The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      ‘Promise me nothing will, then,’ he replied with a full-blown shudder she had to find flattering as he pulled her closer and dared the devil to take her away from him.

      ‘You know I can’t do that, but I will promise to love you with everything I am and will be for the rest of my life, Luke,’ she said, all the love and delight she had in him in her eyes and the hope he could believe he was finally loved as he’d always deserved to be in her heart.

      He kissed her deeply and passionately to prove it was mutual and her inner rebel hoped she’d finally broken his silly, gallant notion of waiting another two more interminable nights to make love to her. Unlucky for her that his will-power was as formidable now as it had been for the last decade then; he put a little distance between them and rasped a few deep, shaky breaths as he imposed that dratted iron control of his once more.

      ‘Spoilsport,’ she muttered darkly.

      ‘Serpent,’ he retaliated.

      ‘Charming,’ she sniped back, but the euphoria of finding her viscount had a wild, tender passion for her under all that aloofness of his made her constantly feel about to dance on air. ‘I do love you, Luke,’ she told him, unable to help herself, despite the drag of wanting and curiosity he’d roused in her once again, and left gnawing at her innards like some bittersweet wild fire.

      ‘A shame it took you ten years to work that out,’ he said with his unique Luke smile that sparked her to argue, mainly because he liked arguing with her almost as much as he did making love with her and just now he wasn’t allowing them that alternative.

      ‘You’re the slow-top, not me,’ she accused him.

      ‘I am indeed—how else could I have thought of Pamela when I looked at you and wanted you so much it hurt all this time?’ he admitted with a sad shake of his dark head that made tears pool at the back of her eyes, despite her euphoria that they were almost man and wife. This endless waiting really was playing havoc with her emotions, she decided, frowning at the flash of jealousy that streaked through her before she told herself not to be ridiculous

      ‘You have truly forgotten her now though, haven’t you?’ she asked and held her breath for the answer, full of hope, but doubting any man could put such a betrayal behind him and truly trust again.

      ‘She was a young man’s nightmare, Chloe. Hearing about the one Revereux lived through tonight, mine seems a far lesser one. I got my lovely Eve and he endured tragedy and disappointment, then missed the first ten years of his daughter’s life into the bargain. I’m a very lucky man, my darling. In two days’ time I’ll be far luckier than I ever deserved to be.’

      ‘Now there, my Lord Farenze, I beg to differ,’ Chloe breathed as she moved so she was kneeling on the chaise and could look down into his wonderfully complex gaze. ‘You, my lord, deserve to wed a wife who will adore you, want you and live with you in glorious disharmony for the rest of your days. That’s just as well, since that’s exactly what you’re going to get when I finally get you up the aisle.’

      ‘Before God, I truly am a lucky man then,’ he said and, if there was suspicious hint of moisture in his beloved grey eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to tease him about it when tears threatened to flood her own and this was definitely not a time for crying.

      * * *

      ‘Virginia worked a happy ending to your tale then, despite your best efforts to be miserable, Lucius, old friend,’ Lord Mantaigne drawled, as if the last months were a play that had been put on by his late godmother to keep him amused and stop him missing her quite so badly.

      ‘No need for you to be so smug about it, you could be her next victim for all we know,’ Luke said equably.

      ‘Or me,’ James said gloomily.

      ‘Well, it certainly won’t be me,’ Captain Revereux put in with a grin at the younger of Chloe’s two bridesmaids. Verity returned his smile with a confidence Chloe told herself she had to be pleased about.

      ‘I wish Virginia could have been here to see us marry though, Luke,’ Chloe whispered as they toasted each other again and all she tasted was his quick, hard kiss on her delighted mouth. ‘She would have been so happy today.’

      ‘I’m sure she would.’

      ‘Virginia knew we couldn’t stay master and housekeeper for long if she managed to trap us under the same roof for more than the day or so you had allowed us up until then,’ Chloe said confidently, sure now that was what her late mistress and best friend had intended all along.

      ‘I like being your husband even better than I did being your impatient master, my lady,’ he murmured wickedly for her ear only.

      ‘And being your wife promises to better being your impatient servant, my lord.’

      Luke groaned and whispered something very incendiary indeed that brought a rosy blush to the new Viscountess Farenze’s cheeks and set her plotting to escape the company of their innocent daughters, before all restraint between them was finally cindered into ashes at long last.

       Chapter Twenty

      ‘I love you, Luke. So very much,’ Chloe said in a shaky voice, stirring at last as the fog of bliss brought on by becoming Luke’s wife in every sense of the word dissipated enough to allow her sufficient spare breath to speak.

      ‘Good, it took you long enough to realise my sterling worth and agreeable temper was exactly what you needed to make your life complete,’ he joked, with an echo of her own wonder in his eyes.

      ‘Pompous idiot,’ she said with a wifely look he seemed to find fascinating.

      ‘Wife,’ he murmured huskily, fascinated by a curl of red-gold hair trailing across her bare shoulder. He tested that word again on is tongue. ‘My wife,’ he murmured and she opened heavy-lidded eyes a little wider to take him in, naked as Adam and insufferably complacent about life as he currently appeared, and she sighed with contentment.

      ‘What is it?’ she asked sleepily.

      ‘You are my wife,’ he informed her as he kissed the disordered tumble of her wildfire hair over that satin-smooth shoulder, then eyed her as if tempted to work his way downwards and catch her in the sensual web he’d woven round so effectively last night once more. ‘Lady Chloe Winterley is my wife,’ he added, gloating over the fact of her as she stretched her sleek and very bare body luxuriously against his own naked form. ‘My lawfully wedded wife,’ he added for good measure.

      ‘I think we have already established that fact,’ she murmured, still half-asleep, but very willing to wake up to a new and very alert husband in her bed.

      ‘Not to my complete satisfaction we haven’t,’ he argued, even as the gallant impulse to leave his new-made wife to recover from his amorous attentions seemed to fly out of the window and she put all the provocation she’d stored up over a decade into kissing her one true love back. ‘I love you,’ he distracted himself by saying as soon as he could. ‘I love you, my Lady Chloe.’

      ‘You haven’t leapt out of bed and downed a pipe of port or a cellar full of brandy while I was asleep, have you, Luke? You sound drunk, even if you don’t taste it,’ she observed СКАЧАТЬ