Falling for the Marquess - Julianne MacLean Page 0,110
gazed into his fathomless green eyes, then wrapped her arms around his neck and cried tears of pure, perfect joy.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
Quintina entered the blue guest chamber—the room Gillian had taken at her brother’s home in Wales. A note lay on the dresser.
Dear Auntie,
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am leaving. I am going to America to marry Gordon Tucker because I have fallen in love with him. He is a handsome and exciting man, and he tells me I am pretty. I believe I have finally found true happiness.
Love,
Gillian
P.S. I took the diamond pendent that you lent me, as we were short of funds.
Quintina read the note twice, then sank onto a chair by the bed. No, no. No! Gillian could not have gone off with a prison convict. She could not have been so foolish! She could have married a duke or an earl!
What would Susan think if she were alive today? She would blame Quintina for not making things right, for not taking better control of her daughter.
Quintina buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She could not accept that her niece—her dead sister’s only child—was going to become an American!
Clara raised the covers for Seger to slide into bed beside her, and inched down cozy and warm. “I’ve been waiting for you for almost ten minutes. What took you so long?”
He smiled that rakish grin that she loved. “I wanted to make sure my robe was on straight and my hair was just right.”
“Why?” she asked in a coquettish voice. “It’s just me.”
“Just you? You are the center of the universe, my love.”
“Not for long,” she replied.
He gazed questioningly at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s going to be a new center in our universe very soon. In about eight months to be exact.”
His eyes sparked with joy. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I saw the doctor today.”
Seger gazed down at her flat stomach and rested his warm hand upon it. “A baby.”
“Yes, Seger. Our first child.”
He lowered his lips to hers. “I am the luckiest man on earth. You have made me so.”
“Just as you have made me the luckiest woman.”
Seger covered her body with his own and kissed her again, more deeply this time with full abandon. His hips thrust forth, gently but firmly, causing a sensuous arousal deep in her feminine core. She pressed her own hips forward and wrapped her legs around him.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear, and laid a trail of soft, open-mouthed kisses down her neck.
“I love you, too. I never knew life could be so wonderful, Seger. Make love to me.”
He grinned and nuzzled her nose. “I will fulfill your every desire, my lady. Where would you like me to begin?”
Clara smiled in return. “Wherever you wish. You always seem to know what I want before I know it myself.” She lifted her head off the pillow and kissed his open mouth, then relaxed as his lips made their way down her neck to the open collar of her nightgown. Gooseflesh shimmied down her spine. He slid his warm hand inside and Clara sighed with enchantment.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked, sliding her nightgown up, and cupping her behind in his hand. “You have given me such pleasure.”
“More than just pleasure, I hope.”
“Much more.” He positioned himself above her and paused.
“I want all of you,” she said.
His voice was laced with seductive teasing. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her on the nose in the flickering candlelight. “Positively sure?”
Her head came off the pillow as her body trembled with need. “Yes!” she cried out, laughing.
Seger smiled. “Then you may have all of me, my love, for the rest of my days and beyond. Thank you for giving me back my life.”
Then slowly, very slowly, he pushed into her until she quivered all over with ecstasy.
Author’s Note
According to Oscar Wilde, the English gentleman admired the American woman for her “extraordinary vivacity, her electrical quickness of repartee, her inexhaustible store of curious catchwords.” If such a woman was also an heiress, all the better.
In the late Victorian period and early in the twentieth century, approximately one hundred American heiresses married British nobles. A fair exchange of titles for money became the business of the day, and millions of American dollars wound up in the hands of impoverished English lords, who certainly couldn’t work to replenish their bank accounts. That would have been ungentlemanly.
In that light, marrying for money was nothing new in the British aristocracy. It