She lay so still in his arms. “Listen to me,” he said. “I was so drunk last night I could hardly see straight. I wasn’t sure, this morning, whether I’d dreamed you. Were you talking about love, or did I dream it? I must have dreamed it, because you couldn’t be so thick not to have known.”
He shook her a little, but he daren’t do more, not knowing whether she’d broken anything. “You must wake up. I came to tell you—and if you don’t wake up, you’ll never know, because you’re shockingly obtuse. How could you not see? If I didn’t love you, would I care whether you’d be happy, married to me? Of course not. I’m the Juggernaut. I would have browbeaten you and overwhelmed you and seduced you into changing your mind again, and I’d keep you seduced until I got the ring on your finger. But no. I had to be a hero. I had to want you to be happy, infatuated sapskull that I am, even if it meant losing you.”
He pulled her closer. “Dammit, Barbara. Say something. Do something.”
He heard a sound. He eased his grip a little and looked down at her, not sure he’d heard what he thought he heard.
Snoring.
She turned in his arms and smiled up at him.
“You wretched female,” he said.
“You were going on so well, I hated to interrupt,” she said.
He made a harrumphing sound. “Then you’re unhurt?”
“I had the wind knocked out of me for a moment,” she said.
“You’d better let me check for injuries,” he said.
“I promise you, I’m no more than a little bruised,” she said.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He proceeded to examine her so thoroughly, his big hands moving over every inch of her body, that she went hot all over.
Then he hauled her to her feet, dragged her up against him, bent his head and kissed her, slowly and with the same single-minded determination he’d applied to courting her. He worked his way from a chaste meeting of lips to something not at all chaste, that had the blood pounding through her veins and stirred up, low in her belly, a hot impatience for something she had no name for.
When at last he drew away, she was limp and nearly sick with wanting.
“Oh, my goodness,” she managed to say, in a strange, hoarse voice she barely recognized as hers. “If you’d done that before, I never should have jilted you.”
“I know,” he said. “But it would have been unsporting.”
“I thought my feelings were not returned,” she said. “I couldn’t bear the idea of a lifetime of being the only one in the marriage who was in love. But I couldn’t sleep last night, and all I could think of was you riding away, and I’d never see you again, and how wretched I should be. And so I came to tell you that I didn’t care if I was the one who did all the loving—and—and that I rescinded everything I said in that stupid letter.”
“And I rescind all my heroic self-sacrifice,” he said.
He straightened her bonnet, which had fallen to one side in the course of the shockingly delicious kiss.
She smoothed the front of his coat, though it wasn’t wrinkled.
He took her hand away, and clasped it in his big one.
“Shall we get married, then?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
And they did, the very next day after the queen married her prince, with a good deal less pomp, but as much love and more.
About the Authors
New York Times bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science, a hobby that quickly became a career. Her novels, set in Regency England, have captivated readers around the globe, making her one of the romance world’s most beloved and popular authors. Readers can contact Stephanie via e-mail at [email protected]. For information on all of Stephanie’s books, including updates on novels yet to come, visit her website at www.stephanielaurens.com.
GAELEN FOLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen Regency historical romances, including her April 2011 release, My Irresistible Earl.
She lives in Pennsylvania with her hero-husband and a mischievous bichon frise. To learn more about Gaelen, her novels, and the romantic Regency period in which her books are set, please visit www.gaelenfoley.com.
After a heroic attempt to be an English major forever, LORETTA CHASE stoically accepted her degree but kept on reading and writing. As well as working in academe, she had an enlightening if brief life in retail and a Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid. In the course of moonlighting as a corporate video scriptwriter, she succumbed to the charm of a producer, who lured her into writing novels . . . and marrying him. The union has resulted in what seems like an awful lot of books and quite a few awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s Rita®. To learn more, please visit www.LorettaChase.com. To get in touch, please email her at [email protected]
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Coming Soon
Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens
My Irresistible Earl by Gaelen Foley
Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase
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.
“The Wedding Planner.” Copyright © 2011 by Savdek Management Proprietary Limited. “Ever After.” Copyright © 2011 by Gaelen Foley. “The Jilting of Lord Rothwick.” Copyright © 2011 by Loretta Chekani. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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 HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition April 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-209187-1
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