Read No Choice but Surrender Online
Authors: Meagan McKinney
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
No Choice but Surrender
"MY LOVE WILL DESTROY YOU. . .
."
"Force me from you.
Fight to be away.
If you have an ounce of self-preservation, you will do this,
Brienne
."
"I cannot," she pleaded, wanting him with every inch of her body and soul.
"If you stay here tonight, my mark will be permanent. I'll have it no other way." He took her face into his powerful hands, searching for her answer.
And she gave it, not with words but with her lips. Deep inside him she heard a moan, and soon she felt her laces being severed one by one with the sharp edge of his knife. His hands slid the dress apart, and it fell in satin folds around them as they both half-sat and half-lay on the floor. He kissed her as he took off her green satin slippers and then pulled down her silk hose from her creamy thighs. He paused only to instruct her to untie his sash,
then
stood, leading her to the state bedchamber—and his ornately domed bed.
"NO CHOICE BUT SURRENDER is highly entertaining.
. . .
It captures your heart with
a poignancy
reminiscent of Judith
McNaught's
romances."
—Romantic Times
Published by
Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York
,
Copyright © 1987 by Ruth Goodman
All rights reserved. No pan
of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
Dell ®TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
ISBN: 0-440-16412-5
Printed in the United States of America
October 1987
For my two best friends:
Thomas Young Roberson,
my
husband, and
Richard John Goodman,
my
father.
I
love
you both.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
All the houses depicted herein actually exist.
Satterlee
Plantation (
Sotterley
),
and
Number One The Crescent are open to the public.
Resurrection Manor, circa 1650, the house depicted
in
the Prologue, sits in dereliction by the roadside
in
Tidewater,
All characters except for Gainsborough
are
purely fictitious.
He loved England
as
an Athenian loved the city of the violet crown,
as
a Roman loved the city of the seven hills.
—Lord Macaulay
November 1780
The house was considered old, even though the United States had declared its freedom only four years before. It stood up from the
Robert Staples sat discontentedly by the keeping-room fire. Being a boy of thirteen, he couldn't help but peek now and .again into the next room, where his father and four men had gathered. There was an air of secrecy about these four men. They sat
around a
small table playing cards.
It was odd that they were gambling at the run-down manor when they could have been playing more comfortably at
But there they sat, four strangers at a small cherry butterfly table, while the owner and his son watched anxiously from the side.
"I say, Avenel," one of the younger gamblers commented as he gazed about the small wainscoted room, "it's a rather dismal place you've brought us to."
The dark, bearded man with the medieval-sounding name merely glanced at the young lord; that was enough to quiet him completely. But Avenel added, "Would you have us play at the
"I have no opinions on this silly war! I need not be labeled a Tory! My only hope is to leave this rustic land behind and never return. The lure of tobacco fortunes is not great enough to withstand the sacrifice of my position." The young man wiped his brow.
"Perhaps you do not take sides. But one look at that vermilion satin waistcoat leaves no doubt that you are of the British nobility." Avenel looked at the young lord in disgust. "And need I remind you that there is no nobility here in America
? '
Tis
one of the things the damned war is about."
"Well, for one who was born here in America, you don't seem particularly enthusiastic about your freedom. What say you, Avenel? Are you a Tory sympathizer?" Squire Justice spoke up. That older man was annoyed that he was losing, but he found some consolation in the fact that the young lord and the ill-fated Lord Oliver were even doing worse than he was. They were betting way over their means—especially Lord Oliver, who had wagered his estate,
"I shall be leaving for England tomorrow, so I have forced myself to remain uninvolved in politics." Avenel
Slane
shook himself, seemingly to ease his fatigue, and then finished, "But enough of this. We must continue." He looked straight at the man across from him, Oliver Morrow, who had yet to speak since the game began. He was about Avenel's size and stature, but the resemblance ended there. Where Avenel was dead calm yet bold in his approach, Morrow was nervous; his hand shook as he shifted around the five cards in his possession. And the cautiousness about Lord Oliver said only one thing: He had a lot to lose.
"Besides," Avenel added enigmatically, "I have my own war to fight."
"I think 'tis time we called it a draw, gentlemen." The young lord wiped his brow with a heavily scented hanky. "There's too much at stake here. Of course, I can afford to cover my losses," he said, and then he coughed as he remembered the sizable sum he owed already—and mostly to that bastard Avenel
Slane
, he thought, feeling bitterly emasculated. "But I think we should see that this is bordering on the absurd. After all, Lord Oliver is the Earl of
Laborde
. Surely you cannot let him gamble away his very estate. It's outright criminal!"
"This is no fops' diversion, my lord," Avenel said, each syllable hanging disdainfully on his tongue. "You all came here knowing this was a man's game."
"But the stakes are getting to be too high. You have taken advantage of us in our boredom and fear. This wait for the ship to arrive at
"There would have been no need to hide if you had renounced your social standing—at least until you were on the ship for England." Avenel closed the fan of cards in his hand and placed them facedown onto the nicked surface of the table. "All that would have involved is a mere change of clothes."
"I was not born to dress as a peasant like you Americans!" The young lord put his cards down on the table and straightened his heavily greased and powdered wig. After preening himself, he looked at Avenel and felt suddenly quite superior. He noticed every detail of the man's dress, from the plain doeskin breeches to the dark blue worsted waistcoat. The man sported not one ruffle on his white cambric shirt; not an inch of expensive lace edged his cravat. Nor did he wear anything on his head. He relied instead on the appearance of his neatly tied queue of natural dark hair.
"'
Tis
your choice," Avenel said, and then added slowly, "my lord."
Now the young lord felt the man was laughing at him. His air of superiority started to dissipate. "I'll not continue with this charade any longer! Man, you will take me back to
Satterlee
now." He motioned to Robert's father as he would to a servant.
"Surely, my lord, you don't mean to stop in the middle of the hand." Master Staples tried to reason with him. He moved forward and then looked back at Robert in the confines of the keeping room. "Nob," he said, using the boy's nickname, "be a good boy and quit gaping. Go fetch the men some of that ham cured at the mansion and some more spirits."
Quickly the young fellow left for the keeping room, where he made up a large tray with ham, apples, and bread. Stepping humbly from the dirt and straw floors of the keeping room up to the new pine boards that had just been fitted into the parlor, Nob brought the tray to his father. After placing it on an ancient walnut William and Mary lowboy, the boy stepped back from the men, heeding the warning in his father's eyes. The men were playing the last hand now, and he knew there were to be no disturbances.
"I'll bring the ale now, Bather," Nob whispered in the same semi-British accent as his father, which proved his
"I warn you, Avenel, if you insist on taking
Laborde
. That older man with the tall build suddenly stood over the mess. His long, bloodless white hands were balled into fists, and his face became red in contrast to his finely groomed dark gray hair.
Secretly Nob was glad Oliver Morrow had lost. There was something about the earl that he had
instandy
disliked.
"In fact," the earl continued ominously, "I'll see you dead before you walk about my home!" With that, the man reached for a knife in the waistband of his breeches. Suddenly he lurched toward Avenel, which made Nob scream in terror.
As the fight escalated, the other men stood about watching stupidly from the perimeter of the room. Nob and his father tried to stop Oliver Morrow, but he was so quick, they floundered about; each tried to control the earl without making himself a target for the steel blade. Finally they, too, stood back and watched as Avenel swiftly moved out of the way of the knife. He kicked out at the earl's arm, and the knife flew out of the older man's grasp, skidding along the floor out of reach.
"If you think I am afraid of a knife, then think again. I have experienced its sharpness before, and I daresay my hide is too thick to be cut further." Avenel looked at the earl and reveled in the frightened look of recognition in the man's visage. The earl gasped in horror.
"I should have known you from your eyes,
gelding!
But I'll keep you down,
Slane
. You'll not ruin me! I've always
fdund
a way in the past. I have never been defeated—"
"Say no more!" Avenel laughed and picked up the cream- colored vellum that had fallen off the overturned table. "All your threats are meaningless now. You face the consequences of carelessly wagering a magnificent house. Your greed has gotten the better of you. Your very desire to win at all costs has been your downfall. Now I own
Tis
back where it belongs, and in better hands than yours." He placed the heavy paper in the inside pocket of his blue waistcoat. "If I'm not mistaken, you haven't the coin to get off this continent, let alone to buy
Osterley
back from me. So set your mind to other matters than revenge."
Avenel walked over to the cherry table and righted it. He smiled at Nob, whose thin adolescent body was quaking from excitement and fear. The boy immediately knew to bring him his coat and the three-cornered hat that had been placed on a chair. Avenel slipped on his coat and started out the door to his waiting horse. Nob stared after him, hero worship lighting up his face. His father started out the door, too, ignoring for the moment his other guests.
"
Slane
!
Have you not forgotten your winnings?" He ran to where Avenel was mounting his horse.
"I have what I want." He turned to look at Staples. "You've done more than I could have asked for," Avenel said gratefully.
"I couldn't have done less. I wouldn't have a roof over my head if you hadn't given me the land to build on."
"My father was returning to England. He had no use for the land."
"Perhaps.
But where tobacco can be grown, there's money to be made."
Avenel mounted the finely bred animal and bent down to shake Staples's hand. He laughed and said, "Watch your tongue! You speak too kindly of a Tory!"
"I suppose we shall always be speaking kindly of Tories, now that you are determined to go back to London."
"When the war is over, perhaps I'll come back." Avenel turned thoughtful and looked ahead to the blue
Both men laughed this time. Avenel took the reins in his hands and began a slow trot to
"You'd best return to the house, lest you find all my winnings back in their pockets!" he called over his shoulder.
"Godspeed, Avenel!" said Staples, watching him take off at a canter. He left behind a most pleased man.