Before the Kiss: A Book Club Belles Society novella

By Jayne Fresina

An original prequel introducing Jayne Fresina's charming, delightfully naughty new Regency Romance series. In the sleepy village of Hawcombe Prior, the five young ladies of the Book Club Belles Society are looking for their own leading men. When handsome, mysterious Darius Wainwright strolls into town, the Book Club Belles are instantly smitten with his brooding good looks and prideful demeanor. It's as if he walked out of the pages of their favorite new novel, a scandalous romance called Pride and Prejudice. But Miss Justina Penny has a secret she's met this arrogant, brooding bachelor before. In Bath. The town, not the tub. Although, she was naked...

This playful short gives you the true story of how Justina and Darius meet—to find out what happens to this mis-matched pair purchase One Upon a Kiss.

Praise for The Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine:

"Eminently witty." Publishers Weekly

"Decidedly humorous, as well as sensual...a true charmer of a read." RT Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781402289392

Jayne Fresina

Jayne Fresina sprouted up in England. Entertained by her father’s colorful tales of growing up in the countryside, and surrounded by opinionated sisters, she’s always had inspiration for her beleaguered heroes and unstoppable heroines. She lives in upstate New York. Visit www.jaynefresina.com.

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Copyright © 2014 by Jayne Fresina

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Cover illustration by Judy York/Lott Reps

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Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

A Sneak Peek at Once Upon a Kiss

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

One

Bath, 1814

It’s past ten o’clock, missy, exclaimed the stout lady, her coarsely powdered face looming out of the dark hall and catching the light of the streetlamp. Her bulky form filled the narrow space, exuding an aura of suspicion and impatience, just as unsubtle as the odor of beef stew lingering about her person. I don’t hold with stray females in my gentlemen’s rooms at this hour. This is a respectable bachelor residence, not a bawdy house.

Thus she prepared to shut her door, only to find a defiant foot wedged in her way. A foot that belonged to a young woman who, accustomed to putting that appendage wherever it was not welcomed, bore the pain bravely. For Miss Justina Penny, adventurer, optimist, and determined author of her own fate, had not come so far on this mission only to be turned away at the door.

She’d just crept out of her aunt’s house and traveled a good distance through the streets of Bath, alone in a hired chair, wearing a wig and a mask. It was a great deal of trouble to go through and one last little barrier—this lady with her badly repaired facade flaking off in crusty pieces—would not stand between her and the prize she sought.

My good woman, this caution does you credit, but I am the sister of one of your guests, and I bring him important news from home. I must see him directly. Speaking firmly, head high, she stepped closer to the peevish landlady, pushing the door open again. Captain Sherringham is my brother, and he is boarding here, is he not?

Sherringham? But he’s—

A loud crash from the room at the far end of the corridor momentarily distracted the landlady and she turned her head to yell, Father! What have you done now? You’d better not have tipped the commode again. Sit still, for pity’s sake! I told you to wait for me. Every night we go through this palaver.

Justina considered dashing by the lady, but there was not enough time. The woman’s head swiveled around again on her stout neck and her eyes narrowed.

Might have known you were one of Sherringham’s trollops. There’s always three or four of your sort hanging around that fellow. Soldiers on leave! More trouble than they’re worth and half of them sneak off without paying their bill. I could afford a maid to open this door for me, if it weren’t for soldiers like your fair captain, cheating me out of an honest living. For all his fine talk, I’ve never known a man with pockets to let so often and, if rumors are true, he owes coin to more than half the tradesmen in Bath. I doubt you’ll get much out of him, missy. Except a case of the French pox.

How dare you! she replied, raising her voice in outrage. I told you, I am his sister.

Aye. He has a lot of them. A second bang from the back room, followed by a rattling, spinning clatter, caused the landlady to shout again over her shoulder, Father! I told you to stay there and wait for me.

High-pitched wheezing laughter echoed down the hall in reply.

You are not a jockey in the Epsom Derby! the woman hollered. Do not race that commode around the bedchamber. If I have to come back there and clean up another spilled pot—

Oh, please do go and tend to your poor father, said Justina eagerly. I will wait here.

The woman chortled. Of course you will! Come on, missy. Off you go now! Grabbing a broom from the corner behind her, she thrust it at Justina’s skirt, pushing her backward out of the door and down the step. I’ve naught against folk who must earn a living, but you can ply your trade elsewhere. This is a respectable house. And thus the door was slammed in her face.

Furious, she waited on the step a moment, one hand clutching the iron railing. This was a disaster. She firmly refused to go all the way back again without her mission fulfilled. If she did, she suspected her courage would not hold out for a second try.

She’d known Captain Nathaniel Sherringham for several years. His sister was one of her very good friends at home in the village of Hawcombe Prior, where they were members of the local book society, a small group of young ladies that Nathaniel had teasingly named The Book Club Belles. But as much as Justina adored the handsome, charming fellow, she had never yet let him know it. He still thought of her as a fairly insignificant little girl—amusing, certainly, and jolly good fun, as he’d said to her not long ago—but a mere girl. Tonight, having learned of the captain’s arrival in Bath only a few days before she and her family were due to end their stay and return home, Justina planned to open his eyes and make him see her as the woman she truly was.

Eighteen now and out, she was expected to find a husband. Not that she wanted one. There were other things she would prefer to do with her time, but her mother was insistent. If Justina had any hope of avoiding the humiliation of the marriage mart and the grief of being constantly compared to her prettier, much sweeter, elder sister, she would just have to get it over with and choose a husband for herself. Let the matter be settled immediately, she thought, and save everyone from the inevitable bouts of nervous prostration and aching of the spleen that were bound to occur for as long as she was paraded about on the auction block.

Who better for her than Captain Sherringham?

He was lively company, never mawkish. He was not the sort to lecture her or chastise her for saying or doing the wrong thing. In fact, since her mischief amused him, he had a tendency to urge her on. The captain saw nothing wrong in teaching her anything she wanted to learn—especially those things a girl was not supposed to know. He took evident delight in showing her how to cheat at cards, how to curse in French, and how to pick locks.

Thus, it was decided. If she must have a husband, she would rather it was Captain Sherringham than any other man.

She supposed that meant she was in love.

The only thing left to do was prove to him that she was a little girl no more. That she could be his playmate in other ways.

On a more mercenary note, she’d purchased a splendid pair of silk stockings and pink ribbon garters especially for this moment, but if she couldn’t gain access to his lodgings, the extravagant spending of her allowance on one article of clothing would be a complete and shameful waste.

Retreating down the steps to the street, she turned her mind to other possible routes inside the building.

A mob of noisy fellows passed her on the moonlit path, and she hastily dodged aside to avoid being swept up in their rapid motion. A coach-and-four thundered by and then another. Bath was a much larger and busier place than Hawcombe Prior, of course, but after almost three weeks there she’d grown accustomed to the crowds and the noise. Justina enjoyed observing the oddities of humanity, and there was plenty of that to watch here.

Suddenly she found herself at the steps that led down to the servants’ entrance of the boardinghouse. A dim light showed through