Pursuing Lord Pascal (19 page)

He loved her.

Was she prepared to take the greatest risk of
her life? By now, she should be used to this giddy mixture of dread
and excitement. She’d felt this way since the day she met him
again.

“You know, if you’d offered me the chance to
bring an ailing estate back to prosperity, I’d have married you
when you first proposed.”

“I’ll remember that for the next time I find
a woman I want to make my wife.”

Although it was cursed difficult to look
stern when a chorus of larks trilled in her soul, she summoned a
frown. “You’d better not, or there will be trouble.”

“Why?”

Amy decided that in the end, all she could do
was trust her heart. Her brain would take her so far, but it
wouldn’t give her the courage to seize the future she wanted. A
future with Gervaise at her side.

She stood straight and tall and met his eyes.
“Because the only woman you’re going to marry is right in front of
you.”

Incredulity flooded his face, then swift,
overwhelming relief that filled her with thankfulness. They might
just pull through this crisis and find their way back to one
another.

In breathless suspense, she waited for him to
sweep her up and tell her how happy he was, but he folded his arms
and studied her down his aristocratic nose. “Why?”

Her lips twitched, when not long ago, she
thought she’d never smile again. “Because after you’ve played
reckless games with my heart and honor, you deserve to suffer.”

“Amy,” he said implacably. The glittering
brightness of his eyes spoiled the effect a tad. She read hope in
his expression, but he wasn’t yet ready to trust that he’d won.

“Because I want to devote my fortune to
restoring yours.”

He shook his head in disapproval. “I told
you—I don’t want your blasted money. If I take it, you’ll never
trust me. I’d rather have you.”

“You’ll have me.”

Still he didn’t relent. “Then let me put it
another way. I’d rather have your love. Do you love me?”

She caught a glimpse of the aching
vulnerability beneath his masterful pose, and all impulse to tease
faded. Because of course she loved him. She’d loved him since she
was a silly fourteen-year-old at Woodley Park.

There had been enough secrets between them.
Secrets had nearly torn them apart.

Amy squared her shoulders and sucked in a
deep breath. “Yes.”

Joy flared in his eyes, but still he didn’t
kiss her. What the devil was wrong with him? “I didn’t hear
you.”

She stepped closer. “Yes,” she said more
loudly.

“Yes, what?”

“Oh, you’re a scoundrel.”

He tilted one eyebrow.

She sighed and gave in. “Very well. I love
you, too.”

He didn’t smile, but the taut line of his
shoulders relaxed, and the deep lines running between his nose and
mouth eased. “God, I hope so.”

She spread her hands in a helpless gesture.
“How could I do anything but love you? Nobody else makes me feel
the way you do.”

The unabashed longing in his face made her
tremble. “And you’ll marry me?”

“I will.” She raised her chin and glared.
“Although I’ll change my mind, if you don’t kiss me this very
minute.”

At last, a spark of genuine amusement lit his
expression. “Well, we can’t have that.”

Before she could respond, he dragged her into
his arms and kissed her with a passion beyond anything she’d ever
known. Perhaps because they’d come so close to losing one another.
He was trembling, too, she was moved to discover. And realizing
that, the last of her doubts melted into the air. She clung to him
and gave herself up to the miraculous truth that they were in love,
and they were going to share a life together.

When much later she returned to the real
world, they were sitting on the sofa, and she was twined around
him, breathless and happy. Gervaise brought her head down to rest
on his shoulder and pressed a kiss to her rumpled hair. His
tenderness carved a rift in her heart. From the first, that
tenderness had hinted that he wasn’t quite the selfish rogue he
liked to believe.

“Did I tell you I love you?” he murmured.

She cuddled closer to his radiant heat. “You
can definitely tell me again.”

“I love you.” The sweetness in his kiss
turned her bones to syrup.

“And I love you.” She raised her head and
stared into his face. She saw a strength that would sustain her for
the rest of her life. “Forever.”

With a brilliant smile, he untangled himself.
He stood and stretched out his hand. “Then, my lovely Amy, come
away with me now, and let’s enjoy a purely private celebration.
Tomorrow, we’ll tell the world, but tonight is for us alone.”

“Won’t that cause talk?” she asked, even as
anticipation ripped through her.

He shrugged. “Let them gossip. I need to have
you in my arms.”

How marvelously scandalous. She loved it. But
not as much as she loved him.

Amy’s fingers curled around Gervaise’s, and
she let him draw her to her feet. “That’s an invitation I can’t
resist, my darling Lord Pascal.”

THE END

Continue reading for an excerpt from:

Book 1 in the
Dashing Widows series

* * *

For this
reckless widow, love is the most dangerous game of all.

Caroline, Lady
Beaumont, arrives in London seeking excitement after ten dreary
years of marriage and an even drearier year of mourning. That means
conquering society, dancing like there’s no tomorrow, and taking a
lover to provide passion without promises. Promises, in this
dashing widow’s dictionary, equal prison. So what is an adventurous
lady to do when she loses her heart to a notorious rake who, for
the first time in his life, wants forever?

Devilish Silas
Nash, Viscount Stone is in love at last—with a beautiful,
headstrong widow bent on playing the field. Worse, she’s enlisted
his help to set her up with his disreputable best friend. No
red-blooded man takes such a challenge lying down, and Silas
schemes to seduce his darling into his arms, warm, willing and
besotted. But will his passionate plots come undone against a woman
determined to act the mistress, but never the wife?

Grosvenor Square, London, February 1820

The world expected a widow to be sad.

The world expected a widow to be lonely.

The world didn’t expect a widow to be bored
to the point of throwing a brick through a window, just to shatter
the endless monotony of her prescribed year of mourning.

Outside the opulent drawing room, fashionable
Grosvenor Square presented a bleak view. Leafless trees, gray
skies, people scurrying past wrapped up beyond recognition as they
rushed to be indoors again. Even inside, the winter air kept its
edge. The bitter weather reflected the chill inside Caroline, Lady
Beaumont; the endless fear that she sacrificed her youth to
stultifying convention. She sighed heavily and flattened one palm
on the cold glass, wondering if there would always be a barrier
between her and freedom.

“You’re out of sorts today, Caro,” Fenella,
Lady Deerham, said softly from where she presided over the tea
table. While Caroline was this afternoon’s hostess, habit—and good
sense—saw Fenella dispensing refreshments. She was neat and
efficient in her movements, unlike Caroline who tended to
gesticulate when something caught her attention. Fenella would
never spill tea over the priceless Aubusson carpet.

“It’s so blasted miserable out there.”
Caroline still stared discontentedly at the deserted square. “I
don’t think I’ve seen the sun in three months.”

“Now, you know that’s an exaggeration,”
Helena, Countess of Crewe, said from the gold brocade sofa beside
the roaring fire.

How like Helena to stick to facts. On their
first meeting, this intellectual, sophisticated woman had terrified
Caroline. She’d since learned to appreciate Helena’s incisive mind
and plain speaking—most of the time.

Nor would anyone have predicted Caroline’s
friendship with Fenella. Fenella was gentle and sweet, and at
first, Caroline had dismissed her as a bit of a fool. But after a
year’s acquaintance, she recognized Fenella’s kindness as strength
not weakness, a strength that threw an unforgiving light on her own
occasional lack of generosity.

She’d met Helena Wade and Fenella Deerham at
one of the dull all-female gatherings designated suitable
entertainment for women grieving the loss of a spouse. Their
youth—all three were under thirty—had drawn them together rather
than any immediate affinity. But somehow, despite their
differences, or perhaps because of them, Caroline now counted these
two disparate ladies as her closest friends.

With another sigh, Caroline turned to face
the room. “I doubt I’d have survived my mourning without you
two.”

Helena paused in sipping her tea, her
striking dark-eyed face with its imperious Roman nose expressing
puzzlement. “That sounds discomfitingly like a farewell. Do you
plan to abandon us for more exciting company once your official
year is up?”

Fenella regarded Helena with rare reproach.
“Don’t tease her. She’s only saying what’s true for all of us.”

“Exactly, Fen.” Caroline sent the pretty
blonde in the plain gray dress a grateful smile. “Trust our
resident dragon to puncture my sentimental bubble.”

Helena, slender and elegant in her widow’s
weeds—Caroline envied her friend’s ability to create style from
crepe and bombazine—watched her thoughtfully, not noticeably
gratified by the declaration. “Nonetheless your seclusion ends next
month. No wonder you’re champing at the bit.”

Horsy terms littered Helena’s conversation.
She was by reputation a punishing rider, although bereavement had
curtailed her exercise.

“Aren’t you?” Caroline crossed to extend her
delicate Meissen cup for more tea.

“Devoting a year of my life to the memory of
a brute like Crewe is hypocritical at the very least. Not to
mention an infernal waste of time in the saddle.”

“Seclusion must chafe when you didn’t love
your husband,” Caroline said, taking a sip.

Helena’s gaze didn’t waver. “You didn’t love
yours either.”

Caroline wanted to protest, but the sad truth
was that Helena was right. Freddie had been a stranger when she’d
married him, and their years together hadn’t done much to increase
the intimacy. Marriage was a cruel yoke, uniting such an
incompatible pair. Even crueler that she’d been forced to follow
Freddie’s dictates as to where they lived and what they did.
Mourning him was the last obligation she owed her late husband.
Once the year was over, she meant to enjoy her independence and
never surrender it again.

“Helena!” Fenella said repressively as she
refilled the other cups. “We both know Caro was fond of
Beaumont.”

Helena’s laugh was grim. “The way she’s fond
of a dog, Fen?”

In the stark afternoon light, Fenella’s
beauty was ethereal. “You’re unkind.”

Helena shook her glossy dark head. “No, I’m
honest. Surely after all these months, it’s time we spoke openly to
one another.” A trace of warmth softened her cool, precise voice.
“Because you’ve both proven my salvation, too. I would have run mad
without you to remind me that other people have feelings, Fen.
Caro, I never have to pretend with you. And for some reason you
both seem to like me anyway.”

Helena generally steered clear of emotion.
This was the closest she’d ever ventured to confidences. Surprised,
Caroline studied her, seeing more than she ever had before. At
last, she glimpsed the deep reserves of feeling lurking beneath
that self-assured exterior.

“Mostly,” she said in a dry tone, knowing
Helena would take the response the way it was meant.

“So did you love Frederick Beaumont?” Helena
persisted.

Poor Freddie, saddled with a weak
constitution and an unloving helpmeet. Hatred would have been a
greater tribute than his wife’s indifference. How sad for a decent,
if tedious man to die so young. Sadder that nobody in particular
cared that he’d gone.

“No,” she said hollowly, at last voicing the
shameful truth. “Although he was a good man and he deserved better
from me than he got.”

Freddie should have married a stolid farmer’s
wife, not a restless, curious, volatile creature who dreamed of the
social whirl instead of milk yields and barley prices. By the end
of Caroline’s ten years in Lincolnshire, she’d felt like she
drowned in mud. She sucked in a breath of London air, reminding
herself that now she was free.

“Well, Crewe deserved considerably less than
he got from me,” Helena said sourly. “He wasn’t even any good in
bed. If a woman must wed a degenerate rake, the least she should
expect is physical satisfaction.”