Sherry Thomas - Beguiling the Beauty

“Serving as an example to the Duke of Lexington—you don’t know how proud I am.” She laughed as she raised herself on her elbow. “Now where is my photograph?”

“Which photograph? Is that what you wanted delivered to you?”

She nodded. “A photograph of my Cetiosaurus. I didn’t take it with me to Algernon House just after we married because I wasn’t sure whether I could ever be at home there. But this time, I was determined to take it with me no matter what. Just as I was determined to drag you kicking and screaming into my bed.”

He rubbed a strand of her hair against his cheek and smiled. “Will you show me the picture?”

“I see I’ve dropped it by the door.”

She slipped out of bed, her hair loose, her person entirely naked.

“My God, put on something.”

Coquettishly she glanced over her shoulder. “So I won’t look like the trollop I am?”

“So we will actually get around to the photograph. Well, too late.”

He hauled her back into bed, and it was a while before either of them remembered the photograph again. This time, he left the bed to fetch it.

She opened the package and drew out the framed photograph. He studied it closely. “You look happy and confident—rather as you do now.”

“It’s because I feel now as I did then: that I have all my life before me and endless possibilities.”

Looking at the fossil reminded him that the British Museum of Natural History was still open for the day. “If we hurry, we can have a good look at your Cetiosaurus in the flesh—or in the bones, rather. Then you are going to dine with me at the Savoy Hotel, to make up for what you owe me. And when we come home, I will give serious consideration to what you might do on your knees.”

“Oh yes,” she cried. “Yes to all three.”

He helped her dress, then pulled on his own clothes. As they approached the door, beyond which they must be proper and ducal again, he pulled her close for another kiss. “I love you, mein Liebling.”

She winked. “And you will love me even more by the end of tonight.”

They laughed and walked arm in arm out of the house, all their lives and endless possibilities before them.

Even though she has remarried, Christian’s stepmother is referred throughout the book as the dowager duchess and addressed as “Your Grace.” According to an edition of Debrett’s Peerage from the late nineteenth century, “A Widow who remarries loses any title or precedence she gained by her previous marriage. From this rule there is not any exception. Society, however, from pure motives of courtesy, sanctions the retention of former rank, and … permits ladies who have remarried to be addressed as though their titled husbands were living.”

Mary Anning, who lived in the first part of the nineteenth century, was a significant fossil collector and paleontologist. She is recognized by the Royal Society in 2010 as one of the ten most influential British women in the history of science. She had a more aristocratic counterpart in Barbara Hastings, Marchioness of Hastings and Baroness Grey de Ruthyn in her own right.

“Superb … Will win readers over with its elegant writing, exceptional characterization … and exquisitely romantic love story.”

—Chicago Tribune

“Deft plotting and sparkling characters mark this superior debut historical … Thomas propels the plot forward with revealing repartee and gives the leads real nuance…. The results are steamy and smart.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Thomas tantalizes readers as she skillfully peels away the layers of Cam and Gigi’s relationship in an enchanting, thought-provoking story of love lost and ultimately reclaimed. Lively banter, electric sexual tension, and an unusual premise make this stunning debut all the more refreshing.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“Thomas’s lyrical writing is really the star of the show. There are writers who can tell a great story, and writers who can tell a great story with beauty and artistry. Thomas is in the latter category, and her writing is, quite simply, a cut above.”

—All About Romance

“We readers of romance go through a lot of books. A few are wallbangers, more are okay but not great, even more are enjoyable, and some are more than that. When I’m reading a book that falls into that fourth and smallest category, I find myself saying, ‘OMG, I can’t believe how good this is’ with one part of my brain, while the rest of it is saying, ‘Shut up and keep reading.’ … Needless to say, this is an A read for me.”

—Dear Author

“[Sherry Thomas] dazzles with her intelligent, compelling story and memorable characters. This well-crafted romance places her among the very finest of the next generation of authors.”

—RT Book Reviews (4½ stars, Top Pick)

“Ravishingly sinful, intelligent, and addictive. An amazing debut.”

—Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author

“Enchanting … An extraordinary, unputdownable love story.”

—Jane Feather, New York Times bestselling author

“A love story of remarkable depth … Entrancing from start to finish.”

—Mary Balogh, New York Times bestselling author

It was love at first sight.

Not that there was anything wrong with love at first sight, but Millicent Graves had not been raised to fall in love at all, let alone hard and fast.

She was the only surviving child of a very prosperous man who manufactured tinned goods and other preserved edibles. It had been decided, long before she could comprehend such things, that she was going to Marry Well—that via her person, the family’s fortune would be united with an ancient and illustrious title.

Millie’s childhood had therefore consisted of endless lessons: music, drawing, penmanship, elocution, deportment, and, when there was time left, modern languages. At ten, she successfully floated down a long flight of stairs with three books on her head. By twelve, she could exchange hours of pleasantries in French, Italian, and German. And on the day of her fourteenth birthday, Millie, not at all a natural musician, at last conquered Listz’s Douze Grandes Études, by dint of sheer effort and determination.

That same year, with her father coming to the conclusion that she would never be a great beauty, or indeed a beauty of any kind, the search began for a highborn groom desperate enough to marry a girl whose family wealth derived from—heaven forbid—sardines.

The search came to an end twenty months later. Mr. Graves was not particularly thrilled with the choice, as the earl who agreed to take his daughter in exchange for his money had a title that was neither particularly ancient nor particularly illustrious. But the stigma attached to tinned sardines was such that even this earl demanded Mr. Graves’s last penny.

And then, after months of haggling, after all the agreements had finally been drawn up and signed, the earl had the inconsideration to drop dead at the age of thirty-three. Or rather, Mr. Graves viewed his death a thoughtless affront. Millie, in the privacy of her room, wept.

She’d seen the earl only twice and had not been overjoyed with either his anemic looks or his dour temperament. But he, in his way, had had as little choice as she. The estate had come to him in terrible disrepair. His schemes of improvement had made little to no difference. And when he’d tried to land an heiress of a more exalted background, he’d failed resoundingly, likely because he’d been so unimpressive in both appearance and demeanor.

A more spirited girl might have rebelled against such an unprepossessing groom more than twice her age. A more enterprising one might have persuaded her parents to let her take her chances on the matrimonial mart for a more palatable husband. Millie was not either of those girls.

She was a quiet, serious child who understood instinctively that much was expected of her. And while it was desirable that she could play all twelve of the Grandes Études rather than just eleven, in the end her training was not about music—or languages, or deportment—but about discipline, control, and self-denial.

Love was never a consideration. Her opinions were never a consideration. Best that she remained detached from the process, for she was but a cog in the great machinery of Marrying Well.

That night, however, she sobbed for this man she scarcely knew, a man, who, like her, had no say in the direction of his own life.

But the great machinery of Marrying Well ground on. Two weeks after the late Earl Fitzhugh’s funeral, the Graves hosted his distant cousin the new Earl Fitzhugh for dinner.

Millie knew very little of the late earl. She knew even less of the new one, except that he was only nineteen, still in his last year at Eton. His youth disturbed her somewhat—she’d been prepared to marry an older man, not someone her own age. But other than that, she dwelled on him not at all: Her marriage was a business transaction; the less personal involvement from her, the more smoothly things would run.

Unfortunately, her indifference—and her peace of mind—came to an abrupt end the moment the new earl walked in the door.

* * *

Millie was not without thoughts of her own. She very carefully watched what she said and did, but seldom censored her mind: it was the only freedom she had.

Sometimes, as she lay in bed at night, she thought of falling in love, in the ways of a Jane Austen novel—her mother did not allow her to read the Brontës. Love, it seemed to her, was a result born of careful, shrewd observation. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, for example, did not truly consider Mr. Darcy to have the makings of a fine husband until she had seen the majesty of Pemberley, which stood for Mr. Darcy’s equally majestic character.

Millie imagined herself a wealthy, independent widow, inspecting the gentlemen available to her with wry, but humane wit. And if she were fortunate enough, finding that one gentleman of character, sense, and good humor.

That seemed to her the epitome of romantic love: the quiet satisfaction of two kindred souls brought together in gentle harmony.

She was, therefore, entirely unprepared for her internal upheaval, when the new Earl Fitzhugh was shown into the family drawing room. Like a visitation of angels, there flared a bright white glow in the center of her vision. Haloed by this supernatural light stood a young man who must have folded his wings at just that moment so as to bear a passing resemblance to a mortal.

An instinctive sense of self-preservation made her immediately lower her face, before she’d quite even comprehended the geography of his features. But she was all agitation inside, a sensation that was equal parts glee and misery.

Surely a mistake had been made. The late earl could not possibly have a cousin who looked like this. Any moment now he’d be introduced as the new earl’s schoolmate, or perhaps the guardian Colonel Clements’s son.

“Millie, allow me to present Lord Fitzhugh. Lord Fitzhugh, my daughter.”

Dear God, it was him. This mind-bogglingly handsome young man was the new Lord Fitzhugh.

She had to lift her eyes. Lord Fitzhugh returned a steady, blue gaze. They shook hands.

“Miss Graves,” he said.

Her heart thrashed drunkenly. She was not accustomed to such complete and undiluted masculine attention. Her mother had always been attentive and solicitous. But her father only ever spoke to her with one eye still on his newspaper.

Lord Fitzhugh, however, was focused entirely on her, as if she were the most important person he’d ever met.

“My lord,” she murmured, acutely aware of the warmth on her face, and the old-master perfection of his cheekbones.