The Lost Countess That Counted Stars (Historical Regency Romance) Read online

  The Lost Countess that Counted Stars

  A Historical Regency Romance Novel

  Patricia Haverton

  Edited by

  Robin Spencer

  Contents

  A Sweet Gift For You

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Preview: A Mistletoe Match for the White Duchess

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Also by Patricia Haverton

  About the Author

  A Sweet Gift For You

  Thank you for supporting my efforts. Having you beside me on this wonderful journey means everything to me.

  As a Thank You gift I have one of my full-length novels here for you. The Last Lady of Thornhill Manor is only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by clicking this link here.

  Once more, thanks a lot for your love and support.

  Patricia Haverton

  About the Book

  It was a wonder, the way she found herself. Not in her name, but in his arms...

  Merial Hanraham has no recollection of who she is.

  Found unconscious in a dinghy with nothing but a mysterious coffer, she is taken on board by a crew of British sailors heading to England.

  Christopher Buckthorn, son of the Duke of Heyerdahl and proud captain of the “Valkyrie”, never expected to find a woman with no memories floating in the middle of the ocean. Especially not one as stunning as Merial.

  Amidst old superstitions turning the crew against her and pirates constantly on their tail, Merial and Christopher must piece together the fragments of her returning memories.

  And the key to the truth might just lie in a riddle carved on the mysterious coffer; a single word to unveil not only Merial’s true identity but also the name of the person hunting her…

  Prologue

  She woke to screams, a fist pounding at her door.

  Bolting upright on the narrow inn bed, she scented smoke, saw with panic reaching to close her throat, the glow of flames under the door. The heavy fist pounded again, and a voice yelled, “My Lady!”

  Clad only in her linen shift, she snatched the covers back from the bed, a wild thought whipping through her mind—do I have time to change into clothes? Grabbing a robe, she threw it over her shoulders, and ran to open the door. Her father’s steward stood there, sweat running in rivulets down his face from the heat of the fire.

  “We must go, My Lady,” Stephan, the steward’s assistant cried, coughing from the smoke, rushing into her room to grab her satchel, her shoes.

  The steward frantically waved at them from the doorway, coughing, turning his head to watch something in the hallway.

  “Papa,” she screamed, trying to dash past the assistant. “Mama!”

  “They cannot get out,” the steward, Conrad, yelled, even as she began to cough from the thick smoke. “They are trapped. We must go or we will all die.”

  The steward grabbed her hand, pulling her with him while the assistant seized the satchel. He led the way, turning away from the rooms where her father and mother lay. Hauling back on his grip, she turned in a wild effort to rush through the flames that ate through the walls, the ceiling. A beam crashed to the floor in front of her—flames devoured the rug and reached for her bare feet.

  “No, Papa,” she cried, coughing, weeping. “No.”

  “They are gone,” the steward shouted, yanking on her hand again. “We must go, or we will die, too.”

  Terrified, she ran with the two servants, rushing down the stairs amid the crush of the other survivors in the inn. Thrown heavily against the wall by a panicked woman carrying a screaming child, she followed the hand that pulled her along, out the front door and into the cool, sweet darkness, the sweat from the flames’ heat already drying on her body.

  The inn was engulfed. Men came with a horse-drawn wagon loaded with barrels of water. The horses plunged and tried to rear, their manes tossing redly under the light of the fire. Buckets of water were heaved onto the flames, but how they hoped to put them out was beyond her comprehension. Several men soaked the structures to either side in the hope of saving them, as there was no more hope for the inn.

  Like many who had escaped the inferno, she paused, coughing, gagging, to watch in horror as the conflagration consumed everything it touched. “Papa,” she whispered. “Mama.”

  Numb with shock, she might have stood there and gaped until dawn had Conrad not tugged on her hand. “We must go. The horses have not been hurt.”

  “No,” she screamed. “I cannot leave them.”

  “My Lady, there is no time. They will know you survived. They may be watching us even now.”

  “Oh, God.”

  She bit her knuckles to halt the scream of horror and grief from emerging, even amid all the other cries from the survivors and the neighbors roused from their slumber to watch the inn perish in fire and smoke. Conrad pulled her around to face him, his hands boldly planted on her cheeks as he stared fiercely into her eyes.

  “Your father made provisions,” he said, his own tears coursing down his face and she knew they were not from the smoke. “Just in case. We ride to the docks.”

  “Docks?”

  “Yes. We will take a ship for America, for Philadelphia. Your aunt is there. She will look after you. Here he comes with the horses.”

  The assistant ran down the cobbled street leading two saddled horses. He had slung her satchel—with the cedar wood box inside—over the pommel of the one he swiftly mounted, and threw the reins of the other to the steward.

  “Forgive me, My Lady,” Conrad said, and picked her up with his hands on her waist and flung her aboard the nervous, prancing horse. Her bare feet dangling, she clutched the pommel in a death grip as the steward mounted behind her.

  “We ride!”

  Kicking the horse into a headlong gallop, the steward held the reins in one hand while his other held her lightly about the waist. At this time of night, the streets of London were empty and dark, and the horses’ hooves cast sparks from the cobbles. Unfamiliar with this part of the city, she clung to the saddle, her tears of grief and fear whipped back from her eyes.

  Miles they galloped, lather blooming on the horses’ necks and chests. She heard their gasping breath, scented the salt from their hides. Then she smelled the fish tang of the river, saw below them the moon glinting off the Thames. Though it was hours before dawn, lights flared from many of the ships moored at the docks.

  “The ship sails on the tide,” the steward said in her ear. “I hope we get there in time.”

  Down the steeply curving hill the horses plunged, their shoes often sliding on the slick cobbles. She feared her mount might fall, flipping
over backward to crush both of them under its weight. It kept its footing, however, and raced on, galloping hard to the shipyard.

  The assistant reined in his horse, and leaped from the saddle. He seized the satchel from his pommel, and let the horse go with a slap to its rump. The steward also reined in, and slid down, then assisted her down, and set her on her feet. Her hand in his, he led her across the wharves to the huge ship, its prow rearing high above them.

  As the steward spoke to the ship’s master, she looked back at London, the crushing weight of her grief all but forcing her to her knees. “Papa,” she whispered. “I am so sorry. I left you behind. Please forgive me.”

  She wept silently, ashamed of her cowardice in running away, crying for her loss, for the deaths of those she loved. Even as she wept, the steward’s hand wrapped around hers and led her up the gangplank and onto the vessel, and her heart felt as though it were being ripped from her chest as she left everything she ever knew, and loved, behind.

  Chapter 1

  The Valkyrie soared effortlessly over the calm, blue sea, under full sail nearly as swift as a bird. Her owner and captain, Lord Christopher Buckthorn, stood near the bow. With his hands held behind his back, he listened to the wash of the sea under the ship’s wooden hull, and gazed out at the distant horizon.

  If the clear skies and stiff winds continued, he estimated the ship would drop anchor in London on the Thames within three weeks. Yet, he also knew the weather was too often fickle this time of year. A brisk breeze one day, calm the next. Squalls blew up with little warning in this part of the Atlantic, but he’d never met a squall he could not best.

  A sudden shout from above had him turning toward the crow’s nest above him.

  “Ahoy, Cap’n,” the sailor yelled. “Something in the water, ten degrees to starboard, sir.”

  Christopher pulled the spyglass from his belt, and peered through it even as Richard Mayhew, his first mate, ran to join him. “M’lord?”

  Ignoring him for the moment, Christopher focused intently on the object bobbing up and down gently on the waves. It was a dinghy, that much he could tell, but was there something in it? It appeared as though there could be, and from this angle he couldn’t see what it was.

  The words to shout up to the sailor stilled in his mouth as the man in the crow’s nest called down, “There be someone in the dinghy, Cap’n.”

  “Prepare to come about,” Christopher told Mr. Mayhew. “Furl the mainsails. Slow us down and bring us alongside.”

  “Aye, M’lord.”

  Staring intently through his glass again, Christopher half-listened as his orders were relayed through Mr. Mayhew. Behind him, the crew scrambled up and down the lines to lower the boom and furl the great canvas sheets that caught the wind and sent the Valkyrie hissing through the sea.

  The ship slowed her pace considerably as only the jib drove her forward, and the sea swells had her bobbing like a cork. The rudder guided the Valkyrie toward the small dinghy, and Christopher saw her course would take her right next to the tiny boat.

  “Steady as she goes,” he ordered.

  “Steady as she goes.”

  Setting his spyglass aside, Christopher leaned over the gunwale to watch as his ship slowly drifted toward the small craft. “Get the hook and grab a hold of it,” he bellowed.

  A sailor ran toward him with the huge iron hook tied to a length of rope. Twirling it over his head a few times, he threw it out and down, then swiftly drew the slack in as the hook caught the edge of the dinghy.

  “Cap’n,” he said, awed. “It be a gal.”

  “Tie it off,” Christopher ordered, staring in shock at what appeared to be an unconscious woman on the bottom of the boat. “Lower the ladder. I’m going down to fetch her up.”

  As other crew lowered the slender rope ladder over the side of the hull, Christopher removed his hat and jacket for greater mobility, and handed them to Mr. Mayhew. Mayhew stared down, then he swiftly crossed himself.

  “Think she be dead, M’lord?”

  “I expect I will find out shortly.”

  After quickly and effortlessly climbing down the rickety ladder as the dinghy sped alongside the huge ship towering over it, Christopher gingerly stepped onto its bottom. The unstable craft rocked under him, threatening to spill him into the sea. He crouched to both stabilize it and check the woman’s wrist for a pulse.

  It was there. Strong, it throbbed under his fingers, and her flesh was pliable and warm. He gazed up into the faces along the gunwale that stared down. “She is alive. I will carry her up.”

  “Cap’n is bringing her up,” Mayhew shouted to the crew.

  Carefully standing in the rocking boat, Christopher lifted the unconscious woman into his arms. She weighed almost nothing, as light as a child, and he could not help but notice her slenderness, her almost fragile beauty. Not daring to keep looking at her for fear they would both be pitched into the sea, he carefully lay her face down over his broad shoulder.

  Now with both of his hands free, he grasped the thin rope ladder and started to climb. Half fearing she might slide down over his back and vanish under the waves, he paused now and then to steady her weight evenly. As he was a big man, a hand taller than most, Christopher had little difficulty in reaching the gunwale with his burden.

  “Easy,” he told Mayhew and the sailors who reached to take her from him. “She may have injuries.”

  “Set her down in that shade there,” Mayhew ordered as he helped carry her to the deck.

  Christopher completed his climb, then happened to glance back down into the dinghy before ordering the sailor to unhook it and let it loose on the open sea. A wooden box lay half under the seat, almost unnoticeable with the woman’s body covering it. He glanced back at Mayhew and the crew surrounding the strange woman.

  “There is something else in there,” he said. “I am going back down.”

  Once again, he scampered down the ladder, as nimble as a cat, and dropped lightly into the dinghy. Once again, he was forced to balance the small boat with his weight as he bent to pick up the wooden box. It was made of plain cedar wood, with no markings save a strange alphabetical set of buttons on the side. He hefted it, but heard nothing from inside it. “Not jewels or coins,” he murmured, then glanced up at the faces staring down once more.

  “Catch,” he called up.

  Throwing it upward, a sailor named Andrews caught it neatly. “Got it, Cap’n.”

  Taking a moment to gaze around the small craft for anything else of note, he stiffened. He narrowed his eyes at the small holes in the wooden sides, just below the top edge. Counting five of them, he crouched and stuck his finger through one. Glancing around, he observed they were just above the spot where the woman’s head was.

  * * *

  Back on his own deck, Christopher ordered the dinghy cast off. He gazed down at the woman, almost closer to being a girl, he estimated, and wondered what to do with her. There was no place for a woman on board a sailing ship with a crew of men. Men of the sea were coarse, foul-mouthed, and crude, and if this lady was of the gentry as he suspected, well, that was not a good mix at all.

  “M’lord?”

  Christopher glanced at Mayhew and the question in his steady blue eyes. He cleared his throat. “I expect I will place her in the guest cabin,” he said at last. “I will look after her.”

  Mayhew’s expression spoke of his relief. He was not comfortable around women, and Christopher wondered if his superstition about ladies on board a ship being bad luck preyed upon his mind. As he glanced around at the crew, he observed the uneasiness in their eyes. No doubt they did believe the superstition.

  “That be a good idea, M’lord,” Mayhew said on a gust of breath. “Ye being a gentleman and all, ye’d not, er, take, er—”

  Christopher lifted his right brow. “Take advantage of her? Of course not.”

  Mayhew stiffened. “I meant nothing by it, M’lord. It be just that, men being men, ye see.”

  “If
I catch any man on board being less than a gentleman to this lady,” Christopher intoned, his voice low and hard, “he will be whipped until the bones in his back show white. Am I clear?”

  The crew gulped and quickly assured him of their good conduct, tipping their caps to him and knuckling their brows.