A Country Flirtation
Page 24
After the fire, Sir Jaspar had opened his home to the Pamberley ladies and their guests until such a time as plans for two weddings, two honeymoons, and new residences for Miss Marianne, Miss Katherine, and Miss Celeste could be arranged. Of course, Celeste’s residence was soon settled on when shortly after most of the arrangements were made, she accepted Sir Henry’s hand in marriage and a third wedding was quickly in the works.
Constance did not foresee trespassing on Sir Jaspar’s hospitality very long, since both Lady Bramshill and Mrs. Spencer were fully involved in making elegant plans for all three weddings.
In the several days since the fire, Constance had been to the ruins a dozen times, accompanied by Ramsdell on each occasion. The stables and adjacent living quarters had been spared entirely, which meant that all the horses were being cared for as well as the gardens. Even Cook made the trek from the Priory to Lady Brook each day, along with the undermaids, to tend her extensive kitchen garden, which suffered some scorching during the blaze but which was still replete with bushels of ripening vegetables and fruits.
Presently, a delightful evening breeze wafted through the open windows of the gold and crimson chamber and billowed the muslin under-drapes so that the westerly wall looked like a sailing ship in full mast. Many candles blew out as a result of the breeze, which sent two servants running to find glass chimneys and oil lamps as well as rags to wipe up dripping pools of wax.
To the soft scurrying of the servants, Augusta and Charles sang a duet, a popular ballad entitled “The Mansion of Peace.”
And so the Priory was, mostly, a quite peaceful place except for the rather incessant brangling between Sir Jaspar and Marianne. Even now, seated as Constance was next to her sister and Sir Jaspar, she could hear their whispers.
“You are spoiled by being so pretty,” he was saying to her in hushed accents. “You argue only because you are used to having every beau sitting in your pocket, contriving ridiculous sonnets in your honor and making sheep’s eyes at you until dawn. You are mad because I will not follow suit.”
“How ridiculously obtuse you are,” Marianne snapped in a whisper. “And my beaus do not sit in my pocket and they do not contrive ridiculous Sonnets—”
“You forget Mr. Hampton’s, ‘Her Eyes Are Like Heavenly Orbs.’ ”
Marianne grunted her displeasure. “He is a budding poet and cannot possibly be grouped with the remainder of my . . . my gentlemen friends.”
“Oh, now you will not even call them beaus?”
“How can I when you have given the word such a tawdry meaning in our conversations. We might as well be speaking of turkeys as beaus.”
Sir Jaspar nearly burst out laughing as Charles and Augusta reached the beautiful climax of the song. “How apt,” he murmured in choked accents. “For they are all turkeys, if you must know.”
“Hush,” Marianne retorted angrily.
“I shan’t.”
“You are such a brute.”
And so it went. Constance would have adjured her sister to attend to Augusta’s performance, but she was far too intrigued by the typical exchange, What would the end of this badinage be, she wondered, for she had never seen Marianne so at sixes and sevens before.
The ballad ended and Ramsdell crossed the room from his mother’s side to beg her to take a turn about the gardens with him. She did not in the least demur and before long found herself alone with her betrothed.
“You will love Aston,” he murmured, taking her fully in both arms. He still wore his sling for the most part but had recently left off the cumbersome article at such moments he deemed absolutely necessary—as now. “But you mustn’t permit my servants to dote on our children as they have on Charles.”
She slid her arms about his neck. “If they become far too incorrigible—your servants, not our children—we can always bring them back to Lady Brook for an extended holiday.”
“What? You want to bring my servants to Lady Brook?”
“No, stupid,” she murmured fondly. “Our children.”
“Our children will love Lady Brook and we shall tell them the story of my accident every night—”
“Until they are so bored of hearing it, they will groan and grumble at the very sound of the words, ‘Did I ever tell you how I met your mama?’ ”
“Oh, now,” he breathed deeply, “I do so like the sound of that and I don’t give a fig if they grumble or not. Fate brought us together in the most marvelous manner, and I would wish such a chance encounter for each of them.”
“I too,” she whispered.
His lips found hers in a deep kiss that went on forever. A breeze teased the skirts of her silk gown and cooled her ankles. The smell of freshly cut hay was in the air, and the summer was on the wane once more.
He released her only when Marianne’s voice cut through the warm mistiness of his embrace. “You say the most absurd things, Sir Jaspar, and I am all out of patience with you,” she said. “And I haven’t the faintest notion why I let you talk me into coming outside with you.”
“Don’t you?” he murmured provocatively.
The pair stood on the walk at the bottom of the terrace steps, hidden from view from the drawing room where Evan and Katherine, Augusta and Charles, and Sir Henry and Celeste could be seen going down a country dance. The sound of the pianoforte, and Mrs. Spencer’s lively playing style, could be heard in the distance.
Sir Jaspar continued. “Because you are sick to death of the beetle-witted halflings who trail after you at every ball, soiree, and assembly.” He then took her roughly in his arms, much to Constance’s shock, and kissed her soundly.
“Good God,” Ramsdell breathed. He then spoke facetiously, “Ought I to do something? Defend her honor? Demand satisfaction? What is the procedure in such a case?”
“Hush,” Constance responded, repressing a laugh. She then watched as Marianne drew back, a look of stunned surprise on her face. She promptly slapped Sir Jaspar lightly across the face. The nabob, however, did not seem in the least daunted and merely kissed her again, this time with his arms wrapped so fully about her that even Constance was slightly scandalized by it. Since she was reminded, however, of the first kiss she had shared with Ramsdell, in the center of the yew maze, she found herself entirely unwilling to interrupt the wholly inappropriate embrace.
The kiss finally ended, but not without Marianne’s arms snaking about Sir Jaspar’s neck. When he drew back, she blinked several times as one who had been mesmerized, then slowly disengaged her arms from about his neck. She blinked a little more while he seemed unsure of what to do next.
When Marianne finally came to her senses, however, she gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth. “What a beast you are. Oooh, I shall never, never speak to you again as long as I live.”
His throaty chuckles followed her as she brushed past him and immediately ascended the terrace steps. He was not long in following, and once again the night air was quiet and serene.
“What do you make of that?” Ramsdell queried, brushing his lips against her cheek.
She smiled and leaned into him. “The birth pangs of love, I expect.”
“I wanted to kiss you the first moment I awoke from my illness and saw you lying in that most awkward position in my bedchamber.”
“I was not long in following suit,” she confessed.
“And you said nothing to me?” he queried teasingly.
“Don’t be such a goosecap,” she said, feathering his hair lightly with the tips of her gloved fingers. “I could no more have said something of that nature to you than I could have tied my garter in public, as very well you know.”
“Certainly not,” he murmured in response. “Kiss me again, Constance, that I might know I’m not dreaming, for I do love you to the point of madness and can hardly wait to make you my wife.”
Constance obliged him, not once but several more times until Katherine sought them out and begged them to come back to the drawing room. “For Marianne and Jaspar are quarreli
ng again and she refuses to dance.”
Ramsdell returned his arm to his sling and offered his right arm to Constance.
Another breeze whipped at her skirts, swirling about her shoulders and making a promise of the future. She glanced up at Ramsdell and thought how odd that what had begun as a simple country flirtation had become a betrothal and would soon be a marriage.
“I love you, Hugo,” she murmured.
He caught up her fingers to his lips and kissed them in response. “And I you, my darling Constance.”
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About the Author
As of October 1, 2013, and with the publication of A COUNTRY FLIRTATION, Valerie King has published fifty Regency works. In 2005, Romantic Times gave her a Career Achievement award in Regency Romance. Currently, she’s bringing her extensive sweet Regency backlist to the public as well as working on Regency Historicals and Sweet Regency Novellas for future publication. As Caris Roane, she writes paranormal romance for St. Martin’s Press, though of a considerably more adult nature than her Regency romance work, and is also self-publishing the continuing stories of her Guardians of Ascension series.
To learn more about Valerie King, and to sign up for her newsletter, go to: http://www.valerieking-romance.com/
To learn more about Caris Roane, and to sign up for her newsletter, go to: http://www.carisroane.com/
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Coming Fall of 2013: Garden of Dreams
Chapter One
Hampshire, England, 1817
Lucy Stiles made her way through mounds of overgrown shrubbery, returning to Aldershaw’s maze by her original path. If there was a more direct route to the house, she could not find it. So once again, she passed by the shaggy home orchard before plowing through dense undergrowth to finally reach what was now an unrecognizable maze in the form of a tangle of yew shrubs.
She had just stepped into a clearing, which used to be the edge of a vast lawn, when she collided with the master of Aldershaw himself.
“Robert!” she cried. How quickly her cheeks grew warm.
“Lucy?” He stepped back. “I do beg your pardon.”
Did she see a look of welcome relief in his eyes?
“Hallo, Robert.” Had it really been three years? How different he seemed, yet wholly the same. How different she felt. “How do you go on?”
“Tolerably well, thank you.”
A sudden silence rose up between them. She wanted to speak but all she could think of at the moment was that he was as handsome as ever, more so if that were even possible.
He doffed his hat and in doing so a strand of wavy black hair touched his forehead. She knew the most ridiculous impulse to lift it gently back in place. Instead, she clasped her hands in front of her.
Unsettled by the familiar if ridiculous tendre she had always felt for him, and afraid the gap would become uncomfortable, she spoke hurriedly, “I know that I should have sought you out at once upon my arrival, but no one was about and I chanced upon your head gardener, Mr. Quarley. He insisted upon giving me a tour of the succession houses, which I must say were the only part of the grounds, save for the front drive, I found in tolerable order. I have been with him just now for this past half hour and more. Robert, the tales he told me of Aldershaw . . . I am still in a state of shock.”
He smiled faintly, settling his hat back on his head. “Quarley always did favor you, but do you mean to tell me he took you through this terrible tangle of vines and shrubs?”
She smiled and nodded. “I was not in the least afraid. Besides, he wished to show me some improvements he hopes to make in your gardens, once he is given permission, of course.”
What would Robert say to that? she wondered.
He sighed. “I see he has been attempting to garner your support. I am well aware that he is grown frustrated that the acreage closest to the manor remains in this wretched state. However, I fear I cannot concern myself with his wishes at this point.” His gaze drifted over her gown. “I trust in all this rambling about you have not snagged or torn your skirts?”
“I do not think so,” she said, glancing down at the hem of her gown. Lifting her gaze to his face, she looked into his brown eyes and felt several butterflies flit suddenly about her stomach. How unfortunate that he was so very handsome and that, except for the anxious lines at the corner of his eyes, she thought he had never looked better. He was taller than most men and in her opinion had the perfect blend of lean athleticism and strength in his figure. His shoulders were broad, tapering to a narrow waist, and his legs were quite well turned. Whether in riding gear or formal black attire, he struck a commanding presence when he crossed any threshold, or appeared suddenly as he had just now, in a garden…
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I hope you enjoyed this brief excerpt from GARDEN OF DREAMS, which releases in the fall of 2013. To learn more about my work as Valerie King, and to sign up for my newsletter, go to http://www.valerieking-romance.com/
You can also find me at:
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All best,
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