Love Forever After Read online

  Love Forever After

  Dark Lords and Dangerous Ladies

  Patricia Rice

  Love Forever After

  Patricia Rice

  Copyright © 2016, 1990 Patricia Rice

  First Publication: 1990

  Book View Cafe: 2016

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Rice Enterprises, Dana Point, CA, an affiliate of Book View Cafe Publishing Cooperative

  Cover design by Killion Group

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

  http://bookviewcafe.com

  ISBN 978-1-61138-711-7

  Contents

  FREE Exclusive Novella

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  FREE Exclusive Novella

  About the Author

  Also By Patricia Rice

  Silver Enchantress

  Excerpt - Silver Enchantress

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  Author’s Note

  Dear Readers:

  I sold my first book in 1982, back in the days when all I had was an old Bic pen and a college-ruled notebook to scribble in while the kids played in the yard. I had to buy a used Underwood typewriter with a stuck S key to type up my proposals because we didn’t have money for anything more. Needless to say, those first books were typed once and not again. The editor would go through with red pencil, I’d make copies of the page, type up a new one, and clip them together. After I was making enough money to afford it, I graduated to cutting and pasting new sentences onto old pages and making a clean Xerox copy. Since books were cheap to print and readers loved big thick books, we didn’t do a lot of cutting or editing.

  It wasn’t until the 1990s that I had enough money to indulge in a new computer—one where I saved each chapter to a huge floppy disk.

  Most of the books I’ve labeled as English Historical Romance Classics were written in my typewriter days. They include everything from Georgian England through the Regency era. I’d call them English Classics but that sounds like Victorian literature.

  They have been edited of excess verbiage and perennial head-hopping. At the time, the author omniscient voice was popular and justified watching scenes through the heads of servants and doting family. I’m afraid the multiple head spinning would drive the modern reader into gales of laughter or angry book heaving. But I have left enough in to understand the voice in which it was written. To do otherwise would deprive the book of the lovely flavors I instilled at the time of writing. The story and the characters remain unchanged. We were fond of old-fashioned melodrama back then, and I’d be fascinated to know if you enjoy the Perils of Pauline style.

  I hope you’ll sink in and stay there and enjoy a good rousing tale of love lost and won again.

  Thank you so much for reading!

  Chapter 1

  Penelope Carlisle swung her basket and climbed the hill to the bud-filled orchard. A mist settled over her cloak, and the new apple leaves dripped on her bare head, but she gloried in the scents of blossoms.

  Without warning, a massive shadow materialized through the mist between the trees, startling her into stepping backward.

  The black-cowled figure resembled the specter of death in her father’s old books, except there was nothing gaunt about this creature. The man used his huge thoroughbred as a crutch, limping along with his arm thrown over the saddle.

  As he came closer, she froze, leaving the stranger to speak first.

  “How far is it into the village?” His voice was deep, as if emerging from the depths of a hollow barrel.

  Shaking off her superstition and falling back on her usual courtesy, she replied, “The village is a good half-hour walk from the vicarage gates, and we are some ten minutes from there. Has there been an accident? Are you injured?”

  Droplets fell from the gnarled branches, and a gust of cool wind flapped the stranger’s cloak. Penelope wished she could see his eyes beneath the hood. Self-consciously, she tugged her old cloak tighter at the throat, aware that her skirt did not reach her ankles.

  “Thor lost a shoe about a mile back, and the leg is one that has only recently mended. I did not wish to strain it with my weight. If you could direct me to the vicarage gate, I shall find my way from there.”

  That did not explain his limp, but Penelope politely refused to pry. “It is time I returned. I will show you the way if you do not mind wetting your boots. I failed to mention the walk to the vicarage is through the field and not by road.”

  Penelope thought she heard him chuckle as she led him down the path through the orchard. She had not meant the remark to be funny. Some gentlemen were very particular about the polished leather of their expensive boots. Admittedly this man did not wear fashionable Hessians, but good, solid knee boots, yet they looked costly to her eye. Even oddly garbed as he was, she could see the quality of the fabric in his cloak and knew the cost of the high-strung thoroughbred.

  “My boots have seen worse than good, clean Hampshire mud. Lead on, my lady.”

  My lady! Surely he did not know her. No one around here used her title. It was a quite ridiculous title in any account. It must be his manner of speaking. She would certainly remember if she had been introduced to anyone the size of this man.

  “We do not see many strangers in these parts, sir. I meant no insult.” Penelope lifted her skirts as she reached the grassy field, though there was no real need of it. She had already soaked her hem in the longer grasses.

  “And none was taken. Forgive me for not introducing myself. I am Graham Trevelyan. I will be a guest of the Stanhopes at the manor, should I ever reach there. Would you know how much farther on it would be?”

  “I am called Penelope Carlisle, and Stanhope Manor is not so very far if you could ride. I would not recommend walking the distance.”

  Considering his pronounced limp, she wondered if it would not be better to lame the horse than himself.

  “I trust there is some sort of blacksmith who can shoe the horse in the village?”

  “Yes, of course, but the village is the opposite direction of the manor. You will be out of your way.”

  Perhaps because she was bor
ed and was eager for company, perhaps because she could not allow someone obviously in pain to walk such a distance, perhaps just out of simple curiosity, Penelope offered her hospitality.

  “Why don’t you come in and have tea with us while one of the boys walks your horse to the smithy? I promise the boys are very reliable and will be thrilled to death to be put in charge of such an animal.”

  “Your brothers, Miss Carlisle?” His tone showed interest as he glanced down at her.

  She turned laughing eyes upward. “One would think so, but no, Mr. Trevelyan, they are just neighbor lads who help me out from time to time, though sometimes I am persuaded their appetites cost me more than wages.”

  The vicarage came into view, and Penelope gazed upon its ivy-covered brick walls with fond pride. She had been born and reared here, and though there had been many a time she had railed against the fates for making her poor, she had always loved her home. The neatly tended lawn and shrubbery welcomed them now.

  Her guest hesitated at the gate. “Your offer is a tempting one, Miss Carlisle, but perhaps it would be better if I were to go on.”

  Penelope pushed the gate open and held it for him. “Fustian. Augusta will be delighted to have company, and I assure you, she makes an excellent chaperone.”

  The cowled stranger reluctantly entered, his head turning to take in the cottage, the neatly mended picket fence, and the empty stable at the end of the drive.

  “Is your father at home? Perhaps I should speak with him?”

  Penelope smiled. “Only if you wish to continue on to the churchyard. My father has been dead this year or more.”

  Before she could say more than she should, two lads of eleven and twelve raced each other around the corner from the kitchen garden.

  “Penny! Penny! Can we walk him, can we, please?” They ground to a halt before the magnificent thoroughbred, their reverent gazes scarcely noticing the cloaked man.

  “George, Thomas, behave yourselves, please. This is Mr. Trevelyan. Make your bows.”

  The two scrambled to attention, made short, formal bows, and offered their hands. “How do you do, sir?” came from both suspiciously chocolate-covered mouths.

  He shook both grubby hands, then glanced at her. “Do all children always mind you so well, Miss Carlisle?”

  “Oh, George and Thomas are good lads. They just need to be reminded of their manners. Do you think you could trust them to walk your horse into the village and back? I will vouch for them.”

  “You must promise to walk him both there and back,” he told the boys. “He is much too strong for you to ride, and you will hurt both Thor and yourself should you try.”

  “We’ll be careful, sir,” piped both boys.

  “Then I will trust you with him. He is as well-behaved as whoever leads him.” Trevelyan slid a walking stick from a sheath on the saddle. He released the horse and handed the reins to the boys.

  Leaning on the heavy stick, he watched as they disappeared down the lane, then followed Penelope to the cottage.

  Inside, Penelope flung her cloak on a rack in the entry, then turned to similarly dispose of the towering stranger’s. Perplexed that he had not removed it, she wondered if his injury was such that he could not.

  She held out her hand in a gesture to help. “We have no servants, unless you wish to call Augusta one. If you would permit me—”

  A large gloved hand hesitated over the clasp, and Penelope sensed his searching gaze.

  “This is perhaps not a good idea. I do not wish to frighten you. If you will just guide me to the kitchen, I will make myself comfortable there until the boys return.”

  Penelope began to understand his hesitation, but she did not know how to ease his fears. Remembering a young man in the village who had been severely maimed on the battlefield, she tried to gauge the stranger’s feelings by this example.

  “I am the daughter of a vicar, Mr. Trevelyan. My mother died when I was but twelve, and I have carried out her parish duties ever since, including tending the sick. A vicar and his family come to know all the evil and good, beauty and ugliness of human life. You do not strike me as an evil man, Mr. Trevelyan, and only evil can frighten me.”

  “That is a very pretty speech, Miss Carlisle, but I daresay you have never been faced with a visage as beastly as mine is said to be. Few women care to be in the same room with it. None offer to take tea with it. Your kindness momentarily distracted me. Do not let me take advantage of it. Show me the kitchen.”

  “Upon my word, you do make it difficult! And what would you do there, terrify Augusta into a witling instead of me? Take off the cloak, sir. I can certainly deal with any beast that the ladies at the manor can.”

  At this scolding the stranger unclasped his cloak and shook off his cowl. Defiantly he watched her reaction.

  Penelope met his maimed stare without flinching. The one golden eye she could see appeared arrogant and rebellious, but not terrifying. With a black patch covering the other eye, all his intensity centered in this one, and she would not wish to see it angry.

  She surveyed the remains of what once might have been a handsome face. Prematurely silver hair surrounded a high brow that pulled into a pucker above the patched eye. A long scar drew the skin together from his temple down over his eye and through his high-boned cheek. The whole side of his face disappeared beneath the mangled tissue of scars, and Penelope wondered how he could open his mouth to speak. His mouth on that side had been savaged.

  “You should thank God each day that you are alive,” she stated simply, then held her hand out for the cloak.

  “For years, I cursed God each day that I did not die. Do not ask me to make any larger steps just yet.” He surrendered the cloak. When she faced him again, without flinching, he followed her to the parlor.

  “I am not my father. I will not preach. Am I permitted to ask in which battle you took your wound?” She showed him a chair at the fireside where he could warm himself. The sound of footsteps down the stone passageway indicated Augusta had heard them and was hurrying this way.

  “No battle. I could have accepted a war wound. No, this was a casualty of too much carousing and being in the wrong company at the wrong time. It is rather difficult to accept that one has wasted one’s youth and ruined his future. You are too young and too good to understand that.”

  “I am neither very young nor very good, but that is not the topic, is it? Here comes Augusta. I believe she may have scones today.”

  Trevelyan turned the mutilated side of his face to the fire as the elderly woman pattered into the room. As Penelope explained the situation, he nodded without turning around.

  “I shall fetch the jam from last summer’s berries,” Augusta replied excitedly, apparently seeing nothing amiss in the gentleman’s staring into the fire. “And there is still some of that honey left from Mr. Stillwell’s hives. . .” She drifted out again, leaving the chilly parlor in silence.

  “Is she a relative?”

  Penelope curled up in the chair opposite his. She saw no reason for formality. “Augusta is better than a relative. Most of my relations are cold, unfeeling people. Augusta is the warmest, cheeriest person I know. I rather think she came with the house. She was here when I was born and has been much a mother to me as my own. I cannot imagine this place without her, though I know she is much older than my father was when he died. Perhaps it is not the good who die young, after all.”

  “I’ll argue that,” Trevelyan grumbled, finally turning from the fire. “I and a lot of others like me would have been long dead did it work your way. You must come around to it and admit your Augusta is a wicked woman and your father a saint.”

  Momentarily startled, Penelope realized he jested and laughed. “If that be the case, I should prefer to go to hell with the sinners and Augusta. Preserve me from the saints!”

  His crooked mouth turned upward in an imitation of a smile. “Surely, you cannot hint the late vicar was less than a saint?”

  Penelope lifted
her hand to make a gesture, then returned it to her lap. “I will not speak ill of the dead, but he was a man with all the faults of a man. No one would decry him as a saint.”

  Augusta bustled into the room carrying a tray and the best china. Penelope held her breath as the contents clattered and clanked under the old woman’s uncertain grip, but she knew better than to offer assistance. In the presence of company, Augusta would have been insulted to have anyone else wait on guests.

  “The scones are still warm, my lady. Will there be anything else?”

  Penelope caught the stranger’s one visible eyebrow arching at the title, but she offered no explanations. Although they often shared tea in the kitchen, she knew the older woman would refuse to join them now. She exclaimed in delight at the repast dredged up from nearly bare larders and gave her companion a warm smile.

  “I do not know what I would do without you, Gusta. The scones looks delicious. If you don’t mind, I’ll serve Mr. Trevelyan.” Her broad wink hinted of the nice coze they would have later to discuss the afternoon’s occurrences.

  Augusta returned the wink with a grin and a quick curtsy and hurried off, her fragile frame looking as if a wind could lift her from her feet.

  When Penelope turned to face her guest again, he gave her a quizzical look. “My lady?”