One Golden Ring. Cheryl Bolen

man in your position knows everybody’s financial affairs.”

      “Not everyone’s.”

      “When should you like to be wed?”

      He patted his pocket. “I’ve a special license. Would tomorrow be too soon?”

      “But . . . tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”

      “Christmas is a time for giving. I can think of no better day to marry.”

      She closed her eyes. This was all so unexpected. “You really do have a special license?”

      “I do.”

      “You were that assured I would accept?”

      “I wasn’t at all assured, my lady, but I’ve schooled myself to always be ready for any eventuality.”

      “Then tomorrow is agreeable to me.”

      “You know,” he said with an atypical lack of confidence, “you don’t have to marry me to save your brother. I could negotiate some sort of loan to secure his release.”

      She shrugged. “Marrying you is not repugnant to me, Mr. Birmingham. At six and twenty, I’m too long on the shelf not to leap at the chance of marrying—and I’m no longer the adolescent idealist who longs for a passionate love match.”

      His flashing eyes narrowed as he silently regarded her. She had the feeling he was carefully choosing his words. “You’ll never convince me,” he finally said, “that your being on the shelf is not of your own choosing. Any man in the kingdom would be only too happy to make you his wife.”

      “But not the one man I had hoped to wed,” she whispered ruefully. She had to bring up Warwick. Everyone knew how thoroughly besotted she had been over the man, how humiliated she had been when he married another. If Mr. Birmingham was to become her husband, he had the right to know everything about her past.

      Mr. Birmingham stiffened, and he spoke sternly. “I don’t think I’d like being wed to a woman who’s in love with another man.”

      “Please be assured, Mr. Birmingham, I’m no longer in love with Lord Warwick. I’m just wounded enough to be wary of giving my heart to another man.”

      His jaw tightened as his lazy gaze flicked over her. “And what of giving your body to another man?”

      Her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. She could not believe he was bold enough to speak to her of so delicate a matter. Then it suddenly occurred to her that in a day’s time she would belong to this man. He would have the right to possess her body. The very thought stole her breath and suffused her in a warm tingling sensation. “If I’m to be your wife,” she said, drawing in a deep breath, “I shall belong to you in every way.”

      “I shouldn’t like for you to close your eyes and pretend I’m someone else, Fiona.”

      Her insides trembled. He had called her by her first name—a gesture she found as intimate as a kiss. Just as intimate was his allusion to closing her eyes . . . closing her eyes while they made love. At the vision of their two bare bodies entwined, heated blood thundered through her veins. “There is no other man, Mr. Birmingham.”

      “Nick,” he growled. “You’re to call me Nick.”

      How intimate Nick seemed. Nicholas would not have been nearly so personal. “I vow . . . Nick, I’ll make you a good wife.”

      He began to slowly peel off her glove as she sat there stunned. Once it was removed, he pressed moist lips into her palm as his hungry eyes locked with hers. Liquid heat gushed to her core. “I hope you’ll never regret your decision, my lady,” he said in a deeply seductive voice. Then he settled an arm around her shoulders and gathered her into his chest. For a long time he held her before his lips eased lower until they softly touched hers.

      The sheer delicacy of his restrained power snapped her own reserve. She opened her mouth to him as the kiss instantly transformed from sweet to potently passionate, the pressure of his lips from light to crushing. The firmer his pressure, the more intense her pleasure. Her arms circled his granite-hard back, and little murmuring sounds came from her throat. She experienced an aching, throbbing need to feel his hands stroke her in places no man had ever touched.

      It was as if he were privy to her innermost thoughts, for his hand began to cup her breast, to knead it, his thumb feathering over her now-hardened nipple. Her moans grew deeper, the motion of her own hands tracing circles on his back, firmer. Though she knew her behavior utterly brazen, she refused to alter it for she gloried in this man’s touch.

      Yes, she told herself, Nick Birmingham was infinitely preferable to bald old Lord Strayhorn.

      Then Nick Birmingham straightened up, gently cupped her face in his palms, and said, “Forgive me, my lady, for my presumptuousness.”

      When he went to get up, her cheeks grew hot. What an utter trollop he must think her! She eked out a feeble smile. “I’m afraid I was the presumptuous one, M-m- . . . Nick.”

      Her heart raced as he watched her with vivid intensity. “I think, my dearest Fiona, we may both be getting more than we bargained for—and for that I shall be exceedingly grateful.” He moved toward the door, then turned back to her. “I shall call for you at eleven tomorrow morning. Is St. George’s Hanover Square agreeable to you?”

      Unable to summon her voice, she nodded. In less than twenty-four hours she would belong to Nick Birmingham. The very thought of it arrested her breath.

      Chapter 4

      He made it to the bank before it closed for the day, demanding that Adam—and not one of Adam’s employees—personally handle his sizeable withdrawal.

      “You want FIFTY thousand pounds?” an incredulous Adam asked.

      “Half of it to secure the release of my future brother-in-law—”

      Adam’s eyes rounded. “Then . . . you’re going to marry the lady?”

      “Tomorrow. St. George’s Hanover. You’re invited.”

      A slow smile spread across Adam’s admiring face. “I shall be there. Felicitations and all that, dear fellow. I’m convinced you’ve made the right decision.”

      “Would that I were,” Nick mumbled. Of course, if Lady Fiona was half as passionate in bed as she was in the drawing room in a few minutes earlier, then he had struck a very fine bargain indeed. The very memory of her lips opening beneath his caused his breath to grow short.

      Even when he had first taken up with Diane, her kisses had not affected him as profoundly as did Lady Fiona’s. It suddenly occurred to him that bedding Diane would hold no allure after making Lady Fiona his wife. “Actually,” he added, “I’ll need ten thousand more.”

      “Surely you don’t mean SIXTY thousand?” Adam said.

      Nick directed an impatient glance at his brother. “Surely I do.”

      “But I thought the ransom was for only twenty-five.”

      “My dear brother, I wish you wouldn’t use the word only in connection with twenty-five thousand pounds!”

      “You know what I mean. What’s the other thirty-five thousand for?”

      “Twenty-five for William to purchase francs when he travels to Portugal.”

      “So you’re sending Will to negotiate with the bandits? And you’ve decided to help Lord Warwick after all?”

      “Yes to both,” Nick said. “You don’t think I’d trust fifty thousand pounds with someone who wasn’t family, do you?”

      “Have you told Will yet?”

      Nick flicked a glance at the clock on the wall behind Adam’s well-ordered desk. His brother’s business establishment with its fine walnut wainscoting, tasteful decor,