“Your car?” Her heart was beating so fast she had to sit down.
“I parked it under the portico last night. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”
“For everyone to see? All night?” Her voice had ridden to a high screech.
She shook her head no, face pale, hand shaking. There was no avoiding the scandal.
“Perhaps you would like to see the morning papers?” he suggested. “Start with Snowden’s column.”
Seph stood and snatched up the paper and flipped through the pages. She stilled when she got to the column.
“Read it out loud,” he said looking pleased with himself.
“‘Wedding bells for the elusive widow and her rogue of a Russian prince.’”
Ilya watched, chest tight. Her eyes welled; he was suddenly nervous. If he’d overstepped the mark he didn’t care. She’d loved him in December. She loved him last night. He’d made himself into a man worthy of her and would every day onward.
Seph slapped him with the paper.
“Little bird?” He stilled. Put down the toast, reached for her and drew her close. “What’s wrong?” He murmured into her hair. “Did I misunderstand?”
“You didn’t ask me.” She mumbled into his neck as her arms went around him.
Ilya lowered himself into the chair and folded a grumpy warm woman onto his lap holding her close.
“I haven’t asked you?” He kissed her cheek. “Is that what you think?”
She nodded, a wonderful scowl on her face.
“I have asked you with every kiss, with every touch. I have asked you with every longing look. With every afternoon spent talking and laughing together. And you, little bird, have said yes, every single time.”
He kissed her lips. Soft and full of all the love and affection he felt, from the first time he’d heard her voice and knew no one else would every do. A lone tear rolled down her cheek and he kissed it away.
“You will come and meet my mother! She is ferocious. But first we will go buy you a ring. I want you to be wearing it before we have dinner with Tatiana, Demetri and Georgie.” He looked down at her. “Unless you have misled me in your affections.”
“I would have liked to have been asked.” He made a big show of getting up and settling her back on the chair and getting down on one knee.
“If I have to do it all myself.” He grumbled but gave her a smile. He withdrew a beautiful diamond ring from his waistcoat. “Just in case you were going to be difficult.”
Her cheeks flushed.
And all of a sudden, nerves rioted through him, heart pounding Ilya held the ring out to her between clasped fingers. “Seraphina.” He swallowed. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” His throat was suddenly constricted, and it was hard to breathe as he waited for the most important answer of his life. If she said no, he would simply try harder. Try until he won the right to her heart.
“So, once I am in the family, I will be your sole ‘family business.’”
“Absolutely,” he promised.
“Your thigh warmers are a thing of the past.”
“Already far gone.”
She made him wait but the constriction had already eased. It was in her eyes. They shone with a love he didn’t deserve and would be grateful for every day for the rest of his life.
She grinned. “Yes, Prince Vladimir Ilya Petroski, I will marry you.”
Ilya slipped the ring on her finger, drawing her to her feet and to the bed. Then showed her just what an attentive husband he was going to be.
THE END
About Elsa Holland
Elsa Holland writes lush, sensual stories set in Victorian England. They skirt the edge of Gothic eroticism and dark romanticism giving them a rich, moody feel (which has nothing to do with the bowl of chocolates at the side of her keyboard or the pictures she chooses for her desktop).
Her heroines walk fearlessly through the dark and her heroes are exactly the kind of men you want to find there.
Elsa lives with her Viking-stock husband and her follow-you-everywhere dog, in semi-tropical Queensland, Australia.
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At the Mistletoe Masquerade
by Dayna Quince
Chapter 1
December, 1811
“Cassie,” a male voice whispered playfully. A hand darted out in her periphery from the curtained doorway and pinched her arm.
Cassie swatted at the retreating hand and then rubbed her abused arm.
Brothers, what good were they? She wasn’t supposed to be in the smoking room. It was the lair of men, her father would say. But she was provoked. Tristan had thrown the gauntlet and now hid where she could not reach him. She’d been standing beside the entry, woefully left out of the fun—as usual. And Tristan had known it. He’d winked at her as he and Lord Reardon entered—Sidney, her heart reminded her with pleasant palpations. But she dared not say his name aloud, even if she’d known him for close to six years now. She couldn’t hide the breathlessness and excitement in her voice when she said his name, even in the dark, alone with her dolls and pillows.
Cassie folded her arms and cast her gaze over the drawing room. Her mother had insisted on the heavy velvet curtain to contain the smoke.
“The door lets it out in billows,” her mother would complain.
But her father, the Earl of Summers, was not in there. He and Lord Farthingway were in deep discussion near the hearth. Cassie scanned the faces in the room. Not a single eye moved in her direction. Holding her breath, she slipped past the curtain and into the smoking room. A haze had settled about the area. A soft baritone murmur clung to it, masking the speakers.
Cassie softly coughed. Who enjoyed breathing all this muck? She waved the miasma in front of her face, searching for her brother, her errant heart pounding, knowing that beside him she would find Sidney. Stoic and arrogantly amused, his sun burnished brown curls perfect and smooth, his jaw roguishly stubbled by sunset every day even though he shaved every morning. She knew this, because she knew everything she could possibly know about Sidney Anthem, Viscount Reardon, an elegant rogue who could charm the thorns off a rose. Yet, he found Cassie’s obnoxious brother tolerable. Cassie reached the French doors on the far side and threw them open. The smoke dissipated as crisp air wafted in through the doors and ventilated the room. There her brother and Sidney sat, her brother smirking, Sidney having not even lowered his paper.
“I told you she’d come.”
Sidney bent a corner of the paper down to look at her.
Cassie froze, suspended in aching anticipation as his gaze skimmed her figure and then met her stare.
“Lady Cassandra,” he greeted without an ounce of emotion. “That blue is very becoming on you.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“We should stand, but we won’t,” Tristan teased in a loud whisper to Sidney. “It is only Cassie, and she isn’t supposed to be here.”