A Dangerous Love

A Dangerous Love
Brenda Joyce

A Dangerous ObsessionWealthy and powerful, Viscount Emilian St Xavier is haunted by whispers of his Romany past. When his comfortable world implodes with the news of his mother’s murder, he is determined to avenge her death – and Ariella de Warenne is the perfect object for his lust and revenge…A Dangerous Passion Ariella’s heritage guarantees her place in proper society, though she scorns the frivolous pursuits of the ton. Then she finds herself drawn to Emilian, the charismatic leader of the gypsy camp at Rose Hill.Though he warns her away, threatening to seduce and destroy her, she stubbornly refuses – just as determined to fight for their dangerous love…

Ariella now heard him speakingto the Gypsies in their strange,Slavic-sounding tongue. His tonewas one of command. InstantlyAriella knew he was their leader.

And then the Gypsy leader looked at them. Cold grey eyes met hers and her breath caught. He wasso beautiful. His piercing eyes were impossibly long lashed, and set over strikingly high, exotic cheekbones. His nose was straight, his jaw hard and strong. She had never seen such masculine perfection in her entire life.

Of course he wasn’t English. He was too dark, too immodestly dressed and his hair was far too long, brushing his shoulders. Tendrils were caught inside his open collar, as if sticking to his wet skin.

She flushed but couldn’t stop staring. Her gaze drifted to a full but tense mouth. She glimpsed a gold cross he wore, against the dark, bronzed skin of his chest. In the fine silk shirt, she could even see his chest rising and falling, slow and rhythmic. Her glance went lower. The doeskin breeches clung to his thick, muscular thighs and narrow hips, delineating far too much male anatomy.

She felt his eyes on her; she looked up and met his gaze a second time.

Ariella flamed. Knowing she had been caught, she looked quickly away. What was wrong with her?

“I am Emilian. You will speak to me,” he said, a slight accent hanging on his every word.

Brenda Joyce is the bestselling author of more than thirty novels and novellas. She wrote her first novella when she was sixteen years old and her first novel when she was twenty-five – and was published shortly thereafter. She has won many awards and her first novel, Innocent Fire, won the Best Western Romance Award. She has also won the highly coveted Best Historical Romance award for Splendor and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is the author of the critically acclaimed DEADLY series, which is set in turn-of-the- century New York and features amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill. There are over eleven million copies of her novels in print and she is published in more than a dozen countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her husband, son, dogs, cat and numerous Arabian and half- Arabian reining horses. For more information about Brenda and her forthcoming novels, please visit her website at www.brendajoyce.com.

A Dangerous Love

Brenda Joyce

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

PROLOGUE

Derbyshire, 1820

HIS AGITATION KNEW no bounds. What the hell was taking the runner so long? He’d received Smith’s letter the day before, but it had been brief, stating only that the runner would arrive on the morrow. Damn it! Had Smith succeeded in finding his son?

Edmund St Xavier paced the length of his great hall. It was a large room, centuries old like the house itself, but sparsely furnished and in need of a great deal of repair. The damask on the single sofa was badly faded and torn, a scarred trestle table demanded far more than wax and a shine, and the gold and ivory brocade that covered the chairs had long since turned that unpleasant shade of yellow that indicated aging and a serious lack of economy. Once, Woodland had been a great estate, compromising ten thousand acres, when Edmund’s ancestors had proudly borne the title of viscount and had kept another splendid home in London. Now a thousand acres remained, and of the fifteen tenant farms scattered about, half were vacant. His stable consisted of four carriage horses and two hacks. His staff had dwindled to two manservants and a single housemaid. His wife had died in childbirth five years ago, and last winter, a terrible flu had taken their only child. There was only an impoverished estate, an empty house and the prestigious title, which was now in jeopardy.

Edmund’s younger brother stared at him from across the hall, as smug and cocksure as always. John was certain the title would soon pass to him and his son, but Edmund was as determined that it would not. For there was another child, a bastard. Surely Smith had found him.

Edmund turned stiffly away. They’d been rivals growing up and they remained rivals now. His damned brother had made a small fortune in trade and owned a fine estate in Kent. He regularly appeared at Woodland in his six-in-hand, his wife awash in jewels. Every visit was the same. He would walk around the house, inspecting each crack in the wooden floors, each peeling patch of paint, every musty drapery and dusty portrait, his disgust clear. And then he would offer to pay his debts—with a sizable interest rate. Edmund could not wait until John departed—leaving behind his high-interest note, which he’d signed, having no other choice.

He’d die before seeing John’s young son, Robert, inherit Woodland. But dear God, it wasn’t going to come to that.

“Are you certain Mr. Smith found the boy?” John inquired, his words dripping condescension. “I cannot imagine how a Bow Street runner could locate a particular Gypsy tribe, much less the particular woman.”

He bristled. John was enjoying himself. He scorned Edmund’s affair with a Gypsy and believed the boy would be a savage. “They winter by the Glasgow shipyards,” Edmund said. “In the spring they journey into the Borders to work in the fields. I doubt it was all that hard to find this caravan.”

John walked to his wife, who sat sewing by the fire, and put his hand on her arm, as if to say, I know this is a distressfultopic for you. No lady should have to comprehend thatmy brother had a Gypsy lover.

His perfect, pretty wife smiled at him and continued to sew.

Edmund couldn’t help thinking of Raiza now. Ten years ago she’d appeared at Woodland with their son, her eyes ablaze with the pride and passion he still vividly remembered. He had been shocked to look at the child and see his own gray eyes reflected in that darkly complexioned face. The boy’s hair had been a dark gold, while Raiza was as dark as the night. Edmund himself was fair. His wife, Catherine, was in the house, pregnant with their child. He’d insisted the bastard was not his—hating himself for doing so. But his affair with Raiza had been brief and he loved his wife. He could not ever let her know about the boy. He had offered Raiza what little coin he could, but she had cursed him and left.

As if reading his mind, John said, “How can you be certain the boy is even yours, no matter what the wench claimed?”

Edmund ignored him. He’d been at a house party in the Borders, hunting with a group of bachelor friends, when the Gypsies had first appeared, camping not far from the local village. He’d walked past Raiza in the town and when their eyes had met, he’d been so stricken that he had reversed direction, following her as if she were the Pied Piper. She had laughed at him, flirting. Smitten, he had eagerly pursued her. Their affair had begun that night. He’d stayed in the Borders for two weeks, spending most of that time in her bed.

He’d wanted to stay with her even longer, but he had a floundering estate to run. With tears of regret in her eyes, Raiza had whispered, “Gadje gadjense.” He didn’t understand her, but he thought she was in love with him, and he wasn’t sure that he didn’t love her, too. Not that it mattered, for they were from two completely different worlds. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again.

A year later he had met Catherine, a woman as different from Raiza as night and day. The niece of his rector, she was proper, demure and impossibly sweet. She would never dance wildly to Gypsy music beneath a full moon, but he didn’t care. He had fallen in love with her, married her and become her dearest friend. He missed her even now.

He intended to remarry, of course, because he hoped for more heirs. He could not risk the estate. But he had learned firsthand how capricious life was, how uncertain. And that was why he had decided to find his bastard son.

Edmund heard the sound of horses arriving outside in the rutted dirt drive.

He rushed to the front door, aware of John following him, and flung it open. The heavyset runner was alighting from the carriage, a single-horse curricle. The damned shades were pulled down. “Have you found him?” Edmund cried, aware of his desperation. “Have you found my son?”

Smith was a big man who clearly did not like to shave on a daily basis. He spit tobacco at him and grinned. “Aye, me lord, but ye might not want to thank me yet.”

He had found the boy.

John came to stand beside him. He murmured, “I don’t trust the Gypsy wench at all.”

His gaze glued to the carriage, Edmund retorted, “I don’t care what you think.”

Smith strode to the carriage, pulling open the door. He reached inside and Edmund saw a lean boy in patched brown trousers and a loose, dirty shirt. Smith jerked him out and to the ground. “Come meet yer father, boy.”

Horrified, Edmund saw that the boy’s wrists were tightly bound with rope. “Untie him,” he began, when he saw the chain and shackle on his ankle.

The boy jerked free of Smith, hatred on his pinched face. He spat at him.

Smith wiped the spittle from his cheek and glanced at Edmund. “He needs a whipping—but then, he’s a Gypsy, ain’t he? Flogging’s what they understand, just like a rotten horse.”

Edmund began to shake with outrage. “Why is he bound and shackled like a felon?”

“’Cause he’s treacherous, he is. He’s tried to escape a dozen times since I found him in the north, an’ I don’t feel like being stabbed to death in me sleep,” Smith said. He seized the boy by the shoulder and shook him. “Yer father,” he said, gesturing at Edmund.

There was murderous rage in the boy’s eyes, but he remained silent.

“He speaks English, just as good as you an’ me.” Smith spit more tobacco, this time on the boy’s dirty bare feet. “Understands every word.”

“Untie him, damn it,” Edmund said, feeling helpless. He wanted to hold his son and tell him he was sorry, but this boy looked as dangerous as Smith claimed. He looked as if he hated Smith—and Edmund. “Son, welcome to Woodland. I am your father.”

Cool gray eyes held his, filled with condescension. They belonged to an older man, a worldly man, not a young boy.

Smith said, “She gave him up without too much of a fuss.”

Edmund could not look away from his son. “Did you give her my letter?”

Smith said, “Gypsies can’t read, but I gave her the letter.”

Had Raiza agreed that his raising their son was for the best? As an Englishman, a world of opportunity was open to him. And he was entitled to this estate, his title and all the privilege that came with it.