“At last you returned.”
Curled up at Edmund’s side, Phoebe looked up at the door to where her brother and sister stood. A patent smile lined Justina’s face. Andrew, however, wore a dark scowl. “It is lovely to see you, as well,” she drawled, making to rise, but Edmund wrapped a possessive arm about her and held her at his side. Since he’d discovered she was expecting in Wales, he’d ordered their belongings packed and rushed them back to the confines of their townhouse. He’d not left her side since. Despite her assurances and the assurances of his family physician, he’d not gathered that this expecting business was really quite natural.
Either failing to hear or care about Phoebe’s droll tone, Andrew sailed into the room. He plopped down on the chair nearest Edmund. “You’ve been gone an infernally long time.” His lips settled into a petulant frown.
“It was but a month.”
“It was a month and one week,” Justina muttered, and gave her brother an accusatory glance. “And I should know. That one spoke of it. Every day.” She looked to Phoebe. “Every. Day.”
At his sister’s pronouncement, embarrassment turned his cheeks red and Andrew tugged at his lapels. “Well, is there something wrong with a chap missing his friend?”
A smile twitched at Phoebe’s lips. “Your sister?”
Her brother furrowed his brow in consternation. “Did I say my sister? I was referring to Rutland, there.”
“Ah, of course,” Phoebe said with mock solemnity. She stole a glance up at her husband. A pained expression marked the chiseled planes of his face. Another smile tugged at her lips. For the gentleness and love he’d shown her this past one month and one week as her siblings had aptly pointed out, there would always be, she suspected, a bearish gruffness to him around others and the affection shown him. She slipped her hand into his and gave a slight squeeze.
Edmund glanced down at their interlocked digits and raised it to his lips. A look passed between them and warmth filled her heart. It spiraled through her with a blazing heat.
Andrew leaned forward in his chair and waved his hand about. “Are you two listening to me?”
“No, they are not.” Justina slid into a mahogany shell chair beside her brother. Her blue eyes twinkled with mirth. “They are giving one another the look of longing.”
“The look of longing?” her brother wrinkled his nose. “What in blazes is that?”
Edmund wrapped an arm about Phoebe. “Someday you will discover precisely what that is, Barrett.”
Andrew gave a dismissive wave. “Regardless, I’ve not come to talk about Phoebe’s odd looking business.” It did not escape Phoebe’s notice that he’d very deliberately left Edmund out of that odd looking business. “I’ve missed you at the clubs. Not the same there without you.”
Annoyed by his visiting those shameful sins, Phoebe frowned at Andrew. She opened her mouth to deliver a stinging lecture on those very clubs, when Edmund folded his ankle at his knee.
“I no longer visit For…those clubs,” he amended, glancing over at his young sister-in-law and then wife.
The man he’d been would have not given a jot about talking about those scandalous clubs before anyone and everyone. The man he truly was, however, cared…about Phoebe, her family, their life.
Andrew blinked in rapid succession. “You no longer visit Forbidden Pleasures.”
Edmund gave a somber shake of his head. “I do not.”
“Never tell me you attend,” He gave a shudder. “Brooke’s or Whites?”
Edmund’s silence stood as his answer.
A pained groan escaped the younger man and he threw himself back in his chair. “You’ve ruined him, Phoebe. Utterly and completely ruined the Marquess of Rutland.”
Edmund raised Phoebe’s fingertips to his lips once again and placed a lingering kiss on the inner portion of her wrist where her heart pounded wildly. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong, Barrett. Your sister saved me.”
And ignoring the painful groan of her brother, Phoebe leaned up and kissed her husband.
The End
Biography
Christi Caldwell is the bestselling author of historical romance novels set in the Regency era. Christi blames Judith McNaught’s “Whitney, My Love,” for luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes and try her hand at writing romance. She believes the most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections and rather enjoys tormenting them before crafting a well-deserved happily ever after!
When Christi isn’t writing the stories of flawed heroes and heroines, she can be found in her Southern Connecticut home chasing around her feisty five-year-old son, and caring for twin princesses-in-training!
Visit www.christicaldwellauthor.com to learn more about what Christi is working on, or join her on Facebook at Christi Caldwell Author, and Twitter @ChristiCaldwell
Other Books by Christi Caldwell
“Winning a Lady’s Heart”
A Danby Novella
Author’s Note: This is a novella that was originally available in A Summons From The Castle (The Regency Christmas Summons Collection). It is being published as an individual novella.
For Lady Alexandra, being the source of a cold, calculated wager is bad enough…but when it is waged by Nathaniel Michael Winters, 5th Earl of Pembroke, the man she’s in love with, it results in a broken heart, the scandal of the season, and a summons from her grandfather – the Duke of Danby.
To escape Society’s gossip, she hurries to her meeting with the duke, determined to put memories of the earl far behind. Except the duke has other plans for Alexandra…plans which include the 5th Earl of Pembroke!
“A Season of Hope”
A Danby Novella
Five years ago when her love, Marcus Wheatley, failed to return from fighting Napoleon’s forces, Lady Olivia Foster buried her heart. Unable to betray Marcus’s memory, Olivia has gone out of her way to run off prospective suitors. At three and twenty she considers herself firmly on the shelf. Her father, however, disagrees and accepts an offer for Olivia’s hand in marriage. Yet it’s Christmas, when anything can happen…
Olivia receives a well-timed summons from her grandfather, the Duke of Danby, and eagerly embraces the reprieve from her betrothal.
Only, when Olivia arrives at Danby Castle she realizes the Christmas season represents hope, second chances, and even miracles.
“Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride”
Book 1 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Hopeless romantic Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh is tired of sitting with the wallflowers, waiting for her betrothed to come to his senses and marry her. When Emmaline reads one too many reports of his scandalous liaisons in the gossip rags, she takes matters into her own hands.
War-torn veteran Lord Drake devotes himself to forgetting his days on the Peninsula through an endless round of meaningless associations. He no longer wants to feel anything, but Lady Emmaline is making it hard to maintain a state of numbness. With her zest for life, she awakens his passion and desire for love.
The one woman Drake has spent the better part of his life avoiding is now the only woman he needs, but he is no longer a man worthy of his Emmaline. It is up to her to show him the healing power of love.
“Never Courted, Suddenly Wed”
Book 2 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Christopher Ansley, Earl of Waxham, has constructed a perfect image for the ton–the ladies love him and his company is desired by all. Only two people know the truth about Waxham’s secret. Unfortunately, one of them is Miss Sophie Winters.
Sophie Winters has known Christopher since she was in leading strings. As children, they delighted in tormenting each other. Now at two and twenty, she still has a tendency to find herself in scrapes, and her marital prospects are slim.
When his father threatens to expose his shame to the ton, unless he weds Sophie for her dowry, Christo
pher concocts a plan to remain a bachelor. What he didn’t plan on was falling in love with the lively, impetuous Sophie. As secrets are exposed, will Christopher’s love be enough when she discovers his role in his father’s scheme?
“Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous”
Book 3 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Geoffrey Winters, Viscount Redbrooke was not always the hard, unrelenting lord driven by propriety. After a tragic mistake, he resolved to honor his responsibility to the Redbrooke line and live a life, free of scandal. Knowing his duty is to wed a proper, respectable English miss, he selects Lady Beatrice Dennington, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, the perfect woman for him. Until he meets Miss Abigail Stone…
To distance herself from a personal scandal, Abigail Stone flees America to visit her uncle, the Duke of Somerset. Determined to never trust a man again, she is helplessly intrigued by the hard, too-proper Geoffrey. With his strict appreciation for decorum and order, he is nothing like the man’ she’s always dreamed of.
Abigail is everything Geoffrey does not need. She upends his carefully ordered world at every encounter. As they begin to care for one another, Abigail carefully guards the secret that resulted in her journey to England.
Only, if Geoffrey learns the truth about Abigail, he must decide which he holds most dear: his place in Society or Abigail’s place in his heart.
“Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love”
Book 4 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Miss Juliet Marshville is spitting mad. With one guardian missing, and the other singularly uninterested in her fate, she is at the mercy of her wastrel brother who loses her beloved childhood home to a man known as Sin. Determined to reclaim control of Rosecliff Cottage and her own fate, Juliet arranges a meeting with the notorious rogue and demands the return of her property.
Jonathan Tidemore, 5th Earl of Sinclair, known to the ton as Sin, is exceptionally lucky in life and at the gaming tables. He has just one problem. Well…four, really. His incorrigible sisters have driven off yet another governess. This time, however, his mother demands he find an appropriate replacement.
When Miss Juliet Marshville boldly demands the return of her precious cottage, he takes advantage of his sudden good fortune and puts an offer to her; turn his sisters into proper English ladies, and he’ll return Rosecliff Cottage to Juliet’s possession.
Jonathan comes to appreciate Juliet’s spirit, courage, and clever wit, and decides to claim the fiery beauty as his mistress. Juliet, however, will be mistress for no man. Nor could she ever love a man who callously stole her home in a game of cards. As Jonathan begins to see Juliet as more than a spirited beauty to warm his bed, he realizes she could be a lady he could love the rest of his life, if only he can convince the proud Juliet that he’s worthy of her hand and heart.
“A Marquess For Christmas”
Book 5 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Lady Patrina Tidemore gave up on the ridiculous notion of true love after having her heart shattered and her trust destroyed by a black-hearted cad. Used as a pawn in a game of revenge against her brother, Patrina returns to London from a failed elopement with a tattered reputation and little hope for a respectable match. The only peace she finds is in her solitude on the cold winter days at Hyde Park. And even that is yanked from her by two little hellions who just happen to have a devastatingly handsome, but coldly aloof father, the Marquess of Beaufort. Something about the lord stirs the dreams she’d once carried for an honorable gentleman’s love.
Weston Aldridge, the 4th Marquess of Beaufort was deceived and betrayed by his late wife. In her faithlessness, he’s come to view women as self-serving, indulgent creatures. Except, after a series of chance encounters with Patrina, he comes to appreciate how uniquely different she is than all women he’s ever known.
At the Christmastide season, a time of hope and new beginnings, Patrina and Weston, unexpectedly learn true love in one another. However, as Patrina’s scandalous past threatens their future and the happiness of his children, they are both left to determine if love is enough.
“Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love”
Book 6 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Responsible, practical Miss Hermione Rogers, has been crafting stories as the notorious Mr. Michael Michaelmas and selling them for a meager wage to support her siblings. The only real way to ensure her family’s ruinous debts are paid, however, is to marry. Tall, thin, and plain, she has no expectation of success. In London for her first Season she seizes the chance to write the tale of a brooding duke. In her research, she finds Sebastian Fitzhugh, the 5th Duke of Mallen, who unfortunately is perfectly affable, charming, and so nicely… configured… he takes her breath away. He lacks all the character traits she needs for her story, but alas, any duke will have to do.
Sebastian Fitzhugh, the 5th Duke of Mallen has been deceived so many times during the high-stakes game of courtship, he’s lost faith in Society women. Yet, after a chance encounter with Hermione, he finds himself intrigued. Not a woman he’d normally consider beautiful, the young lady’s practical bent, her forthright nature and her tendency to turn up in the oddest places has his interests… roused. He’d like to trust her, he’d like to do a whole lot more with her too, but should he?
“In Need of a Duke”
A Prequel Novella to “The Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
In Need of a Duke: (Author’s Note: This is a prequel novella to “The Heart of a Duke” series by Christi Caldwell. It was originally available in “The Heart of a Duke” Collection and is now being published as an individual novella.
~*~
It features a new prologue and epilogue.
Years earlier, a gypsy woman passed to Lady Aldora Adamson and her friends a heart pendant that promised them each the heart of a duke.
Now, a young lady, with her family facing ruin and scandal, Lady Aldora doesn’t have time for mythical stories about cheap baubles. She needs to save her sisters and brother by marrying a titled gentleman with wealth and power to his name. She sets her bespectacled sights upon the Marquess of St. James.
Turned out by his father after a tragic scandal, Lord Michael Knightly has grown into a powerful, but self-made man. With the whispers and stares that still follow him, he would rather be anywhere but London…
Until he meets Lady Aldora, a young woman who mistakes him for his brother, the Marquess of St. James. The connection between Aldora and Michael is immediate and as they come to know one another, Aldora’s feelings for Michael war with her sisterly responsibilities. With her family’s dire situation, a man of Michael’s scandalous past will never do.
Ultimately, Aldora must choose between her responsibilities as a sister and her love for Michael.
“For Love of the Duke”
First Full-Length Book in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
After the tragic death of his wife, Jasper, the 8th Duke of Bainbridge buried himself away in the dark cold walls of his home, Castle Blackwood. When he’s coaxed out of his self-imposed exile to attend the amusements of the Frost Fair, his life is irrevocably changed by his fateful meeting with Lady Katherine Adamson.
With her tight brown ringlets and silly white-ruffled gowns, Lady Katherine Adamson has found her dance card empty for two Seasons. After her father’s passing, Katherine learned the unreliability of men, and is determined to depend on no one, except herself. Until she meets Jasper…
In a desperate bid to avoid a match arranged by her family, Katherine makes the Duke of Bainbridge a shocking proposition—one that he accepts.
Only, as Katherine begins to love Jasper, she finds the arrangement agreed upon is not enough. And Jasper is left to decide if protecting his heart is more important than fighting for Katherine’s love.
“More Than a Duke”
Book 2 in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
Polite Society doesn’t take Lady Anne Adamson seriously. Ho
wever, Anne isn’t just another pretty young miss. When she discovers her father betrayed her mother’s love and her family descended into poverty, Anne comes up with a plan to marry a respectable, powerful, and honorable gentleman—a man nothing like her philandering father.
Armed with the heart of a duke pendant, fabled to land the wearer a duke’s heart, she decides to enlist the aid of the notorious Harry, 6th Earl of Stanhope. A scoundrel with a scandalous past, he is the last gentleman she’d ever wed…however, his reputation marks him the perfect man to school her in the art of seduction so she might ensnare the illustrious Duke of Crawford.
Harry, the Earl of Stanhope is a jaded, cynical rogue who lives for his own pleasures. Having been thrown over by the only woman he ever loved so she could wed a duke, he’s not at all surprised when Lady Anne approaches him with her scheme to capture another duke’s affection. He’s come to appreciate that all women are in fact greedy, title-grasping, self-indulgent creatures. And with Anne’s history of grating on his every last nerve, she is the last woman he’d ever agree to school in the art of seduction. Only his friendship with the lady’s sister compels him to help.
What begins as a pretend courtship, born of lessons on seduction, becomes something more leaving Anne to decide if she can give her heart to a reckless rogue, and Harry must decide if he’s willing to again trust in a lady’s love.
“The Love of a Rogue”
Book 3 in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
Lady Imogen Moore hasn’t had an easy time of it since she made her Come Out. With her betrothed, a powerful duke breaking it off to wed her sister, she’s become the tons favorite piece of gossip. Never again wanting to experience the pain of a broken heart, she’s resolved to make a match with a polite, respectable gentleman. The last thing she wants is another reckless rogue.
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