With His Ring (Brides of Bath Book 2)
Read With His Ring (Brides of Bath Book 2) Online
Authors: Cheryl Bolen
Tags: #romance, #historical, #regency, #regency romance, #georgian, #english historical, #regency era, #romance historical, #romance adult, #english romance
Praise for
With His Ring
Texas Gold's Runner-up for Best Historical
Romance 2002
Highly recommended. –
Under the
Covers
Cheryl Bolen does it again! There is
laughter, and the interaction of the characters pulls you right
into the book. I look forward to the next in this series.
4
Stars
–
Romantic Times magazine
With His Ring
is a good book. Once you
start reading you will not want to put it down. . .The secondary
characters are a blast. They will have you laughing right along
with Glee's stunts. –
The Romance Readers Connection
If you liked Cheryl Bolen's first installment
in her Brides of Bath series set in Regency England, you'll like
this one.
With His Ring
has plenty of sensuality. –
Happily Ever After
* * *
Glee Pembroke has turned down countless
offers of marriage because she has secretly been in love with her
brother's best friend, Gregory Blankenship, all her life. When she
learns Gregory will lose his considerable fortune if he's not wed
by his twenty-fifth birthday, she persuades him to enter into a
sham marriage with her. What he doesn't know is that she plans to
win his heart. She will do everything in her power to make him
happy – including mimicking the ways of a "fast" woman since he's
noted for alliances with women of
that
sort.
Why did he ever allow himself to marry the
maddening Glee? He'd thought they would have great fun, but at
every turn, she exasperates him. Why does she persist in wearing
the bodice of her dresses so blasted low? Why do other men persist
in flirting with her, his wife? And why in the blazes has his
heretofore complacent life been turned upside down by this sham
marriage? He finds himself longing for a real marriage, but for
reasons he cannot divulge, that can never happen.
Cheryl Bolen
Regency Historical Romance:
The Brides of Bath Series
The Bride Wore Blue*
With His Ring*
The Bride’s Secret (
previously titled
A Fallen Woman*
To Take This Lord (
previously titled
An Improper Proposal)*
Love in the Library*
A Christmas In Bath*
The Regent Mysteries Series
With His Lady's Assistance*
A Most Discreet Inquiry*
The Theft Before Christmas*
A Lady by Chance*
The Earl's Bargain*
My Lord Wicked*
His Lordship's Vow*
Lady Sophia's Rescue
Christmas Brides (Three Regency
Novellas)*
Marriage of Inconvenience*
A Duke Deceived*
One Golden Ring*
Romantic Suspense:
Texas Heroines in Peril Series
Protecting Britannia*
Murder at Veranda House*
A Cry In The Night*
Capitol Offense*
Falling For Frederick*
World War II Romance:
It Had to Be You
(Previously titled
Nisei
)*
American Historical Romance:
A Summer To Remember (3 American
Romances)
*Also available in paperback
Copyright © 2011 by Cheryl Bolen
Smashwords Edition
With His Ring
is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the author.
Chapter 1
The prick of a needle should have been so
common an occurrence to Glee Pembroke—a most inferior
needlewoman—that her stitching rhythm should have continued
unbroken. But not today. Throwing her work down, she stomped her
kid slipper and nibbled her pricked thumb into her little rosebud
mouth. "I simply wasn't cut out for a life buried here at Hornsby
Manor," she protested. "Why will my brother not allow me to live by
myself in Bath? Other spinsters do."
Her elegant sister-in-law calmly set aside
her own flawless needlework and directed a sympathetic gaze at
Glee. "You're not a spinster. You're a nineteen-year-old maiden,
and it's not acceptable for you to live alone."
"I prefer to think of myself as a spinster,"
Glee protested, her lower lip working into a lovely pout. "After
all, I've two seasons behind me and still am not respectably
wed."
Diana shot Glee a scolding glance. "You
failed to mention the eight offers of marriage you turned
down."
"Eight and a half—if you count Percy
Wittingham, whom I persuaded not to address my brother."
The impeccable Diana gave a bemused smile.
"I know how very dull it must be here for you, with my recent
confinement and with Felicity being on the Grand Tour."
Glee emphatically shook her head.
"Nothing—not even a presentation to the queen—could have kept me
away from Baby Georgette's birth." Her face softened and her voice
grew sweet. "My niece is without a doubt the most precious baby to
ever draw breath."
Diana lowered her lashes, a glow of
contentment suffusing her. "George and I think so."
Glee sighed. "You and George. . .and
Felicity and Thomas. . .I'm surrounded by happily besotted married
couples, and all I can ever aspire to is being an aunt." Despite
the unrivaled success of her two seasons, the one man she had
adored since earliest childhood, the only man she could ever truly
love, remained as elusive as seraph's wings. Gregory "Blanks"
Blankenship was so completely removed from her touch, she had never
even given voice to her adulation of him. And if she could not have
Blanks, she preferred to die a spinster.
Diana's eyes softened. "Have patience, Glee.
I'm two years older than you, Felicity's seven. If you had truly
been desperate, you would have accepted one of those
eight and a
half
proposals. And there will most likely be eight more.
You're a very lovely young lady." A smug, mischievous smile settled
over Diana's normally placid face. "I know why you could not fall
in love with any of those young men." The graceful young mother
casually took up her sewing again.
"Pray, enlighten me," Glee said impatiently.
Watching Diana pick up her sewing, Glee was embarrassed to have her
own meager snatches of embroidery in the same room with her
sister-in-law's meticulous creations. How fortunate she was that
Diana was already married, for Glee compared most poorly to her
beautiful sister-in-law's perfection.
"Whether you realize it or not, you have
long been in love with a man who has not yet realized how eligible
you are," Diana continued.
Glee's brow arched. "Indeed?"
Diana nodded. "A young man you've known
almost all of your life, or at least since he and George attended
Eton together."
"Blanks." The name tumbled from Glee's lips
almost reverently. How had Diana guessed? She met Diana's gaze
squarely. "You realize in Mr. Gregory Blankenship's eyes I will
always be twelve years old."
Diana nodded. "It is for you to force him to
notice otherwise."
Glee pulled her shawl more closely about her
and rose from the silk damask chair to stride to the fireplace and
its crackling warmth. With her back to Diana, she said, "Then, too,
there's the fact that Mr. Blankenship has never been attracted to
decent young ladies. Does he not keep a mistress?"
"You are not supposed to know of such
things!" Diana chided.
"Perhaps if I acted like a doxy Blanks would
find me appealing."
"Then you
do
care for him!"
Glee sighed, bit her lip, then met her
sister-in-law's probing gaze with an embarrassed nod.
Had Diana known that Glee compared every man
to Blanks, and they all came up wanting? It was not just that he
was taller and better looking than all the others. Or that he was
enormously wealthy and displayed incomparable taste. Or that he was
a noted whip. Though he was all those things, he was so much
more.
He was uncommonly personable and solicitous
of all he met. It had been Blanks—not her own brother—who extracted
her first tooth. And Blanks had been the one to console her when
her favorite dog had died. And with a peculiar racing in her heart,
she remembered a twelve-year-old Blanks proudly carrying her back
to the manor house after she had tumbled from a tree and hurt her
foot.
She remembered, too, that his ready smile
could fill the gloomiest day with warm sunshine. She shuddered even
now as she pictured his devastating grin.
Diana smiled like the cat who caught the
canary. "When Blanks is ready to settle down, he will want a good
girl, not a doxy."
Glee turned around to face Diana. "Despite
that I'm five years younger than he, this red hair of mine could
turn quite gray by the time Mr. Gregory Blankenship decides to
settle down. To know Blanks is to know of his complete aversion to
marriage and children—and his inability to admit he might be wrong
about anything."
Diana nodded. "But George had no intentions
of settling down when he met me. Love, my dear, has a way of
changing things—even a bachelor's toughest resolve."
How remarkably love had changed her brother,
Glee thought. Not a day went by Glee did not marvel over George's
metamorphosis from heavy drinking, wildly gaming rake to besotted
husband and devoted father. Of course, it had helped that he
removed himself from his hedonistic friends in Bath and settled at
Hornsby Manor. "It's as likely that Blanks will suddenly fall in
love with me as it is that faro and the races at Newmarket will
cease to hold his interest. Not like George with you. I could
almost see Cupid's arrow snare George's heart the minute he set
eyes on you. And I assure you, my brother planned to stay a
bachelor until he was thirty."
Glee's gaze dropped to the hearth where the
flames leaped in a blaze of yellow and orange and blue. "Of course,
I'm not adverse to offering Cupid a little encouragement—where
Blanks is concerned." She looked mischievously at Diana. "Tell me,
does George have a book that tells one. . ." She turned her back to
Diana once again. "Tells one about sex. You know, how to go about
it and all that."
She turned to face Diana, who had suddenly
colored, and watched Diana intently for a moment.
Finally, Diana answered in an embarrassed
voice. "I'm sure I've never heard of such a book."
"Then how do you know what to do?"
Diana avoided meeting Glee's gaze. Taking up
her sewing again, she cleared her throat. "I suppose it's somewhat
like breathing. It seems to come automatically—provided one is in
love with one's partner."
The large door creaked open, and George came
striding into the room. He was blond and burly and young and
exuberant. And completely in love with his wife. His dancing eyes
settled on Diana. "What comes automatically?"
The two young women exchanged amused
glances.
