Brianna stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the low voices gathered in the library. Dressed in workable muslin, with her hair bound back with a scarf, she’d hesitated at the railing long enough before setting her foot to the stairs. It had been three weeks since the incident with Charles Cross.
When she’d awakened from the ordeal, she found herself back at Christopher’s house. Charles Cross had reentered her life and nearly stolen everything, yet for all that he’d done, she didn’t hate him. She’d pitied him and had wept for him, for babies are not born monsters.
She’d not seen Michael for two days afterward, as she sat like an invalid in bed, eating everything given to her. Praying that her baby was all right. Selim had not died but had been held over for prosecution. He’d provided a wealth of information, spilling the details of caravan attacks they’d carried out over the last two years, as well as the location of the gold they’d stolen. She could not fathom the depth of his insanity, the tragedy of his life, and for all that he’d talked and pointed fingers at others, that he’d not saved himself from the gallows.
Outside, her brothers’ children played, their laughter cleansing her thoughts. Amber had come up last week. Caroline was in town for the start of the Season. Parliament began session three days ago and Michael had taken his seat.
Life continued.
Brianna now stood in the doorway of the library, the familiar smell of leather-bound tomes hidden somewhere beneath the smell of bourbon and cigars. On a low table in front of the settee and high-back chairs, an empty captain’s decanter sat on a polished silver tray surrounded by cut crystal. Colin and his family had arrived last night from Carlisle. Wearing tall riding boots, he looked as if he’d just returned from the stables. Johnny sat beside him. His oldest twins were tearing up the yard. David, who was just below Christopher in the Donally pecking order, would not be in from Ireland for a few days. And Ryan sat beside her husband, one booted ankle lying casually across his knee.
A breeze from the open French doors pulled gently at her skirts.
Looking across the room at her husband sitting among her brothers, Brianna watched as his gaze lifted to her, and felt the same constriction in her throat she always felt when his eyes touched hers. She’d been upstairs with Johnny and Colin’s wives all night. Christopher had taken his place beside Alex this morning as he anxiously awaited the birth of his children, for he was the new father of twins. The concern she glimpsed in Michael’s gaze transformed as he saw what she held in her arms.
Brianna’s gaze lowered to the swaddled bundle she cradled to her chest. Those blue eyes held her in a trance as the miracle of life revealed itself in the sudden vent of protest that could be heard all over the house. The plump, round features scrunched in fury. Already this new Donally was wreaking changes on the world around him.
“Where is the new father?” Ryan asked.
“He is with his wife upstairs.”
“Hell, Chris is going to be needin’ this more than we are!” Johnny laughed, setting down the bottle of bourbon in his hands.
Her family suddenly surrounded her, but it was to the grandfather who stood off to the side that she handed the little boy, and his watery eyes seemed unable to lift from the tiny being that filled his awkward hands. “Your granddaughter has just made her entrance and will be down shortly.” Brianna thought of her own mother-in-law, and realized sadly that some chasms might never be spanned, but this one possibly could.
An arm was wrapped around her waist and Brianna let herself be pulled from the crowd.
Michael brought her hand to his mouth and rubbed her knuckles over his lips. “Maybe it’s time I put your mind on something else.”
“Like what?” Her back pressed to his chest.
“Like this.” He pulled her against him. “Maybe we should announce that we’ve made one of our own.” His laugh was warm and close to her ear.
Leaning her head back against his shoulder, Brianna closed her eyes as his mouth touched her temple and moved lower.
Brianna loved her proud, aristocratic husband, but she knew beneath the fervor of his lover’s embrace that this was no happy ending to their life. Instead, it was the promise of a new beginning.
Theirs would not be an easy course to traverse. The future by its very definition meant uncertainty, but both of them had the ability to make a difference in this world. Whatever lay ahead, they were far stronger walking this road together than alone.
And since when had either of them allowed adversity to stop them?
His mouth drifted from her temple to the hollow of her throat. “I love you, amîri.”
Smiling to herself, she stopped thinking as his lips pressed seamlessly to hers.
She wanted him to take her home.
Home, where dreams were like the rolling, golden dunes of a desert dawn, ever changing and infinite.
Where the foundation for the finest house could be built from the tiniest grain of sand and a touch of moonlight.
Where the magic they’d discovered one enchanted evening in a faraway land would endure to grow and nurture generations to come.
Indeed, the possibilities were endless.
About the Author
MELODY THOMAS is a wordsmith, a creator of dreams, and a passionate believer in happy endings. A product of thirteen schools and twenty-two moves stretching across the United States and Europe, she is a self-proclaimed gypsy. Her fascination with historical romance began when, in her teens, she visited the Tower of London and learned that Henry the Eighth had beheaded two of his wives. This was great fodder for her teenage imagination and the start of a love affair with history, intrigue, and irresistible heroes.
Melody now lives with her husband near Chicago and invites you to visit her website at www.melodythomas.com.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MUST HAVE BEEN THE MOONLIGHT. Copyright © 2004 by Laura Renken. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Sony Reader December 2006 ISBN 978-0-06-124953-2
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Table of Contents
Cover
Contents
&n
bsp; Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Must Have Been The Moonlight Page 37