Excerpt of Mostly Married by Lisa Manuel

CHAPTER ONE

Lucas Holbrook, Duke of Wakefield, pressed his face to his pillow and endeavored to ignore the persistent and vaguely troubling hiss of ocean waves. The sound didn’t belong, somehow, in the current scheme of his life. Yet there it was, surging beneath his dreams like the growing swell of a storm.

Still, he might have drifted back into those perplexing dreams if the quarrelsome squawking of gulls hadn’t yanked him further from slumber. A salty breeze tumbled through a nearby window, a sweet hint of lavender riding its edges. From just beyond the sill a small bird, a lark perhaps, shook its wings and called, “Tseep, tseep.”

Lucas hefted an eyelid. The window and its undulating curtains framed a scene of lush, rolling meadows and flawless sky. He acknowledged there could not be a more perfect day in all of God’s creation.

And, heaven help him, if he had a gun handy he’d stick it in his mouth and pull the trigger.

That’s how bad the hangover was.

His shaking fingers dragged the coverlet over his head. Blessing the return to darkness, he groped for images of the night before but could find none within the pounding thunder that occupied the interior of his skull. Trying to remember only magnified the pain as beveled glass magnifies the heat of a summer noon. He felt like a bug about to shrivel....

“Good morning, darlin’.”

The words pierced like serrated daggers. His brain clenched. He tried to cover his ears with the pillow but discovered he hadn’t the strength.

“Feeling any better, m’love?”

Devil take you, no. But even in the aftermath of such a thorough brandy-soaking, the voice puzzled him. It was low but distinctly feminine, and under normal circumstances probably not at all like daggers. It wasn’t an English voice either, but emblazoned with a brisk Gaelic brogue.

Not his mother or grandmother. Certainly not Helena. No, his dear Helena would never, ever, under any stretch of the imagination, have set foot in his bedchamber, especially while he was sleeping.

Whoever it was tugged at the bedclothes in an attempt to uncover him.

Oh, you had better tread carefully. He had no desire to hurt this woman, but his battered brain simply could not withstand another onslaught of sunlight and singing birds for the next several hours at least.

“Let me sleep.” His protest emerged as a whimper; his swollen lips cracked from the movement. A chorus of pangs, spasms and throbbing aches shrieked from damn near every muscle in his body.

What the devil?

Before he could react, the blankets were whisked from his grasp. Searing light assaulted him amid a sharp-tongued cacophony as potentially lethal as a dozen dagger-points. It took some moments before the woman’s admonishments formed themselves into words his pulp of a mind could decipher.

“Serves you right, as I told Father last night. Drinking and fighting like a godless brigand. What were you thinking, Luke Martin? Sometimes you men behave no better than schoolboys.”

He slit his eyes to peer at her, making out only a wild blur of coppery gold curls. The blur and the room around it began to spin, and he shut his eyes again.

“Water,” he croaked. “Please, if you’ve any mercy at all.”

He heard the creak of straining bed supports as his companion shifted her weight, followed by the clink of porcelain and the gentle trickle of water.

“Never a thought for anyone else,” she scolded as she supported his head and held a cup to his lips. “Why, you might have been killed. And then where would I be, Luke Martin, I ask you that.”

He had no answer, a circumstance he thoroughly regretted, for he had the unhappy feeling she wouldn’t let the matter drop. Between blessed sips of cool water, he wanted to ask her to slow down and explain. But counteracting her reproaches, a hand descended with a whisper’s touch on his brow, followed by something smoother, more malleable, so sweetly moist it absorbed some of his pain.

She kissed him once, twice, reverently, as though he were a sacred object. His flesh smarted beneath her lips but somehow the dull pain comforted with the promise of healing.

He braved opening his eyes once more, gritting his teeth through the dizziness until his vision cleared. As it did, he met the gaze of eyes so green they would have aroused envy in the loveliest of sea goddesses. A pair of beautiful lips smiled down at him; luscious lips, wide, full, and of a shade of rose that reminded him of his mother’s exquisite garden at home.

He didn’t know exactly where the request originated, but there it was, springing from his mouth. “Kiss me again.”

“I shouldn’t even be speaking to you.” But her fiery flaxen hair blanketed his face — like a magic balm on the raw places — as she leaned to accommodate his wishes, not on the brow this time but full on the lips.

Flames licked where their mouths met, then bounded to a blaze. Beneath the covers, what might well have been the one unbruised part of him rose to full, curious, rapt attention.

Who was this tantalizing angel who had the power to make him forget — albeit temporarily — the worst morning-after of his life?

“Ah, but I suppose it isn’t all your fault,” she murmured. “That Seamus MacAllister’s been goading you for months. Lord forgive me, but it’s glad I am you left him in little better condition, though I’d be a good deal happier if it were him with a bottle cracked across the skull.”

“Bottle? Seamus Mac...who?”

“Seamus MacAllister, silly.” She stroked his forehead, her cool, smooth fingertips mindful of the tender flesh.

It was then he noticed his angel didn’t sit perched on the side of the bed as a good nurse should. No, she lay beside him in the bed, the blanket having slipped to her waist to reveal....

She was as naked as a freshly hatched sparrow.

Dear lord. Had they...? Of course they must have, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember.

But at least now things began to make sense. His brother, Wesley, would be carrion the minute Lucas found him. Yes, left on the side of the road for the vultures. Obviously, the damned whelp had taken Lucas out, gotten him foxed beyond recognition, then left him in a Drury Lane brothel. Must have thought it uproariously funny. Probably still doubled over laughing.

Well, not for much longer.

“I—I need...“ Nausea rolled inside him. He swallowed, sucked in drafts of air, clenched his teeth. “I need to send a note to my family.”

“Your family?” The wondrous, soothing hand swept wisps of hair from his clammy forehead.

“Yes. They’ll be worried.” But where were they? And where was he?

Ocean waves. He’d been hearing them since before he awakened, but only now did their significance sink in. He could not be in London. Nor at home in landlocked Wakefield.

Images flashed in his mind. Ships. Many of them, huddled together along a series of docks, whole fleets bumping and rubbing against the pilings with the rolling tide, their many lines squeaking from the strain.

And beyond the shipyards, wide-open fields of rush and sedge grass flattened by the ocean winds. He could almost smell the brine — in fact, he could indeed taste the salt tang of the sea. But which sea? Or was it the Channel?

Blast Wesley for landing him in this none-too-dignified predicament. Except...Wesley couldn’t have. As far as Lucas knew, his brother was in Ireland with his regiment.

Craning his neck, he surveyed a room that proved tidy and clean, its various appointments of sturdy if plain oak. The bedstead bore the gleam of well-polished brass. Crisp, colorful curtains stirred with the breeze.

Not the typical brothel, he must admit. Not that he had much experience. He didn’t usually conduct this sort of business. How ridiculous for the Duke of Wakefield to pay for intimate services when he might have his pick of London’s most alluring mistresses if he wished. Of course, he didn’t wish, because he had Helena....

Helena. She’d wither like a sun-starved flower if she found out. Thank all the powers of the universe that he was...wherever he was and not London, where news such as this would make the round of clubs, shops and soirees faster than a man could tie his neckcloth.

“Luke?”

His attention swerved back to the...uh...young lady with the delectable lips. Not to mention exquisite, honey- tipped, ever-so-inviting breasts hovering inches from his face. His lips pursed.

Without a trace of self-consciousness, she returned his gaze with an odd mixture of concern and — no, surely not adoration. Not after a night of what was, for her, business as usual.

“Forget the note,” he said. “Would you kindly have someone hail a hackney while I dress? I must be on my way.”

“A hackney.” She nodded, though her lovely green eyes held anything but understanding. “It’s early yet. You need sleep. ”

“No, I — “ He attempted to push up onto his elbows, but the knife someone had apparently shoved into his head gave a vicious twist. The air rushed from his lungs. He fell back limp, surrendering his helplessness to the embrace of the down mattress. “Perhaps you are right,” he conceded. Bright points of light danced before his eyes, then faded to a blackness that swallowed him.