“What are you doing here, Mr. Fitzwilliam?” she demanded.
“I’ve come to apologize for my conduct earlier today. And I hope for your forgiveness, Mrs. Montrose—and Mrs. Englewood’s,” he said, not sheepishly, but gracefully, with both humility and dignity.
Louise, however, seemed to take no notice of his remarkable demeanor. “And why should I forgive you? You led my sister to believe that you cared for her. Then, at the least appearance of an obstacle, you ran away, not only injuring her, but humiliating her before her family.”
Isabelle opened her mouth to protest. Surely, there was no need to go so far in castigating him.
“I agree that my actions were deplorable. There is no excuse. But if you would allow me to give a reason, then it is this: I love Mrs. Englewood. I love her to the depth and breadth of my soul.”
Isabelle sucked in a breath.
“But whereas earlier I’d thought my affection returned in full,” he went on, “the sight of Lord Fitzhugh filled me with doubts.”
“You insult my sister with your doubts.”
“Louise—” Isabelle protested.
Louise held up a hand. “My sister, who is not only beautiful, but candid and loyal. And you treated her as if she were a liar and manipulator.”
“That is not true, Mrs. Montrose. I never thought for a moment that she exploited me. What I did wonder was whether she had deceived herself. But of course she hadn’t. She had been honest both with me and with herself.”
He was still speaking to Louise, but he looked directly at Isabelle. “I know I have made a hash of things. I know I deserve any punishment she deigns to mete out. But I also know that I love her more than ever, that my doubts, when vanquished, only strengthened my faith in her.”
The beauty and utter conviction of his words made her dizzy.
Even Louise’s voice softened, though her next question was no less pointed. “Pretty words. But every Tom, Dick and Harry will still think that you are a replacement for Fitz—and some of them will tell you so to your face. What will you do then?”
“Take my own advice and chortle. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, as long as Mrs. Englewood and I know the truth of our hearts.”
“I don’t know about—”
“That’s enough, Louise,” Isabelle said quietly. “Mr. Fitzwilliam made a mistake. He has apologized. I am more than pleased to accept his apology—let us not harp on him anymore.”
Her sister not only did not object, she smiled. “Good. I was beginning to run out of shrewish things to say. No, no, don’t look so surprised, Isabelle. Mr. Fitzwilliam deserved a good dressing down, but he also deserves credit for an apology properly done. I gave him the dressing down, you come to his defense, and now all is well.”
Isabelle was still agog as Louise hugged her. “I will expect Mr. Fitzwilliam to join us for dinner tonight.” Louise lowered her voice. “But afterwards, I will once again pretend not to notice that you have slipped out.
“IS IT TRUE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED my apology?” asked Ralston when they were alone, scarcely able to believe it.
“Didn’t I already say I did?” She gave him a look that was exasperated, but also half smiling.
He closed the distance between them and took hold of her hands. “I love you, Isabelle. And my heart’s desire is to spend the rest of my life with you. Tell me what I need to do to achieve that good fortune.”
“Well, hmm. I will need a cube of ice from the glaciers at the heart of Antarctica, a mountain of sand from the Great Victoria Desert, teeth of a piranha from the center of the Amazon, and the braided tail of a unicorn.”
He loved the light that had returned to her eyes. The entire room glowed with the afternoon sun, but she glowed most of all. “When it comes to the unicorn tail, do you have a preference as to the color?”
The corners of her lips quivered. “White would be good enough.”
“But that’s so common. Are you sure that for your hand, I don’t need to bag a rainbow-colored unicorn tail instead?”
This time she couldn’t quite suppress her smile. “I love you too,” she said softly. “And yes, I will marry you.”
No one would ever convince him that he didn’t levitate an inch or so off the floor at that moment. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with all the joy in his soul.
“Mama, will you come and have tea with us?” came Hyacinth’s voice from the other side of the door.
They pulled apart, breathless, and giggled at each other.
“There are egg mayonnaise sandwiches, Mama,” added Alexander. “You like egg mayonnaise sandwiches.”
“Will you be all right until after dinner?” Isabelle asked softly, smoothing a finger over Ralston’s brow. “You are most welcome to join us for tea, if you’d like.”
“I will be delighted to join you for tea, darling,” he answered in all honesty. Every moment with her was a thrill.
“Well, then.” She gave him a quick kiss, then walked to the door, opening it wide. “Look, children, look who is back.”
Epilogue
HYACINTH AND ALEXANDER’S LAUGHTER, as they chased each other in the gardens, rose up to the open windows. They adored Doyle’s Grange and could not wait to make the acquaintance of Lord Northword’s grandchildren and some of the younger children from Beauregard’s Farm.
Upstairs there were boxes and more boxes. As Ralston helped put up Isabelle’s photographs on the mantel of the sitting room, he suddenly remembered her ancestress. “Where is that miniature portrait of yours, darling?”
“I sent it to a cousin of mine—she just gave birth to a sickly baby and needs the luck more than I do.”
“So the portrait is supposed to bring good luck?”
“Of course.” She kissed him on his lips as she passed him, headed for yet another box. “That was the belonging I had come back to Doyle’s Grange to retrieve. And it led me directly to you.”
He knelt down next to her at the new box, which contained framed photographs of Hyacinth and Alexander at various points in their young lives. Together they cooed over the pictures, which were adorable indeed.
She was on her way to the mantel with a handful of the photographs when she stopped and looked back at him. “By the way, you never did let me know what Mrs. Fitzwilliam said about the Three Bears’ house.”
“Ah, that.” He smiled a little at the memory. “She wrote, ‘Once in a while Goldilocks finds something just right. So have I, by the way.’”
“How interesting.” Isabelle beamed at him. “I would say that also describes exactly how I feel about you.”
With a framed photograph in each hand, he rose and stole a kiss from her. “And I shall only love you more when you are a silver-haired lady, stomping your cane about how I will make you late for church again.”
More about Sherry’s other books, and an excerpt from Fitz and Millie’s story, Ravishing the Heiress, can be found at the back of this book. Click here for a shortcut.
About Sherry Thomas
SHERRY THOMAS BURST ONTO the scene with Private Arrangements, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2008. Her sophomore book, Delicious, is a Library Journal Best Romance of 2008. Her next two books, Not Quite a Husband and His at Night, are back-to-back winners of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award for Best Historical Romance in 2010 and 2011. Lisa Kleypas calls her “the most powerfully original historical romance author working today.”
And by the way, English is Sherry’s second language.
To keep in the loop about Sherry’s upcoming books, sign up for her new release e-mail list at http://www.sherrythomas.com. You can also find her on twitter at @sherrythomas, or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/authorsherrythomas.
Not Proper Enough: Excerpt
Chapter One
No. 25 Upper Brook Street, London, October 1817
GRENVILLE FOXMAN TALBOT, Marquess of Fenris and eldest and only son of the Duke of Camber, always slept the sle
ep of the innocent.
As a child, he’d never had nightmares, because even then he’d possessed the power to stop any terrifying developments that appeared in his dreams. If there were dragons about to roast him in flames, he slew them. He vanquished monsters with one stony glare, sprouted wings and flew off high cliffs, and conjured swords or other weapons when faced with threat of attack. He transformed enemies into slugs or simply stopped an unpleasant dream entirely.
He was dreaming now, and it was one of those dreams in which he was both participant and observer. As was so often the nature of dreams, the subject was both fantastical and sexual. He was naked, and in front of him, her back to him, was Robert Bryant’s widow. The part of him that was observing his depravity commented that this was absurd. Eugenia Hampton Bryant would never consent to be alone with him and certainly never in his private quarters. This observation was followed by the suggestion that it would be a thunderingly good thing to discover where this dream would take him.
On no account would he wake up until he knew. He fell into his dream in a way that he had not before. Not in any dream. He was immersed. Submerged. Colors were more intense, his senses exquisitely acute. In the context of a dream that involved his most frequent sexual fantasies, this was an excellent development.
She wore blue and gray silk, sumptuous and cut like something from the previous century. The gown or robe or whatever it might be called was open at the back, all the way to the top of her derriere, and sliding off her shoulders. Because she wore no undergarments, which was not at all ludicrous to him, he feasted on the sight of her bare skin, the curve of her shoulders, back, and hips. Her hair was unpinned and swept over her right shoulder. Her head was turned to the left, as if she were about to look at him.
He walked to her, stopped behind her, and trailed a finger along the top of her deliciously bare shoulder and then the length of her spine. A sigh escaped from her lips. He slid his palm to her lower back, then underneath her gown and over the swell of her bottom. In his other hand, he gathered a handful of her bodice and watched while he pulled the fabric down to expose her breasts.
Beautiful. Luscious. Delectable. His body, already tense with desire, went taut. He released her gown so that it fell, with a rustle of lace and silk, to the floor. She leaned back, and he cupped one of her breasts in his hand. She sighed again and whispered something too low for him to hear.
What did it matter whose name she whispered so long as she was soft and willing in his arms? But it did matter. He wanted Eugenia to moan his name when he slid into her. He needed her to long for him, to cry out his name when he brought her to her crisis, which his irritating, observing self pointed out she never would do except in this dream. In which case, he had damn well better enjoy this, hadn’t he?
With her back pressed against his front, he caressed her, drew a fingertip along her hip to her rib cage, along the top of her shoulder, down her upper arm, and then slowly from the top of her thigh across her stomach. Such smooth, soft skin. He kissed the side of her throat, and she melted against him.
In his dream, she did not hate him.
“So beautiful,” he whispered. “My beautiful Ginny.”
She turned in his arms and clasped her hands behind his neck. Her eyes caressed him, and when he cupped her bottom and drew her closer, she let out a trembling sigh of desire.
He carried her to his bed, pushing aside the heavy red curtains around it, and placed her on the mattress. Eugenia wore nothing but a gold medallion on a ribbon the same shade of azure as her eyes. He joined her on the bed, touching, his fingers gliding over her, his mouth and lips tasting. Beneath his hands and fingers, her skin was soft, so soft. She lifted one knee, and his pelvis settled between her legs. He took her nipple in his mouth, swept his tongue over the peak, and she arched toward him on the end of a soft moan. He did the same to her other breast with a similar, satisfying result.
By the time he pulled himself over her, he was halfway to climax. She parted her thighs, and he slid inside her. Her body accepted him, soft and slick around him. Ready for him. Eager for him as she would never be in reality. Their eyes met, connected, knew each other. In his dream, she knew what he liked and wanted that from him. True, he could be tender and gentle. He often was. But there were times he wanted an edge, and right now he wanted that edge with her. Hadn’t he always?
She wore a wedding band, but it wasn’t the one Robert had given her. No, this ring was one he’d put on her finger himself. They were married, he realized. She was his wife now. Not Robert’s.
Eugenia, God, so willing and passionate, put her arms around his shoulders, holding him close, moving with him exactly as he needed. Hard. Fast. Pushing them both to surrender. Her breath came in short bursts, and he was both masterfully making love to her and aroused almost beyond his endurance.
“I love you.” She gazed into his face, besotted, trusting, while he thrust into her. Her fingertips slid over his skin. “Fox. Oh, Fox, I love you more than life.”
“I love you, too,” he said, and his heart dissolved into her. “Forever.”
His observing self remarked, ‘You are deluding yourself.” To which his dreaming self replied, ‘Sod off.”
Eugenia wrapped her legs around him, and his body wound up tighter than ever. She whispered his name and then encouragement. More. More, Fox. Please. His climax shattered him to pieces.
Immediately, even before his orgasm had faded, she was asleep beside him, sated, and there was Robert at the foot of the bed where he and Ginny lay tangled in each other’s arms. Had he been there the entire time? Fox slid out of her embrace and gazed at his best friend. Robert stood unevenly, as he always did, one hand on one of the bedposts so he would not lose his balance. His hair was shorn close to his head. He’d never been a handsome man, but no one who met him cared. Intellect, that beady-eyed genius, burned in him fever-bright.
“Robert.” The apology he’d owed Robert from nearly the day Ginny had entered their lives paralyzed him. The words were too big, yet they must be said even though it was too late. He wanted to apologize, to confess what a damned fool he’d been to allow their friendship to founder, but the words remained jammed up in his throat. In any event, Robert lifted a hand to stop him from saying something else he could never take back. Eugenia’s medallion, or one very much like it, dangled from his fingers.
“You’re to take care of her, Fox.”
He sat up, naked, one arm wrapped around his upraised knee. His other hand held a lock of Ginny’s hair. “You know I will.”
Robert leaned forward with that crooked grin of his. “I miss you, you old fool.”
“I, too.”
“There’s nothing you could have said that would have stopped me from marrying her. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
From the moment Eugenia met Robert, she’d not cared about anyone else. Robert, whom Fox had always assumed would never marry, had fallen just as fast and just as hard. The connection between Eugenia and Robert took root so quickly there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to stop it. Not that he hadn’t tried.
“Good.” The medallion slowly turned in Robert’s upraised hand.
“That’s no excuse for the things I said to you.”
Robert glanced at Eugenia. “She is the love of my life, Fox.”
“I know.”
“Keep her safe.” Robert let go of the bedpost and took an uneven step back. The shape of his body wavered. “Make her happy. If it takes your last breath, see that she’s safe and happy. Swear it.”
He swallowed hard before he could manage words. “I swear it, Robert.”
Robert’s body wavered, thinned, then vanished as if he’d never been there. Which, seeing as this was a dream, he had surely never been.
Fox came awake, momentarily unsure of where he was. Wherever he was, he had no company. A chill permeated the air. A damn arctic wind.
He was at home. Not at Bouverie, but at his private resi
dence. The one his father had never been in and never would be in. He pulled the linens and covers over his chest. London in October could be bitterly cold. His bedroom was silent, but his heart raced, and Robert’s voice echoed in his head as if he’d really been here, speaking to him.
Make her happy.
He’d made Robert a promise.
Oddly enough, even though he had sworn to do so in a dream, he intended to keep that promise.
Want more? You can read the first two chapters on Carolyn’s website, or click here to buy a copy of Not Proper Enough.
Other Books by Carolyn Jewel
Historical Romance
Reforming the Scoundrels Series
1. Not Wicked Enough
2. Not Proper Enough
Scandal, 2010 RITA finalist, Best Regency
Indiscreet, 2010 winner, Booksellers Best, Best Short Historical
Moonlight, A short story
Lord Ruin
The Spare
Stolen Love
Passion’s Song
Paranormal Romance by Carolyn
My Immortals Series
1. My Wicked Enemy
2. My Forbidden Desire, 2010 RITA finalist, Paranormal Romance
3. My Immortal Assassin
4. My Dangerous Pleasure
4½. Free Fall, a novella
The Crimson City Series
A Darker Crimson, Crimson City Series, Book 4
DX, A Crimson City novella
The Duchess War: Excerpt
From Chapter Three
MINNIE TOOK A DEEP BREATH, removed the handbill that she’d found on the streets from her skirt-pocket, and unfolded it.
The edges, once wetted by last night’s rain, had curled and yellowed as they dried, but she held it out to him anyway.