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Virginia and can’t give you a child, Luke?’ she asked, as the sounds of a new season and all the life and hope that came with it reminded her this was a time for new births as well as new beginnings.

      ‘I already have one and so do you. Any more will be a bonus. James can spawn a procession of young Winterleys in his image and I’m not sure if I pity the world or James most for that repellent notion.’

      ‘Wouldn’t that make you dislike him all the more?’

      ‘No, and I don’t dislike him. In a way I pity him for having to carry the weight of his mother’s frustrated hopes and dreams all these years.’

      ‘You’re a good man, Luke.’

      ‘No, I’m a lucky man, Chloe, and the fact I’ve finally realised it is Virginia’s finest legacy to me. Or should I count my wife as one of those as well?’

      ‘Willed to you as her last bequest? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

      ‘Not the fact of you, but the idea of you, perhaps? I think I learnt to hope the day I met your eyes across a cold expanse of January air and you couldn’t bring yourself to look away and pretend I wasn’t there for once. I was so sad and empty coming back to Farenze Lodge with Virginia dead and it seemed such a waste to know you so little and want you so badly. Oh, I haven’t the right words to say it, but that day I knew we would be different. That there was a chance for us, a future that might be opening up in front of us and it looked more wonderful than I dared to dream I deserved.’

      ‘I like your words, Luke. They’re so much better than your grim northern silences,’ she teased him a little, because it was tempting to give in to the tears stinging her eyes at the thought of him so lonely and grieving that day and this wasn’t a time for sorrow. ‘I love you, immoderately and passionately, and since ten years of enduring Lord Farenze’s gruff rebuffs couldn’t stop me doing it, I’m clearly going to suffer the affliction for life. I love you, Luke; today and tomorrow and every day after it that we spend on this good earth together.’

      ‘I’m so glad you love me back and echo every word in my stony and tongue-tied Winterley heart, even if I’m currently hungry as a hunter and in severe need of my breakfast.’

      ‘Oh, dear, that really is sadly unpoetic of you, my lord.’

      ‘I know, my lady, but I’m a mundane man and, as such, could be a sad burden to you for many years to come.’

      ‘I’ll still take you, my love; I’m a workaday woman and quite hungry myself.’

      ‘It’s been a busy sort of a day and night, getting ourselves wedded and bedded at long last. I’ll go and fetch us some breakfast,’ he said and jumped out of bed as if about to tear off downstairs stark naked, then get back to her before the bed was cold.

      ‘Luke, put some clothes on, you’ll terrify the maids,’ she exclaimed, trying to pretend the sight of his magnificent body, gilded by brilliant spring sunshine as the sun crept up the sky, hadn’t put all thought of food out of her head.

      ‘Very well, my lady, but don’t you go anywhere while I’m gone, will you?’ he said with a grin that made her knees knock too much to even think about getting out of bed quite yet.

      ‘As if I would, but I do love you,’ she told him with a besotted smile and how could she ever have thought his grey eyes were cold as he stared back at her, as if those words put every other thought out of his head but her.

      ‘I love you too, Chloe, so very much,’ he murmured and because he was a practical man he rang the bell instead of astonishing the servants, before leaping back into bed and rejoining his wife. ‘Far too much to go anywhere for even that long today,’ he murmured and kissed her so passionately and recklessly that they shocked them anyway.

      * * * * *

       The Marquis’s Awakening

      Elizabeth Beacon

      A goddess to revive him

      Tom Banburgh, Marquis of Mantaigne, has sworn never to return to Dayspring Castle. But his beloved godmother has other ideas. She sends him back to his unhappy childhood home, only for Tom to find Polly Trethayne camped out under his roof!

      From the beginning, Polly unsettles Tom. A goddess in breeches, she awakens feelings he thought he’d locked deep inside. Can Polly storm the barricades Tom has erected and bring fresh vitality to his lonely world?

       Chapter One

      Tom Banburgh, Marquis of Mantaigne, thought the polite world was about to be bitterly disappointed. If the wolfish glint in Luke Winterley’s eye was anything to go by, he wouldn’t be letting the former Lady Chloe Thessaly out of his bed long enough for her to go to town for a very long time, so the ton wouldn’t be able to pass judgement on the new Viscountess Farenze until her new husband could spare her—some time in the next decade, if they were lucky.

      ‘Can’t this wait until after your wedding journey?’ he asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as Lady Chloe took a sealed missive from the neat reticule she was carrying. He should have been suspicious of that, since Luke was waiting to whisk her off on their bride trip and she hardly stood in need of whatever ladies carried in them when she had a husband all too eager to provide for her every need, and a few she probably didn’t even know she had right now.

      Feeling a fool for not remembering his godmother’s infamous will, even on this joyous day Virginia had done so much to bring about, he realised he’d stepped into the book room with the happy couple as naively as a débutante at her first grown-up party. As if they would have anything else to say to him before they left for Devon on their honeymoon but here you are; you’re next.

      ‘Here you are; you’re next, I’m afraid, Tom,’ Chloe said with a rueful smile to admit he wouldn’t be pleased to take it and how could a few bits of expensive paper feel so heavy? ‘Luke says we won’t be back from Devon for weeks, and you must begin whatever you have to do for Lady Virginia before then if you’re to get it done in the allotted three months.’

      ‘Dash it all, though, it’s the beginning of the Season,’ Tom managed to utter after a heavy pause as he fought off a craven urge to throw the letter back at his best friend’s new wife and refuse. ‘Ah, well, suppose I might as well get it over with,’ he said as lightly as he could while turning the letter over again, as if he might conjure it into someone else’s hand if he put off reading it long enough.

      ‘Look what my quarter of a year brought me,’ Luke told him with a besotted smile Tom did his best to find nauseating.

      ‘And can you see me neatly paired off at the end of whatever wild goose chase Virginia insists I carry out for her?’ he demanded past a nasty little suspicion that was exactly what his wily godmother intended to happen, if Luke’s adventures were anything to go by.

      ‘One day you’ll have to consider the succession,’ Luke said half-seriously.

      ‘I have and decided there’s nothing very wonderful about the Banburghs, so who cares if there are no more of us?’ Tom replied with a cynical smile that felt a lot better than the dread of being the next one on his godmother’s list.

      He ordered himself not to squirm under the sceptical mother’s glance Chloe had perfected on her young niece. She and Luke would no doubt raise repellent quantities of brats in their joint images and be blissfully happy together for the rest of their lives, but he had no wish to follow in their footsteps and had managed without a family all his life.

      ‘True,’ Luke agreed with an impatient glance at the door. ‘Why not leave him to read it in peace now, love? A very small part of me would like to stay and watch Mantaigne perform like a dancing bear in

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