The ring stayed on Christine’s hand for one more hour that day, and then it just slipped loose and came off. She had not wept as the ring fell off her finger and into the grass, though the moment was bittersweet. Yet, she knew in her heart it was time to surrender the band of silver to whatever fate it would bestow on another. Still she kept it in her dresser for another week, looking at it, but discovering nothing new about what it really was. She only knew there was magic in her happiness. Her hand went to her abdomen.
That evening she knocked on Aunt Sophie’s door. She hoped her aunt would remain a permanent fixture at Sedgwick Castle and Becca and Erin could become her students so Aunt Sophie could teach them both that the world stretched far beyond the walls of Sedgwick Castle, and that dreams were made, not born, and that anything worth having is worth fighting for.
Her aunt lowered the book in her hands to her lap as Christine knelt by her chair. A fire warmed the room. “What is it, dear?” Aunt Sophie asked.
“I believe it is time to give this back,” Christine said, taking Aunt Sophie’s hand and folding her fingers around the ring.
For a long time Aunt Sophie said nothing. But in those first few moments as her hand closed around the band of braided silver, the air stirred and hummed with electricity as if coming to life around them, and Christine wondered if Aunt Sophie felt it as well.
Aunt Sophie had not spoken anymore about the ring since that day when they had been in the tower. Now Christine asked the question that she had wanted to ask.
“You said the ring belonged to Great-Grandmamma. Will you tell me now where this ring came from?”
Sophie opened her palm and stared at the silver band. “I believe she found it in the vaults of an old abbey in Scotland. The entire legend of the ring began when she met my great-grandfather shortly after putting it on. He was a fierce Scottish lord bent on vengeance, which she somehow turned into love. She became the first archeologist in the family.”
“What about you? Did you ever try on the ring?”
“No. I was afraid.”
“Why? If you do not believe in its power.”
Her eyes took on a faraway look. “My mother told me once that life takes us along paths we may not want to go. I was afraid of the choice I would be forced to make, fearing it would change who I was. I had important goals and dreams, you see. I did not want to take the chance on some unseen entity shaping my life. I was my own person, after all. Then…it no longer mattered. The choice was taken away from me when my Reece died. I did go on to become a well-known anthropologist. I did things few women dreamed of doing. I helped create the historical museum that now exists. I had your father to care for. And then I had you.”
“But if you could go back and change the past, would you?”
Aunt Sophie patted Christine’s hands. “That question is wrought with peril when one has already lived one’s life and is nearing the end of that journey. But how does one change only part of the past without changing all one’s future?”
Christine laid her head in her aunt’s lap. “Oh, Aunt Sophie. Sometimes I think you are a victim of your own analytical thinking.”
The Sedgwick curse died an ignoble demise the following week when Erik celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday in peace and harmony and utter lack of drama. Becca had her coveted debut the next month, the first ball held at Sedgwick Court in eight years, and Lady Rebecca Bonham, who turned seventeen the week before, danced her first waltz—even if it was with her brother.
Seven months after the ball, on one April morn, Christine gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Eleven months later, the devil duke of Sedgwick welcomed a son. Eventually Christine would bear another son and daughter, both dark-haired like their father. She never did become the renowned paleontologist that she had once thought she’d wanted more than anything in the world. But she did help Joseph Darlington become one. He and Amelia settled near St. Andrews, where he taught classes and raised their own three children. Christine and Joseph went on to discover more great beasts on Sedgwick land, spawning the myth that a great sea monster still haunted some of Scotland’s lochs. As for Sommershorn Abbey, Babs and Dolly grew up to take the reins of the school, and Christine watched it grow into a fine institution, a haven for young women.
Then one summer evening, she and Erik returned with the entire family from St. Andrews after attending a formal ceremony commissioning the beautiful stone library he had designed for the university and which had finally opened to the world.
Christine had been sitting outside on the terrace watching Mrs. Whitman try to corral the children, the youngest of whom had just begun to crawl and had recently discovered the joys of eating dirt from the rose garden. And as old Beast curled up in Christine’s lap, his rumbling purrs pulling Erin to her side, Christine wished her own father could see her now. For she was truly happy. Christine knew then that along with love she had been granted her greatest wish.
A family of her own.
An incomparable gift to her soul, and cementing her place in the world for generations to come.
It was quite late when Christine climbed the stairs to the tower room. She found Erik at his desk in the study. Because this was the only room in all of Sedgwick with windows so grand and large, she shared the space with Erik. Or he might argue that his small corner of heaven did not nearly equal her larger three corners that he seemed to jealously covet, since he had moved up here years ago.
His boyish grousing usually won him a sympathy kiss. But tonight he wasn’t working over his designs. His elbows on the desk, he was reading something in his hands and did not hear her approach until she was leaning over his shoulder. “Why so serious?” she asked.
“Mother has announced her intent to wed again. She has asked us to lend our consequence to her upcoming nuptials by attending next summer.”
Christine took the placard from his hand. “It should be beautiful at Eyre House in July.” She peered over the rim of her spectacles at her husband. “They have been seeing each other for years, you know.”
Erik grunted. Sliding into his lap, Christine wrapped her arms around her husband’s broad shoulders. “Lord Eyre lost everything, Erik. He has done as you’ve asked and remained away from here. Perhaps it is time to allow Erin to meet her grandfather. He is old and he is alone.”
Lara remained in a private asylum outside Edinburgh, and Lord John had died years ago during an outbreak of typhus while he had been awaiting trial.
“And your mother has not been inconvenient to have around when she visits. She has made a valiant effort. The children like her. And look”—Christine tapped the invitation—“she has asked you to give her away.”
Erik lifted her hand into the light. “Whatever happened to your ring?”
She curled her fingers around his and brought them to her lips. “I returned it to Aunt Sophie, to whom it belongs.”
His eyes captured the dim candlelight. Even after all these years, her heart never failed to skip a beat when he looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world. His sherry-colored eyes were now a midnight shade in the near darkness, consuming her with both tenderness and the fierce heat of his emotions. He still possessed the power to make her forget her name just by looking at her.
“You aren’t about to tell me you have fallen out of love, are you?” She had meant the words as a jest, but deep down she had always harbored an inkling of fear that something catastrophic would befall her once the ring was gone.
The intensity in his eyes tightened the small knot in her chest. “And all these years I half believed that ring had made you fall in love with me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in magic.”
“I did not used to believe in giant sea monsters either.” He pushed the hair from her face. A faint tremor went through his hands as he held her face in his palms. “Do you ever regret not finding your dragon?”
She nuzzled his palms, warmed by his touch and his concern. “My dragon found me, your grace.
A big ferocious bull dragon and four little dragons have claimed me as their own, my love. I have been happily imprisoned in their lair ever since.”
Impulsively she traced the tip of her finger along his bottom lip. “Besides, I have turned my attention to sea monsters.”
The topic piqued her interest, much as it always did when it entered the conversation between them. “Did you know it is quite possible Joseph and I found a link between the sea monster he discovered in the cavern and a modern-day ostrich?”
Erik chuckled, then said her name softly, first against her hair and then her lips, diverting her before he received another lesson in bird anatomy when the only anatomical life form he wanted to explore sat in his lap. “I love you,” he said fiercely. His tongue was hot and hard as he took her mouth in a kiss that devoured.
Erik had learned much in the years since he had married Christine. Twice.
Logic for his wife was not necessarily logic for the mainstream. Christine lived to the chords of her own melody. He needed that balance and her unique perspective. He needed her laughter. He’d never felt more alive when he saw himself in her eyes. Nor known a deeper peace in her arms.
After a long, hungry moment in which they shared a passionate embrace, he carried her down the stone staircase to their large bed, joining her beneath the goose-down covers. Instinctively, his hands moved over her body. She laid her mouth to the curve of his neck and suckled. He pulled her away and, turning her beneath him, lifted his head until he could see her lips and feel the rush of her breath against his mouth. “The last time you set your teeth to my neck, I had a bloody time explaining to our eldest why I had a happy face imprinted on my throat.”
Christine’s smile widened a fraction. He felt the primal jolt of more than arousal. “Tell me again how much you love me,” she said. “And I will give you a happier face lower down where no one will see.”
He slipped one hand around the back of her neck and kept her where she was, beneath him and weighted by his body. She was smiling up at him, a temptress bathed in moonlight. A beacon in the night. “I love you, leannanan.”
He breathed a soft sigh, answering hers as he nuzzled her ear. “I love you,” he said again.
Inordinately humbled to know she loved him, too.
“I love you. I love you,” he said the words a dozen times.
And Erik Boughton, the devil duke of Sedgwick, knew no bounds to the capacity of his heart. Growling softly he filled her with his heat.
He would be no true dragon worth his salt if he did not growl fire or shake his tail and, on very special occasions, fly her to the moon. Tonight he eagerly delivered all three.
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.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Romances by Melody Thomas
BEAUTY AND THE DUKE
PASSION AND PLEASURE IN LONDON
SIN AND SCANDAL IN ENGLAND
WILD AND WICKED IN SCOTLAND
ANGEL IN MY BED
A MATCH MADE IN SCANDAL
MUST HAVE BEEN THE MOONLIGHT
IN MY HEART
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BEAUTY AND THE DUKE. Copyright © 2009 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 e-book 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 e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189255-4
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