by Gina Black
“I am to get water and rags?” Nicholas tried to look stern, but failed miserably as he always did with Katherine. “I do not understand this. Did not the clergyman say you were to obey me?”
“’Twas hard to understand the man so I am not surprised you misheard. ’Twas you who vowed to obey me. Do not forget, our liege did say I am to inform him if you are up to mischief.” She looked at him with such natural coquetry his blood ran hot. “Clearly it is our King’s desire for you to obey me.”
Nicholas laughed. “Then I shall happily do your bidding and get water and rags before you come up with any more difficult tasks.”
From a nearby cradle came the unmistakable sound of a baby wakening. Katherine and Nicholas looked at each other with conspiratorial panic. Once Elizabeth Mary Margaret Isabella Montford woke up, there would be no question of who would be obeying whom. They were both already her devoted servants.
Katherine peeked into the cradle while Nicolas tiptoed from the room to the outlaying kitchen and laundry.
When he returned, it was to see Katherine with the babe at her breast. The little mouth suckled the globe of Katherine’s creamy skin; the head of honey colored curls bobbed up and down, her hand grasped the Chinese coin hanging on the chain around Katherine’s neck.
It was a vision so sweet it brought tears to his eyes, and he had to blink them away. He remembered Katherine on their first night in London trying to explain how a person could cry from happiness. He now knew how that could be.
Just as he knew he was the luckiest man to have found Katherine—rather, to have been found by her. She had saved his life. She had changed his life. She had given him the best reason to live by gifting him with her love.
What’s more, she had taught him that love once gifted becomes evermore stronger when it is gifted back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gina pounded out her first story on an old Royal typewriter when she was eight. For most of her adult life she worked in television counting backwards and telling people what to do. Now she lives in Central California with her personal hero and a cat, and spends her time writing books about characters who do what they want no matter what she tells them.
Visit Gina at www.ginablack.com
On Twitter @ginablack
And on Facebook www.facebook.com/ginablackauthor
~ COMING SPRING 2013 ~
THE UNSUITABLE EARL
In the spring of 1665...
After rising from stable boy to the Earl of Ashton, all Jeremy Welles wants from life is to eat, drink, be merry, and forget he's been elevated into a position he's eminently unequal to. But then he meets Lady Eliza Stanfield...
Strong willed and spoiled, Lady Eliza has no intention of ever marrying. So when she finds herself being courted by the awkward and unassuming Earl of Ashton, she sees an opportunity she can exploit—an unsuitable suitor—one she can use as a shield against her parents and their prospects.
Then the plague breaks out, and the Stanfields flee London to their country estate, bringing Jeremy and other nobles in their tow. Away from the constant party that has been his life, will Jeremy find himself happier and more welcome in the stables or the drawing room? And will Eliza allow her heart to be captured, and herself to be tamed, by the unsuitable young Earl of Ashton?
Paperback copies of Gina’s books can be found at
http://www.greatbirdbooks.com
and other retailers