seduction of exotic angels.”
C HAPTER 4
Sera stood at the window of her room and listened. While all three of them had rendered dramatic protests over retiring for an afternoon nap, the girls had nevertheless gone to their nicely appointed room—where they’d managed to resist all of two minutes before slipping off into their dreams. Alone in the silence, Seraphina looked out over the gloomy outlines of London’s rooftops and assured herself that she’d made the right decision, the only one she could have made. It didn’t matter that London was dreary, damp, and bone-numbingly cold. Seeing the sun and blue skies wasn’t significant among her concerns. Being comfortably warm wasn’t nearly as important as making the girls’ future secure. She could light a fire in the hearth if she wanted.
And she could leave London, too. Eventually. Sera slowly shook her head. To think that, like all far-flung Britons, she’d hoped to come here someday, to make what amounted to a holy pilgrimage to the center of the British Empire. Now that she had accomplished the quest, she couldn’t help but think that the dream was ever so much nicer than the reality. England certainly was an interesting place to visit, but, from what she could tell to this point, it didn’t hold much promise of ever feeling like home.
Not that she truly had one of those, she reminded herself. Her parents’ house in Jamaica had been taken for unpaid taxes. The tent that had housed them in Belize had long since rotted away. What Gerald had considered a suitable dwelling had no doubt collapsed during the first heavy rain of the past winter. It had been on the verge of doing so for the last two years. Very much like their marriage.
Sera sighed and managed a smile of sorts. The very best part of being in London was that it would be the last place on earth Gerald would think to look for her. Her smile faded and she crossed her arms over her midriff to ward off a deepening chill. Gerald was dead. She was free of him, free of the humiliation and the poverty. God had taken pity on her, rewarded her for having endured. Gerald Treadwell and the misery of an arranged, loveless marriage were in the past. Never again would she willingly travel down that path.
Which, she suspected, Carden Reeves knew instinctively. Her mother had always maintained that men had a sixth sense when it came to assessing the prospects for casual seduction, that they could tell by merely looking which women were in the marriage market and which viewed matrimony as nothing more than human bondage. The latter—strictly from their point of view, of course—made for much safer liaisons. From the female point of view … Carden Reeves was clearly the kind of man her mother had admonished her to avoid at all costs.
Sera smiled weakly. Her mother hadn’t mentioned how flattering the attention of such a man could be. Or how exciting. The assumption that the strength of her moral fiber would prevent her from being dazzled appeared, at the moment, to be not only too optimistic, but also a bit naïve. Thank heavens for the power of good judgment and common sense; they were her best defenses against weakness and temptation.
She’d once been weak and surrendered to the temptation of what had been offered as a certain future. She’d learned her lessons well—albeit the hard way. Her life had begun anew the moment she’d led the girls up the gangplank and set sail for England. Today and all of her tomorrows were hers to make of as she willed. She could and would make her life a happy and fulfilling one. Sera rubbed her hands briskly over her upper arms, turned away from the window, and quietly added, “Or freeze in the attempt.”
* * *
The fire was burning brightly and, best of all, providing a lovely sheet of warmth when someone knocked on her door. Seraphina frowned at the panel and regretfully abandoned her seat on the hearth. The chill returned midway across the room and was
Michael Dobbs
Anne Doughty
Jocelyn Adams
E. E. Kennedy
Randi Davenport
Sherie Keys
Phil Rossi
John M. Cusick
Maddie Taylor
Rosa Foxxe