Free A Brooding Beauty by Jillian Eaton

for his wife, love for his three beautiful children, and love for the new life they had given him. A life filled with joy and laughter. A life meant to be lived.
    “I would like to hear the end of the story,” said Catherine. Appearing in the doorway dressed in a loose fitting robe with her hair unbound and swept across one shoulder, she went to her husband. Marcus pulled her tightly against him and she curled into the crook of his shoulder, resting her head over his heart. Together they gazed down upon their sleeping children. Overwhelmed by the poignant sweetness of the moment, Marcus felt his eyes fill with tears.
    “They all lived happily ever after,” he said huskily, pressing his lips to Catherine’s temple.
    And they did.
     
    Read on for a preview of A Ravishing Redhead the next novella in the Wedded Women Quartet!    

Please enjoy a sneak peek at chapter one of A Ravishing Redhead, the next novella in the Wedded Women Quartet!
     
    Available on Kindle May 1 st , 2012
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    Margaret had been married to her husband for eight months, sixteen days, and – if her calculations were correct, which they almost always were – approximately two and a half hours. During those seven months, sixteen days and (approximately) two and a half hours she had seen her husband a total of one time. At their wedding, no less, where he had arrived drunk, slurred his vows, and sealed her fate with a sloppy kiss that had landed on her left earlobe instead of her lips.    
                She did not blame him for imbibing in a bit too much whisky before walking down the aisle. She would have gladly gotten drunk herself had it not been for the watchful eye of her mother. But Nettie Combs, knowing full well the willful nature of her eldest daughter, had kept Margaret under lock and key until it was time for the ceremony to begin.
    Lady Combs had been carefully planning the ‘wedding of the season’ (as it was now referred to since no one else of importance had gotten married since that fateful November day) since the engagement had been announced and she had been determined not to let anything – or anyone – ruin it.
                “Well you certainly got what you wanted, Mother,” said Margaret to no one in particular, for no one in particular was around. “I am wed to a Duke, and your grandchildren shall one day carry titles higher than your own. I hope you are very happy, for I am not, and I fear I never will be.”
                Rolling over onto her stomach, she swatted at a piece of grass that threatened to tickle her nose and dropped her head onto one lanky arm. Overhead the summer sun beat down unmercifully and she wished she had not forgotten her bonnet. Now her freckles would be blatantly obvious, when before they had only shown in certain light, and her red hair would turn even redder – though how that was possible, she had no idea; she just knew it would because that is what her mother always said – and she would look like a heathen. A tall, freckle faced, red haired heathen.
                “Oh who the bloody hell cares,” she grumbled, for it was true. No one but the servants saw her, and since they had not yet complained about her new habit of wearing boys clothing she highly doubted they would raise a fuss over a few freckles.
                Since her wedding Margaret had been more or less stranded at Heathridge , a five hundred acre ramshackle estate that belonged to her new husband. She did not mind her isolated surroundings so much as she did the boredom that came with them. There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. No mischief to make. Her three closest friends had stayed for as long as they could after the wedding, but they all had their own lives to get back to. Catherine was busy raising three children and expecting her fourth, Josie was touring the continent with her lover, and Grace was preparing for her own