“Lady Shelbrooke looks exceptionally lovely tonight,” the other woman said. “Marriage seems to agree with her.”
“Doesn’t it, though?”
A warm flush colored the new countess’s cheeks, and her eyes glowed with a brilliance that could never be feigned. She appeared almost as ethereal as the portrait that hung in a place of honor.
“How does one achieve that, I wonder?” Lady Forester said more to herself than anyone else.
“How? Why, my dear Lady Forester.” The Earl of Shelbrooke stepped up beside her, a glass of champagne in one hand. He sipped thoughtfully, directing his words to her, but his gaze fixed on his countess. “No doubt Lady Shelbrooke would be more than willing to share her secret with you. You have always been fond of secrets, have you not?”
“Indeed I have.” She laughed and glanced up at him. She could certainly see how he’d captured the heart of the lovely widow. Once more, envy shot through her. “And do you know the secret, my lord?”
He sipped his champagne thoughtfully. “There really isn’t all that much to it. First, you have to decide precisely what you want. Then there’s nothing more to do but simply, in the case of my wife at least”—a slow smile spread across his face—“make yourself a list.”
“A list?”
“Indeed.” He smiled the smile of a man well satisfied by life and love. “A husband list.”
About the Author
VICTORIA ALEXANDER was an award-winning television reporter until she discovered fiction was much more fun than real life. She turned to writing full time and has never looked back.
Victoria grew up traveling the country as an Air Force brat and is now settled in a hundred-year-old house in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two teenaged children, and a bearded collie named Sam. She firmly believes housework is a four-letter word, there are no calories in anything eaten standing up, procrastination is an art form, and it’s never too soon to panic.
And she loves getting mail that doesn’t require a return payment. Write to her at: P.O. Box 31544, Omaha, NE 68131.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ePub Edition © November 2004 ISBN: 9780061796821
First Avon Books paperback printing: August 2000
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