Jennifer Greene
Silver and Spice
Dear Reader,
I’m so thrilled that Carina Press is offering this book to readers again. I’ve received many letters from readers over the years wishing they could read the books I wrote as Jeanne Grant, and now you can. Carina Press will be publishing fourteen Jeanne Grant books over the next several months (two titles every month!). I’ve gotten quite a kick rereading these stories, which were my first published books. We’ve made a few editorial tweaks, just to replace some outdated references, but this is the core story that I wrote so many years ago and which has been out of print for more than two decades.
Silver and Spice is one of my favorite books I’ve ever written…and at this point I’ve written more than eighty. The story won a Silver Medallion from RWA…and topped several bestseller lists at the time-but that isn’t why I love it…
The story is about a heroine who comes “undone”-literally and metaphorically-when she’s around the one man who has always rung her bells.
She always believed that he wasn’t the marrying kind.
She always believed that he was the type of man that a woman would be crazy to marry.
He’s a bad boy. A wolf. Irresponsible, irrepressible, untamable.
But sometimes the depth of love just can’t be explained. Even when “everything” is wrong…sometimes love is “right.”
I hope, so much, that you enjoy the story-and feel free to write me!
Jennifer Greene
www.jennifergreene.com
p.s. Next in the lineup is Ain’t Misbehaving, which features a very different kind of hero.
Chapter 1
Anne was restless.
Just behind her, hothouse orchids festooned the curved mahogany banister. As she wandered outside onto the Cords’ terrace, she saw a trio of musicians playing Haydn, their foreheads glistening beneath Japanese lanterns. On the lawn by the pool, four long tables, draped in Irish linen, were laden with gourmet fare. Oysters, raw. Sautéed frogs’ legs. Crackers heaped with Russian caviar. The little black blobs were mounded high, Anne noted wryly. A bit of caviar denied the true taste; a mound delivered the appropriate experience. Tuxedoed waiters circulated between house and yard bearing trays of champagne in hollow-stemmed glasses. Anne considered dryly that Loretta Cord’s “only a simple Sunday barbecue, darling” had been rather an understatement.
She shouldn’t have come, Anne told herself as she went back into the house. Many nights she might have enjoyed the Cords’ gala, but tonight wasn’t one of them. Tonight she was in a strange mood; she felt like taking a midnight walk in her bare feet when the rain was pelting down, for instance. Knowing she wasn’t the walk-in-the-rain type made her feel even more irritable. And because she was rarely so out of sorts, she felt triply annoyed with herself.
She knew why Loretta had invited her. Oh, Link-the sweetheart-had undoubtedly been the one to propose her name for the guest list, but subject, of course, to his wife’s approval. And Loretta, naturally, had approved. Yes, Loretta Cord knew that a banker is a wonderful friend to have when one’s mink isn’t paid for. Actually, Loretta’s mink had been paid for, but the lady always covered her bets.
Others at the party had not been so clever through the recession. Certain pairs of eyes shifted from Anne’s as she wandered from room to room. It always happened. As a trust officer, Anne really didn’t know or care whether anyone regularly overdrew his or her checking account, but people assumed she was privy to all their financial transactions and reacted instinctively. When one saw a police car in the rearview mirror, one slowed down to the legal speed. When a priest wandered by, one stopped screaming at Jimmy and kissed the little monster. And when a banker ambled into the vicinity, one miraculously remembered every financial misdemeanor of one’s life.
Taking a sip from her first glass of champagne, Anne knew that she could make the effort, transcend the touchy social barriers, and even have a good time. These were neighbors if not close friends, and moodiness really wasn’t her scene. It was just tonight… She sighed and continued to prowl restlessly through the Cords’ spacious house, which was a mansion even by Grosse Pointe standards.
She caught a glimpse of herself in a hallway mirror and frowned broodingly. Her ash-blond hair was waist length; tonight, as always, it was appropriately roped, tied and tamed with pins. Her back was covered only by a latticework of black raw silk that seemed more bare space than fabric, though in front the gown demurely stretched to a high-banded collar. Well, perhaps “demurely” was not precisely accurate. The bias cut in front very definitely emphasized her pert, rounded breasts, unremarkable in size but rather sassily uptilted. At the waist, the gown gave up teasing and simply fell to the floor. As she strolled the length of the hallway, a slit in the dress revealed a slim long calf and thigh.
Nature had endowed her with vulnerable, deep-set eyes of a soft green, heavily lashed and accented with slim, arched brows. Nature had also bestowed on her a cameo-fragile complexion, high, delicate cheekbones, a nose just a little too long, and distinctly shaped, petal-soft lips.
Anne had never been grateful for nature’s gifts, however. She had chased the vulnerable look from her eyes with subtle gray eye shadow; she had used foundation and blusher to make her skin seem less fragile; and she had expertly lined her delicate mouth with lip pencil and then gloss. She’d learned a long time ago to make a little makeup go a long way. Overall the image was flawless, aristocratic-an image Anne expected of herself. She had hidden all of her natural touch-me looks inside a not-to-be-touched perfection.
Exactly the goal.
With a sigh, Anne strolled into the living room to join the other party guests, determined to shake herself out of the brooding mood. She was talking to Blaire Culverton when she saw him…the wolfish profile and sand-silver hair, pagan shoulders stifled in a black tux. He had his arm around a little brunette with beautiful, straight white teeth. He kissed the woman lightly, laughing…and-for no reason that Anne could tell-looked up.
His eyes captured hers before she could look away. Silvery-gray eyes. Predatory eyes.
They shifted slowly up and down the black silk dress, the carefully applied makeup and the well-constrained hair; just as slowly, a crooked half-smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. Anne could guess the picture he had conjured up in his mind, of each layer of perfection peeled away at the slow, lazy pace that would suit him. His jaw firmed as the smile suddenly left his mouth and the wolfish eyes met hers again and his gaze bored into her. The message was starkly sexual, not a playful come-on or invitation, but a bold claim of possession. I’m going to have you…
Don’t hold your breath, she thought fleetingly, but her face went pale. Not that she couldn’t hold her own with a wolf here and there. She was thirty-one, no child. Yet her palms were oddly cold and damp, her throat ridiculously dry. And her heart was beating a mad tattoo…
She put an arm on Blaire’s shoulder and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, murmuring an apology for having to leave the arresting conversation on supply-side economics. In a graceful swirl of black silk, she deliberately wended her way out of the living room and into the hall, near the banister with the orchids. There were people there, lots and lots of people…
“Anne? Darling, I haven’t seen you in so long!” In a cloud of Chanel and rose chiffon, Jane Harrison gathered up Anne for a buss and a hug. The two women laughed and settled on the third step of the long stairway. “I’m so glad to see you after all this time!” Jane exclaimed. “I’ve got all sorts of things to tell you…”