by Carola Dunn
For a long moment they simply held each other tight, her face pressed to his shoulder, his cheek resting against her hair. Then she pushed away a little, looked up at him, and asked, “Are you very angry?”
“I thought you were laughing at me, Jane.”
“I was, I do, you know I do, quite often, but only when you are odiously stiff and starchy,” she said hopefully. “And even when you are My Lord Winter, I love you anyway.”
His rueful smile reassured her. “I daresay I shall get used to your laughing at me, and even when you do, I love you anyway. I was going to ask you to marry me....”
“You were!” She stiffened in outrage, but he merely pulled her closer again.
“...And being an arrogant fool, I was quite certain you would have me.’’
“You really were going to ask plain Miss Jane Brooke to be your bride, your countess?”
“I went so far as to get a special licence. Then I discovered that your father is a marquis and I have scores of rivals.”
“Does that mean you will not ask me, now, in case I refuse?”
“I hate to waste the special licence,” he quizzed her.
“Hmmm. My mother would be pleased, I daresay, if we were to be married quickly and quietly and unobtrusively by special licence.”
“On the other hand, the banns read at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and a vast, elaborate, Society wedding would best please my aunt.”
“So the only question is, which of the two do we most wish to disoblige?”
He grinned, but said, “On the contrary, my dearest love, the only question is, how soon will you be my wife? Without you to laugh at me, I shall get stiffer and starchier until I cannot bend at the joints.”
“A telling argument, Edmund, and you are right, we must not waste the special licence. By all means, let us be married at once!”
Copyright © 1992 by Carola Dunn
Originally published by Harlequin
Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.