Jennifer Ashley - The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Elliot McBride obviously had no compunction about blaspheming in a church. Or sleeping in one.

Juliana swiftly rose, but she couldn’t move out of the pew. She stared back down at Elliot as he heaved himself partway up and lounged against the side of the pew, his booted feet still on the bench.

“Elliot?” Juliana said, her voice a gasp. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to find some quiet. Too bloody many people about.”

“I mean, here in Scotland. I thought you were in India. Ainsley said you were in India.”

Elliot McBride was one of Ainsley’s many brothers, a young man the young Juliana had fallen madly in love with about a hundred years ago. He’d disappeared to India to make his fortune, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Elliot rubbed a hand over his stubbled face, though he smelled of soap and water, as though he’d recently bathed. “Decided to come home.”

Laconic, that was the way to describe Elliot, the untamed McBride. Also large and strong, with a presence that knocked the breath out of her. It had been so when she was a child and he was the wild older brother of Ainsley, again when she’d been a proud debutante, and he’d attended her coming-out ball in his army regimentals.

Juliana sank to the pew again, at the end of it, beyond his feet. High in the tower of the main church, bells rang, striking the hour.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in there, lass?” Elliot asked. He removed a flask from his coat and sipped from it, but unlike Cameron, he didn’t offer her any. “Getting married to whatever his name is?”

“Grant Barclay. I was to have been Mrs. Grant Barclay.”

His brows rose. “Was to have been? Did you jilt the whey-faced bastard, then?”

“No,” Juliana said. “Apparently, yesterday, he eloped with his piano teacher.”

It was all too much. Strange laughter welled up inside her and came pealing out of her mouth. Not quite hysterics, but a hearty laugh she couldn’t stop.

Elliot lay still, like an animal deciding whether to attack or run. Poor Elliot. What must he make of a woman who’d jolted him out of his sleep by plopping down on him and then laughing uncontrollably because her fiancé had abandoned her?

Juliana’s laughter eased off, and she wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Her dark red hair was tumbling down, one of the yellow roses Ainsley had tied in it falling to her lap. “Stupid flowers.”

Elliot sat frozen, his hand gripping the back of the pew so hard he was surprised the wood didn’t splinter. He watched as Juliana laughed, as her glorious auburn hair fell to her bared shoulders. She smiled though her blue eyes were wet, and the hands that plucked the flower from her lap were long-fingered and trembling.

Elliot wanted to put his arms around her and cradle her close. “There now,” he’d say. “You’re better off without the idiot.” An even stronger instinct made him want to go find Grant Barclay and shoot him for the bastard he was.

But he knew that if he made the mistake of touching Juliana, he wouldn’t stop at comfort. He’d tilt her head back and kiss her lips, as he’d done at her debut ball, the night she’d permitted the one kiss.

They’d both been eighteen. Before Elliot had gone to hell and back, that chaste kiss would have been enough for him. This time, it would not be enough, not by a long way.

He’d kiss his way down her pretty throat to her bosom, nuzzle her gown’s satin neckline, and feather kisses to her shoulders. Then he’d lick his way back up to her ripe lips, seam them with his tongue, coax her to let him inside. He’d kiss her with long, careful kisses, tasting the goodness of her mouth while he held her and did not let her go.

Elliot would want to take everything, because Lord only knew when he’d have the chance again. A broken man learned to savor what he could when he had the time.

“It will stay with me forever,” Juliana was saying. “Poor Juliana St. John. Don’t you remember? She’d already put on her wedding clothes and gone to the church, poor darling.”

What did a man say to a woman in this situation? Elliot wished for the eloquence of his barrister brother, who stood up in court and made elegant speeches for a living. Elliot could only ever speak the truth.

“Let them say it, and to the devil with them,” he said.

Juliana gave him a sad smile. “The world is very much about what they say, my dear Elliot. Perhaps it’s different in India.”

Dear God, how could anyone think that? “The rules there are damn strict,” he said. “You can die—or get someone else killed—by not knowing them.”

“Oh.” Juliana blinked. “Very well, then, I concede that such a thing sounds worse than the people expecting me to hide in shame and knit socks for the rest of my life.”

“Why the devil should you knit socks? Do what you like.”

“Very optimistic of you. Not fair to me, but I’m afraid I will be talked about for a long while now. And I am now on the shelf. Thirty years old, and no longer an ingénue. Most of the gentlemen I know are now married, and besides, many of them are Grant’s friends. I know that women do all sorts of things these days besides marry, but I am too old to attend university, and even if I did, my father would die of shame that I was such a bluestocking. I was raised to pour tea, organize fetes, say the correct things to the vicar’s wife.”

Her words slid over Elliot without him registering them, her musical voice soothing, whatever she might be saying. He lay back and let her talk, realizing he’d not felt so at ease in a long while.

If I could listen to her forever, if I could drift into the night hearing her voice, I might get well again.

No, nothing would be well, never again, not after the things he’d done. He’d thought that once he took refuge in Scotland, it would stop. The dreams, the waking terrors, the knowledge that a man he’d wronged was dead, gone before Elliot could make amends.

Juliana was studying him, her blue eyes like a clear summer lake. The beauty of her, the memory of those eyes, had sustained him for a long time in the dark.

Sometimes he’d dreamed she was with him, trying to wake him, her dulcet voice filling his senses. Come on, now, Elliot. You must wake up. My kite’s tangled in a tree, and you’re the only one tall enough to get it down.

He remembered the day when he’d first realized what he felt for her—they must have both been about sixteen. She’d been flying a kite for children of her father’s friends, and Elliot had come to watch. He’d retrieved the kite from a tree for her and earned a red-lipped smile, a soft kiss on his cheek. From that day forward, he’d been lost.

“Elliot, are you awake?”

His eyes had drifted closed on memories, and now Juliana’s voice blended with the remembered dream. He pried his eyes open. “I think so.”

“You did not hear me, did you?” Her face was pink—with anger, he thought.

“Sorry, lass. I’m a bit drunk.”

“Good. Not that you’re drunk, but that you didn’t hear me. Never mind. It was a foolish idea.”

He opened his eyes wider, his brain coming alert. What the hell had he missed?

The darkness occasionally did that to him. Elliot, at times, would slide through large portions of conversation without noticing he had. He’d come back to himself realizing that people were waiting for his response and wondering what was the matter with him. Elliot had decided that avoiding people and conversation was the best solution.

With Juliana, he wanted to know. “Tell me again,” Elliot said.

“I don’t think I ought. If it were a cracking-good idea, you’d have leapt on it at once. As it is…”

He’d offended her. “Juliana, I swear to you… I drift in and out. I want to hear your cracking-good idea.”

“No, you don’t.”

Females. Even ones he’d been secretly in love with for years could drive him insane.

Elliot sat up and stretched his arm along the back of the pew. He didn’t touch her but let his arm rest close enough to her to feel her warmth. “Juliana, tell me, or I’ll tickle you.”

“I’m not eight years old anymore, Elliot McBride.”

“Neither am I. When I say tickle, I no longer mean what I did then.” He touched her bare shoulder with one finger.

A mistake. The contact shot heat up his arm and dove straight into his heart. Elliot should lift his hand away, get out of this chapel, and race back across the city to the safety of his brother’s house. Back to cowering in the bedroom, having his patient manservant feed him cups of weak tea. I am so tired of all this.

Elliot brushed her shoulder again, and Juliana looked up at him. Her lips were close to his, lush and ripe. She had faint freckles across her nose, ten of them. She’d always had them, had always tried to rid herself of them, but to Elliot, every one was kissable.

Her eyes went still, and her voice was a whisper of breath. “What I asked, Elliot, was whether you would marry me.”

THE MANY SINS OF LORD CAMERON

“Ashley’s latest flawlessly written historical romance richly rewards romance readers with its multilayered characterization; sexy, secrets-saturated plotting; sharp wit; and enthralling writing.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Passionate, well-drawn characters, breathless romance, and a memorable love story will leave readers checking out the earlier books in the series and anxiously awaiting the last in the quartet, The Duke’s Perfect Wife.”