Royal Weddings

An Original Anthology

Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, Loretta Chase

Contents

A Note from the Editor

The Wedding Planner

by Stephanie Laurens

Ever After

by Gaelen Foley

The Jilting of Lord Rothwick

by Loretta Chase

About the Authors

Coming Soon

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Note from the Editor

Dear Reader,

As you can imagine, everyone at Avon Romance is excited about the upcoming royal wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton. So when three talented authors—Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase—proposed this anthology we were thrilled. Each tale is a bit different, but each has a “royal touch” that I know you’re going to love.

In Stephanie Laurens’ The Wedding Planner, we’re introduced to Lady Margaret Dawlish, who I’ve grown to think of as “the wedding planner to the ton.” Now, she must plan a royal wedding as a French prince takes himself a bride. Along the way, Lady Margaret encounters so many of the obstacles found when you have to plan a wedding. (For example, who can stand to sit next to whom?) And fans of Lady Osbaldestone (I’m one of them!) will be happy to know that she most definitely makes her presence known in this tale.

Gaelen Foley’s Ever After takes place during the 1816 royal wedding of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Regent, later King George IV, to Prince Leopold. Had she lived, this impulsive, willful, spoiled—but also warm-hearted and likeable—young woman would have become queen. There may never have been a Queen Victoria! It’s said that six hundred couples changed the date of their weddings to match hers. Her life ended tragically, but it’s nice to know that her marriage to her Leopold was a happy one.

In Loretta Chase’s The Jilting of Lord Rothwick, a charming wastrel must snatch back his chance to save his estate when he’s jilted by his very wealthy betrothed. This story takes place on the eve of Queen Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert. In many ways, this was the first of the really “public” royal weddings. The newspapers had a field day, reporting on what Victoria wore (white, which was trendsetting), and what she carried (orange blossoms, also trendsetting). It helped that Victoria was nothing like the stout woman dressed in black who we think of today. She was young, vibrant, and, I think, rather pretty. And Albert really was handsome. Did you know that Victoria and Albert went on to have nine children? That sure says something!

I know you’re going to love these stories, and that you’ll join us in a royal celebration!

Best,

Lucia Macro

Vice-President, Executive Editor

Avon Books

The Wedding Planner

Stephanie Laurens

April 1820

London

“We never expected it to be a royal wedding!”

Lady Margaret Dawlish sat uncompromisingly upright on an uncomfortable chair in the drawing room of the Vicomte de Rocher’s town house and, ignoring the vicomte, striding agitatedly back and forth before the hearth, fixed a baleful glare on the two ladies responsible for dragging her there.

Seated on the chaise opposite, her youngest sister, Cicely, now Countess of Morwood, and Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, ignored her and watched the vicomte.

In typical melodramatic French fashion, he flung out his arms. “When they first started seeing more of each other, the Corsican Upstart was still rampaging through France. Even when Robert asked my permission to speak to Juliette, there was no certainty the Bourbons would regain the throne. Now, however—”

“Louis is safe on his throne in Versailles,” Meg crisply cut in, hoping to bring the vicomte’s dizzying perambulations to an end, “and Robert is therefore a prince of the royal house. Hence, you have a royal wedding on your hands.”

“Mais, oui.” The vicomte, a normally reserved and scholarly soul, turned to her. “Which, mademoiselle, is why we would appeal to you. You have experience in these matters—experience we—my wife and I—sorely lack. Yet it is imperative, for my honor and that of my wife’s family, too, that this wedding should be all it should be.”

Meg held his gaze for a moment, then looked at Lady Osbaldestone. Her ladyship met her gaze directly, her black eyes silently repeating the arguments she’d heaped on Meg’s head in the carriage on their way there.

It’s not just the vicomte and his wife—who, I would remind you, is English and a connection of sorts of yours—who need your help in this—it’s the entire ton, the palace, and the government to boot. We can’t have the French turning up their noses and saying we didn’t make a proper effort. Robert might be a sweet boy, and as easy to please as you might wish, but he’s now a full-blood prince of their realm, and they’ll be watching proceedings closely. The palace even sent one of the secretaries to inquire as to my advice, and your father will get a visit, too, should you refuse. When it comes down to it, there’s really only one person who can do this job. And that’s you.

She really had no choice.

After her fiancé had been killed at Waterloo, she’d turned the skills she would have brought to bear on managing his vast estates to planning the weddings of her three sisters and two brothers. And then the weddings of countless cousins. And then the weddings of several connections and acquaintances.

She did, indeed, know all the ropes, and as the eldest daughter of the Duke of Durham, she was also accustomed to protocol at the highest level.

Glancing at the vicomtesse, a petite, timorous, and retiring lady seated in an armchair beside the chaise, and receiving a pleading, almost panicking look in reply, Meg inwardly sighed and looked up at the vicomte. “Very well. I’ll undertake to organize Juliette and Robert’s wedding.” She held up a hand to stay their incipient thanks. “But you will all have to agree to do exactly as I say.”

They agreed, of course, and then they thanked her effusively. Lady Osbaldestone smiled, well pleased, while Cicely—bosom-bow of Juliette de Rocher—beamed, bounced up, and raced off to tell the affianced couple the good news.

May 1820, some weeks later

Drawing Room of Vicomte de Rocher’s town house, London

“This is the guest list.” The vicomtesse handed Meg six pages with names neatly lettered down one side, one name per line, as Meg had requested.

“Bon.” Although the vicomtesse and Juliette were English, born and bred, both frequently slipped into French, the principal language of the household, and as Meg also spoke French fluently—another reason she was perfect for this assignment—she’d picked up the habit. She glanced at the list. “Now, if you please, we’ll go over this and add the relationship to either groom or bride, and the relative importance of each person.”

Scanning the list, she could put faces to most names . . . “Who’s this?” She pointed to one entry high on the first page. “The Duc de Perigord. I can’t place him.”

The vicomtesse shifted on the chaise. “He’s Robert’s cousin. The head of his mother’s house.” She glanced at Juliette.

Who nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I haven’t met him, but he’s coming from his estates in the south of France. Robert said he’s to be his best man—his principal groomsman.”

“All right.” Meg made a note. “So he’s the senior male representing Robert’s mother’s side. Now, let’s start at the top with all the rest.”

They spent the next two hours defining the guests and family members, more than anything else clarifying precedence. Titles were one thing, family relationships were another. Finally, Meg felt informed enough to make a start on the seating arrangements for the wedding and the breakfast to follow; she knew better than to leave the matter to Juliette and her mother—both were sweet, but not worldly.

Gathering the sheets, she said, “As I told your father when I spoke with him earlier, I’ve conferred with the various church and state authorities, and we’ve confirmed that the ceremony will take place on the eighteenth of June in St. James Chapel in Manchester Square.”

Juliette, who was already getting that rather strained look of all brides-to-be, relaxed a trifle. “Good. At least I’ll know where I am.”

St. James was the family’s customary church. Given both sides of the equation were of the Roman Catholic faith, Meg had of necessity sited the ceremony somewhere other than St. George’s, Hanover Square. Rising, tucking the sheets into the leather satchel she carried, she nodded briskly. “I’ll be arranging a rehearsal a few days before the wedding day. Please let all those in the wedding party itself know they will need to make themselves available—I’ll notify you of the time and date as soon as I have them set.”

June 15, 1820, 3:00 P.M., three days before the wedding

St. James Chapel, Manchester Square, London

“Where’s your best man—the principal groomsman?” Meg fixed Robert with an incipient frown. Everybody else in the wedding party had obeyed her orders, and was neatly arrayed before the altar, exactly as they should be.

In her peripheral vision, she saw a long, lean figure push away from one of the columns flanking the nave.

“I’m here.”

Even before, turning, she set eyes on him, his deep voice, faintly accented, triggered memories—a raft of memories she thought she’d forgotten long ago. Not that any memories prepared her for . . .

She stared at him—tall, long, lean, and even more overpowering than he had been, with his hair still black as a crow’s wing, and his aristocratically aesthetic features and eyes so dark they were pools of deepest night as mesmerizing as ever. Realizing she was staring, literally struck dumb, she forced herself to look down at her list. “You’re the Duc of Perigord?” Her tone was bordering on insult, but then . . .

Looking up, she found he’d drawn much closer—he moved so silently, so smoothly, so ineffably gracefully, she’d never learned the knack of making him keep his distance—and, as had happened years ago, his eyes were twinkling.

No other man had ever dared twinkle at her like that. She wasn’t sure any other man could. Almost as if he were . . . not laughing at her, but certainly amused, and in some odd way inviting her to be amused with him.

As if they shared a secret. Some secret understanding.

She realized she’d forgotten to breathe, with an effort rectified the lack.

His lips curved in a knowing smile, but to her relief, all he said was, “Louis reinstated the title. It was always mine.”

She’d previously known him as the Chevalier Devilliers. He’d followed his king into exile, had been in Louis the Pretender’s entourage for years. He was known as a superb swordsman, a cavalryman who had rallied the French nobles fighting on the side of the allies at Waterloo, and, if half the tales she’d heard were true, had performed feats of bravery upon that bloody field that had passed into legend . . . while elsewhere on that same battlefield, her fiancé, John Beaumont, had been cut down.

When her older brother Geoffrey, knowing she’d met Devilliers, had been telling her some of those tales, and she’d waspishly remarked at how unfair it was that such a reckless hothead like Gaston Devilliers had come through the battle unscathed while a cautious man like John Beaumont had died, Geoffrey had looked at her as if she’d been touched—as that had never happened, before or since, the moment was etched in her mind—and explained, “Beaumont was a loyal man, but his arm was weak. Devilliers . . . was a fiend on the field. No one came close enough to touch him. It takes more than courage to fight like that, and at the same time lead a group of men.”

She’d humphed and held her tongue.

And now the fiend stood before her, twinkling at her again.

But this time he stood on her battlefield.

She turned and pointed to the vacant space in the row before the altar. “Now you’re here, please take your place. We need to get this rehearsal under way.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The quiet words were taunting, of course, as was the polite salute he bestowed on her, but he did as she wanted and she was thankful enough for that.

As he walked—prowled, the man never simply walked—to his place in the line, she looked down at her list, grasped the pencil tied to her wrist and, lips compressed, wrote in capitals beside the name Duc de Perigord: GASTON.

June 15, 1820, 11:00 P.M.

Meg’s bedchamber, Durham House, London

“Thank you, Peggy. That will be all.”

“Yes, miss. Good night.”

Rising from her dressing stool and crossing to her bed, Meg heard the door shut behind her maid. Snuffing the single candle left on her bedside table, she let her robe slide from her shoulders, then slipped beneath the covers. Laying her head on her pillow, she stared at the ceiling.

She was about to let her mind slide to the topic she had until then not allowed it to explore, when soft footsteps approached her door, followed by a gentle tap.

The door opened and Cicely’s blond head appeared. “You’re not asleep yet, are you?” Without waiting for any answer, clad in a dressing robe, Cicely came in, shut the door, then glided to the bed and perched on its end, drawing up her knees and hugging them. “I thought the rehearsal went well, didn’t you? No dramas, no histrionics, and while Juliette and Robert were a trifle shaky, thanks to your notes everyone knew what they had to do.”

Cicely was Juliette’s matron of honor, so had been at the chapel, too. As matters stood, at the end of the ceremony it was Cicely who would walk up the aisle on Gaston Devilliers’s arm.

As if already thinking of that, Cicely leaned closer, over her knees, as if to share a confidence. “I wanted to ask about the Duc de Perigord. Gaston. You knew him from before, didn’t you?”

Stifling a sigh, Meg replied, “He was by Louis’s side through the Victory Celebrations in ’14, then we met again the following year, in Vienna during the Congress.”

Cicely pulled a face. “You were engaged to John then, but even you must admit Gaston is . . . well, breathtaking. He literally steals one’s breath. Those shoulders, those eyes, those . . . well, in truth it’s hard to find any element one might better.”

“His ego.”

“Really?” Cicely opened her eyes wide. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Perhaps not quite that.” Meg had to admit that was uncalled for; one thing Gaston did not have was an overinflated view of himself. She tried to remember all the things about him that invariably got under her skin and itched. “He’s high-handed, arrogant, and exceedingly used to getting his own way. He’s stubborn, immovable, but he’s also wily and cunning—if he can’t go through, he’ll go around, or over, or under. But he always ends up where he wants to be.”

Cicely looked at her, then laughed. “You’ve just described yourself, sister dear.”

Meg humphed. “Perhaps. But all in all, Gaston is a pest. He . . . gets in my way.” That was it in a nutshell; he got in her way, and wouldn’t get out of it no matter what she did.

“Ah, but you have to admit he’s a handsome, charming, and really quite delectable pest.”

Meg leveled her gaze on her sister. “Might I remind you that you’re married, and that Hugh will be in the congregation?”

“I might be married, but I’m neither blind nor deaf—any female would have to be both not to notice and appreciate Gaston Devilliers.”

Meg didn’t wish to argue that.

Cicely went on, “Geoffrey told me of Gaston’s exploits at Waterloo. And apparently his estates are substantial.”

Meg didn’t want to know. She faked a yawn. “Good night, Cicely.”

Cicely sighed and got up. “All right, I’ll leave you. But you have to admit that Gaston being Robert’s cousin has made this wedding much more interesting.”

Much more . . . trying was the word that sprang to Meg’s mind.

If she’d had any easy way out of the arrangement, she would have taken it, but as she had promised, and everyone—including the government and the palace—were counting on her, she would persevere.

Once Cicely had departed and shut the door again, Meg closed her eyes, and refused, adamantly refused, to think any more about an irritating Frenchman called Gaston.

Somewhat to her surprise, she slid easily into sleep . . . but the damned man followed her into her dreams.

June 16, 1820, 8:00 A.M., two days before the wedding

Rotten Row, Hyde Park, London

Ladies were not permitted to ride at a flat gallop down Rotten Row.

Meg didn’t exactly have special dispensation, but she was twenty-eight years old, long past her last prayers, and the hour at which she galloped was too early for any but the most hardened horsemen and horsewomen to see her, and as she was an exceptional horsewoman, they turned a blind eye. Or rather, they watched with open appreciation as, perched sidesaddle on her big gray’s back, she thundered down the tan track.

That morning, she needed to fly more than most; she needed to blow away the deadening sense of old regrets—regrets she’d never even known she possessed—that had beset her on awakening.

She was halfway down the track when she heard heavy hoofbeats following.

Closing.

She urged Atlas on, but the pursuing horse and rider drew ever closer.

She didn’t need to glance sideways to know who the rider was. Only one man—and it had to be a man—would dare.

Would dare intrude on her morning’s race and ride her down.

And, damn it, win.

They were neck and neck, but with his horse a sliver of a nose ahead when they flashed past the post that marked the incipient end of the track.

Both of them drew up, straightening as they drew rein, then they turned their horses onto the thick grass to the side of the track, letting them slow to a walk.

She glanced at his horse. A massive chestnut hunter with, clearly, an unexpected turn of speed. Without meeting Gaston’s eyes, she asked, “Did you bring him with you?”

“No. I’d left him here. I’m going to take him home with me when I leave.”

“And how soon will that be?”

He hesitated, then said, “After the wedding. I can’t stay away much longer than that—my estates need fairly constant tending.”

She glanced at him then, trying to see past the easy charm she was aware was a mask. “I can’t imagine you as a farmer. Where’s home these days?”

He grinned. “Perigord, of course.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Where in Perigord?” She’d looked in the map book in her father’s library the previous evening. “Where’s your principal seat?”

“Theoretically a castle on the upper reaches of the Dordogne, but it’s drafty and cold in winter, so I live at a chateau not far from a town called Sarlat in Perigord Noir.”

She made a note to look it up. Why, she couldn’t have said.

Walking his chestnut alongside her gray, Gaston looked ahead, and seized the opening she’d inadvertently given him. “I have to get back because there’s no one I can trust with my holdings, not for too long. Oh, they have their hearts in the right place—it’s not their loyalty that limits me. But there is much to deal with, and they will become overwhelmed. They know to put off the harder decisions until I am back—so I must not stay away too long.”

She frowned. “I would have thought you would have married by now.” She glanced briefly at him. “A wife with a sound understanding could manage your estates, at least for a few months.”

“True.” He sighed. “But what with installing Louis, and helping sort out the chaos left in the aftermath of the Corsican’s downfall, and then, once I returned home, there was so much to do, I haven’t really had time to look for a wife.” He hesitated, then added, “Perhaps when I get back, now that everything is more or less stable again, I’ll be able to attend to the matter.”

She sniffed. “You make it sound like the equivalent of hiring a maid. That you just need to see the woman, interview her, weigh up her attributes, look at her references, and make up your mind. I suspect you’ll find it’s rather more complicated.”

He glanced sidelong at her, but she was looking ahead. “I heard about Beaumont. My condolences.”

She inclined her head. “It was a long time ago.”

“Not so long that you’ve found a replacement. Why is that?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see the need. I had other activities to keep me amused.”

“Ah, yes—the weddings.”

“I’m good at it.” A touch of belligerence.

His lips curved. “Indeed. I saw. You are a general in charge of a motley troop, but you were in control and whipped us into line.” It was too good a chance to pass up. “Would that I could find a lady with the same skills to take charge of my household.”

She snorted. “The only one that lady would need to whip into line is you—and she’ll need the luck of the devil to succeed.”

“Vraiment? You wound me. But no, my lady would find I would be a willing partner, because, sadly, there’s rather more than my poor self she would have to deal with.”

He waited.

Waited.

They were nearly at the gate when Meg finally gave in to her curiosity and asked, “Who else?”

“My brothers. Did I tell you I have five of them? All much younger than me—my sisters lie between in age, but they are all married with their own households and unable to bear with the . . . well, they call them heathens.” He sighed deeply, but she knew him well enough to know he was smiling fondly, to detect the note of pride in his deep voice.

“I wish you luck in your courting, then.” Finally glancing at him, she met his gaze. “Clearly your brothers will be depending on you to do your duty and find them a sister-in-law of suitable mettle.”

And, yes, she saw it in his eyes. He was—truly was—looking at her.

Looking at her like a predator, waiting for her to run.

So he could pounce.

With a polite smile, she inclined her head, but she didn’t take her eyes off him. “I’m off home. I’ll see you tonight at the dinner.”

It was his turn to make a dismissive sound. “I’ll see you to your home.”

And he did. She knew him far too well to waste breath trying to dissuade him.

When, having watched him ride off from the front porch, she finally crossed the threshold and climbed the stairs, she told herself that she should put the conversation from her mind—that when that lurking twinkle shone in Gaston Devilliers’s eyes, only a ninnyhammer would believe anything that came out of his mouth.

The problem was, only when they’d been clattering down the streets and talking about inconsequential things had that teasing twinkle returned to his eyes.

June 16, 1820, 10:00 A.M.

Duc de Perigord’s suite, Bartholomew’s Hotel, London

“So!” Having changed out of his riding clothes, washed, and redressed in appropriate attire for a day about town, Gaston put the finishing touches to his cravat. In the mirror, he caught his valet Hubert’s gaze. “What’s next on my lady’s schedule?”

June 16, 1820, noon

Florist’s shop off Covent Garden, London

Meg opened the florist’s door and led the way in. Cicely followed; they’d come from Durham House in the carriage. The interior of the shop was thick with a heady mix of floral scents. Meg scanned the dimness.

Her gaze snagged on a pair of broad shoulders.

“Damn!” she muttered beneath her breath. Gaston had escorted Juliette and her mother to the meeting.

Going forward, feeling her lips set a touch grimly, she exchanged nods with the ladies, then turned to Gaston—

He captured her hand and bowed over it with his usual exquisite grace. “Lady Margaret.”

Lips tight, ignoring the sensation elicited by his fingers clasping hers so strongly, she inclined her head formally. “Monsieur le duc. Thank you for escorting the ladies. We won’t trouble you further.”

He met her gaze; his eyes were twinkling. “It is no trouble at all, I assure you.” He exchanged a glance with the vicomtesse. “I have agreed to give a masculine opinion on this matter of flowers.”

Gaston Devilliers and flowers. Meg could think of few less likely combinations, but . . . drawing in a breath, reminding herself that the wedding was only two days away and that after that he would be gone—once again gone from her life—she determinedly turned her mind to the business at hand, namely the final approval of flowers for Juliette and her attendants to carry, for the chapel itself, and for the foyer, halls, and grand ballroom at Durham House, pressed into use for the occasion, as the de Rochers’ reception rooms were far too small.

The florist and her two assistants brought forth buckets and vases filled with the season’s blooms. The subject had been discussed ad nauseum weeks earlier, and all parties agreed to accept Meg’s recommendations. She kept the discussion to those species and varieties experience had taught her would combine well and last throughout the long day, only to have meek, mild Juliette change her mind, pout, and cling to delicate white violets that would never do.

Meg laid out the arguments against them, to no avail. Cicely bit her lip, clearly not wishing to disagree with her best friend’s choice.

The vicomtesse looked at Meg with wide eyes, and waited for her to fix it.

So it was Meg versus the bride. She inwardly sighed and opened her mouth, intending to put her foot down—

Juliette swung to Gaston. “What do you think, monsieur le duc?”

Meg clamped her lips shut. If Gaston bought into the argument on Juliette’s side, she would be able to turn her guns on an opponent more able to withstand the battering, and through attacking Gaston hopefully bring Juliette to some sense of the error of her choice—

“I . . . find I must agree with Lady Margaret, mignonne. These”—he reached out one large hand, with a blunt fingertip touched the tiny blooms, made even more tiny by the comparison—“well, you can see, can you not? These are just too small, too fragile. They send a message that you are too small and too fragile, non?” He glanced at the flowers Meg had recommended. “Roses, now—they are strong. Beautiful, elegant, but strong nonetheless. Vibrant. And they smell sweet, alluring.”

Juliette blinked. Her gaze shifted to the roses. “I never thought of flowers as meaning anything . . . as symbols.” She glanced back at the white violets, then sighed. “But, yes, I take your point. Violets are too easily crushed.” She raised her gaze to Meg’s face, gave a small apologetic smile. “You’re right—we’ll carry roses.”

Meg inclined her head and said no more, letting the incident slide as she ruthlessly steered the party on through the approval of the blooms for the larger arrangements. Happily, those were concluded without disagreement, although once again Gaston stepped in to champion her suggestion of hydrangeas rather than chrysanthemums.

Finally all was settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Cicely and Juliette led the party from the shop; the vicomtesse followed close behind.

Meg brought up the rear, with Gaston at her shoulder.

Reaching the door, he held it for her. She paused, then glanced up and met his eyes, so dark a brown they were almost black; the twinkling was there, but muted. He arched a questioning, faintly expectant brow. She rarely had trouble reading his expressions.

“Thank you.” She had to give the devil his due. “Your assistance was appreciated.”

He grinned and the twinkling intensified. “That is why I am here—to assist.”

She snorted inelegantly and swept out onto the pavement.

The vicomtesse turned to her. “To repay us for our hard work this morning, I wish to take us all to luncheon. I have been meaning to try the dining room at Bartholomew’s Hotel—it will give us an opportunity to catch our breaths, and if there are any further questions you might have, Lady Margaret, it will give you a chance to ask them.”

Meg hadn’t made any plans for luncheon; afterward, yes, but . . . she inclined her head graciously. “Thank you. That would be welcome.”

June 16, 1820, 1:00 P.M.

Dining Room, Bartholomew’s Hotel, London

“So do you still spend much time at court these days? In Paris?” Meg gave up pretending an interest in the discussion of ribbons—not ribbons for the wedding, but ribbons in general—that held Cicely, Juliette, and the vicomtesse in thrall, and addressed her question to Gaston. He and she were sitting next to each other at the end of the table, Gaston facing the vicomtesse at the other end, with Meg at his elbow. The chair opposite her was empty.

Without raising his gaze from his plate, he shook his head. “My time by the king’s side is over—I’ve stepped back and let others assume the task. It was one thing while I was essentially landless, but with my title and estates now restored, I have other responsibilities.” After a moment, he added, his voice low, just for her, “For my money, much of what fueled the Terror stemmed from noblemen forgetting just those responsibilities. My father did not, and nor will I.”

“How old are your brothers?” She told herself she asked out of idle curiosity. It was that, or ribbon knotting.

“Their ages lie between thirteen and twenty, but my father died ten years ago, and while my mother did her best, they have lacked what you might term a firm male hand. They and my mother have been back on our estates for some years, it’s true, but only in the last year have I had any time to devote to them, and . . .” He gave one of his expressive Gallic shrugs. “What would you? I am perhaps not well qualified in the suppressing of exuberant high spirits.”

“Hmm. Yes, I can see your problem.” Straight-faced, Meg tipped her head his way. “There would too frequently be the question of who was leading whom astray.”

He smiled. Not one of his teasing grins, but a genuine smile. “I am not that bad.”

She arched her brows, but made no reply. The truth was . . .

He was unfailingly honest; she’d never known him to be anything but, even when it would have paid to lie, or at least prevaricate. He was dedicated, loyal, and clearly took his responsibilities on all counts very seriously. Underneath the soldier’s armor, the chevalier’s sash and plumes, he was a thinking man. Not an intellectual, but with a strong streak of common sense and practicality. He was a man who got things done. Who won battles, and rebuilt estates, and found someone to help him civilize his younger brothers . . .

Meg fought the urge to drop her head and cover her face with her hands. She could see what he was doing—of course, she could. But, damn him, he wasn’t being pushy, wasn’t giving her any reason to cut him off at the knees, to avoid his company.

To stop him from speaking.

For her to stop listening and so avoid the temptation he was laying before her. All the reasons she should consider . . .

The offer he hadn’t yet made.

That it was coming she no longer doubted, but he wouldn’t speak until after the wedding . . . just the thought of him speaking of marriage had her stomach contracting and a wholly unfamiliar panic closing in on her.

Unfamiliar, unprecedented.

He was the only man who had ever been able to throw her so off-balance.

She could feel his dark gaze on her face, distracting and intense. She was quite sure he wasn’t twinkling at her at the moment, but him watching her with sober seriousness was, she was discovering, even more unsettling. Instead of meeting his gaze, she leaned forward and addressed the vicomtesse. “Thank you for luncheon, madame, but I fear I must get on. I will see you at the dinner tonight.”

The vicomtesse flapped. “Indeed, indeed. We must not keep you. Thank you for all you have done for us, Lady Margaret. I have your note on my dressing table—our party will be at Durham House in good time.”

Rising, Meg looked inquiringly at Cicely.

“I’m going to keep Juliette company for the afternoon,” Cicely said.

After one glance at Juliette’s face, Meg nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll tell George to send the carriage for you at four.” The last thing she needed was a bride-to-be in a state. Cicely could be counted on to keep Juliette sufficiently amused to avoid any panic.

Gaston had risen when she had. He touched her arm. “I will walk you to your carriage.”

Meg inclined her head, knowing it was pointless to argue. Gaston was a past master at exploiting the courtesies to his advantage.

Gallantly, he offered his arm. She laid her fingers on his sleeve and walked beside him from the room, trying very hard not to let her senses register the seductive aura of masculine strength that engulfed her. Being close to him, near enough for that aura to enfold her, had always made her feel . . . not overwhelmed, but alive.

Intoxicatingly alive.

He was the only man with whom she’d ever experienced the reaction.

Previously, when they’d met years ago, she’d been affianced to another.

She no longer was.

The damned man was going to make her choose.

To make a choice she’d avoided all those years ago.

She wouldn’t be able to avoid it—or him—this time, but, thank God, that time was not yet.

Reaching the street, she dragged in a breath, politely thanked him for his escort, let him assist her into her father’s carriage, sat, and determinedly refocused her mind on the many tasks she had awaiting her, rather than listening to a deep, faintly accented voice instructing her coachman to drive her home.

June 16, 1820, 4:00 P.M.

Front hall of Durham House, London

“The Duc de Perigord to see Lady Margaret.” Gaston handed the butler his cane and a visiting card. “I’ll wait here.”

“As you wish, Your Grace. I will inquire as to Lady Margaret’s wishes.”

Gaston swallowed a snort. He was fairly certain that Meg would not wish to see him, that she would avoid him if she could because he made her aware and nervous in a way of which she didn’t approve, but he was counting on her to at least see him face-to-face to give him his congé.

His coming there that afternoon wasn’t a part of his carefully plotted campaign, but on returning to his suite he’d been too restless to sit, too distracted to do anything but pace . . . so he’d paced there.

He’d told Meg the truth in that he’d only recently had the chance to think of the woman he should wed, but from the instant he had, the only face in his mind had been hers. He’d thought she’d married John Beaumont, hadn’t known the man had been killed, but to get her out of his system so he could get on and find someone else to take her place, he’d inquired . . . and discovered she was still unwed.

With his typically Gallic sense of fatality, that had, for him, answered the question of who he would wed. And so he’d started to plan.

Robert’s wedding had given him the perfect opportunity to make his bid to secure Meg’s hand.

But luring Meg to him, into his arms . . . that, he’d known, would take more than his title, more than a simple offer.

He and she . . . from the instant they’d first set eyes on each other in the summer of ’14, they’d known. Known that between them something extraordinary could flare. But she’d been engaged, and he’d been in no position to make a bid to steal her from Beaumont.

And now . . . now, to accept his hand would, for her, mean risking—more, laying aside—the independence she’d grown so accustomed to over the years.

It would mean taking his hand, and walking into the fire of whatever might be with him. Of surrendering to it, and him.

He didn’t know if she would, but he was a soldier, a risk-taker—he would risk all to have her as his wife.

He heard her footsteps tapping on the tiles.

She swept out from a corridor, his card in her hand. “Gaston—”

He held up a hand. “I know—you are busy. But that is why I have come.” He caught her cornflower blue eyes. “You are wrestling with the seating for the dinner, are you not?”

Her only answer was a tightening of her lips.

He relaxed. “Well, I have come to assist you—to tell you that, for instance, you need to keep half the table’s length between Robert’s Tante Helene and the Comtesse Vraitot. If you do not, they will be at each other’s throats.”

She frowned, those lovely, unusual, mid-blue eyes narrowing on his, then she humphed, swung around, and waved him to follow. “Very well—come and be useful.”

He followed her down a secondary corridor and into the huge library. She’d been sitting on the chaise before the hearth, uncounted lists spread on a low table before her.

“Why,” she asked, sinking back on the chaise, “are you French so damned melodramatic?”

“Because it makes life more interesting.” He sat alongside her, not so close as to crowd her. He was well aware that his nearness ruffled her senses; he felt the same in reverse. While he was eager to learn what might happen, what it would feel like, when they were even closer, skin to naked skin, she was presently skittish, stepping back, shying away. In terms of persuading her to accept his offer, he would know he’d succeeded when she stepped over the line, when she turned her back on safety and stepped into his arms. He cast a knowing eye over her lists. “What do you have so far?”

He’d been a chevalier—a senior knight—in Louis’s household for nearly a decade; he knew as much about the intricacies of precedence as she. While she knew the English attendees, he knew the French; by pooling their knowledge, they made a better fist of the seating arrangements than she would have managed alone.

“Thank you.” Meg gathered the sheets containing their final plan, leaving him to crumple the discarded versions. “The place cards are already written—now I just need to set them out.” She glanced at the clock. “Great heavens! Is that the time?”

She honestly hadn’t noticed the hours ticking past. Too engrossed with listening to the intriguing snippets about various guests Gaston had constantly let fall. The devil could be thoroughly entertaining when he wished, in a wholly unpushy way. She’d actually relaxed—and now she was going to be late getting ready. She rose.

He did, too, and waved at the door. “Come—fetch your place cards and I will help you put them out. Together we will do it in half the time, and then I will leave you to get ready.”

She met his eyes and nodded. He was right. And he’d done nothing all afternoon to make her wary.

She grabbed the place cards from her escritoire, then they hurried to the formal dining room and paced quickly back and forth down the table, already laden with silver and plate, crystal and porcelain. In ten minutes they’d created the disposition of persons around the table that they’d earlier determined.

“Bon—it is done.” Gaston caught her hand, raised it to his lips and pressed an almost distracted kiss to her knuckles. “And now I must away.” Releasing her, he swept her a flourishing bow as he backed to the door. “I will see you tonight, mignonne.”

Meg stood and stared as he turned and strode from the room. The phantom brush of his lips still burned her skin, sending a wave of heat through her.

The door closed behind him, and still she stared. Mignonne? She was five feet ten inches tall, and wore her dark hair up in a swirling knot, adding an inch at least.

She wasn’t exactly slender, either; Junoesque would be nearer the mark.

“Mignonne.” Her lips twitched, then she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Good Lord!” Grabbing up her skirts, she rushed for the door.

If there was one rule above all others in planning a wedding, it was that the wedding planner could never be late.

June 16, 1820, 10:00 P.M.

Gardens of Durham House, London

“Dare I say it, but that went better than even you might have hoped.” Gaston followed Meg onto the terrace running alongside the Durham House drawing room.

“Thus far.” Meg scanned the moonlit lawns, then spotted her quarry—the affianced couple— strolling with Cicely, her husband Hugh, and another of Robert’s groomsmen farther down the terrace. Appeased, she drew back into the shadows by the wall. “Never before have I had to organize a dinner with three effective hosts, even if Robert’s parents are dead.”

“I thought your parents did an admirable job of taking the lead and smoothing things over.”

“I had them well-rehearsed. Besides, they’ve done such deeds often enough, while the vicomte and vicomtesse are so . . . well, babes-in-the-woods when it comes to such affairs.”

“Not everyone is born and bred to the purple.” Gaston reached out and captured her hand, holding tight when she started, then tried to ease her fingers free. “Come and show me your lovely gardens. Everyone in there”—he tipped his head toward the drawing room—“is presently comfortable, and our bride and groom are being suitably watched over.”

She hesitated, but he gently drew her on, knew when her feet started to move that he’d won.

“There’s not much to see.” She followed him down the shallow steps to the graveled path.

He wound her arm with his, then set out, slowly strolling. “But the air here is fresher, and the noise so much less.” He glanced at her, smiled. “Surely, having steered the event so successfully thus far, you are due a moment of respite, to catch your breath and clear your head before returning to guide the throng out of the door.”

Her eyes narrowed on his. “That sounds far too reasonable for you.”

He grinned and looked ahead. Debated his next move. He knew what he wanted, but how to get it . . . In the curve of the path ahead, tucked under the overhanging boughs of a large tree, he spotted a small summerhouse. “Mignonne, there is something I wish to discuss with—”

“You can’t call me mignonne. I’m not anyone’s mignonne.”

“Ah, but you most assuredly are.” He guided her up the two shallow steps into the dense shadows of the summerhouse.

Retrieving her hand, she turned to glare at him. “That’s nonsense. Juliette might quite rightly be termed a mignonne, but as for me—”

“What do you think mignonne means?”

Meg blinked. Studied him. After a moment spent checking her translation, she replied, “Dainty. Delicate.”

He grinned; she saw his teeth flash white in the darkness. Knew without sight that his eyes were twinkling as he stepped closer, inclining his head. “That’s one version.”

She frowned direfully, even if in the dimness he wouldn’t get the full effect. “What else does it mean?” What was he, in his devilish way, calling her?

“I will tell you one day, but not tonight. As I said”—he drew closer yet, lowered his voice, tipped his head down, closer to hers, as if to whisper some secret—“there is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Her traitorous gaze had slid to his lips. She felt faintly dizzy, almost as if she swayed, the blood slowly draining from her brain to throb in her lips, then slide lower . . . “What?” The word was a mere whisper; she tried to raise her gaze to his eyes, but couldn’t drag it from his lips. So close . . .

They moved slowly closer.

“This.”

The word, carried on a single breath, washed over her lips, then he closed the last fraction of an inch as she, entirely involuntarily, following an impulse as old as time, tipped her face up to his.

In a wordless invitation she’d never meant to offer.

An invitation he accepted.

The kiss . . .

Was all and more than she’d ever dreamt his kiss might be.

His lips moved on hers, confident, yet not urgent.

She felt his fingers touch, trace her jaw, frame it, his hand resting heavy against her throat. His other hand blindly reached and found her hand; his fingers twined with hers, held tight as the delicate, enthralling, intoxicating caress spun on.

Moonlight and madness, silver and gold, swirled and snared her.

She parted her lips, wanted and needed, to feel, to know, to experience.

She felt him drag in a breath, then slowly, to the beat of their hearts, his tongue slid between and he showed her. Claimed her.

The moment stretched, crystal and sharp, and achingly sweet.

No rush, no pressure, no overwhelming heat.

Just pleasure.

It drew her on, forward, inexorable and inevitable.

Until she stood teetering on some indefinable edge.

She drew back, breathless, wide-eyed.

Unable to do anything but stare through the dimness into his night-dark eyes.

She searched, but couldn’t see, could sense nothing more than her heart beating, heated and hot, beneath her skin, in her fingertips, in her lips. She eased back a fraction more, settling back from her toes to her heels, realizing only then that she had stretched up to him. She moistened her lips. “I—we—have to get back.” She glanced fleetingly at the lighted drawing room windows, at the glittering throng within, but immediately looked back at him.

Only to see him draw back, straightening. “Yes. We do.” His voice held to its usual deep but charming cadence; she could read nothing in his tone. “Come.” He still held her hand.

She went with him down the steps of the summerhouse.

Hand in hand, they returned to the house.

June 16, 1820, midnight

Meg’s bedchamber, Durham House, London

“Hugh said he thought it went wonderfully well. No dramas, although quite clearly the potential was there. He said to tell you you’d done your usual exceptional job.” Cicely nodded at Meg. Once more perched on the end of Meg’s bed, Cicely grinned, and went on, “You have to admit Gaston Devilliers is devastatingly handsome, entertaining, and exceedingly clever to boot.”

When Meg said nothing, Cicely thumped her on her foot, protected by the bedcovers. “I don’t understand why you’re not interested in the man. He’s any sane woman’s dream—a hellion who has settled down to manage his estates.” Slipping from the bed, Cicely spread her arms. “He has every one of Beaumont’s advantages, and ten more besides.”

“Cicely—go to bed.” Meg lowered her lids; she’d had enough. As the youngest child, Cicely had always been tenacious.

She could almost feel Cicely’s glare as she stood, hands on hips, and pulled a face at her.

“All right—I’m going.” Cicely walked toward the door. “But I wonder if you can answer me this—what is it you don’t like about Gaston Devilliers?” Turning at the door, she said, “If you can answer me that, I’ll promise not to tease you anymore.”

Meg kept her eyes almost shut, and pretended not to hear.

Cicely humphed, opened the door and went out.

Meg reached out and snuffed her candle, then composed herself for sleep. She was determined not to think of Cicely’s question, not to think about Gaston at all, and especially not to think about that kiss . . .

Just the words brought the sensations flooding back, overwhelming her senses. She would, she felt sure, never forget that kiss, so subtle, so . . . expert.

She had no doubt at all that when it came to seduction, Gaston would be a past master. But contrary to Cicely’s assumption, she did know the answer to her question.

The thing—the one thing—she didn’t like about Gaston Devilliers was that he was, put simply, too much. Too male. Too arrogant, too dangerous. Too strong, too self-willed.

Too much like her.

Too much for her to cope with, to interact with and keep her feet firmly on the ground. That kiss, for instance, had swept her from this world and into some other.

Just being close to him was enough to make her feel . . . no longer in control.

Gaston Devilliers affected her like a whirlwind, sweeping her into a landscape she didn’t know, showing her a self she didn’t truly recognize.

She knew the temptation he posed, but accepting any offer he might make . . . while being with him, in his arms, might be exciting, enthralling, intoxicating, it would entail letting go. Trusting, and letting go.

And that was a challenge she wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to face.

Accepting Beaumont had been easy; she’d known that with him she would always, in every possible sphere, remain herself, remain in full control.

Gaston . . . being with Gaston would be like riding the wild wind.

Ten minutes later, irritated with herself, she put him out of her mind and refocused instead on the royal wedding she had one more day to perfect.

June 17, 1820, 11:00 A.M., the day before the wedding

Music Room, Durham House, London

“No, no, no!” Meg waved her hands, halting Juliette and Robert, who were practicing their waltzing in preparation for the next day. “Robert, you cannot drop your shoulders. And Juliette, you must keep your spine straight.”

It had never occurred to her that two people of Robert and Juliette’s age might not be at least passably creditable on the dance floor.

Cicely sat at the piano, hands poised above the keys. Meg could feel her sympathy equally divided between the three of them—Robert, Juliette, and herself. Cicely could see as well as Meg could that the pair were not sufficiently well-versed in the waltz to risk them on a crowded floor, much less have them go down the room all on their own in the wedding waltz, with everyone staring at them; as matters stood, that was a sure recipe for disaster.

The dancing master, Mr. Phipps, had already washed his hands of them and departed.

Setting her hands on her hips, Meg pressed her lips tight, and wondered what else she could do. She didn’t have the option of not having a wedding waltz; this was a royal wedding and everyone would expect everything to be up to the mark. There was no help for it; Robert and Juliette had to improve, and had not much more than a day in which to do it—

“There you are.”

She heard the door close and glanced around as Gaston came strolling toward her.

His gaze raked her face. “What’s wrong?”

Without looking away from him, Meg gestured at the young couple wilting before her. “They can’t waltz—or at least, not well enough. And I can’t think how to help them.”

Gaston looked at the pair, then at Cicely, then turned back to Meg. “Simple. We’ll show them.”

Courtesy of Cicely, the waltz rang out again. Before Meg could gather her wits, Gaston had gathered her into his arms—and they were moving, effortlessly sweeping down the floor.

Instinctively, her body matched his, step for step, sweeping stride for stride. She could feel her skirts playing out around her, just as they should. His lean, muscled strength held her caged, yet was perfectly gauged so that she didn’t feel trapped, yet following his lead required not the smallest thought.

She shut her mouth, narrowed her eyes at him—but he merely smiled and continued waltzing, whirling her around, then steering her through a swift, sweeping turn. The temptation to close her eyes and savor was very real.

Dancing with him was all pleasure.

Satisfied she wasn’t going to balk, or even try to pretend she couldn’t or shouldn’t waltz with him, Gaston raised his head and nodded to Robert. “Like this. Do as I do—exactly as I do. Match your body, your movements, to mine.” He switched his gaze to Juliette and smiled encouragingly. “You must stop thinking about how others will see you, mignonne. Just mimic Meg, and all will go well.”

Lowering his voice so only Meg could hear, he murmured, “When I call Juliette mignonne, I mean dainty and delicate. When I call you mignonne, I mean something else.” Reassured the other two were doing as he’d bid them, he looked down and met her eyes. “Your butler, George, told me the dancing master was here but left. Why didn’t you demonstrate with him?”

“Because Phipps is half a head shorter than me.” She pressed her lips together as if to hold back more, but when he arched his brows, added, “Me dancing with Phipps would only have confused Robert and Juliette even more. Phipps might be the most expert dancing master in the ton, but whenever I dance with him, I invariably end up leading.”

Gaston barked out a laugh, then, eyes still laughing, tightened his hold on her. “That will never be a problem when you dance with me, mignonne.”

Ignoring the fact that he was now holding her too closely, that she could feel every seductive shift of his powerful body against hers, and was exquisitely aware of the muscled length of his thigh parting hers as they whirled, Meg sniffed, tipped her nose in the air and fought not to let her senses swoon with delight as he swung her through another turn.

By the end of the following hour Robert and Juliette were waltzing quite creditably.

And Meg felt breathless, exhilarated, her senses swept dizzyingly high on pure pleasure.

June 17, 1820, 2:00 P.M.

Durham House, London

The five of them shared a light luncheon, then Cicely took Juliette home, under strict instructions to ensure the bride rested for the remainder of that day and the coming night in preparation for her big day.

In the front hall, Robert bowed over Meg’s hand. “Thank you, Lady Margaret—I do not know how we would have managed without your help.”

Meg squeezed his fingers. “Thank me tomorrow, after it’s all over.”

Releasing her, Robert grinned at Gaston. “I must away and polish the ring.”

“Aha! Don’t forget to give the ring to Gaston.” Meg wagged a finger at them both. “I do not want any nasty surprises when you’re standing before the altar.”

Robert glanced at Gaston, as if unsure what their arrangements were.

“Do not worry,” Gaston said. “We have all that sorted out.”

Robert smiled, nodded, and left.

As George closed the door, Meg turned to Gaston, expecting him to take his leave, too.

He met her gaze, his expression sober. “I suggest, mignonne, that I help you finalize the seating arrangements for the chapel and the wedding breakfast. There are more people attending that you do not know, and many hidden dangers.”

As that was precisely the task she’d been about to wrestle with, and his knowledge of the French attendees was exactly what she needed, Meg accepted with a graceful nod. “Thank you. Your help would be appreciated.”

She hoped the look she cast him was warning enough that she would not appreciate any distraction.

He certainly saw it; his lips curved slightly, but all he did was wave her down the corridor to the library.

Once again they sat on the chaise and pored over her lists.

Somewhat to her surprise, he remained all business and didn’t try to distract her once.

For which she was, she told herself, grateful. Just him being there beside her, large, powerful, and so intensely male, was distraction enough. Her senses seemed to have a mind of their own when it came to Gaston.

But they made an excellent job of refining the seating, deftly avoiding at least two situations that held the potential for diplomatic incidents. With the lists for the ushers at the chapel, and the diagrams detailing the placement of the place cards for the wedding breakfast—again to be held in the ballroom of Durham House—finally ready to be handed on to George, Meg sat back with a sigh. “Again, thank you.” She caught Gaston’s eye as he shifted to face her. “I couldn’t have managed that without your help.”

He smiled, his eyes surveying her.

She waited for him to pounce.

Instead, his smile deepened. “You should rest, mignonne. Such a long day as you will have tomorrow.”

Not taking her eyes from his, she shrugged. “In large part my work is done.” She waved at the lists on the low table before them. “Other than being there in case anything goes wrong, there’s nothing more I really need to do.”

The tenor of his smile changed; now it held an edge of satisfaction.

Before she could probe, a tap on the door heralded George.

“Afternoon tea, my lady?”

“Yes, thank you.” She sat up and glanced questioningly at Gaston.

Somewhat to her surprise, he nodded, accepting the unvoiced invitation. “If you please.” Elegant as ever, he lounged back against the chaise. “I was wondering . . . perhaps you might tell me what has happened to our English acquaintances over the five years since last I was here.”

An unexceptionable request. With a nod to George, she relaxed in her corner of the chaise and proceeded to regale Gaston with the major ton developments over the last five years.

June 17, 1820, 7:00 P.M., the evening before the wedding

Family Dining Room, Durham House, London

Meg settled in her chair at the dinner table, reduced to just six places . . . she frowned at the empty place set opposite hers. “I thought we were having an early, quiet, family dinner.”

At the end of the table, her mother shrugged. “Your father sent word he’s invited the gentleman presently with him to dine.”

Before Meg could ask who that gentleman was, Cicely asked her husband, Hugh, to pass the condiments, then George leaned past Meg’s shoulder to fill her water glass.

Footsteps sounded in the hall outside. Meg glanced at the doorway as her father appeared—with Gaston by his shoulder.

Her father didn’t look Meg’s way, but smiled at her mother and waved Gaston down the table, to the duchess. “My dear, allow me to present the Duc de Perigord. You will remember him from Vienna.”

Meg watched as the introductions were made, as her mother smiled, charmed by Gaston’s ready address, then Hugh rose and shook hands.

Her father glanced at her and Cicely. “I believe you two are already acquainted with His Grace.”

“Oh, yes.” Cicely favored Gaston with a bright smile. “Monsieur le duc has been helping us with the wedding.”

“Indeed.” Meg said nothing more as Gaston claimed the empty chair opposite hers.

Contrary to her expectations, however, the meal passed in easy, companionable vein. There was nothing, no incident, no slip of the tongue, no hint of any sort, to bolster her niggling suspicion that Gaston, erstwhile Chevalier Devilliers, now Duc de Perigord, was up to something.

The clocks about the house had chimed eight o’clock some time before, and the simpler than usual meal had drawn to a close when Gaston, chatting to Cicely, mentioned, “I have been given two tickets to the Theatre Royal for tonight. I understand it is the last night your great Edmund Kean will tread the boards there before departing for New York.”

Meg stared at him.

So it was no great surprise that he looked at her.

Then he smiled. “I was wondering, Lady Margaret, if you would like to accompany me. Shakespeare is not my strong suit, and I believe the play tonight is Richard the Third.”

“Yes, it is.” She’d been wanting to see it, to witness Kean in one of his signature roles before the little actor went overseas, but what with the wedding to organize, and tonight being Kean’s last, she’d given up all hope. How had Gaston known?

He arched a dark brow at her. “So you will come?”

She blinked. “I don’t know—”

Cicely made a rude, sisterly sound. “Nonsense—you’ve been working your fingers to the bone with this wedding. Now that everything is organized, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have an evening to yourself.”

“Indeed,” the duchess weighed in. “It will do you good to spend an evening as a daughter of this house should, and not giving yourself eyestrain scribbling yet more lists.”

“It’s very kind of Perigord to make the offer,” her father drawled.

Meg heard the unstated in her father’s tone, that Gaston was, in noble terms, her father’s equal, and a guest under his roof. As Gaston had requested her company on such an unexceptionable outing, she would need a very good reason to refuse.

Gaston’s smile deepened a fraction; from this angle, she couldn’t tell whether his eyes were twinkling, but she rather thought they were. “You told me yourself that your work with the wedding is done.”

So she had; the memory of the fleeting satisfaction she’d seen in his eyes at the time had her narrowing hers.

He made a graceful gesture. “Consider the outing as an expression of thanks from Robert’s family.”

And that was the nail in the coffin. There was, patently, no reasonable excuse she could offer for not accepting. Matching him for graciousness, she inclined her head. “Thank you, monsieur le duc. I will be pleased to accompany you.” Glancing at the clock—noticing he did the same—she then met his eyes over the table. “If we want to catch the farce, I suggest we leave now.” She rose, and the men rose with her. “If you will excuse me for a moment, I’ll fetch my cloak.” She dipped her head to her parents. “Mama. Papa.”

Turning from the table, she walked from the room.

June 17, 1820, 9:00 P.M.

Private box, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London

The tickets Gaston had were for a coveted private box in the second tier; it commanded an unparalleled view of the stage.

They’d arrived just after the commencement of the farce, and had taken their seats at the front of the box in the muted light from the stage. Meg was watchful, wondering, thrown off-balance yet again and left with no notion what to think.

Could this truly be the coincidence Gaston and everyone else seemed to expect her to believe it was, or was it part of some devilish scheme on his part?

She couldn’t imagine how he might have learned she’d so wanted to see this show, but the silliness of the farce distracted her, then, when the curtain came down and the lights strengthened, she discovered that Gaston had arranged for champagne to be served.

A bare instant after she took her first sip, a tap on the door of the box heralded the first of the curious ton who, presuming on acquaintance with her, wished to make the acquaintance of her so-interesting host. Long- and well-drilled in the ways of society and diplomacy, she stood beside Gaston and made the introductions. Grateful that he could hold his own once that had been done, she merely lent an ear to the conversations, ready to step in if required, otherwise enjoying the truly excellent champagne.

She was, of course, interested enough to note that Gaston’s responses to the numerous probing questions over his involvement with the French court never deviated from what he had told her. It seemed he had truly retired from court life, and was now deeply involved with furthering not just his own estates, but the commerce of the region in which they lay. Several rueful remarks as to his lack of a direct heir confirmed that his commitment to his brothers, his family, and to the task of securing his wife, was quite genuine.

At last the lights dimmed, and those still in the box made hurried farewells and departed.

Seating her again, then sliding into the chair beside her, Gaston smiled. “Thank you, mignonne. I knew I was right in asking you to accompany me—I would never have been able to weather that barrage without your assistance.”

Eyes fixed on the rising curtain, she sipped, then said, “Consider it repayment for your assistance with the wedding.”

He merely inclined his head. A sidelong glance showed her that his attention, too, was now fixed on the stage.

When Kean appeared, everyone applauded, then fell silent. Fell under the man’s spell, one he wove with consummate mastery.

Meg was wholly caught. At one point she felt Gaston lift her empty glass from her slack fingers, then his hand returned to close, warm and anchoring, around hers.

She shouldn’t have allowed the familiarity, but couldn’t summon sufficient willpower to sever the contact. Through it, she sensed that he, too, was captured by the veteran actor’s performance, that he, too, felt the sudden tensions elicited by the plot.

As the drama unfolded, she shifted closer, let her shoulder lean comfortably against his as together they watched, rapt, trapped in the moment.

When the play finally ended and Kean took his bow, they rose as one—with most of the rest of the audience—to applaud and call their bravos.

Finally, the curtain came down and the lights flared. Meg drew in a huge breath, slowly exhaled. And realized she felt refreshed, alive. Restored.

She hadn’t thought about the blasted royal wedding for hours.

Turning to Gaston, she smiled, openly letting her delight show. “Thank you. That was wonderful—it was everything I hoped the performance would be.”

He returned her smile, his eyes warm. “Bon.” He held up her cloak. “Come—our carriage should be waiting. Let us leave before anyone else decides they really must interrogate me over Louis’s intentions.”

She laughed, took his arm and let him lead her to the door.

June 17, 1820, midnight

Bartholomew’s Hotel, London

When the carriage drew up before the ornate front door of Bartholomew’s Hotel, Meg turned her head and arched a brow at Gaston, seated opposite. The carriage was one of her father’s; she hadn’t bothered listening to the orders Gaston had given the coachman.

His expression relaxed, but his lips and, as far as she could tell, his eyes unsmiling, he reached for the door latch, opened the door, and stepped down to the pavement.

Waving back the doorman, he turned and held out his hand to her. “If you would humor me, mignonne, there is a matter I believe we should discuss.”

Every suspicion and premonition that had slid through her mind in recent days came rushing to the fore. She stared at him.

His hand remained steady, his gaze locked with hers. “I believe we would both prefer to discuss the matter in private.”

She knew precisely what he—impossible man—wished to discuss, but wasn’t at all sure she was ready to discuss that particular topic with him, and certainly not alone with him in a hotel.

But he didn’t shift, didn’t move, simply waited. He was—as she’d foreseen—going to make her choose.

One dark brow faintly arched. “The carriage, of course, will wait.”

So what had she to fear? The light from the gas lamps fell over him, illuminating the challenge, clear and bright, that gleamed in his dark eyes.

He was manipulating her, yet . . . this moment, this discussion, she’d known it would come.

She just hadn’t expected him to make such a move before the wedding.

Lifting her chin, she reached out and grasped his hand. “Very well.” She allowed him to help her from the carriage, then, head high, walked by his side, her hand on his arm, into the fashionable hotel.

He took her upstairs to the privacy and quiet of the sitting room of a large suite. Other than with her brothers, she’d never been alone with a man in such a setting, but she was twenty-eight, and had needed no chaperon to visit the theater with him.

She allowed him to remove her cloak, then walked forward to place her reticule on the low table before the sofa, reflecting that it was just as well there was no one else present to witness what came next.

Somewhat to her surprise, he didn’t light a lamp. Instead, after studying her for an instant, he prowled to the window. Pushing aside the flimsy drapes, he looked out.

When he didn’t say anything, didn’t turn back to her, drawn, she crossed the room to his side.

As she joined him before the window, he said, “This window looks south. Far away, beyond London, beyond Paris, far over the horizon lies Perigord. And deep in that province lie my estates, waiting for me to return.”

He shifted his gaze to her face. She felt it, but didn’t yet meet it.

“I am already on borrowed time. I must leave tomorrow.”

She nodded. “After the wedding.”

“No—before.”

That had her turning her head, looking into his face, searching his eyes.

“I didn’t come to London for the wedding, Meg. I came for you.”

A plethora of minor observations suddenly fell into place, but with her heart already thumping, already lost in his dark gaze, she wasted no time on them. “Why?”

“Because I need you.”

“You need a wife.”

“No—I need you. I have never wanted any other woman as mine, only you.” He paused, then went on, “But when I first saw you, you were Beaumont’s. He wanted you, and you wanted him.” He held her gaze steadily. “I knew even then, but”—he shrugged fatalistically—“there was nothing I could do. I was a mere chevalier in an exiled prince’s train. I had no title, little wealth, no estates. I had nothing to offer you, and no right to interfere.

“But Beaumont is long dead, yet you are still here.” He tipped his head. “Why is that?”

He had her there; any answer she gave would only undermine her position. She struggled to keep her lips from curving in appreciation of his tactics.

Correctly reading her silence as capitulation of a sort, he turned to fully face her, his gaze growing intent. “We both know I am not Beaumont—I will never allow you to rule me as you would have ruled him. But this you have always known.” He paused, then went on, “What you don’t know is that, to have you as mine, as my wife, as my helpmate, I would offer you . . . a partnership. Equal partners—as equal as we can be. I cede to you the right to question me, to argue and harangue as you deem necessary. You may run my household as you wish, albeit under the stamp of my authority. I will cede to you—” Breaking off, he let his lips twist eloquently. “I will give to you whatever I damn well must to ensure you face an altar as my bride.”

She did smile at that, albeit faintly. There was too much riding on this, on their words. For both of them. “It’s not—” She drew breath, surprised to hear her voice so low, so husky. “That,” she stated, holding his dark gaze, “is not the principal problem. Not the main hurdle between us.”

She’d thought she would have to, somehow, explain, but his expression shifted, lips curving in something like amused resignation.

“Ah. You mean this.” Raising one hand, his eyes on hers, he touched a fingertip to the corner of her lips, then drew the finger slowly down, over her jaw, down the side of her throat, down over her collarbone and the expanse of creamy skin exposed by the low neckline of her evening gown.

The resulting shiver rocked her to her soul. Her head tipped slightly back, her lids lowered; she nearly swayed.

His hand touched her waist; even through the thick silk she felt its heat. Gripping lightly, shifting nearer, he steadied her. “You knew it as well as I, all those years ago.”

Which was why, all those years ago, they’d both been so very careful to keep their distance, to never touch, to never take the chance of the fire and flames igniting.

But now they had. They’d waltzed. They’d kissed.

They’d played with fire.

And the years apart had done nothing to mute the blaze, the searing, mind-cindering power.

He was looking down at her, reading she knew not what in her eyes. “It scares you?”

He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t teasing. She nodded, managed a hoarse, “Yes.”

He hesitated, then, voice low, said, “Would it help to know that it scares me, too?”

She could see his face clearly, knew he wasn’t lying, yet . . . “I can’t imagine you being scared of anything.”

Again he looked at her with that wry, resigned amusement. “Not even of something that might bring me to my knees?”

“Your knees.” The image was a potent distraction.

His lips quirked. “In more ways than one.”

Eyes still on his, she tilted her head. “That, I’d like to see.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Peste.”

When she just looked at him, brows faintly rising, he heaved a put-upon sigh, then catching her hands in his, he went down on his knees before her.

Holding her hands, he looked up at her. “There—you have it. Margaret Dawlish, will you do me the honor of being my wife, my lover, my heart—my duchess?”

He was trying to make it easier for her. They were skirting the issue—or rather she was, and he was letting her.

She stared down into his face—a face that had inhabited her dreams for years, ever since she’d first seen it. Knew he was being brutally honest, while she . . . she gripped his hands, looked into his eyes. “Gaston—I . . . it’s not you, not—” Tugging one hand free, she waved. “It’s not about households, and you and me. It’s . . .” Eyes locked with his, drawing strength from the connection, she dragged in a breath and said, “I’ve never liked losing control, and what’s between us—”

What flared between them was overwhelming, and she had no words to encompass what she felt, the sheer terror of simply letting go, of ceding control so completely to some force she had no reckoning of, no understanding.

He rose and recaptured her hands. “Listen to me, mignonne. There is nothing to fear. Yes, we can’t control it—no one can. That would be the equivalent of controlling the moon and stars. Yes, it will, to some extent, control us. That’s its nature. But if we want to be together, to live as we should, together, and make all that we can of the chances life has blessed us with, then surrender we must. It’s more powerful than both of us.”

She inwardly teetered, gripped his hands. “What do you mean when you call me mignonne?”

He didn’t shrug the question aside, but held her gaze solemnly. “My native tongue, the dialect, is derived from what scholars term Middle French. In that language, mignonne means lover, darling, beloved.” He hesitated, then said, “I love you, mignonne. I always have. And you love me. I could not let you go.” He paused, then more quietly added, “I cannot let you go.”

And she couldn’t step back from this—from the precipice he’d brought her to—any more than he could. Not now.

Holding her gaze, he drew a deep, tight breath. “Trust me, mignonne. Place your hand in mine and step with me into the fire and the flames—and let them have us.”

She was caught in his passion, his certainty. Clung to it. “Here? Now?” She asked only to be sure. If he would accept the risk, how could she not?

He nodded. “Here. Now.”

The breath she drew was shaky. She raised her head. Nodded back. “All right.”

He lifted her hands to his lips, kissed. His eyes burned into hers. “You will never regret this.”

Her smile wobbled. “Make sure I don’t.”

He smiled and bent his head.

His lips were still curved as they met hers.

And he waltzed her into the conflagration of the fire and the flames.

Through the long hours that followed, through the searing passion and the scorching desire, she saw, again and again, that all he’d told her was true.

They were equals even in this—equally bound, equally conquered, and at the end, equally blessed.

And there was, as he’d told her, nothing to fear, because even when they reached that pinnacle beyond which there was no beginning and no end, there was always one shining truth remaining—one beacon to guide them through oblivion and back to earth, to the bliss and joy of each other’s arms.

That truth would always be with them, engraved on both their hearts. He was hers and she was his, and between them, finally set free, their love shone in all its brilliant splendor, bright, strong, passionately fierce.

The years had never dimmed it, and no years to come would see it sundered.

No threat, no weapon, could ever come between two lovers love had chosen, who had the courage to embrace and surrender to love.

June 18, 1820, 11:00 A.M., the day of the wedding

St. James Chapel, Manchester Square, London

The ceremony uniting Robert, Prince du Garde, of the House of Bourbon, and Juliette, only daughter of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Rocher, went off splendidly, without a single hitch.

As expected, the senior groomsman handed over the vital gold ring at the appropriate moment, and countless sighs were heard as the handsome bridegroom slipped the ring on the radiant bride’s finger.

Later, outside the chapel, many guests, either while congratulating the happy couple or congratulating themselves on the felicity of being invited to attend such a signal event as a royal wedding, noted the absence of Lady Margaret Dawlish, but all assumed that her ladyship, having overseen the ceremony from some concealed spot, had rushed on to wield her magic at the ballroom in which the wedding breakfast would take place.

Fewer guests remarked on the nonattendance of the Duc de Perigord, assuming his visit to London had been fleeting, perhaps cut short, or that matters of state had intervened, keeping him busy elsewhere.

Had they but known it, all the above were true.

Luckily, none but their families knew of any reason to connect Lady Margaret’s invisibility with the Duc de Perigord’s defection, and as said families remained sunnily unconcerned, deflecting all inquiries with transparent confidence, no one in the wider ton paid the matter any heed at all.

June 18, 1820, 1:00 P.M.

Old Minstrel’s Gallery above the Ballroom, Durham House, London

“See?” From over Meg’s shoulder, Gaston looked down at the wedding breakfast in full swing in the ballroom below. “I told you they would manage perfectly well without us.”

Meg scanned the faces. “God only knows what happened at the ceremony.”

“Do you see any unhappy faces there, mignonne? No. Because all went perfectly, exactly as you had arranged.”

Meg glanced at him, eyes faintly narrow. “I hate it when you’re right.”

He grinned at her. “You will have to learn to get used to it—just as you did last night.”

Meg felt a blush climb up her throat and into her cheeks at the reminder of exactly what had filled their night, and most of their morning, too, resulting in her missing the only royal wedding she’d ever organized.

Not that she truly minded; Gaston, and all he’d shown her, was more than adequate compensation.

But it hadn’t been until fifteen minutes ago that she’d realized that none of their respective families had expected them to make an appearance at the ceremony, or indeed, at the breakfast. She and Gaston had slipped into the house through a side door, and gone straight to her room so she could change. He had a yacht standing by to catch the afternoon tide, and she had agreed to go with him.

On entering her room, she’d come to an abrupt halt. Gaston, following, had propelled her farther in and shut the door. Leaving her gawping at her traveling trunks, all packed and ready, waiting.

There’d been notes, too—from Cicely, Rosalind, and Miranda, her sisters, from her two brothers, and her mother and father, too. From Juliette and Robert, and the de Rochers.

But it was the present Cicely, Rosalind, and Miranda had hidden in the top of her night case that reduced her to tears. A scandalous nightgown of silk and lace, all but diaphanous, with a note pinned to the abbreviated neckline:

You gave us our dreams—we hope this helps in making yours come true.

She’d been laughing and crying at the same time.

Gaston had looked at her warily, then carefully taken her into his arms. He’d kissed her forehead, then after a moment murmured, “I know you are crying because you are happy, mignonne, but I cannot say that I like to see you cry.”

She’d cried even harder then.

After she’d dried her eyes, and with Gaston’s help changed into the traveling gown someone had helpfully left out, while she’d checked her jewelry, brushes, and combs, Gaston summoned the footmen and sent her trunks down to the carriage waiting to whisk them to the coast.

At her insistence, they’d come up to the tiny gallery; Gaston had seen no reason to go anywhere near the wedding breakfast and the hordes of people attending, but she’d pressed and he’d bent and agreed she could look from afar.

Now that she knew her family and the de Rochers, and Robert, too, had been in on his plan all along, she wasn’t so surprised to see no anxious glances being cast about, no hint of any tension marring the joy of the gathering below.

His gaze on her face, Gaston said from beside her, “The organization was done—your role, and mine, too, were played and complete.”

She nodded.

He stepped back to the curtains at the rear of the gallery.

Hands on the railing, she turned.

He captured her gaze, his eyes dark and intent, and held out his hand. “Come. You have started enough couples on their roads to happiness—it is time to step out along your own path.”

She held his gaze, then without a single glance back, she turned from the railing, turned her back on the noisy gathering below, placed her hand in his and let him draw her on—into life, into love, into their shared future.

August 1820

Drawing Room, Lady Osbaldestone’s town house, London

“ ‘In an exclusive report, this publication can advise its readers that Lady Margaret Dawlish, eldest daughter of the Duke of Durham and widely regarded as the ton’s most successful organizer of exclusive weddings, has married the Duc de Perigord in a very private ceremony in Paris. It is rumored that the bride and groom, both having reached a certain age, saw no reason to indulge in the pomp and circumstance customarily attendant on marriages of such eminent scions of ducal houses, and thus chose to marry quietly.

“ ‘An alternative hypothesis is that, having just concluded the organization of the recent royal wedding of the Prince du Garde, a close relative of the duc, in London, Lady Margaret and the duc opted for a smaller family ceremony in order not to be seen as in any way competing with the younger couple for society’s attention.

“ ‘Regardless of which of these theories holds most water, it is known that the couple, having been granted the required royal assent from Loius XVIII, were married in the family chapel of the elegant Hotel de Perigord in Paris on the sixteenth of July. The bride’s family is known to have been vacationing in Paris over that time.

“ ‘Sadly for all young ladies in any way connected with the House of Durham, we must report that our sources have indicated that Lady Margaret is unlikely to resume her previous hobby. She is believed to have returned with her husband to his estates in the south of France with the stated intention of devoting her considerable energies henceforth to assisting the duc in ruling over and rebuilding the far-flung de Perigord family holdings.

“ ‘It is with sincere regret that we at this publication bid Lady Margaret a fond adieu. In view of the many events she has organized which have provided our readers with such vicarious excitement over the years, with all due regard we take this opportunity to wish her well.’

“Well! That was very nicely put, I must say.” Cicely laid the morning paper aside. “I must remember to post a copy to Meg—she’ll appreciate that last bit.”

“Indeed.” Lady Osbaldestone’s black eyes gleamed. She nodded at Cicely with overt approval. “You did well, child. There are weddings, and weddings, and while Meg may have been expert in organizing the first sort, you did very well. Clearly she isn’t the only Dawlish who can plan a wedding and pull it off.” Catching Cicely’s eye, Lady Osbaldestone asked, “Are you going to tell her? Confess that it was you that devil Gaston enlisted to aid him?”

Cicely thought, then, smiling fondly, shook her head. “I don’t think so. There are some secrets between sisters that are best left . . . secret.”

Ever After

Gaelen Foley

In London society, it was altogether unfashionable to be in love with one’s own spouse, as Eleanor Montford, the Countess of Archer, was well aware. But seated at her vanity, she went motionless when the earl, her husband, sauntered into her boudoir, tall and handsome, devastating in his full dress uniform as a former officer of the Blues.

“Almost ready, darling?”

For a second, staring at him, she could not find her voice, and rued the girlish flutter of her heart.

“Almost,” she managed coolly.

“Allow me.” With gallantry polished to a sheen like the war medals on his chest, Roland James Augustus Montford, Colonel Lord Archer, stepped up behind her dainty chair and took over the task of fastening her necklace for her.

The warm brush of fingers against her nape made Elle quiver, much to her dismay.

“There,” he murmured.

She lifted her hand absently to the necklace, but could not tear her gaze away from the magnificent man in the reflection behind her.

Oh, she could not even imagine what he would say if he knew the depth of her passion for him, jealousy and all. He’d probably find it amusing. But for Elle—a lady who prided herself on decorum—she could not bear for him to think her silly.

She resolved to keep her secret to herself. Especially now.

Doing her best to ignore him, she picked up the powder puff to finish adding a hint of color to her cheeks. He remained behind her, a smile curving his hard, narrow mouth as he leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of her on the edge of the vanity. With a fascinated look, he watched her proceed to darken the tips of her lashes with black frankincense resin on a tiny camel-hair brush. “Such intricate goings-on,” he remarked. “I had no idea.”

She met his glance in the mirror, his warm gray eyes full of that irresistible charm, and for a moment the tension between them of late was forgotten. “Well, we have our standards, don’t we?” she teased.

He bent his head and kissed her bare shoulder. “You are perfection, darling.”

Amid her rush of pleasure at his rare attention, she absorbed the compliment with a measure of cynicism. Perfection, or as close to it as one could come, was merely the expectation she’d been held to all her life. She’d gone from striving through her childhood to be the perfect daughter, to playing the part of the perfectly well-behaved debutante, and now she was cast in her current role as the perfect political wife, and mother to their two young sons.

Not that she was complaining. She understood her duty quite as well as he. Five years ago, as a new bride, having had the good fortune to marry a national hero, she had overcome her dread at the prospect of disappointing him by dedicating herself to supporting her husband in all his endeavors how ever she could, but she did not flatter herself to think that he was in love with her. He had married her because it was a good decision—her looks, her pedigree, her temperament—not out of some fine romantic feeling. No highborn bride in her right mind expected that.

The way she felt about Archer was the way he felt about England. His specialty was love of country; hers was love of home. Together, it had made them a force to be reckoned with in Society.

But in their long campaign to get to this point, they barely saw each other anymore, drifting ever farther apart in their separate spheres.

“Perfection,” he repeated softly, his clean-shaved chin brushing her shoulder, and when his warm gray eyes met hers in the reflection, her one wish would have been to forego the royal wedding and let him throw her onto her nearby bed.

But of course that would have been unthinkable.

She dropped her gaze, her cheeks pink with more than her cosmetics. “You’re looking rather smart yourself,” she admitted, though she supposed it was folly to feed his ego with her praise.

“Ha! You think so?” Archer straightened up with a roguish grin and smoothed his dark blue, neatly belted tunic. It had shiny gold buttons down his chest, gold braid on his shoulder; the scarlet stand collar, cuffs, and facings were made brilliant with rich gold embroidery.

White buckskin breeches adorned his perfect lower half, a gold tassel dancing from the hilt of his dress sword. As he pulled on his white gloves, she feared he might outshine the royal bride-groom—and then what would become of his new career as a rising star in politics? “I’m just glad it all still fits,” he muttered, “what with all the sitting around Town I do these days.”

No doubt he still preferred a good cavalry charge, though he was not as unscathed by it all as he liked to pretend. There were, of course, the nightmares. But they didn’t talk about that.

It was just one of the rules.

Bringing it up was the surest way to send him stomping out of any conversation. He had come away with his life and limbs intact, while many of his friends had not, so he refused to acknowledge any hint of pain; still, a wife knew. It was no mystery to her why he preferred to bury himself in work—and other, more recent diversions.

At the moment, however, all that difficult business was tucked away. He flashed one of his dazzling smiles and flicked a piece of lint off his sleeve. “Do you know the last time I donned this uniform, our son asked me if I was off to fight a battle?”

She glanced adoringly at him in spite of herself. “Aren’t you always?”

He sent her a twinkling look and shrugged, conceding this point. Intentio altus. Aim high—the Archer family motto. He started to walk away, then suddenly stopped himself, turning back with a snap of his fingers. “That reminds me.”

Oh, Lud, she thought, here it comes.

“Tonight, if the opportunity should arise to chat with the Regent or the Queen, do try to drop a hint if you can—about my post.”

Elle’s smile turned brittle.

“Just say that I’m very interested and willing to take on the responsibility—well, you know better than I do how to put it.”

“By all means, my lord, perhaps you should write me a script.” She smiled politely. “I could memorize it in the coach.”

He raised a brow in astonishment; Elle swallowed hard, scarcely knowing herself where the barb had come from. She lowered her lashes, cleared her throat, and went about her business. She shut her Chinese box of colors and stubbornly avoided his gaze.

Why the hell did you just bite my head off? his puzzled stare seemed to ask. “This is important to me, Ellie. I thought you understood that.”

Important to your ego, you coxcomb.

“Paymaster of the Forces is one of the most consequential posts in the government. If it goes to Northrop Hayes, God only knows how much he’ll siphon off to line his own pockets. The money is to be used for the good of the troops.”

She pursed her lips together.

“What?” he demanded, cocking a fist on his lean waist.

“You do realize we are going to a wedding, darling, not to some select committee meeting in the Lords?”

“Of course I know it’s a wedding! Though one is sure to be equally dull as the other,” he grumbled with a fleeting, aggravated scowl.

“Two people in love are going to pledge to spend the rest of their lives together. We must be happy for them. While it lasts,” she couldn’t help adding under her breath.

At that, he shot her a searing look that reminded her she wasn’t the only one disillusioned about their match of late. “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he muttered. “Please hurry. We’re due at Carlton House in half an hour.”

He pivoted and marched toward the door, then stopped abruptly, turning back to her. “I wish I knew why you’ve been so cross with me lately.”

She stared at him in the mirror. Because you’re cheating on me. “Nonsense,” she replied.

He looked at her, at a loss.

Finding himself unable to break through her icy veneer of self-protection, Archer dropped his gaze and turned away. “Fine. I’ll fetch the carriage.”

He stalked out.

Elle measured out a silent exhalation, willing away a ridiculous threat of tears. The black on her lashes would make her look like a masked bandit if she succumbed to hysterics. True, more and more each day she felt like she could explode—but what was the point?

For a man of Archer’s rank to take a mistress was inevitable, to be expected. Men of the upper classes cheated: It was a fact of life, like death and taxes. There was nothing to be done but to accept it, ignore it, endure it, and try to carry on.

And he wondered why she did not like to speak about her feelings.

But if it helped him deal with his experiences in the war, then . . .

She sighed, very near her wits’ end. Nevertheless, she thrust her private suffering aside. Once again their duty must come first. The Sovereign, Society, the public waited. So what if her heart was dying?

She rose, arrayed as the Countess of Archer in all her frosty glory, smoothed her skirts, and whisked her train out expertly behind her. A steely look came into her carefully painted eyes.

Time to go.

Cheering crowds thronged the streets of London as Lord and Lady Archer’s coach-and-four rolled under the grand portico at the front of Carlton House.

They were stared at as they arrived, but Elle was prepared for this, which was why she had chosen a gown to complement his uniform. Her dark blue robe was made from Spitalfields silk—ever the patriotic choice—adorned with rich gold thread and scarlet embroidery work at the hem. It had short sleeves and a long train over a white satin slip, and was fastened in front by a gold brooch of diamonds and rubies.

Archer handed her down proudly from the coach, sketched a charming little bow to the throng in answer to their huzzahs for one of the heroes of Vittoria. Then he escorted her into the Regent’s glittering home, where, apparently, His Royal Highness’s estranged wife, the bride’s mother, had not been invited. A particularly bad match, that.

But tonight, Elle observed, as she made her curtsey, the Regent was all smiles, proud father of the bride.

The ceremony began at nine sharp in the Crimson Drawing Room. The Archbishop of Canterbury stood before the makeshift altar. There were only fifty guests or so; Elle still wasn’t quite sure how Archer had got them invited.

As the music played, the royal bride arrived. Princess Charlotte was at her most beautiful, her apple cheeks beaming with joy as her father handed her over to the young, serious, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. It was well known the two young people, opposite as they were, had become inseparable.

A love match, thought Elle, watching wistfully.

Memories of her own wedding day at the quaint little stone church near their country estate stirred as the couple exchanged their vows.

“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health . . .”

All of a sudden, Archer reached over and took her hand. Elle glanced at him in surprise and an immediate rush of painful hope. He gazed into her eyes with such tender determination aimed frankly at their marriage that a lump rose in her throat.

Forsaking all others.

Could there be a chance she was wrong? That he was faithful? Dared she hope?

Just come to me, she told him with her gaze. I know you suffer. I love you. I’ll make it go away.

“. . . To love and to cherish . . .”

She dropped her gaze from Archer’s to fight once more the tears that threatened to be her undoing tonight. But she held on more tightly to his hand.

Till death do us part.

The match was made, the ceremony concluded a short while later, and everyone applauded while the exuberant princess hugged her father. Congratulations went round, and the guests were invited to mingle about and take refreshments. Further celebration would continue at Buckingham House.

Archer looked from across the drawing room as Ellie went to work like some gorgeous genie on the goal that he had set for her. He hoped she’d find a way to mention his ambitions. The prime minister got to choose the man for such appointments, but a little royal influence never hurt.

She was paying her respects to Queen Charlotte, Prinny’s mother, since the Regent was surrounded, and it said a great deal about his wife, Archer mused, that she could charm even the old, no-nonsense, German queen.

This majestic personage, stalwart as a seventy-four-gun ship of the line, gave off a formidable glory like burnished gold, accepting Ellie’s curtsey with a nod.

Watching their exchange from a distance, the vows just spoken echoing through his mind, Archer wondered not only at the guts of the young wife making her move for her husband, but at the strength of the aged Queen as well, nursing her royal husband through his madness.

Who knew what private suffering Her Majesty had endured, seeing her lifelong mate turn into a raving madman, even forgetting who she was? And yet she had been resolute, finding doctors to try to reclaim his mind, while she did aught in her power to save his pride.

Archer did not doubt that Elle would have done the same for him, and who could say? She might have to, at the rate he was going. She was good as gold, that one.

Even now she was carrying out a task for him that he knew she found distasteful. Politicking at a wedding, yes, it was rather crass, he supposed, but the country’s postwar finances were in too dire a state to trust a corrupt schemer like Northrop Hayes with the military purse strings.

Then, as Archer waited for her to return with her report, he suddenly learned he was not the only man watching her.

“Mein Gott!” exclaimed a colorful grand duke from the Continent, lifting a monocle to his eye. “Who is zis radiant creature?”

Archer glanced over in surprise, then he let out a low, wry laugh. “Er, Your Royal Highness, that is my wife.”

The mustachioed German turned to him, startled. “Why, you are a lucky man, my lord.”

“So I am,” he agreed in a murmur.

With a polite bow, the chagrined foreign nobleman took hasty leave of him. Archer glanced around the room, wondering in annoyance who else here might be ogling his lady. Then he returned his full attention to her, watching her work her usual magic on all who crossed her path. To be sure, he knew the power of that smile better than anyone.

How many battles had he survived only to be slain in some ballroom six years ago, when he’d first laid eyes on her? She had been barely eighteen at the time.

The wide-eyed little blonde had stared at him with such somber admiration that he felt as if he could do anything with her by his side. And so he had married her.

It had seemed a perfect match. But lately . . .

Well, he did not know what to think. Her presence was a clear golden light that had become as vital to him as the sun, but he had the most awful feeling he was losing her. Her affection. And he did not have the slightest idea what to do about it. Affairs of the heart were not his forte! Or perhaps it was all in his head, for she never complained. This was a woman who had barely uttered a cry of pain in the agonies of childbirth.

To be sure, she was a good soldier. He had chosen her because he knew courage and integrity when he saw it—traits he had learned to spot in his men in the war. Elle was not just astoundingly beautiful, she had a core of steel. Ah, but this same stoic quality made her so reserved, so dutiful and conscientious, that he sometimes found her difficult to read—and even harder to approach.

She wore her calm, cool etiquette like a shining suit of armor, impenetrable. God alone knew what the woman was feeling.

If anything.

A troubled frown flicked over Archer’s face. Sometimes she seemed entirely indifferent to him, and this made him indignant. Didn’t she know that he could have easily found female attention elsewhere if he wished it?

But he didn’t. He only wanted her. They shared a house, but these days lived a thousand miles apart. She was so cold, so perfect. He longed to break through her layer of ice, but in truth he feared she might find the more passionate, soldierly side of his nature revolting. Vulgar.

So, what else could he do but put his blond goddess on a pedestal as the mother of his children, and show his regard in the usual way, by letting her buy whatever the devil she wanted?

Besides, a gentleman ought not bother his lady too much about his baser needs, after all, and it was just as well, for he was so exhausted from one bad night’s sleep after another and all his endless responsibilities that, though a man in his prime, he was too bloody tired for sex.

Nightmares of blood and smoke woke him up more nights than not, but rather than ponder the hell he’d survived, he kept himself extraordinarily busy. Aside from his usual parliamentary duties, he served on three select committees and sat on the board of twelve different organizations. Most of the time he refused to hand off the work to his aides, secretary, solicitor, and land agent, the way most other peers did. He’d been born a younger son and had always expected to work for a living. He didn’t mind it.

At least exhaustion helped to keep him faithful.

“Good evening, Lord Archer,” Juliana, Lady Margrave, purred, sidling up beside him without warning.

He stepped back to offer a tense bow. “Madam.” He scanned behind her. “Er, where is your lord tonight?”

“Indisposed. Again,” the raven-haired seductress drawled. “Awful flare-up of the gout.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Archer clipped out.

“Yes, he’s so much fun, isn’t he? But no matter.” She shot him an unmistakable look. “I’ll just have to find amusement elsewhere this evening.”

He stared coldly at her. It isn’t going to work.

Elle’s rival from their debutante days smiled back at him with the same smug mockery he had seen in her eyes the first night he had refused her months ago.

Northrop Hayes had put her up to it, of course, trying to bring him down with a scandal. The pair were as thick as thieves. But unfortunately for them, he had no intention of taking the bait.

He had no time for a mistress, and the lowering truth was, he was madly in love with his unattainable wife.

Archer turned away from the temptress yet again, shaking his head cynically at her efforts. “I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty, madam.”

Elle withdrew from her brief audience with the Queen, decidedly pleased with herself for her success. When Her Majesty had kindly asked after her family, she had managed to drop a modest hint about Archer’s pursuit of the Treasury post. The Queen had nodded with approval, agreeing that he would be an excellent choice.

She could hardly wait to tell him. But when she turned around and saw him with that woman, Elle froze, the breath knocked from her. She could barely believe her eyes.

How dare you talk to her in front of me? How dare you acknowledge her here?

She looked away, beyond furious, instantly sick to her stomach. But when her stricken gaze happened across Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold so joyously in love, her heart simply broke, shattering like glass.

And her long pent-up explosion was suddenly at hand.

Emotion overtaking her like an arson’s blaze rolling over a village, she strode blindly out of the Crimson Drawing Room, stumbling out to the gardens of Carlton House, where she stood gasping for air in the darkness of the night.

“My lady!” Archer was right behind her. He had seen her face turn ashen. He rushed over. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“Yes,” she wrenched out.

“Shall I call for a doctor?”

“Call for this.” She turned around and whacked him across the face with all her strength.

Archer staggered back in astonishment, seeing stars. Part of him wanted to laugh. Good God, he hadn’t been punched like that since the old days, horsing around in the barracks. He shook his head to clear it. “What the deuce was that for?” he exclaimed, lifting his hand dazedly to his cheek.

“You’ve got your stupid post,” she half snarled, half sobbed. “Go and celebrate it with your mistress.”

“What? Ellie! No, wait—”

“You think I’m blind?” she wailed.

“No, it’s not what you think!”

“Don’t lie to me, you scheming politician! I saw you!” She shoved him hard, tears streaming down her face, making dark smears under her eyes. “Weeks ago! I saw you with that harpy in the alcove at Apsley House. I hope she makes you happy. You can go to the devil, I’m going home.”

He knew she meant their country house in Hampshire, where their two wee sons were being cared for by their nurse. She had not wanted to leave. He was well aware that if Ellie had her way, she’d spend the Season looking after her children and her garden and never come to Town, but he had summoned her for the royal wedding.

“I want to see my children! At least they care about me.” She spun around, but Archer grasped her arm and gently turned her back to face him.

“Ellie, stop. Listen to me. If you’re talking about Lady Margrave—”

“Oh, are there more?” she cried.

“No! There are none! I never touched her.”

“You really think I’m an empty-headed fool, don’t you?” She threw off his hand and backed away.

“You know that’s not true. I happen to know you’re smarter than most men.”

“Well, that’s not saying much,” she huffed. Pivoting, she walked deeper into the breezy night garden to avoid the few curious guests and servants by the terrace doors.

He followed, offering her his handkerchief as he caught up to her so she could wipe the black off around her eyes. “Listen to me, please. It was a trick they concocted. Bloody Northrop Hayes put her up to it to try to damage me politically. You know that woman’s trouble, and she’s always hated you.”

“Mutual.” She yanked the handkerchief out of his hand and marched on, her train flowing out behind her over the graveled path.

“I didn’t want to say anything to you about it because I didn’t want to upset you! I had no idea you already knew. Good God, that happened months ago and you never said a word! You’ve been festering on it all this time? At least now I know why you’ve been so cold to me. Ellie, stop!” He touched her elbow then stepped in front of her, and stared deeply into her eyes. “What would I want with anyone else when I have you? You’re my wife. You’re everything to me.”

She blinked away the fresh tears that briefly starred her eyes. “No, Archer. Your ambition is all you care about.” She shook her head. “You’re so bent on trying to be the hero of the world in order to prove yourself to him. To your father—a dead man!”

He scowled.

“Your father’s dead—as is your elder brother. The contest’s over! You can quit trying to make up for being born the younger son! It’s too late for them now ever to admit your mettle. But you still have me.” She paused, taking in his anguished look. “And you know I’ve always been your greatest admirer. Please. Do you even see me anymore? Would you even notice if I did it back to you—took a lover?”

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered.

“Why not?” she flung out. “What do you care, as long as I’m discreet? You won’t touch me.”

He stared at her in tangled fury. “I’ve done aught in my power to treat you with respect.”

“Maybe a little too much respect, my lord.”

He stared at her in shock. An admission of physical desire, from Lady Frost? But she could not be seriously thinking of taking a lover.

She must know he’d kill any man who touched her.

No, she was only saying this to torture him. Because she thought him false.

“Eleanor,” he ground out, “if you want me in your bed, you have only to say the word. For my part, I have never been unfaithful to you in mind or body since the day we wed. I’m sorry I’ve been distracted. But this accusation is daft! What proof do you have? There is none! How dare you question my honor? When have you ever known me to break any kind of oath?”

She searched his face uncertainly.

“Come, you are friends with all the gossips, are you not?” he demanded. “If it were happening, do you really think they’d miss it? Have you heard any such talk?”

She faltered. “Well—no.”

“I have no mistress, nor do I want one! Unfaithful?” he barked. “I don’t even have the time!”

“You don’t have time for anything!” she angrily agreed. “Not even your sons! If you don’t start making time, you’re going to end up as much a stranger to them as your own father was to you!”

Her warning struck home, for he knew full well it was the truth. Not for the world would he repeat that pattern. Archer lowered his gaze, sobered. “I know I’ve been too busy. And I may have been neglectful of you and the boys, but you need to know above all that I’ve never been untrue. I swear this to you on my life.”

Elle was beginning to feel completely out of sorts, holding his stare. She saw no lie in those fierce gray eyes.

This was confusing. She had been so sure—but as the fog of battle cleared, she realized she had judged, tried, and convicted him on very flimsy evidence, not much more than a fleeting glance.

It was true that at least in other matters, he was not one to lie—though if he stayed in politics, no doubt, he’d learn. Relief began to turn her knees to jelly, but oh, this was awkward. She was struck with remorse at the way she had lost all semblance of control. “I—I’m sorry I slapped you. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s all right. You’ve got a good arm, lady.” Wryly, he soothed her with a fond, chiding smile. “Your doubt of my character hurts more than any slap. But at least you showed some emotion for once.”

She was taken aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you expect me to read your mind? I had no idea what was wrong with you all this time! You wouldn’t talk. I thought you had transferred all your love to our babies.”

“Archer.”

“If you had only told me what was wrong, I could’ve set the record straight months ago, but you never even gave me a chance. Didn’t you think I’d tell you the truth?”

She looked away, embarrassed. “I figured you considered it a gentleman’s prerogative.”

“To cheat on you? What rubbish.”

“I don’t know!” she cried at his sardonic stare. “I didn’t ask because I couldn’t bear for you to tell me to mind my own business.”

“So you resigned yourself to stoic resolve. But of course you did. That’s my Ellie.” He shook his head. “Mind your own business? Is that what you really thought I’d say? Because if so, then you do not know me at all, and you especially don’t know how much I adore you.”

“Archer.” She looked up into his eyes, knowing the moment of truth had come. “I just want for you to love me, as much as I love you.”

“Ellie, dearest.” Amazed, he took her face tenderly between his hands, and as he gazed into her eyes, for once she let him see into them all the way down to her heart.

“I wouldn’t have been so jealous if I weren’t mad for you,” she choked out. “It terrifies me sometimes, how in love with you I am.”

Archer searched her face as though seeing her for the first time. “Sweetheart.” He marveled at the intensity of her confession. “I feel the same way for you. I thought you were aware . . . Don’t I give you everything you want?”

“Not everything,” she whispered.

“Diamonds, gowns, carriages—”

She clutched his coat. “It’s you I want, you fool!”

“You have me, Ellie.” He covered her hands with his own against his chest. “God’s truth, I am yours.”

She looked into his eyes in searing hunger. “Show me.”

He was undressing her before the door to his candlelit chamber was scarcely shut. Her gown was already loosened, her lips bee-stung from the kisses they’d exchanged the whole way home in the carriage.

She shivered in breathless anticipation as the blue silk whispered down her body to the floor. Then Archer was unlacing her stays as his mouth consumed hers, as hurried and passionate with her as if this were indeed some illicit liaison; she unbuttoned his handsome uniform coat, her fingers trembling.

When she was naked but for her white, gartered stockings and the necklace he’d put on her earlier, he thrust her against the wall with a groan. Elle reveled in his wild abandon and hastened to finish undressing him. He laid her in his bed, then shed the rest of his clothes and joined her with fire in his eyes.

She arched her head back against his pillow as he bent his head and kissed her throat. She closed her eyes, raking her fingers though his hair while he reacquainted himself with her breasts. “God, look at you,” he breathed as he ran a fiery palm down her thigh. “What a fool I am.” He kissed his way down toward her navel. “I’m afraid I’m done sparing your modesty, woman.”

“Good.” With a decadent smile, she raked her nails lightly over his broad shoulders. “I’ll be your mistress and your wife,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He teethed her neck lustfully, tracing his fingertips lightly over her belly and then down between her legs. “Take me for your lover, Lady Archer. Everybody wants you, but none so much as I.”

“Oh God, Archer, please,” she gasped. “Haven’t I waited long enough?” She pulled her to him.

“Indeed,” he breathed in a hoarse rasp, and then he took her. She surrendered to his lovemaking in utter joy, his arms around her, his lips against her ear, his lightly furred chest rocking against her breasts.

Neither of them had realized until now how much they needed this. She wrapped her legs around him, moving with him in rampant welcome. She was breathless as he pleasured her with his solid length. She kissed his hard face again and again in between moaning his name, and the night turned into a wicked satin dream . . . from which she never wanted to wake.

Rosy sunlight filled Archer’s room the next morning as Elle awoke alone in his bed. The last thing she remembered was pulling the covers over her husband in the middle of the night. He had fallen sound asleep after his delicious exertions, and he hadn’t wakened once.

Smiling in heated remembrance, she glanced over, but his side of the bed was empty. When she looked at the clock, she was startled: half past nine!

Goodness, she had slept in so late. By now, no doubt, the industrious Lord Archer would be hard at work.

She let out a rueful sigh and got up, pulling on his velvet banyan robe, which he had left at the foot of the bed for her. “Where is that man of mine?” she murmured playfully as she sauntered out to the adjoining sitting room.

He was not there, but an open letter on the table caught her eye. She went over, picked it up and skimmed it.

Her dreamy expression sobered.

Just then the new Paymaster of the Forces walked into the sitting room bringing their breakfast on a tray. “There she is.” His eyes glowed as he set it on the table, then he lowered his head to greet her with a kiss. “Good morning, lovely.”

“I see congratulations are in order.” She flicked the letter. “You got the post.”

“Yes, well,” he answered absently, pouring out their tea, “I’ve turned it down.”

“What?”

“I’ve recommended someone else for the task. An honest man. I don’t think you know him. Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged at her stunned look. “As long as that scoundrel Hayes didn’t end up with the post, I’m perfectly happy to pass it by.”

She stared at him in shock. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, yes.” He put the usual two lumps of sugar in and stirred it before handing it to her. “I’ve also resigned this morning from all but two of the boards I serve on, and one of the committees. It should be a much more, er, manageable schedule.”

“You’re really willing to give up all that power for us?”

“It’s not just for you. It’s for me, as well. That slap you gave me really woke me up.” He paused. “Too much striving, too much busyness. I need some time. I have . . . some things to think about,” he said rather gingerly. “Things I need to face.”

She lifted her hand and cupped his face, all tenderness. “I know, darling. I’m here for you.”

He captured her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I’m a very blessed man, you know. I have a wife who loves me, and two fine sons who need me. I’ve no desire to gain the world and lose what matters most along the way.”

Elle gazed at him. “You’re a wonder.”

“Last night was a wonder,” he corrected with a devilish look, then he presented her with a pastry.

She laughed aloud, refusing the apple tart and opting instead for another taste of his lips. She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her, loosely clasping her fingers at his nape.

He caressed her lips with his own, then rested her hands on her waist with an appreciative squeeze. “Mmm. So, what do you want to do today, beautiful? I’ve canceled my appointments. I’m all yours.”

“Now I know this is a dream.”

“No.” He rested his forehead against hers. “It’s merely the way it should have been all along, and how I’ve resolved it will be in the future. So, how shall we amuse ourselves, hm? You have my undivided attention.”

Her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “I don’t know,” she murmured almost shyly. “Should we go and see the boys?”

“Tomorrow, certainly,” he purred. “Today is just for you and me.”

“Well, in that case . . .” She cast a mischievous glance toward his bedroom door, then eyed him slyly.

He let out a short, hearty laugh. “What an excellent idea!” Then he scooped her off her feet and carried her over the threshold of his chamber like a man with his new bride.

Indeed, their love was new again somehow, miraculously, like the spring flowers in lavish bloom out in the garden. Beyond the bedroom windows, the May sky was cerulean blue, while inside, the end she’d feared had melted like the winter snows.

Seasons in love would come and go in the years they’d share ahead, but as she kissed him tenderly, Elle was not afraid of that anymore. A few tears, a little rain, fond forgiveness like the sun’s warmth, the courage to trust, and love would prove itself as deathless as the lilacs, the daffodils, the cherry blossom tree. They had forever, and if winter should return, spring would always come again. As long as they both refused to let go.

Till death do us part.

And with that, Elle let him lay her down, and said yes to her darling husband all over again.

The Jilting of Lord Rothwick

Loretta Chase

8 February 1840

Two o’clock in the afternoon

The rain, two degrees from sleet, beat down with unrelenting fury. It reduced the rolling landscape to a grey blur, and turned the graveled driveway into a river.

Hugh Fitzwalter, the third Marquess of Rothwick, slammed the door knocker again. Findley’s staff had picked a fine time to go deaf.

After a fifty-mile ride from London, the frigid wet had penetrated his lordship’s overcoat and was working its way through the coat underneath. It seeped into his boots and dripped icily from his hat, down his neck, and into his neckcloth.

The door opened at last, and the wind and rain rushed in, spraying the butler, Freets. In a better frame of mind, Rothwick would have found the man’s expression comical. His lordship was not in a better frame of mind.

After one wild look at the broad-shouldered figure on the doorstep, Freets collected his wits and backed out of the way. “I do beg your pardon, my lord,” he said. “I’ll have someone see to your lordship’s horse. I hope your lordship has not waited long.”

“No more than a quarter hour,” Rothwick growled.

The butler’s face went white then red, and his eyes widened in terror.

Rothwick, who often had this effect on servants and, sometimes, his relatives, took no notice of the butler’s panic but stomped in, leaving a trail of muddy puddles behind him on the marble floor. A footman hovering nearby hurried to him. The marquess took off his dripping hat, peeled off his saturated gloves, allowed the servant to relieve him of the sopping overcoat, and turned the entire sodden mess over to him.

Rothwick wondered where they’d been, not to hear his knock. True, no one would expect visitors on this miserable day. Given the rain’s ferocity, he doubted anyone would have seen him coming even if they’d happened to look out of the window. Had the rain drowned out his knocking as well?

Or perhaps, he thought grimly, a family emergency had the staff all running frantically about the place. He could picture Mrs. Findley in hysterics, and Findley waving his fist in impotent wrath—a state to which his family often reduced him.

“I wish to see Miss Findley,” Rothwick said, advancing into the entrance hall to the chimneypiece, where a fire blazed. The Findleys heated every room of the house, whether it was in use or not. That was one luxury he could not afford. One of many.

The butler hurried after him. “Miss Findley, my lord?”

Rothwick caught the panicked look the butler shot at one of the doors. Down that corridor lay the library. Given the thick walls and the pounding rain, it was hard to be sure, but the marquess thought he detected the sound of voices raised in argument.

“Is that not what I said?”

“Y-yes, my lord.”

“You will not tell me Miss Findley isn’t at home. She can’t have gone out in this filthy weather.”

“No, indeed, my lord, but—but . . . I do apologize, my lord, but the family is not receiving—” He broke off as a young man hurried in through the door Freets was so uneasy about.

Fourteen-year-old Philip stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the visitor, and his green eyes—so like Barbara’s—widened. “Lord Rothwick!”

“Kindly inform your sister,” Rothwick said in his haughtiest drawl, “that I wish to speak to her. Privately.”

Philip turned and ran back through the door. Begging his lordship’s pardon, Freets followed the boy at a slightly more dignified pace.

Though the quarreling seemed to have increased in volume in the last minute, the voices were still muffled. Rothwick couldn’t hear, precisely, what the row was about, but he could guess.

He’d been right, then. Those servants who weren’t fetching and carrying for the palpitating Mrs. Findley must have been eavesdropping with all their might. Small wonder the door had been left unattended.

Small wonder in this household, at any rate.

In exactly the time it would have taken Philip to reach the room and relay the message, a sudden dead silence fell.

Rothwick held his numb hands to the fire and stared into the glowing embers, resolutely ignoring the hurried pounding of his heart.

This couldn’t happen.

He wouldn’t let it happen.

An eternity passed.

Freets returned. “If it pleases your lordship, Mr. Findley sends his apologies for keeping you waiting, and Miss Findley will see your lordship in the south parlor.”

Barbara Findley closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. She needed more than one deep breath, but the footman Joseph pulled open the south parlor door before she had time for another.

Her coiffure, she knew, was not elegant. Between Mama falling into hysterics and Papa on the brink of apoplexy and even Philip sulky and reproachful, she’d wanted to tear her hair out. She’d only dislodged some pins, but that was enough. Now it must look like a copper-colored rat’s nest.

But never mind.

Rothwick didn’t want her for her looks, such as they were. He’d noticed her appearance only enough, she supposed, to be relieved she wasn’t utterly hideous. Not that it would have stopped him had she resembled a toad.

She managed to hold her head high, but the instant she saw the tall form across the room, she forgot decorum and poise and pride and flew into the parlor like the silly, eager girl she hadn’t been since she was Philip’s age.

Rothwick had his back turned to the door, and his hands held out toward the parlor fire, and for an instant, that human act of warming himself at the fire made him seem vulnerable, for all his great size and great rank. She was taking in the tendrils of dark hair clinging to the back of his neck and the damp patches on the shoulders of his beautiful wool coat when he turned, hearing her footstep, and she saw the weary lines etched in his face.

Guilt stabbed.

“Oh, Rothwick, you’re wet through,” she cried. “What possessed you to come out on such a day? All the way from London—on horseback, no less, Freets says—and in this wretched weather.”

“Why the devil do you think I came?” He withdrew from an inner pocket of his waistcoat a letter. “This,” he said. “I thought I might at least obtain the courtesy of an explanation.”

The letter he held up was still folded the way she’d folded it, though it bore a great many creases now. He must have crumpled it and smoothed it out repeatedly.

Why hadn’t he thrown it into the fire? Why did he have to come and wave it in her face?

She lifted her chin. She would not let him intimidate her. She’d never done so before, and now was not the time to start. “Did I not explain sufficiently?” she said.

“We shall not suit?” he said. “That’s your explanation? That’s the sort of mealy-mouthed excuse one gives the world—not the man one has agreed to marry. Was I not entitled to more than three sentences?”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said. “I had understood that one didn’t lay blame or fault or make excuses in such letters—”

“You understood wrong,” he said. “This is a pathetic excuse for a rejection. Do you hate me?”

How I wish I did.

“There are a great many men I don’t hate,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I want to marry them.”

He dismissed all the other men—and there had been scores of them—with a wave of his hand. “You said yes to me.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“I realized we didn’t suit.”

“Barbara.”

Because my heart pounds when you enter a room, and my knees melt when you touch my hand or push a strand of hair from my face, and I think I’ll die of excitement and happiness when we dance . . .

. . . and it isn’t that way for you.

“We’ll never suit,” she said. “We come from altogether different worlds—”

“You knew that when I began courting you,” he said.

“We have nothing in common,” she said.

“And it took you nine weeks to discover this?” he said.

He had courted her for nine weeks and four days.

“Is that why you’ve come?” she said. “Is that what troubles you? You’re annoyed because it took me so long to know my own mind?”

“Damnation, Barbara, you know my situation is dire,” he said. “I’ve made no secret of it.”

“I know all too well,” she said. He was by no means the first impecunious gentleman who’d come calling. She’d had no trouble rejecting any of the others. But he, the most desperate of them all—and the least conciliatory—had stolen her heart. Or run over it like the human locomotive he was. “I’m sorry. But you never gave me time to think. You were always there.”

His gaze shot to hers and held it, challenging her, as he always did. “Of course I was always there. The competition was ferocious.”

“The competition for my fortune.”

“You’ve a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds,” he said. “If you think no man takes that into consideration—no man, that is, past the age of puppyish blind devotion—”

“I should never accuse you of blind devotion, my lord.”

“If you want me to tell you I would have courted you even had you been penniless, I’m sorry to shatter your girlish dreams,” he said. “I can’t afford sentiment. I thought you understood I wasn’t in a position to let my heart dictate to my head.”

And if you had been in such a position?

But she knew the answer to that one. He would never have come near Miss Findley of Little Etford had his father not died six months ago and left him stupendously deep in debt.

“I did understand,” she said. “And I won’t pretend I saw no advantages to myself from the connection. Prestige for my family. Advancement for Philip in whatever profession he chose. And you were so assiduous in your courting.” He had laid siege to her heart, as his ancestors had once upon a time laid siege to the castles and lands they wanted. “Then there were Mama and Papa, so strongly in your favor. Between your wooing and their pointing out your numerous perfections, you seemed to be there, every waking minute. And you can be overwhelming, my lord.”

Overwhelming in every way. Not simply his manner, the absolute self-assurance of an aristocrat of ancient pedigree. There was his personality, so compelling that he made everyone else about him seem like figures in a mist. There was as well the rampant masculinity, in the way he spoke, the way he moved . . . and the way he looked. He was tall and powerfully built, with nothing soft about him, in physique or features. His face was by no means conventionally handsome. His features were too strong: the sharp angles of cheekbones and jaw, the bold, patrician nose, the hard mouth and mocking eyes.

The combination, for her, had proved nothing short of devastating.

“Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Nothing overwhelms you.”

“So I flattered myself,” she said. “But since you returned to London—”

“—to prepare for our wedding—”

“—and reconcile the queen to your marrying the daughter of a man of commerce—”

“Her Majesty doesn’t give a damn who I marry,” he said. “She’s too starry-eyed over her beautiful Albert.”

The Queen of England would be marrying for love.

And Barbara Findley, an ordinary mortal whose grandfather had been an innkeeper, could not.

“The point is, your personality is so forceful that one is swept along in your wake,” she said. “And so I couldn’t think clearly until you were gone. And then I thought about all the advantages . . . but it wasn’t . . . enough. I realized I couldn’t be happy.”

He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes telling her nothing. Then he let out a sigh. “I see,” he said.

“Do you?” she said.

“Yes, of course.”

His gaze having turned to the letter in his hand, Rothwick didn’t see the despairing look she sent him.

He couldn’t decide what to do with the letter. Crumpling it into a ball and throwing it on the fire seemed excessively dramatic.

He had been still trying to dry out, this time at the parlor fire, when she’d flown into the room, in the way she always did, so full of life, and seemingly so glad to see him. He’d heard the rustle of petticoats, and his pounding heart had skipped in pleasure. When he’d turned to look, the murky day seemed to brighten in the radiance of her. It wasn’t merely her copper-bright hair, a mass of ill-behaved ringlets. It wasn’t simply her luminous skin with its light dusting of golden freckles or the intelligence sparkling in her green eyes. It was all those things, yes, and more: She always seemed lit from within.

He’d almost stepped toward her, to take her hand . . . to touch her cheek . . . to touch . . .

But she didn’t want him to touch her. The letter ought to have made that clear to him. She was not the sort of girl to write such a letter merely to torment a man. Barbara Findley was many things: stubborn, exasperating, opinionated—to name only a few of her many less-than-biddable characteristics. But she was not coy or manipulative. She wouldn’t have written the letter if she hadn’t meant it.

Yet he’d refused to believe it. He’d told himself there had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding. He couldn’t have misjudged her feelings so completely.

He’d thought . . .

Well, he’d thought wrong, and that was that.

He didn’t see her put out her hand for the letter.

He carefully folded it up again and put it back in his breast pocket.

When he looked at her again, she was looking toward the windows.

“You can’t go back out in this,” she said. “You’d better stay the night.”

He looked that way, too, into the bleak afternoon.

Bleak. The color of his future.

Good God, now what would he do? His tenants. His servants. His indigent relatives, whose name was Legion.

What a fool he’d been. All the time he’d devoted . . .

And now . . .

He laughed. “Stay the night? Here? To rub salt in your mother’s wounds?” Not to mention his own. “Are you a glutton for punishment? I’m not.”

“That isn’t—”

“I’ll stay at the Swan.” He’d passed the coaching inn on the way. He should have stopped then. The pause would have given him time to think. And think again. But no. He had to be the fool rushing in. He had to be the madman believing he could make black come out white. “It’ll be easier to set out for London from there, and I can miss the crush when the world descends for the queen’s wedding.”

The day after tomorrow, Queen Victoria would wed her beloved Prince Albert. The Lord Mayor had asked the populace to suspend their usual activities in honor of the occasion—not that anybody needed the suggestion. Most of London would be pouring into the areas near both St. James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace as well as the royal parks, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the bride and groom.

Rothwick was among the privileged few with tickets to the ceremony, and he’d looked forward to hearing Barbara’s opinions of everything and everybody.

Today was the day she was to have come to London. He’d intended to show her his townhouse and tell her she might do whatever she wanted to it. He’d thought they’d talk about paint and furniture.

What a joke.

“Please convey my compliments to your parents,” he said so calmly. “And my regrets . . . that I’m unable to accept your invitation to stay. I’ll send a notice to the Gazette of our changed circumstances. Goodbye, Miss Findley.”

He bowed. And then, before he could be tempted to say anything more—and really, what was there to say?—he left.

Swan Inn, six o’clock

Barbara didn’t give herself time to think. She flung open the door to the private parlor. Heart racing and head high, she walked in.

Rothwick sprawled in a chair by the fire, long legs crossed at the ankles, one arm hanging over the back of the chair, the other holding a wine glass. His dark hair had dried in a tangle, and he hadn’t helped matters by raking his fingers through it. He’d taken off his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, but that was all. He’d let his clothes dry while on him. His neckcloth had deteriorated to a wrinkled lump, his shirtsleeves hung like limp rags from his broad shoulders, his trousers sagged at the knees, and his boots had acquired a crust of dried muck.

She took in the sight in the instant before he looked up.

“Oh, Rothwick, you haven’t even changed out of your clothes,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment as though he didn’t recognize her. Then his dark eyes narrowed. “Not an apparition, it seems. No such luck. We’re done, Miss Findley. Didn’t you say so? Go away. Forgive me for not getting up, but I don’t want to encourage you. You shouldn’t have encouraged me, by the way—but it’s ungentlemanly to point that out.”

“You’re foxed,” she said.

“Am I? Good. I’ve been trying damn hard.”

This was what she got for hesitating and dithering. If she’d come sooner, he’d still be lucid. What could she expect to accomplish now? She wanted to go back out and close the door behind her and get started on the long process of making herself forget him.

But the image hung in her mind’s eye: the brief, unguarded moment when he’d looked at her letter and she’d seen . . . a something in his eyes that might have been grief. A degree more evident was the disappointment that drew down the corners of his firm mouth.

And yes, it was most likely the money he was disappointed about, but there was only one way to be sure.

“I should never have expected this of you,” she said. “Getting drunk after being jilted. Could you not do something less clichéd?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “A sharp-tongued wench it is. You’d have been the devil to live with. I’m well out of it.”

“You’re not the most accommodating individual yourself,” she said. “You come storming into a place—fee, fie, foe, fum—knocking aside any small, annoying things that get in the way. Like people.”

“If you refer to those pests who were sniffing at your skirts, that’s exactly what one does with vermin.”

“In my world, those are eligible men,” she said. “But they haven’t titles—”

“Or a shilling to their name—”

“Neither have you,” she said.

“But I’m an aristocratic debtor,” he said. He waved his wine glass in the air. “No, better than that—a peer. They can’t imprison me for debt. I should have ignored it, the way my father did. Trouble is . . .” He brought the glass close to his face, swayed the glass a little, and watched the wine slosh against its sides. “Trouble is, the houses are falling down. On my head. Plaster.” He looked up at the ceiling of the inn parlor. “Sitting there at home, drinking a little wine, minding my own business, and down come little bits of the ceiling.”

He drank, set down the glass on the table at his elbow, and refilled it from one of the bottles crowding its surface. “Is that what put you off?” he said. “Everything falling to pieces? But it isn’t every room. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“You told me,” she said. He’d described the state of his houses and properties with a disarmingly matter-of-fact wit. Everyone said he was an overbearing, conceited, arrogant bastard. But she thought he was charming, and funny, too. And she found his sarcasm sweet. He was nothing like any other man she’d ever met, and she’d met scores. From the time she was seventeen, they’d been descending upon Little Etford to try their luck at winning her heart—and the ridiculous marriage portion her father had saddled her with.

All in hopes of this.

A title.

And of all the men, all the well-behaved, eager-to-please men, she had to fall in love with him.

“Very well,” he said, nodding. “No hard feelings. But it’s damned inconvenient, Barbara. You might have told me sooner.”

“So that you could have courted someone else.”

“Of course. I had a list.” He drank, then refilled the glass. “My aunts made it. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No.”

“Gad, I thought I told you everything. So easy to talk to.”

That’s what she’d thought, too: He was so easy to talk to—though of course nobody in Little Etford would believe that.

“After we’d learned precisely how my sire had left matters, my aunts compiled a list of suitable females,” he said. He set down the glass, pushed some of the bottles out of his way—leaving one teetering near the table’s edge—and with one long index finger he made as though to write on the stained table. “Here is Miss So and So, the daughter of a Brighton jeweler. Fifty thousand pounds. Here is Miss This and That, the daughter of a physician. Seventy-five thousand. Ah, here is Miss Findley. Two hundred thousand. Let me at her, I said. Let me at Miss Findley. I don’t care if she’s snaggle-toothed, squinty, and flatulent.”

“I know it wasn’t easy for you,” she said.

He shrugged. “Men go to war and chance having their heads blown off. All I had to do was find a rich girl to wed. Not a problem. I’ve never been squeamish.”

“Yet it must have hurt your pride to be obliged to come to a provincial nothing of a place, to a public assembly, no less,” she said. She’d ached for him, for what it must have cost such a man to be forced by circumstances to stoop so low.

“It hurt my brain,” he said. “I felt as though I’d traveled to Madagascar or Outer Mongolia, to observe the quaint customs of the natives. I was all amazed to hear you speak English . . . of a sort.”

Was that what she’d seen in his face when he’d been introduced to her? Amazement? Was that what had made his dark eyes warm and had softened the taut set of his mouth into a hint of a smile?

“But there you were,” he said. “Three and twenty, with such a fortune, and still unwed. Impossible, thought I. The chit must have a wooden leg. Or perhaps she runs mad at odd times, and howls at the full moon. But there you were.”

He turned away to stare into the fire. “There you were.” He shook his head. “And here you are. Why?”

It was easier to talk to the back of his head than to look into those midnight eyes. “I owed you an explanation, as you said.”

“You explained sufficiently,” he said. “I’m destitute, not stupid. I’ve worked it out. I mowed you down, like the Juggernaut. Sorry about that. I was in a panic, you see. Couldn’t let you get away. But you did. You got away.” Still without turning he waved the wine glass, and wine sloshed over the rim. He didn’t seem to notice. His big shoulders slumped. “Go away now, Miss Findley,” he muttered. “I’m growing maudlin, and that’s a mood best enjoyed in solitude.”

“Yes, I’m going,” she said. Her eyes filled, and she blinked hard. She had to swallow hard, too, to go on. “It’s stupid, I know, but I wanted us to be in love, you see. Like the queen and her prince. Royal marriages are always arranged. It’s politics and money and power and alliances. They never marry for love, do they? But I thought, if she didn’t have to settle for less, why should an ordinary woman, who hadn’t a single drop of blue blood in her veins? That’s what I thought.”

She waited.

She heard a sound. It was faint but unmistakable.

He was snoring.

She started toward him, and put her hand out, to touch his head, wishing she could make go away all the trouble he carried in there. But she couldn’t. She drew her hand back and went out, closing the door quietly behind her.

9 February 1840

Nine o’clock in the morning

The road was slick and muddy after the rain, but he’d ridden like a madman through yesterday’s storm. Why not ride madly now?

He rode on, toward the house.

I wanted us to be in love.

He didn’t remember stumbling to bed but he must have done, because he’d woken this morning in the bedchamber he’d hired. The first thing he noticed was the silence, the end of the rain’s drumming. And the second thing was his aching head and her voice in it—saying something about the queen and her prince and wanting to be in love.

He’d told himself he dreamed it, and he was a maudlin imbecile for dreaming it, and he’d dressed and set out for London. He’d traveled a few paces along the stretch of the Old North Road past the entrance to the Swan’s stable yard. Then he’d turned his horse in the other direction, like a moonstruck boy, to chase a dream.

Halfway to the house, reason gained the upper hand.

Wasn’t that drunken display enough?

How much more pathetic do you want to look?

He drew his horse to a halt, and was preparing to turn when he heard approaching hoof beats.

At first he saw nobody, but the hoof beats grew louder, and a moment later, the horse and rider came round the turning.

He recognized the cloak streaming out behind her, the handsome green cloak that enhanced her delicate skin tone and deepened the green of her eyes.

He recognized the ease and grace with which she rode, and her headlong pace—the way she did everything, it seemed: bursting into a room, telling him he was drunk, refusing to tiptoe about his poverty, mocking his high-handed ways.

But I do love you, he should have said. How could I help it? How could you not see?

He saw the bird swoop down, aiming, probably, for some tiny creature scurrying in the ditch. Her mare shied and reared, and everything inside him froze. A heartbeat later, he was in motion, racing toward her, but not fast enough. He saw her struggle to control her mount, but something else—a slippery patch of ground, or some other distraction nearby—panicked the creature. He watched helplessly as it reared again, throwing Barbara down. Then he couldn’t breathe.

An eternity later he was dismounting, then sinking into the muddy road beside her crumpled form. He caught her up in his arms. Her head sagged against his forearm. Her face was white.

“No,” he said. “No.” He pulled her close, burying her face against his heart, a great lump of fear in his chest.

She must wake up. The longer she remained unconscious, the greater the danger. Or was it too late? Was she breathing? He put his fingers to her neck, to her wrist, but his hands were shaking. He couldn’t tell if what he felt was a pulse or his own trembling.

“You must wake up,” he said in the dictatorial tones she would have labeled fee, fie, foe, fum. “I won’t have any of this . . . swooning. I won’t—drat you, Barbara, you must wake up.”

She lay so still in his arms. “Listen to me,” he said. “I was so drunk last night I could hardly see straight. I wasn’t sure, this morning, whether I’d dreamed you. Were you talking about love, or did I dream it? I must have dreamed it, because you couldn’t be so thick not to have known.”

He shook her a little, but he daren’t do more, not knowing whether she’d broken anything. “You must wake up. I came to tell you—and if you don’t wake up, you’ll never know, because you’re shockingly obtuse. How could you not see? If I didn’t love you, would I care whether you’d be happy, married to me? Of course not. I’m the Juggernaut. I would have browbeaten you and overwhelmed you and seduced you into changing your mind again, and I’d keep you seduced until I got the ring on your finger. But no. I had to be a hero. I had to want you to be happy, infatuated sapskull that I am, even if it meant losing you.”

He pulled her closer. “Dammit, Barbara. Say something. Do something.”

He heard a sound. He eased his grip a little and looked down at her, not sure he’d heard what he thought he heard.

Snoring.

She turned in his arms and smiled up at him.

“You wretched female,” he said.

“You were going on so well, I hated to interrupt,” she said.

He made a harrumphing sound. “Then you’re unhurt?”

“I had the wind knocked out of me for a moment,” she said.

“You’d better let me check for injuries,” he said.

“I promise you, I’m no more than a little bruised,” she said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He proceeded to examine her so thoroughly, his big hands moving over every inch of her body, that she went hot all over.

Then he hauled her to her feet, dragged her up against him, bent his head and kissed her, slowly and with the same single-minded determination he’d applied to courting her. He worked his way from a chaste meeting of lips to something not at all chaste, that had the blood pounding through her veins and stirred up, low in her belly, a hot impatience for something she had no name for.

When at last he drew away, she was limp and nearly sick with wanting.

“Oh, my goodness,” she managed to say, in a strange, hoarse voice she barely recognized as hers. “If you’d done that before, I never should have jilted you.”

“I know,” he said. “But it would have been unsporting.”

“I thought my feelings were not returned,” she said. “I couldn’t bear the idea of a lifetime of being the only one in the marriage who was in love. But I couldn’t sleep last night, and all I could think of was you riding away, and I’d never see you again, and how wretched I should be. And so I came to tell you that I didn’t care if I was the one who did all the loving—and—and that I rescinded everything I said in that stupid letter.”

“And I rescind all my heroic self-sacrifice,” he said.

He straightened her bonnet, which had fallen to one side in the course of the shockingly delicious kiss.

She smoothed the front of his coat, though it wasn’t wrinkled.

He took her hand away, and clasped it in his big one.

“Shall we get married, then?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

And they did, the very next day after the queen married her prince, with a good deal less pomp, but as much love and more.

About the Authors

New York Times bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science, a hobby that quickly became a career. Her novels, set in Regency England, have captivated readers around the globe, making her one of the romance world’s most beloved and popular authors. Readers can contact Stephanie via e-mail at slaurens@vicnet.net.au. For information on all of Stephanie’s books, including updates on novels yet to come, visit her website at www.stephanielaurens.com.

GAELEN FOLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen Regency historical romances, including her April 2011 release, My Irresistible Earl.

She lives in Pennsylvania with her hero-husband and a mischievous bichon frise. To learn more about Gaelen, her novels, and the romantic Regency period in which her books are set, please visit www.gaelenfoley.com.

After a heroic attempt to be an English major forever, LORETTA CHASE stoically accepted her degree but kept on reading and writing. As well as working in academe, she had an enlightening if brief life in retail and a Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid. In the course of moonlighting as a corporate video scriptwriter, she succumbed to the charm of a producer, who lured her into writing novels . . . and marrying him. The union has resulted in what seems like an awful lot of books and quite a few awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s Rita®. To learn more, please visit www.LorettaChase.com. To get in touch, please email her at Author@LorettaChase.com

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Coming Soon

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens

My Irresistible Earl by Gaelen Foley

Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“The Wedding Planner.” Copyright © 2011 by Savdek Management Proprietary Limited. “Ever After.” Copyright © 2011 by Gaelen Foley. “The Jilting of Lord Rothwick.” Copyright © 2011 by Loretta Chekani. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition April 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-209187-1

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