Tempting Mr. Weatherstone: A Wallflower Wedding Novella (Originally Appeared in the E-Book Anthology FIVE GOLDEN RINGS) (7 page)
Authors: Vivienne Lorret
Tags: #Fiction, #Regency, #romance historical, #Romance
P
ENELOPE AWOKE THE
next morning, happier than she’d ever been in her life. She skipped down the stairs before any of the servants were awake. She couldn’t wait to start planning the rest of her life with Ethan.
Stepping into her father’s study, she noted the tufted armchair by the fire. While it was similar to the one in his London study, she was no longer haunted by the specter of her future self. Instead, the happy vision of children and laughter filled her mind. She sighed with contentment and spun around.
“Good morning,” Ethan said, surprising her by standing in the doorway.
She went to him, rushing into his arms for no better reason than because she could. “Good morning.” She lifted her mouth to his and received a very nice kiss. A perfect kiss. “What brings you here so early?”
He grinned at her, his eyes alight with molten copper. “A morning adventure.”
“Oh?” Hmm . . . Perhaps he was here for more than a perfect kiss. The idea warmed her to her toes.
He chuckled as if he knew the direction of her thoughts. “I’m here to kidnap my would-be bride and take her to Gretna Green.”
She drew in a startled breath, her mouth curving in a wide grin. “But what about our parents? Surely, they will be heartbroken.” However, at the moment, it was difficult to quash her excitement and summon the proper degree of concern.
“Don’t worry, I left a note on your father’s desk,” he said, anticipation glowing brightly in his eyes. “And I left a note for my mother as well.”
“You know, for not having much practice in spontaneity, you are very good at it,” she said, as they walked together out into the hall. There, she saw her traveling cloak and her satchel waiting on the table.
She eyed him speculatively and shook her head, feigning disappointment. “You planned this?”
He shrugged, looking mildly chagrined. “I asked your maid to pack for you last night.”
Once again, Penelope threw her arms around Ethan and kissed him, simply because she could. “Mr. Weatherstone, I love you dearly. You are, by far, the best adventure of all.”
Want more tales of passion from
USA Today
bestselling author Vivienne Lorret?
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And don’t miss the rest of her fan-favorite Wallflower Wedding Series, now available from e-retailers:
Daring Miss Danvers
Winning Miss Wakefield
Finding Miss McFarland
Gabriel Ludlow, Viscount Everhart, has no interest in the trappings of marriage. So when he makes a bachelor’s wager for an exorbitant sum, he has little cause for worry. But when the beautiful Calliope Croft suddenly appears on his doorstep, Gabriel must choose between two paths: break her heart all over again, or finally succumb to the love he can no longer deny.
CALLIOPE JOLTED, SITTING
upright. Her spine snapped into place with the suddenness of an arrow hitting a target. “Did you just . . . just kiss me?”
“Kiss you?” Everhart asked from behind her, his tone a combination of amusement and disbelief. “Preposterous. You know very well that I’m merely aiding in your recuperation. Nothing untoward. My fingers are here”—he thrummed them over the upper portions of her shoulders to demonstrate. “And my thumbs are here”—he burrowed the tips in a circular motion, directly into the aching knot at the base of her neck.
She tried not to moan, but a soft whimper
might
have escaped nonetheless.
While he claimed this
medicinal massage
had been around for centuries, she knew nothing of it. Even so, she never wanted him to stop.
“I distinctly felt something that was neither thumb nor finger on the nape of my neck,” she argued, but with no force behind the words. She found it difficult to summon any censure. Her body hummed pleasantly, as if his hands were massaging every inch of her, instead of merely her shoulders.
“This accusation comes from a wealth of knowledge on your part, does it?” He altered his grip, kneading her flesh with the heels of his hands.
She swallowed down another moan. “Well, no. But I think I would know the diff—”
“There you have it,” he said succinctly. “You would not even know a kiss if it had happened,
which it did not
. Now tilt your head forward like before, or you will strain yourself again.”
Oh, yes.
Every rumor she’d heard about Everhart’s skill with his hands was indeed warranted. Of course, she shouldn’t have paid any attention to what widows whispered behind their fans at balls, but one could not simply forget what one wasn’t supposed to overhear. Those were usually the most interesting bits of conversation.
Still, she could not let her somewhat overactive imagination cause her to lose this argument. Everhart had always been cold to her, so unlike the way he was with everyone else. She longed to discover the mystery behind his changeling behavior. “The flesh that brushed mine was decidedly warmer than your thumbs.”
“Are you saying my hands are cold?” He did something almost wicked then, sliding his fingers along the ridges of her shoulders as his rotating thumbs slipped beneath the back of her gown.
Sweet heaven
. “Not at all. Only that what I’m certain I felt was softer than the flesh of your thumbs, but not overly soft, and warmer, like the heat rising out of a brazier.”
“Hmm,” he murmured deep in his throat, causing her to feel the rumble of it. “This is quite the mystery. Are you certain it was not this . . .” He brushed the pad of his thumb along the curve of her nape, eliciting a pleasant series of tremors through her.
Oh, please do that again
. “I’m certain.”
He shifted behind her. “What about this?” he said, closer now. His hot breath sifted through silken strands of hair to fan out over her skin. “Perhaps you merely felt my breath on your flesh.”
Everhart made the notion sound sinful and decadent. Her mouth watered.
His massage remained unhurried and thorough, delving into the deepest part of her ache, all the while creating a new one elsewhere—foreign and familiar at the same time, like a book slowly coming to life at the author’s bidding. And when his breath caressed her, she felt her pages stir.
She’d been trying to make a point about how he could not remain cold and annoyed with her for years and then suddenly turn warm and friendly without explanation. Yet she no longer cared. She was solely living in this moment. She, Calliope Croft. Not a character in a story, but her.
Another breath caressed her. His lips glided against her flesh once more.
“Everhart, are you kissing me now?” She knew the answer, of course, but she needed to hear him admit it.
“No, Miss Croft,” he said, nipping her lightly. “I’m offering you a frame of reference, should you accuse another man of kissing your neck in the future.”
USA Today
bestselling author VIVIENNE LORRET loves romance novels, her pink laptop, her husband, and her two sons (not necessarily in that order . . . but there are days). Transforming copious amounts of tea into words, she is proud to be the Avon Impulse author of works including The Wallflower Wedding Series and the upcoming Rakes of Fallow Hall Series.
www.vivlorrret.net Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
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“Tempting Mr. Weatherstone” originally appeared in the anthology
Five Golden Rings
, published in 2012 by Avon Impulse, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
The Elusive Lord Everhart
copyright © 2015 by Vivienne Lorret.
TEMPTING MR. WEATH
ERSTONE.
Copyright © 2012 by Vivienne Lorret. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780062387257
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