Hyacinth Read online

  Hyacinth

  The Lost Lords

  Book Seven

  Chasity Bowlin

  © Copyright 2020 by Chasity Bowlin

  Text by Chasity Bowlin

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition April 2020

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Dearest Reader;

  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

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  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Chasity Bowlin

  The Hellion Club Series

  A Rogue to Remember

  Barefoot in Hyde Park

  What Happens in Piccadilly

  Sleepless in Southhampton

  When an Earl Loves a Governess

  The Duke’s Magnificent Obsession

  The Governess Diaries

  The Lost Lords Series

  The Lost Lord of Castle Black

  The Vanishing of Lord Vale

  The Missing Marquess of Althorn

  The Resurrection of Lady Ramsleigh

  The Mystery of Miss Mason

  The Awakening of Lord Ambrose

  A Midnight Clear (A Novella)

  Hyacinth

  *** Please visit Dragonblade’s website for a full list of books and authors. Sign up for Dragonblade’s blog for sneak peeks, interviews, and more: ***

  www.dragonbladepublishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Chasity Bowlin

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Hyacinth stretched and let the wind buffet her. It was a singular sensation, really, to hear the sound of the waves crashing and feel the wind tugging at her clothes. But it was the scent of it all that had her lips curving upward in a half-smile. The saltiness of the sea air was unlike anything else really, and she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed it. There was something about the vastness of it all that made her feel, not insignificant necessarily, but it reminded her that there were things in the universe so much greater than herself.

  No sooner had that thought occurred than lightning split the sky and thunder crashed all around. Yes, there were indeed things much greater than herself.

  “Hyacinth! Dear girl, you must hurry! The rain is coming!” Lady Arabella called from within the confines of the coach.

  Hyacinth was already scrambling back up the beach and toward the ancient wooden stairs that she’d taken to get down to the sandy expanse from the road above. Lady Arabella was a fusspot, as Rowan liked to call her. They’d corrected him for it countless times, yet he continued. It might not have been a flattering assessment of the elderly woman, but it was an accurate one and he always uttered it with affection.

  “I’m coming, Arabella!” she called out as she climbed the stairs. She’d no sooner placed her foot on the first step than the rain began in earnest. It wasn’t simply a few drops. There was no build up. The sky simply opened and buckets of it fell upon them. Her gown was instantly soaked, her bonnet drooping over her eyes and her hair plastered to her quickly chilling skin. As she reached the top of the stairs, lightning crashed once more, far closer to them. She could smell it. And from the way the horses pranced in their harnesses, their massive hooves shifting nervously about, it was apparent they could as well.

  Lady Arabella was peering out through the carriage window. “Good heavens, girl! You are soaked through. Get in, get in!”

  Hyacinth closed the distance between them. The driver could not help her in because the horses clearly could not be left unattended for him to do so. Opening the door herself, she pulled the strap to lower the steps. The horses whinnied in protest, attuned to even the slightest change.

  Hyacinth placed one booted foot on the step and paused to push her ruined bonnet back as it was obscuring her vision. Another crack of lightning, this one near enough that a tree on the opposite side of the road fell with a loud crash that was echoed by the thunder that followed.

  The horses simply took off. There was no warning, no chance to prepare. Hyacinth was clinging to the side of the coach, the open door striking her repeatedly as the vehicle rumbled over the road at an alarming speed. The steps snapped off at the first rut. Even then, terrified and quite potentially facing her own untimely death, she couldn’t not appreciate the ridiculousness of it. Lady Arabella, elderly and frail as she was, could offer no assistance. All Hyacinth could do was hang on for dear life and pray that the coachman would get the horses under control.

  But it wasn’t to be. The coach careened wildly, and as it did, Hyacinth tumbled from it, unable to sustain her grip. Luckily, she fell free of the coach and its dangerous wheels, but she landed at the side of the road and rolled toward the sheer drop to the rocky beach below. She twisted her fingers into the wet grass, trying to find some purchase, but it was not to be. Hyacinth screamed as she fell, the sound carrying above the rain and the thunder.

  *

  Ian Blake, Lord Dumbarton, was riding hell bent for leather toward home, but as he rounded a bend in the road, he pulled his mount up sharply. Having been caught in the rain, he was eager to be shed of his sodden clothes and to warm himself with a liberal helping of brandy while sitting before a fire. But the sight before him had effectively put such pleasant pastimes from his mind. Indeed, his heart had leapt in his chest as he took in the scene before him.

  There was a girl clinging t
o the side of the vehicle in the open doorway of a carriage as it careened wildly. It was clear to him that the horses were out of control. Of course, they were approaching a rather steep hill and hauling the heavy conveyance up such an incline would likely slow them down quite readily. The occupants of the carriage would be safe enough shortly, but the girl was another matter.

  Just then, the carriage hit a rut, jolting the vehicle terribly. The girl was thrown free of the wheels, but she tumbled endlessly and then vanished from sight. Spurring his mount forward, Ian raced to the point where he’d last seen her. His heart was in his throat as he climbed down and tethered his mount to a branch. Quickly, he shrugged out of his heavy cloak as it would only be in his way. Getting down in the wet, soggy ground, he inched forward until he could peer over the edge. Relief struck him immediately.

  The beach was a good twenty feet below him, but she’d landed on a narrow outcropping. The small shelf of land, coated in lush grass, jutted out from the side of the rocky cliff and had formed a bower of sorts for her. Easing himself carefully over the side, he dropped into a crouch next to her.

  She wasn’t a child as he’d first thought, simply a very petite woman. She was young, but not a girl. Taking her chilled hand in his, he tapped it gently. “Miss? Miss, you must wake up. Can you hear me?”

  A soft groan escaped her and her lashes fluttered until, at last, her eyes opened. Light in color, they seemed to reflect every shade around them from the dark, stormy skies above to the green grass upon which she lay. They were changeable and entrancing.

  “How badly are you hurt?” he asked, finding his voice after being momentarily robbed of all sense.

  “Not terribly, I do not think. Bumps and bruises… I struck my head,” she said, sounding somewhat confused.

  Ian watched as she lifted her hand to the back of her head and brought it away sticky with blood.

  “If you can stand, I’ll lift you up and get you onto firmer soil. Then we’ll see about getting you to my home where you can get proper care.”

  “I’m expected at Dubhmara,” she said. “Oh! Lady Arabella is in the coach! Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Her heart—I don’t know what I would do if something were to happen to her!”

  “You are Miss Collier?” he asked. It was a connection he should have made, of course, but they were not expecting his cousin for days yet.

  “Yes! How do you know?”

  “Because I am Lord Dumbarton, Miss Collier. Lady Arabella is my cousin.”

  Rising from his crouch, Ian offered her his hand. When she placed her small hand in his, he felt a frisson of something that he would not name. It could not be attraction. That was not something permitted to him in his current state of limbo. Protectiveness, perhaps. She was to be his guest, after all. He had a responsibility to see to her welfare.

  Placing his hands on the narrowest part of her waist, he lifted her easily and held her there as she climbed up and onto the grassy stretch of land above. It was still wet, still raining, still muddy and yet, somehow, through sheer dent of will, she managed to claw her way onto solid ground. She might be small, Ian thought, but she was far from fragile. It was clear to him that she was a woman of considerable spirit and mettle.

  Ian hoisted himself up behind her. By the time they were both standing at the side of the road, they were covered in mud and muck. “I must say, Miss Collier, you make an interesting first impression.”

  She didn’t laugh, but she did smile, her full lips curving upward in a way that made his heart race for entirely different reasons.

  “So do you, Lord Dumbarton. So do you.”

  Chapter Two

  Riding pillion on Lord Dumbarton’s terrifying beast of a horse, Hyacinth could feel the firmness of his well-muscled frame as it surrounded her. Bracketed by strong arms and strong thighs that she truly should not think of, it was impossible to miss that he was not simply a terribly handsome man, but also a man that was the very picture of masculine vigor. His was not a physique crafted from the gentlemanly pursuits of fencing and riding. No, he had the broad chest and heavy muscles of a laborer, despite bearing a title.

  Hyacinth shivered against him and he pulled her closer, so that his heavy cloak shielded them both. It wasn’t the cold which had prompted her response, but her own wayward thoughts. She was her mother’s daughter, after all, it seemed.

  “Miss Collier, if you begin to feel ill or if your head pains you too greatly, please tell me so,” he said.

  His breath had whispered over her ear, raising the hair on her neck and goose flesh on her arms. It wasn’t unpleasant, really, but like the excitement she’d felt when attending the fair as a girl. They’d had no money for such pursuits, but she hadn’t understood that then. Nor had she understood why her mother grew so angry with the fortune teller that she’d thrown her few coins down on the table and dragged her and Primrose back out of the tent and toward their tiny hovel of a home.

  “What are you thinking about so intently?”

  “I was thinking of my sister… and my mother,” she said. It wasn’t entirely a lie, she reasoned.

  “You are close with your sister?”

  “Indeed,” Hyacinth said with a smile. “I am close with all my siblings. As the eldest, I’ve been responsible for the younger ones almost since they were born. In some ways, I rather feel more like their mother than their sister.”

  “You lost your mother some time ago, then?”

  She nodded.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” he said. The words were stiff, but she didn’t doubt his sincerity. Most people were sorry. They were sorrier still when they learned the truth of who and what her mother had been.

  She didn’t want that, Hyacinth realized. She didn’t want that beautiful man to look at her with the pity so many did or the speculation of others. Neither would be welcome from him, and so she would keep those truths well hidden. “Are we very far from Dubhmara?”

  “It is just over that rise. Going cross country as we are, rather than following the road along the coast, we will likely reach it before the carriage and Lady Arabella do.”

  Worry gripped her then, and no small amount of shame. She’d been so busy mooning over him and what he might think of her that she’d barely spared a thought for poor Lady Arabella in her runaway coach. “You’re certain that the carriage will be fine?”

  “The horses reared and bolted on the uphill portion of your journey. I daresay that incline took the wind out of them,” he offered reassuringly. “We’ll get you settled and if Lady Arabella does not arrive by that time, I will go back out and look for her myself.”

  Hyacinth glanced over her shoulder at his chiseled face, so perfect it should have been intimidating. “You must send someone else. You’re soaked through, my lord, and I would not have you catch a chill from having to rescue me in the pouring rain!”

  He smiled then, an upward turn of his lips just at one corner. “I am made of heartier stock than that, Miss Collier. I assure you. All will be well.”

  As they crested the hill, Dubhmara rose before them. Carved of the same black stone that littered the hillsides and that made the beach beyond gleam like obsidian when the waves washed over the sand, it was imposing. No, it was terrifying. Massive towers and battlements marked it for what it had once been—a fortress.

  *

  Ian felt her stiffen in his arms. He could only pray that it was a result of her first glimpse of his rather foreboding ancestral home and not because she had discovered the rather damning effect that her nearness was having upon him. It had been far too long since he’d held a woman in the circle of his arms or smelled softly-scented hair as it brushed his cheek. He likely would have been poker-stiff even if she’d been a toad-faced shrew. But as it was, Miss Hyacinth Collier was lovely and delicate. In her speech and manner, she was all that was practical. But in her appearance, she was like some fey goddess who had fallen into his arms. It was a heady and tempting combination.

  “It’s rather imposing, isn
’t it?” she asked, her voice so soft that the wind almost carried it away.

  He held back the sigh of relief and shifted in the saddle, trying desperately to create more space between his rampant erection and the delicious curve of her surprisingly lush bottom. “It can be. Dubhmara is a house of many secrets and most of them I have yet to learn.”

  “Haven’t you lived here your whole life?”

  He did laugh at that. “No, indeed. I became Lord Dumbarton quite unexpectedly. My father was the youngest of three brothers, you see. The eldest had only daughters. The second son, my uncle, had two sons, and I was a man with no prospects at all. Then my uncle’s second wife died, as did the son she birthed, of a terrible fever. And the elder two… one was killed on the Peninsula. The other—” He broke off, uncertain why he was airing all of the family’s dark and sordid secrets.

  “What happened to your cousin, Lord Dumbarton, that you became heir?”

  “He was not the same after the war, I was told. I did not know him well, you see. But he came home and drank heavily… too heavily. It was not a good death, Miss Collier, and it was not dignified one, suffice to say.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, my lord. I should not have pried.”

  “Then I should not have broached the subject at all. It was wrong of me to pique your curiosity and then refuse to satisfy it.” The moment the words escaped him, he regretted them. They conjured all sorts of images that related to satisfaction, and none of them had to do with her curiosity about his cousins.

  “You’re very kind, my lord.”

  But he wasn’t. He wasn’t kind at all. He was cold and selfish. Mean, cruel, unyielding, and every other terrible thing his wife had once called him. And now, Annabel was gone, too.

  “Hold tight, Miss Collier. It’s a bit bumpy going down the hill,” he said, trying to keep his own dark thoughts from being evident in his voice. The young woman in his arms had done nothing wrong, after all. She should not have to pay the price of his ill temper because he was incapable of controlling it or his lustful thoughts.