Read Online With This Kiss: Part One by Eloisa James - Free Book Online
Authors: Eloisa James
Tags: Romance
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direction.”
“John, is it?” her mother said teasingly. “Your father and I like your John very much. We would be very happy to have him join our family.”
Lord McIngle arrived so promptly to take Grace for a drive that one might think his carriage had been lurking around the corner.
But no, Grace thought, John McIngle would always be on time. She could count on him. He was steady, and warm, and unfailingly respectful.
John had been wooing Grace for quite a while now, so she knew the pattern of their afternoon excursions: John would tool his curricle to Hyde Park, where they would make a circuit, stopping to greet friends.
Grace’s shyness had prevented her from forming many intimate friendships, but John was so convivial that all of London adored him, or so it seemed. She found herself chatting and laughing with his friends as if they were her own—and, indeed, some of them were becoming so. It felt wonderful.
After driving once around the park, they would retire to Gunter’s Tea Shop for an ice. But this time, John handed Grace into the curricle and asked, “Do you mind if I take you on a short excursion to one of my favorite places in London, Lady Grace? It is entirely respectable, I assure you.”
Grace smiled at him with genuine pleasure. He was such a nice man. No woman in the world could be offended by a question asked by a man with such adoring eyes. “I would be most happy, Lord McIngle.”
“John ,” he reminded her.
“John,” she repeated.
He didn’t drive terribly far, and then stopped the curricle in front of a small church called Grosvenor Chapel. His tiger took the reins, and John helped Grace from the carriage. They walked silently through the nave and out a side door, into a pretty little walled graveyard. There was no sense of grief here, just the buzzing of honeybees, happy to have found so many rosebushes in the heart of London. A narrow brick path wound its way between the gravestones.
“How beautiful!” Grace exclaimed, her fingers twitching because she was so sorry not to have her sketchpad and a pencil. She looked up at John. “How on earth did you find this exquisite secret?”
“My mother is buried here.” His expression was not at all tragic, but boyishly wistful. “I always visit her when I am in London; I have the feeling she is happy here.”
“What a lovely thought,” Grace exclaimed, thinking how adorable his matched set of dimples were.
Then he took both her hands in his. She looked up with a start. The sun was shining on his hair, playing on his thick curls. His voice was as earnest as his eyes were yearning.
“I knew from the moment that I saw you that you were the woman I wanted to spent my life with, and that my parents would have loved you as much as I do. Lady Grace, would you do me the inestimable honor of becoming my wife?”
Don’t miss
Part Two
On sale March 19, 2013
and
Part Three
On sale March 26, 2013
From Avon Impulse
And if you haven’t read the earlier books in this series,
you’ll love The Ugly Duchess and “Seduced by a Pirate.”
Copyright
“With This Kiss: Part One” was originally published in As You Wish in April 2013 by Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WITH THI S KISS: PART ONE . Copyright © 2013 by Eloisa James. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval
“John, is it?” her mother said teasingly. “Your father and I like your John very much. We would be very happy to have him join our family.”
Lord McIngle arrived so promptly to take Grace for a drive that one might think his carriage had been lurking around the corner.
But no, Grace thought, John McIngle would always be on time. She could count on him. He was steady, and warm, and unfailingly respectful.
John had been wooing Grace for quite a while now, so she knew the pattern of their afternoon excursions: John would tool his curricle to Hyde Park, where they would make a circuit, stopping to greet friends.
Grace’s shyness had prevented her from forming many intimate friendships, but John was so convivial that all of London adored him, or so it seemed. She found herself chatting and laughing with his friends as if they were her own—and, indeed, some of them were becoming so. It felt wonderful.
After driving once around the park, they would retire to Gunter’s Tea Shop for an ice. But this time, John handed Grace into the curricle and asked, “Do you mind if I take you on a short excursion to one of my favorite places in London, Lady Grace? It is entirely respectable, I assure you.”
Grace smiled at him with genuine pleasure. He was such a nice man. No woman in the world could be offended by a question asked by a man with such adoring eyes. “I would be most happy, Lord McIngle.”
“John ,” he reminded her.
“John,” she repeated.
He didn’t drive terribly far, and then stopped the curricle in front of a small church called Grosvenor Chapel. His tiger took the reins, and John helped Grace from the carriage. They walked silently through the nave and out a side door, into a pretty little walled graveyard. There was no sense of grief here, just the buzzing of honeybees, happy to have found so many rosebushes in the heart of London. A narrow brick path wound its way between the gravestones.
“How beautiful!” Grace exclaimed, her fingers twitching because she was so sorry not to have her sketchpad and a pencil. She looked up at John. “How on earth did you find this exquisite secret?”
“My mother is buried here.” His expression was not at all tragic, but boyishly wistful. “I always visit her when I am in London; I have the feeling she is happy here.”
“What a lovely thought,” Grace exclaimed, thinking how adorable his matched set of dimples were.
Then he took both her hands in his. She looked up with a start. The sun was shining on his hair, playing on his thick curls. His voice was as earnest as his eyes were yearning.
“I knew from the moment that I saw you that you were the woman I wanted to spent my life with, and that my parents would have loved you as much as I do. Lady Grace, would you do me the inestimable honor of becoming my wife?”
Don’t miss
Part Two
On sale March 19, 2013
and
Part Three
On sale March 26, 2013
From Avon Impulse
And if you haven’t read the earlier books in this series,
you’ll love The Ugly Duchess and “Seduced by a Pirate.”
Copyright
“With This Kiss: Part One” was originally published in As You Wish in April 2013 by Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WITH THI S KISS: PART ONE . Copyright © 2013 by Eloisa James. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval
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