“I love you, Mariah.”
“That’s a very good trait in a husband.” She smiled up at him. “Thank goodness you meant it when you proposed all those years ago. Because I loved you when you were eight and I’ll love you even more when you’re eighty.”
Her eyes were shimmering with emotion as Kit leaned down and touched his mouth to hers in a kiss so gentle, so loving, so precious, it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“I think we waltzed among the stars,” he breathed at last. “And we returned with tiny bits of Stardust. See?” He leaned down and kissed her tears from the corner of her eyes.
“Tiny bits of Stardust born of the most incredible love and pleasure any girl could ask for.” Mariah touched his face with her palm of her hand. “I was afraid, Kit. But you didn’t hurt me at all. You made me feel so wonderful. It wasn’t at all like the times he touched me. Thank you, my darling.”
“For sharing paradise with you?” Kit murmured as he held her in his arms. “I’ll be honored to do that for the rest of my life and beyond.”
“Then, do it again, Kit.” She rolled to her side and propped herself on her elbow and looked down at him. “Now. Find a page in that wondrous book of yours and take me to the stars for as long as you can.”
“I don’t need the book.” Kit reached up to touch the lock of black hair curling just above the tip of her breast. “For that page is called Pleasing My Lady.”
“How?” she asked.
“By giving her my heart.”
This time the bits of Stardust they brought home were tears of profound joy. And this time they sparkled in his eyes.
* * *
Mariah awoke at daybreak to find Kit reading a letter in the pool of light that filtered through the crenellations. The lantern still burned beside him, and Mariah knew instinctively that he been sitting there for some time. “Kit?”
“Good morning.” He turned to her and the smile he gave her was so full of love and lust and satisfaction that Mariah blushed.
“Have you been awake long?” She stretched languidly and rubbed her eyes.
“For a bit,” he answered. “I’ve been carrying this around for over a year now. I was afraid to open it because I was afraid of what it might say and of what I might learn. I kept thinking that it might be some sort of Pandora’s box and that once I broke the seal, I’d never be able to get everything back inside the way it was.”
“What is it?” she asked, sitting up.
“A note from George Ramsey telling me that the enclosed envelope contains a letter from my mother.”
“Lady Templeston?” Mariah looked perplexed.
“No.” He shook his head. “My other mother. The one who died. Today is the beginning of my new life. Of our new life together as man and wife, and I decided that it was the right time for me to lay all the ghosts of my past to rest.”
“Oh.”
Kit patted the seat next to him. “Come sit beside me. I’ll read it to you, and when I’ve shared this part of my heritage with you, I want to begin the day Sharing the Nectar with my wife—for as long as I live.”
Mariah sat down beside him, wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her bare breasts against him as she leaned her head against his shoulder, and listened to the words that laid the past to rest …
Epilogue
A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections.
—WASHINGTON IRVING, 1783–1859
My darling child,
Today is your birthday. My birthing pains began early this morning and have continued throughout the day, and I know before the sun rises on another day, I shall hold you in my arms.
I am filled with mixed emotions as I write these words. Elated, yet fearful. Proud, but humble. And terribly, terribly grateful for the man who is your father, for he brought me out of a world of grief and taught me how to love again.
I have loved two very different men in my life. The youthful one I married and the older one I clung to when I believed myself to be a widow. God willing, you will grow up to know and love the one who has claimed you as his own. You will grow up believing he is your papa and you will be secure in his love. But, my darling child, you should also know that there is another man who loves you even more than your papa—for he is the one who gave you life. He will never be able to claim you as his own—except to those closest to him—but he will be there should you ever need him. All you need ever do is call upon him and present the locket he gave me.
Both of the men in my life have proven themselves to be extraordinary. But my love for them pales in comparison to the love I feel for you. Always know that you are loved and wanted and needed and welcomed into this world as no other child could be. You are the product of the love I felt for a wonderful man and of the love he felt for me.
Never forget that, my child. Always know that I intended my son to be Christopher George Ramsey or my daughter to be Marina Estella Ramsey.
Enclosed you will find an ancient deed to the ruined tower. It has no legal value, only sentimental value, for the land all belongs to my father, your grandfather, the earl of Kilgannon, but one day it will belong to you, for I am my father’s heir. Because he had no son, he petitioned the Crown to amend the ancient letters patent to make me a peeress in my own right and to allow my firstborn child—son or daughter—to inherit. If I should predecease my father, my firstborn child shall be named as his heir, and all that would have come to me will belong to you.
So I am giving you a piece of your inheritance today.
The tower ruins. Where I sat long ago and dreamed of finding love, of marrying, and of being a wife and mother.
I have been a wife to a wonderful man, and I am about to become a mother to you, my child. And I have been greatly loved by two men who were greatly loved in return.
I have fulfilled my life’s ambition. And I wish the same for you. My dreams were born in that old crumbling tower, and my tower of dreams is my gift to you. My beloved child.
From
Your loving Mother,
Lady Alanna Farrington, née Kilgannon.
Turn the page for a preview of
BARELY A BRIDE
The first novel in Rebecca Hagan Lee’s
Free Fellows League trilogy
THE KNIGHTSGUILD SCHOOL FOR GENTLEMEN
Derbyshire, England, 1793
They slipped away in the dead of night.
The three young men moved quickly, quietly weaving their way through the rows of identical iron cots in the dormitory of the Knightsguild School for Gentlemen. Three young gentlemen enrolled in the school—scions of the oldest and most prestigious families of England and Scotland—carried with them paper, pens and ink, sealing wax, leftover stubs of candles, a paring knife, and a yellowed bit of newspaper printed with the seditious writings of the colonial rebel Thomas Jefferson for inspiration.
Wrapping themselves in blankets to ward off the bitter January chill, the boys headed toward the storeroom behind the kitchen. They moved with great stealth and cunning, tiptoeing out of the dormitory, down the stairs, past the schoolrooms, and the refectory toward the vast kitchens and the little used storeroom behind it.
The candle stubs they carried barely illuminated the way, but perhaps that was just as well, for the work they were about had to remain a secret. Even from the other boys.
“Damn!” Griffin Abernathy, the seventeenth Viscount Abernathy, swore as his candle stub guttered and hot wax dripped onto the back of his hand.
“What happened?” Colin McElreath, the twenty-seventh Viscount Grantham asked in a loud whisper that bespoke his Scottish heritage.
“My light’s gone,” Griff answered. “You’ll have to lead the way.”
“Quiet! Both of you!” Jarrod Shepherdston, the twenty-second earl of Westmore, warned. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead. And if we get caught, there will be canings all around.”
“We’ve suffered canings for lesser crimes,” Colin answered, cupping hi
s palm around the candle flame, shielding it from the draft as he changed places with Griff. “Without complaint.”
Griff nodded at Jarrod. “You’ve never minded canings before.”
“And I don’t mind them now,” Jarrod said. “What I mind is missing the puddings.” He stared at his friends. “It’s bad enough that they practically starve us to death in the name of discipline, but you know that in addition to caning us, the headmaster will take away our puddings—for at least a fortnight.”
Jarrod’s companions nodded. They didn’t object to suffering through the painful canings the headmaster inflicted nearly as much as the other punishment he inflicted. The meals served at Knightsguild were served on a strict regimen of two full meals a day—at breakfast and at the nooning—and a light afternoon tea. The students did not receive an evening meal, for that meant paying a staff to work extra hours, and even if Knightsguild had provided another meal, none of them could begin to compare with the meals the boys enjoyed at home.
Breakfast at Knightsguild consisted of porridge, tea, and toast, and the nooning meal consisted of boiled meat and vegetables. Pudding, as the dessert was called, was served only at afternoon tea and only because the headmaster had a voracious sweet tooth. Afternoon tea was the one meal the boys all looked forward to. The pastries, cakes, biscuits, and puddings served in place of a meal were the highlight of their existence at Knightsguild, and forfeiture of the puddings was the most effective punishment the headmaster had yet devised.
He had learned long ago that growing young men never willingly gave up dessert.
Griffin grinned at Colin, then at Jarrod. “Then we’d better not get caught.” He nudged Colin in the shoulder and urged him forward in his best imitation of a Scottish burr. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
“McElreath,” Colin growled. “My name’s McElreath, not MacDuff.”
“I was quoting Shakespeare’s MacBeth,” Griff told him.
“Shakespeare?” Colin smirked. “I suppose you think he was an expert on Scottish kings?”
“Not all of them.” Griff grinned once again. “Just the mad ones.”
“Quiet!” Jarrod pushed past both of them. “Follow me,” he ordered. “I’ll lead the way.”
“Go ahead.” Colin shrugged his shoulders. “You always do anyway.”
Jarrod led the way through the kitchens to the storeroom. He set his candle on the brick window ledge, took out the paring knife, and carefully sliced through the leather cord holding the wooden latch. Once he gained entry, Jarrod pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Griffin and Colin followed.
The heat from the kitchen ovens on the other side of the brick wall kept the storeroom warm enough for the boys to shed their blankets. They folded the blankets into neat, woolen squares to use as floor cushions before pulling a battered wooden crate they had hidden in the storeroom into place to use as a table. When the crate was situated to everyone’s satisfaction, the three companions placed their collective offerings of pens and ink, paper, candles, knife, and sealing wax on it and set down to work.
By the time they emerged from the storeroom, an hour or so before the breakfast bells rang, the three boys had formed a secret society that bound them together and fashioned a charter to govern it. And their composition was worthy of Thomas Jefferson’s best efforts.
They called it the Official Charter of the Free Fellows League, and as they pricked their thumbs with the paring knife and signed their names to the paper in blood, Griffin, Colin, and Jarrod swore to honor the agreement as long as they lived.
Official Charter of the Free Fellows League
On this, the seventh day of January in the year of Our Lord 1793, we, the sons and heirs to the oldest and most esteemed titles and finest families of England and Scotland, do found and charter our own Free Fellows League.
The Free Fellows League is dedicated to the proposition that sons and heirs to great titles and fortunes, who are duty bound to marry in order to beget future sons and heirs, should be allowed to avoid the inevitable leg-shackling to a female for as long as possible.
As charter members of the Free Fellows League, we agree that:
1.) We shall only agree to marry when we’ve no other choice or when we’re old. (No sooner than our thirtieth year.)
2.) We shall agree to pay each of our fellow Free Fellows the sum of five hundred pounds sterling should any of us marry before we reach our thirtieth year.
3.) We shall never consort with unmarried females (other than our female relations) or darken the doors of any establishments that cater to “Marriage Mart” mamas or their desperate daughters. Nor shall we frequent the homes of any relatives, friends, or acquaintances that seek to match us up with prospective brides.
4.) When compelled to marry, we agree that we shall only marry suitable ladies from suitable families with fortunes equal to or greater than our own.
5.) We shall never he encumbered by sentiment known as love or succumb to female wiles or tears.
6.) We shall sacrifice ourselves on the altar of duty in order to beget our heirs, but we shall take no pleasure in the task. We shall look upon the act in the same manner as medicine that must be swallowed.
7.) We shall install our wives in our country houses and resume our bachelor lives in London.
8.) We shall drink and ride and hunt, and frequent gaming dens with our friends and boon companions whenever we are pleased to do so.
9.) We shall not allow the females who share our names to dictate to us in any manner. We shall put our feet upon tables and sofas and the seats of chairs if we so choose, and we shall allow our hounds to sit upon the furnishings and roam our houses and grounds at will.
10.) We shall give our first loyalty and our undying friendship to our brothers and fellow members of the Free Fellows League.
Signed (in blood) and sealed by:
The Right Honorable Griffin Abernathy, 17th Viscount Abernathy, aged nine years and two months, eldest son of and heir apparent to the 16th earl of Weymouth.
The Right Honorable Colin McElreath, 27th Viscount Grantham, aged nine years and five months, eldest son of and heir apparent to the 9th earl of McElreath.
The Right Honorable Jarrod Shepherdston, 22nd earl of Westmore, aged ten years and three months, eldest son of and heir apparent to the 4th marquess of Shepherdston.
Always a Lady
© 2002 Rebecca Hagan Lee
ISBN: 0515133477
BERKLEY
Ed♥n
Rebecca Hagan Lee, Always a Lady
(Series: # )
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends