The Heart of a Scoundrel (42 page)

“No, they are not.” Justina slid into a mahogany shell chair beside her brother. Her blue eyes twinkled with mirth. “They are giving one another the look of longing.”

“The look of longing?” her brother wrinkled his nose. “What in blazes is that?”

Edmund wrapped an arm about Phoebe. “Someday you will discover precisely what that is, Barrett.”

Andrew gave a dismissive wave. “Regardless, I’ve not come to talk about Phoebe’s odd looking business.” It did not escape Phoebe’s notice that he’d very deliberately left Edmund out of that odd looking business. “I’ve missed you at the clubs. Not the same there without you.”

Annoyed by his visiting those shameful sins, Phoebe frowned at Andrew. She opened her mouth to deliver a stinging lecture on those very clubs, when Edmund folded his ankle at his knee.

“I no longer visit For…those clubs,” he amended, glancing over at his young sister-in-law and then wife.

The man he’d been would have not given a jot about talking about those scandalous clubs before anyone and everyone. The man he truly was, however, cared…about Phoebe, her family, their life.

Andrew blinked in rapid succession. “You no longer visit Forbidden Pleasures.”

Edmund gave a somber shake of his head. “I do not.”

“Never tell me you attend,” He gave a shudder. “Brooke’s or Whites?”

Edmund’s silence stood as his answer.

A pained groan escaped the younger man and he threw himself back in his chair. “You’ve ruined him, Phoebe. Utterly and completely ruined the Marquess of Rutland.”

Edmund raised Phoebe’s fingertips to his lips once again and placed a lingering kiss on the inner portion of her wrist where her heart pounded wildly. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong, Barrett. Your sister saved me.”

And ignoring the painful groan of her brother, Phoebe leaned up and kissed her husband.

The End

Christi Caldwell is the bestselling author of historical romance novels set in the Regency era. Christi blames Judith McNaught’s “Whitney, My Love,” for luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes and try her hand at writing romance. She believes the most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections and rather enjoys tormenting them before crafting a well-deserved happily ever after!

When Christi isn’t writing the stories of flawed heroes and heroines, she can be found in her Southern Connecticut home chasing around her feisty five-year-old son, and caring for twin princesses-in-training!

Visit
www.christicaldwellauthor.com
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“Winning a Lady’s Heart”

A Danby Novella

Author’s Note: This is a novella that was originally available in A Summons From The Castle (The Regency Christmas Summons Collection). It is being published as an individual novella.

For Lady Alexandra, being the source of a cold, calculated wager is bad enough…but when it is waged by Nathaniel Michael Winters, 5th Earl of Pembroke, the man she’s in love with, it results in a broken heart, the scandal of the season, and a summons from her grandfather – the Duke of Danby.

To escape Society’s gossip, she hurries to her meeting with the duke, determined to put memories of the earl far behind. Except the duke has other plans for Alexandra…plans which include the 5th Earl of Pembroke!

“A Season of Hope”

A Danby Novella

Five years ago when her love, Marcus Wheatley, failed to return from fighting Napoleon’s forces, Lady Olivia Foster buried her heart. Unable to betray Marcus’s memory, Olivia has gone out of her way to run off prospective suitors. At three and twenty she considers herself firmly on the shelf. Her father, however, disagrees and accepts an offer for Olivia’s hand in marriage. Yet it’s Christmas, when anything can happen…

Olivia receives a well-timed summons from her grandfather, the Duke of Danby, and eagerly embraces the reprieve from her betrothal.

Only, when Olivia arrives at Danby Castle she realizes the Christmas season represents hope, second chances, and even miracles.

“Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride”

Book 1 in the Scandalous Seasons Series

Hopeless romantic Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh is tired of sitting with the wallflowers, waiting for her betrothed to come to his senses and marry her. When Emmaline reads one too many reports of his scandalous liaisons in the gossip rags, she takes matters into her own hands.

War-torn veteran Lord Drake devotes himself to forgetting his days on the Peninsula through an endless round of meaningless associations. He no longer wants to feel anything, but Lady Emmaline is making it hard to maintain a state of numbness. With her zest for life, she awakens his passion and desire for love.

The one woman Drake has spent the better part of his life avoiding is now the only woman he needs, but he is no longer a man worthy of his Emmaline. It is up to her to show him the healing power of love.

“Never Courted, Suddenly Wed”

Book 2 in the Scandalous Seasons Series

Christopher Ansley, Earl of Waxham, has constructed a perfect image for the
ton
–the ladies love him and his company is desired by all. Only two people know the truth about Waxham’s secret. Unfortunately, one of them is Miss Sophie Winters.

Sophie Winters has known Christopher since she was in leading strings. As children, they delighted in tormenting each other. Now at two and twenty, she still has a tendency to find herself in scrapes, and her marital prospects are slim.

When his father threatens to expose his shame to the
ton
, unless he weds Sophie for her dowry, Christopher concocts a plan to remain a bachelor. What he didn’t plan on was falling in love with the lively, impetuous Sophie. As secrets are exposed, will Christopher’s love be enough when she discovers his role in his father’s scheme?