There was some whispering, and Garrett glanced over his shoulder at her.
Anne sat up in the bed.
Garrett slipped out into the corridor.
Hastily, she reached for her dressing gown and padded to the open door.
Garrett was standing in the hall with Devon and Blake. They appeared to be looking over a document.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
They all turned to look at her. No one moved. Garrett looked stricken with shock.
“This is quite unbelievable,” he said. “I am not sure what to make of it.”
Anne strode a little closer to look at the document. He held it up to the light from the window at the end of the corridor.
“Is this our wedding certificate?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s dated yesterday.”
Startled by the implications that flashed through her mind, she squinted to look at it more closely.
Devon inclined his head at her. “To be clear, we do not believe the vicar was trying to commit fraud. He must have prepared all the papers yesterday and forgot to change the dates.”
Anne laid her hand on Garrett’s shoulder. “What does this mean? Will you submit these papers to the solicitors?”
The brothers regarded each other warily.
“That would be dishonest,” Blake said.
“It would be pure madness,” Garrett added. “But no more mad than the curse that will somehow, ridiculously, hold up in court if we scratch out those dates and tell the truth.”
Anne frowned with concern. “What about the duke? He watched us get married today. What if he tells someone?”
“I don’t think he even knows what day it is,” Devon replied. “Today he was happier than I’ve ever seen him. The curse was the last thing on his mind. I’m not sure if he even remembers that he bequeathed his fortune to the Horticultural Society.”
Anne and Garrett locked gazes. “It is not my decision,” she said to him. “This is your fortune, you and your brothers.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “God knows, if I had it, I would put it to good use.”
He was referring to the fund he wished to bestow upon Georgina’s parents. And his mother’s charities. And Kings College.
“I wish Vincent were here,” Devon said.
Blake looked over the marriage certificate very carefully. “He doesn’t need to be here. We all know what he would say.” He tapped a finger on the seal. “No one can deny this is a legal document. So is the license.”
“So we should simply submit it to the solicitors, say nothing, and let them deal with it?” Garrett surmised.
They all looked to one another for clarification.
“That seems the proper thing,” Devon said.
Another moment of silence ensued.
Blake patted Garrett on the back. “Good heavens. We have disturbed your wedding celebrations. Incidentally it’s almost time to dress for dinner. Devon and I must go.”
Anne watched her brothers-in-law make haste toward the east wing. She then discreetly tiptoed back into the cozy bedchamber where the fire was blazing, and waited for Garrett to close the door behind him.
With his eyes closed, he leaned against it and tipped his head back. “Another Christmas miracle.” He lifted his head and regarded her with an intense look of lust in his eye. “This is because of you, isn’t it? You truly are an angel sent from heaven.”
Anne’s eyebrows lifted, then she burst out laughing. Garrett ripped off his robe, ran naked toward her and scooped her into his arms. She screeched with a boisterous trill as he carried her back to the bed for a few more enjoyable miracles before the sun went down and it was time for Christmas dinner—which promised to be a most delectable meal.
“I can’t believe how much I love you,” he said, as he smiled down at her and showered her with hot, deliciously wicked kisses.
She held him tight in her arms, thanked God for the incredible gift of this man in her life, and wondered recklessly how long they could go without eating.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading MARRIED BY MIDNIGHT, the fourth instalment in my Pembroke Palace series! If you are interested in reading the rest of the series, here are the books (and one short story) in chronological order:
IN MY WILDEST FANTASIES (Devon and Rebecca)
THE MISTRESS DIARIES (Vincent and Cassandra)
WHEN A STRANGER LOVES ME (Blake and Chelsea)
MARRIED BY MIDNIGHT (Garrett and Anne)
A KISS BEFORE THE WEDDING (A Short Story about Adelaide and Dr. Thomas)
SEDUCED AT SUNSET (Charlotte and Drake)
Charlotte’s story will be available March 31, 2013. Please visit my website, http://www.juliannemaclean.com for more info about all my other books, and to sign up for my mailing list to stay informed about new releases. Also, if you are active online with social media, or if you have a blog where you enjoy blogging about books, I would love to have you as a valued member of my Street Team! Please contact me through my website for more information.
In the meantime, read on for an excerpt from SEDUCED AT SUNSET. Best wishes and happy reading!
Julianne MacLean
SEDUCED AT SUNSET
Sometimes the matchmaker finds a love of her own...
Lady Charlotte Sinclair has long given up her dreams of happily ever after. Years ago, a tragic accident claimed the life of her beloved fiancé, but somehow she found the strength to go on—as an independent woman with a secret double life that has earned her millions. Lately, however, she has begun to yearn for something more...
While setting out to play matchmaker for her mother, Lady Charlotte meets a rugged, handsome stranger who saves her from a thief in the street, but her heroic rescuer soon turns out to be more mysterious—and dangerously captivating—than any man she has ever known. Swept away by passion into a sizzling summer affair with a man who leads a double life of his own, she vows to live only for pleasure with no promises of tomorrow. But soon she must accept that one final night of ecstasy with an irresistible lover is never going to be enough... She’s engaged to be married—to the wrong man...
SEDUCED AT SUNSET - Available March 31, 2013
Excerpt from SEDUCED AT SUNSET
Copyright Julianne MacLean 2013
Chapter One
Pembroke Palace, England, 1886
IN EVERY LIFE, there comes a time when one must let go of certain regrets, stop mourning for the paths not taken, and forge ahead into the future with fresh new goals, and somewhat altered expectations.
Standing at the window, looking out over the vast expanse of green lawns and thick forests reaching all the way to the horizon, Lady Charlotte Sinclair raised her teacup to her lips and settled her gaze on the red brick dower house in the distance.
“Do you ever wonder if she’s lonely?” Charlotte asked her sister-in-law, Lady Anne, who rose from her chair and came to join her at the window.
“Are you referring to Adelaide?” Anne replied. “She certainly hasn’t seemed melancholy, not that I can see. It’s been two years now, since the duke passed. I think she is doing remarkably well under the circumstances. Why? Do you feel differently?”
Charlotte set her teacup down upon the saucer with a delicate clink. “I cannot help but wonder if Mother ever thinks about Dr. Thomas. They haven’t seen each other since Father’s funeral.” She turned her eyes to Anne. “You know the story, don’t you? That she ran off with him on the eve of her wedding?”
“No, I didn’t know that particular detail,” Anne said with surprise, looking sharply out the window toward the dower house. “I knew, of course, that she and Dr. Thomas were close at one time, and that they had been sweethearts before she married the duke.”
Anne was speaking tactfully, for she was well aware that they were more than sweethearts, for Adelaide had left her husband for a brief interval during their marriage, and had spent time away from Pembroke with Dr. Thomas. As a resul
t, Charlotte and her twin brother Garrett were born nine months later—one of the many secret scandals hidden within the palace walls, for no one outside the family knew that Charlotte and Garrett were illegitimate, and that Dr. William Thomas was their true father.
“What in the world happened?” Anne asked. “Because obviously, she didn’t jilt the duke at the altar. She went ahead with it, otherwise she would never have become the Duchess of Pembroke.”
Charlotte turned to sit on the wide painted windowsill, and set her teacup and saucer down beside her. “Mother told me everything about it shortly before Father passed away. She said she had no regrets about marrying him, that it was her destiny to be duchess here, and mother to all of us, just as we are. Though she loved Dr. Thomas quite passionately in her youth, I believe, in the end, she was content with the choice she had made.”
“Naturally I am pleased to hear that,” Anne said as she sat down beside Charlotte on the windowsill. “But you still haven’t told me what happened on the eve of the wedding. Did she keep the duke waiting at the chapel?”
“No, she was there on time, for her father caught her and Dr. Thomas as they were attempting to flee the palace through the underground tunnels. There was some violence, I believe, and poor Dr. Thomas was dragged away, unconscious. I don’t know all the particulars, but Mother chose to walk down the aisle the next day to save him from any further harm. She wrote to him and told him that she had changed her mind, that her father was right, and it was her duty to marry the duke, and that William must never contact her again. When he found out she had gone through with it, he left England and didn’t return for a few years. It was when he came back that he and mother spent those... intimate hours together.” Charlotte picked up her tea again. “Father knew nothing about her infidelity until much later, when he realized Garrett and I looked nothing like him or our brothers.”
“That is quite a story,” Anne said.
“Yes, indeed, and I have not been able to push it from my mind since I learned of it. Imagine, poor Dr. Thomas being thumped on the head and dragged out of the tunnels. And poor Mother, who was desperately in love with him... How she must have suffered. It is quite a tale of woe, which is why I believe it’s high time someone made it right. Their day has come, Anne. Do you not agree? Mother was a dutiful wife to the very end, but she is a widow now. And Dr. Thomas—so skilled in the art of medicine—was such a good friend to her when Father was ill. He was her knight in shining armor. Surely they both deserve happiness. They have waited so long.”
Anne considered it. “Do you not think they are old enough, and wise enough, to make their own decisions? If they wanted to be together, there is nothing standing in their way. They can do so without someone—and that would be you, I presume—making it right.”
Charlotte smiled. “Of course it would be me. Why do you think I brought it up?” She rose to her feet and went to pour herself another cup of tea. “Dr. Thomas is always delighted to see me whenever I visit my publisher in London,” she said as she picked up the teapot. “I am sure he would be open to an invitation of some sort. Perhaps he just needs a little prodding.”
“So you intend to try your hand at matchmaking,” Anne said, intrigued.
“I most certainly do,” Charlotte replied. “I am the perfect candidate for such an undertaking. They are my parents, after all, and I know them better than anyone. Besides, I need to have some form of romance in my life, even if it is not my own.”
Anne and Charlotte had been sisters-in-law for twelve years now. They were the best of friends, and for that reason Charlotte did not need to explain that she had long given up dreaming of her own happily-ever-after. Charlotte was no stranger to heartache and disappointment, which was probably why she and Dr. Thomas rubbed along so well. She felt a deep connection to him, for he, too, had lost his beloved tragically at an early age, just as she had.
Before that, Charlotte had actually believed she was leading a charmed life, for she had met the perfect man during her first week of her first Season in London. Lord Graham Spencer was the most handsome man she had ever seen, with jet black hair, piercing blue eyes, and a tall muscular build. If his looks weren’t enough to make a young lady swoon, he was also charming, intelligent, and exceptionally honorable. To top it all off, he was heir to a dukedom, and would soon inherit his ailing father’s title and estate in Devonshire.
They had fallen in love instantly upon introduction, and the courtship was as passionate and romantic as any woman could ever dream. By the end of the Season Graham had proposed with his grandmother’s gigantic diamond ring, and they fell more deeply in love with each passing day as they anticipated their wedding the following spring.
It was a passionate love, and they had both been far too impatient...
Then, three weeks before Charlotte’s highly anticipated walk down the aisle, Graham was thrown from his horse in the middle of Trafalgar Square on a sunny afternoon in London. The coroner told them he died instantly from a head injury, and Charlotte was left to endure the unbearable agony of losing the man she loved with all her heart, and the happy future of which she had dreamed.
A month later, she discovered she was with child. While most women would have feared and dreaded the scandal, Charlotte had wept tears of joy. She announced it to her family with pride—and a careless disregard for how Society would judge her—for in her womb, she carried a piece of her beloved that would stay with her forever.
But fate was cruel to her yet again. At the end of her first trimester, she lost the baby through no fault of her own, and fell into a deep pit of despair that lasted nearly a year. The grief was immeasurable, and it was a long, hard climb back to a life that included any thoughts of the future, for she couldn’t bear to imagine how to find happiness again.
And so, she passed through her best years in a quiet state of melancholy. Her family tried to coax her into beginning again at the next London Season, or the Season after that, but she had no interest in flirting, and surely no man could possibly compare to Graham, the great love of her life, who had been so cruelly ripped from her world.
Now she was long past a marriageable age, but had found a different sort of happiness from within, and through her writing. A year ago, her first novel The Boxer had been published under the pseudonym Victor Edwards, and it was now a literary sensation, which proved to be exceedingly lucrative for Charlotte. The book was in its seventeenth printing and was selling well in Europe as well as America. She had already been commissioned to write a second novel, which was due on her editor’s desk next summer.
Hence, her life—though it was not what she imagined it would be when she was young and full of romantic dreams—had turned out to be surprisingly satisfactory.
Though lately, Charlotte had begun to desire something more....
She was not a block of ice. She had known passion and desire once before. Though she did not yearn for a life of matrimony—she was financially independent and quite happy in her solitude—her body longed for certain physical pleasures with a man. She wanted to be touched, and aroused. By a lover. By someone sinfully handsome and experienced. Someone compelling.
She may not be as young as she once was, but by God, she had not lost her looks yet. If she were honest about it, without conceit, she was in fact quite comely, with golden hair and a curvaceous figure. In the right situation, she was confident she could do what was required to attract a desirable candidate for the sort of encounter she had in mind.
“So how do you plan to begin?” Anne asked as she rose from her seat on the windowsill to return to the sofa. “Will you invite Dr. Thomas to Pembroke?”
Charlotte shook away the fantasy that had been on her mind so often lately and sat down beside Anne. She picked up a raspberry scone from the biscuit plate. “Eventually, yes, but first I will pay him a call in London. He is always pleased to see me, as I am his only daughter. Since the Season is in full swing, I shall persuade Mother to accompany me. I will suggest that we
take in the theater and accept a few invitations to dinners and balls. For years she has been trying to convince me to enjoy myself, so I will inform her that I am ready to do just that.”
“Oh, Charlotte.” Anne laid a hand on her knee. “Please tell me that you are indeed ready to enjoy yourself, and that it is not simply a charade to lure Adelaide to London.”
Charlotte popped the last bite of the scone into her mouth. “I believe I am more than ready,” she replied. “I have been too bookish lately. It’s time to live a little, do you not agree? Heaven forbid I become a recluse in my old age.”
The maid entered to collect the tea tray, and Anne smiled with encouragement. “Will you write to me?” she asked. “And tell me everything?”
“I will write to you each day,” Charlotte replied.
Though she was not certain she would be able to divulge all the details, for some potential activities might turn out to be exceedingly private.
Chapter Two
London
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING HER meeting with her publisher, Charlotte instructed her coachman to take her to Dr. Thomas’s medical offices on Park Lane. A short while later she was greeted by the clerk at the front desk and shown into her father’s study, which was located down a narrow red-carpeted corridor at the rear of the clinic.
As always, Charlotte paused at the door to behold the cluttered yet cozy state of the room, with books and papers piled high and spread everywhere, and a faded coat of dark green paint on the walls. Aside from the fact that there was a skeleton standing by the window, the room was quite inviting, but was definitely in need of a woman’s touch. Dr. Thomas needed some help with organization, though Charlotte suspected that might upset his professional balance, for he was a brilliant surgeon who specialized in diseases of the brain and probably knew the exact location of every book and document in the building.
Married By Midnight (Pembroke Palace Book 4) Page 16