She rolled over, burrowing in against Rafe’s side, laying her head within the crook of his shoulder. His arm snaked around her, pulling her closer. So he wasn’t asleep. With a quick twist, he rolled her up on top of him, so that they lay body to body. She felt the ripple of muscles in his chest, the flat plane of his stomach. One leg shifted to curl around her. Her eyes widened. No, he definitely wasn’t asleep.
“Kara slumbers,” she whispered. “Her dreams hold her fast. We’ve hours before she wakes.”
“That sounds like an invitation to me,” he answered, his hands running up her back and skimming her sides until she shivered with anticipation.
She laughed as she combed her fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. “Just think, if you’d managed things differently, it might have been you celebrating your wedding today instead of Gerald Minstead.”
Rafe pinched Gwenyth’s side, making her jump. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you? Gerald’s welcome to Anabel, and good riddance. I almost pity the poor man. She’ll lead him a merry chase.”
Gwenyth rested her chin on Rafe’s chest. “Derek warned he meant to fix things with Anabel, and I know no one liked Mr. Minstead, but I still can’t see how he managed it as well as he did.”
Rafe chuckled. “Being locked together in Bodliam’s butler’s pantry for half a day might have helped. If they didn’t kill each other by the end of it, they were bound to make a match. And as I hear, by the way they were found, it had to be a wedding or a scandal.”
Gwenyth bit her lip. “I hope Cecily isn’t too upset over her man’s betrayal. ’Tis a hard thing for a young woman on the brink of life to be crossed by love.”
“From her letter, it sounds like she has recovered. It’s Mother who still can’t seem to get over how things turned out. I think she still harbored some sort of hope I’d return and become the son she always hoped I’d be.”
Gwenyth glanced across to the cradle where Kara slept. The infant murmured before finding her fist and settling. “A mother’s dreams and hopes are hard to lay aside. They can make you risk everything you know and everything you are to bring them forth.”
“But had you not taken that chance…”
She put a finger on his lips to quiet him. “Never be speaking of what might have been. It doesn’t bear thinking on, and frightens me just knowing how close I came to such sorrow.”
Dropping her hand, she traced the dark edge of one butterfly’s wing where it curved over Rafe’s shoulder. “A mark of rebirth.”
Shivering at her touch, he caught her hand in his own, kissing the tips of her fingers. “A mark of our life together.”
About the Author
Alix Rickloff grew up with a family tree that included a knight who fought during the Wars of the Roses (his brass rubbing hangs in her dining room), and a soldier who sided with Charles I during the English Civil War (hence the family’s hasty emigration to America). With ancestors like that, who wouldn’t be inspired?
Alix turned this fascination with British history, along with her love of storytelling, to good use. She began writing, releasing her first historical paranormal in 2007. Her books have been described as “sexy and intense,” “exciting and spellbinding” and “a universe you won’t ever wish to leave.”
You can visit her on the web at www.AlixRickloff.com or write to her at [email protected].
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9250-9
Copyright © 2011 by Alix Rickloff
All rights reserved. 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 publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
About the Author
Dangerous Magic Page 30