Married At Midnight (29 page)

Nearly a year had come full circle, and fragrant spring breezes rippled across the broad fields of Lancashire. It was late

May, and on this warm spring eve, twilight cast a purple haze across the western sky.

Victoria and Miles had remained at Lyndermere Park for much of the year. She had come to love Lyndermere as much as

her husband. Trips to London were few—a necessary nuisance, Miles called them. But while Victoria occasionally found herself missing a night at the opera or an evening of waltzing at Almack's, it was here at Lyndermere—with Miles—that her heart and hopes and dreams resided...

She could imagine no other life ... nor a life more perfect.

But there had been an addition to the family. They were no longer three, but four...

Beatrice Louise Grayson had made her entrance into the world on a wild, stormy night in late February, much to her father's delight... and her mother's relief.

Beatrice had now reached the ripe old age of three months. Her belly had grown round and firm, her cheeks pink and plump.

A cap of pale gold curls covered her head, and her eyes were as blue as sapphires; her grandpapa proudly proclaimed Beatrice the very image of her mother.

Now, having finished nursing the babe, Victoria smoothed a tender hand over the fine gold fuzz covering her daughter's scalp, then handed the babe into the waiting arms of her husband so that she could adjust her gown.

Miles pressed a warm kiss on that tiny brow. He chuckled when Beatrice flashed a sunny little grin, for such was her nature.

He laid her in the cradle, his hold on her immeasurably gentle.

Heather looked up eagerly from where she sat reading in the window seat. "May I rock her, Mama?" she pleaded. "And tell her a story, too?"

Victoria's eyes softened. "Of course you may, love." Smiling, Victoria pulled a small chair next to the cradle so Heather could sit.

When Heather flashed her a beaming smile as she took her place, Victoria felt her heart squeeze. It was her most fervent wish that Beatrice would someday come to be like Heather, for there was no sweeter child on the face of this earth; and indeed,

for Victoria there was no greater privilege than hearing this beautiful, dark-haired child call her "Mama" ...

Heather extended a finger toward the babe. Beatrice curled a tiny pink fist around it and held on fast.

"Now then, Beatrice. Here is the story I will tell you. There once was a young lady who was all the rage in London. But this young lady ... I think

we shall call her Lavinia, yes, Lavinia!"

Beatrice stared at Heather raptly, as if she understood every word.

Victoria's lips quirked, for Miles was shaking his head, an indulgent smile on his lips. When he held out his hand, she accepted

it wordlessly.

Heather continued. "Well, Beatrice, Lavinia was very opposed to marriage, but she came up with a most unusual idea in order to lay to rest her papa's insistence that she marry. Can you imagine, Beatrice, Lavinia followed a man—an earl—into a garden and kissed him! But her plan failed, you see, for her papa demanded she marry this man!"

Hand in hand, Miles and Victoria quietly retreated. At the threshold, they paused to listen once more.

"Oh, but this scandalous bride was at wit's end, being forced to marry this earl, for though he was quite handsome, he was a wicked one indeed!"

Miles was taken aback. "Handsome, yes," he concurred in a whisper. "But wicked?" He shook his head in mild affront.

"I think not!"

Victoria's eyes were dancing. "A woman's perspective," she informed him gravely. She pressed a finger to her lips, for

Beatrice was yawning, and her eyes had begun to droop.

Heather hastened to finish. "And so, Beatrice, the scandalous bride Lavinia set about taming her wicked earl and making him fall quite madly in love with her ..."

Miles pulled his wife into his arms. "She did indeed," he murmured against the smooth skin of her temple.

He drew her into

the hallway where he claimed her lips in a long, ardent kiss that sent their senses soaring.

When at last he released her, a teasing smile curled her lips. "Ah," she said playfully, "but the scandalous bride does have

one regret."

One dark brow arched roguishly. "And what might that be, countess?"

Victoria twined her arms about his neck. "Had she known what fate awaited her that long-ago night, she'd have kissed her wicked earl much, much sooner..."

Samantha James

Born in the Chicago area, SAMANTHA JAMES now makes her home in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, three daughters, and two Shetland sheepdogs. It isn't always easy juggling three careers-wife, mother, and romance novelist—but she can't imagine a life without writing. Known for her emotionally charged stories, Samantha is the bestselling, award-winning author of six previous novels:
Just One Kiss, My Lord Conqueror, Gabriel's Bride, Outlaw Heart, My Rebellious Heart,
and
My
Cherished Enemy.
If you enjoyed this story, you can visit Heather, Miles, and Victoria again soon in
Every Wish Fulfilled,
a January 1997 release from Avon Books.

Beyond the Kiss

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Near Charleston, South Carolina

July 17, 1803

Gentle, rose-scented breezes wafted in through the open windows and French doors of Oakley Plantation house, filling the spacious rooms with the cooling air of a midsummer's evening. In a second-story bedroom, the refreshing zephyrs slipped inward with a silky sibilance of lace panels billowing beyond elegantly adorned velvet draperies. The swishing of the cloth was no more than a whisper in the hushed stillness, as soft as the tremulous sigh of the young bride as her new husband raised his lips from hers. Beneath his warmly admiring regard, her dark lashes slowly lifted, and Jeff Birmingham found himself immersed in radiant pools of aqua blue.

"When you look at me like that, my dear Raelynn," he breathed, mesmerized by her glowing beauty, "I can almost believe we've been in love since the dawn of time."

Raelynn's gaze leisurely followed the path of a slender finger as she traced it down his sun-bronzed cheek, past a tiny half-moon scar at the side of his mouth, and then along the boldly chiseled line of his jaw. He was so handsome, it was easy to imagine an impressionable young maid being instantly smitten.

How could she have guessed that she'd be just as susceptible? Yet, in the brief span of a single afternoon, she had both met and married this man.

Smiling into the green eyes that sparkled with a shining luster close above her own, Raelynn brushed the tips of her fingers caressingly across his lips. "Perhaps we
have
been in love all our lives, Jeff, and were only waiting to find each other."

"Then I'm a man immeasurably blessed," he stated huskily. "You were the vision I glimpsed in my dreams, and though the face and form of my enchantress were but vague shadows in my mind, I was driven by the hope that if I searched long and hard enough, one day she would become reality. When I saw you this afternoon, it was as if you had walked out of my dreams into my life. You're the one I've been yearning for, the sweet nectar I've been craving. Henceforth, I'm eternally bound to you."

Looping her arms around his neck, Raelynn sighed dreamily. "Little did I foresee when I slipped from my uncle's grasp that

I'd be dashing into the arms of my future husband only a few blocks away." Her silvery laughter spiraled upward, melding

with the soft tinkling of crystal prisms that the breezes bestirred in the chandelier above their heads. "And to think I nearly

split your crown in front of Mrs. Brewster's hat shop."

Jeff's lips twitched with amusement as he recalled the discussion he had been having with the portly, middle-aged milliner just before he had stepped back in the path of this winsome beauty. Mrs. Brewster had been fretting about the possibility of him being able to find a wife who could equal the exquisite loveliness of his sister-in-law, yet scarcely ten minutes later he had discovered such a one struggling for balance beneath his very nose. "You have a distinct way of commanding a man's attention, my dear."

Raelynn giggled at his waggish humor. "I suppose I should apologize for my unseemly haste, sir, but how was I to know that

a grand gentleman like yourself would be leaving a ladies' hat shop just when I'd be running past it?"

Tilting her head at a coquettish angle, she contemplated him with playful skepticism. "You don't look the sort to be wearing bonnets, Mr. Birmingham. Or did you perchance go there to visit with Mrs. Brewster?

Isn't she rather old for you?"

"About as old for me as you are young, my dear," Jeff replied with a deep, throaty chuckle. "If you must know what I was doing in her shop, my winsome little tease, I went there to buy my sister-in-law a bonnet for her birthday. Had I foreseen

my own wedding ere the evening was done, I'd have found a bonnet of comparable beauty for you as well."

Raelynn pouted prettily as she smoothed his neatly tied stock. "To be sure, sir, ten and nine is for some the age when spinsterhood begins. So you must agree that I'm not so young."

Jeff's laughter challenged her claim. " 'Tis young when you've just married a man who's put the better part of thirty and

three behind him this year. I'm sure the gossips will be speculating on which orphanage I found my child bride in."

She could not understand how a man of his splendid good looks had managed to reach so mature an age without acquiring

a wife for himself, and siring a goodly number of offspring to boot. A veritable avalanche of wistful entreaties must have

come from all the awestruck maids in the area. And if he had never yielded to the pleas of those doe-eyed maidens who yearned to marry him, then surely there had to have been a mistress or two who doted on him. Perhaps, even now, there

was some sweet young thing he was wont to woo when his manly moods demanded.

"Tell me truly, sir," she begged with a coyly inquisitive smile. "Have you had many loves in your life? Do you tease me by

saying that I'm the only one you've searched for all these many years?"

Jeff's eyebrows flicked briefly upward as he acknowledged, "In my lengthy quest for the woman of my dreams, I cannot

deny that I've tested my heart with others, but they never assuaged that unsettled feeling gnawing at my vitals. I tell you no

lie, madam, when I say that of those maidens I've courted, I favored none with a plea to be my wife.

Whatever enticements inspired me to seek their company were ephemeral, as fleeting as the morning dew. Indeed, the longer I searched for my

vision, the more resolved I became to remain a bachelor 'til I found her." His mouth curved slowly in a lopsided grin. "I

never once supposed she'd have to cross the ocean to get to the place where we'd meet."

Raelynn was grateful that the grim residue which had darkened her thoughts after a disastrous voyage and the death of her mother had been whisked from the forefront of her mind by the joy and pleasure she was presently experiencing. Her hopes

for a brighter future helped to ease the trauma of losing her last remaining parent. Still, her life in the past year had been

marked much too often by tragedy for her to feel completely free of it now.

London had certainly seemed a cruel, despicable place to live after accusations of treason were hurled against her father by some of his less notable peers. Perhaps the ambitions of those particular viscounts and barons had been at the crux of their malicious attempts to defame the name of Lord Randall Barrett.

Whatever their motives, they had succeeded in having him arrested, and though he had vehemently denied their allegations, her father had died in his cell without even being allowed a trial. Following his demise, the crown had stripped away his wealth and properties, leaving Raelynn and her mother with no recourse but to seek shelter in a tumbledown cottage on the outskirts of the city. With the small cache of coins her father had secreted away against a possible reversal of fortune, they had at least seen their basic needs provided for, but it had been a drab and joyless existence. They had found little compassion in the hateful slurs and glowers that the common folk in the area had liberally bestowed upon them.

It was no kindly act of providence that had brought Raelynn's uncle to their door barely a month after Randall Barrett's

passing. Twenty years earlier, as a young cabin boy, Cooper Frye had been reported lost at sea.

Raelynn's mother, Evalina, had listened solemnly to the stranger's claims that he had been swept overboard during a storm and marooned on an island

for several months before being rescued by Baltic traders who, after taking him on board as cabin boy, had sailed off to

foreign shores. But Evalina had glimpsed nothing in his features to remind her of that tall, lanky boy who had gone to sea

with such lofty expectations. Still, he had known enough about the Frye family to finally convince her that he was, indeed,

her brother.

His talk of the new land had led both mother and daughter to hope that things might be better for them across the ocean. Prudently conservative of their limited funds, Evalina had gone with Cooper Frye to arrange for passage aboard a ship, but

she had later been forced to entrust their purse to him rather than see it stolen by some of the other passengers on the voyage. They soon had cause to regret their reliance on the man. While Cooper Frye had selfishly seen to his own needs, Raelynn and her mother had suffered diverse hardships, having barely enough to eat and finding little rest and privacy in the unbearable filth of a dank, crowded hole.

Three days after their ship had docked in Charleston, and precisely two weeks after he had knelt solemnly beside the crate that had first served her mother as a bed and later as a coffin, Cooper Frye had blandly dismissed

his sacred pledge to see to the welfare of his niece. Having given Raelynn a feeble excuse to allay her suspicions, he had taken her to visit Gustav Fridrich, that bald-headed, ice-eyed German who was making himself harshly felt in his sector of the city

and becoming well known among the rowdies working the docks. Earlier in the day they had witnessed an aging shopkeeper being beaten by Gustav's bullies because the man had been unable to make a payment on a loan. No doubt it was the catalyst that had caused her uncle to concoct his devious plan.

As unscrupulous as the German apparently was, he would not likely fault another for trying to profit from the sale of a relative. Still, Gustav had haggled like one who had always sought a bargain, and Cooper Frye had given him a few hours to think about his proposition. If he wanted her, her uncle had boldly informed

the man, he'd have to lay out two hundred fifty in hard Yankee coins before the matter could be settled.

Raelynn vividly recalled how trapped she had felt after leaving the German's warehouse. Enraged at the deceit of her uncle,

she had jerked free of his bruising grasp and raced away, having no idea where she was heading, yet totally resolved toward putting as much distance between herself and Cooper Frye as her strength would allow. She had been so intent on thwarting

his money-hungry plans for her that she had given no heed to the dangers of running helter-skelter through the streets of Charleston. She had rounded a corner and nearly knocked onto his backside the handsomest man she had ever seen. That

was the moment when Jeffrey Birmingham had come into her life.

There hadn't been time for apologies. Spurred recklessly on by a shout from her uncle, she had bolted into a busy thoroughfare, completely oblivious to an approaching four-in-hand. Jeff had raced after her, whisking her up in his arms and to the far side of the street, well out of harm's way before she was even aware that she was in any danger. She could not have known, of course, that after he became her champion, she would most willingly accept him as her bridegroom ... and, very soon now, her lover.

Considering how quickly she had been attracted to him, Raelynn was rather surprised that she had deigned to ask for time to get to know him better before they consummated their vows. Truly, in spite of the rush and furor of the day, she was convinced that she had gained for herself a husband the likes of which many of her gender would search a lifetime for.

Any woman would have been captivated by his handsome features and charming wit, but there had been something more between them, some strange magnetism that had bound them together in a brief span of hours. After such a whirlwind courtship, she could only wonder what the future would hold for them.

Would she have cause to regret their hasty union?

Or would she be completely content all the years of their lives?

"Here we are, Jeff, newly wedded and on our way to sharing a bed together, and yet we're little more than strangers," Raelynn mused aloud. "Are you truly as wonderful as you seem? Or have you bewitched me with some magical potion?"

" 'Twould seem we have both sipped the same heady brew, for I am no less entranced," he avowed huskily.

Tucking her arm in his, Jeff smiled down at her and escorted her through the French doors and out onto the veranda where

arm in arm they strolled along, admiring the beauty of a black velvet sky that was bedecked with a myriad of twinkling stars

and a silvery sliver of a moon reclining in indolent repose above the treetops. Beyond well-manicured grounds stretching out behind the main house, a line of majestic oaks formed a partial barrier in front of the servants' quarters. Lantern-lit windows marked several of the cabins through the swaying branches, and from one of them drifted the soft, haunting tune being played on a pan-pipe. Their senses were wonderfully stimulated by the sights and sounds around them and by the fragrance of flowers that made the air a heady delight. It was truly a night made for lovers.

Jeff slipped his arms about his wife's slender waist and braced his hips against the porch balustrade as he pulled her close between his legs. Turning his head, he gazed toward the neatly turned fields stretching endlessly toward the east. "Part of this land you see here was given as an English grant to my father, along with several thousand acres that make up the family plantation at Harthaven. After my parents died, Harthaven was handed down to my brother, Brandon, being the first born,