by Julia Quinn
Oh yes, she understood that very well.
I will now just tell you that I love you. I love your eyes and your throat and your mouth and your lips. I love the words that come from those lips when you say the things you try so desperately not to say. I loved you the moment you put my soiled handkerchief back in my pocket. I feel something for you that I have never felt for another person in my life, and I know with all my heart that I want to feel it forever. Please, I know I am not worthy, but will you marry me? I shall spend the rest of my days loving you, and listening to everything you want to tell me. It will be a burden for you, I know, since you will have to smooth over my rather rough ways. But if there is anyone in the world who can do such a thing, I believe it is you. If you do not want me, I think I shall retreat to Ivy Park, as I do not believe I was quite ready for London. I shall leave in the morning, but keep a hope in my heart that you will impede my journey home.
“Oh my Lord!” Linney cried. She jumped from the bed, her headache completely forgotten. “What time is it?” The cats looked at her as if she were daft.
Grabbing a wrapper, Linney threw the thing about her and ran from her room. “What time is it?” she yelled as she pounded down the stairs.
Teddy stepped out of the drawing room, but with eyes the size of saucers, he beat a quick retreat.
“Teddy!” Linney followed the poor boy. “What time is it?”
Teddy turned away, shading his eyes. “Er, um, I think it is noon, Lady Caroline, or very close to it at least.”
“Oh no! Lord Darington is an early riser.”
“What?” Her mother glided in from the dining room and stopped short. “Linney! What on earth are you about? And how in the world do you know Lord Darington’s sleeping habits? Lord, child, get some clothes on.”
“Mother, I’m going to marry Lord Darington, but I must let him know that I don’t find him altogether repugnant.”
“Excuse me?”
Linney grabbed a bonnet from the stand and flung open the front door. “I’ll explain later,” she said and ran down the stairs and off in the direction of Lord Darington’s town house.
As she ran, she tried to pull the bonnet on, but realized that she had grabbed her mother’s by mistake. The frilly bit of haberdashery was much too big. It kept slipping over her eyes.
It was about two blocks away from her mother’s town house and just a block away from Lord Darington’s that Teddy caught up to her.
“Lady Caroline!” he sputtered, grabbing her arm. “What are you doing?”
The poor boy looked as if he could not breathe.
Linney, on the other hand, felt as if she were running on the wind, and she most definitely did not want to stop and speak to Teddy about it. “I can’t stop, Teddy.” She shook off the butler’s hand and pounded down the walk.
Teddy kept up with her, barely. “La…dy…Car…” Teddy stopped and gulped some air. “You can’t…you have no shoes!”
Linney spared a glance at her bare feet. Goodness, they were rather cold. But instead of stopping, she sped up, rounded a corner, and ran smack into a very large and imposing figure who was directing a footman with a trunk.
“Lord…” Linney’s voice drained away, for it was not Lord Darington at all, but his friend. The man he had been speaking to at the skating party and the Shelbournes’ ball.
The man blinked a few times, his mouth open in a large O. “Lady Caroline?” he said incredulously.
“Lady Caroline!” Teddy yelled with obvious confusion, skidding to a halt behind her.
“Halloo, Lady Caroline,” Liza Pritchard called from her seat at the reins of a high perch phaeton, the handsome Sir Royce Pemberley at her side. Caroline waved automatically, and Liza grinned as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary as she whisked by.
“Caroline,” Lord Darington’s low voice said with complete understanding.
Linney glanced up the stairs, and then she ran up them and threw herself into Lord Darington’s arms, just as she had wished to do so many times in the last fortnight.
His strong arms closed around her, his beautiful hands lifting her against him.
And they did not have to say anything at all. She finally understood. And she knew with all her heart that he did, too. And she was home, at last.
“We have…” He stopped.
Linney glanced behind them. “An audience,” she said.
“Yes.”
The street was filled with people, servants, street vendors, carriages, couples walking, and at the bottom of Lord Darington’s steps, three cats.
“You must marry me now,” Linney said, “I am thoroughly compromised.”
“If I must.” Lord Darington turned and carried her up the stairs and into his home. Duchess, Lord Rake, and Miss Spit followed just behind, slithering in before the door closed, obviously realizing that they had a new home as well.
Darington did not stop, though, in the hall. And she was awfully glad of that, since she was most definitely aware now of her lack of dress, and gaping servants seemed to stand at every doorway.
He walked sedately down a long hall, and up a curving staircase.
Obviously, acting pompous did come in handy at moments like this.
And then they were in a dark room, Darington kicked the door shut behind him, and Linney heard an offended yowl. Miss Spit.
“I love you,” Darington said, placing her on a bed. “And I will make love to you.”
Linney frowned. “You know, you could ask once in a—” But he covered her mouth with his, and she forgot completely what she was going to say as he pushed her back against the coverlet.
“How’s this, then? Shall we begin on those dozen kisses?” he inquired against her mouth.
“Much better—and most definitely,” she answered.
He kissed her most thoroughly, and then moved back slightly, his voice ragged. “Could we up the count?”
“One hundred?” she said.
“Let’s start with a few million.”
Linney thought for a moment. “That is rather a lot…”
But with a dark chuckle, Terrance pulled her body against his and bit lightly at her neck.
Linney shivered; it was as if every nerve ending was right at the surface of her skin, waiting and shuddering.
“That’s just for today. Tomorrow we start over.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she said breathlessly as Lord Darington’s large, strong hand moved up her side and cupped her breast.
She closed her eyes, and threading her fingers in her lover’s beautiful hair, pulled his mouth back to hers. “I will kiss you a dozen times, a million times, I don’t care. Just kiss me forever. It is the most wondrous thing in the world.”
“I shall show you an even more wondrous thing,” he said and moved his kiss down her jaw, against her collarbone and then lower, his tongue wetting the light fabric of her nightgown.
Linney gripped Terrance’s shoulders as his mouth found her nipple. Her nerve endings rippled against her skin. She moved beneath him and moaned.
“That is wondrous,” she managed to say.
And Lord Darington laughed. “That isn’t even what I was going to show you.”
“Show me. Now.”
“Don’t you ever ask?” he said, his hand moving down to cover her belly.
Linney opened her eyes. Terrance was watching her with an intensity she had never seen in another person. And she felt excited and safe and happy all at once.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” he said.
And she could tell that was truth just by the look in his eyes.
“But, you know,” she said, “you hardly speak at all, and now, when that particular trait would be a good one, you are speaking full and long sentences. It is terribly annoying.”
He grinned, his lonely dimple deep in his cheek. And then he winked at her, the rat.
“Sorry,” he said, and kissed her.
“Tha
t’s four,” she said, and then completely lost count after that.
Mia Ryan
Mia Ryan writes to stay sane. Those around her know that she hasn’t been writing enough when she starts slipping into bouts of inane chatter about painting bathrooms, crocheting blankets, and planting a garden. All of these things she has tried, actually but with tragic results. Fortunately, she is hard at work right now on her upcoming novel, due out from Avon Books in late 2003. Visit www.miaryan.com to learn more about it.
Thirty-six Valentines
Julia Quinn
For Karen, Suzie, and Mia—what chutzpah!
And also for Paul, even though he almost threw my laptop off the balcony. (It wasn’t the computer’s fault, honey.)
Prologue
In May, Susannah Ballister met the man of her dreams…
There is so much to report from Lady Trowbridge’s ball in Hampstead that This Author scarcely knows how to contain it all in one column. Perhaps the most astonishing—and some would say romantic—moment of the evening, however, was when the Hon. Clive Mann-Formsby, brother to the ever-enigmatic Earl of Renminster, asked Miss Susannah Ballister to dance.
Miss Ballister, with her dark hair and eyes, is recognized as one of the more exotic beauties of the ton, but still, she was never considered to be among the ranks of the Incomparables until Mr. Mann-Formsby partnered her in a waltz—and then didn’t leave her side for the rest of the evening.
While Miss Ballister has had her share of suitors, none was quite as handsome or eligible as Mr. Mann-Formsby, who routinely leaves a trail of sighs, swoons, and broken hearts in his wake.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 17 MAY 1813
In June, her life was as perfect as can be.
Mr. Mann-Formsby and Miss Ballister continued their reign as society’s golden couple at the Shelbourne ball late last week—or at least as golden as one can imagine, given that Miss Ballister’s locks are a rather dark brown. Still, Mr. Mann-Formsby’s golden hair more than compensates, and in all honesty, although This Author is not given to sentimental ramblings, it is true that the world seems a touch more exciting in their presence. The lights seem brighter, the music more lovely, and the air positively shimmers.
And with that, This Author must end this column. Such romanticism rouses the need to go outside and let the rain restore one’s normally grumpy disposition.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 16 JUNE 1813
In July, Susannah was beginning to picture a ring on her finger…
Mr. Mann-Formsby was seen entering Mayfair’s most exclusive jewelry establishment Thursday last. Can wedding bells be far behind, and can anyone truly say they don’t know who the prospective bride will be?
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 26 JULY 1813
And then came August.
The foibles and affairs of society are usually mind-numbingly easy to predict, but every now and then something occurs that confounds and startles even one such as This Author.
Mr. Clive Mann-Formsby has proposed marriage.
But not to Miss Susannah Ballister.
After an entire season of rather public courting of Miss Ballister, Mr. Mann-Formsby has instead asked Miss Harriet Snowe to be his bride, and, judging by the recent announcement in the London Times, she has accepted.
Miss Ballister’s reaction to this development is unknown.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 18 AUGUST 1813
Which led, rather painfully, into September.
Word has reached This Author that Miss Susannah Ballister has quit town and retired for the remainder of the year to her family’s country home in Sussex.
This Author can hardly blame her.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 3 SEPTEMBER 1813
Chapter 1
It has come to This Author’s attention that the Hon. Clive Mann-Formsby and Miss Harriet Snowe were married last month at the ancestral seat of Mr. Mann-Formsby’s elder brother, the Earl of Renminster.
The newly wedded couple has returned to London to enjoy the winter festivities, as has Miss Susannah Ballister, who, as anyone who even stepped foot in London last Season will know, was courted rather assiduously by Mr.
Mann-Formsby, right up until the moment he proposed to Miss Snowe.
This Author imagines that hostesses across town are now checking their guest lists. Surely it cannot do to invite the Mann-Formsbys and the Ballisters to the same events. It is frosty enough outside; an intersection of Clive and Harriet and Susannah will assuredly turn the air quite glacial.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 21 JANUARY 1814
According to Lord Middlethorpe, who had just consulted his pocket watch, it was precisely six minutes after eleven in the evening, and Susannah Ballister knew quite well that the day was Thursday and the date was January the twenty-seventh, the year eighteen hundred and fourteen.
And at precisely that moment—at precisely 11:06 on Thursday, 27 January 1814, Susannah Ballister made three wishes, none of which came true.
The first wish was an impossibility. She wished that somehow, perhaps through some sort of mysterious and benevolent magic, she might disappear from the ballroom in which she was presently standing and find herself snuggled warmly in her bed in her family’s terrace house on Portman Square, just north of Mayfair. No, even better, she’d be snuggled warmly in bed at her family’s country home in Sussex, which was far, far from London and more importantly, far from all the inhabitants of London.
Susannah even went so far as to close her eyes while she pondered the lovely possibility that she might open them and find herself somewhere else, but not surprisingly, she remained right where she was, tucked away in a slightly darkened corner in Lady Worth’s ballroom, holding a glass of tepid tea that she had absolutely no intention of drinking.
Once it became apparent that she wasn’t going anywhere, either through supernatural or even quite ordinary means (Susannah couldn’t leave the ball until her parents were prepared to do so, and from the looks of them, at least three hours would pass before they would be willing to retire for the evening), she then wished that Clive Mann-Formsby and his new wife, Harriet, who were holding court by a table of chocolate cakes, would disappear instead.
This seemed quite possible. The two of them were able-bodied; they could simply lift their feet and walk away. Which would greatly enrich the quality of Susannah’s life, because then she would be able to attempt to enjoy her evening without having to stare at the face of the man who had so publicly humiliated her.
Plus, she could get herself a piece of chocolate cake.
But Clive and Harriet appeared to be having a wonderful time. As wonderful, in fact, as Susannah’s parents, which meant that they would all be here for hours to come.
Agony. Pure agony.
But there were three wishes, weren’t there? Didn’t the heroines of fancy tales always receive three wishes? If Susannah was going to be stuck in a darkened corner, making foolish wishes because she had little else to do, she was going to use her full allotment.
“I wish,” she said through gritted teeth, “that it wasn’t so blasted cold.”
“Amen,” said the elderly Lord Middlethorpe, whom Susannah had quite forgotten was standing next to her. She offered him a smile, but he was busy drinking some sort of alcoholic drink that was forbidden to unmarried ladies, so they went back to the task of politely ignoring each other.
She looked down at her tea. Any moment now it would surely sprout an ice cube. Her hostess had substituted hot tea for the traditional lemonade and champagne, citing the frigid weather, but the tea hadn’t remained hot for very long, and when one was skulking in the corner of a ballroom, as Susannah was, footmen never came to retrieve unwanted glasses or cups.
Susannah shivered. She couldn’t remember a colder winter; no one could. It was, in a perverse sort of way, the reason for her early return to town. All the ton had flocked to London in the decidedly unfashionable month of Janu
ary, eager to enjoy the skating and sledding and upcoming Frost Fair.
Susannah rather thought that bitter cold and icy winds and messy snow and ice was a deuced foolish reason for social congregation, but it wasn’t up to her, and now she was stuck here, facing all the people who had so enjoyed witnessing her social defeat the summer before. She hadn’t wanted to come to London, but her family had insisted, saying that she and her sister Letitia couldn’t afford to miss the unexpected winter social season.
She’d thought she’d have at least until spring before having to return and face them all. She hadn’t had nearly enough time to practice holding her chin up while she said, “Well, of course Mr. Mann-Formsby and I realized that we wouldn’t suit.”
Because she needed to be a very fine actress indeed to carry that off, when everyone knew that Clive had dropped her like a hot potato when Harriet Snowe’s moneyed relatives had come sniffing about.
Not that Clive should have even needed the money. His older brother was the Earl of Renminster, for heaven’s sake, and everyone knew he was as rich as Croesus.
But Clive had chosen Harriet, and Susannah had been publicly humiliated, and even now, nearly six months after the fact, people were still talking about it. Even Lady Whistledown had seen fit to mention it in her column.
Susannah sighed and sagged against the wall, hoping that no one noticed her poor posture. She supposed she couldn’t really blame Lady Whistledown. The mysterious gossip columnist was merely repeating what everyone else was saying. Just this week, Susannah had received fourteen afternoon callers, and not a one of them had been polite enough to refrain from mentioning Clive and Harriet.
Did they really think she wanted to hear about Clive and Harriet’s appearance at the recent Smythe-Smith musicale? As if she wanted to know what Harriet had worn, or that Clive had been whispering in her ear throughout the recital.