Vanity
Authors: Jane Feather
Violet
“Great fan…. Feather’s well-paced plot generates lots of laughs, steamy sex and high adventure, as well as some wryly perceptive commentary on the gender stereotypes her heroine so flagrantly defies.”—
Publishers Weekly
Valentine
“Delicious … * * * * out of 4 stars … Comes much closer to the Austen spirit than any of the pseudo-sequels.”
—
Detroit Free Press
“More than just a few cuts above the average. Each novel she pens is another challenge to her fellow writers because she has raised the quality of the historical once again.”
—
Affaire de Coeur
Velvet
“An exceptional reading experience on all levels.”
—
Rendezvous
Vixen
“Vixen
is worth taking to bed…. Feathers last book,
Virtue,
was good, but this one is even better.”
—
USA Today
Virtue
“Jane Feather is an accomplished storyteller…. The result—a rare and wonderful battle-of-the-sexes story that will delight both historical and Regency readers.”
—
Daily News,
Los Angeles
Also by Jane Feather
V
ICE
V
IOLET
V
ALENTINE
V
ELVET
V
IXEN
V
IRTUE
T
HE
D
IAMOND
S
LIPPER
T
HE
S
ILVER
R
OSE
T
HE
E
MERALD
S
WAN
T
HE
H
OSTAGE
B
RIDE
A V
ALENTINE
W
EDDING
T
HE
A
CCIDENTAL
B
RIDE
T
HE
L
EAST
L
IKELY
B
RIDE
T
HE
W
IDOW’S
K
ISS
A
LMOST
I
NNOCENT
T
O
K
ISS A
S
PY
and coming soon
K
ISSED BY
S
HADOWS
SUSSEX, ENGLAND:
1762
T
he three boys scrambled up the steep grassy incline to the clifftop above Beachy Head. A gust of wind grabbed at the kite flying high against the brilliant blue sky. Philip Wyndham took another turn of the string around his hand as he increased his speed.
Gervase, the eldest of the three, paused, doubling over to catch his breath with the painful wheezing of the asthmatic. Cullum held out a hand and hauled his brother up with him to the clifftop. Cullum’s sturdy young body had no difficulty taking Gervase’s slight weight despite the two-year age difference, and they were both laughing as they reached Philip.
The three stood for a minute, gazing down at the funnel carved into the cliff, falling away beneath them to the jagged rocks and pounding surf far below.
Gervase’s thin shoulders hunched as he shuddered. He always found the funnel mesmerizing. It seemed to invite him to jump, to follow its inexorable narrowing tunnel in a violent swirl of rushing wind to the foam-tipped teeth at the bottom.
He took a step backward. “My turn with the kite.”
“No, it’s not. I’m supposed to have it for half an hour.” Philip snatched his arm away as Gervase reached for it.
“You’ve had it for half an hour.” Cullum spoke with his habitual authority as he too reached for the kite string.
A seagull swooped low over the cliff, its mournful cry picked up by a second and then a third. The three boys swayed together, grabbing for the disputed kite string while the seagulls circled above them, shadowed against the puffy white clouds.
Cullum tripped over a loose tussock and fell to one knee. As he scrambled to his feet, Gervase lunged for the string held by a now laughing, taunting Philip. The younger boy’s slate-gray eyes narrowed abruptly. As Gervase leaped upward to catch Philip’s wrist, Philip sidestepped. His booted foot shot out, catching his brother on the calf.
Gervase’s scream went on forever, vying with the skirling calls of the seagulls. And then it stopped.
The two boys on the clifftop stared down the funnel at the inert bundle lying on a flat rock far beneath. The waves sucked at Gervase’s nankeen trousers.
“You did it,” Philip said. “You tripped him.”
Cullum gazed at his brother, shock and horror on his face. They were fraternal twins, but the only features they shared were the distinctive gray eyes of the Wyndhams. Philip was an angelic-looking child with a mass of golden curls framing his rounded face; his frame was slender, though without the thinness of ill health that had characterized Gervase. Cullum had a wavy thatch of dark-brown hair above a strong-featured face, and his body was broad and strong, his legs planted foursquare on the turf.
“What do you mean?” he whispered, and there was dread in his voice and a ghastly vulnerability in his eyes.
“I saw you,” Philip said in a low voice, his eyes still narrowed. “You tripped him, I saw you.”
“No,” Cullum whispered again. “No, I didn’t. I was trying to get up myself … you were …”
“It was you!” his brother interrupted. “I’ll tell them what I saw and they’ll believe me. You
know
they will.” He
gazed at his brother, and Cullum felt the old helpless frustration wash through him as he read the triumph and the malice on the cherubic face. They would believe Philip. They always did. Everyone always believed Philip.
Suddenly, he turned aside and ran wildly along the cliff, looking for a way down to his brother’s lifeless body. Philip stood and watched him until he’d disappeared over the clifftop a few yards away, his fingers for a second grubbing at the springy turf before he committed himself to the treacherously sheer climb to the rocks beneath.
Then Philip ran back down the incline toward the narrow lane that led to Wyndham Manor, the seat of the Earl of Wyndham, the story of the accident to the earl’s eldest son bubbling from his lips, ready tears filling his eyes.
The kite he still held flew high and jaunty behind him.
LONDON: FEBRUARY
1780
T
he crowds had been filling the streets since before dawn, jostling for the best places along the route to Tyburn, the luckiest finding spots around the gibbet itself. Despite the light snow and the raw wind, there was a holiday atmosphere: farmers and their wives, come in from the country for the entertainment, sharing the contents of their hampers with their neighbors; children dodging in and out of the throng, chasing each other, collapsing in squabbling heaps to the cobbles; sharp-eyed townsfolk, lucky enough to have houses along the route the cart would take from Newgate, shouting their prices for a seat in the window or on the roof.
It promised to be a spectacle worth paying for, the execution of Gerald Abercorn and Derek Greenthorne, two of the most notorious gentlemen of the road who’d terrorized travelers across Putney Heath for the better part of a decade.
“You’d think if they could catch them two, t’other wouldn’t be ’ard to get,” a rosy-cheeked woman mumbled through a mouthful of pigeon pie.
Her husband took a bottle of rum from the capacious pocket of his great coat. “They’ll not nab Lord Nick,
woman, you mark my words.” He took a hearty swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You seem very confident, sir,” an amused voice said behind him. “What makes this so-called Lord Nick harder to catch than his unfortunate friends?”
The other man tapped the side of his nose and winked significantly. “He’s clever, see. Cleverer than a barrel of monkeys. Give the Runners the slip anytime. They says ’e can disappear in a puff of smoke, he an’ that white ’orse of ’is, jest like Old Nick, the devil ’isself.”
His interlocutor’s smile was slightly mocking as he took a pinch of snuff. He made no response, however. He was close to the front of the crowd and, standing head and shoulders above the majority of the spectators, could easily see the gibbet over the surrounding heads. All trace of a smile was wiped clean from his face as he heard the low rumble of excitement from Tyburn Road that indicated the approach of the cart with the condemned men. Using his elbows, he pushed through the crowd, ignoring the curses and complaints, until he’d reached Tyburn Tree.
John Dennis, the hangman, was already positioned on the broad cart stationed beneath the gibbet. He brushed snow from his black sleeve and peered through the now fast-falling flakes, watching for the arrival of his customers.
“A word with you, sir.”
Dennis jumped and looked down from his perch. A man, unremarkably dressed in a plain brown coat and britches, fixed him with a gray-eyed penetrating stare. “How much for the bodies?” he asked, drawing out a leather purse. It chinked richly as he rested it against the palm of his other hand, and Dennis’s eyes sharpened. He examined the man closely and saw that although his clothes were plain, they were well cut and of excellent cloth. His linen was spotless, although without frills, and his hat was liberally adorned with silver lace. His sharply assessing gaze encompassed the fine soft leather boots with buckles that he immediately recognized as real silver. Highwaymen—or at least Mr. Abercorn and Mr. Greenthorne—clearly had well-to-do friends.
“Five guinea apiece,” he said without a moment’s consideration. “And three for their clothes.”
The stranger’s Up curled, and an expression of acute distaste flickered over his countenance, but he opened his purse without another word.
Dennis leaned down, extending his hand, and the man in brown counted the gold coins into his palm. Then he turned and beckoned four burly carriers, leaning on their carts on the outskirts of the crowd. “Convey the bodies to the Royal Oak at Putney,” he said without expression, handing them a guinea each.