The Greatest Lover In All England by Christina Dodd

Author:Christina Dodd [Dodd, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

"I can't believe I did that."

"Pray don't chastise yourself."

"I was weak. How can you respect me when I was so weak?"

"I respect you."

"I thought I would be strong, but at the first sign of temptation, I crumpled."

"I crumpled, too."

Flinging his arm across his eyes, Tony groaned. "People who crumple at temptation are called parents."

Rosie had the odd feeling she was playing the wrong part in this scene. Shouldn't the deflowered virgin be indulging in an agony of guilt?

Tucking the sheet beneath her arms, she stared at the man sprawled across the rumpled bed. Regardless of her sentiments, she couldn't discount Tony's real anguish. She was legitimate, but an orphan, and she had passed from one guardian to another wrapped in an insulating blanket of affection.

Tony was a bastard, torn between his father and his mother like a bone between two dogs, and he carried the scars on his soul. Ignoring her own disappointment at this ending to an idyllic interlude, she said, "Tony, if we have begotten a child, 'tis not a matter for—"

You,she was going to say.

But he bounded up. "We've got to get married. Now. I'll send for the clergyman, get him from the table if necessary, and we'll wed."

She crumpled the sheet in her fist. "Wed?"

"At once. It's a lucky thing I got a special license, isn't it?" He snatched up his shirt—the silk shirt she'd worn so recently—and jerked it over his head. He efficiently tied it and scrambled among the clothes on the floor. Bringing up a short padded waistcoat, he donned it for warmth. "I'll have the cook prepare a special meal for us tonight. We must celebrate, although my sisters will choke at wedding on such short notice. Ha!" He rubbed his hands together. "Tis an abrupt finish to Lady Honora's plans. Won't she be disgusted?"

What lunacy made Rosie think she could handle the repercussions of her impulsive mating? Could she handle Tony in a frenzy, or stifle a force of nature?

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Starting for the door, he said, "We'll have a celebration tomorrow, roast a sheep and a steer, crack a few barrels of beer and a cask of wine. I'll have Hal notify the parish."

Coldly, rshe asked, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He stopped, his hand on the knob. "I can't think of anything." Looking down at his bare legs, he laughed.

"Except that. Already you act like a wife. I would look foolish, running down the hall with—"

"I wasn't speaking of your garb. I was speaking of your plans."

He froze. He hadn't imagined another solution to what he viewed as their dilemma. Until she spoke, he hadn't thought she might have an objection. Now, clearly, he imagined and thought, and it filled him with unanticipated horror. "You cannot still be refusing to wed me."

He came back to the side of the bed and loomed impressively, but Rosie refused to be intimidated. If she let him, he would overwhelm her and she'd find herself married, and she wasn't ready.

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