Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

He shook his head ruefully. ‘Amy, Amy, how can you want to throw everything away like this? On me of all people? I don’t know how you can be so sure I won’t break faith with you...’

‘I know because your whole life went sour when you thought you’d lost me the first time. When you thought I wasn’t the girl you’d fallen in love with, but some mirage conjured up from your fevered imagination. I know because I went through exactly the same process. I know because I’ve never been so happy as I was in Paris, with you. Even though doubt and fear lingered, I had to take what I could have of you. Just as you snatched at what you thought you could have of me. Even when you still believed I was Monsieur Le Brun’s mistress, you came and begged me to leave him and take up with you. You’d been starved of love for so long you were prepared to drink the dregs.

‘But, Nathan, you don’t have to scrape the dregs of life any longer. We can have the finest vintage. We love each other. What else matters?’

‘A great many things,’ he said sadly. ‘Though you are right about a good deal.’ He drew her against his chest, and buried his face in her hair.

‘I didn’t ever really stop loving you. Even when I thought you the worst kind of woman, when I saw you again, I couldn’t prevent myself from wanting you. My body recognised its one true mate.’

She pushed herself away just enough that she could look up into his face.

‘It was exactly the same for me. Every time I read some new story about you in the papers, I told myself I was well rid of you. But the moment I saw you again...it was as though there was nobody else in the room. I didn’t care what you’d done.’

‘I did a great many things of which I’m heartily ashamed now.’

‘I know.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘And I also know that if you were as bad as they all say you are, then you wouldn’t be ashamed. You wouldn’t care.’

‘Amy,’ he whispered, before lowering his head and kissing her as if she was necessary to his very existence.

She flowed into him, relief rushing through her in a flood.

‘They said I was too young to know what I wanted,’ he said, breaking off to frame her face with his hands and gaze at her intently. So intently that she knew he was speaking of her.

‘Too naïve to know what was good for me. They persuaded me to follow a path that led me to utter misery.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘They tried to tell me I was too silly to know truth from wishful thinking, too. But we weren’t too young. We knew we’d found the road to happiness. And now we’ve found it again.’

‘Then,’ he said and swallowed, ‘I will take it.’ Then uncertainty clouded his features. ‘If you’re sure?’

‘Oh, yes, Nathan, I’m completely sure. And I promise you,’ she said earnestly, ‘that this time, marriage won’t feel like a prison sentence.’

‘I’m not the only one who might think of it like a trap, though, am I? You’ve been so used to running not only your own life, but also that of hundreds of others, through your manufactories, that it’s going to be hard for you to give it all up. Especially when I don’t really want any of it.’

‘Give it all up? I thought you said you didn’t want me to give it all away?’

‘Yes, but once we marry, it will all belong to me.’

‘Yes, but, Nathan, you don’t want to change me, any more than I want you to become something you’re not, do you?’

‘Of course not. I want you to be happy, too.’

‘Well, then, if you don’t want me to give it all away and you don’t want to be chained to a desk yourself, why don’t we do something that nobody would expect? Why don’t we just snap our fingers at convention?’

He looked at her with a frown for a few seconds, then his expression cleared.

‘We can make our marriage anything we want, you’re right. We don’t need to let society mould us into being anything we don’t want to be. Not either of us.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘If you want to carry on running your business empire, then I won’t try to stop you. I don’t want to be the one to clip your wings.’

She beamed at him. ‘Any more than I would try to stop you painting. Or...or anything you want to do.’

‘I should never have walked out on you, earlier. I just...I got so angry when I heard you had so much money. And that you’d concealed so much from me. It all felt...’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It all got tangled up in memories of your first marriage. Of getting into it before you really knew what Lucasta was like.’

‘You are nothing like her,’ he said fervently. ‘I’m so sorry for implying that you are.’

‘I forgive you. You didn’t mean it. I’ve sometimes said things, when I’ve been angry, that I’ve regretted later, haven’t I? And you didn’t listen to the words I said, but judged what was beneath the surface. The emotions that had made me lash out at you. And then you came after me.’

‘Just as you came after me.’

‘I feel so sorry for Lucasta,’ she said, wrinkling her brow. ‘Not only because she had you, and didn’t appreciate what she had, but also because she had so many frustrated ambitions. If she wanted to have a voice in Parliament, why shouldn’t she?’

‘Amy,’ he gasped. ‘That’s...revolutionary talk.’

She grinned up at him impishly. ‘And even in France, they don’t let women into government, do they?’

‘Not legally, no, but behind the scenes...’

‘Never mind what goes on behind the scenes in France, Nathan. I’m far more concerned with what is going to go on behind closed doors in Stanton Basset.’

As she spoke, she pulled the pin from his neckcloth, then started to work on the complicated knot with determined, if rather unskilled fingers. When he saw she was getting nowhere, he pushed her hands away and loosed it himself.

‘Never let it be said that I disappointed a lady,’ he said with a lazy smile.

He led her to the rug before the fire, lowered her down on to it and began to undo her gown, with a great deal more expertise than she’d shown with his neckcloth.

‘You won’t, Nathan. You couldn’t.’

He buried his face in her neck, breathing in as though he was intent on inhaling her.

‘I will do my utmost not to, my clever darling. My only love.’

And he didn’t disappoint her. Right there on the hearthrug.

* * * * *

Regency Surrender: Defiant Lords

His Unusual Governess

Anne Herries

Claiming the Chaperon’s Heart

Anne Herries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

His Unusual Governess

Anne Herries

BENEATH THE GOVERNESS’S BLUSH…

Heiress Sarah Hardcastle is convinced her plan to escape the unwanted attentions of a fortune hunter is foolproof. Buried deep in the countryside, and with a whole new identity as prim governess Miss Goodrum, Sarah is looking forward to the quiet life for once.

But her careful masquerade is shaken when she meets her pupils’ mentor, Lord Rupert Myers. An incorrigible flirt, Rupert has the looks and the charm to make Sarah blush all the way down to her high-buttoned neckline—and the determination to uncover what’s beneath! Sarah will need her wits about her if she’s to resist Rupert’s roguish ways and keep her secret intact....

I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my great friend Paula Marshall, whom I loved dearly, as did so many of you.

Prologue

‘What was so important that you summoned me here?’ Lord Rupert Myers arched a languid eyebrow at the Marquess of Merrivale. ‘’Tis an unseasonable hour and I was up late last night.’ He smothered a yawn and levelled an elegant gold-rimmed eyeglass at the older man. Seeing that the marquess looked strained, he dropped the air of boredom and said in a very different tone, ‘What may I do for you, sir?’