Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (39 page)

Julian sat on the step beside her, pulled her into his embrace, and kissed her.

“If, for argument’s sake, the baby did not make it to term,” he said patiently, entering into the discussion not out of any fear of believing that such a consequence was likely to occur but to humor her, “then it would be a tragic loss to both of us. No one can deny that but… Thesiger can never win because we will always have each other.” When she turned her head into his shoulder he lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Deborah, our being together is not about this child. I admit that before I knew you I was intent on consummating my marriage to provide my father with an heir. But then I met you and from that moment I wanted our marriage to be first and foremost about us. Since you stumbled upon me in the forest all I’ve ever cared about is being with you. I want this child as much as you do, but if it is not to be then we shall both come through the tragedy and try for another. Darling, I hope we have six children, God willing. But more than anything, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and no other.”

Deb smiled through her tears. “Then won’t you please tell me here, in the light of day, what you told me last night while we were making love; what I’ve been waiting to hear you say since I fell in love with you in the forest?”

He laughed, understanding immediately her request, and went down on one knee beside the stone steps. He took hold of her hands. “My dear Lady Alston—Deb—My
only
love,” he said as he leaned in to gently kiss one hand and then the other, “I love you. I pledge my love to you and no other. I love you so very much that I intend to go on saying those three little words for the rest of our lives.”

E
PILOGUE

TREAT: THE ROXTON DUCAL SEAT
HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND

T
HE
D
UCHESS
threw down her hand of cards and smiled mischievously at hislordship. “That is our rubber and, I think, the game, Vallentine. Monseigneur and I, we have beaten you for a third time!”

“When don’t you, minx,” Lord Vallentine grumbled good-naturedly and slowly rose from the walnut card table to stretch the aching joints in his bony knees. “Damme! I can’t take much more of this waiting! They should’ve been here by now.”

“You’ve been saying the same thing for three days, Lucian. It is most annoying of you,” Estée Vallentine complained. “Is it not, Roxton?”

The Duke, who sat in his favorite wingchair by the fireplace, looked over at his sister. “Four days, my dear. And yes, annoying in the extreme.”

“Two, three or four days! What of it?” Lord Vallentine demanded, beginning to pace this particular drawing room with its view of the ornamental gardens. He took out his gold pocket watch and stared at the pearl face without noting the time. “Six days and still no word. A man could die from waiting!”

“I do not see at all why it is you who is so put out,” argued the Duchess, sweeping up to his lordship in a froth of lace and muslin petticoats to tap a finger on the gold case of his pocket watch. “And this, you look at it to tell you that they will be here in what? An hour, perhaps two?’ she teased. “Or does this watch count days as well as hours?”

There was laughter at his lordship’s back that caused him to snap shut the pocket watch and shove it in a deep pocket of his saffron yellow frock coat. “You can all laugh but I’ll be laughing the loudest when I win the wager! Heed my words!”

Antonia’s emerald green eyes widened with mock surprise. “But, Vallentine, I have wagered against you and so it is not possible that you will win. When have I been wrong in this? Renard?”

Lord Vallentine turned on a high heel to wag an accusatory finger at the Duke before he could comment. “I don’t need you to tell me m’losses, your Grace! Nor do I see what the two of you find to laugh at! It’s a nerve-wracking business. Tell ’em, Estée!”

“As you did not give birth to our son I do not see at all why you think you are suddenly an expert,” Estée Vallentine lectured. “Furthermore, Lucian, you are making a big fool of yourself. After all, it is not you who is about to become a grandfather.”

“Thank you for your wifely support, my dear,” Vallentine muttered with annoyance and eased himself into the wingchair opposite his host. When the Duchess handed him a glass of claret he eyed her with loving hostility. “Never will be able to get it into my head you’re a grandmother, minx.” He raised his glass. “Your health!”

Antonia perched herself on the rounded arm of the Duke’s chair. “So, Vallentine, you will please stop this nonsense and concede that Julian and Deborah they are to have a daughter.”

“And why would I do that?” his lordship asked belligerently. “D’you know for certain the outcome?” When Antonia raised her arched brows he sat up with a start. “Hey! What’s this? You know! Those two rascals, they sent you a letter!”

The Duchess appeared to be offended. “Monseigneur and I we have not had word from Henri and Jack since before Michaelmas. Nor do I expect word until the boys they return here in person: today, tomorrow or the next day!”

“So why are you so confident you’ll win the wager?” his lordship asked silkily. “The odds at Whites are fifteen to one it’ll be a girl; three to one for a boy. Those are mighty strong odds, your Grace. Besides which, you have the family history of boys against you.”

Antonia shrugged a bare shoulder. “What of that? I told Deborah that please you will give me a little granddaughter and she said she would do her best and so the
bébé
she will be a girl, I know it.”

Vallentine stared openmouthed at this explanation and then fell into such whoops of laughter that he slapped his silken knee and almost spilled his wine. He dried the tears from his eyes with a scrap of lace and shook his powdered head saying, slightly out of breath, “Well, that’s the best argument I’ve heard for stickin’ to me original wager! What say you, Roxton?”

“My dear Vallentine, in these matters I leave it entirely to those who are most expert.”

When the Duchess and Estée Vallentine exchanged a look of triumph his lordship mumbled something about a female conspiracy, but he had to have a final say. “You can’t tell me, Roxton, that it don’t mean a whit to the odds when Alston has already given you three healthy grandsons in as many years. Stands to reason this fourth child will be a boy.”

“Lucian, I do wonder at your brain sometimes,” his wife sighed impatiently. “Deborah she has given Alston three fine sons, so it is reasonable her fourth little one will be a girl because Antonia she would like a granddaughter.”

Vallentine opened his mouth to refute this illogical argument when sounds of arrival in the anteroom closed his mouth and had him on his feet. All eyes were on the door. There were voices and then the door burst open and in strode two long-legged and travel-worn youths, shoulder to shoulder. Antonia ran up to them and was embraced by both boys before being scooped up into the arms of her son Lord Henri-Antoine. He set her down again with a laugh, crossed the room to stoop and kiss his father’s cheek, then his aunt and shook hands with his uncle; Jack shaking hands all round. Henri-Antoine again turned to his mother and this time he kissed her hand and smiled into the light of expectation in her emerald-green eyes.

“All’s well with the Alstons, Maman,” he assured her. “I have letters and much news. Mother and child are well and the babe is thriving. Deb sends her love and looks forward to visiting you and Papa at the end of the month. The boys can’t wait to visit. Jack and I had a devil of a time getting them out of the coach! We had to bribe them, didn’t we, Jack?”

Jack grinned. “Frederick says that at
almost
four years of age he is man enough to own a real pistol. And the twins, well, Louis and Augustus would be satisfied with a whirly top each but—”

“—Frederick, as their elder brother and leader of the push, demands that we take all three of them fishing on the lake,” added Henri-Antoine, a knowing look at his best friend. “That’s our days filled.”

A discussion on the exceptional talents of all three Roxton grandsons was cut off by Lord Vallentine before it had a chance to take hold, startling the butler and two footmen who came into the drawing room carrying a jug of weak ale and trays of food for the two young travelers.

“Hey! You two rascals! That’s enough of your blather! Damme,” his lordship demanded rudely. “You haven’t told us what’s important. What’s had us pacing the boards this past month or more.”

Henri-Antoine and Jack merely blinked at the old man. Accustomed to his eccentricities and knowing all about the wager between his lordship and the Duchess neither boy could suppress a grin.

“Uncle Vallentine?” Henri-Antoine drawled in surprise, much in the manner of his ancient parent, as if the answer was self-evident. “Maman requested a granddaughter and Lady Alston has obliged her with Juliana Antonia.”

“But we are to call her Julia,” Jack proudly informed them all.

Vallentine stuck out his hand to his wife. “Estée! I need ten pounds.”

I
NSPIRED
B
Y
R
EAL
E
VENTS

T
HE INSPIRATION
for Julian and Deb’s unusual marriage came from the real life marriage of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and his wife Lady Sarah Cadogan in 1720. The noble couple met for the first time on their wedding day, when Sarah was thirteen and Charles nineteen. Reportedly Sarah just stared at her future husband when brought out of the nursery for the marriage ceremony, while he, gazing with all the sophistication of his 19 years at the plain 13 year old, burst out in horror “Surely they are not going to marry me to that dowdy?” After the ceremony the young husband set off on the Grand Tour, spending three years on the Continent. Upon his return to London he went to the theater and there spotted a beautiful young woman. When he inquired who she was he discovered to his surprise and delight that she was in fact his wife! The couple went on to have a happy marriage and 12 children. You can read more about the real-life Lennox family in
The Aristocrats
by Stella Tillyard.

~ T
O
B
E
C
ONTINUED
 ~

…Midnight Marriage
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Midnight Marriage
Family Tree at lucindabrant.com

The Roxton Series continues in Book 3
Autumn Duchess
, the story of Antonia, the heroine of Book 1
Noble Satyr
, and how she emerges from despair after the death of her husband and soulmate the all-powerful Duke of Roxton to eventually find love and renewal. Continue reading for a preview…

Autumn Duchess

SEQUEL TO MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE

Roxton Series Book 3

B
OOK
P
REVIEW

H
E SAW HER
from across the ballroom.

A striking beauty was staring straight at him.

Jonathon brought himself up short and stared back.

He couldn’t help himself.

He could count on three fingers the occasions he had crossed paths with such exquisite feminine beauty that it stopped the breath in his throat; twice on the Indian subcontinent and once in the East Indies, and now here, this very minute, in this ballroom, on this green wet island. So it was only natural he should give himself the leisure to drink her in. His admiring gaze wandered from her honey-blonde hair that fell in heavy ringlets over one bare shoulder, to the porcelain skin of her décolletage glowing flawless against the bottomless black of her gown. He would not have been male had his gaze not lingered on her ample breasts, barely contained in a square cut bodice. He tried to find fault with her heart-shaped face, with the small straight nose and determined chin, and with her unusually oblique eyes, but what was there to fault?

Smiling to himself, he fancied everything he saw, and everything he could not he was sure was just as alluring.

He wondered at her age. Not that it mattered. It was a game he played to pass the time at social functions such as this. Dressed all in black and wearing no jewelry about her slender throat or wrists he supposed she was a widow, and thus not in the first flush of youth.

What was a widow doing here?

His fascination increased tenfold.

For all his limited experience of the London social scene, Jonathon knew well enough that widows did not attend social gatherings of this sort, particularly not such a renowned event at the height of the Season. Perhaps her mourning was almost at an end and she was chaperoning one of the young things here tonight? Surely, she was not old enough to have a daughter of marriageable age? Jonathon pulled a face. For some unfathomable reason he did not like the idea that she may have been a child-bride.

Why was she staring at him?

She stood so still, with her hands clasped in front of her, as if she was a statue carved of alabaster draped in black cloth; as much a fixture of the ballroom as a blazing chandelier or the enormous, richly woven tapestry hanging behind her. And so it seemed when dancers began pairing up and passed her as if she was indeed no more than part of the furniture. Why? Perhaps she was so well known in Society that her incredible beauty was taken for granted? In a ballroom awash with beautiful young things draped in silks of soft creams, pinks, and blues, she was a real head-turner.