by Megan Bryce
The room erupted into hushed whispers and excited laughter and the very Honorable George Sinclair breathed it in deeply and thought to himself, for the first time, that it was good to be home.
He hadn’t missed England. India had sunk into his bones; the heat, the food, the never-ending roar of life. He hadn’t wanted to leave; he mourned the fact that he’d never be able to return.
India had sent him home a changed man. He’d never be warm again; his greatcoat was now a permanent part of his wardrobe no matter how brightly the weak English sun tried to shine. Food would never taste again; flavorless, spiceless, and missing that now familiar bite. And he stayed as far from the country as he could because the silence was too much to take.
That, and his brother the earl.
He was too much to take as well.
But here, in town, with the excitement of balls and the roar of life and the rules, here George Sinclair found what he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.
Scandal.
The noise level somehow both increased and decreased at the same time as she entered and he turned to look at just who could cause such a commotion.
Her golden hair piled high atop her head, her plunging neckline peaking coyly from beneath row upon row of jeweled necklaces.
She paused, looking down on her subjects and they looked back, twittering and fluttering, and Sinclair thought that it was not enough. There should have been trumpets fanfaring and fireworks exploding because a regal queen had deigned to grace them with her presence.
Sinclair poked his friend in the side. “Just who, pray tell, is that?”
George St. Clair looked to where his friend pointed and fingered his cravat. “Mmm. The widow.”
Sinclair trembled with delight. “She has an epithet? The widow? How very intriguing.”
“A richly deserved one. She has had five husbands, all dead within one year of the wedding. The last, rumor has it, died whilst in bed and under her. Two weeks ago.”
Sinclair jolted when he realized her dress was black. That she was in mourning. Her dress skimmed here and flared there, and despite the color said nothing about mourning.
Sinclair’s eyes followed the curves and flares and he said, “Lucky scoundrel.”
St. Clair snorted and Sinclair looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “Is that not the most fervent wish of every man? To die naked, in bed, and beneath a beautiful woman riding him into everlasting oblivion?”
“It is apparently many a man’s wish because she has no lack of suitors.”
“But not you?”
“I require a man be cold in his grave before I start in on his widow.”
Sinclair looked again at the woman, at the long limbs and golden hair that gave proof that some Viking had pilfered and pillaged somewhere in her blood line.
Her black dress not stark but richly adorned, making her pale skin even paler, her golden hair even more golden.
Sinclair sighed. “Mourning suits her.”
“It does.”
Sinclair looked at his friend, noting the lines on his face and the tired look in his eyes that eight years had wrought.
“It’s suited her well for nearly a decade and with a handful of husbands. Remember that, Sin, before you become too enamored.”
“You don’t like her?”
St. Clair looked back at the woman, studying her, and when their eyes caught across the room, she smiled and made her way toward them.
“I know you will like her. And I have no wish to stand over your grave, my friend.”
Sinclair laughed. “I may like her, I may acquaint myself with all England has to offer now that I must, but marriage? Should I lose my mind, the earl will surely take it upon himself to find it for me.”
St. Clair clapped his friend on the back, smiling despite himself. “It’s good to have you home, Sin. And you can count on me, as well, to take up that task if it becomes necessary.”
“See? It is good to be home. I can play with whatever delectable scandal that crosses my path as long as you two are watching over me like clucking hens.”
“We wouldn’t need to if you didn’t look at scandal like a boy getting his first glimpse up the milkmaid’s frock.”
The widow snaked through the crowd, close enough now that she might be able to hear their conversation, and Sinclair said, “I have matured, my friend, since then. And I assure you that I can keep my wits about me in the presence of such beauty. Long golden locks and, oh my, crystal blue eyes.”
St. Clair shook his head. “All the better to snare her prey.”
The widow stopped in front of them, flicking open her fan to wave it idly. “Talking of me, Mr. St. Clair? You are always so flattering.”
He bowed, stiff and just this side of disapproving. “May I introduce Mr. George Sinclair. And this is Elinor Rusbridge Lemmon Gilberti Wooten Headley, Lady Haywood. Did I leave any out, my lady?”
She laughed, a low amused sound that would make any red-blooded man think of silk sheets and naked limbs.
Sinclair bowed theatrically enough to make up for his friend’s lack of manners. Flamboyantly enough to snag her attention to him.
The widow said, “George Sinclair and George St. Clair? However will I tell you apart?”
Sinclair leaned toward her. “Just remember, my lady, the sinner and the saint. And then forget the saint.”
from Some Like It Perfect (A Temporary Engagement)
A woman who has nothing. A man who wants for nothing.
Delia Woodson is desperate. That’s why she agrees to it. Because she’s a painter, no one is buying her paintings, and she’s desperate. She has bills to pay, food to buy. Someday she might actually want to live in her own apartment instead of on her friend’s couch. And all she has to do is paint baby-faced angels on an indecently rich, corporate shill’s ceiling. Because, he just can’t think of any other way to spend his money? And she just can’t think of any other way to make it.
Jack Cabot doesn’t want the mural his mother has commissioned for his office ceiling. He doesn’t want the distraction, he doesn’t want the silliness. He doesn’t want the artist now spending her days ten feet above his head. The artist with paint in her hair, distracting him. Bickering with him. Amusing him. . .
Before long, Jack finds he does want something after all. And now all he has to do is convince Delia that she already has what every woman wants. Someone perfectly right for her.
One
Delia Woodson was desperate. That’s why she’d agreed to it.
Because she was a painter, no one was buying her paintings, and she was desperate.
She had bills to pay, food to buy. Someday she might actually want to live in her own apartment instead of on her friend’s couch.
Crashing on a friend’s couch when you were all young and stupid was one thing. Crashing on a couch when you were most definitely not young and the only one still stupid was something else entirely.
Delia’s friends had stayed in college, and she’d painted. Delia’s friends had gotten jobs and moved away, and she’d painted. Delia’s friends had bought houses, taken out mortgages, and Delia. . .crashed on their couches.
She’d followed Justine from San Francisco to Boston when Justine had gotten a great new job with a great new paycheck. Delia had followed because a free spirit who painted was a dime a dozen in San Francisco. And maybe a free spirit who painted in Boston was just different enough to be successful. Right now, she was just hungry.
Justine propped her hip against the kitchen counter and said, “Are you going?”
“I’m going.”
“Painting a ceiling is not beneath you.”
Delia had heard this before. Michelangelo, yada yada yada. Sistine chapel, blah blah blah.
Delia said, “I’m painting clouds and baby-faced angels on an executive’s ceiling. I’m happy for the work. I’ll be happy for the money. It is beneath me.”
“You could
go get a real job.”
“I said I’m going. You don’t need to be mean.”
Delia stared at the ceiling. If she was going, and despite what she’d just said she hadn’t quite talked herself into it yet, she probably needed to get up. Get dressed.
Delia said, “How do you get up and put on a suit and go to the office every morning? I don’t know how to make myself do it.”
“I get roaring drunk every evening. That’s how I do it.”
Delia looked over at her. “Tonight?”
“Of course. We’ll have to celebrate your first paying job in Boston.”
“I guess drinks are on me, then.”
“Which means you’d better get up so you can pay for it.”
Delia stared at the ceiling some more. A ceiling she wasn’t going to paint. “Rip-roaring drunk?”
“The rip-roaringest drunk two thirty-six-year-olds can get without feeling like losers.”
Delia slid one leg off the couch and let her whole body follow bonelessly to the floor. “Too late. I feel like a loser and I’m not drunk at all.”
She crawled to the bathroom, her head hanging, every movement slow and tortured.
Her friend said, “You’re thirty-six, not sixteen. Go put on your big-girl panties and pretend you’re an adult.”
Delia stood. She straightened her shoulders. She didn’t sigh again, she didn’t slam the bathroom door. She would be an adult. Because doing crap you didn’t want to do was what being an adult was all about.
Delia would go paint an indecently rich, corporate shill’s ceiling. Because he couldn’t think of any other way to spend his money, and she couldn’t think of any other way to make it.
And hey, maybe she’d get hit by a bus on the way.
She could always hope.
Copyright
To Tame A Lady
The Reluctant Bride Collection, Book Two
Copyright © 2012 by Megan Bryce
To my husband-
because a silent partner
deserves credit somewhere
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