“For God’s sake!” she said, her eyes snapping open. “Garret Langham, are you actually talking about your stables—now?”

He looked down at her. Her lips were pouting a dark cherry color from all his kisses. He had one hand curved around her breast and the other between her legs, and her eyes were wild and loving and desperate with need, all at once.

“Well,” he told her, easily picking up her hips and positioning her just so. And then letting her slip down on him, inch by inch. “I thought we could—” he had to take a breath “—talk about our breeding program.”

“You’re lucky to have me,” Josie told him against his lips. Then she nipped his lower lips and wound her arms around his shoulders.

“I know it,” he said.

She was setting the pace, making his blood race, making him feel as untamed as a tiger. Her hair tumbled down her back, unruly and soft. She cupped her hands around his face. “I should kill you for that water trick.”

“Don’t,” he gasped. “I don’t think that…ghosts have—” But he was done talking. So he just kissed her into silence, his own sweet Josie, his beloved, his wife.

46

From The Earl of Hellgate’s Memoirs,

Chapter the Twenty-eighth

As I say adieu to you, my Dear Readers, I can only wish with all my heart that you might sail on the same clouds of happiness as do I…reach the same summit of bliss as I have.

Adieu, Adieu!

T he party to celebrate the debut of the book that everyone said would be the publication of the century had already been going on for two hours when the Regent stamped to the front of the room to make a few remarks. He was holding a signed copy, bound in crimson leather and studded with pearls (the printing press operated by Lucius Felton had moved into luxury bindings with great success).

Harry Grone was hurriedly scribbling notes for The Tatler. The Regent’s speech brought a tear to every eye, he wrote. The way he talked of his beloved daughter, Our Mourned Princess, was deemed most affecting. The Regent then did the inexpressible honor of giving the memoir’s author, Darlington, a royal embrace. As our readers remember, Grone noted, Darlington was knighted a few weeks ago for his work on the Princess’s biography.Sir Charles Darlington took the stage and thanked the Regent in the most fulsome of terms. He then turned to his wife, Lady Griselda… Grone paused. He didn’t approve of the fact that her ladyship was in company while visibly enceinte, but he supposed he had to change with the times. Still, he wasn’t going to mention such a thing in The Tatler. Darlington said he’d written the memoir for his wife, and that she was—What did he say? “The possessor of his heart”? Grone sighed. His hearing wasn’t all it could be, and he’d rather Darlington stuck to simple Anglo-Saxon words.

Everyone was most affected by his obvious devotion for his wife, he finished.

Perhaps if Grone had glanced to the back of the room, he might have changed his mind. For there stood four Essex sisters and their husbands. True, they clapped wildly to celebrate Darlington’s book.

But Josie, the Countess of Mayne, was giggling madly during Darlington’s speech. Her husband had his arms around her waist and he kept whispering in her ear, clearly trying to hush her into silence.

“Be still, you minx!” Mayne whispered.

“It’s just such twaddle,” she whispered back.

“Yes, but did you hear how many leather-bound copies Felton is printing?” Mayne asked her. “Darlington’s twaddle is beloved by thousands.”

She leaned back against him, loving the fact that she could feel his enthusiasm straight through the floating silk of her gown. “Garret…” she whispered, wiggling against him.

“Do you want to make a sight of me?” he growled in her ear.

She leaned her head back on his shoulder, bringing her lips just under his. The Earl of Mayne was never a man who cared much about cleaning up his black reputation. And he couldn’t ignore an invitation like that.

He whisked his wife about and began kissing her as if they weren’t in a room full of her sisters, as if the Regent wasn’t just before them, as if newsmen weren’t making notes for gossip columns, as if the world wasn’t going to end someday.

Because none of that mattered, not when Mayne had Josie, his own delicious, laughing Josie, just where she needed to be.

In the circle of his arms.

Epilogue

Three years later

B loody hell,” Josie gasped. “This is awful. This is—This is worse than anything. I’m done. Done! Done, I tell you!” She was shrieking now.

Tess wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You’ll be all right, darling, I promise it. Just calm down.”“Calm down. Calm down!” Josie swung around. “Stop laughing!”

“I’m not laughing,” Annabel said, straightening her mouth quickly. “I was just remarking to Imogen that—”

“There’s no call to remark anything!” Josie snapped. “I truly—” She broke off. “Oh—oh—oh—bloody hell!”

There was a knock on the door and Annabel opened it. “Hello, Mayne!” she said cheerfully.

“I heard her shouting.” His face was stark white and his eyes looked haggard. “Is she in much pain? May I see her?”

“I don’t see why not. There’s nothing much happening yet. It’s far too early. We keep telling her that nothing will happen for hours and hours, but you know Josie. She’s not patient.”

Annabel swung open the door to reveal Josie bent over, clinging to Tess as if her elder sister were a raft in the middle of a storm.

“Josie,” Mayne said hoarsely, striding over to her. “Are you all right?”

She turned around and swept the hair out of her eyes. “Of course I’m not all right. I’m dying here. Dying!”

Tess stepped back and Mayne wrapped his arms around his wife. “I would do anything for you. Would you like me to rub your back?”

Imogen grinned at Annabel. “Don’t you love it when men forget to be the lord of the castle for a moment or two?”

Annabel actually lived in a castle, and her deep chuckle was infectious. “After each of our children, Ewan has sworn that he will never put me through such a thing again.”

“Good thing you have that huge bar on your bedchamber door,” Imogen said with a little snort. “Although I can’t think why you’re looking so round, Annabel, if you’ve taken up a life of chastity.”

Annabel grinned. “It’s my natural state,” she said. But the hand she curved over her tummy said something different.

Mayne was feeling much better now that he had Josie in his arms. It was pure agony pacing the corridor and knowing she was in pain. “I’m here now,” he said into her ear.

“I don’t like this,” Josie said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’d like it to be over now.”

“Well, it won’t be,” Tess said. “We have hours left. Mayne, you really ought to leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Mayne said. “If Josie has to endure hours more of this, I’m not going anywhere.” There was a mulish, frantic look to his eyes. “There are too many people in here.”