by Kitty Margo
Lynna Jordan suppressed a delicate shudder as she stood in the entrance to the ballroom at Cedar Hill, waiting to be announced. She recalled, with vivid clarity, the night that Joshua and Suzanne’s impending marriage, based on lies, had been announced in this very room and sent her fleeing to Jamaica.
She shook her head to rid her mind of that horrible episode in her life, determined not to allow the past to haunt her as she enjoyed Samuel and Beth’s annual Harvest Ball.
It was all behind her now.
Joshua and Suzanne’s marriage had been annulled, and Suzanne was a hundred miles away in Georgia.
They had made no more than a dozen steps when Lynna’s hopes for an evening of merriment with friends and family dissolved on the spot. Suzanne was considerably less than a hundred miles away. In fact, she was standing no more than a foot in front of them.
“Well, Joshua Jordan, as I live and breathe,” Suzanne purred. “Why, I never in a million years imagined seeing you here tonight.”
Lynna felt Joshua tense beside her as he nodded his head and mumbled, “Suzanne.”
Suzanne was resplendent in a pink satin ball gown with diamonds dripping from her neck, ears, and wrists, and her black hair piled high on top of her head with wispy tendrils falling to frame her delighted face.
She was wearing the pink satin ball gown that Lynna and her aunt Judith had stitched with their own hands. The one she had worn on the night that her engagement to Joshua had been announced. She had never once worn the same gown twice in public, and she had chosen this night to break her own fashion rule?
“And would you just look at who you brought with you.” Suzanne put a pale hand to her throat as if shocked out of her wits to see Lynna standing before her. “Why, Lynna, honey, after all you’ve been through lately, I would have surely thought you would hide in your room at Sea Grove and never show your face in polite society again.”
“Why on earth would you think that?” Lynna asked, confusion etched in her sky blue gaze.
Suzanne was on a roll.
The night could only go downhill from here.
“Well, because…” Suzanne paused as if contemplating for the very first time in her life the meaning of discretion, and swiftly realizing that she didn’t care for it. “So much has happened to you since the night that my marriage to Joshua was announced.” Then, pretending that the thought had only just occurred to her, she peered around the filled to capacity ballroom before her eyes fell on Joshua and she murmured, “Why, it was in this very room that you proposed wasn’t it, darling?”
“I never proposed to you, Suzanne,” Joshua wasted no time in correcting her, clearly appalled that she would even hint at such a preposterous notion. “I was forced into marrying you as you damn well remember. Please, don’t even attempt to turn that fiasco into some sordid love match.”
Suzanne realized that she should be livid at his harsh treatment of her, but she still found herself unable to hide her undying love for this man. “Joshua, how you do run on. No one could force a man such as yourself to do anything that you didn’t want to do.” Then she glanced down at her extravagant gown and gasped. “Well, heavenly days, I seem to be wearing the very same gown that I was wearing that night as well. What a coincidence.”
“Yes, imagine that,” Joshua sneered.
Suzanne’s eyes danced with pure joy at having Joshua in her presence again, and she cast upon him her most dazzling smile. “Joshua, how is it possible that you have gotten even more handsome than you were the last time I saw you.”
Joshua only stared at her, marveling that the girl wasn’t socked away in an institute for the mentally insane.
“I hear congratulations are in order for you and your new... um…” Suzanne paused, as though she could not bring herself to say the word wife. Her gaze dropped to Lynna’s midsection and her eyes took on a steely glint as her lips curved into a twisted smile. “I have heard so many tales over the last few months and they were so… scandalous… that they simply cannot be true. Why, some of your escapades put little ole me and my minor indiscretions to shame.”
Joshua’s eyes snapped green fire. “By minor indiscretions, are you perhaps referring to the fact that you blatantly lied to me about being with child so that I would marry you? Or were you perhaps alluding to the number of men that you bedded in a determined effort to accomplish the deed when you saw that I would never be a willing participant?”
Even though her body jerked at the force of his words, Suzanne focused her attention solely on Lynna. “Why, I heard that you could have possibly arrived at your current predicament,” here she paused to motion toward Lynna’s growing belly with a flick of her wrist, “while you were on the island with that dreadful runaway slave man.” Raising her voice a notch to assure that she had the ear of everyone in the room, she simpered, “Lynna, bless your little heart, sugar. But, in all honesty, do you have any idea who fathered your bastard?”
Malinda’s sharp intake of breath, combined with the gasps of the innocent bystanders milling around them, echoed around the room drawing the attention of practically every partygoer. Joshua’s vision clouded with rage as his hands unwittingly reached toward Suzanne’s throat. Lynna immediately moved to still her husband’s hands and prevent a scene that the attendees of the Ball would likely never forget, nor stop gossiping about.
Lynna forced herself to appear calm and totally unflustered by Suzanne’s callous remark. “Yes, Suzanne, as a matter of fact I do.” She knew from years of experience that the best way to deal with Suzanne was to not linger overlong in her presence. “Joshua is the father of my unborn child and we couldn’t be happier. Neither of us question my child’s paternity, so you really shouldn’t allow it to bother you overmuch.”
When no reply was forthcoming, Lynna added, “Now if you will excuse me, there are some things that I have been just dying to discuss with Jasmine.”
Lynna and Malinda sailed past Suzanne with pasted on smiles, ignoring her victorious smirk, but not so Joshua. He leaned toward her with his nose mere inches from her own and with a menacing tone spat, “I loathe you, Suzanne. Therefore, please dispense with your ridiculous flirtations and simpering ways, for you are wasting your time, I assure you. Believe me when I say that I wouldn’t touch you again if you were the last female on earth. Now, forgive me for being blunt, but every single thing about you disgusts me.”
The snarl of rage that escaped Suzanne’s lips gave several of the partygoer’s pause, but not Joshua.
“Heed this warning and stay out of our lives, Suzanne, or your doting family just may find you at the bottom of a ravine somewhere.” With a tone of voice that left no doubt as to the authenticity of his words, he added, “I will kill you, with great joy, before I allow you to hurt Lynna again.”
“Lynna? “Suzanne cried. “What about the pain and humiliation that I have suffered, you arrogant bastard?”
Joshua only smiled. “You deserved every second of it.”
Suzanne seethed, absolute fury settling over her as she watched Joshua, her husband, hurry to his imposter wife’s side and slip his arm around her burgeoning waist.
His words echoed in her head as she sought a man, any man, who could make her forget Joshua Jordan, if only for a few hours.
Annulment? Rubbish.
They were married in the eyes of God and Joshua would be her husband as long as he lived.
Be sure to read the entire series of bestselling novels featuring Joshua, Lynna, and their family.
Lynna’s Beau
Lynna’s Promise
Lynna’s Destiny
Jerica’s Pirate
Clara’s Song
Clara’s Heart
Clara’s Desire
Clara’s Temptation
Clara’s Forever
I love nothing more than hearing from my readers. You can contact me at
[email protected]
or follow me on
https://twitter.com/kittymargo
or visit my website at www.kittymargo.com and add your name to the mailing list to be alerted when my next book is published.
If you enjoyed this book, I would greatly appreciate a review on Amazon, or wherever you purchased this book, to spread the word.
And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for choosing my book to read.
Facts about the earthquake mentioned in Lynna’s Rogue.
To my knowledge, there wasn’t an earthquake in Charleston, SC in the 1850’s. However, in an effort to move this story along I invented one.
The Great Charleston Earthquake, as it would come to be known, struck the city on the evening of August, 31, 1886 at 9:50 pm. It had an estimated magnitude of 6.9 to 7.3.
The earthquake caused 60 deaths and between $5 and $6 million in damage. Over the course of the next 30 years there would be more than 400 aftershocks that would add to the damage.