‘Then he can say what he likes since I never want to imagine my life without you in it ever again,’ he murmured between handshakes and smiles for these people they loved enough to invite to their very select wedding.
‘Neither do I,’ Marianne agreed and once again Lord and Lady Stratford proved what an unconventional pair they were by kissing one another in full view of their guests as if they could not help themselves and they really could not so they kept on doing it until the bride’s brother ordered them into the dining room and made them sit on opposite sides of the groaning table in order to make them at least pay lip service to the proprieties.
‘What a scandalous couple we are, love,’ Alaric told her across all the pies and roast this and that and enough left over to feed everyone for miles around, just as he intended when he sent for it all.
‘I love you,’ she replied, ‘so much that it probably is scandalous, but I don’t care.’
‘Nor me,’ he said and after that the wedding breakfast of my Lord and Lady Stratford had to manage without them, so it was just as well most of their guests were more amused than offended by the scant attention they paid to their own nuptial feast.
‘Wedding breakfast in bed, now there’s a novelty,’ Alaric told his wife some time later when he brought in the tray Fliss had ordered left outside their room until they were hungry, if still not feeling very sociable.
‘I love experiencing new things since I met you,’ Marianne told him with a siren smile and they made a very stimulating meal of it, eventually.
If you enjoyed this story, be sure to read the first book in The Yelverton Marriages miniseries
Marrying for Love or Money?
and look out for the next one in the series,
coming soon!
And whilst you’re waiting for the next book,
why not check out these other great reads by
Elizabeth Beacon
A Rake to the Rescue
The Duchess’s Secret
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Royal Kiss & Tell by Julia London.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM
Your romantic escape to the past.
Be seduced by the grandeur, drama and sumptuous detail of romances set in long-ago eras!
6 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!
A Royal Kiss & Tell
by Julia London
Chapter One
Helenamar, Alucia
1846
It is an absolute truth that men and women alike desire the earnest vow of someone to love and cherish them all their days, and that nothing elicits joy in the breast of all mankind quite like a wedding.
Recently, the most joyous occasion was the wedding of the universally admired Lady Eliza Tricklebank and His Royal Highness Sebastian Charles Iver Chartier, the Crown Prince of Alucia.
The bride entered Saint Paul’s Cathedral in the Alucian capital city of Helenamar at half past twelve. She wore a gown of white silk and chiffon. It was fashioned in the Alucian style, cut close to the body and featuring a customary train thirty feet in length. The train was hand stitched in silver and gold thread with the symbols of Alucia and England, including the famous Alucian racehorses, the mountain buttercup and the Chartier coat of arms. England was duly represented in the Tudor rose, the lion and the English royal banner. The Alucian national motto, Libertatem et Honorem, was embroidered in tiny scalloped letters around the hems of the sleeves.
The bride wore a veil anchored with a diamond tiara with a center stone weighing ten carats, lent to her by Her Majesty Queen Daria. Around her neck she wore a pearl necklace comprising twenty-three pearls, one for each of the provinces in Alucia, a gift from His Majesty King Karl. On her breast Lady Tricklebank wore a sapphire-and-gold brooch, a wedding gift from her fiancé, Prince Sebastian.
The prince was dressed in a black frock of superfine wool, worn to midcalf, a white waistcoat embroidered in miniature with the same symbols of Alucia and England as the bride’s train, and a silk cravat trimmed in silver and gold thread. He wore the crown bestowed on him at his investiture as crown prince.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds rode in open carriage to Constantine Palace through a throng of well-wishers that lined the avenue for three miles.
The king granted the prince and his new bride the titles of Duke and Duchess of Tannymeade. They will reside in the port city at Tannymeade Palace.
Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies
THE PROMISE INHERENT in any wedding was delightful, but if it were a royal wedding, the paroxysms of joy might very well result in smiles permanently frozen to all the cheerful faces. It would turn the most jaded heart to gold. And if the beatific royal bride were one’s dearest friend, it would provoke cascading waves of unbridled happiness.
Lady Caroline Hawke was over the moon at the good fortune of her dearest friend, Eliza Tricklebank, who was, at that very moment, swearing her love and fealty to Prince Sebastian. Until a scant few months ago, Eliza had been determined to be a spinster and care for her blind father for the rest of his days. She spent her days in plain gowns and aprons, alternately reading to her father or engaging in her curious hobby of repairing clocks. But then Eliza was invited to a royal ball, and a man was murdered, and she was given some gossip that pointed to the identity of the killer, and the next thing Caroline knew, her Eliza was marrying a man who would one day be king of this country. Which meant Eliza would be queen.
It was so improbable, so impossible, that it went well beyond even the wildest fairy tale Caroline had ever heard or had the capacity to imagine.
Seated in the front row of
