Page 66 of Fair as a Star

A smile touched her lips. “I was thinking how lucky I am to have married my best friend.”

Mark’s blue gaze softened. He caught her hand in his and pressed a kiss to it.

“And what about you?” she asked.

“I was thinking about how much I’m going to miss our Monday picnics.”

“The summer isn’t over yet.”

“No, but when the weather changes…” His mouth hitched up at one corner. “We shall have to take our picnics indoors.”

Warmth crept into her cheeks. Best friends they might be, but their marriage didn’t lack for passion. It was a part of their relationship she’d come to enjoy far more than she’d been led to believe she would. Their wedding night had been a revelation in that regard, just as Mark’s kisses had been so many months before. She’d learned very quickly that intimacy wasn’t something to be endured. On the contrary, with the right person—the right partner—it could be something extraordinary.

“Indoor picnics aren’t entirely without their charms,” she said.

“No, indeed. They have many things to recommend them.” His fingers threaded through hers. “Privacy, for one.”

“We have privacy here.” The oak tree was situated on a secluded knoll, about a mile’s walk from the vicarage. It wasn’t wholly invisible to prying eyes, but very nearly. “And we have the sun shining so beautifully. I don’t want to think of winter coming. Not yet.”

“You’re right, of course. We must enjoy this moment while we can.”

“A moment ‘of unmixed happiness,’” she said.

His eyes twinkled. “Pickwick again?”

“It seems suitable.”

“Eminently suitable.” He quoted to her from the same closing passage of Mr. Dickens’s novel: “‘There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.’”

Beryl looked out across the Dorset hills. The day was warm and bright, the sky a startling shade of cerulean blue. A glow of contentment spread through her. Her new life wasn’t perfect, but it was something very like it. There were moments of unmixed happiness. Of all-consuming joy. Moments like this one.

And there was Mark—her friend, her beloved, the companion of her heart.

“I believe that,” she said. “I know it to be true.”

Mark drew their linked hands to rest on his midsection. His clasp was strong and sure. “So do I.”

An Excerpt from Gentleman Jim

Turn the Page for a Sneak Peek of Mimi Matthews’ new Regency Romance.

Coming Autumn 2020

Beasley Park

Somerset, England

Spring 1807

Beaten and bloody, Nicholas Seaton sat on the straw-covered floor of the loose box, his legs drawn up against his chest and his forehead resting on his knees. There was no possibility of escape. The doors of the loose box had been bolted shut and the wooden walls were made strong and thick, built to hold the most powerful of Squire Honeywell’s blooded stallions. Even so, Nicholas had wasted the first fifteen minutes of his imprisonment trying to force his way out, slamming his shoulders against the doors and striking out at the walls with all of his remaining strength, earning nothing for his exertions but a fresh set of cuts and bruises.

He’d spent the next fifteen minutes pacing the confines of the loose box like a caged lion, clenching and unclenching his fists, grinding his teeth, and mentally cursing every member of the landed gentry and aristocracy.

“I’ll see you hang for this, Seaton,” Frederick Burton-Smythe had said after driving Nicholas into the loose box at the end of his whip.

And they would hang him. Nicholas was as certain of that fact as he’d ever been of anything in his whole life. Only two years ago a young man no older than himself had been hanged for the paltry crime of stealing chickens from Fred’s father, Sir Roderick Burton-Smythe. To have stolen three priceless pieces of heirloom jewelry from Squire Honeywell’s only daughter, Miss Margaret, was surely grounds for drawing and quartering.

It made no difference that Nicholas hadn’t stolen anything. What good were his protestations of innocence? He was nothing but a lowly groom in Squire Honeywell’s stables. A servant. Even worse than a servant, in fact, for he was the bastard son of Squire Honeywell’s scullery maid, Jenny Seaton.