“Backing out already? No! Here I stay—”
“Leonie, please. I do not wish to back out. If you had been a little more patient, I would have asked you in due form as soon as the Season was over. If you are in a hurry, I will marry you as soon—as soon as I am sure my head will not fly off. I merely do not wish to attend my wedding with the great-grandfather of all hangovers.”
“Why not? It is customary in England, I understand, for men to have a party with all their male friends and lots of wine and brandy. And then they marry anyway. No, I do not trust you. I don’t understand why you have changed your mind so suddenly after avoiding me as if I had the plague for six months.”
In spite of two little black devils, each engaged in hammering a long spike into one of his temples, Roger found his mind clear. “It is because I have suddenly discovered that you are mentally incompetent and that my father and stepmother are not capable of controlling you,” Roger replied, taking the candle from her hand and putting it on the floor. Then he kissed her long and thoroughly. “Yes,” he went on, “you are a sad case if you prefer me to all your other suitors. However, I promised your father when he was dying that I would take care of you, and I intend to devote the rest of my life to that sacred promise, since you are incapable of caring for yourself.”
The kiss had stifled Leonie’s initial gasp of outrage, and the rest of what Roger said was perfectly satisfactory. She understood that he was more serious than he himself realized. He did not really think she was insane, not that, but he had been shocked by her behavior. There had been a certain sharpness in his voice when he said his father and stepmother could not control her. He felt they had allowed her twice to come to the brink of ruining herself, and his sense of responsibility had taken firm hold and vanquished his silly qualms about the differences in their ages and fortunes.
How lovely! Leonie smiled mistily. A whole lifetime of shocking and enraging Roger—just a little. He did make love so superlatively when he was angry and forgot to be careful. And a triple benefit each time—the fun of whatever scrape she devised, the joy of “making up“ and the assurance that the mischief would spur her responsibility-minded husband to a deeper interest in her with each escapade.
About the Author
Roberta Gellis was driven to start writing her own books some forty years ago by the infuriating inaccuracies of the historical fiction she read. Since then she has worked in varied genres—romance, mystery, and fantasy—but always, even in the fantasies, keeping the historical events as near to what actually happened as possible. The dedication to historical times settings is not only a matter of intellectual interest, it is also because she is so out-of-date herself that accuracy in a contemporary novel would be impossible.
In the forty-some years she has been writing, Gellis has produced more than twenty-five straight historical romances. These have been the recipients of many awards, including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from the West Coast Review of Books, the Golden Certificate from Affaire de Coeur, The Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period (several times) and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. Last but not least, Gellis was honored with the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The author welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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The English Heiress (Heiress, Book One) Page 44
