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All human wisdom is summed up in these two words, —‘Wait and hope.’ Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo
Prologue Beasley Park Somerset, England Spring 1807
notorious highwayman Gentleman Jim.
Maggie Honeywell was at the heart of the matter.
She was his best friend in the whole world. The one person he trusted. The only person he loved. A blood oath taken years ago had bound them together forever,
Lord St. Clare was a dangerously handsome man who, at first glance, put Maggie in mind of Byron’s Corsair. He had well-formed features characterized by a strong, chiseled jaw, lean cheeks, and firmly molded lips that were inclined to curl into a sneer. His thick golden hair looked as if it had been tousled by a cold north wind. And his skin appeared to have been bronzed by the sun of some exotic land.
Good lord, how could she ever have thought this man was Nicholas Seaton?
St. Clare was silent for a moment. When he finally responded, his words were quiet ones, inaudible to his friend and quickly lost in the noise of the crowded theater. “Miss Honeywell is the pattern card.”
“Nicholas,” she breathed. “Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas. I knew you’d come back to me.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you. Not now. Not ever. If you believe nothing else, you must believe that.” “You have hurt me every day for the last ten years. You have broken my heart.”
“The Earl of Allendale’s son. Jim, they called him. A handsome golden lad. Such a shame he was a wrong ’un.”
“I suppose death makes believers of us all.”
“I’m a part of your past.” “No, you’re not.” He looked at her in the darkness. “You’re a part of me.”
his words as solemn and weighty as a sacred vow. “Whatever happens with my grandfather, with Beasley Park and all the rest of it…I’m never letting you go again.”
“Enough of your forked-tongue pleasantries, Lavinia,” Allendale said. “There’s nothing I despise more than a serpent who walks upright.”
Beasley Park Somerset, England Summer 1817
London, England Summer 1817
Beasley Park Somerset, England Summer 1817
She was his companion, he’d said. Just as she’d always been. His equal, and second self. Not someone to be silenced. But someone he would help to be heard.
And here St. Clare was at last, facing him, not as a cold-blooded viscount but as himself—as the hot-tempered lad who had fled Somerset ten years ago.
He rose to meet her, taking her hands in his. “I promise you, you won’t have cause to regret it.” “Foolish man,” she said, making the words a caress. “Of course I won’t regret it. You’re the love of my life.”
Sir Roderick’s acknowledgment of what Fred had done didn’t have the force of law, but by God, it was enough.
love surged within him. The same love that had led him back here like a beacon, guiding his way home. Not to a place, but to her. Back to her side where he belonged.
“Tomorrow is yours,” he vowed. “All of my tomorrows.”
