My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(29)
You stare at him in wonder. “Then…I have enough money to marry who I like!”
“Yes,” says Benedict. “A thousand times over.”
“But I don’t want a thousand husbands.” You gaze up at him, your eyes brimming with tears. “I want you.”
Benedict stares at you, his silver-gray eyes filled with longing.
“I didn’t do it for that,” he says huskily. “I didn’t do this to partake in your fortune. I only wished for you to be happy.”
“You make me happy, you fool! I wouldn’t care if you were a penniless beggar on the streets, I would still want you with every fiber of my being!”
“Benny’s actually a long way from that,” says Lady Evangeline nonchalantly. You both turn to her. She shrugs.
“Well, seeing as dear Henrietta is on that ship, sailing to a new life with her dear farmer, there didn’t seem much reason to keep the truth a secret.”
“?‘Vange…what did you do?” says Benedict.
“Well, I might have informed the papers about what happened to Mr. Caddington. Laced with scandalous testimony from several of the wardens at Bedlam, who were more than willing to talk when encouraged with some coin.”
“You didn’t,” you say. You gasp in admiration.
“I did,” Lady Evangeline says as she saunters off. “So I suggest that the two of you get down to the business of living happily ever after.”
Neither of you answer her, for Benedict has pulled off your bonnet with exceeding tenderness. As you melt into his arms, you whisper, “Well done, you fool.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, you harpy.” He grins.
And with that you kiss with a white-hot ardor, there at the docks, not caring who sees.
The End
“They fight with the urgency of men who want each other dead, and the languor of men who know they are being watched by a powerful, beautiful woman.”
Mac and Ollie take turns throwing each other across the barn. They fight with the urgency of men who want each other dead, and the languor of men who know they are being watched by a powerful, beautiful woman taking in every line of their bodies and becoming increasingly aroused by the thought of this ending in a lot of satisfying hair-pulling and possibly kissing.
As if Ollie can peer into the deep recesses of your mind, he tears Mac’s shirt from his gleaming, heaving body. The swell of Mac’s chest is so vital and hot that you almost lose your breath watching him. Then Mac follows suit, screaming, “HYAHHHH,” and tearing off Ollie’s shirt.
They circle each other, the red rose and the white, both armed with thorns of regret and honor. There is a wolfishness to this dance, a hungry playfulness, a deep longing.
They both shine, their bodies pearlized with sweat. You wonder what it would be like to join in the fray and have them tear into you, as well as each other, applying the same vigor of their battle to the theater of lovemaking. How they would rise and fall over you, how they would alternate between kissing your body’s hills and dales and exploring the depths and chasms of each other, how the three of you could reach the happy valley—if you worked hard, and soft, and hard—together.
After you watch them wrassle a bit more, you sigh. Deeply. It is probably about time to put a stop to this madness.
Turn to this page.
“This is the end you deserve, you stupid chit.” Manvers’s eyes shine with triumph. “We shall all perish for Craven’s sins, and I will see my Blanche again in the afterlife.”
“You will see her in hell, you mean!” Craven arrives at your side just as the smell of smoke gives way to the visible flames licking the ceiling in the hallway. He kisses you and whispers, “I’ve alerted the servants of trouble and they are filing out of the estate as we speak.”
“But what of Master Alexander?” you whisper urgently. Just then, as if to answer, the boy appears, yelling “ARGHHHH!”
Your eyes flash to his small form just as he slams his épée onto Manvers’s wrist. You see then what you hadn’t noticed before: that Manvers is armed with a small golden pistol, which, you surmise, might have once belonged to Blanche. He is aiming it at your heart.
“Look, my lady! I have saved you from the monster!” Alexander cries, pleased. You scoop him into your arms and grip him tightly.
“Indeed you have, boy,” you whisper. “Indeed you have!” You shiver all over, doubly so as the flames from the hallway reach ever closer to Manvers, who is seated beside the portrait of the late Lady Craven.
“Manvers!” you cry. “You must away with us or perish by this beastly fire you have set!”
“I must only wait for happiness,” Manvers replies, his voice eerily calm, before he is consumed by the flames.
Turn to this page.
“I-I’m sorry, my lady, but I feel that this is the end of my journey,” you say to Evangeline. “I am just a simple woman, and certainly no adventurer. As much as I admire and respect you, I have no place here.”
Evangeline nods, her eyes filled with kindness.