A Regency Match (30 page)

Sophy responded with a shivery sigh and a blissful smile, and she slipped her arms around his waist and snuggled into his embrace. “Does this mean,” she asked shyly, “that you are going to ask me to … to marry you?”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “In due time,” he teased, now quite obnoxiously sure of himself.

“In due time! What do you mean?” she demanded, pulling herself away from him. “When?”

“This afternoon at three,” he responded promptly, pulling her back again.

“I'm otherwise engaged this afternoon at three,” she said saucily. “I've promised to ride in the park with Tris Caitlin. And Dennis Stanford has arranged to meet me there, too.”

“Has he, indeed?” Marcus asked, raising one eyebrow threateningly. “As I told my mother before I left for Edgerton,” he added with a half-regretful sigh, “I shall certainly end by strangling you.” But he softened his dire threat by kissing her again.

When she'd regained her equilibrium, Sophy's fingers returned to his coat button. “Perhaps I might send them each a note,” she suggested demurely, “saying that a sudden emergency in the family prevents me from keeping our riding engagement.”

“That would be very kind,” Marcus murmured and bent his head to show his appreciation.

But she held him off. “Do you think,” she asked, her voice hesitant but quite serious, “that there
can
be a happy marriage when one of the partners holds the other in dislike?”

His eyes glinted down at her with malicious amusement. “Well, we shall learn the answer to that for ourselves one day, shan't we?”

That was not the response she'd wanted. She glared up at him, ready to do battle. But he laughed and pulled her into his arms again. “Well, you maddening, provoking, irritating chit, aren't you going to tell me that you love me and will be delighted to become my wife?” His tone was challenging and smug, although his lips were distractingly pressed to her forehead.

“Certainly not,” she answered promptly.

His head came up with a jerk. “What?” he demanded with very satisfactory dismay.

She looked up at him, demurely innocent. “Not until three o'clock, when you've asked me properly,” she said. Then, twisting her arms tightly around his neck, she raised her lips for another kiss.

At Wynwood, where Julian was lingering out the summer, Charlotte handed him the letter she'd just received from Marcus. Julian read the first paragraph and gave a whoop of joy. “He's
done
it!” he chortled. “Gotten himself shackled to the right female at last.”

“Not shackled yet. He says we're to give a party first to announce it. He wants at least two hundred guests.”

Julian couldn't believe it, but there it was in the letter in his nephew's precise, firm hand:
at least two hundred in attendance
. He shook his head in wonder. “Two hundred!” he laughed. “What's come over the boy? I know love changes a fellow, but this—!” He looked across the table at his sister, sitting there calmly adjusting her shawl about her shoulders. “Aren't you astounded?”

“Not at all,” Charlotte said placidly.

Julian cocked a suspicious eye at her. “Don't play that serene-and-all-knowing game with me. I'd wager a monkey to a groat that you were sick with worry the night of his betrothal. And a good many days before and after, as well.”

Charlotte smiled at him complacently, rose gracefully and threw the shawl about her neck with an insouciant toss. “I never had a moment's concern,” she said serenely, gliding to the door. “Not a single moment's concern.” And she floated from the room in her cloud of gauzy silk.

About the Author

Elizabeth Mansfield is a pseudonym of Paula Schwartz, which she used for more than two dozen Regency romances. Schwartz also wrote an American immigrant family saga,
A Morning Moon
, as Paula Reibel, and two American history romances—
To Spite the Devil
, as Paula Jonas, and
Rachel's Passage
, as Paula Reid.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1980 by Paula Schwartz

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9776-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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EBOOKS BY ELIZABETH MANSFIELD

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA