The Promise by May McGoldrick

Author:May McGoldrick [McGoldrick, May]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, England, Scotland, Historical Romance, diana gabaldon, heather graham, jean auel, nora roberts, slavery, house of lords
ISBN: 9780739419502
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

***

The walls were lined with cream-colored silk spotted with age and mildew. The window seats were piled high with cushions of deeply faded velvet of a color that may once have been rose. The wool stuffing peeked out from more than a few edges. The carpet, worn and faded as well, sat askew on warped floorboards that had seen nothing other than neglect for many years.

The visitor stood stiffly in the parlor, sniffing at the smell of stale flowers and dust and damp soot. Dressed in a fine suit newly delivered from Oxford Street, he could not bring himself to sit on anything in the room. He glanced once at the heavy drapery that effectively excluded any ray of sunlight, and idly wondered who had been sitting England’s throne when they had been bought and hung. The miser’s fire that struggled to stay lit in the old-fashioned fireplace flickered but cast little light and no warmth. Why bother, he thought with a surly twitch of his lips.

He turned to the door as the sound of muttered words drifted into the room. A pregnant hush followed, like the moment before the curtain rises, and then in swept the rather unsteady figure of the once celebrated Jenny Greene.

It had been nearly ten years since they had last met face to face, but the passage of time had etched thrice the years on the woman’s face, obvious in spite of the paint and the rouge. He frowned at the consequences of the excessive amounts of gin and revelry that were so much part of the life of the aging actress.

A cold look bordering on a snarl was all that the man received in return. But he’d expected no different a greeting.

“I was certain my servant had misread the calling card!”

He offered no explanations and remained silent until Jenny turned and sank heavily into one of the parlor chairs. The eyes that had once bewitched every man now were puffy and lined. Even the blue seemed to have lost its luster. The distrust in them, however, was readily apparent.

“I assume this is not a social call,” she spat out.

He consciously chose to ignore her abruptness and her vulgar refusal to address him with the respect that his title and position called for. He would not allow her to anger him at all, and even succeeded in coaxing his lips into a smile.

“Or perhaps…this is a social call,” she said, misinterpreting his response. The fingers of her quavering hand traced a path over the curves of her ivory breasts above the neckline of the dress.

It was difficult to not be distracted by the gesture. Fading though she might be, Jenny Greene still possessed much of the sexual allure that had made her one of most passionate actresses ever to grace the London stage. When she wished to use it, she still wield that power. He knew she was a woman who could make her body seethe with sensuality…when she wanted to. The voluptuous body, the

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