Captive Bride (37 page)

“No, my love,” he said with a slow, deep smile. “You are only now beginning to breathe.”

Then he showed her what he meant
.

~
~
~

December 4, 1822

Diary, I married him
.

~
~
~

EPILOGUE

“Another letter from Lady
Marstowe
, my love?”

Bea swiveled around on the escritoire chair and smiled at her husband coming toward her across the townhouse’s morning parlor. Early spring sunlight beamed through French windows, sparkling like Bea’s blood did each time she saw him. Four months of marriage had served only to immerse her more deeply in love.

She reached up and grasped his hand, bringing his palm to cradle her cheek. “I like it when you call me that.”

“I like to say it.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “What is the news from
Gwynedd
?”

She offered the letter to him. “Aunt Julia is happy as can be at the castle, engaging Bronwyn’s grandmother in all sorts of useful projects. Aunt Grace has sent Mama home.”

“Your mother is too taxing even for the old termagant to bear after so many months?” He scanned the letter. “Bea, you were a saint.”

“Were?”

“Are, of course.
No doubt I am as demanding as Lady Harriet.”

“Only in ways that I am more than happy to accommodate,” she
replied,
standing and placing her palms on his chest.

He dropped the letter onto the desk and his arms encircled her. “Is that an invitation?”

She
slid
her hands around his shoulders. “Haven’t you an appointment you were about to go to?”

“It can wait.”

“I promised Bronwyn I would take her to the shops this afternoon.”

“She can wait.”

“She is already waiting, in the parlor.”

“That’s what parlors are for.” He pulled her tight against him.

Bea
laughed,
the same tumble of complete joy she felt every day. “Wasn’t this morning sufficient to satisfy you until tonight?” she asked, loving the sensation of his wandering hands.

“I’m making up for lost time. Four years is a long while for a man to go without.” He bent, clearly intending to kiss her, but she pressed him away, her eyes widening.

“
Four years
? You did not.”

“I did.”

“But were you—? What I mean to say is, don’t gentlemen—?”

“Most certainly.”
He offered her a delectable smile.

She narrowed her eyes. “What about that house party at Nancy and
Averill’s, that
time? Everyone assumed you and that pretty widow―”

“Everyone?”
His brow perked
.

“Thomas can be very indiscreet. But don’t sidetrack me. I find it difficult to believe that you—
What
I mean to say is, you are not particularly reluctant—”

“I didn’t say it was easy.” He was still smiling.

“But why on earth didn’t you?” The words barely crossed her tongue before she understood. Four years ago he had proposed to her for the first time.

As though seeing that realization in her eyes, Tip brushed his lips across her temple,
breathing in deeply.

“I was in love with you, Bea,” he murmured. “I didn’t want any other woman.”

“But I refused you,” she said unsteadily. After months of marriage, she still trembled when he told her.

“Nevertheless, I considered myself bound.”

She met his expressive gaze and tilted her mouth to his.

“I think
Iversly
considers himself bound in some manner,” she said a few minutes later, rather more breathless than she’d been since dawn when she was wrapped in his arms with the bed linens tangled about them.

“Perhaps.”
Her hair muffled Tip’s voice. His fingers worked at the hooks along her spine. She ran her palms over his broad shoulders.

“Aunt Grace writes that they have not heard from or seen him in all these months.”

Tip’s hands slowed and he drew away slightly. His emerald eyes glinted and she could see that he wished to tease, but then he grew serious.

“I feel for the fellow. I was never all that cheerful after you rejected me, either.”

“I don’t think it was about me in particular.”

“There I believe you are wrong, my love.”

“Well, perhaps somewhat,” she conceded. “But I think it was much more, really. I think he believed that through me he could avoid what he truly longs for.”

“You may never know. Will it bother you?”

She took a breath and settled snugly into his embrace again. “I am truly sorry for him, but I have a living man whose future happiness I hope to assist in securing.”

“Now, there is a venture I can applaud.” Tip set to work again at the fastenings of her gown, his mouth moving to her neck.

“I meant Thomas, of course.”

“He can wait too.” He started in on her petticoat lacings.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Bronwyn wishes to purchase a new pair of opera glasses for him, in thanks for escorting her to see the program last night.”

“How nice for him,” he murmured against her mouth, his palm stealing down to cup her behind and
pull
her flush against him. He was hard already—hard, wonderful, and hers.

Her breath caught upon a sigh of anticipation. “He likes her a great deal.” Her hand slid down his waist.

“Thank God.”

“I thought you didn’t care for her.”

“I don’t much,” he replied huskily, his open mouth on her throat working sensual magic through Bea’s whole body. “But if your brother had not become infatuated with her in Wales, your hand might not be where it is at this moment.”

“You don’t think so?” She wiggled to help him divest her of her gown, then set to work on his breeches. “Perhaps you would have devised some very clever proposal I could not possibly have refused.”

“Assuredly.”
He pulled her close and started kissing her again, impatiently gathering her petticoat and shift to her waist.

“Or perhaps we would have simply gone on for years and years in the same vein,” she breathed unsteadily as he lifted her onto the escritoire and moved between her thighs. “Then would you still have considered yourself bound to me?”

“Forever.”
He gripped her hips and pulled her forward, thrusting her onto him with a rough
exhalation.
“And beyond.”
His voice was so deep, like his need buried inside her.
Bea sighed from the delectably intimate
invasion she never tired of, and nestled closer.

“I love you, Peter.”

“And I love you, my girl.” He cupped her face in his hands.
“My lady.”
He kissed her so that he was everywhere within and around her, entirely hers.
“My Bea.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

To my readers, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Your letters, e-mails, posts, and tweets make me happier than you can imagine. I am so grateful for your open, warm and infinitely loving hearts!

Big thanks go to Sonja Foust and Melinda Leigh, who read this story at lightning speed and gave terrific suggestions. I offer big hugs of thanks as well to my wonderful mother,
Georgann
Brophy
, and to Martha Trachtenberg for copyediting the manuscript, and to Diane Leipzig for her consultation. Karrie Matthews’ brilliant cover was precisely what I dreamed for this book, and to her I send a hearty shout out. For Joan Swan and Monica Burns who so generously shared their knowledge with me, and for
Marquita
Valentine’s loving
support and advice, I am tremendously grateful. Special thanks to Judi Fennell for handling the technical end of things, to Kim Castillo who is all that is good and wonderful, and to my agent, Kimberly Whalen, whose unwavering support is all I could wish.

It’s a big, wild publishing adventure out there, and without dear friends to give counsel, praise and occasionally comfort, a girl could be thoroughly lost. For all they’ve given me—but especially for their affection and sheer brilliance (and for just being so much fun to work with!)—I give thanks to and for Caroline Linden, Miranda Neville and Maya Rodale.

Finally, profound thanks to my sister,
Georgie
C.
Brophy
, without whom
Gwynedd
Castle would not be.
Our sojourn in Wales remains to me a dream-out-of-time—a bit like Rhys
Iversly
, I daresay.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With the publication of her debut novel in 2010, Katharine Ashe won a spot among the American Library Association’s “New Stars of Historical Romance.” In 2011 she brought home the coveted Reviewers’ Choice Award for
Captured by a Rogue Lord
, and Amazon named
How To Be a Proper Lady
an Editors’ Choice Best Book of the Month. Reviewers call her writing “radiant”, “lyrical” and “sensationally intelligent”, and praise her “lushly intense”, “breathtaking” and “thrilling” love stories
.

Katharine lives in the wonderfully warm Southeast with her beloved husband, son, dog, and a garden she likes to call romantic rather than unkempt. A professor of European history, she has made her home in California, Italy, France, and the northern US.

Please visit her at
http://www.KatharineAshe.com
. She loves hearing from readers.

And now excerpts from Katharine Ashe’s latest historical romances from Avon Romance

How
To
Be a Proper Lady

and

How a Lady Weds a Rogue 

Jinan Seton stared at his true love and the blood ran cold in his veins. Rain-splattered wind whipped about him as he watched her, beauty incarnate, sink in a mass of flames and black smoke into the Atlantic
ocean
.

The most graceful little schooner ever upon the seas.
Gone.

His chest heaved in a silent groan as the final remnants of burning wood, canvas and hemp disappeared beneath foamy green swells. A scattering of parts bobbed to the surface, slices of planking, snapped spars, empty barrels, shreds of sail. Her lovely corpse rent asunder.

The American brig’s deck rocked beneath his braced feet, rain slashing thicker now, obscuring the wreckage of his ship fifty yards away. He clamped his eyes shut against the pain.

“She was a good ‘un, Master Jin.” The hulking beast standing beside him shook his chestnut head mournfully. “Weren’t your fault she’s gone into the
drink.
”

Jin scowled.
Not his fault
. Damn and blast American privateers shooting at anything with a sail.

“They acted like pirates,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice rough. “They lowered a long boat. They shot without warning.”

“Snuck up on us right good.”
The massive head bobbed.

Jin sucked a breath through quivering nostrils and clenched his jaw, arms straining against the ropes trapping him to the brig’s mast. Someone would pay for this.
In the most uncomfortable manner possible.

“Treated her like a queen, you did,” Mattie mumbled above the increasing roar of anger in Jin’s ears that obscured the shouts around him and moans of wounded men. He swung his head about, craning to see past his helmsman’s bulk, searching, counting. There was
Matouba
strapped to a rail, Juan tied to rigging, Little Billy struggling in the hands of a sailor twice his breadth. Big Mattie blocked his view of the rest of the deck, but thirty more—