“My darling, it’s yours. I’m happy whatever you decide.” His grip tightened. “After all, I’ve already covered you in diamonds as I vowed on our wedding night.”
His wife could still blush. Like him, she must remember when he’d draped her naked body with the magnificent parure he’d given her for their third wedding anniversary. He was sure Selina was the result of that night. The fiery passion he and Marianne had shared at her conception perhaps explained her untamed spirit.
“Will you go to Dorset for Christmas?” she asked.
The lawyer’s letter ended with an invitation for the whole family to travel to the Seaton estates for the festive season. Elias had to give the marquess credit for conceding in style—even if the old man would die before he said the words “I’m sorry.”
“I think it would be good for the children.”
“I love you, you know.” Marianne’s lips twitched, although her wet eyes betrayed how her father’s capitulation moved her. “You really are proving the nobility of your character.”
“You’ll make it up to me,” he said lightly.
She glanced around the deserted garden. “I could start now.”
Elias bent to kiss her, reveling in her quick response. “There’s no time like the present, beloved.”
~THE END~
Page forward for some exciting excerpts from Anna Campbell.
Continue reading for an excerpt from:
A Scoundrel By Moonlight
* * *
Book 4 of the Sons of Sin Series
Grand Central Forever, New York
* * *
Anything can happen in the moonlight …
Justice. That’s all Nell Trim wants – for her sister and for the countless other young women the Marquess of Leath has ruined with his wildly seductive ways. Now she has a bold plan to take him down… as long as she can resist the scoundrel’s temptations herself.
From the moment Nell meets James Fairbrother, the air positively sizzles. Yet for all his size and power, there’s something amazingly tender in his touch. Could he really be such a depraved rogue? The only way to find out is to be
at the devil at his own game… one tempting kiss at a time.
Prologue
* * *
Mearsall, Kent, May 1828
“Avenge me.”
The raspy whisper stirred Nell Trim from her grief-stricken haze. She straightened in the hard wooden chair beside the narrow bed. Around her, tallow candles guttered. Outside the cottage’s mullioned windows, the night was dark and quiet.
She rose to smooth her half-sister’s covers. “Shall I fetch Father?”
“No.” Dorothy grabbed Nell’s hand. The late spring air was warm and Dorothy’s fever had raged for two days, but the fingers that closed around Nell’s were icy with encroaching death. “Listen…to me.”
Nell stared helplessly into the girl’s ashen face. Once Dorothy had been the village belle. Now her skin was gray and dry, and her large blue eyes sank deep into their sockets. She was eighteen years old and looked three times that. “Dr. Parsons said to rest.”
Dorothy’s cracked lips turned down. “There’s no time.”