It Takes a Hero
By Boyle, Elizabeth
Avon Books
ISBN: 0060549300
Chapter One
She held me spellbound from the first moment I spied her. For it was like a spark fell from heaven and lit myheart afire. I fear I will never be whole again withouther in my life.
Lieutenant Throckmorten to
his batman, Thomas Rivers
in Miss Darby’s Daring Dilemma
London
The Season of 1817 should have begun like anyother, in fact it should have been the most engagingSeason in ages. Napoleon was no longer a threat.English officers and gentlemen alike were ready to celebrate,and more importantly, many were of a mind tomarry.
The mothers of unwed daughters throughout theland should have been in alt.
Instead they were in a panic.
Their daughters were refusing to cooperate. Refusingto be wed!
Who had ever heard of such a notion? Not marry?Why not just declare oneself a savage and be done withthe matter.
Well, such foolishness wasn’t to be borne. Especially not by Malvina Witherspoon, Countess of Tottley, themother of Lady Lucinda. She hadn’t spent a fortunesending her darling daughter to Miss Emery’s exclusiveschool only to have her arrive home and announcethat she would never take a husband.
Never. Ever.
“It is all this wretched Darby creature’s doing,”Malvina declared one morning to a circle of equallydesperate mothers. “And it is time we put a stop to thisnonsense once and for all.”
Heads nodded enthusiastically, since they knew thecountess had good reason to want to see this state ofanarchy put to an end.
If the rumors were true, and most likely they weregiven the ungodly hour Lady Tottley’s summons hadarrived, Lady Lucinda had refused, yes, refused, theyoung and handsome Lord Barwick, heir to the Hemswelldukedom.
There wasn’t a moment to lose. It could very well beone of their daughters refusing such an eligible parti.And so it was that the good mothers of London had gatheredtogether to formulate a plan of attack. The author ofthe Miss Darby chronicles, known only as M. Briggs, wasprobably hated with more ferocity and incurred morewrath by the occupants of Lady Tottley’s morning salonthan Boney at the height of his despotic reign.
The murmurs of complaint and gossip were interruptedby a discreet knock at the door. Crumpton,Lady Tottley’s infamously stodgy butler, poked hislong nose through the crack in the door. “Ma’am, thereis a gentleman here who claims to have been invited.”
His tone spoke volumes. That he no more believedthe man in question was a gentleman, nor that this interloperhad been invited.
So it was a rare treat for all those in the room to see Crumpton’s mouth fall open in dismay when her ladyshipresponded with an enthusiastic wave of her hand.
“Send him in at once, Crumpton.”
“But, my lady,” the butler protested, “this … this …person isn’t accepted. I have it on good authority thathe’s considered — “
“Don’t be such a ninnyhammer, Crumpton,” thecountess said. “These are desperate times and we canno longer cling to social boundaries if we are to see theworld righted.”
Fans fluttered and more than one slanted glanceasked the same question.
Who had Lady Tottley invited that had Crumpton in sucha state?
They didn’t wait long to find out, for a few momentslater the door opened a second time, swinging inwardin defiance to the soft, hallowed confines of this oh, sovery feminine sanctuary.
As their savior entered, filling first the doorway, andthen, in many ways, the room with his long-leggedstride and wide shoulders, there was a soft echo ofgasps and even a few sighs at the sight of this all-tooinfamousman.
His dark gaze sped around the room, examining anddiscarding a hasty inventory of property and personsas if he suspected that danger lurked close at hand.
Not that the man wasn’t receiving the same detailedinspection from every woman in the room. It wasn’t hisfashionable dress that caught their attention, for hewasn’t wearing anything of note other than plain buffbreeches, scuffed and stained boots, and a blackworsted jacket.
No, it was the man beneath the plain and unnoticeablewrappings that couldn’t be so easily hidden.
And what a man he was.
A hairsbreadth past thirty, Raphael Danvers stoodwell over six feet tall and his presence left no one indoubt that he was a man in his prime. Oh, he may havegained his proper English name and citizenship fromhis illustrious father, Baron Danvers, but his dark mienand rakishly foreign good looks spoke of thousands ofyears of Spanish nobility — hawkish, penetrating eyes,a jaw line hammered and tempered from a Castilianforge, and a masculine fire that emanated from him likethe unforgiving Iberian sun.
Since his return from the Peninsular wars, therehadn’t been a happily married, matronly, or thankfullywidowed woman in London who hadn’t wonderedwhat it would be like to bask beneath his raw, untamedheat, strip the unfashionable clothes from his muscledbody and see just how unacceptable Rafe Danverscould be.
And to Mr. Danvers’ credit, he was inclined to indulgethem.
“My lady,” he said, nodding his head slightly to thecountess.
She should have been miffed that he hadn’t manageda decent bow, but she knew, like most everyoneelse, that Rafe’s long years at war and unconventionalupbringing had not garnered a healthy respect for hisbetters. Besides, at present, she was doing her best toset aside her own decadent notions of a deserted huntinglodge, ten foot snow drifts, and Rafe wearing onlya …
Continues…
Excerpted from It Takes a Heroby Boyle, Elizabeth Excerpted by permission.
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