Truly, Madly, Deeply

by Romantic Novelist's Association

  The third time had been in front of the altar on their wedding day. He had left for his club with the wedding breakfast barely consumed. She had not seen him again. Until now.

  He was still as handsome. That annoyed her considerably. She had hoped that four years in the Peninsular would have dimmed those spectacular good looks, so it was disconcerting to see that he looked even better now than he had when he had gone to war. Four years ago he had been a boy; a little callow, a little brash. Now his authority and assurance felt real. His voice was clipped and accustomed to command. His face was thinner than she remembered, tanned, with lines it had not had before. His eyes –very dark, very direct –were only a couple of shades lighter than his hair.

  Deep, deep inside she felt her heart skip a beat. She tried to ignore it. Four years ago she had conceived a foolish schoolgirl’s infatuation for Justin Blake. She had already been half in love with him before they met, her sympathy engaged by his sad history: the death of his parents when he was barely out of the cradle, the chilly relatives who did not want the orphaned child. It had been stupid of her, though, to think that she could offer him some sort of comfort or affection. He did not want her, only her money. It had been very lowering to be hopelessly in love with one’s husband when he preferred the company of his regiment.

  He was frowning at her. It was intimidating but she was his wife, not a junior officer, so she raised her chin and met his gaze very directly.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘I am on my way to London,’ Paullina said.

  ‘Did you not receive my letter telling you that I was on my way to Coombe Abbey?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paullina said. ‘That was why I was going to London.’

  Justin did not appear annoyed by her blunt explanation. A half-smile curled his lips. It did curious things to her pulse.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You are running away from me.’

  There was a challenge in that. It quickened her blood.

  ‘Given that you have shown no desire for my company in the past four years,’ she said sharply, ‘I could not believe you would want it now. And I never run.’ She flicked an imaginary speck disdainfully from her sleeve.

  He had not taken his eyes from her face. Now he smiled properly; a smile that made her tingle down to her toes. No one had ever looked at her the way Justin was looking at her now. Suddenly she was acutely aware of him: of the intensity of his gaze, his scent and of his masculinity.

  ‘You recognised me this morning, didn’t you,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ Paullina said. ‘But as you did not appear to recognise me –’

  ‘You thought you would hurry me on my way in order to affect your escape all the more speedily.’

  Well, she had to give him credit for quick wits. He had guessed her strategy all too easily.

  ‘The unsympathetic husband was a nice touch.’ He sounded rueful.

  ‘I thought so.’ Paullina smiled politely. ‘And not a word of a lie.’

  She looked him up and down with her best impression of a haughty dowager. Anything to keep him from guessing the effect his lazy appraisal was having on her.

  ‘Were there no spare rooms to be had last night?’ she asked.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders indifferently. ‘I have no idea. Either I misheard the room number the clerk gave me or, more likely, he thought that as we are Lord and Lady Blake –’ he put some emphasis on the words ‘ –he was showing great initiative in directing me to my wife’s bedchamber.’

  Paullina could see how it had happened. She might even have found it amusing under other circumstances. When she had arrived the eager young clerk had asked if her husband would be joining her later. She had replied, somewhat dryly, that she considered it very unlikely. The clerk had looked most sympathetic. He must have been delighted for her when Justin had strolled in and announced that he was Lord Blake.

  ‘I shall lock my door in future to deter importunate gentlemen,’ she said.

  Justin gave her a smile that was so sudden and so wicked that she caught her breath. ‘It’s a little late for that, my dear,’ he said. ‘You’ve just spent the night with a complete scoundrel.’ He gestured towards the stair. ‘Would you do me the honour of taking breakfast with me before you leave?’

  Paullina’s heart tumbled to her slippers. For a moment the disappointment was so acute it stole her breath. It was not that she wanted Justin to insist she accompany him back to Coombe –theirs was a marriage of convenience, after all, so there was no necessity to spend any time together –but it would have been nice if he had not been quite so quick to fall in with her plans.

  He was watching her. Her emotions felt too naked; she turned away.

  ‘I insist you dress properly first,’ she said lightly. ‘I make it a rule not to take breakfast with gentlemen in a state of undress.’

  He sketched her an ironic bow. ‘Then I will see you in a moment in the parlour.’

  Downstairs in the empty dining room she could not settle so she stood and looked from the window. Outside, Henrietta Street was equally deserted, blanketed in thick fog.

  The door opened and Justin came in to join her. With his shirt hanging loose over his breeches and a day’s stubble darkening his chin he had looked dashing and dishevelled, the very epitome of a chaperon’s warning. Now he was all that was elegant, in a coat of green superfine with a crisp white cravat at his throat. He had even had time to shave.

  ‘I ordered tea,’ Paullina said, ‘but there is chocolate if you prefer.’

  Amusement lit his dark eyes. ‘It all sounds frightfully respectable.’

  ‘This isn’t the sort of establishment to serve spirits at breakfast,’ Paullina said.

  She sat down at the table, making a fuss of arranging her skirts, anything to avoid looking across at Justin. He rested his broad shoulders against the back of the chair, apparently at ease, in contrast to her agitation. The hotel servants brought the tea and a selection of rolls still warm from the ovens, with butter and preserves. Silence fell again. Paullina poured the tea in order to give herself something to do. It was too weak because she had not let it brew for sufficient time. She sipped it and tasted nothing but hot water.

  She had not imagined that when –if –she saw her husband again they would be encased in this awkward silence. She was shocked how bitter and resentful she felt inside. She had schooled herself to acceptance, of the marriage and of his absence, yet it seemed she had not accepted it at all. Inside she was raging. Words tripped over themselves in her head, angry words, words of reproach. She had too much pride to utter them aloud. Their marriage had not been born out of a love match. She refused to show that she cared now.

  Justin was studying her intently. It was disconcerting. The intimacy of the situation, taking breakfast together, felt strange. It confused her. She reached sharply for a bread roll and started to butter it.

  ‘Were your eyes always so blue?’ Justin asked. His voice was a little rough.

  ‘Of course,’ Paullina said. ‘How could they change colour?’

  ‘I did not notice before.’ He spread marmalade thickly onto his toast. ‘I don’t believe you ever looked at me.’

  That was probably true. She had been far too shy at seventeen to meet his gaze.

  ‘I could not even see your face on our wedding day let alone the colour of your eyes,’ Justin continued. ‘Your veil was too thick.’

  The veil had been her mother’s choice; endless layers of expensive tulle simply to show that they could afford the best. Her over-decorated wedding gown had been another monstrosity, dripping with lace. She had hated it.

  ‘I could have been marrying anyone,’ Justin said. It was a tacit apology for not recognising her. It was also the last straw.

  ‘That was rather the point, wasn’t it?’ Paullina abandoned any attempt to keep the bitterness from her tone. ‘You were a fortune-hunter. You would have married anyone with money as long as they had their own hair and
teeth, and even on that you were not too particular since you were leaving the country.’

  He did not deny it. She gave him credit for that. ‘Not my finest hour,’ he admitted ruefully.

  ‘Since you were mentioned in dispatches I suspect you kept your finest hour for the battlefield,’ Paullina said.

  His gaze sharpened on her. ‘You were following my career then?’

  Damn. She had not meant to give so much away. ‘Someone mentioned it to me,’ she said evasively.

  The smile in his eyes called her a liar. She fidgeted, reaching for another bread roll that she did not want. Her appetite had gone.

  ‘We both agreed –’

  ‘I know,’ she cut him off before he could say anything else to inadvertently hurt her. ‘It was a business arrangement not a love match.’

  ‘I hated it,’ Justin said suddenly. ‘I hated humbling my pride to ashes because I had had to go cap in hand to your father for money.’

  Paullina had known that too. She had sensed how much it had offended his honour to barter his title for her fortune.

  ‘I suspect my father did not make that easy for you,’ she said quietly. ‘He had a fine sense of grievance towards those whose birth was more aristocratic than his own.’

  Justin reached out and touched the back of her hand, a fleeting touch, instantly withdrawn. Nevertheless her skin tingled.

  ‘It was not easy for you either,’ he said. There was a shade of warmth in his tone now. ‘You were so sweet and so shy. Too sweet to be used like that. It was shameful. I was ashamed.’

  It was enough of a shock to bring her gaze straight up to meet his. There was something of sincerity and regret in his eyes and the sight of it dried her mouth and set her heart pounding.

  ‘I knew what I was doing,’ she said. His honesty demanded equal honesty in return. She had made a deliberate choice.

  ‘Escaping your parents?’ He gave her a lopsided smile that was rakish and boyish at the same time. ‘I suspected that they made your life a misery.’

  She did not answer that. The truth was she had always known that to her parents she was no more than a means of social mountaineering. Her father had ached to join the ranks of the nobility he so vociferously decried.

  Justin’s gaze was moody as it rested on her. ‘Did you ever think about me, Paullina?’

  She looked up sharply.

  I thought about you every day. She certainly was not going to tell him that though. She had too much pride to risk loving him again: an adult love this time, no childish infatuation.

  ‘Never,’ she said. Nevertheless her throat was thick with tears for the opportunity they had wasted.

  She saw the flare of some expression in his eyes. ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘I thought about you all the time. In all the heat and the dust and the horror of killing I thought about you. It kept me sane.’ He waited a moment but when she did not reply he made a slight gesture as though to brush the words away. ‘No matter –’

  Paullina put a hand out and touched his wrist to stop him. ‘It matters,’ she said. He had been brave enough to lay his heart beneath her feet. Now she had to be brave too. ‘I lied,’ she said, with difficulty. ‘I never stopped thinking about you.’

  He moved so fast then that she was not quite sure what happened. The table toppled over, the marmalade pot clattered away across the floor. She was clasped in Justin’s arms very tightly and he was kissing her, and it was delightful –hot and sweet and urgent, and full of promise for the future.

  ‘What do we do now, Justin?’ Paullina asked, when finally he released her sufficiently to draw breath.

  ‘Well…’ Justin drew her by the hand across to the parlour window. Outside the fog pressed thicker than ever against the glass. ‘We could resume our journeys in opposite directions but I do not think we would get very far in this weather. Or –’ he smiled that sudden wicked smile that set her pulse fluttering ‘ –we could go back to bed.’

  ‘Really, Justin.’ Paullina could feel herself blushing. ‘We are practically strangers.’

  He was drawing her back into his arms, very purposefully. ‘Nonsense, my love. Have you forgotten that we are married and we spent last night together?’

  Paullina could feel herself blushing all the harder now. Justin bent his head towards her again but she placed one hand against his chest to hold him off. Kissing Justin was delicious and she wished she had realised it sooner instead of wasting so much time, but she was not going to fall into his arms or his bed quite so quickly. She wanted a courtship first.

  ‘I think,’ she murmured, toying with one of the mother of pearl buttons on his jacket, ‘that I should like to spend some time here in Bath: view the shops, go to the theatre, sample the water at The Pump Rooms. I hear it tastes appalling.’

  ‘That sounds delightful.’ Justin was smiling. ‘I am told Bath water is particularly good for the stamina. And we should thank that booking clerk,’ he added. ‘Without him we might have wasted four more years.’

  He kissed her again –even more potently and powerfully this time –until Paullina’s head spun and her knees weakened and she could feel her toes curling in her silk slippers.

  ‘For shame, Justin,’ she said, emerging ruffled and radiant from his arms. ‘In the breakfast parlour! Anyone might come in!’

  ‘I am sure they will indulge us,’ Justin said. ‘After all, we are on our wedding trip. We should savour all the pleasures Bath has to offer.’ He kissed her a third time, and it was heated and passionate and very pleasurable indeed. ‘We have a great deal of time to make up,’ he whispered. ‘This, my love, is only the beginning.’

  Shocking Behaviour

  Sue Moorcroft

  Sue Moorcroft

  SUE MOORCROFT loves writing about irresistible heroes and dauntless heroines. Shocking Behaviour is set in ‘her’ village of Middledip, as are her Choc Lit novels Starting Over, All That Mullarkey, Dream a Little Dream and Is This Love? Middledip came from Sue’s imagination so she’s intrigued when people say they’re sure Middledip is based on a village they know.

  Born in Germany into an Army family, Sue has lived in Cyprus, Malta and the UK. By writing novels, short stories, serials, columns and courses, and working as a creative writing tutor, she manages to avoid ‘proper jobs’.

  Sue has won the Best Romantic Read Award and the Katie Fforde Bursary Award and received several other nominations including for a RoNA in 2012. She’s the vice chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and editor of Truly, Madly, Deeply.

  Her website and newsletter sign-up can be found here: www.suemoorcroft.com

  Twitter: @suemoorcroft

  Facebook: sue.moorcroft.3

  Shocking Behaviour

  ‘Ow!’ Lizzy Parr limped up the stairs to her new flat on the Bankside Estate. She intended to run regularly now that she’d moved to Middledip village –much cheaper than Saturday mornings at the gym. Having blasted her bank accounts to smithereens to become the proud owner of a one-bedroom flat, cheap had become good. Essential, in fact. But she should’ve warmed up more thoroughly before setting off instead of assuming that a week of unpacking boxes would have created muscles permanently ready for action.

  Painfully, she hobbled up the final steps and rounded the corner. Then halted with a suddenness that caused her a breath-sucking twang of pain. A man was trying the door to her new flat. A key was in the lock and the door handle in his hand.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The words flew from her mouth before she’d had a chance to consider other, more sensible, options like hobbling quietly off again and phoning the police.

  The man jumped violently. His tousled hair was chestnut, his horrified eyes hazel and his mouth a perfect O of shock. Then he managed an apologetic smile. ‘Erm…would you be the new owner? Miss Parr?’

  If he knew her name, there was a reasonable chance that he was harmless. Lizzy nodded cautiously. ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘I’m the old owner –Jax. Jaxon Chen
ey.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ A whoosh of relief. She’d never met her vendor; his estate agent and solicitor had handled the sale. ‘I’m Lizzy.’ She glanced at the key that was still in the lock of her door.

  He reddened. ‘I came to see Rick on the top floor and he still had the spare key to my –your –flat, which he’d kept for emergencies. I brought it down to you but I stuck it in the lock without thinking: force of habit.’ He shifted sheepishly as he smiled a warm, contrite smile. And Lizzy felt her tummy dip like a roller coaster.

  Wow, what a heartbreaker of a smile! And now she had time to flick her gaze over him –well, he was a pretty heartbreaking package: beckoning eyes, a sexy suggestion of stubble on a sensational jawline and snaky hips in extremely well-fitting jeans. Lizzy was suddenly glad that abandoning her run had at least saved her from being a walking haze of sweat. She could feel Jax’s gaze like a weight.

  ‘I’m on my way to the shop for coffee. Rick’s run out.’

  So Lizzy limped to her holly-green front door and turned the key, conscious of passing close to him. ‘Care to try my brand?’ her coffee was only instant –but so was the attraction.

  She left him to watch the kettle boil while she nipped into her bedroom to whip off her black joggers and on her most flattering jeans. When she returned, Jax had found a spot on the grey-blue sofa nestled among the stuff that still waited to be found a home. Like a big cat, she thought, finding a comfortable corner and then watching her with compelling, luminous eyes. She reached for the mugs. ‘Should we have invited Rick, if he has no coffee?’

  Jax’s gaze flickered. ‘I think he’s supposed to be meeting his girlfriend.’

  It sounded hurriedly concocted. Lizzy hoped so, anyway. Alone with the endlessly appealing Jax Cheney? She’d learn to cope. She settled herself and her coffee in the other corner of the sofa, propping her leg on a convenient packing box. The throbbing was subsiding to an ache. ‘How’s your new place?’