The Songbird's Seduction
Read The Songbird's Seduction Online
Authors: Connie Brockway
Also by Connie Brockway
HISTORICALS
Promise Me Heaven
Anything for Love
A Dangerous Man
As You Desire
All Through the Night
My Dearest Enemy
McClairen’s Isle: The Passionate One
McClairen’s Isle: The Reckless One
McClairen’s Isle: The Ravishing One
The Bridal Season
Once Upon a Pillow,
with Christina Dodd
Bridal Favors
The Rose Hunters: My Seduction
The Rose Hunters: My Pleasure
The Rose Hunters: My Surrender
So Enchanting
The Golden Season
The Lady Most Likely,
with Christina Dodd and Eloisa James
The Other Guy’s Bride
The Lady Most Willing,
with Christina Dodd and Eloisa James
No Place for a Dame
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Hot Dish
Skinny Dipping
ANTHOLOGIES
Outlaw Love,
“Heaven with a Gun”
My Scottish Summer,
“Lassie, Go Home”
The True Love Wedding Dress,
“Glad Rags”
Cupid Cats,
“Cat Scratch Fever”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2014 Connie Brockway
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477824894
ISBN-10: 1477824898
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Illustrated by Dana Ashton France
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905947
For Ann Hovde,
Beloved sister-in-law, fellow loony, best of friends.
Man, I really fell into it.
CONTENTS
Wilfred Martin Whinnywicke expired Tuesday last. Stop. Bernard DuPaul, Junior
Late September, 1908
Robin’s Hall, twenty miles northeast of London
At the base of the faded, moss-softened façade of what had once been a dignified, old stone manor house, a pair of elderly, smock-clad ladies worked industriously, attempting to hold at bay the encroaching woodlands from what they fondly imagined to be—or perhaps, more to the point, remembered as—a tiny formal garden. They were sisters, though no one would guess as much. One was tall, hawk-nosed, and as spindly as a stair rail, her head crowned by a wealth of silvery down. The other was short, soft as fresh butter, and round as a dumpling, her straight hair obstinately refusing to lose the middling brown color that never had been one of her few chief recommendations.
Both had lived their entire lives, with one notable and short exception, from within the manor’s walls.
Indeed, they had reached the humble heights of their feminine attractiveness at the same time that the house had enjoyed its own salad days. Alas, the years had piled on far past this zenith, the ladies’ dwindling prospects marching in time with the house’s deterioration, but at so slow and regular a pace that no one really noticed.
Indeed, it was only when the sisters answered the front door to a stranger on the buckled front entry steps that they recognized in the unknown person’s expression the condition into which they had fallen. This, in part, accounted for their very wise decision not to open the door to strangers at all, the other part being that those same strangers often came in response to unpaid bills. Happily, no one had troubled them for some months now and so they were quite content transplanting tulip bulbs in anticipation of another spring.
They were nearing the end of this endeavor when a jubilant cry rang out from the second-story window of the house, attracting the attention of the elder sister, Miss Lavinia Litton. She sank back on her bony haunches and looked up just as a young female voice burst into song—and a most engaging voice it was, too—noting that the singer was also waltzing with joyful abandon directly in front of the open window.
“I say, Bernice,” the older lady fretted, “do you think it quite safe for Lucy to be dancing about so near those open windows?”
“Dancing, is she? I daresay she’ll be all right,” Bernice said, handing a bulb to Lavinia. “She’s in fine voice this morning, isn’t she? And a merry little tune she’s after, what? Though I can’t quite catch the lyrics.”
“I believe she’s singing, ‘He’s dead, he’s dead, bless him, he’s dead,’ ” Lavinia explained patiently. Despite her strenuous protestations to the contrary, Bernice was a tad hard of hearing.
“Oh.” Bernice frowned in puzzlement. “Is she rehearsing for a new role?”
Lavinia listened a moment longer. “I don’t think so. I believe she’s making it up as she goes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because that’s
all
she’s singing and I can’t think a real song would have only four words to it.”
“Well, whatever she’s singing, it’s nice to hear her sounding so happy.” Bernice commenced digging another hole.
“Is it?” Lavinia, who had always prided herself on having an elevated sense of propriety, asked a trifle nervously. “Do you think she is referring to an actual
event
? And if so, do you think she ought to indulge in such an effusive demonstration of her feelings?
“I mean, what if she is referring to Mr. Gouge?” she went on, naming their small town’s perpetually expiring deacon. “Certainly one could empathize, especially after he alluded to Lucy as a Flora Dora girl in last Christmas’s sermon, but some degree of decorum is always—”
“Don’t be silly, Lavinia. If Mr. Gouge had died Lucy would simply gloat in silence like any decent person. Obviously whoever ‘he’ is, he deserved to die, and as Lucy is clearly unconcerned that her, er, enthusiasm regarding ‘his’ demise will garner censure—because otherwise she wouldn’t be dancing about and singing, would she?—neither need we. Lucy is generally a prudent girl”—she lowered her voice—“for all that she is in the theatre.” Though Bernice publically and vociferously supported Lucy in her chosen profession, privately it was still a source of some consternation for her.
“Operetta, second principal,” Lavinia corrected absently. “You are so sensible, Bernice. And of course, you are right. I am ashamed I doubted her, even for a moment. Still, it begs the question: Who do you think ‘he’ is?”
“Haven’t the foggiest,” Bernice replied, companionably patting the dirt around her last tulip. “Probably that tomcat that’s been having his way with Pauline.” Pauline was the sisters’ overindulged Manx tabby. “I haven’t seen him in several days.”
Bernice nodded. “Or perhaps—”
“There you are, my darlings!”
The sisters’ speculation was cut short by the sudden appearance of a young Rapunzel hanging out the window above, her long, cocoa-brown tresses shadowing a pretty gamine face with hazel-colored eyes that reflected back both the gold of the turning aspen leaves above and the lichen below. It was their grandniece, Lucille Eastlake, the only child of their deceased sister’s only child, the last tiny twig on what had once been a proud and robust tree. Lucy had come to them as an orphan when she’d been eleven years old and though nearly a decade had since passed, both sisters still caught their breath at the sight of her, so vibrant and lovely and, well,
exuberant
.
And dear.
But mystifying.
The preadolescent girl they’d taken into their home and hearts had been an enigma to them and in many ways still was. And while it was often very exciting to live with Lucy, it was sometimes rather bewildering.