My Lord's Lady

By Sherrill Bodine

A stubborn Lord and Lady find themselves find themselves opening up to love while closed off from an epidemic in this Regency romance novella.
 
While the widow Lady Georgina has no interest in pursuing another union, her meddling friend Tildie has found the man she believes to be Georgina’s perfect match: the handsome widower Lord Vane. But from the start of the London Season, Georgina and Vane are immediately at odds.
 
The Lord’s cool countenance annoys Georgina to no end, while Lord Vane has no desire for his orderly routine to be upended by the passionate Lady Georgina. But when the Season is interrupted by an epidemic, they are forced to remain together under quarantine. While they seem destined to be at each other’s throats, they may find that they prefer each other’s lips.
 
My Lord’s Lady originally appeared in the anthology Autumn Loves under the pseudonym Leslie Lynn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626812062

Book preview

Chapter 1

All was as it should be. The stately, hallowed halls of the British Museum were cool and hushed, and vacant—precisely the way he enjoyed it.

Laurentian Wilburforce Cranston!

The shouted name echoed around him, bouncing off the gilt-framed portraits of England’s former monarchs, who suddenly appeared to glare with disapproval at such a disturbance in their august midst.

The mere shock of hearing his given name, which he never allowed spoken, brought him to an abrupt halt. It had been years since anyone had dared to speak it, much less shout it out in this vulgar way. The nine syllables, enunciated just so, reminded him of Eton, where he’d bloodied more than a few noses over just such a taunt.

Both Leticia and Lawrence looked up at him wonderingly. He gave each nearly identical face a reassuring nod before turning to confront the source of such an outrage.

Seated on a stone bench directly under a life-size portrait of Queen Elizabeth was a stiff-backed, silver-haired woman swathed in stark black.

His face muscles shifted from the set-down he’d had every intention of delivering to quiver into a semblance of pleasure.

Tildie? He breathed his former governess’s name, disbelief holding him immobile.

Come here to me. At once! she commanded.

No one commanded the nonesuch, Lord Vane, but then very few would have known his full name or how to use it to such advantage. For just an instant, time fell away. He did as he was bid, crossing the marble floor with the twins dutifully following in his wake.

Tildie’s dark eyes were as full of intelligence as they had been twenty years earlier. Only silver hair and the fine lines fanning across her pale cheeks proclaimed the passage of so long a span. Then suddenly he recalled the most astonishing change of all.

Your Grace, what a pleasant surprise. He bowed over her outstretched hand smoothly. May I present my children, Lawrence and Leticia.

His son’s very proper bow and Leticia’s perfect curtsy curled pleasure and pride through his chest. They were children to be proud of.

Very nice, she snapped at him, while curving her mouth into a peculiarly sweet smile for each child. However, why are they spending the day in this dreadfully dull place? They should be at Vane Park playing in the woods or riding through the fields. You, of all people, should know that, Laurentian!

Very properly, his son stared straight ahead as if oblivious to Tildie’s words, but his daughter gazed up at him with wide cornflower blue eyes. Her delicate face was a study in awed disbelief. He assumed, and rightly so, that she had never heard him spoken to in just such a tone.

His old governess’s leveler didn’t faze him, for he expected nothing but her straightforward honesty. Time could never dull the memory of this woman who had descended upon Vane Park and opened up the world for the first time, beyond his mother’s stuffy sickroom and his father’s somber library.

The children have just arrived from the country, Your Grace. He returned with just the right touch of composure. The Little Season is the perfect time to bring the children, as it fits into the course of study I’ve laid out for them.

Never did cure you of your obsessive need for orderliness, did I? she sniffed. More’s the pity. Although I still hold out hope it can be accomplished one day.

Even Lawrence could no longer maintain his proper stoic facade. His set mouth quivered as he slid his father an entranced glance from the corner of his eyes.

A man used to control by a flick of his head, Vane did so now. Children, there are very fine examples of Flemish art at the end of the hall. Your tutor will be questioning you later.

He watched until they were safely settled beneath three enormous canvases. Only then did he confront Tildie, once a governess, now the Dowager Duchess of Worthington.

Your Grace, I wasn’t aware you were in town yet or I would have been the first to call.

You will be! Her normal clipped tone might have put a lesser man off. I shall expect you for tea this very afternoon. No one else knows we’ve taken up residence. We only arrived last night, but this morning Georgina insisted she couldn’t wait another instant to view the Elgin Marbles. The chit’s been keeping me waiting for nearly an hour while she admires them. Just like her!

A punctual man, Vane lifted his brows in disbelief that a girl straight out of the schoolroom would keep the dowager duchess cooling her heels.

Suddenly feminine laughter drifted around them, the sound sparkling the air like soft notes of favorite music. Vane turned to watch two women hurrying toward them. The taller woman was the younger with a lithe body and the smooth characterless face of inexperience. The older woman barely reached her shoulder. She had luxuriant dark hair framing a perfect, serene, oval face. Large brown eyes and uptilted noses, too short for real beauty, proclaimed the two, mother and daughter.

I’m surprised the mother doesn’t keep Georgina in line, Vane drawled, noticing the elder’s features in repose fell into slightly stern lines.

"Good God, Vane, Georgina is the mother!"

Vane was mildly surprised. But Tildie’s life, since she’d left Vane Park, was a mystery, beyond the fact that four years ago the old Duke of Worthington had suddenly married her. After three