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Chapter One
ON THE SEACOAST road to Rye, in the midst of a summer’s hazy day, stood Sir Edward Danton. His uncovered head of silver tinged ginger colored hair blew around his lean and handsome face. His lightweight, neatly tailored and soberly fitted blue coat was in some disarray with one sleeve torn and a lapel badly smeared with grime.
His attention was on the rise and fall of the breakers and his uncovered hands were clasped tightly at his back.
Behind him, in a deep and narrow ditch, one could see the sad semblance of his hired coach. One of the two horses that had pulled it into its present predicament stood grazing and hobbled not far off. The driver had ridden the other coach horse into town to seek help.
If this situation was not enough to trouble a man of Sir Edward’s stamp, the ordeal he had just been through certainly was. His life had just been thrown into chaos.
The morning had started in a thrillingly delicious manner. He had abducted the lady of his choice and was set on marrying her willy-nilly. He had truly believed that she loved him and wanted to be swept off her feet.
How could he have been such a fool? She didn’t want him. She didn’t want to be swept off her feet by him. This had not been driven home until it was too late.
His day had come dramatically to a halt with his coach in a ditch and his lady love in the arms of another.
He was bruised of heart, mind and body. He was, for the first time in his adult life, left confused, dazed and insecure.
He had lost her to nothing less than a duke—Lord Wildfire himself. There was some solace in that, but the loss of Lady Babs was deeply felt all the same. He had been enchanted with Lady Babs. He found her delightful of mind and character. He also found her desirable and thought she actually wanted him, but was playing a game.
His pride had taken a throttling and his heart had taken a beating. He had now to take a long hard look at himself and what he saw, he found he no longer liked. It came home to him that he knew she wasn’t really enamored with him. He hadn’t cared. What sort of man had he become? Was he so spoiled that he only looked to his own needs?
Somewhere along the way, he had lost the man he had been and had become a stranger to himself. It was no wonder Lady Babs had rejected him so roundly.
To be sure, he felt ill used. Had Lady Babs not teased him—led him a playful dance while she flirted outrageously with him?
Indeed, he had been smitten, but the question remained—had he been truly in love. How could he have been in love and not seen that she loved another? How could he have been in love and not really taken her needs into consideration?
Had he decided to abduct her because in his heart he knew that was the only way he could make her his own? Yes, the answer was a slap in the face—yes!
What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking—that was the trouble. He believed, or thought he believed that given her impetuous nature, she would enjoy being swept off her feet and fall instantly in love with him. What a complete fool he had been.
Before she left with the duke she had told him that he was not in love with her.
Was she correct? Time, only time would tell. What was that thing philosophers always went on about? Ah yes, time washes love’s wounds clean. He sighed and stared at the sea.
The breakers crashed, flinging pebbles on the sand and he paced a bit with some of his frenzy returning to haunt him. What had he done? He closed his eyes as he thought of how he had even threatened blackmail. He had suspected at that point that she was no longer simply teasing him, dallying with him. He had realized hadn’t he, that she did not, definitely did not want him and yet…he abducted her all the same. Why? Did he think to change her mind with such cavalier behavior?
What he needed was to take a good hard look at the man he was becoming and repair the damage before it was too late.
First, he had to get away. He would travel on to Rye, send for his things then perhaps visit friends in Cornwall. It was a long trip and a goodly time away from the ton’s gossip and frivolous society—that was what he needed.
Another environment for the summer.
He turned at the sound of horses and the grinding of wheels signifying a carriage at his back and observed that the driver of his coach had returned with a smithy’s wagon and several husky men.
Ah, help had arrived.
He would send the driver back to Brighton to collect his valet, groom, and his own horses. That’s right. That was the ticket and then he would be off and away. He would forget Lady Babs, his humiliation and the fact that he was no longer the man he thought he was. He would put this horrible business behind him and become the man he should be.
* * *
Star Berkley’s hair was the color and texture of cornsilk. She wore it in a style peculiar to herself and one that was not at all fashionable.
It was cropped in short layered waves, first presented to the haute ton by Lady Caroline. This style had been adopted by a few daring ladies of the ton, but most of the gentlemen still preferred a woman to wear her hair long.
Star’s brother had encouraged her to continue to keep it cropped and she found that because it suited her to do so, she would not give a fig for what the gentlemen of the haute ton thought.
Star’s face was piquant and heart shaped, giving her a naughty pixie-like countenance. Her nose was small and pert, her lips, full and rosy. However, as she turned from the mirror in her brother’s room, she sighed heavily. She did not count herself a beauty, or notice the fact that she turned male heads wherever she went. She thought, in fact, that she might never meet her true love and told her brother, “I don’t know, Vern. Perhaps I was not
meant to fall in love and marry.”
He laughed and looked her over. “Well, Star, perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you should grow your hair and wind it all around your head in curls. Indeed, you would be stunning with such a hairdo.”
She plopped on the bed beside him. “I am afraid that you see me out of brotherly eyes…I am far from stunning.” She peeped at him naughtily, “Why…I look like you.”
Her dark slightly almond shaped eyes, framed with dark thick lashes, laughed into the same dark eyes. He chuckled heartily, but that chuckle gave way to a fit of coughing.
Her spontaneous smile and infectious laughter vanished as she bent toward him on the bed and touched his shoulder. “Oh dear, Vern…you should be better by now.”
Her brother’s coughing subsided and he took a long gulp of air, looked her over with deep affection and said, “Star…and you shouldn’t be here looking after me. You should be in London…at routs and balls and…”
“Hush,” she admonished. “You take on too much to yourself. Why…that is neither here nor there. What do I care for such frivolities?”
“You can’t fool me, Star, besides it is what I promised Papa I would do for you.” He pulled a face. “I have made a mess of it.”
“Vern, you are only two years older than I. Papa was unable to pull us out of the mess he not you created. I loved him so dearly, but he shouldn’t have made you promise to do take on his burden. Matters were dire long before you inherited.”
He frowned and turned away from her to stare out the window. Star was worried. She got up and took the sponge out of the bowl of warm water touched with rose water she had brought up and began wiping his head and neck with its soothing application.
