by Dorothy Mack
“I planned to stay for a few days for my father’s sake and then take my leave. You may conceive of my surprise when I found you not only informed of the marriage scheme but turning me down at the outset. I should have felt vastly relieved, but instead I was devastated.”
“Fustian! After one day?” demanded his love disbelievingly.
“After one look from the most beautiful, mischievous eyes in the world. Use your wits, my darling girl. Why would I stay around with George Godwin in the vicinity unless I had fallen desperately in love with a girl who thought herself in love with another man?”
“I wasn’t — I mean, I’m not in love with George.”
“I know that. What I don’t know is whether you could ever be in love with me.”
If Gemma heard the questioning intonation, she did not reply. In fact, she had evidently been struck immobile. Thick black lashes descended onto her cheeks and she stared down at her hand on the reins of the quiet mare. The hand in John’s trembled slightly but she made no effort to withdraw it. The glen was suddenly filled with sounds that hadn’t impinged on their consciousness before: rustlings of branches, scampering of unseen little animals, the creak of leather as John shifted in his saddle. The pressure on her hand was increased, but she refused to look up until he said coaxingly, his voice infinitely tender, “Come, little one, you have never been wanting in courage before. There is only one way that I can marry you. Much as I adore you, I won’t take your hand without your heart. Where you are concerned, my greed knows no bounds. Are you going to give me your heart or must I give back this hand?”
Gemma did not reply in words, but when he sighed and would have released her hand, he found his fingers clutched convulsively. His swift understanding needed no more positive sanction to lean forward and press an urgent kiss on her lips.
“Yes?” he asked, lifting his mouth an inch to smile into soft eyes.
“Yes,” she breathed, her dimples released from captivity and her face suffused with wonder. Being a more proficient horsewoman than Lucy, she was able to keep her seat while flinging an arm around his neck to return his kiss.
With the cooperation of the patient horses, the newly betrothed pair managed to exchange an uncomfortable but promising embrace and might have done even better with practice had they not been interrupted by the arrival on the scene of Lucy and Oliver.
“This love business is like the influenza, very infectious,” observed Lord Oliver with a teasing smile that threw Lady Gemma into blushing confusion for a moment or two. Eventually she recovered enough to add her felicitations to John’s on the miraculous recovery of his paralyzed arm and to wish him and Lucy happy. This new, smiling Oliver was a stranger to her and she was shy of him at first, but the lovely glow of happiness radiating from Lucy was guaranteed to predispose her in his favour.
“Dearest Gemma, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that we are going to be sisters,” Lucy declared. “I have been casting spells in my head for weeks and praying for just this conclusion to John’s visit.”
“Amen to that,” said her brother, looking at his beloved in a proprietary fashion that had the strangest effect on her, reducing her bones almost to pulp and interfering with her breathing mechanism.
Altogether it was a mad party that meandered into the stable yard a half-hour later and then strolled two by two toward the ornamental lake as if determined to defer as long as possible the moment when they must return to a world inhabited by others.
At an upstairs window, Her Grace of Carlyle was pulling up the blinds in her boudoir when she noticed the two couples making their separate ways through the gardens. Her first reaction was one of regret that they would no doubt be losing Lucy soon now that Lord Oliver had returned. She would miss her delightful company almost as much as Gemma would, she thought a trifle sadly.
Her attention shifted to the second couple, only a few paces behind but seemingly isolated. Her gaze sharpened. Surely this was the first occasion in a very long time that Gemma and John had been alone together. Could it mean…? Her grace bent nearer the window, unaccountably excited by some intangible impression conveyed by their bearing. At that moment, John threw back his head and laughed at something Gemma said. Before the duchess’s suddenly misty vision, he reached out and caught Gemma’s chin in one hand and kissed her swiftly before they resumed walking, hand in hand now, toward the lake.
With a prayer of thankfulness on her lips and tears of relief and joy in her eyes, Her Grace of Carlyle lowered the blinds and left the window.
***
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ALSO BY DOROTHY MACK
The Substitute Bride
The Raven Sisters
The Impossible Ward
A Companion in Joy
The Belle of Bath
The Last Waltz
An Unconventional Courtship
The Reluctant Heart
The General’s Granddaughter
The Unlikely Chaperone
The Mock Marriage
The Courtship of Chloe
The Lost Heir
The Awakening Heart
Temporary Betrothal
The Counterfeit Widow
The Gamester’s Daughter
The Gold Scent Bottle
The Abducted Bride
The Steadfast Heart
Published by Sapere Books.
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Copyright © Dorothy Mack, 1989
Dorothy Mack has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-913518-08-0