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The Passion of an Angel
Kasey Michaels
Banning Talbot, Marquess of Daventry and Society's favorite bachelor, is accustomed to having his every whim obeyed–Until he finds himself the reluctant guardian of Prudence MacAfee, the outspoken, golden-haired hoyden laughably nicknamed Angel. Now it's Banning's duty to introduce this deliciously unconventional creature to the ton's most eligible suitors. But his heart has an agenda all its own….
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
KASEY MICHAELS
“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.”
—Booklist on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
“A cheerful, lighthearted read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
“Michaels continues to entertain readers with the verve of her appealing characters and their exciting predicaments.”
—Booklist on Beware of Virtuous Women
“Lively dialogue and characters make the plot’s suspense and pathos resonate.”
—Publishers Weekly on Beware of Virtuous Women
“A must-read for fans of historical romance and all who appreciate Michaels’ witty and sensuous style.”
—Booklist on The Dangerous Debutante
“Michaels is in her element in her latest historical romance, a tale filled with mystery, sexual tension, and steamy encounters, making this a gem from a true master of the genre.”
—Booklist on A Gentleman by Any Other Name
“Michaels can write everything from a lighthearted romp to a far more serious-themed romance. [Kasey] Michaels has outdone herself.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews, Top Pick, on A Gentleman by Any Other Name
“Nonstop action from start to finish! It seems that author Kasey Michaels does nothing halfway.”
—Huntress Reviews on A Gentleman by Any Other Name
“Michaels has done it again…. Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It
“Michaels demonstrates her flair for creating likable protagonists who possess chemistry, charm and a penchant for getting into trouble. In addition, her dialogue and descriptions are full of humor.”
—Publishers Weekly on This Must Be Love
“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”
—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts
Kasey Michaels
The Passion of an Angel
The Passion of an Angel
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: COVENANT
BOOK ONE:COMMITMENT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
BOOK TWO:COMPROMISE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BOOK THREE:COMMUNION
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE: HEAVEN-SENT
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
COVENANT
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes
like a rising knell!
George Noel Gordon,
Lord Byron
Never promise more than you can perform.
Publilius Syrus
“LOOK AT THAT ONE, WOULD YOU, Daventry? Think she’s ripe for the plucking? Ready to lie down in the soft grass outside and give comfort and solace to a soldier about to face the French horde? Or am I totally bosky, and seeing willing beauty in anything in skirts?”
Banning Talbot, Marquess of Daventry, who was more than two parts drunk himself, leaned forward to look in the direction of Colonel Henry MacAfee’s rudely pointing finger. “Harriet Mercer? God’s teeth, man, make your move. Steal a kiss, or more, with my blessings.” Even as he spoke, Miss Mercer could be seen deserting the dance with her red-coated escort, the two of them making for the doorway, and the darkened garden beyond. “Whoops! Yoicks, and away! Pick another one, old man. Lord knows this great barn of a place is packed to the rafters with willing females.”
MacAfee settled his shoulder against the pillar the two men were sharing, having strategically propped themselves alongside the dance floor more than an hour earlier, within good ogling distance of the young ladies going down the dance, and directly in the path the servants had to traverse between the pouring of drinks and the serving of those same libations to Lady Richmond’s thirsty guests. The choice had been a sterling one, as there had been no dearth of either shapely ankles or chilled wine glasses orbiting their small outpost in the midst of what appeared to be a grand celebration of idiots.
Daventry drained his glass, deftly depositing it on a passing tray and scooping up a full one all in one fluid motion. “You know something, MacAfee,” he commented to his friend—if their casual acquaintance of the past three days, combined with their bond of doing their best to drink themselves under the table together, could be considered a basis for friendship, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Never a good thing, thinking,” MacAfee said, sighing in a sorrowful way. “Try not to do it myself. Not with Boney running riot just outside our doors.”
The Marquess smiled, running a hand through the thick, startling silver-on-black mane of hair that looked so out of place above his sparkling green eyes and youthful, unlined face. “But that’s who I’ve been thinking of, MacAfee. Boney. I believe I’ve just now stumbled upon a way to defeat him. We’ll just gather up this lot of sots here, our beloved Iron Duke included, and collectively breathe on the man. Brandy. Port. Wine. Canary. Why, the fumes will be enough to evaporate the man and his entire Old Guard!”
Colonel MacAfee giggled into his wineglass, an action that caused him to inhale a bit of its contents, then snort them out his nose, a trick Daventry considered top-drawer, which only proved he was perhaps a bit too well-to-go for his own good.
Not that he didn’t have good reason to be seeking solace in the bottom of a glass. There was a battle coming, and coming soon. A possible apocalypse, if the rumors running rampant through the ranks were to be believed, with the evil Bonaparte being sent down to ignominious defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, Blücher, and the rest of the allies.
And it would be Wellington, Blücher, and the allies who would take all the credit, garner all the glory, while the foot soldiers, the cavalry, and the junior officers did all the fighting, all the dying. Daventry was heartily sick of war, weary of the bloodshed, the screams, the sacrifice of individual lives in the name of the common good.
If only Bonaparte had been kept on his island. Had it been so bloody difficult to act the jailer to one defeated emperor? Apparently so, or else the man would still be penning wildly abridged histories in his journal rather than mounting an army and marching, even now, on a hastily assembled resistance and its hangers-on of society misses and brainless fops who believed the proper preparation for battle was a whacking good full-dress ball.
“Petticoat alert!” MacAfee exclaimed, nudging Daventry in the ribs as he inclined his head toward a blonde vision just coming down the dance with the Duke of Brunswick. “Hold me back, good milor’. I feel an imminent seduction coming over me.”
The Marquess felt the skin over his cheekbones tightening as he resisted the urge to dash the contents of his glass in the colonel’s leering face, for MacAfee had inadvertently reminded Daventry of the other reason he was finding the wine so irresistible tonight. “The young lady is Miss Althea Broughton, and you will kindly remove your lascivious gaze from her person,” he warned in crushing accents, painfully aware that the word “lascivious” had damn near knotted his tongue. “She is spoken for.”
“But not by you, I’ll wager,” MacAfee said, affably transferring his good-natured leer to a rather lackluster little pudding of a debutante who giggled, then attempted a reproving frown, and lastly blushed to the roots of her tightly curled hair. “Do I sense a story? And more to the point, is it a depressing story? Don’t think I want to hear it if it’s going to bring me down. Low enough, thank you, what with worrying about m’sister.”
“There’s no story, MacAfee,” the marquess said, bowing with exaggerated stiffness as Miss Broughton looked in his direction, then moved on. The beauteous Miss Broughton. The one great love of his life, Miss Broughton. The woman who had two years previously turned his proposal of marriage down flat, Miss Broughton. The woman betrothed these last nine months to a peer so wealthy it took two straining valets to heft his purse into his pocket, Miss Althea Broughton. “And why are you worrying about your sister?” he asked, eager to change the subject, when if the truth were told he couldn’t have cared a fig if MacAfee’s unknown sister was locked in a tower and besieged by fire-breathing dragons.
“Prudence?”
Daventry, who had been watching Miss Broughton’s progress out of the corner of his eye, swiveled his head to the left and repeated, aghast, “Prudence? Would that be a name or an affliction?”
Henry MacAfee grinned—he had a really pleasant grin, actually—and shook his head. “Ghastly name, ain’t it? But she’s the light of my life, Daventry. My Pru. My Angel.” His smile faded abruptly and he took another long drink of his wine. “Poor, innocent baby. It’s criminal how she is forced to live, Daventry. Criminal!”
“I’m sure,” the marquess agreed absently, for his attention was now on the Duke of Wellington, who seemed to be deep in conversation with a subaltern who had just entered the ballroom at a near run, holding his sword as it threatened to swing wide from his waist, which would most certainly have caused the nearby dancers to invent a few new steps to the country dance in progress.
“It’s true, my friend. You have no idea, none at all,” MacAfee continued as a wave of whispers washed across the ballroom. “We’re orphans, you know, and forced to live on the charity of our grandfather, Shadwell MacAfee—and the damndest pinch-penny ever hatched. Not that he’s my guardian, or Pru’s either, now that I’ve reached my majority. Are you listening to me, Daventry? Devil a bit, what’s going on?”
Daventry held up a hand, silencing the colonel. “Listen! Do you hear it? By God, I think the drums are beating to arms! Blücher must have failed!”
MacAfee threw down his glass, which shattered into a thousand pieces at his feet. “No! Not yet! I haven’t come this far just to—Daventry. Daventry!” he repeated, grabbing hold of the marquess’s arm. “Listen to me! If you’re right, if we’re to fight tomorrow, you have to promise me something tonight.”
Daventry watched as the circle of uniforms around Wellington deepened and a few of the ladies, those closest to the Duke, cried out in alarm, two of them swooning into nearby arms. “Not now, MacAfee,” he warned, shaking off the man’s hand as he willed himself back to sobriety. “We have to get to the Place Royale, remember? That’s where all the men have been warned to assemble at the first word of Bonaparte’s march.”
“I said, not yet!” MacAfee nearly shouted, so that Daventry turned to look at the man more closely, seeing the nearly feverish sparkle in the man’s eyes, the ashen gray of his cheeks.
“What is it?” the marquess asked, wondering if the younger man was going to be sick, or break out in tears. After all, he barely knew the fellow. He had laughed with him these past few days, drunk with him, but he didn’t know him. Not really. “Come on, man, you’ve seen battle before this. Think of your men.”
