The Trouble with a Dare (Daring Daughters Book 6) Read online

  The Trouble with a Dare

  The Daring Daughters Book 6

  By Emma V. Leech

  Published by Emma V. Leech.

  Copyright (c) Emma V. Leech 2021

  Editing Services Magpie Literary Services

  Cover Art: Victoria Cooper

  ASIN No: B0999RCNCP

  ISBN No: 978-2-492133-32-9

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. The ebook version and print version are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook version may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products are inferred.

  Other Works by Emma V. Leech

  Daring Daughters

  Daring Daughters Series

  Girls Who Dare

  Girls Who Dare Series

  Rogues & Gentlemen

  Rogues & Gentlemen Series

  The Regency Romance Mysteries

  The Regency Romance Mysteries Series

  The French Vampire Legend

  The French Vampire Legend Series

  The French Fae Legend

  The French Fae Legend Series

  Stand Alone

  The Book Lover (a paranormal novella)

  The Girl is Not for Christmas (Regency Romance)

  Audio Books

  Don’t have time to read but still need your romance fix? The wait is over…

  By popular demand, get many of your favourite Emma V Leech Regency Romance books on audio as performed by the incomparable Philip Battley and Gerard Marzilli. Several titles available and more added each month!

  Find them at your favourite audiobook retailer!

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, of course, to my wonderful editor Kezia Cole with Magpie Literary Services

  Special thanks for all sheepy advice and information to Eloise Tucker whose help was invaluable and much appreciated.

  To Victoria Cooper for all your hard work, amazing artwork and above all your unending patience!!! Thank you so much. You are amazing!

  To my BFF, PA, personal cheerleader and bringer of chocolate, Varsi Appel, for moral support, confidence boosting and for reading my work more times than I have. I love you loads!

  A huge thank you to all of Emma’s Book Club members! You guys are the best!

  I’m always so happy to hear from you so do email or message me :)

  [email protected]

  To my husband Pat and my family ... For always being proud of me.

  Table of Contents

  Family Trees

  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

  Dare to Risk it All

  To Dare a Duke

  The Rogue

  A Dog in a Doublet

  The Key to Erebus

  The Dark Prince

  Want more Emma?

  Family Trees

  Prologue

  Nineteen years earlier…

  9th August 1820, Thistley House Farm, Sussex.

  Sterling looked up at his father as they leaned against the wide gate, pride swelling in him. His Pa was as strong as an ox and could lift him with one hand, as if he was made of feathers. A fine figure of a man, that’s what folk said. At the grand age of seven years, Sterling worried he might never be as big and clever as his sire, but Pa said he wasn’t to worry on that score. His time would come.

  “It’s a grand field, Pa,” he offered, seeing the crease of worry between his father’s thick, dark eyebrows.

  His warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners, the afternoon sun making him squint whilst he surveyed the new land. He’d paid for it that very morning and had grand plans for the farm. If Pa had his way, it would be the biggest, most successful hereabouts.

  “Aye, ’tis,” Pa said.

  Pa never said much, but he always made a deal more sense to Sterling than anyone else he knew. Pa had a way of explaining things so that Sterling understood. Ma was different. Complicated. Sterling could never seem to do things quite right for her and she’d as like clip him round the ear for getting beneath her feet as talk to him.

  “Who’s that?” Sterling asked, climbing higher on the gate and noting with a surge of indignation that there were folk walking about in Pa’s field. His father chuckled and gave him a wink.

  “Courting couples, lad. Don’t you mind them.”

  “What are they doing?” Sterling asked, curious.

  “Picnic,” Pa said succinctly.

  “She’s awful pretty,” Sterling whispered, feeling the need to lower his voice to express such an opinion as he pointed to one of the young women in the field. To his eye, the woman was the loveliest creature he’d ever seen in his life. Her hair was as golden as a field of ripe wheat, with yellow curls clustered about her face, and she wore a dress of sky blue the like of which he’d never seen before.

  “She’s a lady.”

  His father made this pronouncement as though he’d informed Sterling he’d just seen a unicorn, or some other rare mythical beast.

  “Like Ma?” Sterling asked, a little confused. “You married her because she was a lady, didn’t you?”

  Pa returned a wry smile which Sterling did not quite understand, but he did not answer the question. Pa crouched down, so he was eye-to-eye with his son, and Sterling knew at once that what he said next would be a secret between them. Pa didn’t talk much to most folk, but he sometimes talked to Sterling. Sometimes he told him things which were important, but which he wasn’t to tell Ma. These were things he needed to remember and keep to himself.

  “Your ma don’t approve of my plans, Sterling, so this is between us. But you, my lad, are going to take this family up in the world. Farther than I ever managed.” He laid his large, weathered hand on Sterling’s bony shoulder. “You are going to be better than me, better than my father and all afore him. You’ll have an education, the best I can afford and one day, you’ll marry a lady like that one.”

  Sterling felt his eyes bulge in his head, as if they might pop out and roll down the slope of the field. Instinctively, he glanced back to where he could see the lady’s golden head above the gentle swaying of wildflowers and grass.

  “Me?” he said, more than a little sceptical.

  “Aye,” his father said with a grin. “You.”

  “
That gentleman is giving her flowers, Pa,” Sterling observed.

  “Ladies like flowers,” Pa replied with a nod. “They like pretty things, pretty words. You need to learn how. Have to treat them careful, like.”

  “Like a ripe pear, so it don’t bruise?”

  “So it doesn’t bruise. Aye, that’s it.”

  Sterling nodded gravely as Pa got to his feet.

  “Right, this won’t do. I’ve work to do. You run along home now, lad, or you’ll get the switch for not doing your jobs. I’ll see you at supper.”

  Sterling watched his father stride out of sight before turning back to climb the gate and steal a last peek at the lady in the field. She seemed to like the man’s flowers and was smiling at him, her cheeks all pink. The scene was like looking at a painting: the beautiful lady in her fine gown among the flowers, with the sunshine and the countryside spread out around her. It made something in his chest expand and fill with a strange sort of happiness that wasn’t just happiness but an ache inside him. It was a good ache, though, not like when he ate too many plums and his stomach twisted and hollered in protest.

  Sterling wandered home with his head in the clouds and his feet in as many puddles as he could find. It had rained the day before and was still muddy in places. He liked the way the sun glittered on the puddles, turning dirty water into something sparkling and lovely. Along the way, he noticed the flowers growing in the meadows and by the side of the road. There were pretty yellow flowers and beautiful blue ones, and another, which was a long spike of purple. Sterling picked a big bunch and hurried back home. He’d give them to Ma. Pa said ladies liked pretty things. The beautiful lady in the blue dress had liked her flowers very much. Perhaps Ma wouldn’t give him the switch for dawdling.

  He hesitated as he got to the gate that opened onto the farmyard, suddenly shy and uncertain. Ma didn’t look a bit like the lady in the field, and Pa hadn’t replied when Sterling had asked if she was a lady too.

  “Sterling! Where have you been?” Ma asked, a familiar note of frustration in her voice as she carried a large bowl over to the dairy. “I’ve been waiting this age for you to come and help.”

  Sterling pushed open the gate and shut it behind him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “But I fetched you these. Aren’t they pretty?”

  His mother set down the bowl just inside the dairy and turned. Her hair was dark, not golden like a field of wheat, and it was tied tight back in a neat bun. She scowled on seeing the beautiful flowers.

  “Lord above!” she said, snatching the posy from his hand. “You’ve not been near the sheep with these, nor the pigs?”

  “N-No,” Sterling shook his head.

  “That’s ragwort and larkspur, you little fool! They’re poisonous. You might have killed yourself, never mind the animals. What the devil do you think you’re playing at? Can you eat these for your supper? Or burn them when the weather gets cold?”

  “I-I… N-No, but they… they make ladies happy, ’cause they’re pretty. I like them too,” Sterling added with defiance, though his stomach felt odd, just like when he ate too many plums.

  His mother clipped him around his ear. “This is your father, isn’t it? Filling your head with nonsense again, I don’t doubt. He’ll ruin us like my father ruined himself, always buying more land, and more and more. Ideas above his station, he’s got. Well, don’t you regard it, Sterling. You hear? There’s no good that comes from looking for more than you need, it only brings dissatisfaction. We don’t need a grander house and walls full of pictures, or more books than a person can read in a lifetime. I certainly don’t need you wasting time fetching posies. Good Lord, whatever next? Get on with you. I’ll deal with you later and teach you what’s what. You’re neither use nor ornament, and that’s a fact.”

  Sterling watched as she flung the posy over the gate into the road. They landed with a soft splash in a puddle, mud flecking the colourful blooms.

  “Afternoon, Mrs Oak!” called Mr Parish as he drove his dog cart past the farmyard. The old man, with his bristly salt and pepper beard, waved as he passed, the wheels of the cart crushing the flowers as he went by.

  Sterling frowned.

  “Sterling!” his mother shouted impatiently as she hurried into the dairy. “Get about your work or there’s no supper for you, as well as getting your hide tanned, my lad. I’ll have no more shilly-shallying, I’m warning you.”

  Sterling chewed at his lip, staring at the flowers for a long moment, and then hurried indoors.

  Chapter 1

  Dear Elspeth,

  You do indeed sound like Great Aunt Maud, and I have heard too much from her of late. How unfair that you let your husband’s friends come and stay and not your own sister. Your twin, no less! I think you are very unkind to me. You know how tiresome it is when we must visit fusty old relations like Maud. She’ll spend the entire time furious because Mother makes her wild, and she’ll disapprove of me merely for breathing the same air. I shall go mad, and it’s all your fault!

  ―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Greer Cadogan to her sister Elspeth Kelburn, Viscountess Roxborough (daughters of Mrs Bonnie and Mr Jerome Cadogan).

  1st of September 1839, Holbrook House, Sussex.

  Grace took a deep breath. This time, she would say the words. She would. She had been trying all morning and now it was growing late. Mr Oak would be here soon to ask her father for her hand in marriage, and she must tell them before he arrived. It was just so… so dreadfully difficult. Her heart was thudding in her chest, so fast she felt giddy and disorientated. She curled her fingers into the silk-covered arm of the sofa, the edge of which she perched upon as if ready to flee. Her mother and father were standing together by the window, admiring the view as they always did when they visited Holbrook. Well, it was a very fine view, and worth admiring.

  Oh, get on with it, you coward!

  “Mama? P-Papa? There’s s-something I need to tell you.”

  Her parents turned towards her. Her father was still an imposing man, an old soldier with a heroic army record. Baron Rothborn’s bearing was as upright and proud as ever, despite the cane he walked with to bolster his injured leg. His arm was about Mama’s still slender waist, and she stared up at Papa as if she were a new bride, still besotted after all these years. Grace had wanted that, to look at her husband with such adoration, but she had thrown her chance away on a man who had turned out to be shallow and faithless. Her own fault. She had no one else to blame, therefore she would not complain or make a fuss.

  “Yes, love?”

  Her father smiled at her, his expression so full of warmth that she faltered, her eyes burning. Grace swallowed as her throat closed and she blinked to hold back the tears, but it was impossible. Her father’s smile dimmed, and Mama hurried to sit beside her.

  “Grace, what is it? Are you unwell?”

  “Oh, Mama, I-I….” The tears fell, a hot slide of shame and regret pouring down her cheeks. “I c-cannot….”

  How could she tell them, how could she admit to her stupidity, her reckless idiocy?

  “Grace.”

  She looked up at once, hearing the tone of her father’s voice and reacting to it.

  “Tell us,” he commanded.

  “Papa,” she said, her throat thick with anxiety. “I am so very s-sorry. You will be so disappointed in me.”

  “Never,” her father said, a thread of anger behind the word. “Never that. Now tell us and we will make it better, whatever it is.”

  She looked up into the stern face of the man who had always made it better. Whenever she had fallen and grazed her knee, whenever some fair-weather friend had hurt her feelings, or her brother had finally had enough of her and retaliated until she cried… even when she had been the naughty one, Papa had always picked her up, always made it better, never mind whether she deserved it. Not this time, whispered a voice in her head. Not this time.

  “I’m g-going to have a baby.”

  “Oh no,” her mother whispered. “
Oh… Oh, my love, my Grace.”

  Her mother pulled her into her arms and held her tight. Grace clung to her, but could not tear her eyes from her father. He was pale, his stance rigid, as though he’d been carved from stone. Grace waited for his reaction.

  “Are you certain?” her mother asked, a desperate note to the question. “Perhaps you are mistaken—”

  “There’s no mistake, Mama,” Grace replied dully, wishing with her whole heart it was only that.

  “Who?” Papa asked, sounding far too calm.

  Grace shook her head. “It does not matter now. He will not marry me and… and I would not have him if he offered.”

  “Grace,” he began, his voice thick with concern.

  “No. I’m so sorry, Papa.”

  Her father closed his eyes, but not before she’d seen the anguish there. He took a deep breath and then held out his arms to her. Grace gave a sob and got to her feet, running into them as she had done as a little girl. She buried her face against his chest and wept as her father’s powerful arms closed about her.

  “We’ll protect you,” he promised her, his voice unsteady. “We’ll go away. No one will know—”

  “No,” Grace said, pulling back to look up into his familiar face, seeing his determination to do whatever it took to protect her. “No, Papa. It’s…. It is all arranged. I am going to be married.”

  Grace felt a gentle hand on her cheek and turned to see her mother standing beside them.

  “You said the father would not….”

  Grace’s smile was uncertain. “He won’t, but… but someone else will.”

  It took some time to explain everything, mostly because Grace found it so hard not to cry, but her parents were as patient and understanding as she had known they would be. It had never been fear of retribution or their anger that had stopped her from confessing, but that they would be so upset for her. They would worry for her and, if she were not perfectly happy, it would break their hearts and that would make her utterly wretched. Papa tried to persuade her to confess who the father was, but Grace refused. Why, she was not entirely sure. Not to protect him, for she certainly had no feelings for him now and would rather the world see him for the devil he was. Perhaps it was to protect her parents from having to see the man in society and know there was nothing they could do. Perhaps it was for her own pride, so they would never know she’d been shallow enough to be dazzled by a handsome face and figure.