Nicola Cornick - The Notorious Lord

The first book in the Blue Stocking Brides series, 2004

Dear Reader,

It is 1803, and along the coast of Suffolk the threat of French invasion is at its highest. Smugglers, pirates, treasure seekers and spies are all drawn to the quiet Midwinter villages, where the comfortable surface of village life conceals treason and danger as well as romance and excitement…

This is the world that I have inhabited for the past year whilst I wrote the BLUESTOCKING BRIDES trilogy. It has been a wonderful experience. I have always loved the county of Suffolk for its remoteness, the peace of the woods, the wind in the reeds at the water’s edge and the sunset over the sea. It is one of the most atmospheric and inspiring places for a storyteller.

About a year ago I was reading a book about “The Great Terror,” the years between 1801 and 1805, when Britain was permanently on the alert against the threat of Napoleonic invasion. It made me wonder what life would have been like in the coastal villages of Britain, where there was always the chance that the business of everyday living would conceal something more dangerous. I thought about a group of gentlemen dedicated to hunting down a spy-gentlemen for whom romance was no part of the plan, but who found that the ladies of Midwinter were more than a match for them! And so the idea of the BLUESTOCKING BRIDES trilogy was born…

I hope that you enjoy these stories of love and romance in the Midwinter villages! It has been a real pleasure to write this trilogy.

June 1803

She had taken too much cider for breakfast.

Miss Rachel Odell could think of no other explanation for the sudden and wholly unexpected sight of a naked man, who emerged from the thicket of willows some fifty yards down the riverbank and started to stroll towards her with all the aplomb of a gentleman entering a dowager’s drawing room.

Rachel blinked, stared, and looked down at the earthenware flask in her hand. She had known that drinking alcohol was dangerous, particularly at breakfast, but she had not wanted to offend the cook, who had pressed the bottle into her hands with the remark that apple juice was just what was needed on a hot morning. Rachel had no head for drink and Mrs Goodfellow’s cider was outrageously strong, so she had only taken two sips. Was it possible to have delusions on the basis of only a thimbleful of alcohol? She thought not. Therefore, logically, the naked man must be real.

She looked up. He was.

The sun was cutting through the trees now and fell on his body in bars of dazzling, dancing golden light. He seemed oblivious to her presence, for he was standing quite still, his head tilted towards the sky as though he were drinking in the morning air. He was tall and perfectly proportioned and he moved with unhurried precision and grace. The bright white sunlight slid over his body and sparkled on the tiny droplets of water that were cascading from his naked skin. He put his hands up to his head and smoothed the tawny hair back so that it was as sleek and wet as an otter’s pelt. Then he stretched. To Rachel’s eyes he looked like a pagan god who had sprung directly out of the earth.

As the daughter of the most renowned antiquaries in the country, Rachel knew all about the worship of pagan gods. Her parents had dug up relics of many cultures from Egypt to the Rhine, and from Greece to Alexandria. Rachel had learned about Greek mythology and Roman deities in her earliest youth, but she had never seen a man who resembled these creatures of legend. Never before now.

For one long, riveting moment she stared at him-at the powerful set of his shoulders, at his broad chest tapering to a hard, flat stomach, at the sheen of his brown skin and the elemental strength and intensity of him. Suddenly the worship of pagan deities did not seem as far-fetched as Rachel had always imagined it. Her mouth went dry, her heart started to race and she felt a prickly sort of heat break out over her entire body.

She had not seen any man in the nude before. She had seen statues, drawings, frescoes and paintings as a result of the highly unorthodox classical education bestowed on her by her parents, but she had never seen the real thing. Until now, Tuesday the twelfth of June at eight of the clock, when she was in her twenty second year and had not been expecting anything more exciting than a Tufted Duck to emerge from the waters of the Winter Race.

The book Rachel had been reading slid from her hand and fell against the earthenware flask of cider with a tiny clink. In the quiet air the sound was enough to carry. Rachel saw the man go still, like an animal sensing danger. He turned his head and looked directly towards her. Rachel’s heart skipped several beats. The excited feeling in the pit of her stomach faded. Now that she could see his face clearly, she recognised him at once as Cory Newlyn, a childhood friend of hers and colleague of her parents. She was embarrassed that she had not realised his identity sooner, and felt a curious mix of awareness and familiarity. She had not recognised him because she had been concentrating, most improperly, on other parts of his anatomy rather than his face. And she had enjoyed the view. Now, however, she felt differently. He was an old friend, after all, and one did not ogle old friends in such a manner. It was over a year since she had seen Cory, and she had not anticipated coming across him here, but he was not the sort of man that one forgot. And she was never, ever going to forget him in future, not after this experience.

Rachel found her voice. ‘Cory Newlyn! What on earth are you doing?’

Her words came out like the screech of a fishwife on the wharves at Deptford. She saw Cory jump, his eyes widening with surprise. He grabbed at a large lily leaf from a nearby pool and held it strategically in front of him as he came towards her along the bank. As an item of clothing it left a great deal to be desired and Rachel kept her gaze riveted on his face, avoiding a shocking compulsion to focus elsewhere.

‘Rachel! How delightful to find you here.’ Cory’s voice carried easily to her, for by now he was a mere twenty yards away. ‘I had been thinking recently,’ he continued, ‘how nice it would be to see more of you.’

‘I can see almost all of you at present,’ Rachel said, shielding her eyes with her hand, ‘and it is a deal too much! What are you doing? Where are your clothes? Go away and get dressed at once!’

Somewhat belatedly, she grabbed her straw bonnet from the rug beside her, and pulled it down low over her eyes so that the rim obscured her view. Then, realising that she could not see anything at all, she peered underneath it in order to check what was happening. The scene was not reassuring. Far from retreating modestly behind his curtain of willow, Cory appeared to be intending to approach her directly, sauntering up the bank for all the world as though he were entering a London drawing room rather than strolling naked through the Suffolk countryside.

‘Stop!’ Rachel shrieked. ‘I thought I told you to go away?’

Cory stopped. He was now no more than ten feet away from Rachel and, seated as she was on the ground, his knees and thighs were level with her line of sight. His body was firm, muscular and tanned, which she would have expected had she ever considered it. Cory worked outdoors a great deal and much of that labour was physically demanding. It was no wonder that his body was in such fine shape.