Read The Desperate Love of a Lord Online
Authors: Jane Lark
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Regency, #General
He had such a perfectly defined body, cut with visible lean muscle and sinew.
She ran her fingers across his torso again.
His hand covered hers.
“I was sleeping, Vi.”
She laughed and propped herself up on one elbow, remembering doing the same the first night she had slept with him and even that night she had felt an axis shift beneath her. It had never only been sex with Geoff.
His fingers stroked over her hair, which was now unconfined and spilled on to his chest.
She could not believe the all-consuming love which brimmed in her body. Certain it shone through her eyes she said in a low voice. “I wish to stay here for a week. Would you send to London and make the arrangements for the wedding, while we get to know one another better?”
He gave her wicked rakish smile. “Get to know one another better? Do we not already know one another well enough?”
“Not as two people who are engaged. I wish to learn all there is to know about you, Lord Sparks. All your likes and dislikes, where you have been and where
we
are going. We shall have to make compromises.”
He laughed “You mean you wish me to compromise.”
She smiled, her fingers touching his cheek as she saw his eyes laugh too.
“Well first, I would like to keep my house. May we live there? I have always loved living there.”
His fingers stroked over her hair again, as he smiled up at her. “Yes, you may keep your house and we’ll make it our home.” He raised an eyebrow. “After all as I recall you do not like bachelor rooms.” She laughed. “But on the condition you let me at least have two rooms I might decorate with a more masculine style.”
“You may have three.”
He laughed.
“But, Violet, if you stay here, we shall whip up a scandal, this is a village not the capital, you’ll never hide our indiscretion here. Their sensibilities will be shocked to the core.”
“And am I known for caring what others think?”
He shook his head at her, smiling in an open way she had never seen before, as though it was reaching from his heart out of his chest and through his eyes. “I see the violet I knew in London has returned.”
Oh she loved him. “Why do you think I acquired the name the Merry Widow? Because I can smile regardless, Geoff.”
His fingers touched her cheek. “That is the woman I fell for, but you shall only be a merry widow for another week, Vi, after that you shall be my wife.”
“And then I shall be your very happy wife.”
~
Robert Marlow, the Earl of Barrington, probably Geoff’s closest friend, and the only one Geoff had considered for the role of groom’s man, stood at Geoff’s shoulder as they heard the sound rise like a wave through the church.
Violet was here.
Geoff’s heart thumped as he heard people turning behind him and making sounds implying she looked beautiful.
Robert touched Geoff’s arm, stirring him from the paralysis which had swept over him. He looked over his left shoulder.
Violet was walking up the aisle with Jane, Robert’s wife and Violet’s friend.
Violet wore a very pale blue. The dress was simpler than her usual style, but then she’d only had two days to find a dress once they’d returned to town, having left half of Lacock red-faced at the audacity of their reunion.
He smiled at the thought, and at her, as she came closer.
The curve of her stomach was clearly visible, and probably the real cause of the stir of sound which was following her along the aisle.
Nearly all their audience were only discovering their situation as she walked.
He saw her chin was high and a bright defiant smile shone in her eyes and touched her lips.
The simplicity of her dress only made her look more beautiful and the bonnet covering her hair was an intricate straw weave, with a shower of artificial cream flowers by her ear. That colour was mirrored in her gloves and in a shawl which draped over her arms. She looked perfect.
His heart seeped warmth as she came to stand beside him and Jane moved into a pew on the far side.
Before he turned back to the altar, in the corner of his eye, he caught the sight of his eldest sister crying. Their mother had died when they were young. His sister had played mother to him for the last of his school years.
He glanced at her and smiled, then nodded at his brothers, before he turned to face the altar.
Violet’s fingers settled over his.
She had feared his sister’s disapproval more than anything, yet Sophia had only been glad he was finally settling down. Even her husband the Marquess of Kent had cared nothing about the impending scandal Violet’s condition was going to arouse.
Geoff treasured the moment he put his ring on her finger.
Violet looked up.
There was a candle of affection burning in Geoff’s eyes and somehow she knew it would be an eternal flame. It flared in her too.
When she spoke her words, she said them to him, not the vicar, nor God, nor even the church full of people, but just to him, and his words were for her.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.” The vicar’s voice echoed about the stone church, and then there was applause, started by Lord Barrington who stood beyond Geoff.
Geoff looked back and smiled before facing her again. Then one hand lifted her chin before he pressed a chaste kiss on her lips. “Lady Sparks,” he whispered as he pulled away.
“I like the sound of that.”
“So do I.”
They both smiled as his fingers gripped hers and the vicar asked them to sign the register.
The journey to his sister’s home gave them a few moments of solitude as they travelled in an enclosed carriage and kissed more thoroughly, thinking of their private celebration which would come much later.
They reached the house barely a minute or two before their guests, who passed them with glances at her stomach. Violet ignored them all.
Jane and Robert were the last to come in.
“The Earl and Countess of Barrington,” The Marquess of Kent’s starchy butler intoned, as if they needed introduction. Neither Violet nor Jane made any move to pretend a formal greeting. They swept into each others arms.
Violet felt very different to the women she had been a month ago.
“I am happy for you,” Jane whispered against Violet’s ear, as Geoff shook Robert’s hand.
Then as the men walked towards the dining hall, Violet caught a hold of Jane’s arm. “And I for you, I cannot believe the change in Barrington.”
“He has not changed, Violet, he is just the man I have always known. But you though…”
Jane glanced down at Violet’s stomach and she coloured a little. “Why did you not say?”
“I did not admit it to myself. I could not believe I had been so foolish, and I was terrified of Geoff’s reaction. Still, anyway, he has been wonderful.”
Violet saw fluid glisten in Jane’s eyes and then Jane said quietly. “I am jealous. It is what I desperately want, and Robert too, to make up for the years we have missed. We want a child.”
Violet gripped Jane’s hand and patted it with her free one. “I am sure it will come.” She wished only happiness for her friend.
~
Four months later
“Geoffrey! Robert and Ja… Geoffrey.” Violet’s expression slipped from hasty annoyance to what he knew was devoted pleasure as she stopped just within the nursery door, the door-handle still in her fingers. “Oh Geoffrey, put him down, Jane and Robert have arrived.”
“Peter, do you here that, you mother is banishing you to a lonely crib.”
She swept forward and took their son from where he was snugly cradled in the crook of Geoff’s arm.
He watched her gently lift Peter to her shoulder as the child gurgled into wakefulness.
“And now you have woken him up. You spoil him Geoffrey Sparks, he will be insufferable when he is grown.”
“Can he not come down with us? They will love to see him.”
There was a long-suffering sigh and then a smile. “Oh very well.”
He smiled too.
She loved any excuse to show off their son. He’d known she would not deny him. They were very few hours they did not spend in the nursery.
He stood.
The child had come early. Only two months after their wedding. They’d barely had time to adjust to being husband and wife before they had become parents too. But he was blissfully happy with his new role in life.
His old friends made a joke of it during the odd occasions he ventured out to his gentleman’s club, White’s. He cut them all, disregarding their mocking comments without reply. While men who thought it humorous to mention they had lain with Geoff’s wife, had learned to do so earned them a split lip or a broken rib at Jackson’s, the pugilist’s studio for men like him who liked to spar to maintain their figure.
Not that Violet knew these facts, bless her, he did not wish her to know he was slowly but determinedly fighting to win back her honour and establish respect for their child.
His hand settled on her shoulder as they left the room.
“You are taking Master Peter downstairs, my Lady?”
Geoff was sure their odd behaviour was a constant trial to the staff. He smiled. “Just for a while, Ms Leverage, we will ring when we wish him brought back up.”
The woman’s mouth set in a disapproving line.
Violet smiled. “Thank you, Ms Leverage, I know we fuss far too much, but I am sure you would rather see his parents dote on him than not.”
The woman blushed. She had come with very good references. She was probably just unused to a woman of Violet’s sharp honesty and openness.
By the time they reached the drawing-room Peter had been passed from Violet to Geoff, and he rested against Geoff’s shoulder sucking on his fist. He was tired. They should not keep him up long.
When they walked into the room Robert laughed. “The doting father.”
Geoff smiled, he could take these quips from Robert, he knew they were not ill meant.
“May I hold him?” Jane swept forwards. “Oh I have never seen anything so tiny and so perfect.”
Violet was beaming, glowing in a way she had never done until they’d had the child.
Violet caught Geoff watching her as Jane took Peter, and Barrington began cooing at the child across Jane’s shoulder, thoroughly absorbed in entertaining the baby. Violet moved, closing the distance between her and her husband, drawn to him still, as she had been for so many months in the summer.
When she reached him, Violet lifted to her toes and pressed a quick kiss on Geoff’s lips, then whispered. “I love you. I do not mind that you fuss over him.”
“I know, Vi, and I love you, and I shall fuss over you both. This is it, darling, this is us. It is just as it should be.” He smiled.
She nodded and laughed as they held hands, watching the other couple exclaim over their son.
Don’t miss the rest of Jane Lark’s intensely emotional Regency romance series…
The Illicit Love of a Courtesan
“If you think I shall allow you to rob me of my inheritance, then you may think again!” Hector had given his fortune to her freely. Had she not been through enough? She’d earned every penny of it, spending her life closeted away, body and soul, trapped in her dead husband’s private form of hell. She had earned her independence, and Hector had given it to her. She would not let his son take it away again!
Jane Grey, the young Dowager Duchess of Sutton, leaned backward, inwardly cursing herself for even this outward sign that her stepson’s intimidation was succeeding. The tenth Duke of Sutton, a man over twenty years her senior, loomed over her, applying the threat of his greater height and physical strength.
His eyes fixed on hers with a clear intent to intimidate and his hands gripped the arms of the delicate Chesterfield chair in which she sat. A chair in which she had been sitting, taking her afternoon tea in peace and solitude until his rude and uninvited intrusion.
“I am not afraid of you, Your Grace,” she hissed into his face, which was barely two inches from her own, lying through her teeth. Of course, she was, she was terrified, but she refused to let him have the upper hand. In answer, he merely growled, making her flinch and proving how fraudulent her brave words were.
He’d never actually raised a hand to her
yet
. However, that he was capable of it and willing to be physically violent she did not doubt. Until now, Hector had always been there. Hector had liked to play his little mind games and cared not a jot for her happiness or well-being, but out of sheer spite, he would not have let Joshua harm her. Now, there was no Hector, and no one to protect her from his arrogant, evil son.
“No, Jane?” Joshua mocked, laughing at her as he suddenly pulled away to stand before her, his hands sweeping back and opening his blue, superfine redingote to display the robin-redbreast colour of his waistcoat beneath. He rested his hands on his waist. She wished to stand, but his legs were still on either side of one of her knees; it would bring her body up against his, and he hardly needed that incitement. Instead, she was forced to tilt her head back to hold his gaze.
“Your father left me his fortune by choice. You have all that is entailed. If you had shown Hector this much interest during his life, I am sure he would have left it all to you. But as it is, Your Grace, he did not.”
Joshua stepped back, his hands falling to his sides and curling into fists.
Instantly, she stood, glad to be in a position to escape, if she had to. But whatever he did, she had no intention of bowing to his demands.
Tipping her chin up another notch, she glared at the man, her fingers curling into fists, too. “I will not give you what has been legally left to me.” She could not fight him physically but she would fight him in court, if she must, and with every ounce of blood flowing in her veins. It was not her fault his father had lusted after a young bride, and it was not her fault Hector had chosen to leave her the vast majority of his unentailed wealth. But now, she was not about to let his bully boy of a son take it away.