Would like to suppress the paragraph tags that are output by perch:content

I have a list detail page setup and for the listing page I'd like to show a text excerpt. So that is all fine with this:

<perch:content id="desc" type="textarea" label="Description" textile="true" editor="markitup" words="40" append="..." /> <a href="?s=<perch:content id="slug" type="slug" />">Read more</a>

I'd like the "a href Read more" section to appear directly after the "..." ellipsis but when this page is generated I get a </p> break after the textarea description.

i.e.

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor...</p> <a href="?s=news-item-2">Read more</a>

Is there a way to suppress that <p></p> wrapping or is there a neat css trick that I'm missing?

Thanks