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Untreed Reads - Barbara Metzger

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165 pages

English

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Madcap Tomboy...When the local magistrate jailed Jacelyn Trevaine's pet dog as a public nuisance, the country miss knew he meant to blackmail her into socializing with his nephew. High-spirited Jacelyn decided to free her dog by kidnapping the precious nephew, but unfortunately she abducted the wrong gentleman! Her captive was none other than handsome Lord Leigh Claibourne--returned war hero and rake extraordinaire. And four hours alone with the libertine Earl was tantamount to social ruin. Of course if she was already ruined, Jacelyn may as well give society something to be scandalized about...Hardened Womanizer...Claibourne found country life tiresome and dull ... until he was kidnapped by an irrepressible chit whose candor was utterly disarming. Even rakes have their points of honor, however, and when the situation threatened to compromise Jacelyn, the cynical nobleman was forced to give the appearance of being betrothed to her. Claibourne never gave something for nothing. And in the case of the deliciously appealing Jacelyn, he'd hold her reputation hostage...for a rake's ransom.

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Historical romance

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Publié par	Untreed Reads
Date de parution	01 janvier 0001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781611873160
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0268€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table of Contents
Copyright
Praise for Barbara Metzger
Rake's Ransom by Barbara Metzger
Dedication
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
Rake’s Ransom
By Barbara Metzger
Copyright 2012 by Barbara Metzger
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2006.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing
An Angel for the Earl
An Enchanted Affair
The Duel
A Suspicious Affair
Ace of Hearts (Book One of The House of Cards Trilogy)
Jack of Clubs (Book Two of The House of Cards Trilogy)
Queen of Diamonds (Book Three of The House of Cards Trilogy)
Father Christmas
Lady Whilton’s Wedding
http://www.untreedreads.com
Praise for Barbara Metzger
“Metzger's prose absolutely tickles the funny bone.”
—L.A. Life Daily News
“One of the genre's wittiest pens. Barbara Metzger deliciously mixes love and laughter.”
—Romantic Times
“Fresh, funny, touching, and romantic…one delicious read.”
—Edith Layton
Rake’s Ransom
By Barbara Metzger
To Stacy and Jeri, my two favorite nieces, with love
Chapter One
“By all that is holy, Trevaine, you’ve got to do something about that daughter of yours!” If complexion were a barometer of feelings, Squire George Bottwick was in a raging gale of a mood. His round face as red as the scarlet hunt jacket he wore, he stomped into the library of Treverly Hall and pounded on his friend’s desk. “It’s unlawful, unladylike, and…and unEnglish,” he sputtered, the last being the worst, in his view.
Lord Trevaine carefully placed a marker in the book he was reading, laid it gently on the side of the desk farthest from the Squire and, looking up, settled the spectacles on his nose. “Good day, George. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Didn’t hear me? Didn’t hear me?” roared his guest. “And I suppose you didn’t hear the riot and ruckus outside your front door, not an hour past?”
“Why no, I was studying this passage here. He waved a thin hand in the book’s general direction. “Quite interesting. You see—”
“No, blast it, Elliot, it’s your daughter you should be seeing to, not some demned book. I know I ain’t bookish, but anyone can tell you the chit can’t keep haring around the countryside, riding astride like a boy—”
“She is only seventeen, and it’s safer that way.”
“That’s what you said at fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen. Man, she’s not a child anymore, to be out with nary a groom.”
“Come, George, nothing is going to happen to her in our own neighbourhood, and she does have her dog for companion.”
“It’s not her safety I’m concerned with! And you call that monster a dog! Hellhound more like. Misbegotten whelp of a—”
“Irish wolfhound, actually, for the most part.”
“Aye, part Irish revenge on the English, and part devil. It’s a pretty pair you’ve set loose on us, Trevaine, a ragtag hoyden and a barn-sized bristle brush with fangs. Do you know what they’ve done now? Do you even care? Look at me, Trevaine, just look!”
Squire was still storming around the small room, brandishing his riding whip at a bust of poor blind Homer and challenging the neat stacks of books. His face was still red and his waistcoat, already straining to meet across his more than ample girth, was in danger of surrendering the cause, with all his huffing and puffing. The whole ensemble, in fact, was mud-spattered and wet, with spots, stains and scuff marks. Fox one, locals zero? No, there had to be more to it, Lord Trevaine ruefully acknowledged. There always was, when his daughter Jacelyn was involved. He gestured Squire to the leather seat facing his, while be reached for the cut-glass decanter of fine French brandy he kept on the side table. This was not the first time he had entertained his friend in such a fashion, and he well knew the delaying tactics to let the storm of Squire’s anger blow itself out. While his friend sipped and mopped at his damp brow with a handkerchief, Lord Trevaine steepled his fingers and considered how times like this made him miss his wife more than ever. She had been dead almost ten years now, leaving him the sole raising of their daughter, a sunbeam in his darkened life. Jacelyn was bright and happy and lively and loving, everything her mother would have approved. Perhaps she was a trifle high-spirited, her father admitted, but that was to be expected in a girl surrounded only by doting servants. The rough edges would smooth out in time, he was sure. After all, she was ever kind and tenderhearted. The last thought brought Lord Trevaine back to the present, and his present company.
He cleared his throat. “I take it this has something to do with, er, fox hunting?”
Squire Bottwick sputtered, choking on his swallow. “Were you even aware there was to be a hunt this morning, then?”
“Actually, no. But by your dress…and discomposure…” Lord Trevaine hurriedly refilled the squire’s glass.
He sympathised with the Squire, truly he did, for he knew that what books were to him, fox hunting was to George Bottwick. Squire did not read much more than farming journals, and Lord Trevaine’s uncertain health kept him from the saddle, yet they each respected the other’s ways. Miss Jacelyn Trevaine, however, in the plainest of unvarnished truths, did not approve of fox hunting. Oh, she listened to the arguments of chicken farmers and gameskeepers, but countered with the foxes’ depredations of the far more destructive rodent populations. If, in a rare moment of conciliation, Jacelyn was willing to concede the possible necessity of controlling the foxes’ numbers, she would never, with her last breath if need be, agree to such a brutal, bloody, barbaric method as the hunt. So, with the single-minded dedication of youth and righteous morality, she set out to eradicate the gory sport, or at least make it dashed uncomfortable for the local Master of the Hunt, Squire Bottwick.
One of Jacelyn’s earliest efforts employed a vast quantity of pepper, primitive but effective. Another involved most of the village lads and all the dead fish they could accumulate. Jacelyn strewed the latter over the deer paths and forest tracks, covering whatever scent a fox may have left. That cost many a stand-up supper for the boys, and lost Miss Trevaine her last of many governesses. Whether Miss Polk resigned due to the stench, or well-bred dismay at the deed, or simple acknowledgement that the task of making her charge into a lady was beyond her, her departure freed Jacelyn, at age fifteen, from whatever constraints society was wont to impose on young females. The following season someone managed to keep overfeeding Squire’s hounds with good beef and mutton until they grew too fat and lazy to chase anything more than dream foxes. Bottwick had suspicions, of course, but could never prove them. Lord Trevaine quietly grew fond of omelettes.
Even her loving father felt that Jacelyn had used unfair tactics last year, bringing two orphaned fox kits over to Bottwick’s where Squire’s three little girls, still in the schoolroom, could help care for the “innocent victims” of their father’s bloodlust and butchery. Such whining and weeping had to reach even the hardest heart; Squire discovered business in London.
For all that, Jacelyn never injured the dogs or the horses or their riders, which she could have, setting out traps or deadfalls or draglines across the ridings. No, it was only Squire’s pride—and pleasure—which got hurt. Bottwick seemed relaxed by now, warmed by the fire in the grate and the good brandy, so, taking care to top the glass first, Lord Trevaine cautiously suggested, “I take it you and my daughter had another, ah, confrontation this morning?”
“Confrontation? No, I never saw her but, your daughter or not, if I’d had my hands on her—”
Trevaine cleared his throat.
“—what you should have seen to years ago.” He stomped over to the window, pointed with his wineglass. “Look at it out. Cool, crisp, no rain for the first day this week. Everyone came out for the hunt—not the London crowd; they’ll get here week’s end—but all the local gentry. There we were, assembled in my drive for a stirrup cup to get the blood flowing. Horses pawing, the kennelmen barely holding the dogs, they’re so eager. The trumpet sounds Away . Ah, Trevaine, there’s no sweeter sight nor sound than the pack in voice on the trail, gorgeous horseflesh, fine riders. Then my Jasper, the best pack leader I’ve ever seen, starts belling. I can hear it now: A-roo, A-roo. And we all follow, through the home wood, across the spinney, over the stream, then cut back through Granders’ and over the bridge at Treverly. We lost the vicar at Four Corners. What a ride! No View Halloo though, just the dogs running like the wind…right up to your front door.”
“Hold, George. I know Jacelyn’s got no fox cubs here now, and she could not get your dogs to follow a dead