“Everyone thought it would be you who’d still be a virgin on her wedding day, Meg,” Jess said, “because your character was so upright, so moral.”
Phoebe snorted. “You fooled us all.”
“You did, indeed,” Serena said.
Meg just smiled.
“Are you finished?” Jessica asked Olivia.
“I am.”
Jessica released a breath. “Good. Are we ready, then?”
Serena looked at the clock on the mantel. “It’s still too early, Jess. All the guests won’t have arrived yet.”
With a low growl of impatience, Jessica flopped down into one of Serena’s soft velvet armchairs.
“Don’t worry,” Phoebe said, “you’ll be bedded soon enough. I’m sure David is equally impatient.”
Jessica made an indecipherable noise.
“Oh, I imagine he is,” Olivia said in her quiet way. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”
“Oh, yes,” Phoebe said. “I have. Rather like she’s a slab of tender meat he wishes to devour.”
“Phoebe!” the four sisters exclaimed.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
They looked at one another, all of them grinning like loons. “It is true,” Serena said with a chuckle.
There was a knock at the door, and a maid poked her head in. “She’s arrived, my lady. Shall I have her wait in the drawing room?”
“Uh…” Serena glanced around at the rest of them. “What do you think?”
Phoebe groaned. “I’d rather hoped she’d appear after the ceremony. I suppose the unfavorable winds didn’t slow her ship as much as we’d hoped.”
Meg glanced at Jessica, who looked into her eyes and nodded. “Have her come up,” she murmured.
Serena held Meg’s gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded to the maid. “Show her up, please, Flannery.”
The sisters stood still and unmoving as they waited. Moments later, the door burst open.
The sisters didn’t move as their mother came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Look at all my beautiful, lovely daughters!”
Then, her gaze latched on to Meg, and she burst into tears and rushed forward, holding her arms out. “Serena!” she cried. “My heavens. For so long I thought you were dead—drowned—and here you are, healthy and beautiful as ever, and still looking so very much like your sister.”
Meg met Serena’s eyes over her mother’s shoulder. So, that was how it was to be. Even their mother wouldn’t admit to what she’d done. Henceforth, the real Meg was to be Serena, and Serena was to be Meg.
Slowly, Meg smiled.
It didn’t matter. She had Will. She had Jake and Thomas. She had Serena, and Olivia, Phoebe, and Jessica. All of them loved her and knew her for herself.
She pulled back and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Mother.” And then her own eyes flooded with tears. “I never… never thought I’d see you again.”
And that was the truth. At least her mother was here, and Meg was no longer on the run from Caversham, afraid to involve her loved ones. She was free. Free to be with them again. Free to love Will.
Her mother clasped her face in her palms and kissed her lips, her own eyes streaming tears. “To see you… alive, my dear, darling daughter.”
And then, Meg’s sisters were surrounding them, even Serena, who had, for once, successfully transferred William to his cradle. And they were all hugging and crying.
“Meg,” their mother said, turning to Serena. “You’ve done so very well for yourself. You’re a countess.”
“Yes, Mother, I am,” Serena said, smiling.
“And Olivia, a duchess.” She kissed Olivia on the lips. “My dear, dear child. I knew there was a duke out there for you.”
They all laughed at that. Olivia’s health had been so poor when they were girls that their mother had despaired of her finding a husband at all—or living long enough to find one.
“And I shan’t forget you, darling Phoebe. I knew you’d find a proper, honest gentleman to marry.”
“That I did, Mother,” Phoebe said. Then she added under her breath, “Even if you’re the only person in the world who will ever call him a gentleman.”
But their mother had turned again to Meg, and she took Meg’s and Jessica’s hands in her own. “I came just in time, didn’t I? I told Geraldine’s coachman that he must hurry, that he must rush all the way to Sussex so that I could reach my darling daughters’ wedding in time.”
“You’re just in time, Mother,” Jessica said. “We’re just about to go downstairs and to the chapel.”
“Oh, Jessica, my love, you’re marrying a prosperous business owner. Well done, darling!”
Jessica widened her eyes at Meg. “Prosperous business owner? Where did you hear that, Mother?”
“Geraldine, of course.”
“Of course,” Serena said dryly. Aunt Geraldine was their mother’s sister, who was just about as intent on having her nieces marry well as their mother was. Nothing was more important to the older women than their family’s image in society.
“And Serena, at last,” their mother said, turning back to Meg. “Marrying our dear Captain Langley after Meg jilted him for the earl. How gallant of you, Serena.”
“Goodness gracious, Mother,” Meg said, “Serena didn’t jilt—”
Their mother released their hands and raised her own into the air as if praying in gratitude. “All of my dreams as a mother have come true at last. By the end of today, all five of my daughters will have married well.”
They all stared at her for a second. And then Serena smiled broadly. “We have married well, Mother. We have all married for love.”
The ceremony took place in the small chapel on the edge of Jonathan’s property. The entire household had crammed into the narrow seats. The Donovans and their friends filled most of the pews, but David’s six brothers and their wives had come, too, and took the pews at the back of the chapel. It was a solid first step in reconciliation between David and his family.
Beatrice served as a bridesmaid while Jake and Thomas and the three married Donovan sisters sat in the front row with their mother, wearing the utmost in fashion and her face glowing with happiness, as the couples made their vows: first Jessica and David, then Meg and Will.
“With this ring I thee wed,” Will said softly, looking down at Meg, his eyes solemn and dark. The people around them seemed to blur, dim, and then disappear altogether. There was only the two of them here, joining together in this very special way that only would happen to her once in Meg’s lifetime. “With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”
There. He’d done it. He’d just made her another promise, and she knew, deep in her heart, that he’d keep it, just as he’d kept his last promise to her. “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”
He took her hand and cradled it for a moment in his larger, callused palm, and then he slid the ring on her finger. They had bought it in Brighton just last week, when Will had remembered that they would need a ring.
It was a simple gold band. It was a symbol of the endless nature of their love for each other.
It was perfect.
She smiled up at him. Her husband.
The vicar told both couples to kneel, and they all prayed together, then the priest sang a psalm and prayed again. Then he gave a sermon, and the congregation took communion.
Finally, the two couples rose and faced the people sitting in the pews. The vicar introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. David Briggs and Captain and Mrs. William Langley.
Organ music played joyously through the recessional. Meg went with Will first, her arm entwined with his. They walked slowly, smiling back at all the happy faces around them. Jake, the limits of his patience reached, rushed up to them as they passed where he was sitting with Phoebe and Sebastian. Thomas, not to be outdone, joined him.
Jessica and David followed
, also arm in arm, then their sisters and brothers-in-law and their mother, and finally the rest of the congregation.
Meg and Will stepped out into the bright November morning, and they stopped on the lawn in front of the chapel. Meg looked up at her husband and smiled at him.
“We’re married,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “Tell me it’s not a dream.”
“I promise you, Will, you’re wide awake.”
“Thank God.” He opened his eyes. “We are married. Finally.”
And he kissed her as all their friends and loved ones poured out from the chapel doors to wish them happiness.
Epilogue
Mmm.” Jessica wrapped her arms around her husband and brought him down for another kiss.
“I can’t get enough of you, Jess,” David murmured, his voice rough.
Jessica smiled. “Good, because I can’t get enough of you, either.”
The ship rocked gently beneath them as David’s mouth moved across her jaw and down her collarbones to her breast. They were on the Freedom, heading south toward warmer seas for their honeymoon.
She arched up, giving him easy access to her breasts, stretching her body languidly. “I could never have imagined how good that would feel.”
He chuckled. “No? You could have done it to yourself, couldn’t you?”
“Heavens, no. There would have been no way for me to replicate your lips and tongue—”
His wicked tongue swiped over her nipple as if to prove her statement, and she gasped and wiggled as pleasure wended its way through her. His hand came down over her bare hip, pinning her in place.
“And there would be no way at all for me to have the experience of your unshaven jaw moving over my skin.”
He looked up at her, his blue eyes so dark they looked almost black. “Does it hurt?” he asked in a soft voice.
“It doesn’t really hurt badly, but it does hurt… in the very best way possible.”
His frown deepened into a scowl. “That makes no sense.”
“But it does, David. Everything about our lovemaking is like that for me.” She reached down and combed her fingers through his hair. “Pleasure with just the slightest edge of something else. Something more.”
She shuddered as his chin rasped the side of her breast as his mouth lowered over it again. Then, he bit down gently on her nipple, and pleasure raced through her.
“Yes, like that,” she gasped. “Just like that.”
She felt his smile against her skin. “God, woman. I love you so damn much.”
“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And she loved him, too, more than anything. Life with this man was going to be a challenge she’d relish every second of every day.
His mouth moved back up her body until he was kissing her again, his lips so commanding as they moved over hers that her toes curled. He moved against her, and she could feel the hardness of him—of his erection—sliding against her thigh.
With a sigh, he drew back from the kiss. “It is after noon. Your sister and Langley will be at the table for luncheon, wondering where we are.”
“Oh, I doubt they’ll wonder,” she said saucily, pulling him to her again. “Make love to me, David.”
And they made love again on the soft bed in their cabin, with the sea rolling under them and Will and Meg not doubting for a second what they were doing. They emerged to a starry sky, looking so engrossed and so in love with each other that everyone left them alone to stand on deck and enjoy the warm air as the ship clipped along in a brisk evening breeze.
Meg glanced at the bow of the Freedom, where David had his arm around her sister, and they were deep in conversation as they gazed over the moonlit sea. “They look so happy,” she murmured.
Will’s hand slipped into hers. “Are you happy?” he asked.
She turned to him. “What makes you ask that?”
He shrugged. “I know it wasn’t your choice, to be at sea again. God knows you’ve spent enough time on the ocean.”
“That was different. I was always in the cabin I shared with Sarah and Jake, then. I hardly dared go on deck. Being here on the Freedom is so very different from being a prisoner on one of Caversham’s ships.” She chuckled. “I think you named this ship very aptly, Will.”
“Are you sure you’re happy?” Will frowned down at her, worried. “We can go back to England… spend our time elsewhere. We don’t have to take this tour…”
“Jessica wants this… And do you know what? I don’t care where we are, or whether we’re on land or on sea. All I care about is being with you.”
He gazed at her, searching her eyes in the lantern light that splashed in a golden glow across the stern of the Freedom.
“So you are happy?” he murmured.
She leaned against him, and he slipped an arm around her like David’s was around Jessica and pulled her close.
“So happy,” she said, “I think I must be the happiest woman in the world.” The warm, golden glow of happiness pulsed through her with every beat of her heart. How could a woman be happier than she was? How could Will not see it?
She had kept Jake safe and had grown to love Thomas, who was just as sweet and loving as Jake was. If anyone or anything could heal Jake from those horrible years he’d spent being abused by his father, Meg knew that it would be her and Will and the family they, along with Thomas and her sisters, would provide for them.
She had her family back—all of them. Her twin, Serena, the most important person in her life for eighteen years. Olivia, whose bedside she’d attended constantly when they were girls and whom she’d worried about incessantly over the years. Phoebe and Jessica, who’d grown into beautiful women. And even her mother, who loved them all in her way.
And she had Will. The captain everyone thought was perfect, but who had made a mistake he never repeated and was never likely to recover from. A part of Will would always be repentant for what he’d done to Eliza Anderson, and for his betrayal of Meg. But despite his mistake and in spite of all the years they’d spent apart, she’d never stopped loving him. He had always been the only man for her.
And… the most amazing, most miraculous bit of all was that he loved her, too. Unconditionally. Without hesitation. He’d part the seas for her, just as she would for him.
She glanced at his handsome face framed by dark hair ruffled by the breeze. “I’m not only the happiest woman in the world, but I’m the luckiest, Will. Because I have Jake and Thomas, and I have my family, and most of all, I have you.”
He bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
And slipping through the waves and powered by the silent force of the wind, the Freedom sailed south toward sandy coves and warmer waters. But that didn’t matter to the two newly married couples on board. What mattered was they were heading into new lives, together, strengthened by the power of their love.
After five years in the West Indies, Serena Donovan is back in London. But so is the one person she never expected to see again… Jonathan Dane—her very own original sin.
Please turn this page for an excerpt from
Confessions of an Improper Bride
Prologue
Off the coast of Antigua
1822
Serena Donovan had not slept well since the Victory had left Portsmouth. Usually, the roll of the ship would lull her into a fretful sleep after she’d lain awake for hours next to her slumbering twin. Her mind tumbled over the ways she could have managed everything differently, how she might have saved herself from becoming a pariah.
But tonight was different. It had started off the same, with her lying beside a sound-asleep Meg and thinking about Jonathan Dane, about what she might have done to counter the force of the magnetic pull between them. Sleep had never come, though, because a lookout had sighted land yesterday afternoon, and Serena and Meg would be home tomorrow. Home to their mother and younger sisters and bearing a letter from their aunt that detailed
Serena’s disgrace.
Meg shifted, then rolled over to face Serena, her brow furrowed, her gray eyes unfocused from sleep.
“Did I wake you?” Serena asked in a low voice.
Meg rubbed her eyes and twisted her body to stretch. “No, you didn’t wake me,” she said on a yawn. “Haven’t you slept at all?”
When Serena didn’t answer, her twin sighed. “Silly question. Of course you haven’t.”
Serena tried to smile. “It’s near dawn. Will you walk with me before the sun rises? One last time?”
The sisters often rose early and strode along the deck before the ship awakened and the bulk of the crew made its appearance for morning mess. Arm in arm, talking in low voices and enjoying the peaceful beauty of dawn, the two young ladies would stroll along the wood planks of the deck, down the port side and up the starboard, pausing to watch the sun rise over the stern of the Victory.
What an inappropriate name, Serena thought, for the ship bearing her home as a failure and disgrace. She’d brought shame and humiliation to her entire family. Rejection, Defeat, or perhaps Utter Disappointment would serve as far better names for a vessel returning Serena to everlasting spinsterhood and dishonor.
Serena turned up the lantern and they dressed in silence. It wasn’t necessary to speak—Serena could always trust her sister to know what she was thinking and vice versa. They’d slept in the same bedroom their entire lives, and they’d helped each other to dress since they began to walk.
After Serena slid the final button through the hole at the back of Meg’s dress, she reached for their heavy woolen cloaks hanging on a peg and handed Meg hers. It was midsummer, but the mornings were still cool.
When they emerged on the Victory’s deck, Serena tilted her face up to the sky. Usually at this time, the stars cast a steady silver gleam over the ship, but not this morning. “It’s overcast,” she murmured.
Meg nodded. “Look at the sea. I thought I felt us tossing about rather more vigorously than usual.”
Pleasures of a Tempted Lady Page 32