My Lady Gambled

“My Lady Gambled” Book 1 & 2 (Archangel Regency Series #6) 

By Shirl Anders

My Lady Gambled Book One & Book Two By Shirl Anders 

Published 2004 Published by Allure Books, P.O. Box 40756, Eugene, Oregon 97404. Copyrighted (c) 2004 Shirl Anders. 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the author. Manufactured in the United States of America 

Allure Books http://www.allurebooks.com Email [email protected] This is a work of fiction. 

The characters, incidents, and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

There are two novellas for the entire story of My Lady Gambled, Book One and Book Two. These are the final two book conclusion for the Archangel series by Shirl Anders. For those of you that have not read the first five novellas about the exciting Archangels, this book should stand alone. However, you might wonder about some of the characters and below is a short look at their titles and stories. 

Enjoy, Shirl Anders
My Lady Compelled
: Meet Gabriella who is bought from a scandalous “wife sale” by her first admirer and now former ex-spy, Drummond. 

My Lady Enslaved
: This story follows ex-spy Lord Harrison Ravenscar’s revenge in a mistaken identity, when he captures the wrong woman for his vengeance and he forces the innocent Chloe into being his sexual slave to passion. 

My Lady Captive
: Join Lord Wyndham Hawkenge when he dares to save the young widow, OreŠlan, from the hedonistic grasp of Alexei Tropov. 

My Lady Taken
: Radford is betting some of the ladies will shed their staid English morals and come in sensual pursuit of him. What he does not expect is the feminine artifice of Lady Nia O’Shea when she sets her witty, thoroughly seductive, and scheming sights on him. 

My Lady Enthralled
: The cult forces Saxon and Joelle to mate in a wild sexual ceremony. Yet, Saxon and Joelle will fight anyway they can, until they win their freedom.

Brynmore, Baron and Laird of Duneagan, watched his friend Saxonhurst, Marquess of Hartley, pacing the length of the lion-head carved pool table in front of him. Drummond, Duke of Kittridge, had gathered them all in his London mansion’s gaming salon. All six men of the former Archangels spy group sat or leaned in varying postures around the room.

Brynmore tried to unclench his fists. The labored tightening of his fingers was in reaction to previously hearing Saxon’s horrifying tale, a tale of kidnapping, cults, sexual depravity, and murder. Brynmore attempted to stretch the kink in his neck he had gotten from the strain of listening to, and then realizing that Saxon and his new lady-love Joelle had barely escaped the Order of the Satyr alive, and had not escaped unscathed, either mentally or physically.

The tensions of the six men in the room were sharp, furious, and lethal. Brynmore fought the urge to leap forward, grab his claymore and barge from the room to find and destroy the foul, ill-serving bastards of this bloody cult.

But, it would not be that easy.

“You want Joelle out of it?” Drummond asked succinctly, from where he sat, in a red high-backed chair with the glow of a gas lamp to his left etching his austere features.

“Hell, yes!” Saxon halted his pacing, and the small silver hook that replaced his left-hand rose with a sweeping gesture. “I want her nowhere near those bastards again. However, she will not see it that way at all. She has as much courage as all of us, and she’ll be set to find justice, and an end to the cult, Incubus, and surely Hellion. An end to any more foul deeds, or murders.”

Brynmore watched Saxon’s silver hook fall to his side and thought with slow burning contempt about the parody of names the bloody villains used. It was like a bad play one should laugh at, however it was not a stage show, but real and deadly. It was clear from Saxon’s rendering that The Order of the Satyr’s figurehead, Hellion, was a mass murderer.

“This could present a problem for all of us.” Drummond raised a glass of amber whiskey in his lean fingers. “We have, gentlemen,” Drummond nodded around. “Not chosen docile wallflowers for our wives and lovers.”

Brynmore nodded in agreement to this as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his broad chest. Aye, he could attest to that. He was the only one, among the six men, without a permanent lass or wife, and he knew each man’s feisty lass quite well. Brynmore smirked for the first time that evening. He bloody well wished them all luck at keeping their women out of this!

“Then, I suppose at the bride-to-be gathering for Nia this evening at our townhouse, where there should simply be tittering over our wedding plans. All of our women are to present with the exception of Joelle. One wonders that they could be hatching different opinions other than should the bride be wearing white, or the scarlet red that I hopefully requested,” Radford, Duke of Sutherlin, said ruefully.

Wyndham, Baron of Hawkenge, with his injured leg propped upon a small cushioned stool from where he sat adjacent to Drummond, snorted, “None of our women titters!”

Saxon left his statued position in the center of their gathering to lean his hip against the end of the pool table, near Radford in a similar position. Then, Saxon inserted, “Joelle went to the bride to be gathering also, at the last minute, Gabriella was quite persuasive.”

“One might wonder why my dear wife Gabriella would be so coaxing to Joelle. It appears congenial and inclusive on the surface.”

“Don’t wager on it,” Harrison, Earl of Ravenscar, said with a low rasp.

Brynmore watched Harrison’s black eyes scan them all once, before Harrison turned his gaze down to the fire once again and leaned his elbow against the fireplace mantel. Harrison’s gaze was brooding after the last year or more of opened and unshadowed gazes. It had Brynmore wondering. While Saxon had revealed his tale of horrendous events that he and Joelle had recently experienced, Harrison had remained extremely quiet, drinking only a new style seltzer water and staring down into the fire with a stillness that was impossible in normal men.

“So, what is the consensus, about allowing our women to be involved in this?” Drummond asked, swirling whiskey in the balloon snifter before him. He raised his gaze from the amber liquid coating the glass, not taking a drink as his slate gray eyes drew sharply around the room. “I, for one, will forbid it, no matter what machinations my delightful wife will be about.”

Brynmore listened to the mutters of agreement, though none stated eloquently and therefore all with an aura of trial about them. Harrison never made a sound and Brynmore wagered that the only one coming close to succeeding would be Lord Harrison Ravenscar.  

Yet, Brynmore was ready to leave the other men to their trials in intimacy. He had no one to answer to, and he had a craving inside him to feel the thrill of the chase once again. This demand to eradicate the pestilence that was The Order of the Satyr had not come at a better time to feed the common and insatiable yearning, to satisfy that craving for the rush of aliveness that being in a dangerous situation could produce. He was not sure why this need was so overpowering and why he had been fighting it for so long. It was actually against his nature, that of being more mature reacting than his thirty-three years. Always more solid, but with a wry sense of Scottish humor nonetheless. And, always with the mantle of responsibility to be the laird one day on his shoulders.

However, that day had come more quickly than he had anticipated with the deaths of so many of his clan’s elders in the war. Bloody hell, he should be more responsible and not lose the battle to unreasonable and erratic demands inside him. Instead, he was satisfied that he had no choice in the matter. They had to take care of this. He had to be involved. More so because he was the only single man left among the Archangels. He was glad, and that should worry him. Instead, he ignored it and waited, which was odd for him, with impatience for the instructions he knew would be coming.

“Then to the goals, gentlemen,” Drummond stated, appearing to agree to the consensus of sidestepping the issue of their women.

“It might be easier to assassinate Hellion and Incubus once we find them, however that would take the chance of leaving the murders un-solved, and the identity of the victims, unknown. We also need to know the structure of this cult, so we are certain that once we illuminate the key figures that The Order will collapse, never to rise again.”

“And, the authorities?” Harrison asked, not taking his gaze from the fire.

Drummond’s eyebrow raised, and Brynmore knew that he, as well as the other men, were a bit surprised that this query should come from their lethal assassin, Harrison.

“Hmm,” Drummond slowly etched, then he said, “We would be doing the authorities a disservice allowing them to remain ignorant about this occurrence of an individual or a partnered mass murderer.”

“Aye, if there is one out there, then another one will come along in time,” Brynmore muttered, shifting his brown Hessian boots as he cocked his hip the other way and leaned back against the wall.

“We will have to appraise them, but before or after?” Radford asked, leaving the sentence hanging.

Drummond picked it up. “We shall keep it in mind and decide later, when we are further into it. For now our first step is to find them, and I predict that is not going to be easy.”

“Then, I will have to go back to Paris at once-,” Saxon began saying.

“No.” Drummond interrupted. “Two good reasons, Saxon. They know you, and you as with most of us here, have a great deal of family matters to settle before we begin. Gentlemen, the demise of The Order and its leaders will take time. I will start with a rough estimate of at least six months or more.”

“Balls!” Wyndham uttered.

“Yes.” Drummond nodded. Brynmore guessed that their thoughts were about the issues of added trouble with their women, as he heard Drummond continue. “Brynmore, will leave as soon as possible.”

Brynmore straightened his tall frame away from the wall. “Aye.”

“I’ve held two of my shipping vessels just on the odd chance we would need them quickly. They are set to sail upon your needs,” Radford said.

“Your intuitions are honed as usual, Radford,” Drummond said, then he shifted in his chair and stood. “We will use beacon-lighted messages across the channel. Brynmore, you can see Radford to set up a workable schedule. The rest of you, gentlemen, settle your affairs. We will meet here every evening to further our plans. However, it should take Brynmore a fortnight to lay the ground work and find the scent, as it were.”

“If any good can come from this,” Saxon said. He paused, looking at each one of them before continuing, “I am glad The Order of the Satyr selected me, because, gentlemen, with your help we could be the only group with the resources and ability to destroy this evil. Those bastards made a huge mistake!”

Kit stood at the weathered railing of the ship. The day was clean and sunny with the sea as calm as she had seen it on the crossing from America. They were one day away from laying an anchor on the French coast, and then another day’s carriages ride into Paris. Her destination, where she would finally begin to find out what had happened to her brother. Where had Clay gone?

Clayton, he preferred to be called now, she reminded herself. In his last letter six months before, he had written to her about how the name change suited him better and suited the social climate in Paris. He went by Clayton and had angrily purged their family’s last name of Montoya, as a direct and intended insult to their father.

“You have to be more sociable. That plump gel with those pretty daughters is a Countess!”

Kit started from her thoughts to look sideways at her husband Nick standing beside her. His approach had been undetected until he had spoken. Immediately, her gut cringed inward upon hearing his disparaging voice or feeling him anywhere near her. Lord, she hated him.

“I told the countess we had been married much longer than the three month newlyweds we really are. How could I do anything less with you dressed as you are and acting as you do? I swear, Filly, the countess thought you were a man.” Nick sneered sideways at her, in his pretense of superior bearing. It was a difficult thing to accomplish for a former river-rat gambler that she’d finally discovered he’d been. “What the hell was wrong with the dress I borrowed for you? Can’t you do one thing right?”