Wed at Leisure (12 page)
Authors: Sabrina Darby
Bianca was a fortress, not only physically, thanks to her sister’s decree that she could not enter society until Kate found a mate (the rhyme brought a small smile to Bianca’s lips), but also emotionally. No one and nothing could hurt her if she didn’t care.
Although she did feel deeply. When she read Mrs. Burney’s
Evelina
again for the fourteenth time, she still sighed over Lord Orville, preferred him in fact to all the heroes of Miss Austen’s works. Although Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth never failed to thrill and Captain Wentworth’s final speech to Anne was the epitome of romance.
Romance that Bianca would never experience. Unless perhaps this letter contained news of Kate having formed a tendre for some gentleman.
But no, Kate was far too happy flirting and flitting about to settle down just yet. And thus, at nineteen, Bianca was still stuck here at home.
Not that she would wish to leave Thomas’s side until he was completely mended and off to school. She did love him desperately. In some ways she was more a mother to him than a sister, as his own mother, her stepmother, was always off accompanying Kate, from London to Brighton to Bath and back to London. Henrietta had knowingly married a country gentleman but she refused to remain in the country herself.
With a sigh, Bianca unfolded the missive. The mere sight of the familiar script sent dread seeping down her body.
She skimmed the letter, only registering a few lines here and there.
The Season is over and next week we shall move to Brighton, where we are staying with our cousins, the Plimptons.
Their mother’s family. Bianca had only met them once as their mother had not been close with her siblings. However, she had never felt one of them. Kate, who had inherited her dark hair and eyes from that side of the family, had always seemed to fit in.
I hope Brighton is its usual effervescent self. It will be such a relief to enjoy the sea air after all those months in London. London is wonderful and diverting but a change of scene is very welcome.
Not that Bianca had ever experienced a change of scene, which Kate knew very well.
And without the eternal presence of our neighbor, as His Grace usually chooses to return home this time of year.
Peter Colburn, the Duke of Orland. Whom Kate disliked for some unknown reason. She never failed to post some snippety snippet about him in her letters.
I look forward to Christmastide and seeing you again. It has, as usual, been too long.
Bianca had a very faint memory from early childhood of toddling behind her sister, looking up at her in the hazy sunshine. Loving her.
Sometimes she longed for that falsely idyllic image. Longed for an older sister the same way she missed her mother.
Sometimes she longed for a mother.
Which Henrietta, her stepmother, would never be. No, Kate, in her usual way, had demanded all of the attention. Even before her sister had actively been antagonistic toward Bianca. And thus there was only Thomas. And Lottie.
Thank goodness for Lottie.
There were other homes, she knew, where there was a more conscious separation between master and servant. Indeed, between the regular staff, the parlor maids and footmen and so forth, yes, there was. But as her governess, Lottie was simply part of the family. And in many ways, the
entirety
of Bianca’s family.
P.S. If Mr. Buncombe comes calling, you should decline his suit by reminding him you may not marry before me!
Bianca read that last with a mixture of disgust and anger. Disgust because she would never consider marrying the much older, newly widowed Mr. Buncombe. Yes, his was one of the first families of the area, but his daughters were older than she and all already married. She didn’t need that ridiculous proclamation to keep her safe. All the reference did was make her burn with resentment. Just as she had burned for two years, despite her efforts to not worry about the things she could not control.
It had been the end of Kate’s first London Season. Those four months had been the most pleasant of Bianca’s life in years. But then, in usual Kate fashion, her sister had come home for one week and turned Bianca’s world upside down. Kate had been in a rage from the first moment she walked into the house and no one had been safe. Bianca’s clothes were ugly, her posture slouched, she smelled of fish (yes, she had just returned with her angling rod). And when Bianca, excited for her own incipient Season, dared to ask how Kate’s Season had been, for details that were not in her sister’s letters, the infamous proclamation was made.
“You’ll have to wait for your Season, Bianca. You shan’t marry before me!”
Terrified that her sister actually meant the flippant words, Bianca had said nothing more on the matter. After all, Kate was stubborn and would likely dig her heels in out of spite if pushed. But at the dressmaker several days later, the proclamation was reiterated. Then, after much ado, supported by their step-mother, upheld by their father, Bianca’s fate sealed. Choices about her life made by everyone but she.
In a world where she could not control much of anything. Where she couldn’t stop her mother from dying . . .
She shook the thoughts away, invoked the peace of the stream, of focusing on the perfection of the cast. Found a sense of calm determination and looked up at Lottie.
“It is much the same. A pretense at sisterly affection while teasing me with the life she will not share. I do not see why you insist I read these.” And as she said those words, she realized that was one thing she didn’t
have
to do. She crumpled the letter up decisively. “In fact, I won’t anymore. That is the very last one.”
There was something freeing about that decision. A bittersweet freedom.
But she was nineteen, and she refused to live her life any longer according to her sister’s whims.
Sabrina Darby has been reading romance since the age of seven and learned her best vocabulary (dulcet, diaphanous, and turgid) from them. The day after her wedding she woke up with an idea for a novel and she’s been writing romance ever since. She is the author of
On These Silken Sheets
,
The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe
,
Entry-Level Mistress
, and
Private Research
.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe
Give in to your impulses . . .
Read on for a sneak peek at two brand-new
e-book original tales of romance from Avon Books.
Available now wherever e-books are sold.
B
OOK
T
WO:
T
HE
M
C
B
R
IDES
By Jennifer Ryan
Good Girls Don’t Date Rock Stars
By Codi Gary
An Excerpt from
Book Two: The McBrides
by Jennifer Ryan
From
New York Times
bestselling author Jennifer Ryan comes the second book in an unforgettable series about the sexy McBride men of Fallbrook, Colorado. Reformed bad boy Owen McBride will do anything to protect his beautiful neighbor when she gets caught in the crossfire between his client and her abusive ex.
C
laire woke out of a sound sleep with a gasp and held her breath, trying to figure out what had startled her. She listened to the quiet night. Nothing but crickets and the breeze rustling the trees outside. A twig snapped on the ground below her window. Her heart hammered faster, and she sucked in a breath, trying not to panic. Living in the country lent itself to overactive imaginings about things that go bump in the dark night. The noise could be anything from a stray dog or cat to a raccoon on a midnight raid of her garbage cans, even an opossum looking for a little action.
Settled back into her pillow and the thick blankets, she closed her eyes, but opened them wide when something big brushed against the side of the house. Freaked out, she got up from the bed and went to the window. She pulled the curtain back with one finger and peeked through the crack, scanning the moonlit yard below for wayward critters. Not so easy to see with the quarter moon, but she watched the shadows for anything suspicious. Nothing moved.
Not satisfied, and certainly not able to sleep without a more thorough investigation, she padded down the scarred wooden stairs to the living room. She skirted packing boxes and the sofa and went to the window overlooking the front yard. Nothing moved. Still not satisfied, she walked to the dining room, opened the blinds, and stared out into the cold night. Something banged one flower pot into another on the back patio, drawing her away from the dining room, through the kitchen, and to the counter. She grabbed the phone off the charger, went around the island, and tiptoed along the breakfast bar to the sliding glass door. She peeked out, hiding most of her body behind the wall and ducking her head out to see if someone was trying to break into her house. Like she thought, the small pot filled with marigolds had been knocked over and broken against the pot of geraniums beside it. Upset that her pretty pot and flowers were ruined, she moved away from the wall and stood in the center of the glass door to get a better look.
With her gaze cast down on the pots, she didn’t see the man step out from the other side of the patio until his shadow fell over her. Their gazes collided, his eyes going as wide as hers.
“You’re not him,” he said, stumbling back, knocking over a potted pink miniature rose bush, and falling on his ass, breaking the pot and the rose with his legs. She hoped he got stuck a dozen times, but the tiny thorns probably wouldn’t go through his dirt-smudged jeans.
In a rage, she opened the door, but held tight to the handle so she could close it again if he came too close. She yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’ll get him for this and for sleeping with my wife,” the guy slurred. Drunk and ranting, he gained his feet but stumbled again. “Where is he?” The man turned every which way, looking past her and into her dark house.
“Who?”
“Your lying, cheating, no-good husband.”
“How the hell should I know? I haven’t seen or heard from him in six months.”
“Liar. I saw him drive this way tonight after he fucked my wife at his office and filled her head with more bullshit lies.”
“Listen, I’m sorry if my
ex
is messing with your wife. I left him almost two years ago for cheating on me. Believe me, I know how you feel, but he doesn’t live here.”
“You’re lying. He drove his truck this way and stopped just outside.”
“He doesn’t drive a truck.”
“Stop lying, bitch.”
“I’m not. You have the wrong person.”
“You tell that no-good McBride he better stop seeing my wife. If he thinks a bunch of papers will ever set her free from me, he doesn’t know what I’m capable of, what we have. He’ll be one sorry son of a bitch. She’s mine. I keep what’s mine.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No. You don’t understand,” he said, almost like a whining child. “You tell him, or I’ll make him pay with what’s his.” He pointed an ominous finger at her. “You tell him if he doesn’t leave my wife alone and let her come back to me like she wants, I’m going to hurt you before I come after him.”
An Excerpt from
by Codi Gary
Gemma Carlson didn’t plan on waking up married to her old flame—and her son’s father-turned-country rock star—Travis Bowers, following a night of drunken dares. So she does the only sane thing: she runs!
Travis finally has a second chance, and he doesn’t plan on losing Gemma again—or the son he didn’t know he had. He’s in this for the long haul. Even if it means chasing his long-lost love all over again . . .
“W
hat are you doing here, Travis?”
The rage and frustration that had been simmering below the surface of his skin started to burn. “Why wouldn’t I come here?” He turned around and faced her, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re my wife. We spent a magical night together, and I just happen to have a break in my tour that allows me to spend several weeks with you.”
“I thought you would—”
“What, Gemma?” His voice was low and dark as he approached her. Grabbing her shoulders, he gave her a gentle shake. “What? You thought I’d just read your letter and be grateful? That I’d think, ‘you know what, she’s right’ and leave you alone, just disappear from your life again?”
She stopped struggling, and he could tell by her expression that was exactly what she’d been thinking.
“This is my home, Travis. You can’t just show up here and disrupt my life,” she hissed.
“I’m not trying to disrupt your life. I just want to know why you left without talking to me. At least trying to work out what happened,” he said.
“What happened is we got drunk and did something stupid. End of story,” she said.
“No, that’s not the end of it, sweetheart,” he snapped before he could rein in his temper. “Like it or not, we’re married. It wasn’t something I planned, but that’s the way things are, and you could have at least given me the courtesy of waking me up and talking about it.”
“What’s there to talk about, Travis? We haven’t seen each other for ten years, and yes, I had fun with you, but we want totally different things,” she said, sounding almost disappointed. “You and I . . . we don’t work anymore. We’re too different. Our worlds are too different.”
He took a calming breath and thought about her words. It was true that their lives were different, but that wasn’t a kill switch for a future. People called alcohol “truth serum,” and if he’d stood up and pledged himself to Gemma legally, deep down he must have wanted it. Which led to a whole new line of crazy he could sift through later, but right now, he needed to make her understand that he took what they’d done seriously. He wasn’t going to let her just sweep it under the rug as a drunken mistake.
Especially since it took two to say “I do.”
He had been developing his strategy the whole drive, and he’d come up with an idea he was going to propose—before he’d lost his cool. He needed to prove that there was more to what happened than a wild weekend gone wrong. Gemma had said he didn’t know her; well, what better way to get to know someone than to date them?
She’d never agree to it, though, until she got over whatever had her in a panic. He needed to show her that it wasn’t over, not just like that. There was too much left between them for “closure” or whatever her letter had said.
And he would prove it to her.
“I thought we were working really well together,” he said softly, his tone seductive. He took her hand, holding it gently when she tried to pull away and caressing the back of it with his thumb. He saw her shiver and smiled as he brought her fingers up to his mouth, his lips hovering above the knuckles as he spoke. “When we were in your hotel room, and I had my hands on your body, running them over your skin . . . you felt so good.” She licked her lips and closed her eyes. He pulled her closer, trailing his lips from her wrist to her elbow. “And the taste of your skin . . . all the little sounds you made when I played with your breasts . . . or when I was deep inside you.”
He wrapped his arms around her, his large hands splaying across the curve of her ass, using it to pull her against him. Her breath whooshed out as he pushed himself against her, knowing she could feel every inch of his erection between them. He felt her relax into him, and her hand held onto his bicep, her eyes opening slowly, meeting his. He saw the matching desire in those mossy depths and dropped his lips to her temple, traveling over her skin until his mouth reached her ear. He nipped the small shell teasingly, and her body tightened against his, making him smile as he added, “I can show you again, if you don’t remember.”