“Aurelia,” he choked, digging in his heels and launching his mount forward.
He jumped from the horse before it came to a full stop. “Aurelia!” He ran to the carriage and grabbed hold of the door, ducking his head to look within. Empty.
“My lord!”
He turned to face Thomas, the coachman. The man looked hale except for the gash in his forehead. Blood welled up from the wound before the rain washed it clean.
He grabbed the man by the shoulders. “Where is she? My wife—”
The coachman looked over his shoulder and gestured toward the tree line.
Max turned. The moment seemed to drag on into infinity as his eyes searched for his wife, dreading what he would find, what he would see. He begged to God to spare her and thereby him. To give him this.
To not take her, too.
Aurelia stared at Max through a gray wash of rain. She blinked, convinced her eyes deceived her. Why was he here?
He bounded across the distance and reached for her, his hands gentle on her arms, as though she were some fragile piece of crystal. “Are you hurt?”
He’d come for her.
She shook her head, trying to shake sense into herself. Her knee ached where she had banged it into the side paneling of the carriage, but she was otherwise unharmed. “I banged my knee and scraped my elbow . . . nothing more.” She motioned to Cecily where she sat at the base of the tree. “Cecily hurt her ankle.”
Cecily waved her hand. “It’s nothing.”
Before Aurelia could speak again, Max scooped her up in his arms and lowered her to the ground beneath the tree. They had taken shelter under it, the thick canopy of branches and leaves blocking most of the rain.
Her hand fluttered to his shoulder. “I’m not hurt, Max.”
He lifted her skirt and peered up her stocking-clad leg to examine her knee. A bruise was already beginning to form there. He tested it gingerly with his fingers.
“It’s not broken,” she assured him.
His stormy eyes settled back on her face, searching her features. “You’re fine?”
A smile tugged on her face. “Yes. I promise.”
His gaze dropped to her stomach, and his expression was both tender and terrified. “The babe?”
Her breath shuddered out of her. His hand moved to cover her stomach then and she jerked at the contact. At the burning imprint of his hand on her. Something passed over his eyes that looked very close to pain.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head, his voice ripe with misery. “I was afraid to love you . . . to love this baby, but it’s too late for that.” He paused, his gaze locking in on her face. Moisture brimmed there, and if she wasn’t sitting down she felt certain her legs would have given out.
He continued, “I do. I do love you . . . I love you.” His voice seemed to gain strength each time he uttered it. “I love you. I already love our baby and can’t wait to meet her.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only stare, trying to reconcile his words with what she knew. With what she thought she knew.
“You can’t love me,” she whispered. “Because . . . you can’t.”
“That’s what I always thought. It’s what I wanted you to think. But how—” His voice choked on a sob. He stopped and swallowed, his rain-damp throat working. “How could I not fall in love with you?” He brought his other hand to cup her cheek, pushing back wet snarls of her hair. “Say you love me. Say you’ll come home with me. That we will be a family.”
She moistened her lips, the lump in her throat blocking her words. “Max . . .”
He nodded, one hand still caressing her stomach, the other holding her face.
“How do you know we’re having a girl?”
He laughed roughly, throwing back his head. “Wishful thinking. A little girl just like you . . . The world would be so lucky to have her.”
“Lucky indeed,” Cecily chimed in.
Max flashed her a grin before looking back at Aurelia. His grin faded as his eyes searched her face, his expression turning grave, and she realized she had not said anything in response to his declaration.
She moistened her lips. “I’ve loved you, Maxim Alexander Chandler,” she said, “fourth Viscount of Camden, Max to your familiars, since the first moment I clapped eyes on you.”
“And then you hated me,” he reminded her with a wry twist to his lips.
“No. I was just waiting for this. Waiting for you . . . for me. For the both of us to get to this point. To get it right.”
His chest lifted on a deep breath. “I’m here now, Aurelia.”
She crushed her mouth to his, kissing him deeply, her hands curling around his shoulders.
She was here, too.
Epilogue
Max opened the door of his bedchamber and fell back against the hard length of the door with a gust of breath. He’d been in meetings all morning with his man of affairs and barrister regarding a new investment prospect. Typically, before his marriage, the prospect would have diverted him, but he’d been anxious to wrap up the meeting and return home. To Aurelia.
His gaze scanned the chamber for her. Now he was free, and only one thing weighed on his mind. Or to be more accurate, only one thing burned through his blood like scalded cinders.
He tugged the cravat loose from around his neck as his gaze landed on his wife where she sat before the dressing table. Her gaze lifted and collided with his in the mirror. Color flooded her cheeks. He loved that. Loved that she still blushed when their eyes met. He loved that he still had the ability to make the color rush to her face.
Her lush mouth curved into a slow smile as he took his time assessing her. It was almost shy, beguiling, and that made the skin tighten at the back of his neck. She still had this effect on him. Even after months of marriage. After countless days and nights together where they had each loved and explored each other with unhurried leisure, using their hearts alongside their bodies, he knew it would never be any other way between them.
Still staring at him in her dressing table mirror, she settled back a bit on the bench, her hand drifting to the well-rounded curve of her belly.
Aurelia, ripe with child, was impossibly beautiful. He ached at the sight of her. Garbed in a rich blue dressing robe, her dark hair flowing in waves over her shoulders and down her back, she radiated life and vitality.
His chest clenched when he thought she had tried to leave him. Then it clenched even tighter when he recalled the sight of that carriage tossed on its side. He could have lost her that day. Both of them. Aurelia and their child.
His dark thoughts must have crossed his face.
She pouted at him and angled her head to the side. Come here, she mouthed at him in the mirror, crooking her finger.
He didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed off the door and crossed the room to her in a few quick strides. At the bench, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. She turned to meet him and he rested his cheek against her swollen belly.
From the corner of his eye he spotted a new sketch on her dressing table. “Is that for me?” he asked mildly, picking it up and admiring her work. Watching her sketch had become a favorite pastime. She was brilliant and amusing and he enjoyed offering her his perspectives on the goings-on around Town, honored when she often took his ideas and incorporated them into her drawings. He only insisted that he be the one to leave the drawings around London. If discovered, he would weather the storm better than she. It wasn’t fair, but it was the reality. And she was his wife. He would protect her from anything, small or large.
“I thought we might leave this at the musicale—”
“At Mackenzie’s?” He frowned. “Must we go?”
“Come. Don’t you want to see Mackenzie properly domesticated? She’s a lovely girl—”
“She has my utmost pity.
” He snorted.
She swatted his shoulder. “Be nice, Max. You got what you wanted.”
“That’s right.” He folded his arms around her again and returned his cheek to her stomach, turning to press a kiss on the swell of her belly. Glancing up, his heart squeezed at the sight of her glowing face. “I’ve got you. Forever.”
About the Author
SOPHIE JORDAN grew up in the Texas hill country where she wove fantasies of dragons, warriors, and princesses. A former high school English teacher, she’s the New York Times, USA Today and internationally bestselling author of more than twenty novels. She now lives in Houston with her family. When she’s not writing, she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattes preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her kids), and cramming her DVR with anything that has a happily ever after. You can visit her online at
www.sophiejordan.net.
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By Sophie Jordan
ALL THE WAYS TO RUIN A ROGUE
A GOOD DEBUTANTE’S GUIDE TO RUIN
HOW TO LOSE A BRIDE IN ONE NIGHT
LESSONS FROM A SCANDALOUS BRIDE
WICKED IN YOUR ARMS
WICKED NIGHTS WITH A LOVER
IN SCANDAL THEY WED
SINS OF A WICKED DUKE
SURRENDER TO ME
ONE NIGHT WITH YOU
TOO WICKED TO TAME
ONCE UPON A WEDDING NIGHT
Available from Avon Impulse
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AN HEIRESS FOR ALL SEASONS
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALL THE WAYS TO RUIN A ROGUE. Copyright © 2015 by Sharie Kohler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780062222534
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062222527
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