Lord St. Claire's Angel

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “I wanted to come with you. I have my own wicked reasons.” He tugged her into a dim alcove off the hall and pulled her into his arms.

  “St. Claire! We might be seen!” She tried to resist, but the warmth of his arms around her and the feel of his lips on her forehead made her melt, as always, and she relaxed into his arms. How would she ever get used to having a man like St. Claire?

  “Oh, look,” he said huskily. “A kissing bough!” His finger pushed her chin up and tilted her head back, and his lips closed over hers.

  Warmth flooded her core and she sighed against his lips, responding eagerly when his darting tongue pressed the seam of her lips. She opened to him, shivering with desire as his arms tightened around her and his hands traveled over her back and up to the nape of her neck. His kisses trailed over her cheek and down to her throat, finding the pulse point at the base of her throat. She opened her eyes. “There’s no kissing bough here!” she cried, glancing around.

  He made a deep sound in his throat and continued his kissing and nibbling. She giggled as his lips tickled her earlobes. “I see kissing boughs everywhere,” he said, giving her one more big kiss on the lips.

  “St. Claire,” she sighed, clasping her arms around his neck. “I love you. You bring my world to life. Your wicked laugh and your energy and your joy: they fill me with life!”

  He laughed softly in the darkness. “What a wonderful, sweet thing to say, my love.”

  “It’s true. St. Claire?” Her voice was wistful and soft, a whisper in the hush of the night, with just the faint murmur of voices from the drawing room downstairs breaking the silence.

  “Yes, love?” he said. He bent his head and began again, his kisses trailing up her throat again to her chin, and one long-fingered hand stealing up to her breast to cup it lovingly.

  She gasped and covered his hand with her own, but did not pull away from him. She never could do that, not when the nearness of him was the very essence of the life force to her. “What do I bring to you?”

  “Mmmm?”

  He was doing indescribably delicious things to her body. Even through the fabric she could feel his hot breath over her breasts and the warm dampness of his kisses. Her nipples were tightening almost painfully into pearly nubs and he caressed them with practiced, seductive fingers. It made her dizzy with desire as she tried to clear the fog in her brain. There was something important she needed to know—now, what was it? Oh, yes. “St. Claire, I need to know. What do I bring to you? How do I make your life better? It’s important to me.”

  He sighed and straightened. “I think on our wedding night I shall have to teach you that some parts of love do not need the accompaniment of words.” He chuckled, though, and she could see his bright blue eyes glittering in the pale light from a branch of tapers on a small table in the hall. He looked down into her eyes and his expression grew serious. “I apologize, my love. I get carried away with wanting you and forget myself. And so I will answer your question, and then I have something to give you.”

  She rested her head against his chest, once again feeling the reassuring thump of his strong heart against her cheek.

  “What do you give me? More than I can enumerate in the brief moments we have right now. But I can tell you one thing, the most important. You have given me a life. For thirty-two years I have been walking and doing and playing and making love and functioning on the face of this earth with no conception that I was only half a man. When I found you, you made me whole, completed me, gave me purpose and meaning and . . . and life. Oh, my darling,” he whispered into her hair, his breath warm.

  He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, surrounding her in his love. “I was just a walking shell playing at being a human being until I gave you my heart and you breathed life into it. Once, in a dark church, I listened to an angel sing, and wondered what was my purpose on this earth. Now I know. I was put here to love you and take care of you and make a life with you.”

  A sharp, soaring gladness flooded Celestine, the kind that roared through her blood when she sang. What he said matched the feelings in her heart, and she knew that it was forever, this love of theirs.

  He pulled away from her and fished around in an inside pocket of his jacket. “This is my gift to you, for Christmas, but more importantly to show everyone that you are mine and you and I are going to be married. In no more than three weeks; please say you will only make me wait as long as it takes to read the banns.”

  Celestine felt a ring being pressed into her hand. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I . . . I . . .” Her voice choked off, but through her tears she muttered, “I cannot wear it; it will not fit over my . . . my finger.”

  “I know, my love,” he said, his voice gentle. “That is why it is on a gold chain. When the swelling goes down on your fingers, you can slip it on and use the chain for your locket. Until then, you will wear it around your neck, outside your dress, please, so everyone can see it. I want everyone to know that I caught myself a Christmas angel.”

  His lips met hers as he clasped it around her neck, and she wound her arms around him. Her St. Claire, more gentle and thoughtful than any man she had ever known. Papa would be proud. “Merry Christmas, St. Claire!” she murmured.

  • • •

  Emily and Grishelda van Hoffen moved quietly down the hallway toward their rooms, which were across the hall from each other. Both were arrested at the same moment by the sight of the two figures—or was it one?—in the alcove. In the dim light, they could just make out that it was Celestine and St. Claire, their arms wound around each other, oblivious to the rest of the world.

  “I do not understand it,” the younger woman murmured. “He is a pleasant enough young man, but she seems absolutely infatuated with him! And I thought she was such a sensible woman.”

  Emily watched the couple, knowing they were completely unaware that they were being observed. A pang of happiness and sadness pierced her heart. The happiness was for her beloved niece, Celestine, and the marital bliss that was sure to follow such a promising beginning. The sadness was for herself. So had her marriage begun, and yet look how it had ended! And she was denied finding love again by the fact that her marriage was still very much a legal entity, and she could not bring herself to break the vows she had made fifteen years before.

  She glanced over at the pale young woman beside her. Lady Grishelda’s prim lips were pursed in a disapproving frown. The girl had so much to learn about life. “My dear, no one understands love until you are in it. And even then . . . even then. It is a beautiful mystery, and that is the way God intended it, I think. I hope someday you will discover that kind of joy.” Emily smiled and urged her companion on, leaving alone the two still figures, two who were joined as one.

  Excerpt from The Debutante’s Dilemma

  Keep reading for an excerpt

  from the new Classic Regency Romance

  by Donna Lea Simpson,

  The Debutante’s Dilemma

  Pamela Neville is a free-spirited young beauty who has no intention of subjecting herself to the stifling restrictions of London society—until her grandmother lures her with an irresistible offer. The indomitable dowager promises to teach her everything she needs to know to elicit a proposal from Sir Colin Valens, the man Pamela has adored since childhood.

  Soon Pamela is feigning the same coy disinterest of the other women of the ton—and catching Colin’s eye in the process—but the green-eyed gamine can only be demure for so long. And each time she indulges her more wild, carefree side, she runs headlong into the startlingly handsome Lord Strongwycke, who seems to find her entrancing just for being herself. Suddenly Pamela finds herself with the vexing dilemma of being pursued by two different gentlemen, and in what seems like the span of a heartbeat both men offer for her hand.

  Now Pamela faces a choice between clinging to the dreams of a girl and a life that would allow her to live as the free spirit she longs to be.

  One

  “Pamela, you are n
ot going out! We have just arrived in London, and we are not yet au courant. You must see the modiste and the hairstylist and the milliner, and . . .”

  Pamela Neville shrugged, wishing desperately she could silence her mother’s nattering voice. She had thought she could evade her by sneaking down the stairs and out the front door of Haven House, their London home, but her mother, the dowager Lady Haven, was in the gloomy, windowless hall surveying the load of baggage and trunks and ordering the servants around in her most harrying tone.

  “Leave the girl alone, Lydia. No one will see her if she goes out with a maid for a walk.”

  Grand, as always, came to her rescue as she reentered the hall from her tiny ground-floor room. Not everyone’s grandmother would be so supportive, but Pamela’s mother and her grandmother saw eye to eye on nothing. Pamela flashed the elderly woman, who supported her still-upright figure on a cane, a grateful smile, and the woman dropped her a wink.

  “If she goes out looking like a fright, she will damage our stock as a family worth taking seriously!”

  And that, of course, was Rachel, her elegant, perfect, poisonous older sister. Pamela, still standing on the last step of the narrow staircase, gazed at her gloomily, absently rubbing the smooth wood of the newel post at the bottom of the banister. Rach used to be fun when they were children, but now, at twenty-three, she was that most deadly of things, a dedicated husband hunter. This was her Season, she was convinced of it, and she had prosed on and on ever since the decision to come to London had been made that they must make every moment count if they were going to catch decent husbands. Rachel’s two previous Seasons had been cut short by deaths in the family, but this one would see her triumph!

  Not that Pamela cared about any of that. She was only there because Grand had promised to help her learn how to attract the attention of their longtime family friend Sir Colin Varens. If only Colin wasn’t stuck on Rachel. However, Grand was convinced that his attention could be turned from Rachel to a more deserving object, namely, Pamela!

  Resigning herself to staying in, Pamela bounced over to her sister-in-law-to-be, Miss Jane Dresden, who was sighing over her trunks and valises, baggage that had been sent to London to await their arrival from her invalid mother’s home in Bath. “Do you need any help, Jane?”

  “It’s all right, Pammy,” Jane said affectionately, ruffling the younger girl’s curls. “This is all too familiar to me.” She sighed and handed her traveling pelisse to a waiting maid and stripped her gloves off. “I shall have to sort all this folderol out sooner or later, I suppose. My mother doesn’t have room in her home, now that she is married. I just didn’t think she would send it all at once.”

  Her tone was sad, and Pamela knew it was because Jane’s mother, recently married to a man Jane despised, had made it clear she did not expect to hear from her only child for some time, and didn’t intend to honor the marriage ceremony with her presence. She had all but severed the ties that bound them, now that her daughter was provided with a suitable husband-to-be.

  And as Pamela’s thoughts turned to that husband-to-be, her only brother, the viscount Lord Haven, bounded into the house from giving orders to the stable man and groom. He rubbed his hands together and, maintaining a deliberately cheery tone, said, “Isn’t this going to be wonderful, Jane?” He went to his fiancée and tenderly chucked her under the chin. “You and I can see the city at our leisure while the girls hunt for husbands.”

  Pamela looked from one to the other uneasily, noting the young woman’s stiff stance, though she was trying her best to look cheerful. This had not been Jane’s idea. She and Gerry, as Geraint Neville, Viscount Haven was called by those who loved him, were supposed to be using this time to build their tiny cottage up home, in Yorkshire—it was the wedding promise and gift he was giving to his wife-to-be—and preparing for their wedding.

  This trip to London so soon after their betrothal was all Lady Haven’s idea. She had accosted her son and upbraided him with his sad neglect of his sisters’ future. Now that he had a suitable fiancée, how could he ignore the welfare and future happiness of his beloved siblings? And the only place for ladies of their caliber to find mates was in London. During the Season. Which had just started. She would leave it up to his conscience as the head of their family and the guardian of his sisters.

  She was masterful at dispensing guilt, a talent she matched with an ability to bully people into doing what she wanted if guilt didn’t work. But with her son, guilt was so effective she seldom had to resort to other tactics. He had gone to Jane and told her his mother’s proposal. They would only have to stay in London as long as it took to see Rachel well-launched, he promised. And it was an opportunity for Jane to shop for bride clothes and any other purchases for their marriage. Though everyone in the household knew Jane’s opinion of London, the ton, and the artificial atmosphere of society in general, she had acquiesced.

  Pamela could see through Jane’s determined cheerfulness at this moment. The poor girl would rather be anywhere but here. Putting her arm through her sister-to-be’s, she whispered, “We’ll get through this and have a jolly time, you’ll see.”

  Jane gave her a quick hug and murmured, “You don’t like this any better than I do, so don’t try to cozen me, little sister.”

  Lady Haven and the dowager Lady Haven, affectionately known as Grand—it had become virtually a title over the years, for she was a very grand lady when she chose to be—bickered animatedly, Gerry tried to keep the peace, Rachel whined and Jane and Pamela just tried to get through it all. The servants, most of them hired from a distance by letter and a few of them poorly trained, milled about with little idea what each was supposed to be doing. The house itself was gloomy and damp, with few windows, cramped passages and narrow chimneys that made the fireplaces smoke relentlessly. The next few months were going to seem like forever, Pamela thought, watching her mother reduce a maidservant to tears.

  Forever.

  • • •

  It was only a week after their arrival, but the weather had dramatically improved. From as drizzly and chilly as April could sometimes be, it had turned to sunny and warm, and the trees had burgeoned, throwing off their shrouds to burst forth in tender green leaves. The tiny pocket garden in the square opposite Haven House glittered wetly with dew, tulips and daffodils poking their cheery heads through greenery to greet the morning sun.

  But Pamela’s mood, as she sat glaring out the window in her small bedroom early one morning while the household slept, had gone from hopeful to miserable after a week of poking and prodding and endless hours standing for the modiste and submitting to Monsieur Harold, the hairstylist. Her mother was never happy, especially with the dresses that Grand was demanding Pamela be provided with; not suitable for a girl in her first Season, said Lady Haven, and not for a girl in her first Season, Grand said, since it was, in truth, Pamela’s second Season.

  It did not need to be restated that her first Season had been an unmitigated disaster, with her penchant for the company of those to whom she should not even be speaking, her disastrous lack of any skill dancing, her new love of stable man’s cant, and her outrageous antics, the worst of which was dressing in breeches and sneaking into a boxing match.

  If her Aunt Viola hadn’t died just then, in late March of the previous year, sending the family into mourning and away from London, she would have been in disgrace.

  But she had been only eighteen then, and nothing had prepared her for London and the Season. Her mother’s attention had all been taken with the beauteous Rachel and her chance at a glittering match, one to make the ton take notice. Pamela had had to scramble into whatever knowledge of proper behavior she could, and clearly her training had been wanting the year before. But since then she had paid more attention to the dancing master’s stern tutelage, and had even had private etiquette lessons with Grand, who had been a most elegant London belle in her own right many, many years before. She was supposed to be mature, now, and she was trying, really sh
e was. She did her best to be ladylike, to refrain from inappropriate language, to be demure, to eliminate the bounce from her step and the laughter from her voice.

  So why did she feel not a jot different? Colin would never see her with Rachel around anyway, so why did it even matter?

  In that dismal mood, feeling like she was going to burst if she spent another whole day inside, with chattering seamstresses, surrounded by mounds of delicate fabrics, only to be followed by an evening spent with dull, titled nincompoops at some arid ball or musicale, she knew she had to do something for herself, something to soothe the wild impulses that were becoming more difficult to ignore. If she didn’t safely vent that valve, she thought, remembering a demonstration she had seen once of a steam engine that the inventor said would blow up if not properly vented, then she would burst out in some inappropriate speech or do something outrageous in public. Her mother would be furious if that occurred.

  She bolted across the room and rummaged around in her trunk, pulling everything out and tossing it on her bed as she lifted out the secret false bottom. She stared down into the depths and sighed happily. There, at the bottom of the trunk, lay her sanity.

  Ten minutes later she crept down the dark stairs. The household slept after another boring outing the night before, a ball, scantily attended and dismal. They were late getting to London for the Season, and it made their mother frantic, trying to catch up with all the other matchmaking mamas. And so it had been one introduction after another to boring barons, vacuous viscounts and even a maudlin marquess. She had hated every moment of it, despising the men and disdaining the girls, who all looked ready to fall asleep, the appearance of elegant languor was so well inculcated.