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Epilogue

      Two weeks later—Wolfingham House, London

      ‘Was that a very despondent-looking Anthony I saw leaving just now?’ Mariah prompted as she entered Darian’s study.

      ‘It was, yes.’ Darian smiled as she walked across the room and straight into his welcoming arms.

      She looked up at him quizzically. ‘What on earth did you say to him to make him look so downhearted?’

      His smile widened into a grin. ‘As we had already discussed, I told him that my duchess and I had decided to give him permission to pay court to our daughter, Christina.’

      After only a week of marriage, Mariah still felt a thrill in her chest at hearing herself referred to as Darian’s duchess. For that was who she was now, Mariah Hunter, the Duchess of Wolfingham. How grand it sounded. And yet she knew she loved Darian so much, wanted to be with him so much, that she would have married him even if he had not been the top-lofty and wealthy Duke of Wolfingham.

      Although she did not altogether trust that wicked grin upon her husband’s face right now.

      ‘If you told him that, why was Anthony looking less than happy?’

      That wicked grin widened, green eyes glowing with laughter. ‘Because I told him that not only does he have to win Christina’s heart, but that as her stepfather, I will also expect him to prove himself as being sober and responsible, before we would agree to the match. And that even then we will not countenance there being a wedding until after Christina’s eighteenth birthday.’

      ‘What a wicked stepfather and brother you are, when you know full well that Christina has already admitted to us that she is smitten.’ Mariah chuckled reprovingly.

      ‘A little uncertainty will do my little brother good,’ Darian dismissed unrepentantly, his arms now tightening about her waist as a different sort of wickedness now gleamed in his eyes. ‘Have I told you yet this morning how beautiful you look?’

      ‘About an hour ago, I believe.’ She blushed as she remembered the way in which he had told her.

      ‘Have I shown you yet this morning how beautiful you are to me?’

      ‘Also about an hour ago,’ Mariah answered shyly.

      ‘And would my duchess be interested in my demonstrating the depths of those feelings for her again right this minute?’

      Mariah felt the thrill in her chest at just how willing she was to allow Darian to do exactly that. A thrill of excitement that now coursed hotly through the whole of her body. ‘I should like to demonstrate the depth of my feelings for you first,’ she suggested huskily.

      Darian chuckled softly. ‘Then shall we retire to the ducal bedchamber?’

      The ducal bedchamber that the two of them had shared every night before their wedding and again every night since, the two of them having decided there would be no separate bedchambers for them. Ever. That they would spend all of their nights, as well as all of their days, together.

      Mariah had no idea what the future would bring. Another war to quell Napoleon was most certainly imminent. A wedding for her daughter and Anthony next year, she hoped. Perhaps a child or two of their own, for Darian and herself. A handsome boy who looked exactly like his father and a little girl, also with her father’s dark hair and green eyes, so that their parents might spoil and pet them both. Mariah certainly hoped it would be so.

      But she had no doubt whatsoever, that whatever the future might hold for the two of them, that they would face it together.

      Always, and for ever, together...

      * * * * *

      LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember. She finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past — Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Louise lives on the North Norfolk coast, where she shares the cottage they have renovated with her husband. She spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in the UK and abroad in search of inspiration. Please visit Louise’s website: www.louiseallenregency.co.uk for the latest news, or find her on Twitter @LouiseRegency and on Facebook.

       From Ruin to Riches

      Louise Allen

      A lord in want of a wife

      Ruined and on the run, Julia Prior is in desperate straits when she meets a gentleman with a shocking proposal. Certain he is close to death, William Hadfield, Lord Dereham, sees Julia as the perfect woman to care for his beloved estate when he is gone—if she will first become his wife.…

      Marriage is Julia’s salvation—as Lady Hadfield, she can finally escape her sins. Until three years later, when the husband she believes to be dead returns, as handsome and strong as ever and intent on claiming the wedding night they never had!

      “Allen reaches into readers’ hearts.”

      —RT Book Reviews on Married to a Stranger

       To Dr Joanna Cannon for her invaluable advice and insights into Will’s illness.

       Chapter One

      16th June, 1814—Queen’s Head Inn, Oxfordshire

      He was all power and masculine arrogance with the candlelight dancing on those long, naked limbs as he stood and poured ruby-red wine into the glass and tossed it back in one long swallow.

      To be in his arms, in this unfamiliar bed, had not been what she had imagined it would be. Less tender than she had hoped, more painful than she had expected. But then, she had been very ignorant and she would be more realistic next time. Julia snuggled back into the warm hollow his body had made.

      ‘Jonathan?’ He would come back now, hold her in his arms, kiss her, talk more of their plans and all the uncertainties would vanish. On that headlong drive from Wiltshire he had ridden beside the chaise almost all the way and dinner in the public room below had not been the place to discuss their new life together.

      ‘Julia?’ He sounded abstracted. ‘You can wash there.’ He jerked his head towards the screen in the corner and poured himself another glass, his back still to her.

      Unease trickled through the warmth. Was Jonathan disappointed in her? Perhaps he was simply tired, she certainly was. Julia slid from the tangled sheets, pulled one of them around her and padded over to the screen that concealed the washstand.

      Making love was an embarrassingly sticky process, another small shock in an evening of revelations. That would teach her to think like a lovesick girl. It was about time she went back to being an adult woman making a rational decision to take control of her own life, she thought with a wry smile for her own romantic daydreams. This was real life and she was with the man she loved, the man who loved her enough to brave scandal and snatch her away from her relatives.

      The screen overlapped one edge of the window and she reached to twitch the curtain completely over the panes of exposed glass before she dropped the sheet.

      ‘London Flier!’ There was the blare of a horn below, too dramatic

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