Ruined by Rumor Read online

  Ruined by Rumor

  By Alyssa Everett

  After waiting five years for her fiancé to return from the war and marry her, Roxana Langley has been jilted! She may have longed for excitement, but this was not what she had in mind...

  Who could possibly throw over a woman as beautiful and vivacious as Roxana? Certainly not Alex Winslow, the Earl of Ayersley, who has spent years trying in vain to forget his unrequited love. When he learns she’s been abandoned by her cad of a fiancé, he finds himself offering a shoulder for her to cry on. Comfort soon turns into a passionate kiss—and scandal when they are caught in an embrace.

  Only one thing will save Roxana from certain ruination: marriage to the earl. The match may save her reputation, but responsible, tongue-tied Ayersley is a far cry from her dashing former fiancé. She’s convinced Ayersley is merely doing his duty...while he’s sure Roxana is still in love with another man. Are they trading one disaster for another?

  92,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I love May. In my part of the world, May is the beginning of two things: beach season and festival season. Granted, beach season is just barely starting in May, but it’s still starting. And with the unseasonably warm winter we’re having, perhaps it won’t be too cold for the beach, even in early May. As for the festivals, well, in my area we’re spoiled for choice. From April to October we have everything from BBQ and beach festivals, to apple, strawberry and watermelon festivals—even a river festival. It seems like every week there’s something new to look forward to!

  But if festivals don’t interest you it doesn’t mean you can’t have something to look forward to as well. Each week in May we showcase a variety of new Carina Press titles.

  This month we’re proud to present debut author Cynthia Justlin’s compelling novel Edge of Light. A true spine-tingling and thrilling romantic suspense, this is one that will have you on the edge of your seat and wondering where this author has been! Get ready for a fantastic read.

  Kicking off May, we have Brook Street: Rogues by Ava March, which finishes up her fantastic male/male historical novella trilogy. Releasing along with Ava is paranormal romantic suspense author Alexia Reed and her novel Hunting the Shadows.

  Later in May are three historical romances joining the Carina Press lineup. From Jennifer Bray-Weber comes a swashbuckling pirate adventure, The Siren’s Song. Alyssa Everett gives us a charming and passionate Regency romance in Ruined by Rumor. The White Swan Affair by Elyse Mady is the third of our historical romance offerings this month.

  Not quite historical romance but in the historical period comes Christine Bell’s new steampunk romance The Bewitching Tale of Stormy Gale. Join Christine as she takes you on a romantic adventure through time.

  Two erotic romance books are sure to satisfy those craving a slightly naughtier story. Check out Let Me In by Callie Croix, a hot BDSM novella, and Daire St. Denis’s erotic ménage romance Party of Three.

  Rounding out the month of May are releases from two returning Carina Press authors. Guarding Jess by Shannon Curtis is the next novel in her McCormack Security Agency series and the follow-up to her debut title, Viper’s Kiss. Rebecca Rogers Maher offers up a satisfying and emotional, yet sexy, read in her contemporary romance novella Snowbound with a Stranger.

  I hope you enjoy this month’s new releases as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing them to you.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  To Rod, the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll never get a tattoo, so I put your name on this instead.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to my wonderful critique partners, Karen Dobbins, Susanna Fraser, Vonnie Hughes, and Rose Lerner, and to my editor, Deb Nemeth. Any errors or deficiencies in this story are strictly my own. And special thanks to my family for supporting, encouraging and inspiring me. See, all that time on the computer really did have a point.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  A fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.

  —William Shakespeare

  Derbyshire, 1814

  Breathless, Roxana threw open the front door, bounded up two flights of stairs and burst into the nursery. There she discovered her mother kneeling on the floor, pinning up her little brother’s sleeves as he fidgeted in his new coat.

  “Mama, the most amazing news! Wait until you hear!”

  The May sunlight slanting through the window painted the room and all its contents—Roxana’s mother, Harry, his battered rocking horse, his blocks and toy soldiers, the whitewashed walls, the polished oak floors—a cheerful butter color.

  Lady Langley glanced to where Roxana stood, still wearing her bonnet, and the frown of concentration she’d been wearing deepened. “I heard this morning. And for heaven’s sake, Roxana, I don’t know which is worse, the unladylike way in which you came thundering up the stairs, or your eagerness to spread gossip.”

  “Gossip?” Roxana was used to being criticized for chattering when she should be still or for breaking into giggles when a lady would only smile demurely. She’d expected a reproving glance for pelting up the stairs. But to call news of her fiancé’s return to Derbyshire after five long years mere gossip? That seemed unduly harsh.

  “Yes, gossip.” Lady Langley gave an emphatic bob of her head. “I can’t imagine who would divulge such a shocking rumor to an unmarried young lady, but I sincerely hope you haven’t told anyone else.”

  Roxana doffed her bonnet, blond curls falling loose despite the countless pins she’d put in her hair that morning. “But what’s so shocking about George coming home? It’s the most wonderful news I’ve heard in ages.”

  Lady Langley rocked back to sit on her heels, pursing her lips and tilting her head to one side. “George is coming home?”

  Harry looked up, though he was too young to remember meeting George in the flesh. “Major Wyatt?”

  Roxana clasped her hands to her heart, hitting herself with her bonnet in the process. “Yes, finally! He’s finished settling those business affairs poor dying Lieutenant Hoke entrusted to him—”

  “More likely he was carousing in Town,” her mother said under her breath, straightening again and making another adjustment to Harry’s sleeve.

  “George does not carouse. I met his sister Sophie in the village and she says he should arrive before the week is out.” Roxana suppressed an unladylike urge to squeal and do an ecstatic jig. “He’s really
coming back. I’m finally getting married!”

  Lady Langley sighed. “Then I’m happy for you, Roxana.”

  She didn’t look happy. She looked as if someone had just told her there were flies in the dining room. It made no sense, for George was the handsomest, bravest, most dashing man Roxana had ever met, six feet tall and a major in the Fifth Dragoon Guards. They’d remained devoted to each other through every minute of the five years he’d been away fighting on the Peninsula.

  Roxana did her best to sidestep the usual quarrel that arose whenever George’s name came up. “But you weren’t talking about my news, were you? What rumor did you mean?”

  Her mother busied herself with starting on Harry’s other sleeve. “Never mind.”

  “What’s happened? It has to be something truly shocking if you’re convinced it’s not even fit for me to hear. Has one of the gentlemen of the neighborhood taken a mistress?”

  Lady Langley scowled and covered her little boy’s ears with her hands. “Roxana, really. And in front of Harry.”

  But Roxana sensed a juicy scandal in the offing. “Has someone eloped? Is someone in the family way?”

  Lady Langley’s stony expression gave a telltale quiver.

  “That’s it,” Roxana said. “Someone’s in the family way. Who is it? Someone who has no business having a baby, clearly.”

  Her mother gave her a reproachful, defeated look and took her hands off Harry’s ears. “That’s enough standing still for now, Harry. Tell Nurse I said you could have a macaroon for being a good boy.” She waited until he’d raced out of the nursery. “Never mind who it is. You’ll learn soon enough, when she’s too far gone to hide it.”

  “It has to be someone with no husband, then.” Roxana ran through the most likely suspects, the widows and unmarried females who were no better than they should be. “Mrs. Corbett? Mrs. Elkins? Mercy Evans?”

  “No.”

  “Miss Cole? The tobacconist’s daughter?”

  “Enough.” Lady Langley’s tone was sharp. “It’s none of our affair, and it’s both unseemly and uncharitable of you to name names. Why you should take so much interest in vulgar gossip is beyond me.”

  She was right. It was vulgar gossip. But wasn’t vulgar gossip the most difficult sort to resist? It swirled around all the most interesting, most sophisticated people—the Prince Regent, Beau Brummel, Lord Byron, Caro Lamb—only adding to their glamour. Roxana itched to have a little of that glamour and sophistication rub off on her—in a harmless way, of course. Living in the country with a watchful mother and little to occupy her time except letter-writing and morning calls, how on earth was she to do that except through news of her more daring and worldly neighbors?

  For there was nothing the least bit noteworthy about her own life. Riddlefield was comfortable and well situated, but her brother’s land produced the same oats, peas, beans, barley, hay and cheese as the other estates around them. She sewed the same neat samplers, grew the same cutting garden and read the same Minerva Press novels as all the young ladies of her acquaintance. She had never traveled anywhere to speak of, never met anyone famous, never rescued an old woman from a house fire or saved a small child from drowning. She could not even boast of a girl’s usual series of flirts and partis, for even if many of the eligible men of her acquaintance had not gone off to fight Bonaparte, she was already promised to George.

  No, there was nothing the least bit special or interesting about her, nothing except the scraps of gossip she occasionally came across—and her engagement, of course. That was the one shining accomplishment of her life, the one distinction that set her apart. For a little over five years, she and George had poured out their hearts in their weekly letters to each other. She still found it difficult to believe he had chosen her. And now he was coming home.

  She was so buoyed by the thought, she dared her mother’s displeasure by digging further for the name of the unfortunate mother-to-be—in her most cajoling tone, of course, and with a smile, but she dug nonetheless. “The poor girl has to be someone we know. Miss Hammond?”

  Lady Langley’s expression had grown increasingly thunderous, but at the mention of Miss Hammond, her face went blank.

  “It is Miss Hammond!” Why, she was no older than Roxana was herself, and while the Hammonds weren’t particularly prosperous, they were definitely respectable.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but I can see it in your face. Susan Hammond, in the family way! But who’s the father?”

  Lady Langley surrendered to the inevitable and gave her daughter a real answer. “No one knows.”

  “I sincerely hope Miss Hammond does.”

  “Well, she’s not saying, I imagine because she still has hopes of bringing the scoundrel up to scratch, and she doesn’t want her father or her brother putting a bullet through him. Her poor parents can’t even be sure he’s one of the local gentlemen, for she spent the winter with her cousins in Brighton.”

  “In Brighton! I imagine all manner of wickedness goes on there. They say the Prince had a secret tunnel built to sneak from the Royal Pavilion to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s bedroom.”

  Her mother gave her a jaundiced look. “Just let this be a lesson to you, and remember that once a girl loses her good name, it’s lost for good. A man may offer sweet-talk and promises, but pretty words mean nothing when a girl is ruined.”

  Roxana nodded, though she was not really attending. She could hardly believe it—two newsworthy developments in the space of a single morning. First the mystery of Miss Hammond’s unfortunate condition—who could the father be?—and then the most momentous news of all, George’s homecoming.

  And George should be home in a matter of days. After all the waiting, wishing and worrying, counting the weeks and months while he fought on the Peninsula, all her loneliness and boredom would be over and their marriage plans could finally move forward.

  And about time, too. She’d been waiting twenty-three years for something like a real life to begin.

  * * *

  A glass of brandy dangling from his fingers, Sir Thomas Langley leaned back in the armchair opposite Alex and grimaced. “I tell you, she’s written three times now, begging me to come home for her engagement ball. I finally wrote back I have no intention of trekking all the way from London for a dashed party, but what I really meant was I’d sooner gouge out my eyes than see her throw herself away on that preening ass.”

  As much as Alex understood the sentiment, he simply nodded. He didn’t want to hate George Wyatt. He knew how childish it was, and how ungentlemanly. Unfortunately, the man made hating him too easy. Alex could have overlooked his conceit and his dishonesty. He might even have found it in him to disregard the way Wyatt took advantage of innocent farm girls who were too unworldly to see through him. But when Roxana Langley fell head-over-heels for him—well, that was the one thing Alex could never forgive.

  Tom tipped his blond head back and downed his brandy in a single draught. “Of course, it would be no use telling her that, not when she’s invested five years waiting for the coxcomb. Wasted five years is more like it. I would have thought she’d have more sense than to fall for a uniform and a swagger.”

  “But everyone at Riddlefield is well?” Alex asked, hoping to turn the subject.

  Tom waved a languid hand. “They’re all in fine fettle—my mother, Roxana, Harry.” He poured himself another brandy, then held out the decanter. “Have some more?”

  Alex lifted his glass to show it was still full. He knew better than to drink too much around Tom, where the topic of his sister was likely to come up.

  Tom sighed and frowned down into his brandy. “I don’t know what my father was thinking, giving them his blessing. If he’d just told Roxana outright that Wyatt wasn’t good enough for her instead of asking her to wait until the war ended—”

  “Your father disapproved of the match?”

  Tom shrugged. “I can’t say. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to see her following the d
rum, or living at Yew House with Wyatt’s family while he was off fighting. All I know is he insisted they wait. I’ve spent the past five years hoping she’d give up on the blackguard, or perhaps some Frog marksman would do the world a favor and shoot him in the face—”

  Alex had just taken a sip of his brandy, and at this he nearly choked.

  “Sorry,” Tom said. “That wasn’t very Christian of me, or very patriotic either. But if you had a sister, you’d understand.”

  A scratch on the door saved Alex from having to reply. Tom’s butler entered bearing a message on a salver. “Your pardon, Sir Thomas, but this just came for his lordship.”

  Tom raised an eyebrow. “For Lord Ayersley?”

  “I’m told a messenger delivered it to Ayersley House,” the butler said, “and, fearing the news was urgent, his lordship’s private secretary had it sent here.”

  Alex threw Tom an apologetic glance. “Excuse me, would you?” He was used to receiving political dispatches by messenger, but he doubted Oliver would have bothered to track him down if it was simply another missive from the Whig leadership. He broke open the seal and scanned the letter as the butler withdrew.

  “Something wrong?” Tom asked.

  Alex looked up. “It’s my mother. She’s had an accident.”

  Tom’s brows climbed higher. “Not serious, I hope?”

  “She’s broken her leg—badly, from the sound of it. She was walking down to the rose garden at Broadslieve and she slipped on the wet flagstones. Dr. Massey expects she’ll be bedridden for weeks.”

  “Gad, I’m sorry.”

  Alex rose. He had scarcely seen his mother in the past few years, and now he bore all the guilt of having let work and—and other reasons keep him from traveling to the country to visit her. “I apologize for having to cut the evening short, but…”

  Tom set his glass aside and got to his feet. “I understand completely. You mean to go home to Derbyshire, then?”

  Alex nodded. “I’ll set out at sunrise, if I can manage it.”

  “I wish you a safe journey, and your mother a rapid recovery.” Tom shook Alex’s hand, his mouth quirking in a wry expression. “I suppose this means you’ll be there for my sister’s engagement ball.”