A Heart Worth Loving (The Marriage Maker Book 24) Read online

  A Heart Worth Loving

  The Marriage Maker

  Book Twenty-Four

  The Beasts of Blackstone Abbey

  Tarah Scott & Erin Rye

  Scarsdale Voices

  This is a Scarsdale Voices romance and is part of The Marriage Maker series written by Tarah Scott and Sue-Ellen Welfonder.

  A Heart Worth Loving The Marriage Maker Book Twenty-Four: The Beasts of Blackstone Abbey

  Copyright © 2018 by Tarah Scott

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: dreams2media

  Cover Art: Period Images

  Editor: Kimberly Comeau

  SP

  Chapter One

  “Beasts, all four—and brawny, too.” Mrs. Bilson fanned her pink cheeks.

  China teacups rattled. Lemon souffles forgotten, the conversation around the tea table lowered then stopped, and five pairs of expectant eyes swiveled in Kyla’s direction.

  Kyla jarred from the wonder of where her mother had disappeared to. “Pardon?”

  The women, who leaned toward the white linen-covered table, frowned, lips pursed.

  “The men at the abbey,” Mrs. Bilson tittered, obviously thrilled to have dropped the latest juicy tidbit of gossip at Lady Ainsley’s tea party. “Do you not live just over the hill from the abbey?”

  She frowned. “Blackstone Abbey?”

  The women giggled. A few rolled their eyes.

  “Is there another abbey hereabouts?” Mrs. Bilson sniffed.

  Kyla tensed. Had Mrs. Bilson said four men? Four? Anger tightened her insides. Her father had expanded his business behind her back. When had that happened? When she’d accompanied her sister and mother to Inverness, that’s when. No wonder he’d insisted they spend a month shopping for Margaret’s upcoming wedding.

  Kyla had spent the past year warning him that his luck wouldn’t hold out. Smugglers always met one of two fates: death during the commission of a crime or death by hanging. Her heart squeezed. She could still remember the days when her father wasn’t a smuggler and her mother—

  Mother.

  “Four Beasts of Blackstone Abbey,” Mrs. Bilson, eyes sparkling, added in a whisper. “Belted kilts. All four men wear belted kilts.”

  “Pardon?” Kyla blurted.

  Neither her father nor his partner, Mister Johnson—or Mister Mallatratt—wore belted kilts.

  “Do listen, dear,” the elderly Mrs. Todd, seated at Kyla’s right, chided softly.

  “The men,” Mrs. Bilson repeated, this time with a touch of impatience. “The men who purchased the abbey, a viscount and his brother, and two captains.”

  Purchased the abbey? Kyla forced her hands to remain steady as she lifted her teacup to her lips and sipped. Had these beasts discovered the goods her father had stored at the abbey?

  “Lord Kilbreck,” Mrs. Bilson told her rapt audience. “Mister Pettigrew said the viscount’s name is Ewan Fraser.”

  A viscount? Why had a viscount purchased the rundown abbey? More important, how would her father get the goods stored at the abbey away without being caught? A horrifying thought struck. He often had her open the door so that Mister Mallatratt could haul the goods away. Nae, once he learned the abbey was no longer vacant, he wouldn’t send her.

  Damn his stubborn soul. Why wouldn’t he give up smuggling? Her mother, that was why. Born in the servant class, her mother’s obsession with titles bordered on madness, and the prospect of her youngest daughter attaining those coveted letters before her name fostered such a fine sense of greed that Kyla scarcely recognized the woman who had given her birth. She was determined that Margaret marry Richard Burke, the future Earl of Ainsley, and smuggling provided an ample dowry to entice any money-hungry nobleman. Kyla’s thoughts came to a halt.

  She’d forgotten her dear mamma.

  Kyla rose. “If you will excuse me.”

  The women, deep in their Beasts of Blackstone conversation, made no comment on her departure. Kyla forced herself to maintain a stroll. She passed a cluster of pots overflowing with exotic ferns. Soon, Lord Richard Ainsley would whisk her little sister off to the Mediterranean, to villas filled with such plants, where she would dance in the courts of foreign kings. Margaret, with her sea-blue eyes and wealth of blonde curls, captured the attention of all when she entered a room. The marriage couldn’t come soon enough. Kyla sent up yet another prayer that neither her father’s smuggling nor her mother’s thieving ways would bring the plans to a screeching halt. Did God listen to the prayers of a smuggler’s daughter?

  “Kyla,” a frosty, female voice interrupted her thoughts.

  Kyla halted as Lady Ainsley swept through the open hallway door. Kyla blinked before catching herself. Good God, the bright red velvet dress Lady Ainsley had worn earlier when she’d greeted her guests had been garish enough. She’d changed into a hideous yellow muslin day dress trimmed with orange ribbons and white lace. The ensemble warred with Lady Ainsley’s practically orange hair. Kyla was reminded of the lemon soufflés that decorated the garden tea table—even down to the taste, judging by the sour expression on the woman’s face.

  She halted before Kyla, and Kyla curtsied. “Lady Ainsley.”

  “Your sister?” The lines around her mouth deepened. “Where is she?”

  “Lord Richard and Margaret are in the garden,” Kyla replied.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Surely, your mother is with them?”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  Kyla glimpsed through the door behind Lady Ainsley, her mother’s full figure scurrying up the stairs across the hall.

  Kyla swallowed.

  Lady Ainsley started to turn toward the balcony French doors.

  “Where did you get that divine dress, my lady?” Kyla asked.

  Lady Ainsley faced her again. The disdain remained but, as Kyla hoped, satisfaction glittered in her eyes. “Mrs. Dupont, of course.”

  Kyla nodded. “Of course. She’d outdone herself this time.”

  “She is a true artist.”

  “Indeed, she is. Forgive me, ma’am, but I must pay a visit to the ladies retiring room.” She curtsied again, and Lady Ainsley nodded in approval, then started past her.

  Kyla reached the door and entered the hallway. She darted right, then up the stairs, hot on her mother’s trail.

  “Mother, where are you?” she growled under her breath as she arrived on the third floor of the manor house.

  A hallway stretched right and left. She huffed an irritated breath and took the hallway to the right. The first door opened into an empty library, and the second gave her a shock by presenting her with a brown-haired girl in a rose-printed muslin dress identical to hers. She started, then realized she stood before a mirror. Heart pounding, she closed the door and tried the next. This time, she spied her mother bent over a table placed at the foot of a magnificently carved bed.

  “Mother,” Kyla hissed. “What are you doing?”

  Her mother’s blonde, silver-streaked ringlets bounced as she whirled. Her wide eyes relaxed w
ith recognition. She placed a hand over her heart and released a breath. “Bless me, Kyla, but you do give a body a fright.”

  Kyla stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Judging from the expensive brocade bed curtains and the jewelry box on the table, the bedroom belonged to a lady—perhaps even to Lady Ainsley herself.

  “Mother, what are you— Put those back,” Kyla gasped as she caught sight of a strand of pearls peeking through her mother’s fingers.

  Her mother smiled sheepishly. “These must be worth a fortune.”

  Kyla hurried to her mother’s side. “Put them back, before we’re caught.” She pointed to the jewelry box lying open on the table.

  "We can’t have Margaret dressed like a pauper,” her mother objected. “She’s marrying a viscount, Kyla. A viscount. We must provide her a proper dowry and—”

  “Put them back.” Kyla attempted to pry her mother’s fingers apart. She failed. Her mother maintained a desperate hold.

  Kyla thinned her lips. Why did she feel like the parent and not the child? “You will never be able to sell them, mother. There’s not a jeweler in Scotland who won’t recognize the famed Ainsley pearls.”

  Her mother stubbornly lifted her chin. “It will be easy enough to break them apart."

  Not again. Five years prior, they’d quietly left Cornwall to avoid suspicion for a similar offence.

  Kyla lowered her voice. “Mother, how can you risk this? Even the hint of scandal would derail Margaret’s marriage.”

  Margaret was so in love with Richard, the marriage simply had to go off without a hitch. Her little sister deserved happiness.

  “But she’s in such desperate need of clothing, dear, and—”

  “That is untrue, as you well know,” Kyla snapped. “Papa’s business provides us a comfortable wealth. If—”

  The bedroom door rattled.

  With a gasp, her mother dropped the pearls into the jewelry box, and Kyla slammed the lid shut. As one, they turned as the door swung open. A maid with her arms full of linens sailed through. Her gaze fell on them and she screeched.

  Kyla grasped her mother’s arm and guided her to the bed. “My mother is unwell,” she informed the maid with a calmness she didn’t feel. “She was searching for a place to lie down, but I do believe we should go home, instead. She is feverish.”

  The maid’s eyes widened and she took a hasty step back. “Right then, Miss. I’ll send for your carriage straightway.” She quickly placed the linens in the armoire, then started toward the door. At the door, she stopped and faced them. “Will you be coming right along?”

  “Aye,” Kyla answered before her mother could delay further. “Please ask for Mrs. Brodrick’s conveyance to be brought to the door, and if you will be so kind, please send Lady Ainsley our regrets.”

  “There’s no need—” her mother began.

  Kyla silenced her with a warning look.

  “Aye, Miss,” the maid said, and hurried away.

  Kyla shepherded her mother from the room. "We're going to wait on the drive, Mother," she said.

  “But I am feeling much better now,” her mother insisted. “We mustn’t take Margaret away—”

  “We shan’t.” Kyla nudged her mother down the stairs. “Margaret will stay.”

  Her mother heaved a sigh. “They will think us rude.”

  Kyla suppressed the retort: Better rude than thieves.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs to find the maid waiting at the open door.

  Sunshine warmed their faces as they stepped onto the drive. Dark clouds gathered in the near distance. Kyla pulled her wrap up over her shoulders. Soon, the spring rains would pour.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Brodrick, Miss Brodrick,” a gray-haired footman strode forward to greet them. “A groomsman is bringing your carriage, straightway.”

  Kyla smiled her thanks and scarce a few minutes later, one of Lady Ainsley’s groomsmen rounded the manor house corner in a curricle.

  “Looks like rain, Miss,” the groomsman said as he hopped down from the seat.

  “Samson and Delilah will get us home in time.” She nodded at the old gray mare and gelding standing in the traces.

  Despite their father’s current success as a smuggler, they had seen lean times in the past. As the overseer of the household finances, Kyla had thought the money better spent on a curricle rather than a carriage or chaise. Now, she wondered if she’d been a wee bit too frugal. The dark clouds racing across the sky promised rain, soon, and in large quantities. They’d rented a chaise over the winter, but with the spring weather ahead, her mother was sure to demand they purchase a barouche.

  “Really, perhaps we should stay…” her mother began but sealed her lips as Kyla shot her a narrow-eyed glare.

  After the groomsman handed them into the curricle, Kyla took up the reins and snapped them smartly. The horses jolted forward. She drew a deep breath of the crisp air. In truth, she didn’t mind not having a coach and driver. She loved the freedom of handling the reins herself.

  “We should have stayed,” her mother complained. “Lady Ainsley threw this party to show us off to local society.”

  “She is showing off Margaret, Mother.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes. “If you hadn’t bundled me out of there so quickly—”

  “Lady Ainsley would have caught you with both hands in her jewelry box,” Kyla cut in.

  “Lady Ainsley and I are not so different,” her mother said.

  “I wager Lady Ainsley does not hock stolen jewels to pay for her daughter’s wedding.”

  “Mind your tongue,” her mother ordered.

  As her mother continued to complain about being forced to leave the party, Kyla guided the horses onto the road and flicked the reins. She unexpectedly shuddered at the realization of how close her mother had come to being caught. Had the maid walked into the room before Kyla had, Margaret’s engagement—along with any prospects of a good match in the future—would have died that instant.

  As of yet, her younger sister remained blissfully unaware of the nature of their father’s occupation, as well as their mother’s slippery fingers. Kyla intended to keep things that way. As the bonniest daughter of the family, she was expected to make a good match and, at long last, bring a title into the Brodrick family line. In truth, however, Margaret had fallen in love with Richard.

  “And?” Her mother’s waspish demand cut through Kayla’s ruminations.

  “And what?” Kyla said.

  “You do not listen, Kyla. I said, ‘next time you will not treat me as if I am your child.’”

  “Then do not act like a child, Mother. I make you this promise, if you do anything to foul up Margaret’s marriage, I will take her far away from you.”

  Her mother drew a sharp breath. “She is my child, not yours.”

  “You would do well to remember that,” Kyla shot back.

  “I wouldn’t do anything to endanger her happiness.”

  Kyla heard fear in her mother’s voice. “You may not mean to, Mother. Just remember, Margaret is about to fulfill your dream of being connected to nobility. Is a pearl necklace worth risking that future?”

  A moment of silence passed, then her mother said, “I suppose not.”

  A cold drop of rain struck Kyla’s nose. She glanced upward. The darkest of the clouds would be overhead in moments. Tarnation. Could they make the thirty-minute ride home before the heavens opened up? She slapped the reins and the horses broke into a trot.

  “I told you we should have gotten a carriage,” her mother groused. “Or, at least, a barouche.”

  Kyla held her tongue.

  The few raindrops became a drizzle and Kyla urged the horses faster.

  Her mother shivered and pulled her wrap more tightly about her. “We’ll catch our deaths,” she wailed.

  “Mother, we are hardy—”

  Wood cracked, and the curricle jerked sideways. As her mother pitched forward, Kyla grabbed her mother’s flailing arm and ya
nked her safely back onto the seat as the vehicle ground to a halt. The horses strained in their harnesses and attempted an escape but the curricle refused to budge.

  “My goodness, what a fright.” Her mother fanned her face. “Did we break a wheel? Can you repair it?”

  Repair a wheel? That wasn’t something her mother would dream of asking Margaret. Not so with Kyla, not with her father in need of someone to run the family business and only two daughters to choose between.

  Kyla dismounted from her seat. Her shoes squelched in the mud as she circled the curricle. Her best dress would be ruined by the time they arrived home. When she reached the rear passenger side, her heart fell. Two spokes had broken and the felloes had cracked. The wheel was beyond repair.

  “We will have to walk, Moth—”

  “Look, look, a carriage.” Her mother pointed down the narrow lane where the hedges grew thick at the bend in the road.

  A carriage approached, a custom hooded, Tilbury gig driven by a tall man with a tri-cornered hat drawn low over his face and—her heart began to pound—he wore a kilt. The curricle shifted as her mother jumped down and waved her arms to secure the man’s attention. The carriage slowed and stopped beside her mother. The tall man jumped down and pushed back the brim of his hat to reveal a brooding frown complete with line between his brows and soulful dark eyes.

  Her mother greeted him with a laugh of relief. “Bless you for happening upon the road, good sir.”

  “Are you stranded?” he asked.

  “It’s the wheel.” Kyla’s mother waved at the curricle.

  “Please,” the man stood aside, his jacket straining his broad shoulders, and he opened the door to his carriage, “take shelter.”

  Her mother hurried to the carriage but paused on the step to ask, “Are you from these parts, sir?”

  The man’s brow rose in surprise. He gave a cursory bow. “Aye. Allow me to introduce myself. Ewan Fraser.”

  “Of Blackstone Abbey?” Kyla blurted. So, this was the viscount?

  His gaze shifted in her direction. He nodded. Once.