Raves for the Jaded Gentleman Novels
Ecstasy Wears Emeralds
“Sensuality fills the pages.”
—Publishers Weekly
Seduction Wears Sapphires
“An amazing read. I enjoyed it immensely … Ashe and Caroline are wonderful characters that made me fall in love with them from the beginning of the story.”
—Night Owl Reviews
“A fine book, well crafted, well researched, and an entertaining romantic novel … Historical romance fans will be delighted, I have no doubt.”
—The Book Binge
“What a refreshing new take on two people who from first sight are determined to detest each other … I was immediately engrossed with the fiery, witty dialogue and the curiosity of how this couple, who loathed each other upon their meeting, would come full circle to a beautifully shared love in the end.”
—Fiction Vixen
Revenge Wears Rubies
“Sensuality fairly steams from Bernard’s writing. This luscious tale will enthrall you. Enjoy!”
—Sabrina Jeffries, New York Times bestselling author
“If you’re a fan of spicy hot romances mixed with a bit of intrigue and set in Victorian London, don’t miss this one!”
—The Romance Dish
“Galen’s journey from emotional cripple to ability to love is a captivating, erotic romance.”
—Fresh Fiction
More praise for the “grand mistress of sensual, scorching romance”*
“Sinfully sexy … Wickedly witty, sublimely sensual … Renee Bernard dazzles readers … Clever, sensual, and superb.”
—Booklist
“Scorcher! Bernard debuts with an erotic romance that delivers not only a high degree of sensuality but a strong plotline and a cast of memorable characters. She’s sure to find a place alongside Robin Schone, Pam Rosenthal, and Thea Devine.”
—*RT Book Reviews
“Very hot romance. Readers who enjoy an excellent, sizzling Victorian story are going to thoroughly enjoy this one.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Shiverlicious! A captivating plot, charismatic characters, and sexy, tingle-worthy romance … Fantastic!”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“Crowd-pleasing.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[This] steamy historical romance is [a] great debut for this new author … Filled with steamy and erotic scenes … The plot is solid and the ending holds many surprises … Tantalizing.”
—Fresh Fiction
Berkley Sensation Titles by Renee Bernard
REVENGE WEARS RUBIES
SEDUCTION WEARS SAPPHIRES
ECSTASY WEARS EMERALDS
PASSION WEARS PEARLS
Passion
Wears Pearls
RENEE BERNARD
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PASSION WEARS PEARLS
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley mass-market edition / March 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Renee Bernard.
Excerpt from Obsession Wears Opals by Renee Bernard copyright © 2012 by Renee Bernard.
Cover design by George Long. Cover illustration by Alan Ayers. Cover hand lettering by Ron Zinn.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-57703-5
BERKLEY SENSATION®
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
To Holly. There’s never been a moment when I didn’t look up to you in complete awe. As a sister, a mother and a “Happy,” a teacher and a scholar, and as the voice of calm in any storm, you’re one of those women who always amaze others without any effort at all. I know you don’t like even a hint of mush, and maybe it’s the hedgehog in you that makes us like you all the more. I love you.
To Heidi. What a heart you have! I can’t even describe how much I admire you for your beauty and your humor. You make everything look so graceful; being a mom and being there for everyone around you. Martha Stewart would cry if she could see the beautiful house you keep … but only because she could never match the sweet spirit that you infuse in everything around you. I love you.
To Geoffrey and my girls. Let’s stop time. Just for a while. Until I can catch my breath and get used to being this happy.
And finally, to Leslie Esdaile Banks, my Fairy Godmother. I miss you, your hugs, and your laugh. Heaven can’t be beautiful enough for a soul like yours … but with your arrival, I’m sure it’s been vastly improved.
Acknowledgments
I’m going to try to thank a new cast of people so that anyone paying attention to these doesn’t get too bored hearing all over again about my wonderful editor, Kate Seaver, or my friend the media powerhouse, Sheila English, or my friends behind the scenes who made this book possible: Lisa Richardson, Sean Conley-Whiting, and Lia Boxwell. Or even yet another reprise to the ER staff at Marshall Hospital. (Has anyone done a study to make sure that children under the age of six aren’t crazy? Because mine will do anything it takes to give me a heart attack—apparently for amusement. And for those stuffed bears they give out.)
But this time, I want to also thank my new agent, Eric Ruben, who is phenomenally brilliant and very funny. And on those days when all you want to do is cry an
d throw in the towel, it’s nice to have someone with a great sense of humor come to your rescue (or at least offer to buy you a drink).
I want to thank Anne Elizabeth for becoming one of those amazing friends that you’re sure you’ve never been good enough to deserve but you keep your fingers crossed that there will be enough opportunities to earn anyway. When I grow up, I want to be cool enough to hang out with Anne.
I want to thank Samantha Stoddard for being Samantha Stoddard. Sam was like a touchstone and while she pretended to need my help and advice, I swear I got more out of her internship than she did. My attempt at mentorship was probably laughable, but it was a joy just to be in her presence.
It’s been a year of extremes, highs and lows. The low point was the loss of a dear friend, L.A. Banks, in August of 2011. It’s not an original complaint but I’ll waste my breath saying it. I hate cancer. I hate it. And a day hasn’t passed when I haven’t missed her or made an impossible wish about reversing fate. The worst of it is, I suspect, this will never change. The best of it is, every day is about being a better person to try to live up to the legacy she left behind. She’s inspired me to try harder—at everything.
The high points were family weddings and quiet parenting milestones that made sure I was reminded of how precious every day can be. It’s crazy to say that Fiona losing a tooth or Morgan touching the ocean made all the stress and long hours worthwhile, but there you have it. Life went on.
And again, just in case anyone is tracking these from book to book, you know I can’t leave her out. My mother is still my biggest fan and strongest supporter. Geography makes no difference. I know she’s right behind me and wherever this path takes me, my mother will be the first one to cheer me on.
I have to also mention the wonderful readers and booksellers in Australia who have been especially kind with their e-mails and Facebook friending (if that’s a verb!). I’m saving pennies for the trip I imagine myself taking to the Far East and Australia. It’s silly, I realize, but a woman must have dreams in these difficult times and mine is to see some of my favorite booksellers down under and “pop in” on a romance reading group or two. Australian Romance Readers Association conference in Brisbane in 2013, here I come!
To all my readers, wherever you are, I can’t thank you enough. You’re the reason I write. And yes, I’m writing faster.
Day and night I guarded the pearl of my soul.
Now in this ocean of pearling currents,
I’ve lost track of which was mine.
—RUMI
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Chapter
1
London
January 1860
“Pinch your cheeks, foolish girl! You look like you’re about to faint!” Madame Claremont snapped open the shop window’s drapes with a crisp efficiency that betrayed her terrible temper. “We’ve few enough appointments today without you scaring my customers into thinking I employ sickly girls!”
Eleanor Beckett dutifully pinched her cheeks and then quickly moved to help rearrange the displays for the day. Madame Claremont’s dress shop was perched on the edge of Mayfair in London, and while it was fashionable enough to keep a few wealthy clients on the books, Madame Claremont was forever bemoaning the terrors of living on the brink of financial ruin. Times were difficult for shopkeepers, especially during the winter months when most of the elite London residents had returned to their country homes to escape the soot and disease of the city.
All four shop girls bustled around the room to begin preparing for their first appointments, and Eleanor kept her gaze lowered from her employer’s face as she set out a new embroidered woolen cape. She had only earned her position six months before, and lived in fear of her imminent dismissal. But meager wages and endless hours over sewing tables were far more appealing than the icy-cold streets of London.
Madame Claremont sniffed her disapproval as she stood behind Eleanor. “And where is the red velvet evening dress? I wanted to have it out so that Mrs. Carlisle could see it when she comes in! That woman has a penchant for red and won’t blink at any price I set!”
“It isn’t ready, madame,” Eleanor said softly, turning to face the consequences.
“Why ever not?”
“You told me to set it aside and finish Mrs. Belle’s traveling dress. I stayed up all night to complete the hem work. She’s picking it up this afternoon and I was sure you’d be pleased.”
Except that Madame Claremont, who was really Mrs. Emmaline Smith of Cheapside, didn’t look pleased at all. “I never told you to abandon that velvet dress! And don’t you stand there like a superior little snit and think to inform me that I didn’t expect you to manage your hours and energies and finish all your work in good time! I pay you honest wages for an honest effort. Not to play the clairvoyant and pretend to know my business!”
“Yes, madame.” Eleanor took a steadying breath, hating the choking quiet that came over the shop as the other girls silently watched to see if she’d survive the morning’s storms. “Perhaps, I could work on it in between appointments until Mrs. Carlisle arrives later? It is far enough along to make a good impression and I can work on the finishing to—”
“You’ll finish it by the time she comes through that doorway, or by God, you’ll buy that dress yourself in lost wages!”
“Madame!” Eleanor gasped. “I can’t possibly afford the—”
The slap came hard across her cheek, effectively ending Eleanor’s protest. Madame Claremont’s color improved as she stepped back as calmly as if she’d swatted a fly. “If you finish the dress, then Mrs. Carlisle will be the one to pay for it. And then you and I will put this unpleasant matter behind us. You will learn to deliver things to me when I ask, and I won’t have to remind you of the consequences of your defiant attitude. Am I understood?”
It took all of her self-discipline not to reach up to touch the stinging ache on her cheek. Slowly, she nodded, miserable fury stinging like nettles inside her chest to match her injuries. How am I here? Fallen so far that a woman like this has power over me and I’m going to nod and swallow injustice like a bitter tonic and tell myself how lucky I am not to be out in the cold.
Oh, God.
“Understood, madame.” She curtsied and turned to retreat back to the fabric room, fighting fury and humiliation. She was so hungry her hands were shaking, and worse, there’d be no remedy for a few hours yet. If she was pale, it had everything to do with the long weeks of sleepless nights and sparse meals that Mrs. Smith’s generosity afforded her.
A tiny room was let to her by Madame Claremont’s sister, and the rent deducted weekly from her pay. To make her finances even more tenuous, she’d discovered that Madame Claremont was quick to take out what she called “penalties” for infractions, real or perceived, in the shop.
I won’t cry. I won’t let her make me cry. I am a woman grown, and twenty-three is too old to allow it. The only consolation that kept her going was that the work was deemed respectable for a woman in her position. And respectability was the one thing she’d sworn she would never relinquish. No matter how dire her situation had become.
She closed her eyes and leaned for a moment ag
ainst the shelves of fabric, determined to banish her emotions, ignore the complaints of her body and the terror of failure. What would Father have said? Something about how a true lady never complains but wins her way through gentle resolve … or other words a bit more lofty he’d memorized from a book on social graces.
She opened her eyes and squared her shoulders. Every second lost to self-pity was not going to be recovered. Eleanor accepted that the red velvet dress was simply the dragon she would have to slay to prove to her employer that she could hold her own. Mrs. Carlisle’s appointment was at five fifteen so the impossible would just have to be managed. And in the meantime, there was dear Mrs. Lawson coming with her eldest daughter for a wedding consultation at ten.
She began to wrestle with some of the rolls of fabric, trying to pull the samples she thought might please her first customer.
“She’s all thorns and thistles today, ain’t she?” Maggie whispered as she came up to get her own fabrics and offer her coworker a bit of sympathy. Maggie was all of seventeen but had the grounded wisdom of a woman several times her years. “Don’t mind her.”
“I can’t seem to do anything right!”
“ ’Course not! She’s been off you from the start and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“She’ll dismiss me, then, for certain!”
“Never! She’s so thrilled to have yer proper little ways mincing about the customers and making her look all high and mighty! Why, already her business has improved, and I’m not guessin’ it’s her insistence that horsehair petticoats will never go out of fashion!”
Eleanor put her hand to her lips to keep from laughing. Maggie was the only one of the other girls who’d warmed a bit to Eleanor’s presence and demonstrated more than mere civility. From generally lower-middle-class families, the girls in the shop had eyed her with wary suspicion when she’d come to Madame Claremont’s doorstep clutching her references. It was as if they had sensed that Eleanor was not necessarily one of their own. They’d accused her of taking on airs and holding herself above them with her reserved habits and precise manners. “You mustn’t say such things, Margaret.”
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