The Kiss of a Stranger Read online

  Cover photography by McKenzie Deakins.

  For more information please visit www.photographybymckenzie.com

  Cover design copyright © 2011 by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  American Fork, Utah

  Copyright © 2011 by Sarah M. Eden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect

  the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.

  First Printing: January 2011

  ISBN 978-1-60861-260-4

  To Raul and Ed, the man of many names

  Chapter One

  England, October 1814

  “Blast it all!” Crispin Handle, Lord Cavratt, did not generally resort to muttering under his breath, but an exasperating female could push even the most levelheaded gentleman to extremes.

  He had retreated to the country to avoid Miss Cynthia Bower only to find her stalking the garden path of what he thought was an unknown inn. Miss Bower, with the painfully obvious encouragement of her mother, had decided that she ought to be the next Lady Cavratt and had worked feverishly to convince him of the same thing. The only clear conclusion Crispin had come to was that Miss Bower’s only redeeming quality was that she did eventually go away. If only there were a way to keep her from coming back.

  “Now isn’t this a charming coincidence, Lord Cavratt.” Miss Bower reached him with alarming speed.

  If only his gelding, Hinder, moved that quickly.

  “I thought you were remaining in London for the Little Season.”

  Miss Bower ignored Crispin’s pointed lack of a response, following him as he continued to walk. She rarely required a reply when fashioning a conversation. “How pleased Mother will be to know you’re here. We are visiting old friends, the Larneses.”

  “Of course you are.” Old friends, indeed. Conveniently located friends, more like.

  Miss Bower emitted a tiny wisp of a laugh, precisely the kind a lady of the beau monde would have spent her life perfecting. Society valued the most inane things. “Sometimes you are in such sour spirits.”

  “And you seem to always be nearby when I am,” he answered.

  If anything, Miss Bower smiled more broadly. “Providence, my lord. Simply an opportunity for me to elevate your mood.”

  The woman couldn’t be insulted. She didn’t seem able to comprehend a set-down no matter how blunt. Perhaps she simply ignored his obvious lack of enthusiasm for her company—blind ambition, as it were, though deaf ambition seemed more fitting.

  Miss Bower’s expression turned triumphant. “And I have come with just such an opportunity.”

  “I can hardly wait.” He made no attempt to disguise the dryness of his tone.

  A couple passed going in the opposite direction. Crispin acknowledged them with a bow of his head.

  “The Littletons’ Ball is a mere three weeks away.” Miss Bower’s rampant enthusiasm would have pleased Mrs. Littleton immensely.

  “It will, no doubt, be a suffocating crush, as usual.” Crispin did not care for balls. He did enjoy people—the genuine ones at least. Society functions rarely catered to the sincere and upright. If such stalwart character traits were required for admittance, the ballrooms of London would echo in their emptiness.

  “You are so cross.” Miss Bower executed a calculatedly dainty wave of her hand. “I think I’ll punish you and not tell you whom they’ve invited. I know you will be quite pleased when you hear his name.”

  “Very well.” If she talked long enough, perhaps she would wear herself out to the point of dropping onto the ground in a swoon. After enjoying the blessed silence for a moment, he could then make good his escape. “I shall take my punishment like a gentleman.”

  “You are insufferable at times.”

  If he was so insufferable, why did she continue smiling like a ninny?

  “The Earl of Lampton will be there.” Miss Bower’s eyes grew wide in anticipation of his ecstatic response.

  To own the truth, Crispin felt every bit as pleased as she had predicted he would. He and Philip Jonquil, the earl to whom Miss Bower referred, had been friends since their days at Eton. Lud, that felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Surely you mean to attend the ball. The earl will be most pleased to see you, as will so very many others.” Again Miss Bower failed to hit the subtlety mark.

  Rather than being shackled for the first waltz and a country dance, to boot, Crispin sidestepped the question. “I see Lord Lampton quite often as it is. The ball, therefore, need not serve as the stage for a reunion, and I may remain at home with a clear conscience.”

  “I should just leave you here to your gloom and forget my intention to lift your spirits.” Her sickeningly sweet voice threatened to undermine Crispin’s determination to be civil.

  “If only,” he muttered under his breath for the second time in a matter of minutes.

  “What was that?”

  “Just admiring the flowers, Miss Bower.” Crispin kept his eyes fixed on the few remaining blooms. The chill of early October had claimed all but the hardiest. He admired their determination. Survival required a certain degree of stubbornness.

  “I do wish you’d call me Cynthia. I’ve asked so many times.”

  “And I have refused just as many times, Miss Bower.” Crispin could feel the muscles tensing around his jaw. She irritated him almost beyond bearing.

  “Although you are decidedly an intelligent, honorable gentleman—”

  Ah. She’d moved to the nauseating flattery. Next would come feigned coyness with just a hint of a saucy temper. The ladies of society read far too much like a very predictable novel.

  “—you certainly can’t expect to make a match unless you are willing to attend a few crushes, my lord.”

  “I have attended far more than a few, I assure you.” Crispin shuddered at the memory—feather-headed debutantes and their maddening mothers trailing him around all the drawing rooms of London, seeing nothing more than a title and lands and ready blunt. Even the gentlemen lost their forthrightness when tossed amongst the hypocritical throngs of society.

  “You and I have spent time together at many such functions.” Miss Bower compacted her lack of subtlety with a hint of desperation.

  Time had come to formulate a reason to abandon the garden and leave Miss Bower to leech onto some other gentleman, preferably one who had a certain fondness for parasites.

  “And we have met at Hyde Park,” Miss Bower pushed on.

  She’d practically thrown herself in front of his horse on two different occasions and somehow lost control of her own mount on another. Blast it, he needed to rid himself of her before she did something truly drastic. Crispin nodded warily, searching his brain for an excuse to flee.

  “We have sat beside one another at dinner parties.”

  Something he’d done his utmost to avoid. The scheming of her mother had made that impossible at times.

  “Attended musicales, the theater . . .”

  She managed to show up everywhere he went. He half expected her to be waiting at White’s on the nights he hid from her there. Miss Bower would likely not bat an eye at the t
hought of infiltrating a gentlemen’s club in the interest of pursuing a title.

  “We do certainly seem to run into each other a lot.” Depressing thought. He’d once had a nightmare that Miss Bower had tied up his valet and hidden in his dressing room. The fact that he couldn’t be entirely sure she wouldn’t resort to such a thing made the image all the more disturbing.

  “People are beginning to talk.” Miss Bower offered an innocent look that wasn’t innocent in the least.

  Crispin silently acknowledged a woman standing near a hyacinth plant. She blushed in reply. Hers was not a practiced shyness. So there were still women in the world who weren’t merely actresses. This particular woman most likely had no need to be. She was quite obviously a servant.

  “Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Miss Bower demanded, facing him with hands shoved impatiently against her hips.

  A serious miscalculation, Miss Bower. Her clinginess irritated him—demanding his attention pushed him beyond mere annoyance. “No, as a matter of fact, I am not listening to a word you are saying, nor am I likely to begin doing so.”

  “I don’t know why I even bother myself with this.” She pursed her lips together, eyeing him with frustration. “All I am saying is the ton is beginning to wonder if you know how to court a lady or not.”

  “And what, pray tell, have I done to inspire such catastrophic doubt from all of society?”

  “You and I have been seen together all over London and people have begun to talk—”

  “Something you have pointed out already.”

  She didn’t stop long enough to register his reply. “—and you have never once declared yourself.”

  Declared himself? He would likely strangle her within the first twenty-four hours of an engagement. No, when he married—an eventuality to which he did not particularly look forward—he would choose a woman with at least one original thought in her brain box, someone genuine who didn’t see him as the quickest route to a title and pin money.

  “You’ve never even attempted to kiss me.”

  Crispin shuddered at the very thought. Did the feckless female think he was dicked in the nob? Talking with her was repulsive enough—he’d have to be stark raving mad to kiss her!

  “Perhaps you simply lack the ability.”

  “To kiss a woman?” He most certainly possessed that ability. A veritable talent, he’d been told.

  She cocked her head to the side. He’d seen that look before. She was issuing a challenge, attempting to anger him into kissing her. As if any gentleman raised amongst the machinations of heartless women would fall into such an obvious trap.

  “You need not worry about my abilities, Miss Bower.” His patience slipped more with each passing moment.

  “I always thought a true gentleman was born to woo, and yet your wooing of me has fallen remarkably short.”

  “Did you ever consider the possibility that I never intended to woo you?” Crispin dropped the civility, his temper barely held back.

  “You need not be embarrassed.” Miss Bower looked at him sympathetically. “I don’t require the kind of attentions some ladies do when being pursued.”

  Crispin silently counted to five, not trusting himself to reply immediately. Five proved inadequate. By twenty, he felt better able to speak calmly. “You are not being pursued. My—”

  “No one is about, Crispin. There’s no need to—”

  “It is Lord Cavratt, Miss Bower, and I have no intention of—”

  “I realize that, as a gentleman, you have probably been hesitant to allow yourself a more ardent display of your affection.” Miss Bower laid her hand on his arm.

  He pulled back, probably more roughly than necessary, but she remained undeterred. He would never, no matter how old and frail a bachelor he might become, settle for the likes of Miss Bower. He would choose his own wife, and he would choose far better than this shallow, calculating young lady.

  “A kiss would make your intentions quite clear, my lord, and would, I assure you, be most welcome.” More fluttering eyelashes. More coy smiles.

  She wanted a kiss, did she? Wanted a clear indication of his intentions toward her? “Fine.”

  Miss Bower’s smile grew just a touch smug. That smile wouldn’t last long.

  Crispin marched to the hyacinths and the young serving woman still standing there admiring the few remaining flowers.

  He offered her a quick bow. “Pardon me.”

  She curtsied, her blush returning once more.

  Looking daggers at Miss Bower, Crispin gathered the unsuspecting maid in his arms and kissed her with as much fervor as he could gather in his irritation. Let the infuriating, clinging leech make of that what she would.

  He’d intended to put Miss Bower in her place, perhaps to shock her from the garden and his life entirely. Mere seconds after pressing his lips to this stranger’s, however, all thoughts of Miss Bower fled. He could think of nothing beyond how perfectly this nameless woman fit in his arms, how wonderful she tasted, how nice she smelled.

  He’d quite thoroughly kissed her before her attempts to push him away registered in his befuddled mind. Her struggle snapped him back to reality. Crispin released her, trying desperately to catch his breath, to calm his racing heart. She had mesmerizing sapphire eyes. Crispin had the sudden urge to reach out for her again. But the poor thing had such a look of confused fear on her face he couldn’t stomach the idea of misusing her further.

  Crispin had never before thought of himself as a cad—he’d never had reason to. Just then, looking into the frightened face of the young woman he’d all but attacked, he, the pattern card of a well-mannered gentleman, knew he’d behaved little better than a jackanapes.

  “Forgive me,” he offered, sorely feeling the thoughtlessness of his actions. “That was uncalled for.”

  “It most certainly was,” a deep voice rumbled behind him.

  Crispin spun to face a stout gentleman, fifty years old by his face, though with the build of a man much younger. He was dressed in the first stare of fashion, marking him as a man of means. The young maid was probably a member of this gentleman’s staff. Crispin did not generally fall into such ridiculous scrapes as this.

  “My apologies . . .”

  “Mr. Thorndale,” the man introduced himself, “of Yandell Hall.”

  Crispin bowed. The man bent perhaps an inch in reply.

  With a look of disapproval and a flick of his hand toward the woman who stood watching Crispin with those unbelievably blue eyes, Mr. Thorndale said, “And you, apparently, know my niece.”

  Niece? The woman he’d thought a servant was a gentleman’s niece? Lud, what a bumblebroth. Miss Bower, he noticed, had fled the scene. The coward.

  “You will both come with me.” Mr. Thorndale turned back toward the inn.

  The little slip of a thing hurried after him. Crispin, though unaccustomed to being ordered around, followed also. He was in far too deep to object to a little deserved bullying.

  What was Mr. Thorndale’s situation? If he proved a man of wealth and influence, this could, perhaps be worked around. A man in need of funds would be less obliging. Even so, the incident had occurred with almost no witnesses. Miss Bower wasn’t likely to muddy his reputation—no point doggedly pursuing a gentleman with a reputation for being a cad. Although, in all honesty, the rakes did seem to garner far more attention from the ladies than they ought.

  Mr. Thorndale’s niece would not wish to propagate a scandal. She would be implicated in it, after all.

  He had to have some name to assign the lady. “Miss Thorndale” would have to do until he learned differently. Crispin watched her follow Mr. Thorndale through the bustling front hall of the inn and up the winding staircase. Her faded, shapeless gown suggested the Thorndales had fallen on hard times. However, Mr. Thorndale’s coat, though not Weston, was remarkably well tailored. He appeared bang up to the mark. Miss Thorndale didn’t appear to have ever heard of the mark. The hideous gown she wore defied des
cription. Her honey-colored hair had been pulled back in a severe knot, convincing Crispin she did not have a lady’s maid.

  The Thorndale family proved a study in contradictions. Mr. Thorndale was solidly built and self-possessed. His niece was wispy, pale, and withdrawn. She, Crispin decided, must take after the other side of her family tree—the quiet, colorless side, poor thing.

  The threesome stepped inside a stuffy and wear-worn sitting area on the inn’s second story. Mr. Thorndale instructed the upper maid to shut the door as she left.

  Crispin began formulating an apology, but the words stuck in his throat when he looked at Miss Thorndale. She stood silently trembling, her eyes lowered to the floor.

  Mr. Thorndale stepped to within six inches of his niece. She raised her head almost mechanically, as though she’d expected the sudden proximity. Mr. Thorndale glared at her. Tension filled the room with the thickness of London fog. Mr. Thorndale’s hand flew through the air, landing soundly across his niece’s face. The force set her nearly off balance, her delicate, pale hands instantly cupping her mouth.

  Instinct propelled Crispin toward the quaking lady even as his mind froze in shock. The man struck his niece without warning, without provocation.

  “Where was your woman?” Mr. Thorndale demanded of his niece.

  “I thought she was with me.”

  Crispin reached out to touch her arm, intending to both ascertain the extent of her injury and to offer his support.

  “Miss Thorndale?”

  The poor lady was trembling.

  “Just what is your name, sir?” Mr. Thorndale’s tone turned to a sneer on the last word.

  “I am Lord Cavratt.” Crispin kept his tone civil. He would not let this man get his hackles up. He turned back toward the lady standing stoically silent beside him. “Miss—”

  “Lord Cavratt, I expect you to do what honor requires of any gentleman who has compromised a young lady’s reputation.”

  “You believe her compromised by a simple kiss?” The man truly was mad.

  Mr. Thorndale looked down his long, overly hooked nose. “That, my lord, was no simple kiss. A true gentleman would not kiss a lady that way without intending to make an offer. Unless of course your intentions were not honorable.”