ROMANCE: Regency Romance: Fated to His Kiss (Historical Victorian Romance) (Historical Regency Romance Fantasy Short Stories) Read Free Page A

was so long waiting for her re-appearance. Instead, with a gentle tug on her gloved hand, he led her aside to a secluded balcony where they saw no one and no one saw them; instead, around them were the curved moldings of the mansion and below them, the spacious grounds.
                  “What brings you back home, Lord Princely?” asked Anabelle, for decorum dictated that she do so.
                  He turned his pale eyes on her and she nearly swallowed her tongue from the intensity in them. “Don't let's do that, Anabelle,” he replied calmly, reaching out so that their hands were side by side on the railing against which they leaned. “If you have even one ear, you know I came back because my father was ill and because my mother fell apart after that.”
                  Anabelle hung her head, dogged, but also felt a massive burden, the one that told her to be polite, slide off her shoulders. “It is terrible to lose a parent,” she said to him softly, watching their pinky fingers side by side.
                  “Come now, Lady Givens, it is not all so bad. After all, I got to see you and the lovely woman you grew into. I would call that reward enough for a day.”
                  “Wh—” but before Anabelle could breathe or ask or talk, Henry had taken her hand in his and Anabelle felt something hot and heavy slide into the pit of her stomach. It gave her confidence, a new kind of joy. His palm was warm against hers, and she stepped out of her tired, poor body for a moment.
                  Apparently, when Anabelle was not herself, she did insane things. Like reaching up and wrapping her arms around Lord Henry Princely.
                  He was warm. His arms closed around her in a welcoming embrace, and Anabelle Givens felt quite as if she had returned to a very familiar, very safe place. There was no shock, no surprise even, simply a welcoming of an old friend charged with an undertone Anabelle did not want to examine.
                  They stayed like that for the longest time.
    *              *              *
                  It was a shame Isadora did not know she was a dead woman, though Anabelle as she gathered up her skirts from the muck.
                  It was just like her little sister to go running off to the horse races. Exactly as their father used to be. Anabelle had woken that morning, still fresh off of her encounter with the handsome Henry Princely despite the week that had passed, only to discover from their last remaining house servant that Isadora had been collected in the early morning by none other than the horse-mad Lord Haversham. Some nonsense about her being his lucky charm or something like that.
                  Given the impropriety of Devon's daily activities, the least of which included betting on horses that never had any chance of winning, and the worst of which included the type of activities Anabelle hoped her sister would never learn about, lest her rosy picture of the handsome Haversham be destroyed utterly, it was not the best of situations that had occurred that morning. Particularly since her sister must have known this, considering how early she must have risen to go off with the blue-eyed rake. As she ordered the servant as mildly as she could to saddle up the horse for her, Anabelle felt a surge of rage go through her. It was just like her sister to ignore their family history and go gallivanting about as she pleased.
                  As the wind whipped her unruly red locks around her neck and face, Anabelle leaned into her horse and pressed on, hoping to overtake Lord Haversham's carriage. She did not, would not, ever understand her sister's fascination with the races, although she could well understand that it was hardly the animals that held her so in thrall, but rather the mopsy-headed man who had come