Samantha James
Authors: The Seduction of an Unknown Lady
The Seduction of an Unknown Lady
To the Rogue Authors—
Victoria Alexander, Susan Andersen, Patti Berg,
Stephanie Laurens, and Linda Needham—
who welcomed me into the fold with open arms…
I’d never have been able to finish this book without you.
Hugs and thanks to each and every one of you!
“Your Grace,” intoned Carlton, the impeccably attired white-gloved butler. “Your…
Someone is watching me, Fionna thought, trying desperately to determine…
The tinkling little bell at Every Book and Cranny gave…
The next few days dragged endlessly.
It was Sunday. The one day that belonged to herself.
If Fionna had thought that memories of Aidan McBride would…
Fionna’s heart was pounding, hard and almost painfully. Her mind…
The following morning, a glance at the clock sent Fionna…
Fionna threw herself into preparations for the duke of Gleneden’s…
Fionna’s heart foundered, then began to thud madly. No, she…
He spoke of passion. He spoke of pleasure.
Fionna did not sleep well that night.
They shared a bit of small talk on the way…
Aidan wasn’t particularly proud of himself. The reasoning part of…
There was no question of leaving Fionna alone that day.
Aidan went from Fionna’s apartment to Alec’s home. Alec had…
Of all the things she might have told him, that…
Fionna was still wiping away tears when she heard someone…
Over a year later, much had changed.
He was back.
I saw him once when I was very young, a creature who was not of this world. Even now I recall the way the hairs on the back of my neck had prickled—as they did even now.
Now, I stood on the balcony outside my room at Raven’s Gate and gazed into the light of the moon.
For I could feel it.
I could feel him.
It is not a feeling one soon forgets.
Demon of Dartmoor,
F.J. Sparrow
London, January 1852
“Your Grace,” intoned Carlton, the impeccably attired white-gloved butler. “Your brother, Lord Aidan.”
Aidan McBride strode into his brother’s drawing room and without further ado, lowered his long body onto the soft, rich cushions of the armchair that sat before the roaring fire. He leaned forward, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
Ensconced in the adjacent chair, periodical in hand, Alec McBride hiked one dark brow.
“Brandy?” queried Alec without looking up from his reading. “Or whisky?”
Aidan certainly wouldn’t refuse either. His brother Alec had a fine selection of both, including an enviable—and extensive—wine cellar. Ah, yes, his brother had both exquisite—and expensive—taste when it came to spirits. And being half-Scots, as a matter of course there was always whisky. Gleneden, in fact, even boasted its own distillery. Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden, could well afford his pleasures.
“Brandy,” said Aidan, “sounds just the thing.”
Carlton returned in short order with a generously filled decanter and two finely etched tumblers centered on a gleaming silver tray. The butler poured a perfectly matched measure into each, then retired with a bow. Aidan leaned forward and retrieved the nearest glass. His posture was perfectly erect, courtesy of his rigorous military training and his days as a colonel in the Royal Highland Regiment.
But those days were no more. Now he was once
again a private citizen, on his way to making his own fortune in shipping tobacco and cotton from America, rum from the Caribbean, anywhere west of England. He wouldn’t consider the tea trade. God knew he wanted no more to do with India.
His brother’s pale blue eyes had finally settled on him. Aidan watched as Alec closed the periodical and laid it on the table—rather reluctantly, Aidan decided. “Well, well,” he said lightly, “it appears I’ve interrupted you at a rather inopportune moment. Would you prefer that I leave?”
“No need. You’re already here, aren’t you?”
“Well, you appeared quite engrossed in your reading material—what is it? Ah,
THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE
. But what article were you reading that holds you in such fascination?” Curious, Aidan picked up the periodical his brother had laid on the table but failed to close, as if to mark his place—as if loath to forget it.
His brows shot high. “What the devil!
Demon of Dartmoor,
” he quoted. He couldn’t withhold a laugh. “Who has taken the place of my brother? Perhaps the devil himself! Or—dare I say it?—a demon? I confess, Alec, you astound me. I rather thought you should be reading the classics.”
“The devil indeed. Or just as you say, perchance a demon. And it’s not an article, Aidan, but a novel. Rather, a serialization of a novel.”
Aidan glanced at it once more. “F.J. Sparrow? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Yes, well, is it any wonder?” Alec asked dryly. “You were in the Punjab so long it’s a miracle any of us recognized you.”
The Punjab.
Touched by echoes from the past, Aidan managed to maintain his smile. He held himself very still. He didn’t try to stop the painful tightening of his gut. He’d long since discovered that to try merely made it worse.
No, there was no turning back the past. No escaping it.
Lord knew he’d already tried.
He also knew that Alec meant no harm by the offhand comment.
Like Alec, his complexion was almost swarthy. But the Indian sun had darkened Aidan’s still more, so that his skin was a dark, burnished hue that made him appear almost a foreigner—particularly when combined with the beard he’d grown, the patch he’d still worn over one eye upon his return home. Aidan recalled with a faint amusement how their poor mother had appeared severely distressed at the notion that perhaps her second son had not returned on this particular ship after all. She’d passed by him on the dock fully half a dozen times over, fretting aloud, before Aidan finally took pity on her, picking up her dainty form and whirling her around. He knew, from the hint of mirth that tugged at Alec’s mouth, that Alec was thinking of that mo
ment, too. And of course Mama had also been delighted when he shaved his beard off the following day.
It was Alec who’d told him how disappointed she had been when she’d learned of Aidan’s decision not to return home immediately upon resigning his commission. In fact, nearly a year had passed before he’d come home.
It wasn’t, as he’d cited to his mother in his letter not long after he’d resigned his commission, a continuing need for wanderlust that delayed his reunion with his family.
It was shame. Shame and guilt and—
Unfinished business.
And once that was done, well…he still hadn’t been able to return.
He couldn’t. Precisely why, he couldn’t say. Perhaps he’d been running. Hiding. Trying to heal.
It took a moment before he realized Alec was still talking about that damned author. What was his name? Wren?
“At any rate,” Alec continued, “since the publication of
Satan’s Path,
F.J. Sparrow has enjoyed enormous success.”
F.J. Sparrow. That was it.
“
Spectres of the Dark
followed, I believe, then
The Devil’s Way. Howls at Midnight
was the last.” Alec pointed to a cabinet in the corner. “Alas, I’ve the entire collection thus far except
The Devil’s
Way.
I read it, then lent it to someone and it was never returned. And now it’s almost impossible to come by.”
He sounded most indignant. “Let me guess,” Aidan drawled. “His characters battle almost unspeakable evil.”
“But of course.”
Aidan silently contemplated.
Satan’s Path. Spectres of the Dark. The Devil’s Way
and
Demon of Dartmoor.
F.J. Sparrow must surely be a queer, twisted fellow, to pen such grisly-sounding tales. But he kept his opinion to himself.
His eyes, thick-lashed as were all the McBrides’, blue like all of the McBrides’—though all of them hued in various shades from palest blue to deepest sapphire—began to sparkle.
He tapped a finger atop
Demon of Dartmoor.
“Tell me,” he invited, “what entrances you so.”
“It’s not just me, it’s the whole of England, man. F.J. Sparrow is all the rage. Walk into any club, and you’ll no doubt find a dozen copies of the latest
CHRONICLE
with the latest chapter of
Demon of Dartmoor.
Attend any party, any gala affair, and his name will surely crop up, for again, I say, he’s captivated the whole of the British Isles. The master of murder and monsters and mayhem he’s called.”
“And no doubt his novels are full of phantoms and apparitions, creatures of doom, creatures of gloom, secret passageways, trapdoors, and the like. And in secluded, ruined castles. My God,
you’re reading Gothic horror novels—my brother, the duke of Gleneden!”
“Well, would you expect anything else from such a novel?” A faint smile curled Alec’s lips. “The thing is, no one really knows who F.J. Sparrow
is.
His identity. And that but fuels the mystery even more—and his sales, no doubt.”
Aidan fought the urge to erupt into laughter. It must have shown, for Alec cast him a look that clearly proclaimed his recalcitrance.
Aidan schooled his features. “Since this is clearly a passion of yours, tell me more.”
Alec took a sip of brandy. “Well, our intrepid heroine is a young, virtuous woman in incessant danger.”
“I find the idea of young, virtuous, innocent ladies immensely…appealing.” Aidan arched a well-shaped brow. “But I’m surprised that
you
of all people should take to reading such drivel.”
Again that withering look. “One should never criticize what one has not read,” Aidan was haughtily informed. “Besides, they are not drivel. They’re surprisingly well written, Aidan. I think of them as novels of hair-raising adventure—they’re most certainly not for the faint of heart. Indeed, while some of his monsters are deviants whose deeds are of horrendous proportion, one of his previous works featured a villain who had been shut up beneath the house he’d been born in for ten years. When he was a child, his father cut off his fingers one by one for daring to snatch a
biscuit—and then his tongue as well, so the child could not protest when his father shut him away in a closet so tiny he could not stand upright. He was an outcast from society. An outcast of his family. When his father died, and he managed to escape, it wasn’t just his outward body that was crippled. It was as if his heart was crippled as well—a crippled soul, if you will. Vile as he’d grown to be, it was really rather sad that he was such a tragic figure of a man.”
A crippled soul. Well,
he thought,
that was something he understood.
He lowered his glass to the table. “I confess, I am all agog.”
Alec pretended to frown severely. “Do you mock me?”
Aidan’s smile was purely devilish. “Only when I am able.”
“Well,” Alec said wryly, “I doubt you’ll find anything in England so exciting as defending the masses in India, but Raven and Rowan certainly have—in the moors of jolly old England.”
“Raven and Rowan?” Aidan queried.
“The characters in
Demon of Dartmoor.
Amateur sleuths.”
“Ah, those who do battle against the creatures of infamy.”
“Yes. They worked together in
The Devil’s Way,
you see, quite closely. Rowan owns the estate next to Raven’s. When she came into her
inheritance after her father’s death, she bought a country manor. Raven’s Gate, she decided to call it. But Raven’s Gate was haunted, you see. Together, Raven and Rowan hunted down the villainess—the housekeeper, can you imagine?—a reincarnation of some spawn, a creature of sadistic madness. I confess, for a day or so, I was given to regard Carlton’s behavior quite closely. And then Raven and Rowan appeared together again in
Howls at Midnight.
I daresay their escapades are awaited most eagerly by nearly everyone in the kingdom.”
Aidan smothered a smile. He tipped his head to the side. “Raven,” he repeated. “A woman?”
“Why, however did you know?” Alec feigned shock. “Despite the name, Raven is a flame-haired beauty.”
“But of course.” It was Aidan’s turn to echo his brother’s earlier statement. He wasn’t quite sure he would ever grasp his brother’s passion, but he would humor him. “So. We have a flame-haired beauty,” he mused. “Petite and delicate?”
“Mmmm.”
“And her cohort? Rowan, you say?”
“Indeed.”
“A splendid-looking fellow,” Aidan mused, “no doubt a well-skilled pugilist and more than able to protect the lovely lady Raven.”
“Indeed, but there’s the thing. The lovely Raven usually does not
want
Rowan’s protection.
She’s quite able to take care of herself, thank you very much. And
that,
dear brother, is an exact quote from our beauteous heroine.”
“So no one knows the identity of the mysterious F.J. Sparrow. Could it be that
you
are the author?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “You were gone too long, my dear brother. I do believe the heat has damaged your faculties.” Alec tapped a lean finger against the center of his lower lip. Now it was he who smothered a laugh. “Although I do remember calling you dim-witted a time or two when we were children.”
“Not,” Aidan countered with nary a blink, “when I had you pinned to the ground. Much to dear Mama’s distress. And Annie’s delight.”
“Yes, Annie did seem to delight when either of us were in a pickle.”
“Or especially
both
of us.”
“At any rate, regardless of your opinion of my reading tastes, the fact that these two are at odds is part of the readers’ attraction to Raven and Rowan. Or perhaps more aptly, the attraction the two of them share—though each pretends otherwise, of course. It was evident at their very first meeting in
The Devil’s Way,
and with each successive novel, it’s become ever more pronounced, this new element between them. It’s not just the hair-prickling adventure. It’s the relationship between the two of them. All await their newest adventure—and the next installment of
Demon of Dartmoor.
I predict Raven and Rowan shall
…well, we shall see. It’s not only their extraordinary encounters with all manner of unearthly creatures that hold everyone enthralled, but the pull between them. All I can say is that when the two are together—the combination of peril and passion—well, one can fairly feel the way they
sizzle
—and so does my flesh!”
“My God, you make it sound as if they’re real people!”
“An acknowledgment to the author’s talent to think of them so, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps, but it sounds like an erotic novel, not a horror novel, or even a Gothic novel.” Aidan tipped his head to the side. “Knowing you, Alec, now I begin to see why
you
are so entranced.”
Alec laughed. “Well, perhaps it’s a bit of all three!” He paused. “But enough of Raven and Rowan,” Alec said after a moment. He studied Aidan. “How is the eye?”
Aidan braced himself. Alec referred to the vision in Aidan’s left eye. It had happened that horrible night…his rifle backfired, leaving behind burns that would never heal. Though no outward sign of the impairment was evident, things were still fuzzy on the left, and his peripheral vision had been affected. Upon his mother’s insistence, he’d seen a surgeon after he’d returned to England. The man merely told him what Aidan already knew, that there would likely never be any improvement in his vision.
Aidan shrugged. “The same.” The physician in
London advised against the patch. He said it but weakened the eye even more.
There was a long, drawn-out silence. Aidan sipped his brandy, aware of his brother’s regard. “You’ve changed,” Alec said finally. “You’re—” Alec seemed to hesitate.
Aidan had no such qualms. One corner of his mouth turned up in what could hardly be called a smile. “Harder?”
Alec neither agreed nor disagreed.
As a lad, Aidan never had any doubts about his abilities to do whatever he set his mind to. Yes, Aidan reflected rather cynically, after so many years away from his homeland, he supposed it was true. He
was
harder than when he’d left. Tougher. God knew he felt infinitely older than his thirty-one years. Why, it seemed a lifetime had passed since he’d joined the Regiment as a green youth of twenty.