Lorelie Brown (31 page)

And yet he then nodded. Almost without thinking it through. “Get off your knees. I’ll come.”

She marched him right through the front door, which he hadn’t expected. But then, that was Lottie. Flaunting the expectations of everyone around her. The footman who’d been nodding off at his post seemed startled as he watched them go up, and yet he raised no alarm. No hue and cry.

When she stopped on the first floor and advanced down a hallway, Ian could pretty much only follow behind. She held him by the hand as she knocked on a door and swiftly opened it. “Mama?”

“What? Yes?” The older woman sat upright in bed, though she was partially hidden by the mound of blankets that fluffed up around her. “Lottie? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I only wished to tell you something.”

Lady Vale wiped delicately at her eyes. “Yes, then?”

“I want to apologize, actually.” She pulled Ian closer to the bed. Her fingers were cold and chilled in his. “I’ve held you responsible for your illness, in a way. Part of me thought that with our family’s history, you never should have had me. It’s painful sometimes.”

“Oh,” her mother said on a soft whisper. The shimmer caught by the moonlight coming through the window started in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, that’s what I mean.” She leaned down to hug her mama. “I thank you. If you hadn’t risked it, if you hadn’t endangered your own health, I wouldn’t exist. If I didn’t exist, I wouldn’t love. I love you. And…” She trailed off, looking up at Ian. “I love Ian.”

“I knew that, you silly goose,” Lady Vale said. She sniffled tears away, but she smiled as well. “How could you not? I told you the first time you brought him home that he was different.”

Lottie nodded. “He is. He’s very different.”

Ian shook his head, but somehow his hands rose to cup Lottie’s delicate, beautifully shaped face. “Lottie. Don’t. It’s unfair.”

Her throat worked on a swallow. “Wait. Don’t…don’t decide yet.” She leaned down to kiss her mama’s pliable cheek. “Sleep now, yes? I’m sorry I woke you.”

Lady Vale shook her head. “It was worth it.”

Lottie pulled him back out of the room, then up the stairs. She first lit the lamp by the door of her room. The one on the desk went next. She circled the room like a silent ghost, lighting every lamp and candle she had around, until they all blazed like sunlight and firelight and the stars all mixed together.

She stood in the center of the room, near the chaise and bookshelves. Her fingers shook before she folded them together and faced Ian with a new resoluteness to her mouth.

He shouldn’t be there. He should have left. There wasn’t anything new that could be said because her
I love you
wouldn’t count if it were only backed by fear. He couldn’t love her so strongly while still being alone.

If she were still afraid, it would do no good.

Of course, he was all talk, wasn’t he? It’s not like he was going anywhere. He waited.

He had the feeling he might always be willing to wait for her. “Enough lights?”

“I wanted them all for a reason.”

“Do tell.”

The color in her cheeks was hectic and pink. Her wide eyes glimmered with an ocean of emotion. “So I can burn away the dark from between us.”

“Pretty words.” He folded his arms over his chest. Mostly trying to hold himself back from already reaching for her. “Pretty words don’t make a future.”

A tear glimmered on her bottom lashes. “Even now, you’re too good for me. I wanted to be right for you. I still do. I always will.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

The tear broke away and skated over her cheek. “I want a future. That comes first.” Tendons pulled tight in her throat. “I’m not sure I always believed that. But I do now. Because of you. I want a future. Something good. To run my school and have happiness.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

She shook her head and stepped closer to him. Near enough that the scent of lilacs rose from her skin. She looked up at him through her lashes. Tears ran down her pretty face completely unchecked. “No. I was marking time. I didn’t think I deserved anything. Not when Mama had been robbed.”

“You deserve everything good and right in the world.” Christ, he couldn’t stand seeing those tears fall. He brushed them away with his thumbs first, then his lips, tasting salt and love together. “You’re a small miracle in your every breath.”

“Jesus,” she said on a harsh sob. “You’re so good, even at a moment like this. God, let me apologize. Let me tell you how ridiculously sorry I am. I came so close to ruining everything beautiful between us. You’ve shown me that I can be centered.
You
center me.”

He curled over her with his arms around her shoulders and his chin on the top of her head. She felt right in his arms. “This is our center. Us together. But I have to warn you, Lottie.”

“What?” Her words came out muffled against his shirtfront. “Anything. I’d give you anything. I’d be anything for you.”

“I only want you to be yourself.” His hands closed across her narrow back. “I’ll warn you this once, and then that’s all you get. If you accept this between us…there will be no going back. I’ll never let you free. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.”

She shuddered, then craned up on her tiptoes. She covered his jaw with kisses, then his mouth. She was sweetness and strength in one. “I need that. Chase me. Don’t let me go.” Her voice cracked. “Love me.”

Every word loosened the clenched knot inside his soul. This could work. Christ, would it take work of the highest order, and Ian wasn’t stupid. He knew there would be plenty of problems over the years. They’d probably be the sort to have epic fights. But so long as they came back to each other, everything would be worth it in the end.

He framed her face between his hands. Probably he wrenched too tight, but he couldn’t help it. “Say that again,” he said.

“Love me.” Her every thought flickered in her eyes. “Love me like I love you. Love me to the end of the earth. Love me and be with me. A marriage and a life and most of all being together.”

He growled and kissed her deep. There was no softness there. All fire and promises. “I’ll love you until the world ends, Lottie. Most of all…” He kissed her again. “I’m keeping you, goddamn it.”

Epilogue

Five years later

Playing with a baby made Lottie feel calm and composed in a way that nothing else quite resembled. Sitting on a large blanket beneath an apple tree, she held two tiny fists between her own fingers.

“Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair,” Lottie sang in a cooing voice.

Her reward was a toothless baby grin and a drool-filled giggle. Lottie laughed. “Oh, aren’t you a marvel. You’re going to be a gorgeous and beautiful little heartbreaker. Your daddy is going to have to shoot half the city to keep you safe.”

Sera scooped the infant out of Lottie’s lap. “Don’t say such things. Fletcher is a railroad baron now. Strictly righteous.”

Lottie leaned back on her elbows and turned her face up to the sunshine. “I know. But once your little one there is grown, I plan to tell her all sorts of awful stories.” She waved a finger in warning at Sera. “Not only about Fletcher, either. I have plenty of stories about you.”

Sera shoved her nose up in the air, but quickly smiled down at her small daughter. They’d all gathered at Fletcher’s country estate. He’d bought the biggest and the best, naturally, which made it logical to congregate there for summer happiness.

Further afield in the meadow, Fletcher, Ian and two little boys tumbled about. Lottie shaded her eyes against the bright sun. “Is Fletcher teaching them to wrestle?”

Sera sighed. “It’s not new. In fact, I should probably go break it up before someone cries. It’s liable to be Fletcher. Silly man.”

“Silly man who you worship.”

“That’s so.” Sera headed toward the pile of males with her baby girl on her hip. She was every bit the picture of womanhood.

Ian tossed himself down to the blanket by her side. “Those young heathens are likely to steal the French crown before they’re twenty.”

“You think small,” Lottie scoffed. Across the dark green grass, Fletcher scooped his infant daughter from Sera’s arms. “They’ll own all of Europe, I believe.”

“Do you regret our choices?”

She looked down at the husband she adored. The tree above them dappled shadows across his beautiful eyes. His eyebrows lifted with curiosity. She traced a line over his brow before continuing. “To avoid children? No. I don’t. Do you?”

He snapped off a stem of grass and ran it between his fingers. “There was a period when I might have.”

“When Etta married.”

“We discussed it, remember?” He shrugged, but when he turned his face back up toward her, that mouth she loved so well tweaked up on the left. He bit his bottom lip. “But then I was over it. I’ve you. Not some fantasy dream of a life that I was always told I wanted. Instead I get what makes me happiest with the world.”

“You’re a lucky man.” She leaned down close enough to kiss him in the pretty little glen, beneath a gnarled oak tree.

He kissed her in return, his fingers slipping under the collar at the back of her neck. His touch was cool and comforting and also tinged with fire. “No more than you are a lucky woman.”

She was filled with love for him. It swept over her like easy comfort and soft waves. She combed short dark hair back from his forehead. “That, my love, is entirely true. Fear has no part of me now. Because of you.”

About the Author

After a semi-nomadic childhood throughout California, Lorelie Brown spent high school in Orange County before joining the US Army. After traveling the world from South Korea to Italy, she’s returned home to California. But not the cool area. She can’t afford that yet.

Lorelie has three active sons and a tiny shih-tzu who thinks he’s son number three—not four, he’s too important to be the baby. Writing romance helps her escape a house full of testosterone.

In her immense free time (hah!) Lorelie co-writes contemporary erotic romance under the name Katie Porter. You can find out more about the “Vegas Top Guns” and “Club Devant” series at
www.KatiePorterBooks.com
or at
@MsKatiePorter
. You can also contact Lorelie either at her website
www.LorelieBrown.com
, or on Twitter
@LorelieBrown
.

Look for these titles by Lorelie Brown

Now Available:

Jazz Baby

Wayward One

He’ll protect her with every vicious bone in his body.

Wayward One

© 2013 Lorelie Brown

During her ten years at the prestigious Waywroth Academy, Sera Miller clung to a strict code of propriety to shield herself from rumors that she isn’t an orphan at all. She’s a bastard. Now she wishes she had never allowed her friends to talk her into snooping into the mysterious source of her tuition.

Her benefactor isn’t the unknown father she dreamed of one day meeting, but Fletcher Thomas—underworld tycoon, gambling den owner, and a man so dangerously mesmerizing that he could spark the scandal Sera has worked so hard to avoid.

Fletcher is only two steps away from leaving the life of crime he inherited from his father. First he plans to join an aboveboard railroad consortium, then claim the one thing his ill-gotten gains have kept safe all these years—Sera.

With every wicked caress, Sera fights harder to remember society’s rules and reject the painful memories his touch resurrects. Accepting Fletcher’s love means accepting her past—a risk too great for a woman who has always lived in the shadows. No matter how safe she feels in his arms.

Warning:
This book contains a do-gooder heroine, an accidentally charming hero with tendencies toward caveman-itis, inappropriate household décor and fabulous sex against a wall.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wayward One:

A curious weight settled across Sera’s collarbones. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck clawed upright as if she were being watched. Though it had been a long time since she’d felt hunted in such a manner, she knew how to respond. She quieted herself and made a surreptitious appraisal of the theater.

No one in the box watched her. She turned her look outward, across the sea of less fortunate theatergoers who occupied seats in the main house. No faces turned up toward her.

Across the way was another matter. In a tiny jewel of a theater box, a man watched her.

Digger.

No, he was Digger no longer. Not to her and not to anyone else. He was Fletcher Thomas.

He stood half-concealed by the crimson velvet hangings that separated each group, entirely apart from the rest of those occupying the box. His wide shoulders filled out the black and white evening dress with aplomb, not a stitch out of place. A hugely gaudy jewel winked from his cravat.

Yet he seemed more dangerous and wild than the lion she’d once seen at a traveling circus exhibit. That beast had stared back at Sera. The whole time she’d known it only remained behind the rickety fence by its own will. When it decided to break free, its roar would herald her doom.