Rags To Riches: A Desire To Serve: The Paternity Promise / Stolen Kiss From a Prince / The Maid's Daughter. Merline Lovelace

thoughts from the soft elastic gathers and refused to contemplate on how one small tug could bring them down.

      “Would you care for a drink before dinner?” He nodded to the silver ice bucket on its stand. “There’s champagne chilling.”

      “Who can say no to champagne?”

      The wine was bottled exclusively for The Elms by the small vintner just outside Epernay Delilah had stumbled across a few years ago. She got such a kick out of presenting her friends and acquaintances with a gift of the private label that her sons had given up trying to convince her not everyone appreciated their champagne ultra brut.

      With that in mind, he filled two crystal flutes, angled them to let the bubbles fizz and handed one to Grace.

      “What shall we drink to?”

      “How about starry nights, as depicted so beautifully by the print you had hung in my bedroom? Thank you for that.”

      “You’re welcome.” He chinked his flute to hers. “Here’s to many, many starry nights.”

      He savored the wine’s sharp, clean purity but wasn’t surprised when Grace wrinkled her nose and regarded her glass with something less than a connoisseur’s eye.

      “It’s, uh…”

      “Very dry?”

      “Very something.”

      “They make it with absolutely no sugar,” Blake explained, smiling. “It’s the latest trend in champagne.”

      “If you say so.”

      “Try another sip. Mireille Guiliano highly recommends it in her book French Women Don’t Get Fat,” he tacked on as additional inducement.

      “Well, in that case…” She tipped her flute. The nose scrunch came a moment later. “Guess it takes some getting used to.”

      “Like our marriage,” he agreed solemnly, then smiled as he relieved her of the drink. “We’re learning to be nothing if not flexible, right? So I had another bottle put on ice just in case.”

      He made a serious dent in the ultra brut over dinner. Grace limited herself to one glass of the semi-sec but didn’t debate or hesitate to accept a second serving of Auguste’s decadent scallops au gratin. The chef himself presided over the serving tray and forked three shell-shaped ramekins onto her plate. Blake derived almost as much pleasure from her low, reverent groans of delight as he did from the succulent morsels and sinfully rich sauce.

      The awkward moment came after dessert and coffee. Blake could think of a number of ways to fill the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, he’d agreed to take wild, hot sex off the agenda. He had not agreed to table slow and sweet, but he gritted his teeth and decided to keep that as his ace in the hole.

      “I think there are some playing cards in the library. Want to try your hand at gin rummy?”

      “We could. Or…” Her eyes telegraphed a challenge. “We could check out the video room upstairs. I saw it had a Wii console. I’m pretty good at Ubongo, if I do say so myself.”

      “What’s Ubongo?”

      “Ahhhh.” She crooked a finger, batted her lashes and laid on a heavy French accent. “Come avec moi, monsieur, and I will show you, yes?”

      * * *

      A month, even a week ago, Blake would never have imagined he’d spend the second night of his honeymoon frantically jabbing red buttons with his thumbs while jungle critters duked it out on a flat-screen TV and his bride snorted with derision at each miss…or that each snort would only make him want her more.

      He fell asleep long after midnight still trying to decide how getting his butt kicked at Ubongo could put such a fierce lock on his heart. But he didn’t realize just how fierce until the next afternoon.

Nine

      When Grace came downstairs, Blake was pacing the sunny breakfast room with his phone to his ear. He speared a glance at her gauzy peasant skirt topped by a white lacy camisole, waggled his brows and gave a thumbs-up of approval.

      She preened a little and returned the compliment. He’d gone casual this morning, too. Instead of his usual hand-tailored oxford shirt with the cuffs rolled up, he’d chosen a black, short-sleeved crew neck tucked into his tan slacks. The clingy fabric faithfully outlined the corded muscles of his shoulders and chest. Grace was enjoying the view when he finished one call and made a quick apology before taking the next.

      “Sorry. We’ve just been notified of a possible nationwide transportation strike that could affect delivery from one of our subs here in France. I’ve got the plant manager on hold.”

      She flapped a hand. “Go ahead.”

      That discussion led to a third, this one a conference call with Alex and DI’s VP for manufacturing. Although it was still the middle of the night back in the States, both men were evidently working the problem hard. Grace caught snatches of their discussion while she scarfed down another of Auguste’s incredible breakfasts.

      Blake apologized again when he finished the call. “Looks like I’ll have to hang close to the villa this morning while we refine our contingency plan. Alex said to tell you he’s sorry for butting into your honeymoon.”

      Her honeymoon, she noted. Not his.

      “No problem,” she replied, shrugging off the little sting. “I want to do some shopping. I’ll walk into town this morning.”

      When she left the villa an hour later, she saw vehicles jammed into every available parking space along the tree-shaded road leading into the heart of town. They were her first clue something was happening. The bright red umbrellas and canvas-topped booths that now sprouted like mushrooms in every nook and cranny of the town provided the second.

      Delighted, Grace discovered it was market day in Saint-Rémy. Busy sellers offered everything from books and antiques to fresh vegetables, strings of sausages and giant wheels of cheese. A good many of the stalls displayed the products in the dreamy colors of Provence—pale yellows and pinks and lavenders of the soaps, earthy reds and golds in the pottery and linens.

      She wandered the crowded streets and lanes, sniffing the heady scents, eagerly accepting free samples when offered. She bought boxed soaps for friends back in San Antonio, a hand-sewn sundress and floppy-brimmed hat exploding with sunflowers for Molly, a small but exquisitely worked antique cameo brooch as a peace offering for Delilah.

      She’d thanked the dealer and was turning away when a wooden case at the back of the umbrella-shaded stall caught her eye. It held what looked like antique man stuff—intricately worked silver shoe buckles, pearl stickpins, a gold-rimmed monocle with a black ribbon loop.

      And one ring.

      Compared with the other ornate pieces in the case, the ring was relatively plain. The only design on the wide yellow gold band was a fleur-de-lis set in onyx. At least, Grace assumed those glittering black stones were onyx. She learned her mistake when the dealer lifted the ring from the case to give her a closer look.

      “Madame has a good eye,” he commented. “This piece is very old and very rare. From the seventeenth century. Those are black sapphires in the center.”

      “I didn’t know there were black sapphires.”

      “But yes! Hold the ring to the light. You will see the fineness of their cut.”

      She did as instructed and couldn’t tell squat about the cut, but the stones threw back a black fire that made Grace gasp and gave the dealer the scent of a deal in the making. He added subtle pressure by dropping some of the ring’s history.

      “It is rumored to have once belonged to the Count of Provence. But the last of the count’s descendants lost his head in the Revolution and the rabble sacked and burned his hôtel, so we have no written