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Regency Society. Ann LethbridgeЧитать онлайн книгу.

Regency Society - Ann Lethbridge


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matter the consequences. And then I forgot all about the risks and wanted to feel what I felt whenever I was with you. I did not think what it might be like for the poor baby to have such a fool for a mother, or care that you would not want to marry.’

      ‘When did I ever say that?’

      ‘You said you loved elsewhere. And you would marry me for the sake of the child. I have been in such a marriage, Tony, and do not want another.’

      ‘Were you so unhappy with the duke?’ His voice was strange in her ear, shaky and hoarse. ‘I always told myself that you were happy, and had what was best for you. And that I needn’t concern myself.’

      ‘After a fashion. I was fond of him, and he of me. We did comfortably together. And I did not love him, so it did not hurt so very much when he grew bored with me and visited with other women.’

      ‘My poor darling.’ He stroked her hair again.

      ‘Now you will marry me, because you promised to. And I will be happy. I have always wanted children. Always. I will be very happy. And I will be a good mother, and a good wife to you.

      ‘But some day you will say you are going to your club, but you will not come home. And I will lie alone in my bed, knowing that you have gone to her, and because I love you, but you can love only one woman, I fear it will break my heart.’ She let loose with a fresh batch of tears.

      He wrapped his arms even tighter around her, and waited for the sobbing to abate, passing her his handkerchief. ‘You love me that much, do you?’

      ‘Mnnnhmmm.’

      ‘And you sent me away because…’

      ‘It was foolish of me to fall in love with you. I could not keep you, and I could not control myself when you held me in your arms. I only ever felt alive when I was with you. The longer I kept you, the more I wanted you, and the more disgracefully I would behave to keep you with me, and the harder it would be to let you go. And it was already too late.’

      The tears were ready to start again, but before they could, he kissed her and, for a moment, she forgot what it was that she was crying about.

      ‘There, now. No more tears. Lay your head on my other shoulder where it is dry and comfortable, for the coat on the right is cried through to the shirt front.’ He kissed her temple. ‘Better?’

      She nodded.

      ‘Then I have a riddle. If I loved one woman my whole life, which is as long as I’ve known you, but she would look right through me if she saw me on the street, and she is as lovely and as far above me and unattainable as you are yourself, and I have kept myself apart from matrimony, until now, hoping for a miracle, can you not guess the identity of my great undying passion, the love of my life, the woman I would brave oceans and fight lions, and crawl in and out of three-storey windows to steal deeds for?’

      She held very still, hoping he would just tell her what she wanted to hear. It couldn’t be. But it must be, for he would never tease her so, if it weren’t.

      ‘And yet I was terrified to tell you the truth. I could not speak to you when we were children, and I could not speak to you now. There was only ever room in my heart for you, Constance. But if fate had not forced my hand, I might have been fool enough to let you marry someone else.’

      She laid her hand on his arm and whispered. ‘Do not think of it, again. Now that I have found you, there can be no other man for me, Anthony Smythe.’ She furrowed her brow. It was not his true name, though she would always think of him thus. She tried again. ‘I mean, Eu—’

      He winced and covered her mouth with his fingers. ‘Connie? Before you speak, let me warn you that it will spoil a lifetime of fantasy if you ever again call me by my given name. I did not take you to bed wishing to make you cry “oh, Eustace” loudly enough for the neighbours to hear.’

      He had called her Connie. No one called her Connie any more. Not even Robert. But to her true friends she had always been Connie. She snuggled into the warmth of his shoulder, feeling safe, and it made her smile.

      ‘If we have a boy, I’ll hear no nonsense of naming him after his father. My mother fought to defend my brothers from that fate, but when it came to me, she no longer cared to be bothered, and let my father christen me Eustace Anthony after himself.’

      ‘We will name him Anthony,’ she murmured. ‘After his father. It is a wonderful name. I am quite fond of it.’

      ‘Very good.’ He reached behind her knees and scooped her up into his arms. ‘And now we will adjourn to the bedroom, where you can tell me that bit again, about how losing me would break your heart. Not that you ever will, of course.

      ‘And perhaps later, we might go to Bond Street and choose a ring fitting worthy of a former duchess.’

      ‘You needn’t, really,’ she whispered. ‘Money is not important. If you truly love me.’

      He laughed. ‘I know, darling. And I would be only too happy to live on love, if I have you. But what shall I do with the great stacks of money that I got off Barton? The safe did not contain what I was looking for, but it was full to the top with hundred-pound notes. Why did the fool want to print his own money, when he had a safe full of the stuff?’ He shrugged. ‘If he did not appreciate his wealth, I saw no reason to let him keep it.’

      ‘You thief,’ she said. But she was laughing.

      And she raised her face to his, and let him steal another kiss.

       Lady Folbroke’s Delicious Deception

      Christine Merrill

      To Dr Eugene Swanson and his helpful staff.

      Thanks for taking care of my eyes.

       Chapter One

      While Emily Longesley could say with truth that she did not dislike many people, she had begun to suspect that she hated her husband’s cousin Rupert. There was something in the way he looked at the manor when he visited that made her think he wished to measure it for furniture.

      It was all the more annoying to know that he was entitled to his feelings of possessiveness. If she remained childless, the title fell to Rupert. And as the years had passed since her husband had abandoned her, Rupert’s visits had grown more frequent, more intrusive, and he’d become more generally confident in the eventuality of his inheritance. Lately, he had taken to giving an annoying smirk as he’d asked after the health of her husband, as though he were privy to some bit of information that she was not.

      It was even more bothersome to suspect that this might be the truth. Although her husband’s secretary, Hendricks, insisted that the earl was well, he was equally insistent that Adrian had no desire to communicate with her. A visit from him was unlikely. A visit to him would be both unwelcome and out of the question. Were they hiding something, or was her husband’s dislike of her as transparent as it appeared?

      Today, she could stand it no longer. ‘Rupert, what is the meaning of that expression on your face? It almost appears that you doubt my word. If you suspect that Adrian is ill, then the least you could do is pretend to be sympathetic.’

      Rupert looked at her with a smug grin that seemed to imply he’d caught her at last. ‘I do not suspect Folbroke of illness so much as I begin to doubt his existence.’

      ‘What utter fustian. You know perfectly well that he exists, Rupert. You have known him since childhood. You attended our wedding.’

      ‘And that was almost three years ago.’ He glanced around him, as though the empty air were some recent discovery. ‘I do not see him here, now.’

      ‘Because he resides in London for most of the year.’ All of the year, in fact, but it would not help to bring that to the fore.


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