Gifts of Love Read online

  She had forgotten the storm, and the blast of icy wind was shocking. Snow swirled wildly in the air and crunched beneath her thin slippers as Antonia hurried out—and almost immediately lost her balance.

  The balcony was only a few feet in width, though it ran along the castle wall for nearly twenty yards. Snow had piled up against the castle wall in a deep drift, and it was that which caused Antonia to stumble and lose her balance. Two steps out from the door the balcony had been swept clean of snow by the wind—but earlier sleet and freezing rain had coated the rough stone in a sheet of ice—and because its support had been crumbling for a century, the outer edge of the balcony had a slight downward tilt.

  Antonia tried to stop herself, but the icy stone gave her no purchase. Her own momentum was carrying her in an inexorable slide toward the low wall.

  In a fleeting moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, she saw Linette to one side, collapsed against the wall in a heap of grief and pain. The young woman might have meant to throw herself over the wall; it was impossible to know for sure. She huddled against the rough stones, her frail shoulders jerking as she sobbed.

  Then Antonia saw Parker stagger out, his unsteadiness clear evidence of the lingering effects of the drug the dark woman had given him. He called out something, shaking his head dizzily, and lurched toward Linette.

  It must have been storming that night too. Parker seemed to slip and slide across the few feet of stone, his arms windmilling. It was clear he was trying to get to Linette, but either his drugged reflexes or the blinding storm made him misjudge the distance and angle. He was moving too fast, sliding wildly toward the wall, and he couldn’t save himself.

  Linette looked up at the last minute, and what she saw must have haunted her all the remaining months of her life. Her lover hit the wall only a couple of feet from her, and it was too low to save him. He pitched forward, and vanished into the darkness.

  Antonia saw all of that in a flashing instant. Then she felt the bite of the wall against her upper thighs, and her momentum began to carry her, too, over the crumbling stone.

  “Toni!”

  His arms caught her and wrenched her back with almost inhuman strength. For a moment it seemed they would both go over, and Antonia could feel the shudder of the parapet as the old stones began to give way. But then, somehow, Richard dragged her from the edge and onto the relative safety of the balcony nearest the castle wall, where the deep drifts surrounded them.

  The snow blew angrily around them, but Antonia was conscious of nothing except the loving safety of Richard’s arms.

  And the tragedy of two people destroyed by a twisted, evil woman.

  Epilogue

  “Here it is.” Sitting on the edge of the bed where Antonia was, at last, warm, Richard held the family history book open on his lap. He had been searching for a particular reference, and had finally located it.

  “Who was she?” Antonia asked quietly.

  He read in silence for a few moments, then looked up at her. His face was still somewhat drawn; Antonia’s close call on the balcony had shaken him badly. But his voice was steady when he replied to her question.

  “Her name was Miriam Taylor. She’s included in the book only because she grew up in the castle, and because she was the ward of Parker’s father. You were right—the author of this history had no idea she was responsible for what happened to Parker and Linette. Apparently, no one did. Linette must have taken that secret to her grave.”

  “And Miriam wouldn’t have told anyone, even if she believed it was her fault.” Remembering what she had seen, Antonia shuddered. “She was…sick, Richard. If you could have seen her in this room, what she did…”

  “I didn’t even see Linette in my room, not this time. It wasn’t yet midnight, but I was about to come over here because I couldn’t stand not being with you a moment longer. Then I heard you cry out. By the time I reached the hall, you were nearly at the widow’s walk. And Parker was only a few steps behind you.”

  “You didn’t see Miriam?”

  “No. And, until you told me, I had no idea what had happened out there. All I saw was you.”

  His voice remained steady—now. But he had sworn at her frantically when he had carried her back to her room little more than half an hour ago. He had been too anxious over her shivering to be much interested in anything except getting her warm again. But once she was tucked into the bed and no longer so pale, he had heard the whole story from her.

  Antonia fumbled one hand from beneath the covers and reached out to him, smiling when his fingers instantly closed over hers. “You saved my life,” she said gravely.

  His voice roughened. “Don’t remind me of how nearly I came to losing you. Never, as long as I live, will I forget the terror I felt when I saw you hurtling toward that wall.”

  “I know it was foolish,” she admitted. “But somehow I couldn’t think of that. It was all so heartbreaking—and such a tragic waste for all of them. I wanted so badly to stop it, change it…”

  “Yes, I know. But it happened, sweet. No one can change it now.”

  “If only Linette hadn’t run. If only she had faced Parker and asked him to explain.”

  Richard hesitated, then spoke very deliberately. “If she had, Parker might not have died. But their love would have been changed forever by suspicion. It was, after all, his word against Miriam’s that what Linette saw was a lie. He had no witness, no one to step forward and call her a liar. Linette might never have been able to forgive Parker. For his betrayal.”

  Antonia’s grave eyes searched out his every feature as if she had never seen them before. She was still trying to reconcile two disparate men—and the only way she could do it was to accept the possibility that one of those men had been a lie, a creation.

  Who was to say that a woman might not go to extremes in order to get—or keep—the man she wanted? Miriam had. And in so doing, she had caused Parker’s death.

  Claire Dalton might well have done all in her power to keep Richard Allerton for herself. She might have hired a thief to break into his house, out of greed or revenge because he had turned away from her. Finding the fob could have been pure chance, and since the button had been engraved with Antonia’s initials, it would not have been difficult to figure out that Richard had fashioned himself a memento.

  A woman might even have guessed how that button had come to be lost.

  After all, what did Mrs. Dalton have to lose by her lies? If Richard really had ended their arrangement, she might have believed there was a chance he would return to her once his betrothed was out of the way—and she might have guessed that a young woman such as Antonia would likely break the engagement in a burst of emotion and flee. Richard might have returned to his mistress in anger.

  There was really, Antonia realized suddenly, no other logical reason why Mrs. Dalton would have visited her, or said the things she had—except for spite or the desire to reclaim something she had lost. If her relationship with Richard had been as solid as she had said it was, she would never have jeopardized it by going to Antonia. The result, as anyone of reason might have guessed, had been scandal and a severe blow to Richard’s pride—neither of which was a thing any man would thank his mistress for inviting into his life.

  “Toni?”

  She realized that she had been silent for a long time, and that he was watching her intently. “I have said a great deal about broken trust, haven’t I?” she said. “But the truth is, if I had trusted you as I claimed to, I would have at least listened to your side of the story. I’m sorry, Richard. I should have listened—and I should have believed you.”

  “Do you believe me now?”

  Antonia nodded, and the resistance inside her was gone as easily as that. She believed him because she loved him and accepted his honesty. And because, after what she had witnessed tonight, she knew the folly of trusting her own eyes and ears to tell her…all of the truth. Sometimes, only the heart could know that.

  “Yes.
I do believe you.”

  She went into his arms eagerly, pushing the bulky covers away so that she could feel the hard strength of his body against hers. He kissed her with intense desire, a little rough because the fear of having so nearly lost her was still with him, and she responded to his passion as she always had.

  It was a long time later when Antonia lay close beside her duke in the warm bed. As sleep tugged at her, she thought of a question left unanswered. “Richard? In the book—does it say what happened to Miriam?”

  He pulled her a bit closer and sighed, stroking her tumbled hair. “Yes, it does. Six months after Parker’s death, she threw herself from the widow’s walk.”

  Antonia wasn’t much surprised by the information, and gave it only fleeting attention. Her thoughts turned to Linette and Parker, and to their daughter Mercy. Perhaps those three had been doomed to short lives and anguish, but all of them had known love. And all of them refused to completely let go of life. Was that a testament to love? Tragedy? Family?

  She didn’t know. But she was deeply grateful that she had been given the opportunity to learn something from an old tragedy, and even more grateful that her own mistaken belief in betrayal had not demanded so high a price from the man she loved.

  Unlike Linette, she had been given a second chance. And she intended to make the most of it.

  “Merry Christmas, love,” Richard said, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead.

  Antonia had a flashing vision of future holidays filled with happiness, laughter, and the delighted cries of children. Perhaps, she thought, the sounds of life and love would fill this castle one day. She meant to make sure of that, because now the castle felt like home to her. Besides, she and Richard had a debt to repay. Perhaps only the contentment of their descendants would lay the restless spirits of the Wingate family to rest.

  Perhaps.

  Snuggling up to her betrothed, Antonia wondered sleepily how many Wingates had occupied this bed over the years, and if any of them might visit it from time to time. It would be unnerving to wake up with a ghost in one’s bed. But Antonia wasn’t particularly concerned about the possibility, and it seemed too much trouble to worry about—or to warn Richard.

  “Merry Christmas, darling,” she murmured.

  KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Once a Thief, Always a Thief, the Shadows trilogy, and other novels. She lives in North Carolina, where she is at work on her next book.

  Surrender

  LISA KLEYPAS

  To Patsy Kluck with love

  Prologue

  December 1875

  Boston

  “Come on in,” Hale said, throwing open the front door with a flourish. He gestured for Jason to precede him into the house.

  Jason followed him into the entrance hall, appreciating the house’s splendidly dark interior and quietly luxurious atmosphere. He raised his eyebrows and whistled silently.

  “I’m glad to see you’re properly impressed,” Hale remarked with a grin. A dour-faced butler approached them, and Hale greeted him casually. “Hello, Higgins. I’ve brought a friend from college to stay for the holidays. Jason Moran, a fine fellow. Higgins, take our coats and tell me where my sister Laura—no, don’t bother, I hear her singing in the parlor. C’mon, Moran.” Hale strode past the staircase toward a room off the hallway. Jason followed obligingly, hearing a thin, girlish voice crooning “Deck the Halls.”

  A tall Christmas tree laden with ornaments and tiny wax tapers trembled in the center of the room. A slim adolescent girl in a blue velvet dress stood on a chair that was close to toppling over. She clutched an angel with glass wings in her small hand, rising on her toes in an effort to place it atop the tree. Jason started forward, but Hale was already there, snatching the girl by the waist and whirling her off the chair. “Here’s my girl!”

  “Hale!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and peppering his cheek with enthusiastic kisses. “Hale, you’re home at last!”

  “What were you doing up on that chair?”

  “Putting the angel on the tree.”

  Hale held Laura’s fragile body aloft as if she were a rag doll and inspected her thoroughly. “You’re prettier than she is. I think we’ll put you up there instead.”

  She laughed and handed him the angel. “Here, you do it. And don’t break her wings.”

  Instead of lowering Laura to the floor. Hale transferred her to Jason, who took her in a startled but automatic reaction. Afraid she might be dropped, she gasped with surprise and threw her arms around his neck. For a moment they stared at each other while Hale bounded onto the chair.

  Jason found himself looking into a pair of soft green eyes fringed with dark lashes. He could have drowned in those eyes. Regretfully he saw that he was too old for her. He had just turned twenty, while she couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. Her body was as light as a bird’s, her breasts and hips not yet developed. But she was an exquisitely feminine creature with long chestnut hair that fell in curls down her back, and skin that looked as soft as rose petals.

  “Who are you?” she asked, and Jason set her down with great care. He was strangely reluctant to let go of her.

  “Ah, yes,” Hale called down, in the midst of fastening the angel to the prickly spruce branch, “introductions are in order. Miss Laura Prescott, may I present Mr. Jason Moran.”

  Jason took her hand, holding it as if he were afraid it might break. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Prescott.”

  Laura smiled up at the tall, handsome man. He was making an obvious effort to speak carefully, but he couldn’t hide the touch of a lilting brogue in his voice, the kind that housemaids and street peddlers and chimney sweeps had. His clothes were nice, and his black hair was thick and windswept. He was big and lean and healthy-looking, and his black eyes snapped with liveliness. “Are you from Harvard?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m in your brother’s class.” Realizing he was still holding her hand, Jason dropped it immediately.

  “Moran is an Irish name, isn’t it?” As Laura waited for an answer, she sensed his sudden wariness.

  “Yes,” Hale answered for him in a loud whisper. “He’s Irish through and through.”

  Laura’s smiled at her brother. “Does Mother know?” she whispered back.

  “No, I thought we would let her discover it for herself.”

  Anticipating her narrow-minded mother’s expression when she saw their Irish guest, Laura giggled softly and glanced at Jason. She saw that his black eyes had turned cool and unfathomable. Disconcerted, for she had not meant to give offense, she hastened to soothe him. “Mr. Moran,” she said, “do forgive our teasing.” She smiled, timidly placing her hand on his arm. “We always tease our friends.”

  For her it was a bold gesture, touching a man even in so impersonal a way. Jason could not know just how untoward it was. All he knew was that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Even in his ambitious dreams of being wealthy and having a fine home and a well-bred wife, he had not been able to imagine anything like her.

  She was an aristocrat by birth, while he would never amount to more than a peasant in the Prescotts’ estimation. For someone like him it was the highest honor just to be allowed to sit at their table. No matter how rich or important he became, he would never have a chance of marrying a Boston Brahmin. But he had beaten impossible odds many times before. Silently he vowed that he would do it again. When it came time to marry, Laura Prescott was exactly what he wanted.

  It would take time and careful planning. Jason never counted on luck, which had always been in short supply in the Moran family. To hell with luck—all he had ever needed were his own resources. He did not return Laura’s smile. In no way would he betray the thought that seared across his brain…that someday she was going to be his.

  One

  November 1880

  Boston

  The last thing J
ason Moran expected when he opened the door of his library was the sight of his wife being kissed by another man. Perhaps someone else’s wife would resort to clandestine meetings, but not his. There were no secrets to Laura…or so he had thought. His black eyes narrowed while the unfamiliar sensation of jealousy froze the pit of his stomach.

  The pair sprang apart as soon as the door opened. The light Strauss music from the party drifted in, dispelling any illusion of privacy the two might have had. Laura raised her hands to her cheeks in surprise, but that did not conceal the fact that she had been crying.

  Jason broke the silence in a mocking voice. “You’re not being an attentive hostess, darling. Some of the guests have been asking for you.”

  Laura smoothed her chestnut-brown hair and composed herself with miraculous speed, assuming her usual emotionless mask. “Don’t look so anxious, Perry,” she said to the other man, who had flushed scarlet. “Jason understands a kiss between friends.” Her green eyes flickered in her husband’s direction. “Don’t you, Jason?”

  “Oh, I understand all about…friends,” Jason replied, leaning his shoulder against the doorway. He had never looked as dangerous as he did in that moment, his black eyes as hard and bright as diamonds. “Perhaps your friend will be kind enough to allow us some privacy, Laura.”

  That was all the prompting Perry Whitton needed to make his escape. Mumbling something apologetic, he skittered through the doorway, pulling at his high starched collar as if to relieve the rush of blood to his face.

  “Whitton,” Jason mused, closing the door behind the retreating figure. “Not the most obvious choice for a romantic liaison, is he?”