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They flew to Venice immediately after the reception and after a few hours of making love, sleeping and making love, nothing would do but for Hunter to boyishly say he was going to take her on a gondola.
Exerilla snuggled backward into her husband’s arms, as the gondolier paddled through the dark water on the return trip to their villa. Her husband had wined and dined her, strolled with her while musicians played. He had pointed out the stars and the constellations and told her stories of his youth and they had been engulfed with a magic like no other love, binding love.
At that moment all was right with her world.
He had just recounted a story that he had experienced in the l7th century as a boy and she shook her head and sighed to say, “You know, I have been thinking, my lord, that you are a very old man.”
“What? Where did that coom from?” he returned in shocked accents, “How can ye say so, lass?”
She laughed, “Well, you have a few centuries on me, you know. Yup, old, but experienced, wise, and brilliant.”
“Och aye, but not as wise as ye,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head which she rested back against his chest.
She turned and looked up at him, “I love you, baby.”
“Baby, is it? Old one minute, baby the next.”
She arched a brow, “Don’t you like me to call you baby?”
“Och aye, ye can call me anything ye like, ye can take from me anything ye want, and I’ll be damned before I’ll not give ye anything ye need.”
“Och aye,” she teased, and reached up for his neck, “Then coom closer, m’lord, coom closer,” said Lady X to Lord MacTorry.
~ * ~
A young woman just coming into her powers as a white witch, hidden evil in a school for high-born orphan girls, a dashing marquis with a hidden agenda of his own.
Enjoy a sneak preview of
Netherby Halls
~ Prologue ~
Sutton Village, England
1815
SASSY WALKED THE short distance from the livery, where’d she left her cob horse and curricle, and made her way to the curio shop that also served as their village book shop. It was a busy time of the morning, nearly lunch, and the wide avenue was bustling with people, horse-drawn wagons, and quite an impressive number of carriages of all sizes, ages, and styles for their quaint village.
The dust they kicked up didn’t do her well-worn blue cloak any good. With a grimace, she brushed and shook off some of the offending dirt as she made her way to the lead-paned window of Mrs. Plummet’s Curio Shop and stepped beneath the awning.
A little bell announced her arrival, and the tall, buxom woman Sassy had known forever looked up from the counter where she was arranging a stack of the new and latest novel that had only just come in. The woman smiled and welcomed Sassy. “Hallo, m’dear, and how is the vicar today?”
Pushing a stray hair away from her ear, Sassy adjusted her chip hat and sighed as she gave Mrs. Plummet a warm smile. “Papa is cranky today, I am afraid. He shooed me off and told me to come into town and purchase a book to keep me busy. He says I am always fussing about him, and he won’t have it.”
Mrs. Plummet laughed and said, “Good then, Sassy love. If he is feeling feisty, perhaps we will have a small miracle and he will take a turn for the better.”
Sassy almost released her pent-up emotions but fought back the urge to dive into Mrs. Plummet’s arms and cry. She held herself in check and unconsciously rubbed the ring on her right hand beneath her glove.
She couldn’t very well tell Mrs. Plummet about the guilt she carried because, once again, she felt useless. She hadn’t been able to save her mother two years ago when she had suddenly fallen ill and died within a week. What good was the power if she couldn’t rid the ones she loved of disease?
Now, her father was not getting any better, and not all the tisanes in the world were helping. Not even those her mother had taught her to concoct had worked to do more than ease his discomfort.
She picked up the latest novel by an author whose name she did not recognize and looked it over. “What do you think?”
“I started reading it last evening. It was very … absorbing.”
“Right then, I’ll give it a try.” Sassy fished in her knit purse for a coin. She shouldn’t be wasting her father’s money on a book, but he had insisted and she didn’t want him to worry about her. It was all he talked about these last few days—her future.
