Robert laughed. I've never heard him laugh so gleefully and so apparently freely. He laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes, and he seemed almost unable to stop. “My mother's,” he finally repeated, before going off into gales of laughter again. “Oh, that's a good one."
I shifted farther back into the shadows. No need for Cousin Bret to notice me at a time like this and demand that I side with him. Robert had the situation well under control.
* * * *
“But you can't send him off accused of stealing from the neighbors,” Mama protested when Robert told her that Cousin Bret had left and would not be returning. “He had nothing to do with it."
“Oh, but he did,” Robert assured her. “He had every intention of using his knowledge as a way of forcing Amanda to marry him and getting as much benefit out of Hastings as possible. You needn't think he's an honorable man, my dear Mama. He would use whatever subterfuge he could to get his way. This will give us all the added satisfaction of never having to tolerate him at Hastings again. A very nice reward indeed."
“Well, I must say I didn't expect him to cave in so easily to your demand,” I remarked. “We'd have had the devil of a time trying to prove he had anything to do with highway robbery."
“Not such a very difficult time,” Robert argued. “There was the stable lad who saw him several times take Thunder out in the middle of the night. And nights when there was a visit from the highwayman, at that."
“We didn't have any intention of trying to prove it,” Sir John interposed. “Just to make sure there were various other elements working to convince him of the necessity of departing for his dear home at the soonest moment. But we could have managed, all of us, to cast the gravest suspicion on him. As it is, the constable has by now stumbled over the box of spoils left outside his door like a foundling."
Robert nodded. “He'll manage to return them to their proper owners.” He gave Mama a stern look and she waved nervous fingers at him.
“I shan't do it again, I promise. There will be plenty of other things to see to, especially with a wedding in the offing."
“Whose wedding is in the offing?” I demanded.
“Yours, for one,” Sir John informed me. “I'm sure you will wish to protest and I'll be glad to hear every word of it, but not at this particular moment, my love. Assure yourself that both your mother and your brother have given me their permission to address you, which I intend to do at any moment now, if I can pull you away from this intriguing scene."
Mama smiled benignly on us and Robert waved a hand to indicate that we had his full cooperation in our endeavor to withdraw from the family. So I gave in to Sir John's insistent tug on my hand and allowed myself to be drawn away from the two of them. Amanda was not a party to all of this. It would have been too much for her nerves—or so she said when Robert tried to include her.
It soon became clear that Sir John had no intention of doing things in the proper way. Well, every girl expects the man to get down on his knees and protest his undying love, doesn't she? Sir John was satisfied with circling me in his arms, out in the orchard, and kissing me most thoroughly. This, I supposed, was all the pleading I was going to get from him. I protested.
“Don't you think you could at least squat down just the tiniest bit?” I asked.
“Whatever for?"
“Well, I thought that was how it was done, Sir John. I thought the gentleman was supposed to indicate that he would be putting his lady on a pedestal, you know."
“Rest assured I would never do anything of the sort. And, Catherine, I think it is high time you learned to call me John. There's a formality about Sir John that doesn't sit well with me when I think of holding you in my arms."
“Hmmm. Already he is making demands on me. I wonder where it will end."
“Oh, I'm sure you have a good idea of where it will end. And I don't think you're altogether worried about that."
I smiled beatifically. “No, not about that. But, John, what of the other commands you are likely to impose on me? Look what that sort of thing did to my mother. She was so unstrung by the lack of commands and guidance after my father died that she went a little dotty."
“I don't think that's something we're going to have to worry about: For one thing, I'm not the same kind of man your father was, am I? He was very proper and strict, and I assure you I'm not the least bit that way, myself. And as for you, wild as the streak that runs through you is, there's a sensible woman who inhabits that body, too, and one who doesn't need any outside strictures to make her behave in a reasonably acceptable way."
“Ha!” I snorted. “Little do you know."
“I know enough. You're not the same woman your mother is, sweetings."
“Sweetings! How positively mushy. Is that what you consider romantic?"
“No, it's just something I've wanted a chance to call you. So, Catherine, what is your answer to my proposal? Will you have me?"
I cocked my head at him, trying hard to delay my response so that he would have to worry for a few minutes. “It seems to me that you have some explaining to do first. Why did you try to make up to Amanda when you came?"
Oh, I shan't ever forget the wicked sparkle that appeared in his eyes then. “Couldn't you guess? Catherine, seeing you in the pond and sparring verbally with you very nearly set me on my ear. But I absolutely refused to accept that I'd been struck a blow from which I had no chance of recovering. Instead, I threw up as much obstruction and denial as I could. You know perfectly well that Amanda never held the least interest for me. It was all a ruse to keep myself from recognizing that I had fallen madly in love with you."
Now this was the kind of romantic talk I'd wanted to hear. My efforts to prolong it, however, were all in vain. I was so in love with him that I pressed my cheek against his and whispered in his ear, “Yes, I'll have you, you dreadful man. How could I be satisfied with less now that I've found you?"
He pulled me closer to him and whispered back, “I love you to distraction, you irrepressible woman. What a marriage we shall have! Can you picture how it will be? Wild and free and quite the most comfortable union you can imagine, because we are like to like, and yet we're not in just the ordinary mold. Do you suppose people will think us eccentric one of these days?"
“Certainly by the time we're grown old,” I replied. “Oh, John, what a time we'll have. I can hardly wait to be off with you. Do you think we will have to wait and see if Mama is to be trusted with her new resolve?"
“I haven't the slightest doubt that she can be trusted, with Robert's capable guidance. He'll not be too restricting. And your mother will be too busy getting ready for our wedding and planning for Amanda's Season to need any other distraction. Besides, her Cavalier ghost has abandoned her, thank heaven. We can post the banns now and be married within a fortnight. My mother won't mind the rush, since it will mean someone has finally managed to settle me down."
“I promise not to tell her that I haven't,” I said happily as I leaned against his strong frame. His arms went instantly around me and my heartbeat quickened. I waited, as always, for the wondrous touch of his lips.
* * * *
And that is how it all happened, more or less. Except for the tale of how Robert and John managed to spike the earl's guns the next time he sent a letter to the newspaper. I don't consider that nearly as interesting as the rest of the story. He says I might as well have included it. But I shan't.
If I am ever moved to take pen in hand again, I shall probably make Amanda my heroine, for though she is not so lively as a heroine ought to be, still her adventures in London with Mama as her chaperone do have a touch of the extraordinary about them. I would have to give her an assumed name, however, for if I am going to write a second history, I most assuredly intend to offer it for publication. Once as a labor of love is one thing; a second would be far too much effort not to be shared with an audience larger than one.
Speaking of John, my only audience, he and I were quite right about ou
r love and our happiness. He is eyen rather pleased, now that I have finished it, to read of himself as the hero of my tale.
And if the world considers us an eccentric pair, so much the better!
* * *
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