The Marquess and the Midwife
Size: 5.00 x 8.00 in
Pages: 173
Pages: 174
FOUR AND A HALF STARS AND A CROWNED HEART FOR EXCELLENCE!
Finding the woman he lost turned out to be easy. Winning her is another matter.
Once upon a time, the younger brother of a marquess fell in love with his sister's companion. He was sent off to war, and she was just sent off, and they both landed in very different worlds.
Now Virgil Radcliffe has returned from his self-imposed exile on the Continent to take up his late brother's title and discover the whereabouts of the only woman he's ever loved.
Abandoned by her lover and dismissed by her employer, Ameline Dawes has found a respectable identity as a Waterloo widow, a new life as a midwife, and a safe, secure home for her twin girls. Called to London at Christmas to attend her benefactress's lying-in, she finds herself confronted by an unexpected house guest--a man determined to woo her anew and win her again.
But, is loving the new Marquess of Wallingford a mistake Ameline cannot afford to repeat?
A whimpering came from the bed. One of the girls sat up, rubbed her eyes, and began to cry.
He headed for the bed, but Ameline flung his coats at him, took his arm and whisked him to the door.
He dug in his heels—his stocking-clad heels.
The other girl sat up and joined in with a wail that tugged at his heart.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Ameline said. “We’ll wake the whole household.”
“I’ll help—”
“Leave.” Her eyes flashed at him, her hair in such wild disarray he wanted to sink his hands into it and kiss her one more time and maybe never stop. That would shock the girls out of their crying.
She flattened a palm against his chest, but her attention was all directed toward the bed where his daughters were vying for her attention.
READ MORESo this was fatherhood. He set a finger under her chin and she turned his way, in such a wild mix of anger and concern and frustration he wanted—he needed—to stay. She needed him.
But his being here added one more aggravation to the mix, one that she wasn’t ready for. “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow. We’re not finished yet, Ameline.”
“Oh, we’re finished.”
“May I get my boots?”
Her gaze traveled down him and, moments later, she thrust his boots at him. “Here. Now leave.”
“I will. Good night.”
At the bed, a body was lowering itself down by the sheets, like a sailor going over the side on a line. He swallowed a chuckle and dropped a quick kiss on Ameline’s cheek. “Tomorrow, then. I love you, Ameline.”
Moments later he sat in his banyan by the dwindling coals in his own chamber, arguing with himself about going back down the corridor to her room.
He’d found her, and he’d talked to her. He’d made progress—frustrating, annoying, torturous progress. He’d talk her around.
And by God, he wanted her, and whether Ameline would admit it or not, she was ready to take him back as a lover.
He gripped the arms of his chair. If the girls hadn’t been there tonight…well, it wouldn’t take much more than one night in that bed to convince her to hang up her midwife’s smock and put on a coronet. Blast it, he didn’t want to live this life without her.
The noise down the corridor diminished, but even as his girls were quietening, elsewhere another child had taken up the call of the wild.
He laughed. Since Waterloo, he’d never been able to sleep much. Perhaps he was made for fatherhood.
And by God, he’d be a good father to his girls. Their girls.
COLLAPSEVirgil Radcliffe has returned from a self-imposed exile to London as the new Marquess of Wallingford. Even after leaving to fight Napoleon he was unable to forget the woman he fell in love with, but upon his return she appears to have vanished from the face of the earth. When he stays in his friend’s house he belatedly realizes that the woman he has been searching for is just a bedroom away. Midwife Ameline Dawes has been asked to assist in her friend’s childbirth. She also has a secret and a broken heart. Little does she know that when she attends to her friend, the man who broke her heart is under the same roof.
The story is a romantic cat and mouse game between star-crossed lovers. What makes this different from other Regency romances is the author’s use of the concept of single parenthood (which was taboo back then), and how one can still have a respectable life. The sensual tension between Virgil and Ameline is palpable throughout. The author did not need to go into every intimate detail of the still-burning attraction between the two protagonists. Dialogue, in this case, was used to build the tension which culminated in an HEA for Virgil and Ameline.
With interesting characters and a modern concept used to spur the story forward, readers will find Ms. Field’s story a refreshing take on Regency romances.