“No, please.” She squirmed, but she laughed too, a beautiful, sultry sound. A trusting sound. “I’ll try to remember. This is all just...so new...Gideon.”
Her gaze sobered, traveling over his face and stopping at his lips. Yes, this closeness was new to both of them, but it seemed that everything would be fine.
“What do you want?” she asked, touching his cheek. “I’m not the only one in this budding marriage.”
“I want so many things,” he replied, flashing a grin. “A great deal of them right here in this bed.”
“It’s good, then, that I’ll be staying here every night.”
God, how he wanted her, but tonight would be soon enough. In the meantime, he’d content himself with her laugh and her smile, and the grandeur of a coronation. Just as he thought it, he heard faint throat-clearing from the direction of the dressing room.
“Bertram,” he said with a sigh, “it’s the morning after my wedding.”
“Just so, Your Highness. Bu
t time slips on and…well…” The unflappable servant actually sounded embarrassed.
“I believe the princess and I require a few more hours of sleep,” he said, to tease the man.
“Your Highness, the coronation!”
“The coronation,” Gideon whispered to Cassandra, making her giggle. “Shall we rise and get you your crown?”
“Yes, as long as you’ll be beside me,” she answered, squeezing his hand.
Three days wasn’t enough time to know a person intimately. Perhaps it wasn’t enough time to truly fall in love, but it was enough time to know if that person could be trusted with a new, improved version of yourself.
Three days, thought Gideon, was enough time for a dark-eyed princess to awaken a rakehell’s heart.
A Final Note
I hope you enjoyed this fantasy tale about Gideon and Cassandra’s wedding in the Kingdom of Hastings. I have two other novellas set in the same world, telling the story of Gideon’s great-great-grandmother Queen Violetta and her consort, the stern and forbidding Duke of Thornton. Those novellas, Royal Discipline and The Royal Wedding Night, have quite a bit more discipline, training, and spanking than A Rakehell’s Heart, but they have equally happy endings. Even better, The Royal Wedding Night is permanently free at many outlets. I hope you’ll check them out!
And for kinky historical romance set in the real Regency and Victorian eras, be sure to read my Properly Spanked series, as well as my standalone novels, Disciplining the Duchess and Lily Mine.
Lily Mine by Annabel Joseph
When Lily wends her way down the country lane to Lilyvale Manor, she hopes the coincidence of names bodes well, for she is in dire straits. She’s been disowned by her London family and finds herself desperately in need of a job.
Lord Ashbourne is equally at ends, his fiancée having jilted him for a commoner and run off to the Continent. Her powerful society family is determined to delay the breaking scandal in order to save the younger sister's prospects. When a servant leads Lily to his parlor, James is astonished to discover how closely she resembles the missing lady of the manor.
He hatches a plan, convincing Lily to play his absent “wife” to keep the gossips at bay. He reassures her it will be in name only, but soon enough, playacting turns to real attraction, and friendship to aching, mounting desire. The strictures of society and unforeseen tragedy combine to test the pair's forbidden love, even as they are driven ever closer into one another's arms…
This novel contains spanking, light bondage, and light BDSM elements.
Disciplining the Duchess by Annabel Joseph
Over five seasons, Miss Harmony Barrett has managed to repel every gentleman of consequence and engineer a debacle at Almack’s so horrifying that her waltzing privileges are revoked. If she’s not in the library reading about Mongol hordes, she’s embarrassing her family or getting involved in impulsive scrapes.
Enter the Duke of Courtland, a man known for his love of duty and decorum. Through a vexing series of events, he finds himself shackled to Miss Barrett in matrimony. But all is not lost. The duke harbors a not-so-secret affinity for spanking and discipline…and his new wife is ever in need of it. Will the mismatched couple find their way to marital happiness? Or will the duke be forever Disciplining the Duchess?
This 85K word erotic romance novel contains domestic discipline themes and both harsh and loving spanking scenes.