Page 113 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Dear God. Not the mistresses again. His gaze lit on a pew occupied by two of his former mistresses and the products of their previous relationships.

Mrs. Parker blew him a friendly kiss. Her pair of gangly sons from her first affair grinned and gestured at Jane, elbowing each other in approval. Tomorrow Grayson would have to see about securing the two oafs military commissions.

He returned his attention to his bride, his shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I swear I didn’t invite them. . . .”

“I did,” she whispered, biting her lip to hold back a mischievous laugh.

He blinked. “Oh.”

“Aren’t you glad?”

“Should I be?”

“I wanted everything to be the same as the day we met.”

“The same?”

“Well,” she whispered, “this time I thought I’d invite the groom.”

He laughed low, thinking of how many times they would look back in private amusement at this moment.

The minister cleared his throat, and silence settled over the chapel. The rich perfume of roses mingled with the fragrance of melted beeswax. Jane’s eyes misted with tears of happiness as Grayson gave her hand a possessive squeeze. Same place, same guests, but a very different groom and an entirely different feeling. This time her heart was on the altar. She stood, accepting his in return, committing herself to a lifetime of his leonine arrogance, his devotion, repeating her vows in a clear steady voice.

The guests waited, craning their heads for a view of the groom kissing the bride. Jane whispered against his cool lips, “Everyone was waiting for a scandal.”

His heavy eyebrows lifted as he gathered her against him for their first married kiss. “Give the people what they want.”

“Which means—” And she broke off, gasping with laughter as her scandalous love chucked her up in his arms and over his shoulder.

“I wanted to do this before,” he said above the whoops of the well-wishers, who rose from their seats to watch them, “on the day you were to marry Nigel.”

She pushed her bridal cap back off her forehead and hit him on the shoulders with her bouquet. “I wanted you, too,” she said breathlessly. “But I never dreamed we—”

“Grayson Boscastle,” said a woman’s low cultured voice behind them. “Kindly remember a sense of time and place. Unhand the marchioness this instant.”

Even in her upside-down position Jane could feel the automatic response in her husband’s body, her slow slide to the floor as he settled her back on her feet. “Was that Esther?” she whispered, her cheeks flushed with delight. Oh, to be a woman who wielded such power over this family of naughty boys.

“Ah, no.” He rubbed the side of his nose, his eyes crinkling in an unholy smile. “It was your sister-in-law Emma. Mrs. Killjoy.”

Emma, a beguiling woman with apricot gold hair and soft blue eyes, gave Jane a sympathetic look. “Remind the almighty there’s the breakfast to get through before . . . other things.”

Other things being taking his bride to bed. Grayson traced a possessive hand down the curve of his wife’s spine to the rise of her bottom. An aristocrat to the bone, he would make his social appearance at the wedding breakfast. He would graciously accept the toasts and blessings given them. And then heaven help anyone who interrupted him and Jane afterward.

For the second time that year a wedding breakfast was held in the banqueting hall of the Park Lane house. This time the newlywed couple, both bride and groom, actually sat together with the bride’s parents at the head table.

Cut-glass chandeliers sparkled like stars above the guests who chattered and devoured lobster salad and champagne. Emma politely reminded everyone to leave room to sample the hothouse pineapples and huge multi-tiered wedding cake from Gunter’s.

Then, in the middle of the toast, Nigel’s mother looked at Jane and burst into tears. “For almost a decade, I have thought of her as my daughter-in-law.”

“There, there, Mother,” Nigel said comfortingly. “You have your first grandchild coming to console you.”

“Yes.” She sniffed, eyeing Esther’s gargantuan belly over the top of her handkerchief. “A grandchild who might be as large as a gorilla by the looks of him . . .”

At the adjacent table Emma set down her silver fork in alarm. “Oh, no. Nigel’s mother is going off like a waterworks. I knew it was gauche to have a huge wedding after that last debacle.”

Caroline smiled at her. “I don’t think we need to worry about appearing gauche. Grayson and Jane have risen to the top of the scandal broth like cream.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Emma said with a resigned smile. “It’s your turn next, isn’t it?”