My Last Duchess, стр. 47
“Of course I’m here,” the captain snarled.
But the man wasn’t looking at Barsley.
He was looking at Alaric.
Cavendish Square
London
Miss Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche was engaged in her favorite activity: reading. She was curled up in an armchair, tearing throughPliny’s eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
It was just the kind of narrative she most loved: honest and measured, allowing the reader to use her own imagination, ratherthan ladling on sensational detail. His description of seeing a cloud of smoke shaped like an umbrella spreading ever higherand wider was fascinating.
The door burst open. “Madame Legrand delivered my new bonnet!” her friend Lavinia cried. “What do you think?”
Willa plucked off her spectacles and looked up as Lavinia spun in a circle. “Absolutely perfect. The black plume was a strokeof genius.”
“I fancy it adds gravitas,” Lavinia said happily. “Making me look dignified, if not philosophical. Like you in your spectacles!”
“I only wish my spectacles were as charming as your plume,” Willa said, laughing.
“What are you reading about now?” Lavinia asked, dropping onto the arm of Willa’s chair.
“Pliny’s account of the eruption that buried Pompeii. Just imagine: his uncle headed directly into the smoke, determined torescue survivors. And he wanted Pliny to go with him.”
“Lord Wilde would have gone straight to the disaster as well,” Lavinia said with a look of dreamy infatuation.
Willa rolled her eyes. “Then he would have perished, just as Pliny’s uncle did. I must say, Wilde sounds like just the typeto run straight at danger.”
“But he’d be running toward danger in order to save people,” Lavinia pointed out. “You can’t criticize that.” She was used to Willa’s scoffing at the explorer whom she claimedto love above all else.
Except new hats.
And Willa.
“I am so happy my bonnet came in time for the house party at Lindow Castle,” she said, “which reminds me that the trunks arestowed and Mother would like to leave after luncheon.”
“Of course!” Willa jumped to her feet and tucked her spectacles and book into a small traveling bag.
“I am looking forward to seeing Lord Wilde’s childhood home,” Lavinia said, with a happy sigh. “I mean to sneak up to thenursery as soon as I can.”
“Why?” Willa inquired. “Are you planning to take a keepsake? A toy he once played with, perhaps?”
“The gardeners can’t keep the flowerbeds at the castle intact,” Lavinia said with a giggle. “People want to press flowersbetween the pages of his books.”
Willa could scarcely imagine the chaos if Lord Wilde himself made an appearance, but the man hadn’t been seen in England foryears. If you believed the popular prints, he was too busy wrestling giant squid and fighting pirates.
Sometimes Willa felt as if a fever had swept the kingdom—or at least the female half of it—leaving her unscathed.
During the Season that just ended, young ladies had talked very little about the men whom they might well marry and spenda lifetime with, and a great deal about the author of books such as Wilde Sargasso Sea.
Wilde Sargasso Sea? Wilde Latitudes?
The only rational response was a snort.
Willa was fairly certain that in person, Lord Wilde would resemble every other man: likely to belch, smell of whiskey, andogle a woman’s bosom on occasion.
She tucked her hand under Lavinia’s arm and brought her to her feet. “Let’s go, then. Off to Lindow Castle to burgle the nursery!”
Storming the Castle
Keep reading for Eloisa James’s
Storming the Castle
One of Eloisa’s delightful fairytale-inspired novellas, in which a young lady flees her boorish fiancé and becomes the nursemaidin a castle, where she encounters the rakish son of a grand duke who has vowed never to wed. He offers her everything—butnot his hand in marriage.
Can this fairytale possibly have a happy ending?
Chapter One
The residence of
Phineas Damson, Esq.
Little Ha’penny, Lancashire
Late Spring
Not every fairy tale begins with a prince or a princess. Some begin with a kiss that turns a man into a frog, or a tumbleon the road that turns a basket of eggs into scramble. They begin with the realization that what was once tall and handsomeis now green and croaky.
My story belongs in that category, because it wasn’t until Miss Philippa Damson gave her virginity to her betrothed, RodneyDurfey, the future Sir Rodney Durfey, Baronet, that she realized exactly what she wanted from life:
Never to be near Rodney again.
It was unfortunate that she realized this significant point only now, standing in the barn and readjusting her petticoatsafter giving Rodney her most prized possession. But sometimes it takes a clear-eyed look at a man sprawled in the straw atyour feet to realize just how you feel about him. One moment of weakness, ten minutes of discomfort, and now she was a woman.She felt different.
Meaner.
“Damn, that was nice,” Rodney said, making no attempt to straighten his clothing. “You’re as tight as a—” His imaginationapparently failed him. “A lot tighter than my hand, anyway.”
Philippa wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you think you should get up now?”
“I waited so long that it took all the strength out of me. It isn’t every day that a man loses his virginity, you know.”
“Or a woman,” Philippa pointed out, using her fingers to comb bits of straw from her hair.
“My friends have been poking around from the moment they got a stand. You’re not innocent anymore, so it doesn’t matter ifI’m blunt, I reckon. I saved myself for you. Didn’t want to get a disease.”
The etiquette her mother had taught her did not foresee this particular situation, but Philippa said, “Thank you.”
“If you aren’t the prettiest thing with your hair shining like that in the sunlight,” Rodney said, stretching. “I’m aboutten times as much in love with you now, Philippa. And you know I’ve loved you ever since I saw you the first time, ever since—”
“Ever since you saw me in church when I was seven years old,” Philippa said drearily.
“You were like a little angel, and now you’re a bigger one. And your bosoms are heaven-sent, all right. Damn, but I coulddo that all day.” He reached