Secrets of a Perfect Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  Romances set against the backdrop of Regency England were the first Stephanie Laurens ever read, and they continue to exert a special attraction. On escaping from the dry world of professional science to carve out a career as a writer, Stephanie published eight Regency romances, then turned to longer, historical romances set in the Regency. Her first—Captain Jack’s Woman—was published by Avon Books in 1997. Subsequent books from Avon have told the tales of the Bar Cynster—a group of masterful, arrogant cousins of the ducal Cynster dynasty. Devil’s Bride, A Rake’s Vow, Scandal’s Bride, A Rogue’s Proposal, and A Secret Love, have documented the inevitable surrender to love of the devastatingly handsome Cynsters. All About Love continues the series.

  Residing in a leafy bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Stephanie divides her free time between her husband, two teenage daughters, and two cats, Shakespeare and Marlowe. Stephanie loves to hear from her readers. Letters can be sent c/o The Publicity Department, Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299, or via email to slaurens@vicnet.net.au, or via Stephanie’s website at www.stephanielaurens.com. Updates on the continuing Cynster series can be found on the website.

  The Last Love Letter

  Victoria Alexander

  One

  It is a sad story, my dear Rachael, of misguided interference. Of lies told and believed. Of squandered opportunities and hearts broken. And love unrequited and true love lost…

  LADY RACHAEL NORCROSS surveyed the crowded ballroom before her and tried to push the words of her late husband to the back of her mind. It was as futile as trying to stop the beating of her heart. The lines had burned themselves into her memory the moment she’d read them this afternoon—in a letter delivered now two years after George’s passing.

  She moved through the crush with a nod here and a smile there, confident that no one would suspect her thoughts were on anything but Lady Bradbourne’s annual New Year’s ball and anywhere but the New Year: 1815.

  Would he be here tonight? It was entirely possible. She had heard he had returned to England this very week, and she had steeled herself for the inevitable confrontation. After all, Jason Norcross was her husband’s cousin and only male heir. With George’s death, Jason was now the Earl of Lyndhurst.

  She’d hoped to be able to conclude their dealings, officially ridding herself of the responsibility of the estate and all else that accompanied Jason’s legacy, with a businesslike attitude and a minimum of personal contact. With any luck, she could avoid him entirely, leaving everything in the hands of solicitors, which had been her plan since the day of George’s passing. A plan shattered along with everything she’d based her life on the moment she read his letter.

  A waiter offered a glass of champagne and she accepted with a feigned air of indifference.

  Dear God, Jason had thought I was dead!

  The revelation still stunned her. George’s letter explained her father’s part in the deception. Her hand tightened on the stem of the glass and a wave of bitterness washed through her.

  Her own father. Even on his deathbed he had not sought reconciliation or forgiveness. No doubt for the best. She didn’t know what she would have done if he had. And only now did she know the full extent of his betrayal.

  Betrayal? She sipped the wine in an effort to wash the taste of the word from her mouth. As brutal a word as it was, it still was not harsh enough. Her father had made certain the man she loved would never so much as write her a note of regret. Or seek her out to explain his abandonment. Or ease her pain.

  No, her father made certain all Jason Norcross would leave her with was a broken heart, bittersweet memories, and half a gold coin…

  Ten years earlier

  “Is anyone in there?” Rachael Gresham peered into the dark stables, pulling her cloak tighter around her against the chill December night.

  She stepped into the ancient building cautiously and shivered, as much with excitement as with the cold. She’d become quite adept at slipping out of Gresham Manor late in the night. The threat of discovery and ever-present possibility of danger only added to the thrill of the illicit adventure.

  The moonlight cast her shadow before her and she paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the dimmer recesses of the decrepit structure. Here and there, brightness fell in shafts on the straw-littered floor from holes in the roof that grew larger with each passing season. Her father had built a new stable several years ago and planned to tear this one down. Until that time, it served for little more than the occasional storage of hay.

  But it was the perfect spot for her purposes. She bit back a smile. If her father only knew what use she had found for the place.

  “Is anyone there?” she called again, and strained to hear a sound in the dark shadows. Was she indeed alone? She took a step. Straw crunched beneath her foot. She took another. Was that a noise? Behind her? Fear shot up her spine. Perhaps she had tempted fate once too often. Her heart pounded in her chest. Perhaps her sins had caught up with her. Perhaps—

  Without warning a hand covered her mouth and strong arms pulled her back against a hard body. She struggled, but the grip tightened.

  “Quiet,” a voice murmured against her ear, and she stilled. “What’s a lovely thing like you doing out here alone in the middle of the night where any manner of beast could have his way with you?” His hand slipped through the opening of her cloak and covered her breast.

  She gasped and jerked free to swivel in his arms. “Waiting for a beast exactly like you.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, and his lips crushed hers in a greeting of greed and desire. He pulled her tighter against him and slanted his mouth over hers, his kiss hard and demanding, and she returned it in kind with the wild hunger that had held her in its grip since the first time they had lain together.

  He swept her up into his arms and carried her the few steps to a corner stall and the blanket-covered pile of hay they had claimed as their own.

  “For a moment, I thought you weren’t coming,” she said, her lips caressing his neck. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “Never.” His voice held that odd, husky tone she recognized as desire. A need as great as her own. “I would never forget.”

  She slid from his arms and yanked free the tie of her cloak, the garment falling unheeded to the floor. He pushed the simple dress she’d chosen precisely for its uncomplicated nature down over her shoulders and bent his head to taste the flesh already aching for his touch. She slid her hands under his coat and ran her fingers over his muscled chest, the heat of his body beneath the fabric of his shirt inflaming her senses. She pushed at the coat and he shrugged out of it, his lips barely leaving her skin.

  He pulled her bodice lower to free her breasts and cupped them in his hands. His thumbs traced slow circles on her nipples, in teasing contrast to the plundering of her mouth by his. He dropped to his knees before her, his lips trailing down her neck to the valley between her breasts. Her eyes closed and her head fell back. She tunneled her fingers through his hair and clutched his head closer.

  He suckled first one breast, then the other, and she existed only in the exquisite sensations coursing through her. His hands slid down her hips and he gathered up her skirts to skim his palms up the length of her bare legs. She ached with yearning and sank down, pulling him to her, and together they tumbled backward onto the hay.

  She ran her hand over the front of his breeches, caressing the hard bulge that proclaimed his desire, and he groaned. His hand slipped between her legs and he touched her at that most sensitive point, already throbbing with urgency. Her legs opened and she whimpered and stifled the urge to beg for more. She caught at the waist of his breeches and pushed them down over his hips, his manhood springing free. She caressed the hard, hot length of him, and wondered anew at the odd merging of steel and velvet. He shuddered with her touch.

  She knew his body now as well as she knew her own. Knew the power her touch had over him. And knew as wel
l her own desires and the joy only he could bring.

  She threw her leg over his, angling her heat toward his. He grasped her bottom and jerked her toward him, sliding into her with a quick motion and an ease that proclaimed this was where he belonged. A match as right, as perfect, as a key in a lock, a hand in a glove, a star in the heavens. She moaned and her hands twisted the fabric of his shirt and she pushed hard against him. And he filled her body and her soul.

  He moved in rhythm with the pulse of her blood and she joined him without pause in an eager, desperate spiral of ecstasy. She met every thrust with her own, needing to feel him deep inside, to welcome and embrace the ever-increasing taut fire swelling within her. A flame burning hotter, climbing higher and higher, until all-consuming and all-powerful, explosive and shattering. Her body jerked beneath his, her back arched, and waves of delight surged through her. He thrust again and his body tensed against hers and he groaned with his own release.

  They lay together for a long moment and she savored the feel of him still inside her. Slowly, the beat of her heart in her ears dimmed. His breathing slowed and gently he pulled away, but his arms remained wrapped around her and he held her close.

  Briefly, she wondered at the circumstances that had brought them together. A scant month ago she was an innocent. Now she was brazen in her demands for the pleasure only he could provide.

  “I have missed you,” she said lightly.

  He laughed. “You’ve scarcely had the opportunity to miss me. We were together only last night. And the night before.”

  “And the night before that as well.” She shifted, propped herself up on one elbow, and smiled. “Yet still it isn’t enough.”

  “You are a demanding bit of baggage.” He reached out to run his hand along the length of her hip exposed by the skirts still bunched around her waist.

  “If I am, it’s entirely your fault,” she said, trying to ignore his fingers trailing up and down flesh still sensitive from the passion of their coupling.

  “I know.” A grin sounded in his voice. He slid his hand around to rest between her legs, his fingers idly toying with her.

  She shivered with the pleasure of his touch and closed her eyes. “I’ve become quite wanton.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  She ignored the teasing note in his voice, her attention focused on nothing more than the touch of his hand, and sighed. He’d introduced her to this unimagined pleasure and now she was like a drunkard needing yet another tankard of ale. “I rather like being wanton.”

  “You do seem to have taken to it.”

  The stroking of his hand increased until once again glorious release flooded through her. She drew a long shuddering breath and collapsed back onto the hay. She certainly had experienced a great deal in a few brief weeks. Not the least of which was the excitement of loving Jason Norcross. And knowing as surely as she’d ever known anything in her seventeen years on this earth that being together was as necessary to his life as it was to hers. That he loved her with the same unbridled passion that she loved him.

  He shifted in the dark beside her, and the straw rustled with the movement of him pulling on his breeches. She grinned. “Jason, when we are wed, will we disrobe entirely?”

  “I hadn’t especially considered the idea, but it sounds intriguing,” he said thoughtfully. “Still, it wouldn’t be as much of a challenge. Next, I suppose you’ll be insisting on a bed as well.”

  “You did say I was demanding.” She laughed and sat up, her gaze skimming over the deep shadows of the stables. “Although it will be difficult to give up all this.” In spite of her words, she would remember this old building with fondness.

  Here was where they had discovered love and planned their future. This was the one place they could be together without the prying eyes of servants, all, no doubt, eager to report back to Lord Gresham that his only child had defied his wishes and continued to see the penniless cousin of his neighbor, George Norcross, the Earl of Lyndhurst.

  It was a dangerous game they played. She pushed aside a shiver of fear at what her father would do if he ever discovered their deception. But if all went well, he would learn nothing until they were long out of his reach.

  “Rachael? There is much we need to discuss.” His voice was abruptly serious. “I have booked passage on a ship bound for America.”

  “When?” she said quietly, the realization of their impending plans sobering her mood.

  “It sails early on the first of January.”

  “The morning after Lady Bradbourne’s ball.” She blew out a long breath. “Then our plan will work, won’t it?”

  “With any luck.”

  “We have love, Jason, we don’t need luck.” She forced a light note to her voice, but she knew as well as he the possibility of success hinged as much on chance as anything else.

  He got to his feet and paced before her, his face falling in and out of the shafts of pale moonlight with his steps. “It is a relatively simple plan. You will slip away during the ball—”

  “And meet you in the garden.”

  “I shall have a carriage waiting to take us to the docks.”

  “A hired carriage?” She scrambled to her feet and quickly adjusted her clothing.

  He nodded. “I dare not use one of George’s. It is a slim possibility, but it could be recognized.”

  “And we would be found out. I would be dragged back home and more than likely be the center of scandal. And my father…” She blew a long breath. “But even to save my reputation, he would never allow us to marry.”

  “Why?” Jason stopped and frustration rang in his voice. “Why does he dislike me so?”

  “Because I have never defied him in any matter other than you. I have been a good, biddable daughter in every other way.”

  He snorted. “I can scarcely believe that.”

  “It’s true.” How could she explain? Even when they were children she had always been free to speak her mind with Jason, to follow what impulses seized her. But she could not remember a time when the presence of her father hadn’t filled her with fear. “He has always terrified me.”

  “I know,” Jason said softly.

  She jerked her gaze to his. “I’ve never told you that.”

  “You never had to. I’ve always been able to see it in your eyes. But I’ve never understood why.”

  “To my father”—she chose her words carefully—” I am nothing more than a commodity. Property as valuable as his prized cattle or the manor. He has always planned to arrange an advantageous marriage for me.”

  “But I am George’s heir. I could well be the next Earl of Lyndhurst.”

  “Unless he marries again and fathers a son. He is not yet forty, and older men than he have sired heirs.”

  “Still, George would never leave me penniless. And I do not lack for ambition.”

  “Nonetheless, even if you inherit his title, it’s not what my father wants.” She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off a chill far greater than the night air. A note of bitterness crept into her voice. “He wants my marriage to advance his position in Parliament. He means to use me as a pawn to further his political ambitions.

  “You are a threat to those ambitions because he knows I love you. I have no idea how he knows, but he does.” She grimaced. “He knows I have loved from the time you came to live with Lord Lyndhurst after your parents died. You were rather wild and reckless then, as I recall.”

  “I was a mere child,” he said indignantly.

  She resisted the urge to point out that, at the moment, he sounded much more like a boy than a man. “And when we met again, during the season last spring, I loved you in spite of the reputation you’d acquired during your years at school and in London.”

  “A reputation little worse than any others,” he said quickly. “Scarcely earned with anything of true significance.”

  “And I loved you still when you, and that scarcely earned reputation, finally returned home.”

  �
��A bit of youth misspent perhaps.” She heard the shrug in his voice. “Now, however, that is at an end. I am, after all, nearly one and twenty.”

  “As old as that?”

  “Do not tease me, Rachael.” He pulled her into his arms. “I am old enough to know my own heart.”

  “And old enough to know mine.” She reached up and brushed her lips across his.

  “When do you leave for London?”

  She hesitated. She couldn’t avoid telling him a moment longer, but until she said the words aloud, she could believe nothing could separate them. Believe they could continue to meet night after night. “In the morning.”

  “Tomorrow?” His arms tensed around her. “You’re not going to be at the manor for Christmas?”

  “Father wants the house in order before Parliament reconvenes. And apparently, aside from the New Year’s Ball, there are a number of other events he wishes to attend. Political, of course.” Without warning, a strange, desolate feeling washed through her. “I cannot abide the thought of not seeing you for nearly a fortnight.”

  “Perhaps a gift will make it easier to bear.”

  “A gift? For me?” She lifted her head and looked up at him. “What kind of gift? Is it wonderful?”

  He laughed and released her. “No, simply a token.” He stepped into a beam of moonlight and held out his hand. Something twinkled on his palm.

  She stepped closer. “What is it?”

  “It’s a guinea. Actually,” he said wryly, “It’s two halves of a guinea. I split it with an axe.”

  “Jason, you split a guinea? A gold coin?” She shook her head. “But why? You can ill afford to be—”