It Could Only Be You (The Imperial Regency Series) Read online

  It Could

  Only Be You

  Olivia Kelly

  It Could Only Be You

  Copyright © 2013 by Olivia Kelly

  Cover Art by Adrienne Thorne

  Copy Edits by Jennifer Gracen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  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 may not be re-sold or given away to other people. 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 your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  For more information about the author:

  [email protected]

  Oliviakellyauthor.weebly.com

  Dedications

  This story is for my critique partners. They gave me a way to be heard... and have probably regretted it ever since. I love you ladies!

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Elizabeth Boyle, for her lovely quote, and her commiserations—being a mom to rambunctious, energetic, awesome boys, herself. And to my fantastic editor, Jennifer Gracen, who never fails to impress me with her positivity and sweet editing skillz. A huge thanks goes out to Erin Knightley, Andris Bear, Catherine Gayle and Marquita Valentine, for always listening and helping to keep me on track.

  A special thanks to Karina Cooper, who told me what I needed to hear, just when I needed to hear it most. The gist of it was "Sit your butt down and write. The rest of it will come." She also told me to breathe. Solid advice.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  ~ 1 ~

  December 1812

  The Village of Little Danby

  Yorkshire, England

  Harrison Connolly slumped sideways onto the church pew and let loose a string of curses that would have turned a saint’s hair white. The knife wound in his side had opened again and flames of agony were slowly licking their way up his body. Pressing his fist into his side, he took shorter breaths to avoid disturbing the gash any more, but it didn’t minimize the pain. Shivers wracked his half-frozen body.

  Probably why the damn thing isn’t bleeding all over the floor. It must have frozen shut.

  Harry blearily stared out the age rippled glass window across the aisle. The thickening snowfall looked quite pretty from inside the quiet, warm church. His money had run out three towns back, and he had been lucky enough to catch a ride with a generous soul whose wagon full of potatoes was heading this way. Dropped off a few miles outside of town, Harry had walked the rest of the way. Between carrying his pack and the strain of exercise, though, he was doing poorly by the time he spotted the little church. It was quite lowering for a man who made a living chopping and hauling timber in the great woods of Illinois.

  Something wet dampened his hand. Feeling a little lightheaded and distracted, Harry opened his red stained fist and stared at the liquid sluggishly dribbling down his last clean shirt. He had thawed sufficiently for the wound to start bleeding again. So much for making a good impression on the old man. Not that it probably would have helped much anyway. It was bitterly amusing that while he was one step above a common laborer, his grandfather lived in a castle.

  When Sergeant Willoughby had finally tracked him down in the Fort Knox infirmary, with the letter "requesting" his presence in time for Christmas, Harry was recuperating from the battle of Tippecanoe. By the time the local militia, bolstered by the English military stationed in the area, had swept through the Indian village, they were in a killing frenzy.

  It wasn’t a battle, but a bloodbath.

  He received his own wound at the hand of an English soldier. Harry had tried to protect two small children from being slaughtered for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After the soldier ran him through with a bayonet, he’d killed the little girls as easily as squashing a bug. As soon as Harry could walk again, he had packed his few belongings and headed for the nearest port. He couldn’t put distance between Illinois and himself fast enough.

  A light tapping of slippers against the old wooden floors of the church made him look up. A woman stood at the front of the pews, staring at him, her eyes wide with surprise. Her dark hair gleamed in the scant light of the church as she started down the aisle towards him. Harry squinted at her, trying to make out her eye color, but she was still too far away. Be nice if they were blue. He always did have a thing for a woman with blue eyes.

  Christ, he felt strange.

  Everything got a little blurry for a moment, and suddenly the woman seemed to appear next to him. Startled, Harry flinched, causing a fresh jolt of pain to sear up his side. He muffled a groan, not wanting to alarm her.

  He had no warning of her approach. That was never a good thing. The last three years had made him jumpier than usual, but it had only grown worse since Tippecanoe. Shaking his head, Harry struggled to focus on the woman in front of him, and realized his fingers were clenched around the handle of his hunting knife. With deliberate movements, he loosened his grip, letting his hand fall open. Eyes wide, the woman watched carefully, but didn’t run. In fact she leaned in a little, his injured side catching her sight.

  "Oh! You’re bleeding…please, sir, try not to move." She bit her lip, glancing up the aisle toward the back of the church.

  Looking flustered, the woman was clearly debating her options, but made no sudden moves towards him. Harry relaxed minutely, despite his pain. He knew she was no threat to him but lately, his body sometimes acted ahead of his mind. War was all he had known for the last few years, and even at rest, he could not seem to shake his state of constant vigilance. The wound had forced him to slow down physically, but his mind was having trouble adjusting to the more sedate pace of a former soldier. He did not sleep well.

  As the young woman hovered over him, Harry tried to hoist himself higher in the pew, sending another wave of agony up his side. Heart pounding in his ears, he broke out into a sweat, one image after another flashing through his mind. Tiny broken bodies, their sightless eyes staring at him accusingly…he shook his head, attempting to banish the memories that buzzed and hissed, distracting him.

  "You must see Doctor Willis. Please, stop moving so much." The woman chewed her lip, her clear blue eyes concerned. "Whatever wound you have incurred has opened, and I'm afraid you will bleed out on the sanctuary floor, sir, if you do not hold yourself still."

  He couldn’t let her call a doctor. The estate was just a little further. He had to keep moving. Never stop moving. It felt like he hadn't rested in a year.

  "Ma’am, I only need a moment. The estate of the Duke of Danby is where I'm headed. Do you know the place?" Harry wondered why she looked so fuzzy, the candle glow beyond her forming a soft nimbus of light that framed her like a Madonna.

  Fuzzy and warm and alive.

  Using her delicate face as his point of focus, the horrifying memories of battle slowly lost their grip on him and faded away. Yes, she was fuzzy, like a perfect, sweet peach. Bet she tasted twice as
good, too.

  He was so tired.

  Harry distantly heard her gasp and felt her hands as they reached out to break his fall, as he began to lose the fight to stay conscious. The last thing he was aware of before the swirling blackness swallowed him was the vague image of a woman bending over him... and then she was gone.

  ~ 2 ~

  Lily Beaumont stared at the large, mostly naked man sprawled across the bed in the vicarage’s spare room. She shouldn’t be there.

  It was inappropriate in too many ways to count, but she didn’t care at the moment. There was no one to help, with her housekeeper and the two maids given the week for holiday. She didn’t even have Peter, the young stable boy, since he had been sent home early that evening. When the doctor followed her back after her frantic dash into the village, it had been Lily who had struggled to help carry the stranger up the stairs of the vicarage, strip him to the waist and bathe away the blood covering his torso. They had cut away his trousers, to make sure there were no unfound wounds that would fester, leaving him in only his smallclothes. The labor of it had left her sweaty and aching, but she remained after Dr. Willis had left, exhausted in the wooden chair in the corner.

  Her father, confined to his bed with chills and a cough that sent a shiver down her spine, had asked Lily to make his nightly rounds of the church for him. That was when she had found the wounded man. She had never dealt with anything like his injuries, and hoped never to again. The sight of the ragged gash running up his naked ribcage, along with various other scars that mapped his skin, had her praying she wouldn’t faint like a ninny and embarrass herself in front of the good doctor. Telling herself not to be a coward, Lily had swallowed heavily and averted her eyes from the blood, doing everything asked of her as quickly as possible. The doctor had him stitched and bandaged in very little time.

  She studied the stranger in the soft light.

  His curling brown hair was streaked with blond, in need of a trim, and his skin was tanned, as if he spent a lot of time out of doors. Although his face was relaxed in sleep, both the crinkles of laugh lines around his eyes and the grooves etched in brackets on either side of his mouth were still apparent. Mayhap the lines around his mouth were from his recent wound, but they looked like they had been there so long they had become part of the landscape of his face.

  His lean cheeks glittered with a few days worth of golden stubble and his nose was a little crooked, as if it had been broken long ago. The nose didn’t diminish the impact his visage had, though. He might possibly be one of the most handsome men she had ever seen—in a rough sort of way. Lily's gaze drifted south along his broad shoulders and muscled chest, sprinkled with more golden curls that peeked over the top of the sheet she had laid over him. He was a big man, hard and lean, his body scarred but strong.

  And mostly naked. Pulling her eyes back to his face, cheeks heated, she lectured herself on loose morals.

  The man stirred under the sheets restlessly, groaning as he came awake, his head turning on the pillow. Lily moved across the room to stand next to his bed, resolutely looking at only his face. Lord, he was good looking.

  Thick eyelashes struggled against his cheeks for a moment, before he opened them and looked straight at her. Eyes the color of new spring grass narrowed, the expression in them puzzled and wary.

  "Where am I? Is this the home of the Duke of Danby?" The man’s voice was deep and gravelly, surprising Lily with its strength. The stranger was very resilient, good color already coming back into his cheeks. She couldn’t place the particular drawl in his delivery, but the accent was clearly American. How had he come to be so far from home? And so gravely injured. Lily smiled at him soothingly, wanting him to know he was in a safe place.

  She shook her head, keeping her hands firmly linked together in front of her. "No. We are in the estate village, called Little Danby, but it is only four miles due east of the castle. Do you not remember coming into the church? My father, Thomas Beaumont, is vicar here."

  The confusion began to clear in his eyes, and they filled with a disconcerting sharpness. Lily rubbed her lips together at his intent study, but continued. "I sent for the doctor. He has come and gone again after stitching you up. The recommendation is that you stay in bed for at least a full day and limit your movements to your room, possibly the parlor, for the next few days."

  "No, ma’am, I can’t do that," the man said, shaking his head and trying to push into a sitting position. He stopped abruptly, hissing with pain.

  Stepping forward quickly, Lily slid her hands firmly around his shoulders to help lower him back against the pillows. Her elbow length hair, having come unbound by her earlier labors, swung forward and brushed the man’s face. It was silly to be embarrassed over her informal state, and the stranger surely would not notice anyway, being in so much pain. His breath caught and she carefully eased him down on the bed, her movements slow, afraid he had done himself damage with his rash actions.

  Americans.

  ***

  The pretty young woman fussed over him, lecturing him softly in her cool, proper voice. Harry closed his eyes and breathed her in. The sweet scent reached deep inside him and relaxed muscles that had tightened at the white-hot warning his body had sent him upon foolishly trying to leave the bed. Even injured and in pain, his body reacted to her on a primal level, wanting to draw her down onto the soft bed next to him and not allow her to leave until she was his. Ridiculous. Foolish. His brain scoffed at the idea he might even think he was strong enough for it.

  Not to mention he didn't even know her Christian name.

  Harry opened his eyes again to watch her as she poured a glass of water. She gingerly sat on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jostle him, and slid one hand behind his head to help him sip from the glass. He leaned forward and touched his lips to the rim, his eyes meeting hers. Their gazes held as the cool liquid slid down his throat, and color crept into her face. After he leaned back with a satisfied sigh, she stood up, moving briskly to the door.

  "Harrison Connelly. " His voice stopped her just short of the door frame, and she turned back with a questioning smile. "My name, miss. Thank you, and your family, for taking me in."

  "Delighted to meet you, Mr. Connelly, although I wish it could have been under different circumstances." The woman gave him a small smile, stepping back into the room and dipping into a brief curtsey. "My father will be pleased to hear you are awake."

  "And your husband?"

  His hostess smoothed the apron protecting her dress with long fingered, delicate hands. "I am unmarried."

  Ah. That shouldn't be pleasing to hear. She was nothing to him.

  "Is there anyone I can contact for you, sir? Family? A…wife?"

  "No. Thank you, but it’s been just me for a long while now. My wife died three years ago." Harry acknowledged her sound of sympathy with a crooked smile that wasn’t really a smile, and continued. "So, you see, it’s just me now. I came to England, because I have…business…with the Duke of Danby. The matter is pressing, which is why it’s impossible for me to stay abed for three days."

  "Nonetheless, Mr. Connelly, you will remain in bed, at least until the day after tomorrow. Then we will see what we will see." Harry began to revise his opinion of Miss Beaumont. She was as managing as she was beautiful.

  "I'll not rot in bed when I have urgent business with the duke to attend to."

  Harry realized he might seem to be unreasonable, as his brows pinched into a scowl, but the woman had no idea what he had gone through to get here. Lips pressed together, she regarded him for another moment, then amended grudgingly, "Perhaps I can send for the duke’s man. He could convey a message for you, and make the duke aware of your location."

  "No. No, I don’t want that." Harry didn’t want to spend any time with the old bastard, just collect what was owed him and leave. Damn it all. She left him with no choices. "I suppose it can wait a few more days, but only three. No more than that."

  Miss Beaumont smiled
with satisfaction, having forced him to yield. "After three days, Mr. Connelly, if you aren’t healed sufficiently to make the drive to the duke’s castle, I believe a delay in placing your business proposition before him will be the least of your problems."

  As the door closed behind with a soft thump, Harry stared at the ceiling above him. He needed to be gone as soon as possible, before the delectable, sweetly despotic Miss Beaumont became more of a danger to him than a mere flesh wound.

  ~ 3 ~

  Harry woke up the next morning stiff and sore all over, but well on his way to recovery. He checked the wound for infection, peeling back the bandage a bit, but the stitched laceration was healing. It was still slightly red and swollen, but clean. That could be managed with no problem. He started to throw back the covers and realized he was practically naked. Remembering the lovely vicar's daughter's presence in his chambers the night before, he scowled. The minx must have taken his clothes. He wouldn’t put it past her to have done it purposefully, just to keep him immobile.

  As if he had summoned her with his thoughts, Miss Beaumont stuck her head around the slightly open door, and he hastily yanked the bedclothes back over his lap. She raised one dark eyebrow at him as she moved into the room, carrying a breakfast tray. A bowl of porridge rested on it, and Harry scowled again.

  She had better be looking to plaster cracks in the ceiling, for surely that wasn't for him. He was a man, and a large one at that. He needed meat and bread, and ale, to heal.

  He looked at the tray she held in disgust. "If you think that is for me, think again. I haven’t eaten gruel since I was a babe in arms, and I’m not starting again now."

  "Really? That’s too bad. I was going to tell you if you managed to eat breakfast, then you might be strong enough to sit in the parlor for a while." She pivoted to leave again. "I suppose this means you are staying in bed all day."