To Seduce a Bride (Courtship Wars 3)

“I am as impatient as you are, but I am not letting you seduce me until you are my bride.”

“I am perfectly willing to let you seduce me.”

“You will have to be satisfied with

kisses until Saturday.”

“Only kisses?” Highly disappointed, Lily assumed a pout. “You know it will be torture, waiting until our wedding night.”

A devilish gleam entered his hazel eyes. “The wait will be worth it, I promise you.”

“Indeed?” She trailed a tantalizing finger over his lower lip, but Heath refused to surrender.

“We will have a lifetime of wedding nights together,” he insisted.

“Very well,” she finally conceded. “But I intend to hold you to your promise.”

“I trust you will, love. Until then”-Heath surprised her by reaching up to pull the pins from her hair-“I mean to see how inventive we can be with mere kisses.”

The magical warmth of his smile set her pulse soaring. And when he bent to capture her mouth again, laughter and desire welled up in Lily in equal measures as she gave herself up to Heath’s enchanting caresses.

Epilogue

You were right, dearest Fanny. My happiness does lie in marriage to Lord Claybourne. A lifetime of love and fulfillment with the most wonderful man I know. What more could I ever want?

– Lily to Fanny

I am thrilled by your happiness, my dear Lily. If my new book is successful, the income may be sufficient to allow me to seek my own happiness in marriage. Who knows? Perhaps I shall turn to writing fiction and become an authoress. The accounts of how you and your sisters found true love would make delightful tales.

– Fanny to Lily

London, August 1817

On the quarterdeck of the Zephyr, Heath regarded his bride of three hours with pride and affection. Lily looked incredibly happy surrounded by her family and friends, her dark eyes big and bright with humor and excitement.

How he loved those glowing eyes, Heath reflected. How he wanted to kiss that luscious mouth…

Despite his impatience to have his bride all to himself, however, he would have to wait until the wedding guests departed the ship. At the moment they showed no desire to leave. They were too busy drinking champagne and offering congratulatory toasts and sharing entertaining tales about the newlyweds.

Laughter abounded, in part because the small guest list fostered an intimacy to the gathering. The marriage ceremony had been a simple affair in comparison to Drew’s lavish society wedding a mere few days earlier. And the celebrations afterward-a luncheon served on deck by Heath’s capable staff-were quite modest, nothing like the enormous wedding breakfast and ball at Danvers Hall following Marcus’s wedding, which had been held in the village church at Chiswick two months ago.

But Lily deemed the arrangements perfect. The nuptials had been performed by the vicar from Chiswick, the same clergyman who had married Marcus and Arabella. And viewing the myriad ships anchored on the Thames and docked at the quay only increased Lily’s anticipation of their wedding journey, which was to begin next week.

Much to Heath’s amusement, his new wife had made a point of drinking a mere half glass of champagne, claiming that she wanted no repetition of her shameless behavior in the stable loft the first time they’d kissed. Lily was determined to remain circumspect, despite the scandalous vocation of several of the guests.

Fleur and Chantel had eagerly attended, along with Fanny and Basil. The elder courtesans had spent much of the past hour crowing over their success in uniting the bridal couple, while Lady Freemantle had taken credit for bringing them together in the first place.

Her ladyship looked smugly delighted now as she exclaimed in her booming voice, “You know all I ever wanted was your happiness, dearest Lily.”

“I know, Winifred,” Lily replied, fondly embracing her friend. “Which is why I forgive your meddlesome attempts at matchmaking.”

“Humph,” Winifred said archly. “I make no apologies for my meddling, young lady. If not for my encouraging Lord Claybourne to follow you to Hampshire-where I falsely believed you to be hiding, I might add-you would likely not be married now. You were so adamantly set against imprisoning yourself in matrimony, he was forced to take drastic steps to pursue you.”

“I admit,” Lily said, laughing, “that I was greatly mistaken about matrimony being a prison.”

She glanced beyond her friend, searching for Heath. When she located him a few yards away, the smile she sent him was pure sunshine, golden with warmth.

Heath found himself gazing back at her, spellbound. Her impact was like a blow to the chest, straight to his heart. And as their gazes touched, a wave of tenderness washed over him so strong it made his knees weak.