, which could prove very dangerous for her son.

“What do you mean by his quirks and how he plays? Was this Morris ne’er a lad himself?”

“Of course he was.”

“Then what does the boy do that you think will make Morris hurt him?”

“Alwyn talks to people who are not there,” she replied, surprised at her own candor. “It is but a child’s game. He has few other children to play with and then only rarely, so he has made up a few of his own. That is all it is. But people find it alarming and I have taught him to be quiet about it. He is only five though.”

“So he has some boys he has thought up to play with.”

“Not all boys,” she reluctantly ad. . .