Under the Kissing Bough: Gentlemen of Honor, #2

By Charlotte Russell

Four years ago, Jack Telford and Isabella Bruton made the mutual mistake of letting her contemptible brother come between them. Now that Jack has discovered her whereabouts, he'll cross snowy hill and icy dale to be reunited with his heart's desire. But his reception at Hope Cottage is lukewarm at best. No matter how much she might ache for Jack's love, Isabella knows she can never be the wife a future prime minister needs. Besides, she's forged a life and career of her own out from under the thumb of her brother. There is nothing for her in London. Until Jack catches her under the kissing bough and makes the proposal of a lifetime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlotte Russell
• Release date: Oct 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393005797

Charlotte Russell

Charlotte Russell didn’t always know she wanted to be a writer. At one point she had grand plans to be an architect, until she realized she couldn’t draw anything more complicated than a stick figure. So, she enrolled at the University of Notre Dame and studied her first love—history. Now she puts all that historical knowledge to good use by writing romances set in Regency England. When not pounding on the keyboard or tending to one husband, two cats, and three children, Charlotte is privileged to serve the people of her community at the local library.  She's resided in numerous, varied locales, including Indiana, Mexico City, Phoenix, and Seattle but currently calls the heartland of the USA home.

Book preview

A FUTURE PRIME MINISTER BATTLES THE ELEMENTS AND HIS OWN AMBITIONS IN ORDER TO WIN THE WOMAN HE LOVES.

Four years ago, Jack Telford and Isabella Bruton made the mutual mistake of letting her contemptible brother come between them. Now that Jack has discovered her whereabouts, he’ll cross snowy hill and icy dale to be reunited with his heart’s desire. But his reception at Hope Cottage is lukewarm at best. No matter how much she might ache for Jack’s love, Isabella knows she can never be the wife a future prime minister needs. Besides, she’s forged a life and career of her own out from under the thumb of her brother. There is nothing for her in London. Until Jack catches her under the kissing bough and makes the proposal of a lifetime.

Under the Kissing Bough

By Charlotte Russell

Under the Kissing Bough

Copyright ©2015 Charlotte Russell

All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

To Mom,

I’m blessed to be your daughter

Chapter One

London

Under the meager light of a quarter moon, Jack Telford paced the well-trod path of the Berkeley Square garden, awaiting Isabella’s arrival. Though their encounters were always of a clandestine nature, they had never until now met in the shadows of the night. But Isabella had insisted on meeting here after midnight and he’d not had the will to say no.

And really, whatever her reason, why should he deny them this moment together when he planned to ask her brother for her hand in marriage on the morrow? Jack sank against the trunk of an oak, steadying his boot against the bark to hold himself up. There was no place he would rather be than here, heart thumping in anticipation of his love’s appearance.

An unknown creature skittered noisily through the fallen leaves and then he heard it, the unmistakable sound of Isabella’s light step as she rushed nearer. He pushed himself away from the tree and stepped around its girth. Isabella had stopped some distance away, her narrowed gaze searching the darkness for anything untoward. Her hair, neither blonde nor brown but a soft mixture of all the colors in between, was piled carelessly atop her head. She pulled a pelisse tighter around herself as her dark dress clung to her legs.

She was everything he’d never known he wanted in a woman. Independence and persistence ran thick through her blood and despite every negative thing his father had said about her, Jack loved her fiercely and would marry her anyway.

Isabella noticed him then. Her smile reached all the way to her uplifted eyebrows and she dashed into his arms. Jack caught her up and swung her around. As he settled her back to the ground, she clung to his shoulders and tilted her face up to kiss him. Her lips were cool and soft, as familiar to him as the dimple in her cheek and the freckle on the palm of her hand. He gladly let the kiss linger because there was nothing quite like kissing Isabella beneath the moon and stars.

When she pulled away at last he expected to see mischief dancing through her brown eyes. Instead they blazed with undeniable desire.

Jack swallowed. Isabella, why...

He tried to untangle his hands from her waist but as soon as he had one free, she snatched it and urged him to follow her toward a darker-than-pitch corner of the garden. His body more fully engaged than his brain at the moment, he went willingly. She led him through a thicket of shrubs and bushes until they stood beneath the sheltering boughs of a yew tree they had laughingly called the Kissing Bough. Because here, hidden away from the rest of the garden, they had shared their first kiss, a tentative affair he had undertaken only after she’d assured him three times she was willing. Since then, she almost always initiated their more intimate moments, too impatient to wait for Jack to be polite. He could not complain.

Now, in the snug darkness, she once more wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his in a kiss that was anything but tentative. Restless with a need that called to his own in a primal way, Isabella backed him against the trunk of the yew, asking for far more than she ever had before.

She nipped and pulled at his lower lip in a knee-weakening, cock-hardening way. Thank God for the steady yew behind him. Even more so when she wriggled her hands between them and began to unbutton his waistcoat and pull his shirt from his breeches. Her fingers, cool at first, warmed quickly as she ran them up his chest and back down to his abdomen.

Despite that and the way she continued to kiss him as if they might never see each other again, Jack found a working brain cell and grasped her by the shoulders, putting a few inches between them. He could see frustration brewing in her eyes, but he had to be certain.

He looked a question at her. She nodded brusquely but then softened her reply by reaching up to caress his cheek.

She leaned into him then, her pelisse falling open so that only his linen shirt and her cotton gown separated their aching bodies. And he realized then how impatient she truly was. She wore no corset. At most she had a chemise beneath her gown, but nothing more. Nothing.

Jack’s mind nearly melted at the thought of how much Isabella wanted him. How much his wife-to-be wanted him. He slid his hands down her hips and around to her bottom, pulling her against the proof of his own desire for her. In response her mouth scorched a trail up his jaw and sucked his earlobe between her teeth.

On a hitched breath, Jack silently vowed to keep that one brain cell functioning in order to stop whenever Isabella wished. But until then, he wasn’t going to deny his almost-fiancée anything she desired. No one would be in the garden this late, and even if someone chanced through, they were well hidden in this private bower.

Somehow he disengaged their tangled bodies for the briefest moment to remove his coat. He tossed it to the ground beside the yew and sat down, still holding Isabella’s hand. With a wickedly pleased smile, she lowered herself until she was straddling his thigh, her pelisse fanned out behind her.

Jack rubbed a thumb over her swollen bottom lip but held off kissing her. Stealthily he ran his other hand up her side until he cupped her breast. Her sharp little gasp sent his pulse soaring. He sought out her nipple and rolled it between his thumb and finger, watching all the while as her eyes darkened to near black. Fascinated, he skimmed his other hand down to take her other breast. She arched her back.

He had to touch her. Had to feel