by Sarah Hegger
“Oh, aye, aye.” Sir Arthur waved his hand. “Marry the girl.”
Girl? Marry the girl? As if this matter was already decided.
Gregory nodded to the Abbot. “You may proceed.”
“There is the matter of the new decree, my son.” The Abbot raised his brows and pursed his lip.
“Indeed.” Gregory frowned. “I am going to marry this woman, any objections?”
A chorus of nays greeted this. A lone, “aye” floated over from the diminutive figure of Ivy.
The Abbot’s mouth dropped open as he swung to gape at her. “What is your objection, my child?”
Beside Ivy, Tom turned to glare down at her. “Aye, what is your objection?”
“He has forgotten the most important part.” Ivy pointed at Gregory.
“What part is that?” Tom folded his arms over his chest.
“He has not said he loves her and without her, his life is incomplete. A girl needs to hear these things.” Ivy slid Tom a sidelong glance.
With a wry smile, Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Does she now?”
“She most certainly does.” Ivy smiled softly at Faye.
“Indeed she does.” The heat in Gregory’s gaze melted her insides. Dark eyes full, his love for her was clear to read. She wanted to leap and gambol about the hall, the happiness in her burst so strong.
The Abbot thrust his chin at Gregory. “Get on with it, then.”
“I love you.” Gregory wrapped his fingers around her nape and tugged her forward until his forehead rested against hers. “I will not live without you. Marry me.”
Not quite a question, but she didn’t mind. “Aye.”
“Now are we going to get to the wedding,” Roger said.
“I love a good wedding.” William grinned.
Roger punched his shoulder. “Good, because yours is next.”
* * * *
Two weeks as a widow and married again. Faye giggled at the bridal chamber Beatrice had created with scattered flowers across the silken bed coverings and woven through the hangings. A meal rested on the chest beneath the casement: sweetmeats, cakes, honey and wine. Her sister had the heart of a true romantic.
Faye poured a goblet of wine. A bathing tub rested before the hearth, full of steaming water and wafting the scent of lavender throughout the chamber. Smiling, she loosened the ties on her plain, dun-colored bliaut. She had married still wearing her apron and her kerchief. She dropped the bliaut to the floor. Her oldest, most threadbare chainse went the way of the bliaut.
For her first wedding, she had worn costly velvet, adorned with a sapphire girdle. That wedding had been jammed full of all the pomp and ceremony of two great houses uniting. She pushed the memory aside. In this chamber tonight, only the future held sway. She preferred this kind of wedding, and the future that now stretched before her.
Carrying her wine to the tub, she positioned a stool to place the goblet beside her as she bathed. Her father and brothers kept Gregory in the hall. Plying him with drink and making a great game of keeping him from their chamber. He would be some time getting rid of them. She slid into the hot water and lay her head back.
“Thank you.” She whispered her prayer to the silent room. The gratitude swelled in her chest and brought tears with it. Her joy was eight years in the making and now that it was here, it humbled her.
“I am almost certain a crying bride is not a good omen.”
Faye jumped and swung her head. Gregory stood beside the tub. The man walked like a cat. She gathered her scattered wits. Sudden nerves fluttered in her belly, which was ridiculous. “You escaped my family?”
“I have a pressing need.” He crouched beside her and took a sip of her wine.
“And what was that?” The way he looked at her heated her skin even more than the water.
“We have wasted too much time already, my Lady Faye.” He stroked her damp cheek. “Are you going to be in there much longer?”
Faye rose to her feet. “Nay.”
Gregory’s gaze swept a long, slow study of her nakedness. Faye warmed under his regard.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “I should sweep you into my arms and carry you to our bed but—”
“You have a hole in your back.” Faye stepped from the tub.
He stood. “Ivy has cautioned me.”
“Ivy has grown positively garrulous.” Faye indulged her need to touch and placed her palms to his chest. Warm, strong man flexed beneath her touch. “You appear to be wearing too much clothing.”
“You could be right.” He reached for the bottom of his tunic and tugged. A wince crossed his face.
“Let me.” Faye pushed his hands away, took the bottom of his tunic and raised it inch by careful inch. A trim waist widened into his chest and further to the straight line of his shoulders. Faye eased the tunic from him. Dear Lord, what a beautiful man. She traced the swell of muscle across his chest with her fingers and dipped lower. His belly contracted at her touch and intriguing ridges and dips formed on the flat plane. Hers, all hers. Faye spread her hands across his smooth skin. A lifetime of being able to explore him spread before like a never-ending feast. She untied his belt and let it drop to the floor.
“Should I be doing something?” He groaned as she slid his chausses from his slim hips.
“You are doing exactly what I want you to.”
His shaft stood stiff and engorged from the dark patch of hair between his thighs. She curled her fingers around him. An answering rush of wet heat flooded the apex of her thighs.
His breath snagged as she stroked. His dark head dropped forward to his chest to watch her touch him. “Slowly.” He groaned through his clenched jaw. “We need to go slowly.”
Faye laughed. “Slowly?” She did not think so, not with the way her nipples ached for his touch and her woman’s place throbbed with need. She led him to the fanciful bower created about their bed. “Come.”
Faye lay back, arching her back like a wanton beneath his dark, heated gaze. He followed her down, his skin pressed to hers along her entire length. Rising to his elbow, he smoothed her hair from her face.
“Your back?” Carefully she wrapped her arms about his waist, pressing his shaft closer to the join of her thighs. This was where she needed him the most.
“My back is not what aches now.” He dipped his head to plant hot kisses along the column on her neck.
Faye tugged his hair to raise his head. Impatient for his kiss, she fastened her mouth on his. The taste of him swept through her. She could never grow tired of this, not if they both lived to be old and decrepit. Taste and touch embedded into the very deepest part of her. Another time, they could go slowly and learn each other limb for limb. Now, she needed him inside of her. Faye opened her legs and wrapped them about his hips. “Love me.”
Gregory settled his weight over her. His gaze held hers as slid into her. The rightness of it made her cry out. This was how they both belonged, from this day forward.
“I love you,” he said. “And I cannot fathom what made me believe I should be monk.”
It came from deep within her, an uprising of the sheer beauty of the moment and a sound of total abandonment that fit like the final thread in their tapestry.
And Faye laughed.
Epilogue
Faye sighed at Simon’s petulant expression.
“I will not.” The eight-year-old, Earl of Calder glared at the serf before him. “Get away from me. How dare you bother me with this.”
Nay, indeed. Her son would not speak to anybody in that manner. Simon needed taking in hand. Since they had returned to Calder, Simon, the new Earl and Gregory his guardian, her son had moments of sheer willfulness.
The serf cowered before Simon, too accustomed to cowering before a cruel master. “Aye, my lord.”
“Enough.” Gregory rose and nodded to the serf. “Thank you, I will deal with this.”
“Simon is in trouble.” Art
hur sang out happily. Faye feared her youngest had the right of it. Well-deserved trouble at that. Gregory wore his sternest expression as he dismissed the servants from the hall.
“I do not want to bless the harvest.” Simon’s expression chilled Faye slightly. There were moments when he resembled his sire too much for her peace of mind. Nay, Simon and Calder might look the same but they were cut from different cloth.
“It is important to them.” Gregory motioned Simon to stand. “You are lord here now and that brings many advantages, but also responsibilities.”
Simon glanced around them and sighed. Gregory’s point was well made.
Faye had rid the keep of any sign of Calder. Handsome carvings adorned the walls and complimented the red stone. She had commissioned a large window of stained glass that filled the space with jewel-bright light. Barely a week ago, the stone masons had finished installing it. It depicted a bearded, gray-haired man standing in the forest, a stag at his back, a wolf at his feet and a badger beside him. The earthy scent of sage freshened the rushes.
Simon dropped his head. “But they make me stand for hours and it is hot.”
“They labor all year to bring the fruits to your table.” Gregory put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “They ask only that you acknowledge their effort.”
Simon grumbled beneath his breath and nodded.
“The worth of a man,” Gregory said, “is not in how he treats his equals, but in how he treats those who have no choice but to serve him.”
Simon nodded. Faye’s heart went out to him. It was not always easy to be eight and have the mantle of earl resting on your young shoulders. People bowed and scraped wherever he went. It was up to her and Gregory to guide Simon into his role.
“I will bless the harvest,” Simon said.
“And?”
“And beg Black Peter’s pardon.”
“Good.” Gregory thumped him on the shoulder. “You make a fine earl.”
Simon peered up at Gregory. “Can we go swimming first?”
“Aye, swimming.” Arthur bounced to his feet.
“Only if my Lady Faye will join us.” Gregory smiled at her. It never failed to thrill her. Married over a year and he could reduce her to pudding with just one smile.
“Please, Mama.” Simon turned his sorrowful gaze on her. The artful little dissembler.
“A lady does not cavort in woodland pools.” Faye sniffed repressively.
Arthur giggled.
Faye leapt to her feet. “Let us be off!”
“And afterward,” Gregory said from behind her. “Simon can join the men at the harvest.”
“You mean work with them?”
“Indeed.” Faye tugged Arthur with her. “It is the least you can do after you spoke that way to Peter.”
“Gregory.” Simon rolled his eyes. “A lord does not work alongside a serf.
Gregory took her hand and led them out into the bailey. “He does today.”
Meet the Author
Born British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A hot Canadian engineer, whose marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met. Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese, even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.
Mimicking her globe trotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations, settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a wife and mother.
She currently lives in Draper, Utah, with her teenage daughters, two Golden Retrievers and aforementioned husband. Part footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s restless heart is most content when reading or writing books.
Read on for a sample of Sarah Hegger’s Contemporary Romance
NOBODY’S ANGEL
In this evocative new series from author Sarah Hegger, a woman returns home after a long absence—and wonders if two wrongs really can make a right…
Nine years ago Lucy Flint ran away to Seattle, taking her friend’s boyfriend and leaving her high school sweetheart without a word of explanation. Now she’s back in Willow Park, Illinois, to help care for her ailing father and it’s no surprise that her ex, Dr. Richard Hunter, is still angry.
Still, she’s a different Lucy now. Sober, wiser, ready to make amends to the long—make that very long—list of those she mistreated during her wild younger days. Falling for Richard all over again would mean wreaking havoc in both their lives and possibly squandering her opportunity for redemption. But here, in the place where everything went wrong, is the one person who always felt right, and a second chance that could be the best mistake she ever made…
On sale now from Kensington Publishing!
Learn more about Sarah Hegger at http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/30580
Chapter 1
Come fly away to a sunnier day
The islands are calling your name
Feel the caress of warm, tropical breezes—
“Sadistic shits.” Lucy snapped off the radio and watched the wiper blades sweep the snow apathetically across the windshield, as if they sensed the sheer futility of the task. Her plane from Seattle had bodysurfed the crest of the rising storm into O’Hare barely an hour ago. Now the weather settled in enthusiastically. Snowflakes hit her windshield in drunken clumps and gummed up behind the wiper blades.
“Welcome home, Lucy Flint.”
From across the street, a light went on in the house—a red-brick Edwardian that had long since drifted past shabby chic and into dilapidated. It was a shame. It was a beautiful old classic built square and solid out of wood and rufous brick, standing like a citadel against the hostile climate.
A shadow darted past the window as she watched. Lucy pictured her mother moving around in the golden glow from that second-floor light. Mom moved like a squirrel, quick and fearful, darting away from danger as fast as she could and busy, busy, always busy.
Lucy wasn’t holding her breath for the fatted calf. In that house, he would be waiting too, nursing his spite along with his nightly tipple of cheap drugstore wine—one and no more. Lucy made a snorting sound. She’d obviously not inherited that from her father.
The silhouette was framed briefly against the curtains of her old bedroom and Lucy sighed. Mom would be getting her room ready. Lucy would rather dispense with the frenzy of anxious preparation. It couldn’t be helped, however, when you were an only child.
She’d been away long enough to be shocked by the cold that felt as if it would eat your face off before it quit. Ah, yes, Chicago. Other cities had climates, but Chicago had weather— lots of it and all the time.
Suddenly she thought of an old joke. How cold is out there? Cold enough for hell to freeze over and the Cubs to win the pennant. Lucy let out a huge guffaw that was so much more than the tired old workhorse of a joke deserved. Yup, she was so losing it, and she hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet. As an augury, it pretty much sucked.
She stared through the snow at the waiting house and took a deep breath and then another. In her head, she chanted the Serenity Prayer. It was all she had against the angry mob of memories clustering around the wooden front porch and jeering at her. The prayer granted her a moment’s reprieve, so she said it again. The knot in her stomach unraveled some. She was here for a reason, and that reason was good and just. Lucy reached for her phone and a teeny bit more reinforcement.
“Hey, you.” Mads was waiting for her call and answered on the first ring. “Hey, yourself.”
“How was the flight?”
“Fine.” Lucy snickered. “Boy, are my arms tired.” It was her night for elementary school jokes.
>
“Ha ha ha.” A deep, resonant Madeline silence followed, filled, just like when she sang, with the richness of what you’d just experienced and the promise of more to come. “That bad, hmm?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a big old mess.” Lucy tried to crank some more heat out of the engine. The chill seeped through the metal and surrounded her in her small rental car. “And I haven’t even gotten out of the car yet.” The heater grudgingly agreed to a degree or two more. “I’m hoping to hide out here for most of the visit.”
“Luce.” Mads chuckled, hot chocolate over simmering coals. “You can’t sit there all night.”
“Maybe not all night,” Lucy muttered.
Across the street, the light in her old bedroom went out. Lucy pictured her mother scuttling across the hallway to the bathroom. Fresh towels—check, full roll of toilet tissue— check, basin and surround—check, and all the time that little refrain playing in Lynne’s head. My Lucy is coming home. My Lucy is coming home.
Nope. Your Lucy is cowering out in her car and wondering why the hell she ever thought she could pull this off. Mom had been to see her in the intervening years, first in New York and then Seattle, but this was Lucy’s first trip home in nine long and undeniably interesting years.
“Are you still there?” Mads called her attention back to the phone pressed against her ear.
“Yup.”
“Still hiding out?”
“Pretty much.”
“Get out the car, ya big yeller dog.”
“Na-ah. You can’t make me. You’re all the way over there. You can’t make me.”
Man, Lucy loved that laugh as Mads chuckled again. Years of drinking gin and singing blues in smoky bars honed vocal chords like that. “You have a point. But here’s what I can do.” An expectant pause and Lucy groaned in anticipation. “I can remind you that you want to be free to move on with your life. It’s time to do this, and you’re ready. You’ve done the work, Lucy.”
