The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

      He stilled her words with a gentle finger on her lips. ‘It’s like your nonna said,’ he murmured. ‘It doesn’t mean we have to get married next week. It’s a promise of commitment. We can take all the time we need to make sure it’s perfect.’

      The sound of footsteps outside the waiting room sent a sudden chill down Nico’s spine. Someone was coming to give them news.

      What if it was bad news?

      The only way this could be truly perfect would be to have Jendi at their wedding, wouldn’t it? To see her, at some point in the future, cradle her first great-grand-child in her arms.

      To know that the biggest thing on that bucket list of hers had been well and truly ticked off.

      It was the surgeon, who’d come straight from Theatre to find them. He’d stripped off his gown and gloves but he was still in his scrubs and white gumboots. He still had a hat covering his head and neck.

      But he was smiling. ‘Your gran’s a real trouper,’ he told Charlotte. ‘Tough as old boots, in fact. She’s come through this astonishingly well. You’ll be able to go and see her in Recovery very soon.’

      ‘Oh…thank God…’ Charlotte was clinging to Nico’s hand with a vice-like grip. ‘And…and the tumour?’

      ‘Benign. We got it all out. Can’t see any reason why she won’t keep ticking along for a good few years yet.’ The surgeon’s smile widened. ‘Merry Christmas.’

      Charlotte was sobbing in his arms now. Nico had tears on his own face.

      Buon Natale, indeed.

      The best ever, without a doubt.

       EPILOGUE

      CHRISTMAS WAS LONG GONE.

      Lady Geraldine Highton didn’t remember it at all. She remembered Venice, of course, and the magic of the Orient Express journey. How could she ever forget when it had made her most cherished dream come true? Her beloved Charlotte had found the love of her life.

      And here they were, in the gardens of Highton Hall, in the springtime. Surrounded by daffodils and bluebells with the gentle perfume of apple blossom and tiny puffs of cloud in an otherwise blue sky making this day perfect.

      Their wedding day.

      They’d waited until she was fully recovered, bless them, and these last few months had been a gift in themselves. She hadn’t been allowed to rely solely on the wonderful care Betty had co-ordinated. They’d both moved into Highton Hall themselves, despite the hassle of commuting to London for their busy working lives.

      And somehow Nico had got out of all those overseas commitments that had threatened to keep him and Charlotte apart for the foreseeable future. They hadn’t had to rely on that new-fangled Scope thing at all. It had been, in fact, as if they couldn’t bear to be apart from each other for a heartbeat longer than they had to.

      And when they were together, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Not that anyone minded today, of course. It was only expected that they would link hands when Charlotte had wound her way through the chairs set out in the bluebell woods under the ancient oak trees to join her husband-to-be in front of the celebrant. That Nico had immediately bent his head to place a lingering kiss on her lips might have been a tad premature but…he was Italian. What could one say?

      And it wasn’t as if Charlotte was wearing a veil to cover her face. She may have chosen a traditional, stunning white dress that made her look beautiful enough to bring a tear to anybody’s eye, but she’d left her hair loose and flowing.

      It had been a joke when Geraldine had offered her beloved tiara as the ‘something borrowed’ but there it was, sparkling in her blonde hair as a shaft of sunlight found a way through the unfurling leaves of the oak trees. A glint of silver on her wrist was the only other adornment Charlotte had chosen. That tiny ring of hearts that had the emblem of the Orient Express engraved on its catch.

      Geraldine eyed the rings on her own fingers as she smoothed the skirt of her lovely new pink silk dress. Maybe she should tone down her own accessories? No. That would be tantamount to curbing all sorts of things. Acting her age even, and that would never do, would it?

      She had to shift a little on her chair in the front seat as the proceedings started. There were still moments of discomfort as she recovered from the major abdominal surgery that had removed that thankfully benign growth but she would never complain.

      This was more than a bonus of time that she hadn’t expected to have.

      What had occurred during this last Christmas season had been the most amazing gift ever.

      Although…

      She’d interrupted something last night. A moment between Charlotte and Nico that had looked like more than an intimate goodnight on the eve of their wedding. Nico had had the palm of his hand on Charlotte’s belly. She’d had her hand resting on top of his and the look they’d been giving each other was one of those that could speak volumes.

      She hadn’t let on that she’d seen them.

      And she certainly wouldn’t advertise the fact that her bucket list now had a new item on the top.

      She was already the luckiest woman in the world, even though she knew her granddaughter would dispute that title. It would be her secret that she would be keeping her fingers crossed for another amazing gift next Christmas.

      A gift they could all share.

      A baby…

       Pregnant by Morning

      Kat Cantrell

      KAT CANTRELL read her first Mills & Boon novel at school and has been scribbling in notebooks since she learned to spell. What else would she write but romance? She majored in literature, officially with the intent to teach, but somehow ended up buried in middle management at Corporate America, until she became a stay-at-home-mum and full-time writer.

      Kat, her husband and their two boys live in north Texas. When she’s not writing about characters on the journey to happily-ever-after, she can be found at a soccer game, watching the TV show Friends or listening to 80s music.

       To my sister. Our trip to Italy remainsone of my most cherished memories.

       One

      Matthew Wheeler stepped into the fray of Carnevale not to eat, drink or be merry, but to become someone else.

      Venice attracted people from all over the globe for its beauty, history or any number of other reasons, but he doubted any of the revelers thronging Piazza San Marco had come for the same reason he had.

      Matthew adjusted the tight mask covering the upper half of his face. It was uncomfortable, but necessary. Everyone wore costumes, some clad in tuxedos and simple masks like Matthew, and many in elaborate Marie Antoinette–style dresses and feathered headpieces. Everyone also wore smiles, but that was the one thing he couldn’t summon.

      “Come, my friend.” Vincenzo Mantovani, his next-door-neighbor, clapped Matthew on the shoulder. “We join the party at Caffe Florian.”

      “Va bene,” Matthew replied, earning a grin from the Italian who had appointed himself Matthew’s Carnevale guide this evening. Vincenzo appointed himself to a lot of things, as long as they were fun, reckless and ill-advised, which made him the appropriate companion for a man who wanted to find all of the above but had no clue how to