One day in late September Christel finally sat down and wrote Daniel Claremont’s sister Elizabeth and her husband, Lieutenant Ross. She told them about her new life and her husband and the child they had on the way and due next spring. She would love if they traveled to Blackthorn Castle.
Christel and Camden were married a second time in a formal ceremony at St. Abigal’s that month. A poor man’s ceremony, what some called it. Sir Jacob’s prediction about Camden’s financial fall had borne out, and they were now poor aristocracy but with big dreams. He still had the Anna, and humble beginnings did not mean he did not have plans. They faced each other and spoke the promise in their hearts, and as she met the conviction in Camden’s gaze, she felt alive.
More than alive. She felt peace. She was not sure of anything except Camden’s steadfast love and his promise that he would never forsake his family and a life they would begin together.
When Christel woke again, the next day, a silk dress made from spun gold and golden slippers lay on the chair. The note simply said, “We never had our dance. C.”
She lifted the gown. Holding it against herself, she ran to the mirror. Gold was indeed the color of enchantment, as she’d once believed. The dress flowed around her as if she’d been seventeen again and a princess in her own fairy tale. The dress and shoes were the very same she had worn over ten years ago. The dress thankfully laced up the front, and, though loosened, the bodice was tight. Still, she had never felt more beautiful.
Christel saw him from the gilt-edged balcony overlooking the grand ballroom.
Camden stood at the bottom of the stairs, his elbow on the newel post. He no longer wore the dark royal blue uniform of a naval officer, but he was no less resplendent garbed in silver gray silk, white shirt and stock and dark breeches. It was just the two of them.
“Where did you find my dress and shoes?”
“Tia found the dress a few years ago in the attic at Rosecliffe. The shoes I have always had.”
He led her onto the dance floor, and her pulse leapt, then raced as his body encompassed hers. He slid his fingers into the warmth of her hair and tilted her face. Their eyes met and loved in a timeless embrace before he lowered his mouth to her lips. “I love you,” he whispered.
She loved him, too. Not the infatuation of a young girl’s heart, but something deep and promising and enduring. Something she imagined her parents had once shared.
In her imagination music floated high above the spacious floor to resonate against the dome-shaped roof. “We could be the sun and the moon,” she said in amusement, and he pulled her nearer.
His step was not perfect, but for her it mattered little. “You are the closest to heaven I will ever get, love,” he said against her hair.
Heaven, where dreams were like the rolling waves of a summer sea, ever changing and infinite.
Where the magic they’d discovered one enchanted evening would endure to grow and nurture generations to come.
Where gold was the color of dreams that came not from the wealth in a man’s pocket but from his heart.
She had found her treasure.
It was the end of the day, and the beginning of the rest of their lives. And with Christel wrapped in Camden’s arms, the man once known as the Barracuda had finally brought her home.
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.
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By Melody Thomas
This Perfect Kiss
Claimed By a Scottish Lord
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.
Copyright © 2011 by Laura Renken. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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.
EPub Edition JULY 2011 ISBN: 9780062092380
FIRST EDITION
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Prologue
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
About the Author
By Melody Thomas
Copyright
About the Publisher
This Perfect Kiss Page 30