Wicked Wager Read online

Celeste drew back from the window to face Lord Peregrine, barely able to contain her astonishment. ‘I can’t imagine what he’s talking about?’ Her voice sounded choked with embarrassment to her own ears.

  With a brief caress of her cheek, Lord Peregrine leaned further out of the window to address the young man. ‘Miss Rosington is a little behind the news, my good people. She’s only just regained consciousness, so I haven’t in fact yet asked her the question that brought me to her bedside.’ He turned and fixed Celeste with a level gaze, adding in a murmur, ‘The question that I intended to ask shortly and with all due ceremony.’

  ‘Well, ain’t no time like the present!’ the redheaded urchin called out, his thumbs jammed in his waistband, while the tow-headed lad beside him shouted, ‘Go on then, ask ‘er! Yer made enough noise all about London Town yesterday when you were singing ‘er praises and shouting down them wicked creatures that wanted her to look bad.’

  Celeste stared. There were no words to coherently address the myriad of questions she had for Lord Peregrine. But as he angled his face towards hers, the softening of his aesthetic features a prelude to what she knew was coming, she was more than ready for the words that followed: ‘Celeste, my darling, in case you haven’t already realised it, the entire reason for my coming here today was to ask you to marry me.’

  She closed her eyes to receive his kiss, her lips forming the only answer she knew would make her happy, while her ears thrilled to hear the cheer of the crowd outside shout their approval.

  Thanks for reading Wicked Wager. I hope you enjoyed it.

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  ISBN: 9780857992789

  Title: Wicked Wager

  Copyright © 2015 by Beverley Eikli

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 4/132 Ar
thur Street, North Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2060.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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