Sherry Thomas - Beguiling the Beauty

The dowager duchess looked from Christian to Venetia and back again, her lips beginning to curve into a smile. “I see I’ve been worried over nothing. You could have told me all is well, Christian.”

He could scarcely take his eyes off his Venetia. “My humblest apologies, Stepmama. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

The doors of the drawing room opened again, this time to admit Lord Fitzhugh, Lady Fitzhugh, Miss Fitzhugh, and Lord Hastings. Venetia gave a delighted squeal, embraced them one by one, even Lord Hastings, and performed introductions.

“And how did you know to come so quickly, Lord and Lady Fitzhugh?” asked the dowager duchess. “Did you also bribe someone on the duke’s staff?”

Venetia laughed. “No indeed, ma’am. I cabled them before I left Derbyshire. There was something from my brother’s town house that I wanted. But I meant only for him to send it via courier.”

“As if any of us would stay behind when we know you are in town,” said Miss Fitzhugh.

“It’s excellent to see you, Venetia.” Lord Fitzhugh placed a hand on his sister’s arm. “You, too, Lexington. I see marriage agrees with the both of you.”

“A very pleasant state of affairs, I must admit,” said Christian, his gaze again straying toward his wife.

A look that his brother-in-law instantly comprehended. “And since you are still on your honeymoon, I believe we should make ourselves scarce. Shall we, Helena?”

Miss Fitzhugh complied reluctantly. “All right, if you say so, Fitz.”

“I left Mr. Kingston in the middle of a game of chess. That would never do. I’d better head home myself,” added the dowager duchess.

There was another round of hugs. Miss Fitzhugh handed her sister a wrapped package. Christian and his wife saw everyone to their carriages, then, side by side, they walked sedately up the stairs. The moment they were in his room, however, she leaped onto him and kissed him wildly.

“Shouldn’t you take more care in your condition?” he managed when he surfaced for air.

“Hmm. Not yet.”

He laid her down in his bed. “I am about to make love to you while you are visible. I’m not sure I’ll survive the experience.”

“You will.” She clutched his face between her hands. “And when there is light, you can see how much I love you.”

He kissed the pulse at her throat. “In that case, I could get used to it.”

Afterward they held each other tight.

“I wanted you for my sister, you know,” she murmured.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Your sister who is in love with a married man?”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything you said to me on the Rhodesia .”

“Yes, that sister. My sister-in-law and I rather wistfully believed that if she’d only meet you, all would be well. So when we saw a poster for your lecture, we had to drag her to it.”

He kissed her eyelashes. “How did she like me before I began to slander you?”

“I’ve never asked her, but I was quite solidly impressed. So much so that even after you’d compared me to the Great Whore of Babylon—”

“I did not.”

She giggled. “So that even after you did that, I still found myself drawn to you.”

“And believed me to be propositioning you even when I was not.”

“You can’t possibly understand—I take that back. You can very well understand what it is like to be repelled yet compelled by a person at once. I was beside myself.”

“Was that what made you wild in bed?”

She snuggled closer to him. “Probably. And I was wild, wasn’t I?”

“And wounded. And conflicted. And indomitable. When we were apart, I thought constantly of how you solved all your problems with your own hands—and made sure to emulate you.”

“Serving as an example to the Duke of Lexington—you don’t know how proud I am.” She laughed as she raised herself on her elbow. “Now where is my photograph?”

“Which photograph? Is that what you wanted delivered to you?”

She nodded. “A photograph of my Cetiosaurus . I didn’t take it with me to Algernon House just after we married because I wasn’t sure whether I could ever be at home there. But this time, I was determined to take it with me no matter what. Just as I was determined to drag you kicking and screaming into my bed.”

He rubbed a strand of her hair against his cheek and smiled. “Will you show me the picture?”

“I see I’ve dropped it by the door.”

She slipped out of bed, her hair loose, her person entirely naked.

“My God, put on something.”

Coquettishly she glanced over her shoulder. “So I won’t look like the trollop I am?”

“So we will actually get around to the photograph. Well, too late.”

He hauled her back into bed, and it was a while before either of them remembered the photograph again. This time, he left the bed to fetch it.

She opened the package and drew out the framed photograph. He studied it closely. “You look happy and confident—rather as you do now.”

“It’s because I feel now as I did then: that I have all my life before me and endless possibilities.”

Looking at the fossil reminded him that the British Museum of Natural History was still open for the day. “If we hurry, we can have a good look at your Cetiosaurus in the flesh—or in the bones, rather. Then you are going to dine with me at the Savoy Hotel, to make up for what you owe me. And when we come home, I will give serious consideration to what you might do on your knees.”

“Oh yes,” she cried. “Yes to all three.”

He helped her dress, then pulled on his own clothes. As they approached the door, beyond which they must be proper and ducal again, he pulled her close for another kiss. “I love you, mein Liebling.”

She winked. “And you will love me even more by the end of tonight.”

They laughed and walked arm in arm out of the house, all their lives and endless possibilities before them.

Even though she has remarried, Christian’s stepmother is referred throughout the book as the dowager duchess and addressed as “Your Grace.” According to an edition of Debrett’s Peerage from the late nineteenth century, “A Widow who remarries loses any title or precedence she gained by her previous marriage. From this rule there is not any exception. Society, however, from pure motives of courtesy , sanctions the retention of former rank, and … permits ladies who have remarried to be addressed as though their titled husbands were living.”

Mary Anning, who lived in the first part of the nineteenth century, was a significant fossil collector and paleontologist. She is recognized by the Royal Society in 2010 as one of the ten most influential British women in the history of science. She had a more aristocratic counterpart in Barbara Hastings, Marchioness of Hastings and Baroness Grey de Ruthyn in her own right.

“Superb … Will win readers over with its elegant writing, exceptional characterization … and exquisitely romantic love story.”

— Chicago Tribune

“Deft plotting and sparkling characters mark this superior debut historical … Thomas propels the plot forward with revealing repartee and gives the leads real nuance…. The results are steamy and smart.”

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Thomas tantalizes readers as she skillfully peels away the layers of Cam and Gigi’s relationship in an enchanting, thought-provoking story of love lost and ultimately reclaimed. Lively banter, electric sexual tension, and an unusual premise make this stunning debut all the more refreshing.”