The Accidental Abduction

by Darcie Wilde

Genres: Historical Fiction; Regency Romance; Victorian Romance

Synopsis

~One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2014"   

A headlong flight across London to stop an elopement leads to a hasty wedding between strangers....A sizzling new romance for fans of Sarah MacLean and Elizabeth Hoyt.
Harold Rayburn is about to be taken for the ride of his life…
After having his proposal rejected by a beautiful but flighty woman, Harry vows he is done with unpredictable and impetuous women for good. Until beautiful and fierce Leannah Wakefield barrels into his life, inadvertently kidnapping him while on a wild carriage ride and leaving him all too eager to get back in the saddle… 
Leannah would sacrifice everything to protect her family. So upon hearing of her sister’s intended elopement, she races across London to stop the ill-advised ceremony before it can happen. However, when her mad journey picks her up an unlikely stowaway, one who ignites her desire beyond all reason, she’s the one who ends up hastily wedding a handsome and secretive stranger.
But as Leannah and Harry immediately encounter opposition, jealousy, and suspicion of their hurried nuptials, they begin to doubt that their unquenchable passion can truly lead to a happy marriage—especially when both the bride and groom have devastating secrets to hide…
~"Scintillating" --Publishers Weekly (starred review)  

Release date: September 2, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 336

Sample

One

“Good evening, Mr. Rayburn.” Sir Ignatius Featherington held out his thin, dry hand. “And a warm welcome for this chill evening.”

“Thank you, sir.” Harry Rayburn took the hand Sir Ignatius extended carefully. He was always afraid he might break the small, smiling man. Sir Ignatius, like the rest of his family, lived up to his name—being from a clan of small, slight, soft-spoken people. In Agnes, their oldest daughter, and the reason for Harry’s visit this evening, that slight frame translated into a perfect, pale delicacy of the sort generally compared to all manner of flowers.

“Nancy, go and tell Miss Featherington that Mr. Rayburn is here to see her.” The stooped, gray-haired baronet was still beaming as he gave his instructions to the parlor maid, and still attempting to give Harry’s hand a hearty shake. “Now, Mrs. Featherington and I will be taking a bit of a drive. I’m sure our absence won’t discommode either of you young people.” He let one eyelid droop in an attempt at a wink.

“I sincerely hope not, sir.” The jewel box made a reassuring weight in Harry’s right pocket. He himself felt as light as a Featherington. His heart alternately brimmed with happiness and beat out of control from an emotion uncomfortably close to terror. Which in and of itself was as it should be, he decided. It made the moment real. Tonight, he would propose. After tonight Agnes—lovely, perfect Agnes—would be his flower, his jewel, forever.

The maid returned and curtsied. “Miss Featherington says she will be glad to meet Mr. Rayburn in the front parlor.”

“Oh, no need, Nancy, Mr. Rayburn can go to her in the sitting room.” Mr. Featherington patted Harry’s back. “And let me say again, we are happy, very happy, to have you here, Mr. Rayburn.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Harry seriously. He tried to fish out some words about doing his utmost to make her happy, but none came. It didn’t seem to matter. Sir Ignatius gave his hand another squeeze, blinked his watery eyes, and smiled with encouragement. Harry turned, squared his shoulders, and started up the hall.

When he reached the door, Harry put his hand in his pocket and touched the box as if for luck. Not that he needed luck. Everything was exactly as it should be. He had been courting Agnes Featherington for the best part of the season, ever since he’d come back from that last, disastrous trip to Calais, in fact. He’d spent the entire winter navigating balls and dinners and concerts, and doing absolutely everything required to make himself into a desirable beau. Sir and Lady Ignatius made no secret of the fact that they considered him highly eligible as a suitor for their beautiful daughter, which was a relief. Harry was a merchant’s son. This meant there were plenty of matrons who considered him second-class goods, despite the fortune he brought with him. The senior Featheringtons, however, possessed no such scruples, and from the beginning had welcomed his presence. Harry’s parents had seemed quietly content to let the matter take its own course. Indeed, the only hitch in the entire affair had been his sister Fiona’s habit of calling the object of his intentions “Agnes Featherhead.”

But now was not the time to worry about Fiona. Harry ran his hand over his hair (ruthlessly slicked back), and down his side whiskers (freshly trimmed). He straightened the cravat he’d spent hours tying in the new “Grecian waterfall” style, and brushed down the sleeves of his coffee brown coat. He checked the location of the ring box once more—right pocket, just where it had been all the other times he’d checked. Only then did Harry take a deep breath, and knock on the door.

“Come in,” answered the sweet, entirely feminine voice from the other side.

Harry pushed open the door, and there she was, just as he had pictured her. Agnes Featherington sat on the chintz sofa. The rich evening sunlight streamed through the bow windows and glimmered on the golden ringlets that trailed across her swanlike neck. She wore a white evening frock with delicate primrose trim. Dainty primrose slippers peeped out from under her hems, and her fair head was bent over a piece of embroidery, also primroses.

Harry’s heart swelled with a flood of fresh affection. Agnes was slender, pale, and lovely; the perfect girl, in every way.

From his basket by the fire, Percival, Agnes’s unfortunately overfed Maltese dog, lifted his head and growled.

For once, Harry was able to ignore the beast. All his attention was fastened on Agnes. She was like a fairy-tale princess seated in her bower. Agnes was everything that was pure and true and lovely. She would do credit to the home of any man, and she would bring him everything he needed to make a good, settled life.

She was no fool, either, no matter what Fi thought. There was a great stack of books on the table at her elbow—poetry and novels and histories. They’d have plenty to talk about in the evenings when he came home from his work, on those occasions when they felt like talking. Harry rather expected there was a whole host of far more energetic activities that would be filling their evenings after the wedding.

Agnes lifted her heart-shaped face, and her blue eyes widened. There was the tiniest hint of maidenly hesitation before her tiny pink mouth bent into a smile. “Oh, Mr. Rayburn! I wasn’t expecting you this evening.”

Which was perhaps a little odd, considering he’d just been announced. Harry decided she was joking, and smiled as he made his bow. “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you by calling?”

“Not in the least.” Agnes laid her embroidery aside. “Won’t you sit down? Shall I ring for tea?”

“No, no thank you. I don’t want anything.” Except you. But of course he couldn’t say that. Agnes was dainty and innocent. He could not shock her with such a blunt statement. That was also exactly as it should be.

Harry sat on the edge of the slick velveteen chair, which creaked ominously under his weight. The furniture had been chosen to suit a family of Featheringtons, meaning it was delicate and spindly, and perhaps a bit overgenerous in the matter of curlicues and gilt trim.

He did not let himself touch his pocket again. “Miss Featherington . . .” he began.

Agnes clasped her pale hands in her lap and blinked her china blue eyes. “Yes, Mr. Rayburn?”

His mouth had gone dry. He shifted his weight. The chair creaked. Percival barked once in sharp warning. “Miss Featherington, Agnes, I’m here for a very particular purpose.”

“Yes, Mr. Rayburn?” She blinked again. For a moment he thought she looked perplexed. Could it be he was her first suitor? Her first love? That was perfect, too. He would have to be very gentle with her. Indulgent. She’d have little whims and small worries. That was all right. He’d make a home that was just as perfect as she was; a beautiful, peaceful setting for this priceless gem.

He felt too big for this delicate room, for this perfect, tiny golden girl. He realized he was trembling a little as he moved from the chair, down onto one knee. He took her doll-like hand between both of his.

“Agnes, it is my wish, my very great hope, that you will do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

He brought out the box and opened it to reveal the ring. He’d spent days agonizing over the purchase. It had to be rich, but not ostentatious. He’d settled on a blue diamond, to match the shade of her eyes, and double-cut for the shine. He held it out now and watched those blue eyes widen. His heart swelled. This was so right, so perfect. The rough life he had known was behind him. He could settle down for good now, and forget everything but being a husband worthy of Agnes. She, in return, would make his home an oasis of calm and beauty.

Agnes lifted her eyes from the ring. Those eyes were bright with wonder, and she pressed her free hand to her lips in utter surprise.

* * *

“And then she says, ‘You must be joking, Mr. Rayburn!’”

“Oh, Harry, I’m sorry.”

Harry didn’t even bother to look at Fiona. Instead, he stared at the small, red box in his hands. He knew coming back home was a bad idea, but he’d been unable to think of where else to go. After all, he’d fully expected to be spending the evening happily ensconced in the Featherington’s home with his new fiancée, receiving congratulations and discussing wedding plans.

Instead, here he was on the sofa with his sister—his married sister—staring at the little velvet box with its half-carat, double-cut blue diamond on a band of eighteen-karat gold. It would be perfect for “the young gentleman’s purpose,” or so the jeweler had assured him as he wrote out the bill. Harry turned it over in his fingers again.

“I did everything,” said Harry to the ring and the memory. “I waltzed. I quadrilled. I had to beat off at least six other fellows at every ball to get onto her dance card. I fetched more cups of punch than I can count. And those endless poseys.” Harry closed his eyes against the fresh pain of remembering how many hours he’d wasted in the flower shops, thumbing through that ridiculous little pamphlet on the “language of flowers” and debating the exact right combination of white, pink, yellow roses, forget-me-nots, pansies, and Lord knew what else to send Agnes. She’d even worn some of them. “Her parents were all for it. Anxious for it, in fact.”

That, he supposed glumly, should have been some sort of clue; not that he had been looking for clues. He hadn’t been looking for anything, except Agnes’s little hand on his arm.

“I walked her blasted dog, for God’s sake. I’ve got the scars to prove it!”

“Don’t swear at me, Harry,” said Fi tartly. “I just told you it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

Fiona, now the Honorable Mrs. James Westbrook, was not long back from her own wedding trip. Married life, a trek across the Continent, and a new, grand home in the Lake District, all seemed to agree with her. Fi might look the part of the quintessential English rose, but she’d always been too clever by half. Her seasons in London had been marked by all sorts of interesting adventures, until James Westbrook arrived to take her in hand. Since she’d been back, though, it seemed to Harry his sister’s cleverness had mellowed. She seemed both more contented and more, well, grown-up than he’d ever known her to be. She was staying with their parents because James was off in Cornwall on business and she hadn’t wanted to be in London alone. From the way Mother was humming as she moved around the house, Harry suspected there might be something in the wind involving a new branch on the Westbrook family tree.

“It’s really not your fault.” Fi reached out and squeezed his hand. “You’re a nice man, Harry. Steady. Solid. That’s not what a girl like Agnes Featherhead wants.”

“Featherington.”

Fi did not bother to acknowledge the correction. “She wants a poet or, better still, a highwayman who will come riding in off the moors with a bunch of lace at his throat and a pistol at his side.”

“In short, she doesn’t want me because I’m boring.” He shouldn’t have come home. The last person a man disappointed in love wanted to pour his heart out to was his happily married sister. He could only thank his lucky stars that his parents weren’t home. They’d of course been aware of his errand. Probably Father had taken Mother out somewhere to distract her until Harry returned with the presumably happy news.

“You are not boring, Harry,” Fi was saying. “You’re . . .”

“A perfectly nice man. Solid. Steady.” So solid I live with my parents in their town house rather than in rooms like a proper bachelor about the town. So steady I hold down a job in a warehouse rather than spend my days swanning about the moors with lace and a pistol.

He was actually quite a good shot. Perhaps if he’d demonstrated that to Agnes, he’d have taken on some of the romantic bronze she seemed to want. No. Harry pushed his hair back from his forehead. If he’d had a pistol to hand, he would have been far too tempted to shoot that vicious little dog.

No. He wouldn’t have, either. Because he was nice, solid, steady, Harold Syverson Rayburn. But even as he thought this, an image flashed through his mind, unbidden and entirely unwelcome—of the cobbled alley, the shouts, the last shove, and the man sprawled at his feet . . .

No. He snapped the ring box shut. That wasn’t him. That was someone else. He’d left that other man behind in Calais when he came home. He really was steady Harry Rayburn, and he didn’t want any other sort of life. The problem, it appeared, was that Agnes did.

“There are far worse things to be than steady,” Fiona was saying. “One day . . .”

“Yes, yes, yes, all right.” Harry got to his feet and started for the door before he had to listen to Fiona parroting their mother’s words about how he would one day find a girl who could appreciate all his good qualities.

“Harry?” said Fi behind him. “Agnes Featherhead is an idiot, and she could never be the sort of woman you need.”

She did not say, “As I told you,” and she did not say, “What were you thinking?” Harry, for his part, did not demand to know how his sister could possibly understand what sort of woman he needed.

“You’ll let Mother and Father know?” he asked instead. “I need to be . . . somewhere else.”

He heard Fiona agreeing, but didn’t bother to look back. Instead, he retrieved his hat where he’d left it on the hall table and headed out into the street. What he needed was a drink or a dozen, and to be away from women.

Harry settled his hat lower on his head and across the square toward St. James Street, and the one place he could be sure of an entirely masculine welcome.

When Harry arrived at the Silk Road Club, it wasn’t even ten o’clock, and the club room was less than half full. Most of the members would still either be home at dinner, or out on the town. But Nathaniel Penrose was there, and he raised his glass as Harry walked in. Harry grunted in answer and headed directly for the sideboard and its collection of bottles. Most of the club members were merchants of one sort or the other, and club rules required they help keep the cellars stocked. This meant that the Silk Road had some of the best, and hardest to find, spirits in London, which was exactly what Harry wanted.

He’d hoped the walk here would help clear his head, but the more he played the farce of his proposal over in his thoughts, the harder bitterness dug into him. Wine, port, and brandy were all far too weak for what he needed. He unstoppered the scotch whiskey.

“I take it things did not go well,” said Nathaniel. Nathaniel was not in trade, at least not directly. He worked with the naval office, but he never said exactly what he did there. It was widely suspected it involved ferretting out smugglers and insurance frauds, but if anyone knew for sure, they held their peace on the subject.

Harry poured a good two fingers into a glass and swallowed it down in one burning gulp. He set the glass down with a sharp clack, and poured another.

“That bad?”

Harry saluted Nathaniel with his glass, and knocked back the second whiskey. “You can’t be serious, Mr. Rayburn,” he drawled.

“Ouch. Better bring that over here.”

Harry collected glass and bottle and dropped into the chair beside Nathaniel. “What the hell was I thinking?” he demanded.

“You weren’t.” Nathaniel took up the bottle before Harry could, and poured out two measures of whiskey, both, Harry noted grumpily, rather smaller than the ones he’d just downed. “It’s what girls like that count on.”

“You are speaking of the love of my life Miss Agnes Featherhead.” No. That wasn’t right. He shouldn’t call her that. Christ and damn, he didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk yet. It must be the heartbreak. Heartbreak made a man mean.

“Harry, everybody makes an ass of himself once in a while. This was just your turn.”

“The consolations of philosophy.” Harry raised the glass in a toast and gulped down the drink.

Nathaniel shrugged. “It’s true. Eventually, every man meets a woman who makes him go out of his mind.”

“I thought that was this ‘true love’ I keep hearing about.” He reached for the whiskey, but somehow, Nathaniel had gotten there first, again, and was pouring his own glass, and taking his own damn time about it.

“No. True love doesn’t make you loose your wits. It lets you find them.” He refilled Harry’s glass—in that same confounded leisurely fashion, and nowhere near far enough—but Harry couldn’t exactly snatch the decanter out of the man’s hand. Not here in London, where he was nice, steady, boring Harry.

“I don’t know what came over me.” Harry stared into his glass. “It’s not like I’m some schoolboy. I was only even at that ball because of Fi. But when I saw Agnes she seemed . . . perfect.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “There’s marriage in the air. When a man like Philip Montcalm finally takes to it, the rest of us bachelors start looking about and saying ‘Perhaps it’s time.’” Nathaniel spoke the name of their mutual friend, and the man who had, until recently, been known about town as “the Lord of the Rakes.” “The next thing you know, you see some young lovely who’s everything you’ve been told to want, and that’s that.”

Was Nathaniel right? Had Harry wanted Agnes just because she’d seemed perfect? The idea left him with a very bad taste in his mouth and Harry took another swallow of whiskey to wash it away. What if the real problem was that he hadn’t remembered, or hadn’t bothered, to look beyond appearances?

No. That couldn’t possibly be what had happened.

Could it?

Harry felt his eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me you ever fell for some little English rose . . .”

“All right, I won’t tell you. Point is, Harry, you’re no more a fool than thousands of others.” Nathaniel paused and eyed Harry over the rim of his glass. “Unless there’s something else behind all this?”

“No, nothing.”

“Because to some of your friends, it looked like the whole thing proceeded in a tremendous hurry, especially for someone who always talked about how love should be the lifeline of the heart . . .”

“I said there’s nothing behind it.” Nothing at all, he repeated to himself. Then he had to tell himself it was just the whiskey making that feel like a lie. “I thought I fell in love and I thought she did, too. Apparently I was wrong, but as you say, I was no more wrong than thousands of others.”

“If that’s really it then, finish your drink, be thankful for a narrow escape, and next time find someone who wants Harry Rayburn, not Lord Byron or Dick Turpin.”

“They should advertise,” said Harry. “Or wear signboards. ‘Maiden seeks dashing highwaymen, no plodders need apply.’”

Nathaniel chuckled. “I think the chaperones might prefer it. Maybe the matchmaking mamas could post the notices over those little chairs where the candidates sit.”

“Women!” sneered Harry, lifting his glass high.

“Women!” echoed the entire room.

Two

Dear Mrs. Wakefield:

I am writing to request the favor of a private interview, tomorrow. There is a matter that has long been on my mind to discuss with you. As it intimately concerns the future security and well-being of yourself and those to whom you are most nearly connected, I am certain you will find the proposal acceptable.

I intend to call at four o’clock. I trust I will find you at home.

Your servant,

Terrance Valloy

Leannah Morehouse Wakefield laid the letter down on the desk. Had there ever, she wondered, been a declaration of intent less calculated to rouse tender sentiment in a maiden’s bosom?

Not that Leannah could be considered a maiden by any stretch of the imagination—especially once her five years of marriage and another year of widowhood had been taken into account. Neither did she harbor any idea of romance ever playing a part of her life. Still, it would have been nice if Terrance had made some small effort to sound more like a suitor and less like a solicitor.

This unfortunate thought brought with it the equally unfortunate image of Mr. Valloy seated behind his vast desk and handing across a marriage license tied in red ribbon. Everything’s quite in order. You just say, “I will,” and the matter’s settled. You will? Excellent.

Leannah’s late husband had been far older than she, but he had done his level best to be good to her. Still, there had been a point when she hoped any second marriage might be more compatible, perhaps even more passionate. In her private heart, she longed for a union where she was not seen as a girl to be indulged, cosseted, and, not to put too fine a point on it, bred. She had thought, perhaps, that if there was to be a next time, it might be with someone who knew the ways in which she longed to be touched and who understood how to ease the deep ache that came when she was alone.

Now I’m just being ridiculous. Leannah made herself look again at the ledger where she’d been entering the household accounts. Romance is for those who can afford it. Terrance will make a civil, amiable, and steady husband. That is what I need.

What we need. Leannah closed the ledger so she would not have to see all the red ink she’d entered just this evening. She’d let the fire burn down to its last coals and was working by lamplight with two shawls over her shoulders and her thickest stockings and slippers on her feet. Although it was finally April, the weather had yet to turn warm. She yearned to go up to bed and burrow under her quilts, but Genevieve hadn’t returned yet. Leannah wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink until she was sure her sister was safely home.

But she had finished the accounts, and she felt too tired to read. That meant the only thing left was to answer Mr. Valloy’s note, and assure him she would be at home when he arrived at four tomorrow.

Today, she reminded herself. She glanced at the clock. It was almost two.

“Leannah?” A man’s anxious voice reverberated through the study door. “Leannah?”

Oh, no. Leannah rose at once and hurried out into the cold, dark hallway.

“Leannah?”

Octavian Morehouse Leannah’s father, stood on the stairway landing. His dressing gown hung open over his nightshirt, and his thick gray hair stood wildly on end. He swayed on his bare feet, looking about him like a child who had lost his way.

“I’m here, Father.” Leannah hurried up the stairs to grasp his hands. “I’m right here.”

It took his pale green eyes a moment to focus on her. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I thought they were looking for me again and . . .”

“Shhh.” Leannah patted his hands, appalled to feel how cold they were. “It’s all right now. There’s no one here but us.”

“Leannah?” A new voice drifted down from overhead. “Is something wrong?”

This time it was Jeremy, the youngest of the Morehouse siblings, leaning over the upstairs railing and rubbing hard at his eyes with the heel of one hand.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” Young boys were supposed to sleep deeply, but her brother never had. This, combined with a youth’s unerring instinct to head straight for wherever the most trouble might be, made it impossible to protect him from scenes such as this. “You can go back to bed, Jeremy. Father, come into the study. You’ll catch cold out here.”

“I’m sorry,” Father murmured as he let her lead him down the stairs. He hadn’t brought so much as a candle with him. Given the way his hands shook, however, that was probably for the best.

Leannah sat him on the end of the sofa closest the hearth and set about building up the fire.

“There now, that’s better.” She tried to sound cheerful as the fresh flames sprang up, but the collier’s bill was on the desk along with all the others. “You take a moment to warm yourself.”

Father stretched his trembling hands out to the fire, rubbing them over and over as if trying to clean off some stain. Leannah looked away. She didn’t want him to see her expression just then.

When she’d been a girl, Leannah’s father had seemed a giant of a man. He could carry her and Genevieve together—one on either shoulder. She’d loved his booming laugh, and the way everything around him was always the best, the finest, the grandest. The Morehouses were the flower of England, his daughters the fairest and the finest girls. When Jeremy arrived, Father held the infant up high, declaring before the entire neighborhood that his son was the brightest of boys and his future was limitless.

But that was all long ago. Father’s collapse had left him a bent and haggard old man whose spotted skin hung loosely off his bones. He looked lost in his own dressing gown. Leannah suddenly hated the worn, forest green garment. She should buy him a new one. And a new nightshirt. He shouldn’t have to wear those old, flapping things.

She looked down at her own frayed sleeves and tugged them over her wrists.

“Are the curtains closed?” asked Father.

“Yes, Father. Closed tight. Try not to make yourself anxious.”

“I don’t want to be seen. I don’t want to hurt anyone. You won’t let me hurt you anymore?”

“No, Father. You cannot hurt us.”

“But I can. You don’t know. I keep reading the papers. I see the numbers and the reports of the markets. I keep thinking if only I had a little money, I could do so much for us. I start thinking how to get it, and it all begins again, all the schemes and the plans.”

“I won’t let anything happen, Father.” At the same time, she thought irritably: Who let you have the newspapers? I’ll have to speak to Bishop about it.

The problem was, Bishop had so much else to do. He was the man of all work, and their only servant now besides Mrs. Falwell. Father needed a real nurse who could watch over him properly and be there when he got anxious like this.

Leannah tugged on her frayed sleeves again. And this is exactly why I have to make up my mind to say yes to Terrance Valloy.

“Close the drapes, Leannah. Please,” whispered Father.

She moved behind him and gripped the puce curtains—a horrid color but they’d come with the furnished house—and rattled the rings. “There, Father,” she said. “It’s done. Please try to rest.”

“You’re a good girl,” he said. “I wanted to be a good father, but I failed in that as well.”

Leannah’s head was aching. She had to distract him. If he fell into one of his brown studies, there’d be no sleep for anyone tonight. She tried to be gentle, to be forbearing, but sometimes it all felt impossibly hard, especially when there was so much else to do just to keep the house running and looking after Jeremy and Genevieve.

“I thought we might go driving tomorrow,” Leannah said. Never mind that she’d just spent the last half hour trying to decide whether it would be best to finally sell the team and the barouche, or if they could cut expenses far enough by just selling the saddle horse, Bonaparte. “I think we all deserve an outing, don’t you?”

“I’d like to see you drive,” he said. “Do you remember the Lady Day races back home? I was always so proud of you.”

No one’s going to beat a Morehouse at a race. You get right back up there. Leannah b