Exclusive Excerpt from DANCE WITH A DEVERELL

Coming tomorrow - a new Victorian novella featuring another branch of the Deverell tree.

* DANCE WITH A DEVERELL*

Do you dare?

The following is an exclusive excerpt to whet your appetite. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

***

He must have broken in via the servants’ entrance; then likewise gained forceful and illicit access to the butler’s pantry, where he now rummaged about, in his shirt sleeves and via the light of one candle, sorting through wine bottles, as if he owned the place.

Launching herself forward, she thrust the poker at his back, between his audacious shoulder blades. “Stop where you are, fiend! How dare you trespass on the Earl of Beaufort’s property? I have a gun, and I shall not hesitate to use it, so don’t move. Put up your hands!”

The man’s shoulders flexed and then he went still. “Which is it, ma’am?” he growled. “I don’t move or I put up my hands? Can’t do both.”

With her free hand she fumbled in the moonlight for a knife. “Hands up, of course, where I can see them.”

When he slowly followed her orders, setting the candle down on a shelf and raising both arms high over his head, she saw that his right hand was covered in blood, which dripped down the sleeve of his shirt.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded, breathless.

“Friend of the family. I was invited.”

Well, she knew that was a lie. Of course, he could have no idea that she was a member of that family to whom he claimed an acquaintance, and he was the sort of person she would remember, even from behind, she thought glumly.

Lest you think her merely appreciative of wide shoulders and a firm, well-shaped buttock, this stranger in her butler’s pantry also possessed a very strong and unusual aura. Since she was a child, Ainslie had suffered a peculiar sensitivity to the life force around other people; the vigor of their spirit and the wisdom of their soul. Or sometimes it was the power and light of those angels protecting them that caught her attention. Whatever it was, this sensation caused her to be shy of crowded places. Anxious never to incur the earl’s wrath, or to be seen as mentally unstable by Society, she did her best to ignore these distractions of otherworldly phenomena. She always tried to follow the rules as they were set down for her; to never venture outside the limits of what was proper; to be seen as “normal”. But certain unusual impressions could not be ignored, and his was one that would have felt its way to her in any company.

 No, she had never met him before, or she would know it at once. “How did you get in?” she managed tightly.

After a short pause, he drawled in a wry tone, “Through the door. I assumed that was its function.”

“Who let you in?”

“I let myself in.”

“You mean to say you broke into this house.”

“Didn’t want to wake anybody by ringing the bell, did I? You should thank me for taking the trouble and being considerate.” Oh, yes, there was a decidedly cheeky edge to the scoundrel’s manner. As if he was accustomed to getting away with bad behavior, but would not particularly care if he was caught. He held his hands up, as she’d commanded, but there was no trepidation in his voice or comportment. He sounded more amused than anything.

“Where does that blood come from? What have you done?”

“It was an accident.” He hiccupped. “Fell into some glass. Out there.” When he moved his head in a nod toward the door, candlelight touched his profile, painting the edge of an aquiline nose and high cheekbones, upon which his black lashes were long enough to cast a shadow. The side of his mouth quirked as he swallowed another hiccup and swayed slightly. “Don’t fret, ma’am. I didn’t cut the night-watchman’s throat. The injury is all to myself.”

“A consequence of traveling about in the dark, young man! Why are you here in the middle of the night?”

“Brandon invited me.”

“Brandon? Do you refer to Lord Brandon Beaufort?”

“That’s the fellow.” He turned fully around then, not waiting for her permission. “He’s a—” A look of surprise passed over his tanned face, immediately followed by a frown. “Who are you?”

His impertinence left her devoid of words and breath for a moment. Still brandishing the poker in one hand, and a carving knife in the other, she finally exclaimed, “Even if that is true, I very much doubt Lord Brandon invited you at midnight, and without warning anybody to expect you. Explain yourself to me, sir, before I call out the dogs and let you confess your deviant motives instead to the Justice of the Peace!”

He put his head on one side and his gaze took her in slowly, thoroughly, inch by inch. “No need to get your petticoats all twisted up. I suppose you might say that Brandon didn’t actually invite me. Not in so many words. But he owes me five guineas and I’ve let the debt stand long enough. I need that money now. So he should be expecting me. Not my fault if he isn’t.”

His voice had a certain melodious quality— deep, smooth and unhurried. It brought to mind a cup of hot chocolate with something stronger secretly stirred into it, to be enjoyed on a snowy evening beside the fire.

Ainslie belatedly remembered that she wore only her nightgown with a day wrapper thrown hastily over it. But her hands were full and the best she could do was shrink back a step, retreating from that silver patch of moonlight and dressing herself in shadow. “If you had business with Lord Brandon Beaufort, you should have waited until a respectable hour and called at the front entrance. Like any proper and decorous visitor.”

“I would have.” When he smiled in a drowsy, drunken way, it softened his face. He moved forward, apparently not put off by her weapons. “But I stepped on some glass and fell into a pit. Cut my damn hand climbing out again, as you see.” Hiccup. “I came in here to find some brandy or whiskey.”

“Drink? If you ask me, you’ve imbibed enough of that already, young man.” Since the iron poker seemed not to have the required effect, she set it down on the kitchen table and used that free hand to clasp the sides of her wrapper together. But she retained the knife.

“It’s not for drinking. It’s for my hand,” he explained. “To seal against infection.” His eyes turned sad, eyelids drooping. “It hurts, ma’am.”

He looked like a boy then, as his eyes pleaded for her sympathy. Impudent villain! An associate of Brandon’s? Yes, he could be, she supposed, for he was younger than she had thought originally when she first saw the back of him.

But… wait a minute…what had he just said?

“My pineapples!” she cried. “You smashed the glass in my pineapple pit?”

He shrugged. “If that’s what you call that big bastard hole with a glass lid out there.”

“You ass! My precious tropical plants should be cosseted and cherished!”

He pouted and lifted his wounded hand again. “What about me?”

“You? What about my pineapples in the cold night air?”

“It’s July.”

“And England. Not the Bermudas!”

“Damn silly place to dig a hole.”

“I’ll dig a hole wherever I like.”

“You might have put a fence round it then.”

“I don’t expect people to be stumbling about in the dark out there, uninvited.”

“I only came to see Brandon, as I said.”

“And as I said, you should have waited until daylight. Who goes visiting in the dark of night?” Only a scoundrel up to no good, she thought.

“I need my five guineas, don’t I?” he hissed.

“It couldn’t wait?”

“No, it can’t. It’s my money and I want it. I earn my living, unlike your precious Lord Brandon Beaufort.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, young man. Who do you think you are?”

“The name’s Ramses Deverell,” he replied, jaw jutting out, feet apart and hands on hips. “Who the bloody hell are you?”

As if he had any right to ask, when he was the intruder and apparently there for money. She had absolutely no obligation to tell him anything. In fact, she should have shrieked at the top of her lungs to summon help by now.

But…

“My name is Ainslie,” she heard herself saying.

“Ainslie?” he tested the name on his tongue. Through narrowed eyes, he studied her again. “You’re not the kitchen maid, are you? And you’re not the cook either. Or the gardener.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh. I can tell.” A decidedly wicked smirk curled across his lips and, even when it was gone from there, it lingered in his eyes, like smoke from a recently extinguished flame. One snuffed by a gasp of breath. She almost heard a wanton sigh, floating through the air. “Your skin is too fine and clean. Soft too, no doubt, and sweetly tasting.”

“How dare you!?”

“Is it a crime to compliment a woman?”

Why did she not tell him who she was and that she was the lady of the house? Perhaps, if he knew she was the Countess of Beaufort, he might carry her off over his shoulder and hold her for ransom. He was, after all, an irreverent Deverell— and just like all the others, he had turned up where he should not be. He had barged in, defying locks, gates and barriers. Who knew what he might do next?

“You are beautiful,” he said. “Was I supposed not to notice? I’m a man with two eyes and all other parts complete. Even if I am slightly soused.”

“Only slightly?” she muttered, bemused.

“Falling into your trap has sobered me up considerably.”

“It’s a pineapple pit, not a trap.”

“Well…” He grinned again, a flash of white teeth in the moonlight. “It caught me for you, didn’t it?”

She wouldn’t want Brandon to be in trouble with his father and the earl would most certainly not approve of a Deverell acquaintance, nor would he condone his sons gambling, or being in debt. Better, therefore, if she dealt with the matter herself and kept this strange event from becoming known to her husband. She understood now, of course, why she was the only soul disturbed by the trespasser, for that pineapple pit was just below her bedchamber’s open window. It was not, after all, a supernatural force that woke her from a deep sleep and drew her downstairs, even if she had, at first sight of him, been tempted to think so.

Ainslie squared her shoulders. “How do I know you speak the truth about your purpose here, Mr. Deverell?”

“Look in my coat pocket.” He jerked his head to where the muddied garment was slung over a Windsor chair beside the table. “Inside pocket.”

Still holding the knife in one hand and keeping her eyes upon the intruder, she did as he instructed, feeling her way cautiously into the folds of his dark blue frock coat. A note, retrieved from the pocket, revealed a signed IOU from her step-son to “Ram. D.” It was definitely Brandon’s handwriting.

“So you see, whatever else I am, I’m not a liar. In fact, I’m honest to a fault, so I’ve been told.” He yawned and scratched his head with his bloodied hand, thereby making more mess. “You may now apologize to me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“For doubting my motives, holding me at knife point, and threatening to set the dogs on me, when all I wanted was my five guineas. An amount I am owed and entirely justified in collecting. But you suspected me of villainy at first sight, just because I do not look the same as all Lord Brandon’s other friends. I am not like all the other nobs, toffs and son-ofs, so you leapt to conclusions. Consequently, I declare myself offended.”

“I leapt to—you’re offended? You broke into this property in the dead of night, young man. You’re very lucky I didn’t seize a hunting rifle and shoot first before asking questions.”

He lowered his arms and gave an amiable shrug. “Fair enough. We’ll call it even then.”

She stared at him, trying to catch her breath. “You are in possession of considerable gall, Master Deverell.”

“So I’ve been told. With my wits and your beauty we’d make quite a formidable pair.” He grinned. “You ought to run away with me. Tell you what—” He rubbed his chin with the uninjured hand. “I’ll forfeit those five guineas his lordship owes me and take you instead to clear his debt. I reckon I could carry you over my shoulder easy enough.”

“I should like to see you try.”

“Is that a challenge?”

 ***

Copyright Jayne Fresina 2022.

DANCE WITH A DEVERELL is available now for pre-order and you can read it tomorrow, January 28th. 

(Images: Candlelight Study by Ozias Leduc 1893, and The Glory of Womanhood by Thomas Benjamin Kennington 1856-1916)