Patricia Rice (42 page)
Authors: All a Woman Wants
“My boat!” Buddy yelled defiantly. Before Mac could
shift him to a safer position, he scrambled down his leg and raced to
the edge of the dock.
Bea emitted a brief squeal of terror as she swung to
catch him, but then she saw what Buddy had seen. From the river, Mac’s
beautiful clipper raised its sails to catch the morning tide and wind.
The sun glinted off the snowy white canvas, and danced on the gold
lettering bearing her name, and a thrill of excitement chased through
her as she eased closer to her husband. He draped his arm around her and
watched admiringly as the clipper sailed away.
“Will you always regret this?” she asked sadly,
feeling how much he must ache to see this thing of beauty sail off to
his family without him.
“Never,” he assured her. “We have all our lives to
take to the seas, should we wish. We can make the decision to do so
together.” He released her to reach for Buddy, who leaned over the dock
to set his own small boat in the water like his uncle’s.
Buddy’s father caught him first, holding him
nervously by the waist of his trousers so the boy could reach the water
and set the boat free.
As Mac stepped back to hold her again, Bea leaned
against his shoulder and let tears of joy run down her cheeks. Life’s
road took strange twists and turns, and someday Buddy would be a
viscount and an earl, like his father and grandfather before him. She
would try to teach him a little of the people who would rely on him, so
that he could lead the way into the future that was still a sparkle in
Mac’s eyes.
“Do you think the earl will visit Broadbury a little
more often now?” she asked wistfully, thinking of the leaking church
and the neglected store fronts.
“Certainly, if only so that his new wife might show
off her finery,” Mac said with a grin, disengaging Pamela’s grasping
fingers from his crumpled cravat.
Bea leaned over to smooth it for him. “And James?”
She stepped back to admire her husband’s broad chest adorned by the
gleaming white linen.
“Matthew,” he corrected. “I don’t think I wish to
hear the family discussion on his existence. The earl had to have known
he was marrying an actress, not a saint.”
“You know, I never understood what would make a
respectable woman do indecent things with a man, but I think I
understand a little better now,” she mused.
“Experience,” he teased. “You didn’t even know what indecent things were until I taught you.”
“Umm,” she murmured, steadfastly watching the ship
sail out of sight as pink heated her cheeks. “Do you know, I think
James... Matthew looks a good deal like the portrait of my father at
that age. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
Mac rolled his eyes and grabbed Bitsy before she
fell trying to climb onto his shoulders. “Yes, quite extraordinary,” he
agreed with a measure of haste. “And now don’t you think we should take
our two new governesses back to town and introduce them to Broadbury?”
Bea smiled. “We can have a school now, and the Widow Black will have her sister to help her. The future looks bright to me.”
“Aye, and it fair glitters with gold from here,” Mac agreed huskily.
“Good, then we can ask Overton to teach
James-Matthew about estate management too.” Briskly, she strode down the
dock toward the waiting carriages.
He hadn’t known how to tell her about her half brother, but
she knew
,
Mac realized. And she accepted James just as she had accepted children
who weren’t her own. She simply opened her heart and shared it with
everyone, without judgment. Definitely extraordinary.
As Mac carried Bitsy, and the viscount gathered up a
struggling Buddy, the two men exchanged understanding glances for the
first time in their lives, forced into partnership by the impenetrable
logic of women.
“It’s beds they belong in,” Mac muttered, stomping toward the street.
“It’s beds that get us these.” Simmons indicated his son as Buddy screeched, grabbed his hair, and tried to catch a seagull.
Mac grinned and watched the sway of his wife’s
skirts ahead. In a few months’ time, she could be big with his child.
That ought to slow her down.
“Yes,” he agreed joyfully. “‘I’ll have to build and
name a ship for every child she gives me.” A family of ships, definitely
a plan for the future, he thought in satisfaction.
All a Woman Wants
Patricia Rice
Book View Café Edition
February 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-242-6
Copyright © 1992 Rice Enterprises
First published: Published New American Library, 2001
Cover design by Kim Killion
v20130126vnm
About Patricia Rice
With several million books in print and
New York Times
and
USA
Today’s
bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one
of romance’s hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and
historical romances have won numerous awards, including the
RT Book Reviews
Reviewers Choice and Career
Achievement Awards. Her books have been honored as Romance Writers of America
RITA® finalists in the historical, regency and contemporary categories.
A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is
married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of
Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently resides
in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for herself. She is a
member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and Novelists, Inc.
For further information, visit Patricia’s network:
http://www.facebook.com/OfficialPatriciaRice
https://twitter.com/Patricia_Rice
http://patriciarice.blogspot.com/
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Sample Chapter: Devil’s LadyPatricia Rice
The smell of bacon cooking made his mouth water, and
Black Jack conjured up memories of steaming pots of coffee, fresh
cream, and baking bread. His stomach rumbled, and he awoke enough to
know that last night’s greasy stew hadn’t filled his ever-empty belly.
He would have to ride down to the inn and sweet-talk Molly out of a bowl
of porridge.
The idea of a bowl of Molly’s lumpy porridge did not
quite satisfy the image of his dreams, but it would have to do. He had
learned the bare necessities of cooking to keep from starving, but he
didn’t enjoy it. And he was too hungry to plunder his larder for its
meager contents now.
Swinging out of bed, he realized he had slept in his shirt and stockings last night. What imp of hell had caused him to do that?
Nearly bumping his head on the cursed bed roof, he
swore irritably and groped for his breeches. Only then did he realize
that the floor was almost warm, and he wasn’t shivering with the predawn
cold of a dead fire. The smell of cooking bacon became more than a
dream, and as he donned his breeches, his gaze sought the source of this
miracle.
The impact of seeing that frail figure bent over a
flaming fire in his own hearth almost sent Jack back to his bed. He
hadn’t been drunk in years. He couldn’t be hallucinating. When had he
last seen a female cooking his breakfast? Not since Ireland, he was
certain. Was she a faerie from his lost past? A
bean sidhe
to haunt him for his sins?
She turned then, and the slim shadow became a child
with a glimmering mat of waist-length hair, prosaically setting a
skillet on the table. He released a pent-up breath of relief and emerged
from the bed.
Faith nearly dropped the skillet as the lean form
rose from the shadows. But he fastened his breeches like a man, and she
shoved her fears back in a box and faced her host. She did not recognize
him, though she searched her memory.
He had to be over six feet in height, for he was
much taller than her father. His hair was coal black and curled in
disgraceful disarray about his collarless shirt. His eyes were hidden in
the dawn light, but she could see the black stubble of beard on a long
masculine jaw that squared with a stubbornness she had learned to
recognize in others.
This one would be no easygoing farmer with a shy
wife and half a dozen children. Faith gulped with fear as she noted the
breadth of his shoulders. She had thought him on the skinny side at
first, but she could see now that he was all lean sinew and muscle—a
formidable adversary if she ever knew one.
It was then that she remembered the prior night and
the nightmare of the highwayman, but she couldn’t piece the two
together. A highwayman didn’t offer beds to his victims. Perhaps he was
some farmer who had stumbled across her in the snow and carried her
here. She wondered where his wife was, and she threw an anxious look to
the loft ladder at the rear of the room. Perhaps the rest of the family
would be down in a little while.
“
Bean sidhes
do not remain after dawn,” her host commented oddly.
“Banshees?” Faith mouthed the word tentatively. His voice was a deep, resonant baritone with a soothing lilt.