Hot Historicals Bundle with An Invitation to Sin, The Naked Baron, When His Kiss Is Wicked, & Mastering the Marquess

by Jo Beverley

  “What a sad loss! I hate the idea of books being destroyed. It’s as if a little part of history is being erased.” A shadow crossed her face.

  “You do love books, don’t you?” he asked, oddly touched by her statement.

  “I do,” she acknowledged readily. “And I envy you the freedom of stocking your personal library full of books that you love. In the shop I have to stock books that other people might like. But to have your own library, and one as lovely as this, that is a special treat.”

  “Yes, but I have no idea what to choose, how to choose, or how to arrange and organize the books that I do have. As you can plainly see, I am in desperate need of assistance, and who better to help me than you?” What the hell was he doing? He’d just given Colette Hamilton leave to come to his house again. He needed to stay away from her, not invite her in!

  The smile that she gave him lit her face from within. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “I would love to arrange your library and select the books! Provided,” she paused and eyed him levelly, “provided that you buy all the books through Hamilton’s. What we don’t have in stock I can order for you.”

  Admiring her determination to succeed, he had to admit, “You are an astute businesswoman, aren’t you, Colette?”

  She gave him a challenging look. “Are you just realizing that?”

  “I think so. You drive a hard bargain, but it’s agreed. I admit that I am relieved to have help. This is a rather large library, and I’ve been at a bit of a loss with what to do with it.”

  “Oh, it’s a perfect room!” she cried, hurrying to the shelves. She ran her hand across one empty shelf, testing its weight and durability. She moved to the books that were stacked rather haphazardly on one shelf. Picking up a few, she read the titles and set them back down. She backed up and eyed the room carefully, turning in a slow circle, sizing up the room through a professional eye.

  “You will need a vast amount of books to replace your collection.” She pointed to the shelves one by one, her mind moving quickly. “We’ll put fiction on those shelves, beginning with the classics. That area will house the books on history and art. Over there we’ll put scientific and reference materials. And you will definitely need a thick carpet to warm up the room and to muffle the noise. A wide desk should go there, as well as a seating area with large comfortable chairs near the windows to take advantage of natural reading light. And yes, more lighting needs to be addressed. I can have Paulette do the lettering on small cards we can place in brass-plated cardholders to label the different subject areas, just like we do in the shop, only on a smaller scale. Oh, and I know a wonderful printer who makes the most elegant bookplates, and I can have them engraved with Devon House—” She suddenly stopped mid-sentence and turned to him with a sheepish look in her face. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

  “Not at all.” Lucien had found himself enjoying her enthusiasm for the venture. The woman loved what she did. A little thrill raced through him at seeing her so obviously happy. He was also impressed with her expertise, recognizing the fact that she seemed to know exactly what to do. In a matter of minutes she had elegantly refurbished the entire room.

  “Well, I shall draw up a list of essential books that you should begin with and have some sent over as soon as possible.”

  “I believe,” he said slowly as an idea formed in his mind, “that this could be a lucrative sideline for you to have, Colette. Helping people stock their private libraries.”

  She looked at him curiously. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. You could use me as a reference.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of women working?”

  “I don’t,” Lucien quipped. “But you are working, whether I approve or not—”

  “My lord?” Granger asked, standing hesitantly in the doorway.

  “Yes?” Lucien responded rather brusquely.

  Granger explained his interruption. “Your father has been ringing for you. It’s your usual reading time. Shall I tell him that you are otherwise engaged?”

  “That is not necessary, Granger. Please tell him I will be up directly.”

  The butler exited the room, and Lucien turned his attention back to Colette. “Would you like to come with me?”

  “To where?” she asked.

  “To read with my father. I would like to introduce you to him.” The words were out of his mouth before he could consider what he was saying. He felt as if he were completely incapable of controlling himself when he was in her presence. Why does that happen with Colette?

  As she wavered with the decision to go with him or not, he realized just how much he wanted his father to meet her.

  “I would be honored to meet your father.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered, pleased by her response.

  “Is he very ill?” Concern crossed her beautiful features.

  Lucien nodded. “He has suffered an apoplectic attack. It was rather severe, causing him to lose control over the right side of his body. He cannot move his right arm or leg, and he has difficulty speaking since the right side of his face is paralyzed. His speech has improved somewhat since it first happened a few months back. I’ve learned to understand what he is trying to say.”

  “Oh, how dreadful for him. Is he terribly depressed?”

  “Yes, I believe so. That’s why I try to spend as much time with him as I can. I read to him, talk to him about current events, and attempt to entertain him a little. His mind is still quite sharp. It’s just that his body does not do what he wants it to do.”

  A look of sympathy swept her delicate features. “I can imagine that must be quite frustrating for him. Are you sure he will not mind my intrusion?”

  “No, in fact, I believe it might cheer him. He has not had visitors since this happened, and has refused to see anyone he knows. But he has not met you, so how can he refuse your company?”

  Colette nodded in helpless agreement with his winning logic. Then she paused. “And what of your mother?”

  Since the age of ten Lucien had learned to deftly answer that particular question. With his cool and calm manner, he never revealed the devastation his mother had inflicted upon his life. But now when Colette asked, his gut clenched and he gave her a rather flippant response. “Surely you’ve heard the story of my mother from someone by now. It’s infamous.”

  She regarded him intently, her gaze full of concern. “You needn’t tell me, if you don’t wish to.”

  Something in her manner calmed him, and for the first time in his life Lucien wanted to share what happened to him that day when the world as he knew it ended. “For all the scandal it caused, it’s a very short story. Of course, I didn’t learn the truth until later. My mother ran off with another man when I was ten. One morning I woke up and my father told me she had gone away. We never saw her again. As I’m sure you can imagine, the social and emotional ramifications were horrendous.”

  “Do you still miss her?” she asked quietly.

  He sighed heavily, running his hand across his chin. “I used to. For years I used to pray for my mother to come home.” He paused thoughtfully. “Over the years I suppose I simply grew accustomed to life without her.”

  Her eyes grew softer as she watched him. “Oh, Lucien, I’m sorry,” was all she said.

  Her use of his first name almost undid him. The softness, the tenderness, the aching compassion in the way she whispered his name almost brought him to his knees.

  “Let’s go upstairs now, shall we?” he suggested abruptly. The tightening sensation in his chest made him uncomfortable.

  Colette seemed surprised by the sudden end to their conversation but nodded her assent. Lucien took her arm and led her from the library and down the corridor. Silently she followed him up the wide and curving front staircase and along the upstairs hallway until they reached the doors to his father’s suite of rooms.

  Colette gave him a nervous glance and he squeezed her arm reassuringly before he guid
ed her to where his father sat huddled in a large leather chair beside the mantel. In spite of the warm June weather, a blazing fire roared in the grate and a gray woolen blanket was wrapped around his thin shoulders. His rheumy eyes narrowed at the sight of Colette.

  “Father, I have brought a visitor to meet you. This is Miss Colette Hamilton. She is the lady who has been choosing the books I’ve been reading to you. Colette, this is my father, Simon Sinclair, the Marquis of Stancliff.”

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” Colette said warmly, taking his outstretched left hand in hers. “I’m honored to meet you, for your son has told me such wonderful things about you.”

  His father nodded in greeting and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes as his gaze flicked in brief question to Lucien and then back to Colette.

  “Miss Hamilton’s family owns a bookshop and she has graciously agreed to advise me on how to restock our library.”

  “Oh, Lucien!” she cried suddenly, turning to him. “We left the Dickens books in the library. You were going to read one to your father!”

  “I’ll go get them,” he said, grateful for a moment to himself to regain his footing. “I’ll be right back.”

  As Lucien returned to the library to retrieve the books, he wondered how his world had suddenly turned upside down since the doorbell rang. How did he end up inviting Colette to restore his library? She would be visiting the house regularly. It was insanity. Then he confided in her about the day his mother left, when he had never discussed that with another soul. Now she was upstairs with his father! How had he allowed this to happen? He should have simply accepted the books and let her go on her merry way.

  He knew the decisions he had just made regarding Colette were going to be grueling and thorough tests of his strength and self-control. He had just allowed the woman who tempted him above all others into his home.

  Good God, what was he thinking?

  When he returned to his father’s room, he stopped short at the scene before him. Colette had pulled up a small damask-covered chair beside her father and sat talking to him. The two looked rather comfortable together. Due to the extreme warmth in the room, Colette had removed her little yellow bonnet and her light summer shawl. The firelight glistened on her rich brown hair, and her creamy skin looked as if it were fine alabaster. The soft cadence of her voice drifted through the room as she spoke.

  Lucien’s heart constricted strangely at the sight of Colette and his father together, but he stood silently so as not to interrupt them. Leaning against the door frame, he just watched. And listened to her as she spoke cheerfully about her beloved bookshop. Her face was animated as she described her work at Hamilton’s. Her warmth and charm brightened the dim room to which his father had been relegated these past months in a way he had never been able to lighten them, and he felt immensely grateful to Colette for doing so. His father smiled crookedly, but not disapprovingly, at the fact of her managing a business on her own. With a surprising sense of ease, she conducted a perfectly intelligible conversation with a man who could not speak clearly and whom she had just met.

  Colette never ceased to amaze him.

  Something made her glance back and spot him in the doorway. “Oh, hello, Lucien. I was just telling your father about my little shop. Come and join us.” She smiled invitingly.

  Once again he felt an unusual sensation in his heart. “Would you care to read to him this afternoon?” he asked her. “I think my father is tired of hearing my voice and would enjoy a change, wouldn’t you, Father?”

  Simon nodded as enthusiastically as he could, obviously agreeable to this suggestion.

  “I would be honored to read to you, Lord Stancliff,” Colette answered graciously, looking into his eyes as she did.

  Lucien handed her one of the books they had chosen. His fingers brushed hers lightly as she took it from him, sending a thrill through him. Their gaze held for a moment and he felt that special something pass between them again. That something that had been there from the very first. Something he could not describe. A feeling. A knowing. An understanding. An attraction. Shaken by the fact that he instinctively knew that she felt it too, Lucien held his breath. Colette quickly averted her eyes and settled back in to her chair, opening the leather-bound copy of David Copperfield.

  “Lucien tells me that you have never read any of Charles Dickens’s work before, my lord,” she said with a bright eagerness. When his father shook his head, she continued, “Well then, you are in for a wonderful treat, because Mr. Dickens was an amazingly gifted storyteller.”

  Her eyes briefly glanced in Lucien’s direction over the rim of the open book and he smiled at her in encouragement. She then focused all her attention on the task at hand as if she read to his father every day. Without interrupting her, he took a seat near them and listened intently. As she read with genuine inflection and emotion, Lucien found himself caught up in the story, which he had never read either. Now he began to understand why Dickens was so popular. But perhaps it had more to do with the reader than the author who had him spellbound.

  He could not keep his eyes off Colette.

  Her graceful neck arched forward, and her full lips moved enticingly as she read the pages. Her lips fascinated him. Now that he knew the sweet taste of those lips, they tempted him all the more. He imagined them pressed heatedly against his mouth, nibbling along his jaw, leaving a trail of heavenly soft kisses across his chest, moving lower…

  Good God! The woman is reading to my father!

  Lucien forced his lustful thoughts to the back of his mind only by closing his eyes and losing himself in the story.

  Colette read five chapters before Nurse Fiona, the capable and kind Scottish woman Lucien had hired to look after his father, entered the chamber. “It’s time for Lord Stancliff’s supper,” she announced, her soft Scottish burr evident in her speech.

  Simon made an erratic motion to them with his good hand. “S-supper, supper.”

  “Yes, it’s time for supper now.” Colette grinned at him, closing the book and placing it on the end table. “And it is time for me to be on my way.”

  “S-stay for supper,” Simon Sinclair uttered rather clearly. Lucien was impressed.

  “Oh, thank you very much for the invitation, Lord Stancliff, but I really ought to be going home now.” Colette began, rising to her feet. “I’ve intruded long enough.”

  “Nonsense,” Lucien declared decisively. “We’ve taken advantage of your kindness this afternoon. The least we can do is offer you some refreshment. Please stay and have supper with us.”

  “It’s rather late,” she said hesitantly, glancing between him and Simon. “I only meant to drop off the books, and here I am still, hours later. My sisters must be worried about me.”

  It was oddly comforting having her there with his father and it surprised Lucien how much he wanted Colette to stay. He had already joined her family for dinner, and now he wanted her to spend time with his family. Such as it was. “That is easily remedied. I will have a footman send a message around to inform them. Surely you can have a light supper with us?” He gave her his most persuasive smile.

  He saw the indecision on her face, and she clutched her bonnet and shawl tightly against her chest. “I don’t know…”

  “Then it’s settled,” he said. “Nurse Fiona, please have Granger send a footman to Hamilton’s Book Shoppe, just off Bond Street, to let Mrs. Hamilton know that her daughter is dining here this evening with my father, and that I shall escort her home later. And please arrange to have supper for the three of us served up here in my father’s sitting room.”

  “Very good, my lord.” The tall nurse exited the room to follow Lucien’s instructions.

  Lucien turned back to look at Colette, who had not moved an inch. A mix of emotions crossed her features, and he was thrilled to note that pleasure was one of them.

  “There,” he declared with a wave of his hand. “You see? It’s all taken care of. You can stay for supper. And then I shall
take you home in my carriage afterward.”

  The early summer sun set with long golden rays that reached into Simon Sinclair’s sitting room, bathing the chamber with warm hues. A simple meal was served at a small but elegantly set table near the fire, so Simon would not get too chilled. They dined on roasted lamb and fresh green vegetables, Lucien having discovered early on that very rich meals had a deleterious effect upon his father. He poured a glass of wine for Colette and himself, and a small amount for Simon, whose eating skills had improved somewhat over time as he learned to use his left hand instead of his right. Simon still needed some assistance now and then, which Lucien provided.

  Once she conceded to stay for supper, Colette immediately relaxed.

  “Father,” Lucien began the conversation, “Colette is the oldest of five daughters.”

  Simon’s lopsided grin appeared on his gaunt face. “A-all p-pretty, too?”

  Lucien caught Colette’s embarrassed glance and enjoyed causing her more embarrassment. “They all look remarkably alike, and yes, they are more than pretty. In fact, they are beauties. And they all have French names as well. One day we must have the Hamilton sisters over for a visit, Father. I’d hazard to guess they would cheer up the place.”

  Colette’s light laughter warmed him. “Or we would give your poor father a dreadful headache!”

  “I recently had the good fortune to dine with Colette’s family. Their mother is from France.”

  Simon’s eyes lit up. “Ah,” he sighed. “T-the F-french.”

  “My father loves France and anything French,” Lucien added.