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A Kiss to Remember (Once Upon a Time, Band 3) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 2: The Fairleigh Sisters

Medeiros, Teresa

 
9780553581850: A Kiss to Remember (Once Upon a Time, Band 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553581856 ISBN 13: 9780553581850
Verlag: Bantam, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

AWAKENED BY A KISS

Laura Fairleigh needs a husband. If she is to keep a roof over her siblings’ heads, the prim rector’s daughter must wed by her twenty-first birthday. When she finds a mysterious stranger with the face of an angel and the body of Adonis unconscious in the forest and with no memory of his name or his past, she decides to claim him for her own. Little does she know that her fallen angel is really the devil in disguise.

Sterling Harlow, the notorious rakehell known as the “Devil of Devonbrooke,” awakens to the enchanting kiss of a lovely young woman who informs him he is her long-lost betrothed. With her sun-kissed cheeks and smattering of freckles, she looks every inch the innocent, but her curves possess a woman’s allure. When she assures him he is the perfect gentleman, he wonders if he’s lost his wits as well as his memory. He would have sworn he was not a man to be satisfied with mere kisses—especially from lips as sweet and luscious as Laura’s.As he attempts to uncover the truth before their wedding night, A Kiss To Remember ignites a passion neither of them will ever be able to forget....

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author Teresa Medeiros was recently chosen one of the Top Ten Favorite Romance Authors by Affaire de Coeur magazine and won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Love and Laughter. A former Army brat and a registered nurse, she wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since gone on to win the hearts of critics and readers alike. The author of twelve novels, Teresa makes her home in Kentucky with her husband, Michael.

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AWAKENED BY A KISS

Laura Fairleigh needs a husband. If she is to keep a roof over her siblings’ heads, the prim rector’s daughter must wed by her twenty-first birthday. When she finds a mysterious stranger with the face of an angel and the body of Adonis unconscious in the forest and with no memory of his name or his past, she decides to claim him for her own. Little does she know that her fallen angel is really the devil in disguise.

Sterling Harlow, the notorious rakehell known as the “Devil of Devonbrooke,” awakens to the enchanting kiss of a lovely young woman who informs him he is her long-lost betrothed. With her sun-kissed cheeks and smattering of freckles, she looks every inch the innocent, but her curves possess a woman’s allure. When she assures him he is the perfect gentleman, he wonders if he’s lost his wits as well as his memory. He would have sworn he was not a man to be satisfied with mere kisses—especially from lips as sweet and luscious as Laura’s.As he attempts to uncover the truth before their wedding night, A Kiss To Remember ignites a passion neither of them will ever be able to forget....

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My darling son, my hands are shaking as I pen this letter....

The devil had come to Devonbrooke Hall.

He hadn’t come drawn by four white horses or in a blast of brimstone but in the honey gold hair and angelic countenance of Sterling Harlow, the seventh duke of Devonbrooke. He strode through the marble corridors of the palatial mansion he had called home for the past twenty-one years, two brindle mastiffs padding at his heels with a leonine grace that matched his own.

He stayed the dogs with a negligent flick of one hand, then pushed open the study door and leaned against the frame, wondering just how long his cousin would pretend not to notice that he was there.
Her pen continued to scratch its way across the ledger for several minutes until a particularly violent t-crossing left an ugly splotch of ink on the page. Sighing with defeat, she glared at him over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles. “I can see that Napoleon failed to teach you any manners at all.”

“On the contrary,” Sterling replied with a lazy smile. “I taught him a thing or two. They’re saying that he abdicated after Waterloo just to get away from me.”

“Now that you’re back in London, I might consider joining him in exile.”
As Sterling crossed the room, his cousin held herself as rigid as a dressmaker’s dummy. Oddly enough, Diana was probably the only woman in London who did not seem out of place behind the leather-and-mahogany-appointed splendor of the desk. As always, she eschewed the pale pastels and virginal whites favored by the current crop of belles for the stately hues of forest green and wine. Her dark hair was drawn back in a simple chignon that accentuated the elegance of her widow’s peak.

“Please don’t sulk, cousin, dear,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I can bear the world’s censure, but yours cuts me to the heart.”

“It might if you had one.” She tilted her face to receive his kiss, her stern mouth softening. “I heard you came back over a week ago. I suppose you’ve been staying with that rascal Thane again.”

Ignoring the leather wing chair that sat in front of the desk, Sterling came around and propped one hip on the corner of the desk nearest her. “He’s never quite forgiven you for swearing off your engagement, you know. He claims you broke his heart and cast cruel aspersions upon his character.”

Although Diana took care to keep her voice carefully neutral, a hint of color rose in her cheeks. “My problem wasn’t with your friend’s character. It was with his lack of it.”

“Yet in all these years, neither one of you has ever married. I’ve always found that rather ... curious.”

Diana drew off her spectacles, leveling a frosty gaze at him. “I’d rather live without a man than marry a boy.” As if realizing she’d revealed too much, she slipped her spectacles back on and busied herself with wiping the excess ink from the nib of her pen. “I’m certain that even Thane’s escapades must pale in comparison to your own. I hear you’ve been back in London long enough to have fought four duels, added the family fortunes of three unfortunate young bucks to your winnings, and broken an assortment of innocent hearts.”

Sterling gave her a reproachful look. “When will you learn not to listen to unkind gossip? I only winged two fellows, won the ancestral home of another, and bruised a single heart, which turned out to be far less innocent than I’d been led to believe.”

Diana shook her head. “Any woman foolish enough to trust her heart into your hands gets no more than she deserves.”

“You may mock me if you like, but now that the war is over, I’ve every intention of beginning my search for a bride in earnest.”

“That bit of news will warm the heart of every ambitious belle and matchmaking mama in the city. So tell me, what brought on this sudden yearning for home and hearth?”

“I’ll soon be requiring an heir and unlike dear old Uncle Granville, God rest his black soul, I’ve no intention of purchasing one.”

A bone-chilling growl swelled through the room, almost as if Sterling’s mention of his uncle had invoked some unearthly presence. He peered over the top of the desk to find the mastiffs peering beneath it, their tails quivering at attention.

Diana slowly leaned back in her chair to reveal the dainty white cat curled up in her lap.

Sterling scowled. “Shouldn’t that be in the barns? You know I can’t abide the creatures.”

Giving Sterling a feline smile of her own, Diana stroked the cat beneath its fluffy chin. “Yes, I know.”

Sterling sighed. “Down, Caliban. Down, Cerberus.” As the dogs slunk over to the hearth rug to pout, he said, “I don’t know why I bothered going off to war to fight the French when I could have stayed here and fought with you.”

In truth, they both knew why he’d gone.

It hadn’t taken Sterling long to discover why his uncle wasn’t averse to a show of spirit in a lad. It was because the old wretch took such brutal pleasure in caning it out of him. Sterling had stoically endured his uncle’s attempts to mold him into the next duke until he’d reached the age of seventeen, and like his father before him, shot up eight inches in as many months.

Sterling would never forget the cold winter night he had turned and ripped the cane from his uncle’s gnarled hands. The old man had quailed before him, waiting for the blows to begin falling.
Sterling still couldn’t say whether it was contempt for his uncle or for himself that had driven him to snap the cane in two, hurl it at his uncle’s feet, and walk away. The old man had never laid a hand on him again. A few short months later, Sterling had left Devonbrooke Hall, rejecting the grand tour his uncle had planned in favor of a ten-year tour of Napoleon’s battlefields. His stellar military career was punctuated by frequent visits to London, during which he played as hard as he had fought.

“You might consider coming home to stay,” Diana said. “My father’s been dead for over six years now.”

Sterling shook his head, his smile laced with regret. “Some ghosts can never be laid to rest.”

“As well I know,” she replied, her eyes distant.

His uncle had never once caned her. As a female, she wasn’t worthy of even that much of his attention.

Sterling reached for her hand, but she was already drawing a folded, cream-colored piece of stationery from beneath the blotter. “This came in the post over four months ago. I would have had it forwarded to your regiment, but...” Her graceful shrug spoke volumes.

Proving her judgment sound, Sterling slid open a drawer and prepared to toss the missive onto a thick stack of identical letters—all addressed to Sterling Harlow, Lord Devonbrooke, and all unopened. But something stilled his hand. Although the fragrance of orange blossoms still clung to the stationery, the handwriting was not the gently looping script he had come to expect. A strange frisson, as subtle as a woman’s breath, lifted the hairs at his nape.

“Open it,” he commanded, pressing the letter back into Diana’s hand.
Diana swallowed. “Are you certain?”

He nodded curtly.

Her hand trembled as she slid an ivory-handled letter opener beneath the wax seal and unfolded the missive. “‘Dear Lord...

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Verlag
Bantam
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553581856
ISBN 13 
9780553581850
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
368
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