girl in her father’s arms.
“Thank goodness you were there to catch me,” she finally said.
And she knew, without a doubt, that he always would be.
To my dear readers,
I hope you have enjoyed reading RHYME AND REASON as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have, would you be so kind as to leave a positive review at the site where you purchased the e-book? Thank you so much!
All my best,
Catherine Gayle
Coming Soon
Thick as Thieves, the third Bexley-Smythe Quintet novella, will be available November 1, 2013 as part of the anthology, A Pact Between Gentlemen.
Here’s a special sneak peek.
The corridor was empty and rather dark, as expected. A few of the sconces held lit candles, but not nearly as many as one would find in the occupied parts of the great house when guests were present.
What did surprise him, however, was the fact that the study’s door was open. Hadn’t they closed it when they left this afternoon? He was certain they had.
Preston slowed his gait as he drew closer to the doorway, listening to determine if someone was still inside. Perhaps a servant was cleaning? Though the thought of that at such an hour seemed unlikely.
No matter how closely he listened, he heard nothing.
Yet, once he was mere feet away, a faint light was recognizable, filtering gently through the open doorway.
He knew without a doubt that they hadn’t left a candle burning when they’d quit the room earlier. More damning still, the efficacy with which Goddard ran the house left no possibility for a servant to have forgotten such a potentially hazardous detail as leaving a candle unattended in an unoccupied room after cleaning within.
Someone was most assuredly inside, and that someone almost certainly had vocalized the gasp he’d heard from the hallway this afternoon—the very gasp which Upton Grey had sworn was merely a figment of Preston’s imagination.
To the contrary, his imagination had never been so vocal before. Preston held sincere doubt it would have begun to effect such peculiar behavior at this moment or any other.
No, someone had absolutely, unequivocally gasped.
Not simply someone . It had to be none other than Lady Frederica Bexley-Smythe, given the fact that only she had supposedly retired for the night other than Preston himself.
What in God’s name was she doing?
Preston stifled a groan and said a quick prayer for favor, and in particular for the sort of favor which might involve the lack of suitable weapons being held in the lady’s hands, and then he entered the study.
The flickering light from her flame and the faint glow of the moon pouring through the windows illuminated the golden reliquary in the otherwise black-as-pitch room, and then bounced back to shimmer within the silvery and golden hues of her hair. She held the candlestick aloft in one hand, the other caressing the reliquary almost as one would caress a lover, her delicate and elegant fingers trailing along the ridges of its detailed edges.
His heart lurched at the vision, and then it lurched again at the direction his thoughts had taken. Allowing himself to think about any young lady’s touch as a lover’s caress was akin to asking for problems he wasn’t prepared to remedy. Marriage was not to be in his future—not after what had happened to Arrington—and marriageable-aged misses always had marriage upon the mind.
The Bexley-Smythe sisters surely weren’t an exception to the rule, especially when one considered the muddle of things Stalbridge had created for them all. Finding a way to secure appropriate matches, and sooner rather than later, had to be at the forefront of all their minds.
But why was this sister here, caressing his reliquary, when she ought to be in her chamber nursing an aching head?
Just then, her fingers curled around the top of the cross and lifted it free, exposing the interior to her view. “Blast,” she muttered beneath her breath.
“Expecting to find a relic still
“Thank goodness you were there to catch me,” she finally said.
And she knew, without a doubt, that he always would be.
To my dear readers,
I hope you have enjoyed reading RHYME AND REASON as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have, would you be so kind as to leave a positive review at the site where you purchased the e-book? Thank you so much!
All my best,
Catherine Gayle
Coming Soon
Thick as Thieves, the third Bexley-Smythe Quintet novella, will be available November 1, 2013 as part of the anthology, A Pact Between Gentlemen.
Here’s a special sneak peek.
The corridor was empty and rather dark, as expected. A few of the sconces held lit candles, but not nearly as many as one would find in the occupied parts of the great house when guests were present.
What did surprise him, however, was the fact that the study’s door was open. Hadn’t they closed it when they left this afternoon? He was certain they had.
Preston slowed his gait as he drew closer to the doorway, listening to determine if someone was still inside. Perhaps a servant was cleaning? Though the thought of that at such an hour seemed unlikely.
No matter how closely he listened, he heard nothing.
Yet, once he was mere feet away, a faint light was recognizable, filtering gently through the open doorway.
He knew without a doubt that they hadn’t left a candle burning when they’d quit the room earlier. More damning still, the efficacy with which Goddard ran the house left no possibility for a servant to have forgotten such a potentially hazardous detail as leaving a candle unattended in an unoccupied room after cleaning within.
Someone was most assuredly inside, and that someone almost certainly had vocalized the gasp he’d heard from the hallway this afternoon—the very gasp which Upton Grey had sworn was merely a figment of Preston’s imagination.
To the contrary, his imagination had never been so vocal before. Preston held sincere doubt it would have begun to effect such peculiar behavior at this moment or any other.
No, someone had absolutely, unequivocally gasped.
Not simply someone . It had to be none other than Lady Frederica Bexley-Smythe, given the fact that only she had supposedly retired for the night other than Preston himself.
What in God’s name was she doing?
Preston stifled a groan and said a quick prayer for favor, and in particular for the sort of favor which might involve the lack of suitable weapons being held in the lady’s hands, and then he entered the study.
The flickering light from her flame and the faint glow of the moon pouring through the windows illuminated the golden reliquary in the otherwise black-as-pitch room, and then bounced back to shimmer within the silvery and golden hues of her hair. She held the candlestick aloft in one hand, the other caressing the reliquary almost as one would caress a lover, her delicate and elegant fingers trailing along the ridges of its detailed edges.
His heart lurched at the vision, and then it lurched again at the direction his thoughts had taken. Allowing himself to think about any young lady’s touch as a lover’s caress was akin to asking for problems he wasn’t prepared to remedy. Marriage was not to be in his future—not after what had happened to Arrington—and marriageable-aged misses always had marriage upon the mind.
The Bexley-Smythe sisters surely weren’t an exception to the rule, especially when one considered the muddle of things Stalbridge had created for them all. Finding a way to secure appropriate matches, and sooner rather than later, had to be at the forefront of all their minds.
But why was this sister here, caressing his reliquary, when she ought to be in her chamber nursing an aching head?
Just then, her fingers curled around the top of the cross and lifted it free, exposing the interior to her view. “Blast,” she muttered beneath her breath.
“Expecting to find a relic still
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