Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [67]
“But I…never change my mind,” she whispered, her arms already snaked around his neck. She drank kisses from the warmth of his lips.
“This time you will.”
He reached out and grasped the satin ribbons adorning the bodice of her shift, tugging until they parted and revealed the sweet nakedness of her form. “I am an expert in many kinds of persuasion.”
Arianne gulped a deep breath as his gleaming eyes gazed into hers. “Show me,” she whispered on a breath of laughter and drew him down to her.
As Nicholas clasped her close and rained kisses down upon her eyelids, he spoke again. This time his voice was hoarse with emotion. “My sweet, I’ll spend the rest of my life persuading you to love me always as you do tonight. I never thought to have a home, my title, my father’s respect, or a wife. Now I have them all.”
She held him close to her, and her fingers stroked lovingly across the hard, scarred planes of his face.
“And I have you, my beloved Nicholas,” she whispered on a crest of love so rich and powerful it brought tears to her eyes. “Surely no woman was ever so fortunate, or ever loved her husband as much as I love you. And will for all time.”
“For all time,” he repeated, catching her close again and claiming her mouth in a fierce and tender kiss.
As the night sky beyond the window bloomed with purple darkness and starlight, the duke and duchess in their castle chamber celebrated their wedding night and all the days and nights to come.
FALCON’S LAIR
Ruth Ryan Langan
For Tom—my free spirit
PROLOGUE
ENGLAND, 1870
“He’s summoned the American.” The voice was little more than a whisper.
The tower room was illuminated by a single candle. The two who met there in secret dared not light a fire, for fear of being discovered. With each word, their breath plumed on the frosty air.
“Why?”
“He suspects something and thinks his brilliant friend will come to his aid.”
“Then we must stop him.”
There was a momentary pause. “Are you suggesting…?”
The hooded head nodded. The silence seemed to stretch out until it was broken by an ominous murmur. “One more makes no difference. We must do whatever is necessary. No one will be allowed to alter our plans.”
A chilling gust of wind snuffed the candle, leaving the two in darkness.
“Did you feel that? It seemed…unnatural.”
Cold hands clasped cold hands. A voice said soothingly, “Just a draft in the tower. It changes nothing. The American must be eliminated.”
1
It was raining again. Felicity Andrews shivered inside her heavy cloak. Ever since she’d boarded the ship in Boston Harbor, the skies had been weeping. But here in England it seemed an icy, bitter downpour that seeped through to her very bones.
The journey had been long and difficult, and she felt weary beyond belief. But the letter from Lord Falcon, her father’s oldest and dearest friend, had left her little choice. Though it had been an invitation, it seemed more a summons. He bade his friend Rob to come quickly—before it was too late.
She mulled over the carefully worded letter, as she had many times since its arrival. Oliver, Lord Falcon, had hinted at something dark and mysterious. Something too painful for him to put into words.
Felicity wondered what the old man would think when he discovered that his friend’s daughter had come in his stead.
Her head was still spinning from all the details she’d been forced to see to. Selling her furniture. Cataloging all her father’s books and letters. By far the most difficult had been letting go of the flat she’d shared with her father before his death. A flat that held a lifetime of memories.
What now, she wondered, now that she’d cut herself adrift from the only life she’d ever known, in Boston, and was about to embark on a life of uncertainty in a foreign land? She wouldn’t think of that. She would think only about the end of this tedious journey. The thought of a hot meal and a cozy bed lifted her spirits.
Despite her best intentions, her lids fluttered while she fantasized about the things she would see while she was here