Valor's Reward
Page 23
Jessica kissed her wrinkled cheek.
“Peter and I,” Caroline said as Jessica embraced her, “also can’t wait to get to Bath to try the waters.”
Michael teasingly kissed Caroline briefly on the lips, and she blushed scarlet as he winked at Peter.
“For the Blue Boar,” he said. “But you will join us for luncheon first?”
They all followed the earl from the chapel into the great dining room, where a selection of cold food was already laid out. The wedding feast was beautiful, elegant, and festive, with chilled champagne from the castle’s deep cellars.
“You do everything to perfection, don’t you?” Jessica whispered. “How can I ever live up to it? Here I sit in diamonds, when I would have married you in the breeches I fled your cottage in.”
Michael put his hand on her shoulder and spoke softly against her cheek.
“Yes, but you would have shocked the priest, my love. And besides, your gown will be a great deal more fun to take off.”
Jessica’s lips brushed his ear. “Won’t a maid remove it for me when it’s time for me to retire tonight?”
His thumb strayed to her bare neck and up to the hairline, where he wound a thread of rich hair around his finger.
“No, she won’t, because the maids won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Suddenly ravenous, Jessica savored her wedding lunch, and drank a little too much champagne.
* * *
At last Lord and Lady Deyncourt stood together under the Norman arch, and waved as the carriage pulled away down the driveway to begin the journey to Bath.
Michael pulled Jessica against his heart. “And now, my dear wife, we are alone. It’s time to go to bed.”
“Michael! It’s afternoon.”
His grin made her heart contract. “So?”
Taking her hand, he led her up a set of winding stairs into a vaulted chamber tucked somewhere beneath the roof. There was little other furniture besides the four-poster. Sunlight streamed into the room.
“What about my maidenly modesty?” she asked shakily.
“It’s fortunate you have none, my wild rose. Come here. It’s my turn to seduce you.”
Jessica stepped into his encircling arms and his lips met hers.
There was all the subtlety and skill that she had come to expect in his kiss, but this time there was something else: passion without restraint, without doubts, and without shame. Any last vestiges of fear and guilt melted like frost flowers on a windowpane under the clean, burning heat of the sun.
Her wedding dress slipped with a whisper to the floor, to be followed by his shirt and cravat.
She helped him out of his silk breeches and delighted in the warmth of his body against her palms.
As he kissed the sensitive flesh of her neck, he slid her shift slowly from her shoulders, leaving her clad in nothing but diamonds. They sank together onto the bed, where sunlight poured over their naked skin.
Her fingers traveled with wonder over his smooth flank. He would always, always, entrance her. Willingly, she held out her arms to him and he lost himself in her embrace.
* * *
Author's Note
The most famous highwayman who dressed as a woman in order to ply his dastardly trade was one Thomas Sympson, known as Old Mob. In this charming disguise he is said to have enticed a lord into leaving his guard of six for a tryst in the woods.
His lordship immediately set about “taking up the petticoats,” but then is reputed to have cried out, “What a plague’s the meaning of your wearing breeches, madam?”
Needless to say, the highwayman kept his virtue, while the lord lost his purse.
Old Mob was hanged in 1691, but public executions continued until 1868.
The death penalty applied to many crimes and could be carried out within days of the trial, thus Deyncourt’s concern for Jessica. During the Regency the death sentence was sometimes commuted to transportation, but probably not by my fictional Lord Clarence.
Readers of my other Reward books have already met Charles de Dagonet and Richard Acton, mentioned in these pages, in Scandal’s Reward, Virtue’s Reward, and Rogue’s Reward. They were both members of Wellington’s intelligence forces in the Peninsula—as, of course, was Michael, Lord Deyncourt.
For fans of the Actons, never fear, they are destined to reappear in my next book, Folly’s Reward.
Thank you, readers, for all of your loyal support.
You may find out more at www.jeanrossewing.com or www.juliaross.net
About the Author
Jean R. Ewing grew up in the English countryside in a Georgian house last remodeled in 1820. There were still servants' bells in the hall and stone sinks in the kitchen when she moved in with her family. In that house, curled up beside an elegant Regency fireplace, she devoured her first ever Georgette Heyer romance, The Grand Sophy. Already a fan of Jane Austen, she was hooked.
Scandal's Reward was the result, many years later, the first in her award-winning series of six Regency romances published by Zebra Books. Virtue's Reward is the second book in the series, which culminated in Love's Reward, winner of the RITA Award for Best Regency of the Year.
"It was a green, and flowery, and sunshiny world," wrote Mary Russell Mitford, remembering the rural England of the Regency. Yet Jean reminds us that it was also a time of adventure and intrigue, style and wit, rakes and gamblers, the waltz and the marriage mart--and the duel at dawn.
You can visit her at www.jeanrossewing.com or www.juliaross.net.
Publishing Information
Copyright © 1996 by Jean R. Ewing
Originally published by Zebra Books (ISBN 978-0821754108), September, 1996
Electronically published in 2016 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: ebooks@regencyreads.com
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.