The Earl's Wagered Bride: Christmas Belles, Book 1
Page 11
“Oh, Griff, I’m going to enjoy filling it up with settees and sofas. A grand dining room table for...how many do you think?”
He beamed with pride to see her so enthused about their home. “Twenty?”
She widened her lovely purple eyes at him. “Twenty-six.”
“A better number,” he joked, pleased he could get her to laugh. She’d been filled with trepidation to journey to Paris.
“An officer’s wife,” she’d murmured Christmas Day after she’d consented to marry him. “Giving dinner parties. And afternoon teas.”
“You’ll do well,” he reassured her but wondered if he convinced her. “You speak wonderful French. Better than I do. Now you have the opportunity to use it.”
“Will we have friends who are French?”
“I hope so,” he’d said. His work with French diplomats and bankers would be extensive. “I’ll need you, darling. Your agility with the language and your charm.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Come see the rest of it.” He took her toward the small salon and the door to the garden.
“The house is too lovely to be vacant,” she said as he swung open the door and led her down the steps to the frozen lawn and the sculpted parterre. Though it was January and the air was chill, in this cloistered garden the sun beamed down in gentle warmth upon them. “The gardens need fresh manure and a good pruning.”
“I know you’ll give it new life. You always did like roses.”
“And there are plenty here.” She counted the dormant brown bushes in one quadrangle. “My, my. Ten in each section. I’m going to have a wonderful time nurturing them. By May, they’ll be in full glory. You wait and see. Our table will groan with the weight of them.”
The delight on her face soothed a few of his fears. Ever since he proposed to her, he’d worried that she’d hate leaving her sisters. Even though he had no doubts that she loved him.
She cupped his jaw and examined him with relentless focus. “What’s wrong? You are not yourself since we’ve arrived here.”
It was true. The first few days of their marriage offered him the delights of her that he’d enjoyed like a libertine. They’d barely left his bedchamber in his London house until four days ago when they’d climbed into his traveling coach headed for Dover, Calais and Paris.
“Tell me.” She brushed her lips on his. “What can I do? Or not?”
“Nothing. You are perfect.”
She snorted. “Never!”
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him. Holding her so close, the ostrich feather on her little green toque tickling his neck, he bent to kiss her throat. “I worry about you.”
“Why?” she asked in her mellow contralto, never breaking from his embrace. “I am not fragile.”
“I’ve always thought you strong,” he said to refute the absurd idea that he might think her lacking.
She nestled closer to him, her head on his shoulder. “What then?”
“You’ve never been away from your sisters.”
She did pull back then to consider his expression. “But Bee has gone with Alastair to his new estate. And Del will return with Bromley in the spring to live in his new home across the park.”
With his new inheritance as the Comte de Valerie, Neville Vaughn had become a rich French aristo. He owned a fine house across the park, a grain mill up the Butte in Montmartre and an estate along the Loire River that had once produced good grain, fat pigs and the finest white wine.
“They have their lives to live married to men they adore,” she said with an earnest plea in her eyes. “And if you think I miss your step-mama’s company, I do. But to have you, to marry you was my wildest dream all these years. If you think I would trade you for anyone or—”
“Is this enough?”
She gaped at him. “Colonel Lord Marsden, you astonish me.”
He stood, frozen, unable to think beyond the despair he acknowledged anytime he looked at her and saw her silent or contemplative. She was a creature meant to move, to dance, to thrill with every breath.
“You walk into my life and days later, we are one. Wed. And soon after, here in Paris. In this grand house.”
“You do like it?”
“Oh, my darling,” she said and pecked him on the nose. “I like it. I love you.”
“And we’ll make this a fine home.” Even to his own ears, he sounded apprehensive.
“A loving home. You’ll see. We’ll make the house a haven for you. You’ll charm your French colleagues and make short shrift of your work. We’ll fill it with laughter and roses and dinner parties. Soirees! Salons to compete with grand French gatherings.”
“You won’t mind? Having to help me with the French? They can be difficult at times.”
“As you say, I can practice my French.” She got a wicked glint in her amethyst eyes as she hooked her arm in his and led him inside, then up the stairs. “Plus you know I have my own way to amuse a man who cannot converse.”
Suspicion mixed with laughter and he narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, now, I doubt that will be necessary.”
“I think it might.” She said with assurance as they rounded the landing headed for the bedrooms. “I’ve done a bit of reading the Paris newspapers and I do understand that in all the fashionable salons, after dinner the men and woman are not separated.”
“Marjorie—”
“Which way to our bedroom, darling?”
He threw out one hand. “There.”
“Good.” She flung open the door, strolled inside and began to undo the buttons on her pelisse. “Now. Where was I?”
“Men and women aren’t separated after dinner.”
“Precisely!” She let her coat fall to the nearest chair and came forward to unbutton his cape. “So that the most popular event is gambling.”
He laughed and pulled her to him. “You’ll be kind?”
“To you? Ah. I intend to be more than that. Especially after we can get you out of this uniform and in to that bed over there.”
He caught her hands and brought them to his mouth to kiss. “I love you.”
“And I am mad about you,” she said with a tempting moue. “Rest assured, my darling, I am a reformed woman.”
He chuckled as he turned her around and undid her laces. Kissing his way down her delectable skin, he said, “You must prove it to me.”
“Gladly, darling.” She stepped away from him and whirled to face him. Crooking a finger at him, she tipped her head and winked at him. “Come here. I’ll demonstrate that the only one I ever intend to fleece is you.”
THE END
Who is Cerise DeLand?
Cerise DeLand loves to write about dashing heroes and the sassy women they adore. Whether she’s penning historical romances or contemporaries, she has received praise for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail.
An award-winning author of more than 50 novels, she’s been published since 1991 by Pocket Books, St. Martin’s Press, Kensington and independent presses. Her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild. Plus she’s won nominations and awards for Best HistoricaWho is l of the Year, Best Regency and scores of rave reviews from Romantic Times, Affair de Coeur, Publisher’s Weekly and more.
To research, she’s dived into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She’s also traveled abroad, trusty notebook and pen in hand, to visit the chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.
And at home every day? She loves to cook, hates to dust, goes swimming at least once a week and tries (desperately) to grow vegetables in her arid backyard in south Texas!
Also by Cerise DeLand
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Interlude with a Baron, #4
Christmas Belles, Series:
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The Viscount’s Only Love, #2
The Duke’s Impetuous Darling, # 3
Delightful Doings in Dudley Crescent Series:
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His Tempting Governess, #2, debuts late 2018
His Naughty Maid, #3, debuts 2019
Erotic Regency Romances:
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Those Notorious Americans Series:
Wild Lily, #1
Daring Widow, #2
Sweet Siren, #3
Scandalous Heiress, #4, 2018
Miss Bereston’s Last Beau, #5, early 2019
Medievals
Swords of Passion Series:
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For Her Honor, #2
With Her Kiss, #3
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Military Romances
7 Brides for 7 SEALs Series:
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