The Reckless Bride Read online

  STEPHANIE

  LAURENS

  The

  Reckless

  Bride

  THE BLACK COBRA QUARTET

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  By Stephanie Laurens

  The Reckless Bride

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  September 15, 1822

  North of Bombay, India

  The incessant tattoo of his horse’s hooves thundered through his skull. Rafe Carstairs, erstwhile captain in the British Army serving with the Honorable East India Company under the direct command of the Governor-General of India, glanced over his shoulder back along the trail, then urged his mount up the first in a series of low hills that spread across their path.

  Riding alongside him, Hassan, his man, more companion than batman, kept pace. The long, lanky, frighteningly fierce Pathan warrior had fought at Rafe’s side for the past five years; without hesitation, he’d accepted Rafe’s invitation to join him in this dangerous flight across half the world.

  Rafe’s mission was simple. Ferry the original of a damning letter—evidence enough to hang the Englishman who had spawned and now controlled the Black Cobra cult and who, through the cult’s vicious tyranny, was draining the life from too many Indian villages—back to England and into the hands of a man powerful enough to bring the Black Cobra down.

  Simultaneously, Rafe’s three closest friends and colleagues,Colonel Derek Delborough, Major Gareth Hamilton, and Major Logan Monteith, were also heading for England via separate routes carrying inadmissible copies of the vital evidence—decoys to distract the Black Cobra from the one man who had to get through.

  Rafe.

  Like Rafe, Hassan had seen too much of the Black Cobra’s villany not to seize the chance they now had to bring the fiend to justice.

  Drawing rein on the crest of the hill, Rafe wheeled his mount and, through narrowed eyes, searched the wide, flat plain they’d crossed through the morning.

  Hassan looked, too. “No pursuers.”

  Rafe nodded. “It’s too dusty down there to miss racing horses.” Nerves that had been taut since they’d left Bombay the day before eased a fraction.

  “Leaving immediately after your meeting with the other three was wise.” Hassan wheeled his mount and walked on.

  Rafe followed suit, then they nudged their horses back into a canter, heading nor’northwest. “If they didn’t pick up our trail yesterday, soon after we left Bombay, it’ll be difficult for them to guess our route.”

  “They will expect you to go by water—they will look to the harbor and ships. Even if they think to look inland, there will be no one to point a finger this way. We are just two tribal warriors, after all.”

  Rafe grinned and glanced at Hassan, unremarkable in his tribal robes. Rafe was similarly garbed. With his more European build swathed in loose fabric, his blond hair hidden beneath the headdress and attached scarves, and with all visible skin well tanned by years of campaigning, only his blue eyes gave him away.

  And one had to get close to see the color of his eyes.

  He looked ahead. “Given the cult aren’t hot on our heels, it’s possible we’ll have an uneventful journey, at least until we near the Channel. I just hope the others got away as cleanly.”

  Hassan grunted. They picked up the pace and rode on, the rich lands of the Rajputana their immediate goal, with the more dangerous, desolate reaches of the Afghan Supremacy beyond. There was a lot of Asia Minor to be crossed before they reached Europe, let alone the English Channel. They had a long journey before them, and a schedule to meet.

  Rafe still felt a sense of deep satisfaction that he’d been the one to draw the scroll-holder containing the original document from the four identical scroll-holders; the other three had contained the decoy missions. His friend and colleague Captain James MacFarlane had given his life to secure the incriminating letter. Rafe had seen James’s body, twisted and tortured by the Black Cobra’s minions. To his soul, Rafe thirsted for vengeance.

  The only acceptable vengeance was to ensure the Black Cobra hanged.

  Rafe tapped his heels to his mount’s sides. “Onward. With luck and St. George, we’ll win through.”

  They would, or Rafe would die trying.

  September 18, 1822

  The Michelmarsh Residence

  Connaught Square, London

  “I deeply regret being so disobliging, but I simply cannot accept Lord Eggles’s offer.” Loretta Violet Mary Michelmarsh surveyed her siblings and their spouses disposed on chairs and chaises about the library. She wasn’t entirely sure why her rejection of Lord Eggles’s suit was causing so much more consternation than the seven rejections that had gone before.

  “But … why?” Catherine, Loretta’s sister-in-law, her elder brother Robert’s wife, spread her hands, her expression one of complete bafflement. “Lord Eggles is everything that could be hoped for—so very eligible in every way.”

  Except that he’s a dead bore. And a pompous ass. “I believe I’ve mentioned,” Loretta said, her tone one of the utmost reasonableness, “that I have no wish to marry—well, not at this juncture.” Not until she met the man of her dreams.

  “But Lord Eggles was the eighth—the eighth perfectly eligible suitor you’ve rejected!” Catherine’s voice rose to a more penetrating note. “You cannot just keep rejecting suitors—everyone will start wondering why!”

  “Will they?” Loretta raised her brows. “I can’t imagine why they would waste the time.”

  “Because you’re a Michelmarsh, of course.” Margaret, Loretta’s elder sister, glanced at Annabelle, their middle sister, then with a sigh met Loretta’s gaze. “I hesitate to press you, but in this Catherine’s right—your continuing dismissal of all suitors is bordering on the scandalous.”

  “You’re a Michelmarsh female,” Annabelle said, “so it’s expected that you will wed. And while all would grant you’ve affected a quieter style than Margaret or I, or indeed any Michelmarsh young lady in recent memory, that in no way excludes you from that generally held expectation. All Michelmarsh females marry, usually well. Add to that the significant inheritances that will pass to your husband on your marriage and the question of who you will accept as said husband is one a sizeable portion of the ton is in constant expectation of hearing answered.”

  Loretta hadn’t missed the subtle emphasis Annabelle had placed on the word “affected.” The look in Annabelle’s blue eyes assured Loretta that Annabelle, two years older than Loretta’s twenty-four and closest to her in age, understood very well that Loretta’s reserved demeanor was indeed an affectation, an adopted façade. And if Annabelle knew, Margaret did, too.

  “What your sisters are attempting to explain,” John, Margaret’s husband, said from his position propped against the back of the chaise, “is that your peremptory and immediate dismissal of all suitors brave enough to approach is raising speculation as to whether, rather than the individual suitors, it is the institution of marriage you reject.”

  Loretta frowned. She knew precisely what she wanted in a suitor. She just hadn’t found him yet.

  Robert, her elder brother and guardian, seated behind the desk to the left of the strai
ght-backed chair Loretta occupied, cleared his throat. Looking his way, Loretta saw color tingeing his cheeks. Embarrassment, she knew, not anger. Anger, after all, was a strong emotion, and Robert, aided and abetted by Catherine, had made a point of being the only Michelmarsh in history to be reserved, staid, prim and proper, as close to emotionless as made no odds.

  In his case, that demeanor was no affectation.

  Robert was the white sheep in a family of, perhaps not black sheep but at least distinctly brindled. Michelmarshes were, and always had been, the very souls of outrageous vivacity, extroverts to their very toes.

  All except for Robert.

  Orphaned at the age of twelve and left to Robert’s guardianship, taken into his family and placed under Catherine’s well-meaning but smothering wing, Loretta had quickly realized that affecting a prim and proper façade was the easiest path.

  Over the years, following the easiest path had become a habit, one she’d discovered had pertinent benefits, namely shielding her from a social round she found largely unnecessary. Keeping her gaze downcast and her voice at a whisper meant she could stand by the side of a ballroom, or sit in a drawing room or dining room, and think of other things. Of things she’d read, of matters a great deal more stimulating than the company around her.

  She’d come to appreciate that there was a great deal to be said for prim and proper behavior. It could be used to avoid all sorts of interactions she didn’t want to be bothered with.

  Like paying attention to gentlemen she had no interest in.

  Her façade usually worked.

  Sadly, some had been attracted to the façade and, given the many years’ practise she’d put into perfecting it, she’d found it well nigh impossible to make them understandthat the prim and proper, highly reserved young lady they thought would be perfect as their wife did not exist. At least not in her.

  Hence the peremptory and immediate dismissals.

  “My dear.” Robert clasped his hands, lowered his chin to his cravat, and regarded her gravely from beneath his thickening brows. “I greatly fear that your current attitude to all suitors who approach cannot continue. You appear, as all here would agree, to be an exemplary paragon of delicate ladyhood and as such are viewed as the perfect match for gentlemen who seek such a wife. Lord Eggles would make you a fine husband. Having given my permission for him to address you—as indeed I have for the previous seven gentlemen—I feel I must press you to reconsider.”

  Loretta fixed her eyes on Robert’s. “No.” Irritation and anger swirled; she tamped both down, drew breath, and added in a steady, collected tone, “I cannot believe you would wish me to marry a gentleman for whom I feel nothing.”

  Catherine frowned. “But—”

  “I am convinced, “Loretta continued, “that ultimately a suitable gentleman will appear and make an offer for my hand. Until then, I shall, of course, refuse all offers from gentlemen who do not …” She hesitated.

  “Measure up to your expectations?” her younger brother Chester suggested.

  He’d taken the words out of her mouth.

  His blue eyes trained on her face, Chester went on, “Your problem, dear sister, is that you—prim, proper, exemplary paragon that you appear to be—attract the wrong sort of gentleman.”

  “Nonsense!” Catherine fluffed her shawl, an offended hen. “Lord Eggles is a paragon, too.”

  “Precisely my point,” Chester replied.

  “I have no notion what you mean,” Catherine said.

  She didn’t, but Loretta did. The possibility had occurred to her, but it was a shock to discover that even twenty-one-year-old Chester saw through her façade—and saw the same problem she’d started to suspect.

  “Perhaps"—Margaret looked at Robert—"in the interests of giving Loretta a chance to clarify what she wants in a husband, she might stay with us for a few months. The Little Season is about to start, and—”

  “Oh, no.” Catherine laid a hand on Robert’s arm; she captured his gaze. “That wouldn’t do at all.” She glanced at Margaret and smiled placatingly. “Besides, I daresay you’ll be atrociously busy entertaining all of John’s political acquaintance. Hardly fair to ask you to chaperone Loretta as well.”

  While her sisters tried tactfully to ease her out from under Catherine’s determined wing—a lost cause; Catherine would view Loretta transferring to Margaret’s chaperonage as an admission of failure—Loretta wondered if political circles might indeed hold better prospects for her. She felt certain the man of her dreams existed somewhere—she was a Michelmarsh female, after all—but she had assumed he’d have the good sense to find her, present himself, woo her, and then make an offer which she would then accept.

  It was all very clear in her mind.

  Sadly, her theory had yet to translate into reality.

  And she was increasingly concerned that Chester might be right. She might have to change her tack.

  Even if only to avoid more suitors of the likes of Lord Eggles.

  But change in what way? To what? And how?

  “I’m sure—”

  “Truly, it would be no great trouble. Why—”

  “I really feel it wouldn’t be right to—”

  Focused on defining her direction, letting the arguments—futile—wash over her, Loretta was the only member of the company to hear the sounds of an arrival in the hall. She glanced at the double doors.

  Just as they were flung wide, allowing a lady of striking magnificence to sail through.

  She was tall, slender, her startlingly white hair superbly coiffed and finished with fine feathers, her gown the very latest Parisian fashion in ecru silk and lace, her jewelry classic pieces of ivory and jet. She wore long gloves and carried a filigree reticule while a velvet mantle in rich dark brown draped from her shoulders.

  All conversation died.

  The apparition halted, poised in the space midway between the open doors and the chaises, calmly considered the stunned expressions turned her way, then smiled. Delightedly.

  Esme, Lady Congreve, spread her elegant arms and declared, “Darlings, I’ve come to steal Loretta away.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Finally alone in the private parlor of the Castle Inn at Dover, Loretta sat, her back poker straight, in one of the twin armchairs before the hearth and fixed her gaze on her outrageous relative, elegantly disposed in the other armchair.

  Until then, Loretta hadn’t had a chance to ask the questions piling up in her head. From the instant of her declaration in Robert’s library, Esme had taken charge. Like an unstoppable force, she’d rolled over all objections, explained in imperious fashion that she had need of a companion to accompany her on her imminent travels and that she’d determined Loretta would suit.

  She’d given Robert and Catherine little time to mount any effective defense. Margaret, Annabelle, Loretta, and Chester had exchanged glances, then sat back to await developments.

  Esme—she’d always insisted they call her Esme, rather than “Great-Aunt"—was their late father’s oldest aunt, their late grandmother’s elder sister. She was the last of her generation still alive, and therefore entitled to act as matriarch of the family.

  A right she’d unexpectedly decided to exercise to the full.

  Her husband, Richard, Lord Congreve, a Scotsman andsenior diplomat, had passed away fourteen months ago; matters pertaining to the settlement of his considerable estate had kept Esme in Scotland until now. In search of a change of scenery, she’d decided on a form of the Grand Tour—one in which she revisited all the European cities in which she and Richard had held court during his extensive career.

  An unusually long and entirely literal trip down memory lane.

  When Esme had let fall that she’d already sent orders to Loretta’s maid to pack her mistress’s belongings for a few months’ travel, Loretta had not just seen but read the writing on the wall. She’d slipped out of the room to direct Rose, and take care of a number of other matters made suddenly urgent by the prospe
ct of leaving London forthwith.

  As she’d closed the library door behind her, she’d had very little doubt who would win the ongoing argument.

  Less than half an hour later, she’d been summoned downstairs—and had left Robert’s house in Esme’s train.

  In response to Loretta’s question, Esme arched her finely drawn brows. “If you mean had I heard about the looming scandal your rejection of Eggles is about to cause, then yes, of course. Therese Osbaldestone wrote to me. That aside, however, I was heading your way regardless.”

  Loretta frowned. “To see Robert and Catherine?”

  “No. To kidnap you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I promised Elsie that I would take you under my wing and do what she ran out of time to.”

  Elsie was Loretta’s late grandmother. Esme and Elsie had been close. “She asked you to … take charge of me?”

  “She asked me to ensure that you turned into the young lady you’re supposed to be—a proper Michelmarsh young lady. To make sure you sloughed off this ridiculous reserve you’ve acquired under Robert and Catherine’s tutelage. As well-meaning as they are—and please note I give them due credit for that—they were entirely the wrong people tohave been given charge of you. Sadly, with your sisters and Chester too young and Robert so serious about taking on the responsibility of the head of the house, there wasn’t any alternative at the time.” Esme considered Loretta. “Now, however, matters have changed, as I made clear to Robert and Catherine. This entire near-scandal, and it is indeed that as Lord Eggles and his family are not at all amused at the implied insult of your abrupt rejection, is a direct and entirely predictable outcome of attempting to impose on a Michelmarsh young lady such an alien regimen as a prim and proper reserve.”

  Loretta eyed Esme with inner disquiet and welling resistance. “I often find a proper reserve very useful.”

  “Has it gained you the husband you wish for?”

  “No.”

  “I rest my case. So now, if you please, you will travel with me and learn to live as a true Michelmarsh. And then …” Esme’s words trailed away. A martial light gleamed in her eyes. “And then we’ll see.”