Authors: Ruth Owen

Midnight Mistress (38 page)

BOOK: Midnight Mistress

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London January 1, 1813

“It’s been too long. God’s teeth, why is it taking so long?” His Majesty’s Captain Connor Reed demanded as he paced the rug of his parlor. His usually immaculate naval uniform was wrinkled and askew, and the black ribbon barely contained the reckless tangle of hair that had once been a neat officer’s queue. He looked more like a ragamuffin than a decorated naval officer, but that was hardly surprising. He’d ridden hell-for-leather through the night from the North Downs the minute he’d heard that his wife had gone into labor. “Something is wrong.”

“My boy, nothing is wrong,” the marquis of Albany assured him for the dozenth time. “Babies come into this world in their own time, and there is not a blessed thing any of us can do about it.”

“Your father-in-law is quite correct. And if my son and that arrogant Frenchman friend of yours were here instead of away at sea, they’d no doubt say the same,” Mrs. Jolly stated as she entered the room leaning heavily on her cane. Both
Connor and Albany moved to help her, but she batted them away. For the past several months she had worked diligently to conquer her infirmity, determined to reenter the world she had only been reading about for so long.

She settled regally into an armchair and proclaimed, “You’ve no cause to fear. Juliana is a strong, healthy, and very determined young woman. And as I tell those addled-witted doctors who insist on proclaiming my recovery a miracle—there is
nothing
a determined woman cannot do when she sets her mind to it.”

“True enough,” Albany agreed. “She’s got the line captains and merchants singing as sweetly as choirboys. I never considered having her work with me in the shipping business. Now I wonder how I ever got along without her.” He put his hand on Connor’s shoulder and gave it a fatherly shake. “And I know my dear girl would not be what she is today without your love and support while I was lost at sea. Your methods were a bit”—his brow arched—“let us just call them unorthodox. But you saved her, just as surely as you saved her when she fell into the Thames. You saw her for the woman she could be, not the one I and everyone else expected her to be.”

“That is how she always saw me,” Connor mused, recalling the New Year’s Day thirteen years before when he’d first set eyes on her. She’d seen beyond his filthy exterior to the heart within. Now he had a position of honor and purpose and a home of his own, things he’d dared not even dream of on that long-ago day. But most of all he had a wife he loved with all his heart and who loved him in return. And that was a prize far more valuable than any of the riches and honors he’d won in battle—

Meg burst into the room. “ ’Tis a girl! They are both well, and you can see her if—”

Connor did not hear the rest. He streaked out of the room like a fired cannonball and took the stairs two at a time. Heedless to her tsking, he maneuvered around the midwife and fell to his knees at the side of the bed where his wife lay.
Her sunset hair was matted against her forehead and she looked spent beyond measure, but to Connor she had never looked more beautiful. And when she turned to the small, lace-wrapped bundle at her side, her smile outshone the sun.

“Oh, Connor, look at our daughter. Our Margaret Rose. She is so lovely,” Juliana whispered.

“How could she not be, with so lovely a mother?” he answered as he gazed in awe at their daughter. She stared at him with the biggest, bluest eyes he had ever seen. Gingerly he reached out a finger, afraid that even the slightest touch might shatter such a delicate creature.

Her tiny, flailing fist punched him soundly.

Connor grinned like a schoolboy. “Ha, well she’s certainly got your spirit.”

“And your nerve. Scoundrel.”

“Brat.”

“Villain.”

“My love,” Connor breathed, taking her in his arms.

Still tsking, the midwife removed the babe from the embracing couple and placed her in a bassinet at the other end of the room, then bustled off to get a new stack of linen.

No one saw the boy slip into the room.

Jamie frowned at the embracing couple. Much as he liked the lady, there had been entirely too much kissing going on since the captain’s marriage. Sighing, he turned to the bassinet, curious to see what all the fuss was about. It was small. And wrinkled. And it was beginning to have a decided odor. Shrugging, he started to turn away, but then the baby turned. She stared up at him with eyes that seemed like twin pieces of the bluest heaven. Then she smiled.

Jamie felt something strange happen inside him, as if he’d swallowed a bit of bad beef. Except—this felt nice. Wonderful. The baby started to scowl, so he reached down and clasped her tiny fist between his fingers. “Don’t cry, little girl. I won’t let anything hurt you. You’ll see. I’ll look after you. I’ll protect you. That’s a promise.…”

To Wendy Chen,
the world’s most supportive editor,
to Pam Baker and Terri Lynn Wilhelm,
for encouragement and pizza,
and to Shannon Harper, for saying,
“Well, he could always kidnap her.…”

Books by Ruth Owen

M
IDNIGHT
M
ISTRESS
G
AMBLER
’
S
D
AUGHTER

THE EDITOR’S CORNER

Welcome to Loveswept!

Love is in the air this month – and no, I’m not talking about
that holiday
. I’m talking about all of our fantastic Loveswept releases coming up, and I’m so excited to share them all with you.

Tina Wainscott’s red-hot
WILD ON YOU
introduces the Justiss Alliance, an elite team of heroes out to do right. This is one book that will be hard to put down, as one untamable SEAL meets a woman who handles the wildest sort of animals—until she herself becomes the hunted. Another book that I keep raving about it Sally Eggert’s electrifying romantic suspense,
IN THE DARK
, where passion raises the stakes when a woman is drawn into a dangerous game, with a man who may not be what he seems. Intrigued? I was! If you’re a fan of historical romance with tons of sensuality, adventure and intrigue, look no further than Sharon Cullen’s
PLEASING THE PIRATE
, where a ruthless pirate and a Scottish lass are wrenched between love and duty. And if you were sucked into Stacey Kennedy’s CLAIMED like I was, you’ll be happy to hear that the oh-so-sexy Club Sin returns in
BARED
– a wicked and wild tale of submission, seduction, and love.

And of course, we can’t forget about those classic romances that made us fall in love time and again. This month we have two fantastic books from two beloved authors: Sandra Chastain’s irresistible reads:
JOKER’S WILD
and
LEAN MEAN LOVING MACHINE
, and Ruth Owen’s wonderful historicals:
MIDNIGHT MISTRESS
and
GAMBLER’S DAUGHTER
. Then there’s Karen Leabo’s tale of hot pursuit and hotter passions,
HOT PROPERTY
, and Linda Cajio’s
EARTH ANGEL
, where a boardroom hotshot discovers heavenly pleasure with an unlikely angel. And a sensuous historical tale from #1
New York Times
bestselling author Iris Johansen,
WILD SILVER: THE DELANEY’S
– who doesn’t love a story with a wicked prince and a beautiful, willful captive?