Read Online Gifts of Love by Kay Hooper; Lisa Kleypas - Free Book Online

Linette, he was dressed formally though his dark hair was unpowdered. His coat was a heavy brocade shot through with gold thread, and both his cuffs and cravat were lace-edged. There was strength in his thin face, honesty in the level gaze of his eyes, and the sensuality Antonia knew him capable of was evident in the curve of his lips. According to the nameplate, his name had been Parker Wingate.
    After a moment, she followed her beckoning guide a little further down the hall, and found herself gazing at a portrait of the guide herself. It had obviously been painted when she was a girl on the brink of womanhood, yet the eyes in that gentle face were already shadowed with sorrow.
    “Mercy Wingate,” Antonia read aloud. She studied the portrait for several minutes, then turned to look at Mercy’s hazy form just a few steps away. “You were—their daughter?”
    Mercy nodded. She beckoned again, turning back the way they had come, and Antonia followed obediently. When they reached the head of the corridor, she kept the lamp, partly because Mercy went on without pausing. It appeared she was bound for the central part of the castle. Antonia was led to the library on the ground floor, and to a certain area of the shelves.
    Her guide pointed to a particular book, then retreated as Antonia went to the shelf and set her lamp on a nearby table. She had to reach above her head, but managed to get the book.
    It was a thick volume bound in fine leather and stamped with gold. A book that had been privately printed in the very year of Antonia’s birth. She touched the title stamped simply into the cover. “ Wingate Family History. But—” She turned to speak to her guide, and found herself alone in the huge, silent room.
    For a few moments, Antonia stood there questioning herself. It had been real, not a dream, she was sure of it. She felt it. She had not walked in her sleep; she had been unaware of the book’s existence, so why—and how—would she have dreamed of it? Nor had she known of the portraits, since she had never seen them before; they must have been in storage in the South wing, or else had hung on the walls all the time the wing had been closed off.
    No, Mercy had been as real as the ghostly representations of her parents that Antonia—and Richard—had seen during the past two nights. Eerie and strangely compelling in her sorrow and gentleness, she had stepped out of the past because…Why? Different from the others, she had been fully aware of Antonia, even communicating with her, however silently. She had been obviously distressed by Antonia’s refusal to go into Richard’s room, and Antonia had to believe that Mercy had been in some way trying to help them.
    Antonia had many questions; she only hoped that the book would provide at least a few answers. She picked up the lamp and, carrying the heavy volume, made her way slowly back to the South wing and her bedchamber.
    Weary though she was, the disturbing events and her chaotic emotions made sleep impossible, so she took the book with her to bed and began reading. The writer who had been commissioned to write the history knew his job well; with dry facts gleaned from family records, letters, and journals, he wove together a straightforward narrative that proved to be interesting, often entertaining, and sometimes tragic as he explored centuries of one family’s existence.
    There was even a family tree, and Antonia studied it for a long time before she went further. She found two shocks there. The date of a death was one. The other was her own lineage: she was a direct descendent of the sad guide—and the lovers. With a better understanding now of her resemblance to Linette, Antonia turned past the family tree and began reading.
    Finding herself caught up in the story of the earliest Wingates, she found it difficult to force herself to skip ahead to the previous century, but her curiosity and unease about the young couple was too powerful to deny. She located