Winter Garden (31 page)

She sniffed. “I'm so glad.”

Seconds later, he explained. “The real reason I didn't want you entering Baron Rothebury's tunnel and getting involved was not because I think you're incompetent as a female investigator, but because I didn't want either one of us to be involved with his arrest. I didn't want the villagers to learn that either of us works for the government because I wanted us to not only continue with our work, as a team of sorts, but also to be able to retreat to Winter Garden through the years. I'd like to live for months at a time in that little cottage where you fell in love with me, to play chess and then make love to you over and over again on the old brown rug in front of the fire, to sit together by the lake at sunset.”

“I can't wait,” she whispered, without arguing his reasons for being secretive. “Still, you lied about your identity,” she added. “That's sure to raise a few eyebrows.”

He smiled, gazing at two boys and a girl fighting over a ball. “I am a recluse, Maddie, and I have been for years. Nobody in Winter Garden will be surprised to learn that I kept my identity as an earl hidden from the local gentry so that I could retreat to the village in peace. I'll eventually tell them. You can continue to be who you are. Nobody will know you didn't actually translate my war memoirs.”

“Only if they ask to see them,” she said wryly.

“We keep them at Eastleigh.”

“Oh, I see. How convenient.”

“Maybe we'll spread the word that they burned in a fire. I love to lie.”

She giggled adorably at that, and he squeezed her tighter against him.

Suddenly she tipped her face and looked up at him. “What am I supposed to call you? Christian?”

It was his turn to chuckle. “I didn't care much for arrogant bastard, but Christian is too formal. My family always called me Thomas. That's why I saved it for you.”

“You planned this all very well, didn't you,” she maintained a bit sharply, trying to suppress a grin.

He touched his lips to hers, kissing her softly, briefly, marveling in the warmth and taste of her mouth, knowing he would treasure this moment forever, knowing now beyond all things that there would be many more to come.

“I hoped, Maddie,” he whispered against her. “I only hoped.”

 

M
adeleine DuMais, the illegitimate daughter of an opium-addicted actress and a British naval captain, married Christian Thomas Blackwood St. James, the most distinguished Earl of Eastleigh, on April 14, 1850. Her wedding was a formal enough affair arranged on rather short notice, but it was the celebration afterward that she cherished the most.

Thomas had taken her to the cottage so that they could spend their honeymoon in Winter Garden, among the villagers who were most ready to accept her as Madeleine St. James, Countess of Eastleigh—even
Mrs. Bennington-Jones, who indeed curtsied to her because, Madeleine assumed, she was one of the few who bothered to call on the woman after the disgrace of her daughter, Desdemona.

Richard Sharon, Baron Rothebury, had been arrested for the importation of stolen opium, and his ultimate fate was as yet unknown. He would be gone from Winter Garden for years, though, and probably for the rest of his life. Madeleine held little sympathy for him, and instead found the villagers all the more congenial and relaxed at his departure. Most thoroughly did she enjoy the bantering and speculation between them all as they placed their wages on what was to become of the baron's estate, his home that was filled with secret tunnels and mysteries from the past.

People were only learning now of her pregnancy, which had been progressing as it should. Their baby would arrive a little more than two months early, according to their wedding date, but scandal had always been a part of her life, and she would take the talk as it came. Most of their acquaintances were unaware that she and Thomas had only recently married anyway, assuming instead that they'd married the week she'd left in January. Beyond everything, however, remained the fact that she was the highest-ranking subject in Winter Garden, aside from her husband, and in Eastleigh for that matter, and nobody would dare say anything remotely rude to her person. They could think what they would. Like Thomas, she had learned early not to care about the snide conjecture and gossip of others.

On the first night of their honeymoon, Thomas had given her the music box as a wedding gift, adding her name to the inscription, which he said had been
his intention all along. They had dined with her only real friends in England so far, Jonathan and Natalie Drake, who had worked with her on a previous assignment in France. The talk had been wonderful between them all; Thomas had known Jonathan for many years. Natalie, expecting her own child—their first—one month after Madeleine's was due to arrive, surprised Jonathan with the news that he was to become a father during a dessert of apple cobbler. Poor man. The look on his face at his wife's casual confession had been matchless.

Life was indeed ironic. Her journey and experiences in Winter Garden had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly, and yet it seemed like a lifetime ago when she'd met Thomas. She had trouble remembering an existence before him.

Madeleine loved him so much, for all that he had done for her, for all that he was. He knew it, too, which was the most wonderful feeling of all. He had given her the dream of a lifetime, and the chance to be English—everything in the world that she had ever wanted.

Now she and her husband of two weeks stood together, embraced in each other's arms, beside the hard wooden bench in front of the lake, watching the sun set across the water as they danced to the soft, melodic tune of Beethoven's Sonata in C Minor.

ADELE ASHWORTH

I've always loved to write, but after my first attempt at a novel (nine chapters of
Plastic City
, the story of underwater-dwelling orphans in the twenty-third century that I wrote in the sixth grade), I took some time to get my bachelor's degree and to try my hand at other careers before I returned to my first passion: creative writing. After lots and lots of perseverance, hard work, and a bit of very good luck,
My Darling Caroline
went on to win the Romance Writers of America's RITA
^®
Award for Best First Book of 1998.

I live in Texas with my family, exploring history as I delve into the hearts of my characters. I love to hear from readers through my website at www.adeleashworth.com.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.