Forbidden (Regency Lovers 4)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedications

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

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  About The Author

  Other books by Carole Mortimer

  Regency Lovers 4

  FORBIDDEN

  By

  Carole Mortimer

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2019 Carole Mortimer

  Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Formatter: Matthew Mortimer

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-72-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DEDICATIONS

  My husband, Peter

  Chapter 1

  Surrey, England

  October, 1817

  Zachary Noble, the Earl of Harrogate, reined in his horse to stare at the eerie glow of orange in the rapidly darkening night sky ahead of him.

  A glow which seemed to grow bigger even as he looked at it.

  Zachary had hoped to arrive at his estate in Surrey before dark but his horse, Zeus, had lost a shoe not long after they left London, resulting in a delay at a blacksmith’s along the way and Zachary arriving in the area at dinnertime rather than the late afternoon he had intended.

  Even so, the ride to his estate was so familiar to him, Zachary was sure he had not lost his way. But if that was the case, then what was that unfamiliar and increasingly large glow of orange up ahead?

  It looked as if the very bowels of hell had forced their way up through the earth to explode in a shower of orange and red flames—

  Dear God, it was a fire!

  The only property Zachary knew of in this area was Catchpole Manor, the home of Lord and Lady Catchpole and their daughter, Clara.

  Zachary delayed no longer, urging his horse forward, bending low over Zeus’s mane as he encouraged the horse into a full gallop.

  All was chaos and noise as Zachary rode into the courtyard at the front of the burning manor house. A dozen or so women were crying and wailing as they held each other. Many men, obviously grooms and estate workers from their clothing, hurried about with buckets of water gathered from the fountain in the courtyard, before throwing it uselessly onto the fire, which appeared to have taken hold of the whole house, flames spouting from every window and up through the roof.

  Well…almost every window, Zachary corrected himself as he spotted a young girl silhouetted in a window on the second floor. She appeared to be dressed only in some diaphanous white gown. Even as Zachary slid from his saddle and threw his reins to one of the men rushing by, the girl began to climb out the window and onto the narrow balcony.

  There was so much noise from the burning of the house and the people below that no one else seemed to have noticed the girl above trying to escape the fire.

  Zachary hurried to stand beneath the balcony where the girl now stood. Except, he realized, she was not a girl but a young woman. She was tiny, yes, with long flowing dark hair, but the fullness of the breasts outlined against the thin garment she wore proclaimed her as being far from the child he had initially thought her to be.

  Clara, perhaps, the Catchpoles’ daughter? Or possibly one of the household maids?

  Whoever she was, she now stood precariously on the balcony outside the bedchamber as the flames began to belch from the window behind her.

  “Jump!” Zachary shouted to her in encouragement. “You must jump. I promise I will catch you!” he added as her startled pale gaze located his tall figure standing on the gravel below.

  Rissa had never been as terrified in her life before as she was at this moment. The increasing heat and flames behind her caused her to grip the metal railing in front of her even harder as she stared down at the apparition below.

  A very tall and muscular man, with hair as black as a raven’s wing and looking up at her with eyes that glowed the deepest green she had ever seen with the glow of the fire at their depths, and set in a face of hard and sculpted beauty. He held strong-looking arms out in front of him in invitation as he urged her to jump off the balcony.

  Death itself come to claim her?

  Having accepted that was to be her fate, either from the flames and smoke engulfing her or from the fall onto the gravel below, a calm now descended over Rissa. At least Death had come to her in the form of the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on. Perhaps it would not be so bad to—

  “I said jump, damn you!”

  Would Death swear at her? Possibly. He was Death, after all, and could do exactly as he pleased.

  “If you force me to climb up there in order to carry you down, then you will most assuredly regret having done so!”

  Would Death threaten her? Was He not supposed to wait for the breath to leave a mortal body before carrying it off to either heaven or hell?

  Unless she was already dead, of course, her mortal body lying lifeless on the floor of the smoke-and-flame-filled bedchamber behind her, and Death was only here to take her spirit to its final resting place.

  Her father and stepmother would be devastated upon hearing of her death. Rissa could only hope that the arrival in almost two months’ time of her new sister or brother, currently residing safely inside her stepmother, would help to ease the pain of that loss.

  Except…

  Would she still feel the burning in her lungs from inhaling the smoke if she was already dead? Would she be able to feel how her arms and hands had been burned by the flames? Would her chemise, worn because she had been preparing to dress for dinner when the alarm was cried out, still be covered in soot from the burning curtains about her four-poster bed? Or the soles of her bare feet hurt from the abrasion of the balcony floor?

  Rissa had always been led to believe there would be no more pain once one had died—

  “Remember, you were warned!” The grim-faced man below moved to the drainpipe that ran the length of the building from the ground alongside her balcony and on to the roof.

  Part of the roof suddenly collapsed inwards, the rush of air causing the flames to shoot even higher from the windows which had already exploded outwards from the heat and had showered the people below with glass.

  “No!” Rissa cried out as she realized the man intended climbing that drainpipe to get to her. “I will come down to you,” she promised.

  She released her grip on the metal railing to climb gingerly over the top of it before gripping it again and allowing her body to now dangle over the graveled courtyard below.

  It seemed such an impossibly long way to fall.

  “Let go, and I will catch you!”

  Rissa said a silent prayer and sent her love to her father and stepmother before closing her eyes, releasing her grip on the metal balustrade, and allowing herself to fall.

  The woman hurtling toward Zachary looked like an angel descending to earth as the loose skirt of what he now realized was her chemise blew upward. Revealing she wore a pair of matching white drawers beneath and stockings secured by ga
rters just above her shapely knees.

  The billowing chemise also served to ease her descent somewhat, but the impact of her body as she hit Zachary in the chest still knocked the air from his lungs. His arms tightened about her slender form instinctively as he lost his balance before falling back onto the gravel, still clutching the now-unconscious woman in his arms.

  Was she hurt, or had she simply fainted?

  Zachary had no time to tell which it was as they were suddenly surrounded by people, the young woman taken from his arms before he was helped to his feet.

  “Harrogate?” A rotund and soot-covered Lord Catchpole stared at him incredulously “Where did you come from?”

  “I was riding nearby, saw the flames, and came to help,” Zachary dismissed distractedly as he searched the surrounding people for the young woman he had just rescued. She seemed to have disappeared.

  “Thank God you did!” Catchpole seemed unable to stop staring as his home as it continued to burn. “Another minute or two and I fear Rissa would have perished,” he added somewhat dazedly just as the rest of the roof collapsed inwards onto the floor below, including the bedchamber and balcony where, seconds ago, the young woman had been standing.

  Where Rissa had been standing.

  It was an unusual name, nor did it explain who or what she was, but she obviously wasn’t the Catchpoles’ daughter, Clara.

  “We must stand back,” Catchpole advised. “I have instructed the servants to give up the fight of trying to save the house, before one of them is hurt. I fear the house is about to collapse completely,” he added morosely as more bricks and mortar began to crash to the ground around them.

  Within minutes, it seemed, Catchpole’s warning was proved correct and the whole of Catchpole Manor became nothing more than a burned and blackened shell rather than the home that had belonged to the family for generations.

  Luckily, no one had died.

  Several neighboring families had arrived by this time, obviously also brought here by that telling orange glow in the sky. But it was too late for them to do anything more than offer sympathy and accommodation to the suddenly homeless Catchpole family and their household servants.

  Zachary felt compelled to make that same offer, his estate, only a mile or so away, being the closest.

  Even as it was decided where and with whom the Catchpole household were to stay, Zachary continued to search in vain for the young woman he knew only as Rissa. But it seemed as if she had vanished into thin air, almost as if she really was the angel Zachary had thought her to be.

  Chapter 2

  “Papa sent a letter off late last night to your own papa, informing him of the fire and assuring him you are safe and well,” a red-haired Clara confided as she burst into the bedchamber where Rissa lay resting the following afternoon. “Papa offered to return you to Weston Park on our way to my Aunt Janet’s home, where we are to stay for several weeks until other arrangements can be made, but no doubt the duke will decide to ride here posthaste anyway,” she added with an edge of excitement in her voice, obviously enjoying this whole experience, despite having lost her home and belongings.

  The fire the previous evening now seemed like a bad dream to Rissa, as if it had happened to someone else rather than to her.

  The possible arrival of her father, once he received Harold Catchpole’s letter, made it seem less so. Her father was the Duke of Weston, a man everyone respected. But when it came to the safety of his wife and daughter, all knew the duke was to be feared rather than revered.

  There was no denying the soreness of Rissa’s throat and chest or the small burns on her hands. But during the doctor’s visit last night, and then again this morning, he had assured her that her discomfort was only a temporary thing and had given her a soothing cream for her maid, who had also survived the fire, to apply to the burns. No lives had been lost, thank goodness.

  It hardly seemed possible that the gracious manor house where Rissa had spent the past week visiting with Clara Catchpole and her family was now no more. That all the things in Rissa’s trunk and all of the Catchpoles’ possessions had burned along with it.

  “I can hardly believe we are staying at the home of the handsome and single Earl of Harrogate,” Clara continued in almost a whisper. “We have been neighbors for many years, but he has been a recluse for all of my adult life. He rarely if ever socializes, and never pays calls on his neighbors.”

  Rissa frowned, believing Clara should look sorrier about her family’s misfortune than she currently did as she strolled about the Earl of Harrogate’s home in clothes borrowed from other friends and neighbors. Clara certainly should not have that glow of excitement in her blue eyes because this unexpected turn of events had allowed her to spend time in the house of the reclusive earl.

  Rissa had neither seen nor heard anything of her savior since she fainted upon landing safely in his arms the night before. She knew now he was not Death, of course, because she was very much alive, but other than that, she had no clue as to who he might have been. He was certainly not a member of the Catchpole household, because Rissa knew she would have remembered him if she had ever seen him before.

  Nor had she seen him since being driven to this house in the Catchpoles’ carriage—their stables, thankfully, had survived the fire, being some way from the house—before being carried inside by one of the footmen and taken to this bedchamber. After which, all had sounded quite chaotic outside this room, as accommodation was provided for the Catchpole family and the few personal servants they had brought with them. Rissa’s own maid was currently in the adjoining dressing room readying her bath.

  “Oh.” Clara suddenly ceased her pacing, a guilty blush on her freckled face. “I was supposed to ask if you are feeling well enough to receive a visit from our host.”

  “The handsome and unmarried Earl of Harrogate?” Rissa teased her friend.

  “I believe I am definitely the latter of those two things, at least,” drawled a deep and mocking voice.

  Rissa glanced toward the open doorway, any embarrassment at having her remark overheard completely forgotten as she found herself looking at the man she had last night believed to be the angel of death.

  The man’s black hair was neatly combed into a fashionable style today, the green eyes alight with mockery, his perfect, chiseled features bearing evidence of that same emotion. His dark green superfine was tailored perfectly over wide shoulders, chest, and narrow waist, beige pantaloons clinging to the muscular length of his legs above brown-and-black Hessians. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, making him at least ten years older than Rissa’s age of eighteen.

  Could his visit mean her angel of death and savior was the “handsome and single Earl of Harrogate”?

  It would seem to be the case. “My lord,” Rissa greeted as she pulled herself farther up the pillow, her voice still slightly hoarse from having inhaled so much smoke the evening before. “I have wanted to thank you for all that you did for me last night.”

  He gave a nod of acknowledgment as he stepped farther into the room. “And I have wanted to see for myself, despite the doctor’s assurances, that you have suffered no lasting injury from the fire and your fall.”

  The two of them continued to stare at each other, gray eyes captured by that deep green as the clock on the marble mantelpiece loudly ticked the seconds away.

  The earl’s eyes were not merely green, Rissa realized, but had a thin circle of gold about the iris, with more gold shards fanning outwards from the pupil. They were both beautiful and mesmerizing.

  “I believed last night you were the angel of death come to take me to my final resting place.” Color bloomed in Rissa’s cheeks as Clara’s giggle alerted her to the fact that she had spoken those words out loud.

  “Indeed?” The earl came to stand next to the bed, still holding Rissa captive with that green-and-gold gaze. “I believed you were an angel too, but of a much pleasanter variety.”

  Rissa’s breathlessne
ss now had nothing to do with smoke inhalation and everything to do with the man standing beside her.

  She had always believed her father to be one of the handsomest gentlemen in England, but this man was…truly magnificent. So tall and powerfully built, but moving with the grace of a jungle cat like the ones she had seen in a zoo the previous year. Rissa’s fingers itched to touch the ebony hair that curled so enticingly about his ears and across his brow, to trace with her fingertips the harsh contours of his face. To touch those chiseled lips to see if they were as hard as they looked or if they would be soft enough to kiss.

  Dear God…

  After leaving school in June, Rissa had attended the last few weeks left of the Season and, as the only daughter of the very wealthy and powerful Duke of Weston, had been flattered and flirted with by many handsome gentlemen. Yet none of them had come even close to affecting her the way Lord Zachary Noble did merely by standing close enough to her she was able to breathe in the uniqueness of his cologne accompanied by an underlying and insidious male musk.

  “I will just go and see if Mama needs me for anything.”

  Neither Rissa nor the earl responded to Clara’s comment before that young lady, after giving them an envious glance, hurried from the room. Thankfully, the presence of Rissa’s maid in the adjoining room meant there was no impropriety in Rissa being alone with the earl.

  Zachary immediately sank his lean and muscular length onto the chair beside Rissa’s bed before taking one of her slender hands in both of his, careful not to squeeze too tightly as he noted the red burns on the fingers and palm. “I feared you were going to perish in the fire.” His voice was low and husky.

  He had wondered during the long night after these unexpected guests arrived in his home, if the woman he knew only as Rissa and whom he had since learned was a friend of Clara Catchpole’s, could really be as beautiful as Zachary had thought she was.