I paused in surprise, just inside the door, and all eyes turned on me. Fortunately, Kasimir rose from his chair at once and came forward to greet me. He was dressed formally once more in dark coat and trousers and one of his luxuriantly embroidered silk waistcoats. He looked splendid and handsome, and yet this appearance made me shy as his totally naked person hadn’t last night. Although perhaps it was the memory of that totally naked person that made me blush so furiously.
He took my hand, placing it on his arm and led me to the place of honour beside him. “Breakfast isn’t here yet,” he announced. “Which gives us time.”
“For what, Highness?” one of the statesmen enquired.
“To announce my marriage to Lady Guin.”
The astonished faces amused him. I could tell. There were several, if slightly faint, congratulations murmured around the table. Augusta stared at me, her mouth fallen open with incomprehension.
As I sat, she stared across the table at me. “You? You will be the duchess now?”
I supposed it was galling for her, but since her affections had never truly been engaged in the Silberwald marriage, I didn’t really care. Still, happiness made me generous, so I said, “The reigning duchess. You will still be the dowager duchess, which has such a stately ring. Especially in England.”
She closed her mouth thoughtfully. She was the easiest to placate.
Kasimir said, “Lady Guin’s friends, Mrs. Darke and Mr. Haggard, are returning to England, and I believe Duchess Augusta means to accompany them, so the bishop here is going to marry us now.”
It was so casually said, I almost missed it. My hand fell away from my coffee cup as I stared up at him. “What?”
“Why waste time? I’ve done enough of that. We don’t need the effort and expense of a great public wedding and I thought you’d like your friends present.” It wasn’t just casual, it was positively offhand. And high-handed enough to make me dig my heels in.
Until my no doubt stormy eyes finally understood the expression in his.
I had always been thrown by another’s vulnerability, and I saw now that while he might be arrogantly manipulating me to suit himself, there was far more to it. He desperately wanted me beside him, perhaps to help control the beast in him, perhaps just to make him happy. Or perhaps both, so muddled, even he didn’t know. But my so urgent, decisive, determined and very slightly evil duke needed me. And I would be there.
“You don’t need to do this, Guin,” Barbara said, low. “Not right now.”
“I know,” I said.
Patrick was looking at her, his harsh face unreadable, but I thought her difficulty with another marriage, with commitment, was his difficulty too. Which was another reason for my own immediate wedding. If I need have no fears of mine, why should she of hers?
One of the more elderly statesmen was saying loudly to another that it would be a popular match. “The local people already like her. She’s the only one who’s ever talked to them. Apart from the present duke.”
Remembering my short encounters with the villagers, I thought that was probably true, although I had a lot more to do there. But I couldn’t think about that right now.
The bishop was frowning at me owlishly. “I have the paperwork. If the lady agrees.”
Of course, since I wasn’t yet twenty-one, I rather thought they needed my brother’s agreement. But Alnwick wouldn’t fight this.
Kasimir seemed about to speak, so I took his hand and stood beside him.
“I agree,” I said firmly.
And just like that, at the breakfast table, before a few stunned guests, my anxious friend and my eternally disapproving sister, I married the mad Duke of Silberwald.
Barbara, Augusta, Colonel Friedrich, and one of the statesmen whose name I hadn’t yet grasped, signed the marriage document as witnesses.
It all had a faint feeling of unreality as Kasimir kissed my lips in front of everyone, and I sat down, blushing. Breakfast was brought in, along with an announcement to the duke that his engineers had arrived.
“Engineers?” asked the witnessing statesman.
“To survey the old part of the castle,” Kasimir explained. “I want to refurbish it for Guin and me.”
There was no formality with him. I liked that.
Barbara laid down her fork. “You’re going to live there? There?”
“Why not?” I asked her.
“I would have thought it has bad memories for both of you! Won’t you mind that?”
“No,” Kasimir and I said together.
A moment longer she stared at us, and then she relaxed into a laugh. “You really are well suited, aren’t you?”
We were.
We are.
About the Author
Marie Treanor lives in Scotland with her eccentric husband and three much-too-smart children. Having grown bored with city life, she resides these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing sensual stories of paranormal romance and fantasy.
Marie is the award winning author of over forty sexy paranormal romances—Indie, New York and E-published.
You can find out more about Marie and her books on her website: www.MarieTreanor.com.
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Look for these titles by Marie Treanor
Now Available:
Killing Joe
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Requiem for Rab
Fairytale Fantasies (with Bonnie Dee)
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In His Wildest Dreams
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Darke of Night
The Dead of Haggard Hall
The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle
Don’t miss the other titles in Marie Treanor’s Series!
Spirit possession is easy to remedy. Possession of the heart is another matter.
Darke of Night, Book 1
After vicar’s widow and natural medium Barbara Darke loses her respectable teaching position, she reluctantly agrees to become companion to her former pupil Emily, now the bride of young Sir Arthur Haggard.
Once settled at Haggard Hall, Barbara finds her friend is beset by ghostly voices and unexplained deaths. In a maelstrom of dark spirits and wicked emotions, Barbara battles to lay Emily’s ghosts to rest—both hampered and helped by Arthur’s skeptical cousin Patrick, who provokes and attracts her in equal measure.
It would be a mistake to trust a secretive, guilt-ridden man suspected of driving his wife to suicide, if not outright murdering her. And it could well be lethal to give in to her own desires, confused as they often are with the lusts of the dead.
But Arthur and Emily are in genuine physical danger, and suspicion is falling closer and closer to Patrick—the man who haunts Barbara’s sensual dreams. The man who stands to inherit Haggard Hall.
Warning: Contains a medium whose body is open season for spirit possession, and a scandal-ridden journalist who only believes what he can see—and touch.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons,
living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle
Copyright © 2016 by Marie Treanor
ISBN: 978-1-61923-605-9
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Kelly Martin
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: August 2016
www.samhainpublishing.com
The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle Page 23