Chapter 1
1827, London
Fleur Warburton had only recently arrived in London…and now here she was, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.
She was trembling—yes, like a leaf, though she detested the expression. She was no shrinking violet, no weak little mouse. The more horrors she went through, the more determined she was to be strong.
And yet a man was dead.
There, in the alleyway behind her.
His body lay in a pool of his own blood, the life utterly gone from him.
She would not have left him there otherwise, no matter how commandingly he had told her to run.
She had waited. And they had shot him.
And then she had run.
She was still running.
Jasper was going to kill her, she thought, deliriously. If she made it back to him at all.
She turned a corner and suddenly was swept up into a sea of people. A busy marketplace. Assorted stalls lined the sides of a wide square. Wagons were weaving their way amongst the crowd, seeking somewhere to unload their goods—sweet-smelling produce fresh from a farm, jars of canned goods, homespun clothes neatly folded, tied, and packaged.
Fleur looked about in a daze, trying to take it all in, letting the throng push and pull her like a current until, turning back, she could hardly see the alleyway she had come from.
In the center of the marketplace, she saw a woman selling bonnets and quickly purchased a simple straw one, then yanked down the hood of the dark grey cape she was wearing and tied the bonnet, making sure every strand of her reddish blonde hair was tucked beneath.
She pulled off the cape, hung it over one arm. The afternoon was mild. There was nothing strange about her doing so.
When she felt sufficiently changed in appearance, she moved off to the side, then carefully looked about behind her.
There was no sign of the man who had been chasing her.
She slid her hands carefully down the sides of her dress, feeling the subtle shapes of the slender blades that rested there. Touching them reassured her. Yet she had not even had opportunity to use them.
She had intended to kill a man today.
But when she had found him, sitting in his carriage, as cool as you please, reading a newspaper he had looked, well, rather shockingly old. Ancient, in fact. Perhaps not quite as old as Methuselah—but close. Much older than her mother had been. Much older than her father.
And so, she had hesitated, standing there on the sidewalk, looking at him in surprise. And while she had wavered—oh, she would have gone through with it, of course, in the end—a grey-haired stocky man had emerged from the alleyway to her right, pistols already raised and begun to shoot at the carriage.
Fleur had been stunned. Then admiring. Then alarmed—for the driver of the carriage had quickly dropped to his knees on the pavement and returned fire of his own. And then a second man had emerged from inside the carriage—a servant of some sort, also armed.
Shaking herself out of her stupor, Fleur had tried to enter the fray. She had pulled out one of her knives, and whirling to where the old man had been sitting, in an incredibly reckless and foolish move, she had thrown it, impulsively, at the carriage seat. It would have struck his skull—if he had still been sitting there, that is. But in the few seconds since she had been distracted, the carriage had emptied.
The old man had escaped.
She had lost him. She let out a string of invectives, then turned to her right to see the stocky man staring into the carriage, looking just as devastatingly disappointed as she was.
Their eyes had met with a shock of recognition. Though strangers, they were kin, in this at least, their shared goal.
And then the first bullet had struck the man in the shoulder and he had shouted at her to run.
She had slipped behind him into the alley, intending to throw her knives at the men shooting at him, to lend him her aid, but then…
Then the next bullet found him.
The man fell.
The man died.
And then Fleur had finally fled. The knives in her pockets still gleaming silver and untainted with blood.
(C) Fenna Edgewood, Starwater Press, 2022. Shared with permission from the author and publisher.
THE BLUESTOCKING BEDS HER BRIDE by Fenna Edgewood
Must Love Scandal #4
An Age Gap Lesbian Regency Romance
She’s out to avenge her family… but what she finds is an everlasting love.
Never weaken. Never trust. Never give away your heart.
Some call Fleur Warburton cold and hard-hearted. Even ruthless. Scarred by a traumatic past that destroyed her family, Fleur believes she has found the man ultimately responsible for her unhappy fate and is out for vengeance. But when the beautiful Lady Julia Pembroke gets in her way, Fleur is soon entangled in scandal of a different sort. With Julia by her side, Fleur enters a world of tempestuous desires and rebellious hearts.
A Carefully Constructed Life…
More than ten years ago, Lady Julia Pembroke was a haughty beauty with the ton at her fingertips. Now she’s an aging spinster who spends her days advocating for London’s less fortunate. To the beau monde, she seems to lead a precarious double-existence, half in and half out of good society, always plagued by those pesky rumors that she prefers women to men.
Julia stopped caring what others thought of her long ago. These days, her life is anything but dull. She has a charity society to run, a houseful of adopted children to care for, and an evil criminal organization to bring down.
Dashing Women and Dangerous Deeds
But when a reckless young spitfire with hair of fiery gold whose every touch is an exquisite torture, every glance an enticement arrives in London from the countryside, Julia’s life suddenly becomes much, much more complicated…and much more dangerous.
Romance Historical | Romance LGBTQ [1001 Dark Nights Press, On Sale: June 28, 2022, e-Book, / ]
Buy THE BLUESTOCKING BEDS HER BRIDE: Kindle | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Fenna Edgewood
Fenna Edgewood writes swoon-worthy humorous stories of love, family, and adventure. In other words, the most important things in life! She is an award-winning retired academic who has studied English literature for most of her life. After a twenty-five-year hiatus from writing romance as a twelve-year-old, she has returned to the genre with a bang. Fenna lives above the Arctic Circle with her husband and two tiny tots (who are adorable but generally terrible research assistants).
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