A Season Beyond a Kiss (66 page)

In slow deliberation Jeff asked, “Did this Prince Charming ever give you a flower?”

Raelynn stared up at her husband in surprise. “How could you possibly have known that, Jeffrey?”

“Because many years ago, during a particularly rainy London spring, I met a beguiling elf who kept wandering into my uncle’s garden. She was such an endearing little thing that I could hardly mind her visits, but I did try to convince her to stay closer to home. She agreed most prettily that she would on condition that I would . . .”

“Dance with her,” Raelynn completed in awe, stunned almost beyond words. “You picked me up. I sang a song and you joined me, and then we danced. It was a glorious time, a memory I’ve held dear all these years. But after that, you went away, and I never saw you again.”

“My uncle died, and we no longer had any cause to return to London,” Jeff replied softly, in his mind’s eye seeing once again the little girl she had been.

Raelynn stared at him. From that time forward, he had been her beau ideal, the chivalrous Prince Charming for whom she had unknowingly longed throughout the years and miles that had separated them. “Do you actually think we were meant for each other from the beginning?”

Jeff smiled. “My heart never found ease with another woman, and yet, when you ran into my life that day in Charleston, it was as if you had stepped from a dream that I had been nurturing all these years. I was utterly swept away by joy at the idea that I had found my beloved at last.”

Her softly glowing eyes delved into his as she, in some awe, whispered through sweetly smiling lips. “Jeffrey, you have been the only man I’ve
ever
loved. You were my princely knight when I was but a child, and now, as my husband, you are the joy of my life. I am so pleased to be your wife.”

“Excuse me,” a deep, male voice bade from the narrow lane in front of the house.

Startled from their shared revelry, Jeffrey and Raelynn broke apart and looked around. A tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking man swept off his hat and came forward to the steps leading to the porch.

“Are ye Mr. Birmingham?” the man asked with an Irish-infected brogue.

“Aye, I am Jeffrey Birmingham. I also have a brother, Brandon, who answers to that name.” Jeff motioned in a westerly direction. “He lives several furlong away.”

“I believe ye be the one I’ve come ta talk wit’, sir.”

“And your name?”

“Captain Shannon O’Keefe. Trudy sent me ta ye.”

A look of wonder swept over Jeff’s face. “Are you Daniel’s father?”

“I believe I am that, sir. Nell were an innocent when I took her inta me bed, an’ I have no cause ta think she’d have gone ta another man’s bed in so short a time.”

“Have you come for a visit?”

“I’ve come ta claim me son, give him me name, an’ let me sister, who’s barren, raise him as her own. She’s been pinin’ her heart out some years now for a wee babe ta call her own, an’ since I’ve no wife o’ me own, ‘tis fittin’ I let Bryden care for him whilst I pay his board an’ keep, at least ‘til he’s old enough ta go ta sea wit’ me.”

Jeff crossed the porch and stretched forth a hand in friendship. “We’re delighted to see you, sir. We’ve been worried about the boy, wondering what kind of future he’d have without his father’s name. It’s a relief to know he’ll be cared for and loved.”

  
  R
AELYNN SNUGGLED CLOSER AGAINST HER HUSBAND
until her head was resting beside his on his pillow. “Have you thought of whether you’d like a son or a daughter?”

Jeffrey swept the curve of her belly. “If given a choice, I’d like to have at least one of each.”

“Not at the same time, surely,” she protested, giggling. She grinned at him and traced her fingertip over the tiny half-moon scar at the side of his mouth. “I’d like to have a son who looks like you.”

“Beau certainly looks like Brandon,” Jeff mused aloud, flicking his brows upward in a shrug. “ ‘Twould seem that there is a strong likelihood of that being the case. But then, I think we should have a daughter who looks like you.”

Raelynn pressed his hand over the place where their baby was moving in her womb. “Do you feel him?”

“A busy little squirrel, isn’t he?” her husband commented with a chuckle.

“I don’t mind,” Raelynn replied and sighed contentedly. “It reassures me that all is well.”

Jeff placed a doting kiss upon her brow. “Aye, madam, all
is
well. You are in my arms, where you’ve always belonged.”

“The world is truly a fine place when we’re together, isn’t it, Jeffrey?”

“It is indeed, madam. It is indeed.”

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss wrote the very first historical romance novel in 1972 —
The Flame and the Flower
created a genre and made Ms. Woodiwiss one of the world’s most popular writers, with 36 million books in print. In celebration of Ms. Woodiwiss’s new novel,
The Reluctant Suitor
(2003), PerfectBound is publishing Ms. Woodiwiss’s classic backlist, including the complete Birmingham Family Saga
: The Flame and the Flower
;
The Elusive Flame
;
A Season Beyond a Kiss
. Also available are Ms. Woodiwiss’s
Ashes in the Wind
;
Come Love a Stranger
;
Forever in Your Embrace
;
Petals on the River
;
A Rose in Winter
;
Shanna
;
So Worthy My Love
;
The Wolf and the Dove
.

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.

A SEASON BEYOND A KISS. Copyright © 2000 by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Mobipocket Reader April 2003 ISBN: 0-0607-6849-5

First Avon Books paperback printing: March 2001
First Avon Books trade paperback printing: March 2000

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