“Vanessa. I am the man you spent solstice with. You showed me photographs of locomotives and of what I now understand to be gas lamps. You stood with me in the Chamber of Sorrows and made love to me while a tempest raged around us.”
A tear slid down her cheek as the marvelous truth of it slammed into her with all the power of that locomotive at full tilt.
Vanessa’s entire body stilled. Her lungs froze in her chest and her heart forgot to beat as one word settled into her soul, looking for a home.
Made love.
Love… Dare she hope?
His expression was so full of tenderness it threatened to melt her into a puddle of pure, blissful sentiment. “It’s as if for one hundred and fifty years, one hollow note was playing in my ear, driving me mad, and then you blew in on a blizzard and brought with you every symphony I could hope to hear. You are my match, Vanessa. I never needed more than a moment to know it with unquestioned absolution. And I want to see the world with you, if you’d let me.”
He captured her hand and held it to his lips, pressing a worshipful kiss into her palm before he continued. “Like I said, I am that Johnathan de Lohr, and this one, who also lived an entire lamentable life without you. Since the moment I met you, you haven’t been far from my thoughts. I might not have the same body you became acquainted with, the same scars or history. I don’t have the hands that touched you. The mouth that tasted you, not exactly. But I have the soul that adored you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
Eyes. Ye gods what immaculate and incandescent light beamed at her from those eyes.
What life.
“I like these hands,” she whispered, fondling the ring, then she lifted it to her own lips to return his kiss, before peeking up at him from beneath coy lashes. “I would not mind acquainting myself with the rest of you. It is not as if my reputation can’t handle going into your castle unaccompanied.”
“Wait.” He stopped her, held her back from marching toward Lioncross. “I would invite you in only with the understanding that my intent is to carry you across the threshold as my Countess as soon as possible. I would defend your honor, Vanessa, and restore your good name.”
A smile engulfed her entire being, even as snowflakes landed on her heated cheeks like chilly little blessings from heaven.
“Let’s start with tea and see where that takes us,” she teased, knowing that the moment he proposed properly, she’d have no other answer for him but yes.
Yes. Forever yes.
“Kiss me, Vanessa,” he growled, dragging her against his inflamed body. “Kiss me because it’s Christmas and you’re in my arms. Kiss me because I’m the luckiest soul to ever live and then live again.”
Yes, she thought as she was swept away by the potency of his kiss. Entranced by the same magic she’d experienced that first time in the Highland storm.
It was Christmas.
And never would a gift mean so much as the soul of the man she loved.
MORE IN THIS SERIES
A Goode Girls Romance
Seducing a Stranger
Courting Trouble
Dancing With Danger
Flirting With Disaster
Making Merry
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerrigan Byrne is the USA Today Bestselling and award winning author of THE DUKE WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. She has authored a dozen novels in both the romance and mystery genre. Her newest mystery release THE BUSINESS OF BLOOD is available October 24th, 2019
She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington with her dream boat husband. When she's not writing and researching, you'll find her on the water sailing and kayaking, or on land eating, drinking, shopping, and taking the dogs to play on the beach.
Kerrigan loves to hear from her readers! To contact her or learn more about her books, please visit her site: www.kerriganbyrne.com
A MARQUESS FOR CHRISTMAS
CHRISTI CALDWELL
CHAPTER 1
LONDON, WINTER 1818
Lady Patrina Tidemore had always prided herself on being the most logical and reasonable of the four Tidemore sisters. She’d never had a grand flourish for the dramatics as did her sweet sisters, Poppy and Penelope. Nor was she the great beauty that Prudence had grown into. But what she always had been, was logical, and reasonable.
Or rather, she had been, until she’d met one gentleman who’d filled her ear with pretty compliments and gently teased her into forgetting she was the logical and reasonable of the four.
Patrina stared out across the frozen Serpentine as the smallest, almost infinitesimal of snowflakes drifted down and landed upon the layer of ice. She pushed back her red velvet bonnet and sighed.
Last spring, she’d imagined a very different Christmastide season than this one. She would have been wed, tucked away in a modest home, with the quiet companionship of the gentleman who loved her. Instead, she could readily admit with Christmas nearly upon them, this would be by far the most grim, lonely holiday season—even surrounded by the noise of one’s garrulous family.
Her lips twisted in an acrimonious smile. Alas, there was to be no modest home or quiet companionship. Rather, her Christmas would be spent just as she’d spent the past twenty, nearly twenty-one Christmases—with her proper mama and three loquacious sisters.
Oh, it had never been that she’d minded the frequent mayhem and excitement of the Tidemore home. Quite the opposite, really. It was just that she’d imagined she would be wedded, perhaps expecting a babe of her own soon.
She drew in a shuddery breath. When a young lady scandalized the ton as she’d done, dreams of weddings and families were nothing more than fanciful wishes.
“My lady, we should return soon,” her maid, Mary, called from over her shoulder.
Patrina looked back distractedly and managed a wan smile. “You may go back and wait in the carriage, Mary. I’ll be just a moment.”
Mary opened her mouth as if to protest, but must have seen the firm resolve in Patrina’s gaze, for she nodded once, and then started down the walking path, through the dusting of snow that blanketed the deadened grass, on toward the carriage.
Patrina returned her focus to the Serpentine. As she did in all her daily visits here, she wondered about the poor birds and fish that made this their home during the warmer months. Where did they go when the cold of life set in? On most days, she dreamed of joining them, because then she could be free of her sisters’ pitying expressions, or the pained regret worn in her mother and brother’s eyes, and the abject guilt in her sister-in-law, Juliet’s expression every time Patrina entered a room.
A hiss split the quiet of the winter snowscape. She stiffened and turned, just as something cold, hard, and very wet hit her temple. “Oomph!” Patrina touched her fingers to her head and brushed the flakes of snow from the edge of her bonnet.
A flurry of giggles met her ears and she glanced around. Two splashes of color in the stark white landscape darted from behind a boulder and over to a larger rock. A scamp, mayhap ten years of age, with mischievous green eyes popped up from their hiding place.