“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:
The Seduction of Lord Stone
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 me
ans 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?
Prologue