First Comes Marriage (42 page)

“Do you have something to tell me?” he asked her.

She tipped her head to one side.

“The baby?” she said. “There will be a baby, Elliott. Are you happy about it? Perhaps it will be your heir.”

“I am happy about the
baby,
” he said. “Son, daughter—it really does not matter.” He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers.

She slid her arms up about his neck and leaned into him.

“I am glad it is
here
we have spoken of it for the first time,” she said. “I am glad it is
here
you have told me you love me. I will always, always love this place, Elliott. It will become sacred ground.”

“Not too sacred, I hope,” he said. “It has just occurred to me that it has not rained for several days and that the ground will be dry. And this is a secluded spot. No one ever comes here.”

“Except us,” she said.

“Except us.”

And the gardeners who prevented this part of the park from becoming too overgrown and wild. But all the gardeners were busy with their scythes today, cutting the grass of the large lawn before the house.

He took off his coat and spread it on the ground among the bluebells, perhaps in the very same spot where they had lain among the daffodils during their honeymoon.

And they lay down among the blooms and made quick and lusty and thoroughly satisfying love.

They were both panting when they had finished, and they both smiled when he lifted his head to look down at her.

“I suppose,” he said, “I am going to have to pay for this. You are going to make me gather an armful of blue-bells for the house, are you not?”

“Oh, more than an armful,” she said. “
Both
arms must be laden and full and overflowing. There has to be a vase of bluebells for every room in the house.”

“Heaven help us,” he said. “It is a mansion. The last time I tried counting the rooms, I found I could not count that high.”

She laughed.

“We had better not waste any more time, then,” she said.

He got to his feet, adjusted his clothing, and reached down a hand for hers. She clasped it and he drew her up and into his arms. They hugged each other for several wordless moments, but not for too long.

There were flowers to be gathered. The house was to overflow with them.

Their
lives
were to be brimful and overflowing, he suspected—and always would be.

What else could a man expect when he was married to Vanessa?

He grinned at her and set to work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARY BALOGH is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the acclaimed Slightly novels:
Slightly Married, Slightly Wicked, Slightly Scandalous, Slightly Tempted, Slightly Sinful,
and
Slightly Dangerous,
as well as the romances
No Man’s Mistress, More Than a Mistress,
and
One Night for Love
. She is also the author of
Simply Perfect, Simply Magic, Simply Love,
and
Simply Unforgettable,
a dazzling quartet of novels set at Miss Martin’s School for Girls. A former teacher herself, she grew up in Wales and now lives in Canada.

Visit our website at www.bantamdell.com.

Don’t Miss Mary Balogh’s Dazzling Quartet of Novels

Set in Miss Martin’s School for Girls

Simply Perfect

Simply Magic

Simply Love

Simply Unforgettable

Or Mary Balogh’s Beloved Classic Novels

The Ideal Wife

The Devil’s Web

Web of Love

The Gilded Web

The Secret Pearl

Slightly Dangerous

Slightly Sinful

Slightly Tempted

Slightly Scandalous

Slightly Wicked

Slightly Married

A Summer to Remember

No Man’s Mistress

More Than a Mistress

One Night for Love

If
First Comes Marriage
stole your heart, get ready to fall in love with the next book in Mary Balogh’s series featuring the extraordinary Huxtable family.

Then Comes Seduction

KATHERINE’S STORY

Available from Dell in paperback April 2009

And make sure to be on the lookout for the following books in the series . . .

At Last Comes Love

MARGARET’S STORY

Available from Dell in paperback May 2009

Seducing an Angel

STEPHEN’S STORY

Available from Delacorte in hardcover June 2009

Turn the page for a sneak peek inside

Then Comes Seduction

Coming April 2009

THEN COMES SEDUCTION

on sale April 2009

HAVING seen his friends safely off the premises, Jasper weaved his way upstairs to his rooms, where he found his valet awaiting him despite the hour, which was late or early depending upon one’s perspective.

“Well, Cocking,” he said, allowing his man to unclothe him just as if he were a baby, “this has been a birthday best forgotten.”

“Most birthdays are, milord,” his man said agreeably.

Except that he was not going to be able to forget it, was he? A wager had been made.
Another
one.

He had never lost a wager.

But
this
time?

For a few moments after he had dismissed his valet and crossed his bedchamber to open a window, Jasper could not remember what it was he had wagered upon. It was something that even at the time he had known he would regret.

He did not usually look too closely at each year’s new crop of young marriage hopefuls. There were often a few notable beauties among them, but there was also too much danger of being ensnared in some matrimonial trap—despite what someone had said earlier about the innocents not wanting to marry him. He was, after all, a wealthy, titled gentleman, two facts that could easily wipe out a multitude of sins.

But he
had
looked closely more than once at Katherine Huxtable.

She was more than ordinarily beautiful. There was also a very definite aura of countrified innocence—or naïveté—about her. But an air of good breeding too. And there were those eyes of hers. He had never seen them from close up, but they had intrigued him nonetheless. He had found himself wondering what was behind them.

It was most unlike him to wonder any such thing. He was a man of surfaces when it came to other people and even when it came to himself. He was not in the habit of looking within.

Perhaps part of the lady’s appeal was the fact that she was Con Huxtable’s cousin and Con had made a point of not introducing her to him.

Now he was pledged to seduce her.

Full sexual intercourse.

Within the next fortnight.

Devil take it! Yes, that was it.
That
was the wager. That was what he had agreed to do.

It was a sobering thought—literally. He felt as he climbed into bed as if he had progressed straight from deep drunkenness to the nauseated, head-pounding aftermath.

One of these days he was going to renounce drinking.

And wagering.

And sowing wild oats, or whatever the devil it was he had been sowing for more years than he cared to count.

One
day. Not yet, though—he was only twenty-five.

And he had a wager to win before he set about reforming his ways. He had never lost a wager.

“We must relax and enjoy the evening,” Katherine told Cecily, “under the safe chaperonage of Lady Beaton.”

After all, it was highly unlikely that Lord Montford would try to bear one of them off in among the trees to have his wicked way with them. The thought amused Katherine considerably, and she decided to follow her own advice and enjoy the evening and the unexpected opportunity it presented to observe the gentleman more closely.

Lord Montford had seated himself beside Lady Beaton and had proceeded to make himself agreeable to her, and even charming—with noticeable success. The lady soon relaxed and was laughing and even flushing with pleasure and tapping him on the arm with her fan. Everyone else gradually relaxed too and chatted among themselves and looked about with interest at their surroundings. There could be no more magical setting on a warm summer’s evening than Vauxhall on the southern bank of the River Thames, one of Europe’s foremost pleasure gardens.

Lord Montford had a light, cultured voice. He had a soft, musical laugh. Katherine observed him surreptitiously from the opposite corner of the box until he caught her at it. He looked at her suddenly, while she was biting into a strawberry. It was a direct, unwavering gaze, as if he had deliberately picked her out—though his eyes did dip for a moment to watch the progress of the strawberry into her mouth and the nervous flick of her tongue across her lips lest she leave some juice behind to drip down her chin.

He watched as she lifted her napkin and dabbed her lips and then licked them because she had dried them too much and his scrutiny made her nervous.

Oh, goodness, she ought not to have looked at him at all, she thought, lowering her eyes at last, and she would not do so again. He would think she was
smitten
with him or
flirting
with him or something lowering like that. She wished Margaret were here with her.

“Would you not agree, Miss Huxtable?” he asked her just as she was lifting another strawberry to her mouth.

The fruit remained suspended from her raised hand.

It amazed her that he remembered her name, though his sister
had
introduced them less than an hour ago.

All she had to do was the sensible and truthful thing—to tell him that she had not been listening to his conversation with Lady Beaton. But her mind was flustered.

“Yes, indeed,” she said and watched the smile deepen wickedly in his eyes while Lady Beaton looked at her in some surprise. She had made the wrong response. “Or, rather...”

And it struck her as if out of nowhere that it would be very easy indeed to fall head over ears in love with someone like Lord Montford. With someone forbidden, unsafe. Dangerous.

Definitely
dangerous.

Or perhaps it was not someone
like
Lord Montford with whom she could fall desperately in love if she was foolish enough to allow herself to do it. Perhaps it was
precisely
him.

The thought caused a strange tightening in her breasts and an even stranger ache and throbbing that spiraled downward to rest between her inner thighs.

It was then that the thought occurred to her that perhaps love was not safe. That perhaps it was her very attempt to find it in safe places that had prevented her from finding it at all. That perhaps she would
never
find it if she did not . . .

If she did not
what?

Take a leap in the dark? The very
dangerous
dark?

He held her eyes rather longer than was necessary before returning his attention to Lady Beaton, and the evening proceeded more safely and predictably and altogether more comfortably. Lord Beaton danced with Katherine in the space before the tiered boxes after they had all dined, and then, with another couple, they went for a short stroll along the grand avenue beneath the colored lamps that swayed magically in the tree branches overhead, dodging crowds of revelers as they did so.

Lord Beaton was one of Katherine’s more persistent admirers. With just a hint of encouragement, she sensed, he would probably court her in earnest. And a very advantageous match it would be for her, considering the fact that at the beginning of the year she had been a lowly village schoolteacher even if her father
had
been a gentleman and grandson of an earl.

She had never given that hint of encouragement. She
liked
Lord Beaton. He was fair-haired, good-looking, good-natured, and . . . well, and ever so slightly dull. There was not the smallest suggestion of danger about him.

Which judgment, she realized, was far more of a condemnation of her than it was of him. His steadiness of character ought to be his strongest recommendation. Why had it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps she would like a dangerous man better? Or rather, that she would more than just
like
one particular dangerous gentleman? She had better hope that her strange, irrational theory was never put to the test.

It was, though.

After more dancing and feasting and conversing, they
all
went walking to fill in the time before the fire-works display. They proceeded again along the grand avenue, all talking amiably with one another, not in any particular pairings.

Until, that was, Katherine was jostled by a drunken reveler who could no longer walk a straight line, and found when she stepped smartly out of his way that Lord Montford was at her side, offering his arm.

“One needs a trusty navigator upon such a perilous voyage,” he said.

“And
you
are such a navigator?” she asked him. It seemed far more likely that he was the perilous voyage. She did not know whether she should take his arm or not. She felt breathless for no discernible reason.

“Assuredly I am,” he said. “I will steer you safely to harbor, Miss Huxtable. It is a solemn promise.”

He smiled, and his eyes beamed good humor. He looked safe and reliable. He was behaving like a perfect gentleman, offering her protection from the reveling crowds. And she found that she
wanted
to take his arm.

“In that case,” she said, smiling back at him, “I accept. Thank you, my lord.”

And she slid one hand through his arm and felt—foolishly—as though she had never done anything nearly so daring and reckless and plain exciting in her whole life. It was a rock-solid arm. It was also warm. Well,
of course
it was warm. What had she expected? That he was the walking dead? She could smell his shaving soap or his cologne—a subtle, musky scent that was unfamiliar to her. It was very...masculine.