What a Lady Wants

by Victoria Alexander

  “Apparently not,” he said under his breath.

  She shoved the covers aside and slid out of bed. Felicity had no idea that her relatively modest sleep clothes clung to her every curve, and when she stood in front of the lamp—

  “Why are you here?” She snatched her robe from the foot of the bed and pulled it on. Pity. “Nigel?”

  “Why?” He chose his words with care. Obviously, the vague hope he’d had that she would throw herself into his arms was futile. Honesty was apparently his best choice. Yes, that was good, he’d be honest with her. “I wanted to speak with you.”

  “Go on then.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Speak.”

  “It sounds like you’re talking to a dog.”

  She raised a brow.

  “I’ve been a beast, Felicity, I admit it. Can you forgive me?”

  “Can I forgive you?” She stared in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  He realized at once the only right answer. “No. Absolutely not. Of course not. There’s much more.” He tried and failed to think of something else. He did think beast encompassed all his sins. “An arrogant, thoughtless, selfish beast.”

  “What else?”

  “I’m not very good with words, Felicity.”

  “The infamous Nigel Cavendish? Who has charmed God knows how many women? Not good with words?” She scoffed. “Hah!”

  “Very well, I am good with words. I’m considered quite glib, really.” He shrugged. “But apparently I’m not good when the words actually mean something. I don’t know what the right thing is to say at the moment.”

  “Try.” She fairly spit the word.

  “You’re angry with me, I know, and you should be. I have been—”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve been a beast. An arrogant, thoughtless, selfish beast.” She gestured in an angry manner. “Go on.”

  “You needn’t be so emphatic about it,” he said under his breath.

  “I don’t think I’m being emphatic enough!”

  “Yes, well, admittedly I do deserve it. More, really. I know that. I just wish I knew as well how to make it all right.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You probably should have shot me when you had the chance.” He stopped and stared at her. “That’s it!”

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s it?”

  He strode to the table beside her bed, jerked open the drawer, extracted her pistol, and held it out to her. “Take this.”

  Her eyes widened, and she put her hands behind her back. “Why?”

  “Just take it.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she muttered but accepted the pistol nonetheless. “You do realize I have reloaded it?”

  “I expected no less.

  “Now.” He stepped back, lifted his chin, and closed his eyes. “Shoot me.”

  “What?”

  He opened one eye. “Go ahead, shoot me.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Not at all,” he said staunchly. “I’m in love.”

  She stared at him as though he had indeed lost his mind. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “I deserve to be shot and I have recently discovered that the shooting of a spouse in my family is not unheard of, therefore there is precedent. I do have a request, however.”

  “I daresay you’re in no position to request anything.” She waved the pistol aimlessly. “After all, I have the gun.”

  He eyed it uneasily. He was fairly confident she wouldn’t actually shoot him. He wouldn’t have given her the pistol in the first place if he’d thought otherwise. Still, it had gone off once before unintentionally. “Do be careful with that. I would hate for you to shoot me accidentally.”

  “As would I.” She smiled in an overly pleasant manner. “Accidentally, that is. Was that your request then? That I be careful?”

  “Not entirely.” He squared his shoulders. “I would request that you aim for a small, insignificant body part. After all, the purpose isn’t to kill me—”

  “It’s not?” She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Probably not.”

  “You just want to make me suffer.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “That’s good, you should suffer.”

  “So I would suggest that you aim for, oh, I don’t know, a little finger perhaps or a quick little graze on the shoulder.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and the tiniest hint of amusement sparked in her eye. That was a good sign. “Perhaps I could simply part your hair with the bullet?”

  “You did say you were a good shot.”

  “Not that good.” She was obviously struggling against a smile. It was a very good sign.

  “Felicity.” He paused in a significant manner. “Marriage.”

  Her brows drew together in confusion. “What?”

  “Marriage,” he said again with more emphasis on the word.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m saying marriage.” He couldn’t resist a smug smile. “I can say it clearly, without choking on it or it catching in my throat or shivers running down my spine. Marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage.”

  “I’m most impressed, Nigel.” The slightest hint of sarcasm sounded in her words. He ignored it. “You have come a long way.”

  “I had a long way to come.” He braced himself and stepped toward her. “Felicity, from very nearly the moment we first met, I have wanted you out of my life because I was terrified of not merely marriage but of what marriage meant. Responsibility and the end of youthful pursuits and everything that I knew would come someday but I had no desire to face, that I was not ready to accept. I’m not sure I ever would have been ready to accept any of it were I not forced to do so.”

  “Go on.”

  “I have learned a great deal about myself recently. I am not incapable or incompetent. My father…” He paused.

  Her voice softened. “Oh, Nigel.”

  He drew a deep breath. “My father knew that long before I did. I can indeed fill his shoes. Perhaps not as competently as he did at the moment, but I no longer doubt myself and my abilities. And I know now as well”—his gaze locked with hers—“that I can’t do anything without you by my side.”

  “Nigel.” Her voice caught.

  He moved closer and stared into her eyes. “It’s taken me far too long to realize it but I cannot, nor do I wish to, live my life without you in it. Not another hour, not another day. I never imagined when I first climbed over this balcony that it would be the best thing I ever did because I never imagined you. But it was.”

  She stared at him. “Did you say you loved me?”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t think you heard me.”

  “I did. I just…” She shook her head. “Now I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you love me.”

  She nodded. “I do. I always have.”

  “As that is the case”—he smiled slowly—“will you marry me?”

  “I believe I already have,” she said with a weak smile.

  “Yes, but I never really asked you, did I? And you deserve to be asked.” He knelt down on one knee and took her free hand. “Felicity Constance Evanston Melville Cavendish, will you be my wife? For now and for the rest of our days? Will you allow me to cherish you and make you happy and try to make every day together an adventure? Will you forgive me my future sins? For surely there will be many.”

  “Will there?”

  “I daresay they will be too numerous to count, but I do promise you women will not be among my sins. I vow to you now, Felicity, there will be no other women in my life. My days of being the infamous Mr. Cavendish are at an end.”

  “Will you miss them?”

  “Not if I have you,” he said firmly and realized he had never spoken truer words in his life. He stood and pulled her into his arms. “Well, do I get an answer?”

  Her gaze meshed with his, and in her endless brown eyes he saw a love that would last him for the rest of his days. “Do I have a choice?�
��

  “No, Lady Cavendish.” He bent his lips to hers. “No choice whatsoever. After all, this is fate.” His lips met hers, and the most remarkable feeling washed through him, warm and deep and forever. And he realized this was indeed love and wondered that it had taken him so long to realize it. And thanked the stars above—her stars—for bringing them together.

  Felicity had changed his life and, as much as he had fought against it, that was as it should be. And here and now, with her at last in his arms where she belonged and a lifetime together ahead of them, one couldn’t help but believe in magic and fate and, most especially, in love.

  He pulled her tighter against him, and her one arm wrapped around his neck. And at the very moment he realized he had never known such happiness before, it dawned on him as well that he’d forgotten all about the pistol in her hand and he should grab it before—

  The gun slipped from her grasp.

  Epilogue

  Four days later…

  “Do you think there’s some sort of curse?” Sinclair stared moodily into his glass as if the brandy held the answer.

  Oliver raised a brow. “On us?”

  “I was thinking more on the bottle of Cognac. It’s old and French and who knows where it’s been.” Sinclair shrugged. “But yes, I suppose it could be on us.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Oliver scoffed. “I don’t believe in curses.”

  “Neither do I,” Sinclair said in a firm manner. “Not at all.”

  “Of course not.”

  “It’s nothing more than coincidence, really.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “The fact that four of us form a tontine and within four months, two of us are married is mere chance,” Sinclair said in the manner of a man trying to convince himself as much as anyone listening. “I haven’t known Warton and Cavendish very long. Perhaps they were inclined toward marriage.”

  Oliver grimaced. “I don’t know anyone less inclined toward marriage than Warton and Cavendish.”

  “Even so, it was nothing more than a twist of fate.” The American paused. “Agreed?”

  “Absolutely.” Oliver nodded. “Fate, coincidence, chance, but definitely not a curse.”

  “Cavendish has certainly been ranting about fate lately.” Sinclair paused. “Will he be all right, do you think?”

  “I hear the wound is minor.” Oliver bit back a grin. “Curious place for a bullet to graze a man, though.”

  Sinclair nodded. “It certainly could have been worse.”

  “A few inches in one direction or another and it would have been.” Oliver’s gaze met the other man’s and they laughed.

  “One would think, given that the very same circumstances led to his marriage in the first place, that he would have been more cautious.”

  “I suspect caution is the last thing a man like Cavendish, who abruptly finds himself in love with his own wife, is concerned with.” Oliver chuckled. “Today is his birthday, by the way, and as I am certain we won’t be seeing him, mourning and all, I suggest we put this evening’s libations on his account.”

  “Excellent idea.” Sinclair grinned, then sobered. “Pity about his father.”

  “Unfortunately, death eventually claims each of us.” Oliver blew a long breath. “As apparently does marriage.” He rose to his feet. “Come on then, there’s no getting around it.”

  Sinclair stood. “Around what?”

  “What is fast becoming a tradition for us, Sinclair, far too quickly, I might add. Let us now toast the happy couples.” Oliver raised his glass. “First, to Lord and Lady Warton. May their journeys be filled with adventure and discovery.”

  “And to Lord and Lady Cavendish.” Sinclair paused, then grinned. “May their aim never be better than it is right now.”

  “Hear, hear.” Oliver clinked his glass with Sinclair’s and both men took a sip.

  “And so,” Sinclair said with a wry smile and a lift of his glass, “it comes down to you and me.”

  “To you and me then. The last men standing.” Oliver raised his glass. “God help us both.”

  In the following pages

  you are cordially invited to a tea party

  in which the author has invited

  some of her favorite characters

  to talk about all sort of things.

  Join the discussion already in progress…

  Continued from A Little Bit Wicked…

  “Okay then. The topic of discussion,” I braced myself, “is men.”

  This was not my idea, I can’t say that often enough. But the small group of heroines I had gathered in my living room: Pandora Effington Wells (Countess of Trent), Gillian Effington Marley Shelton (Countess of Shelbrooke), Marianne Shelton Effington (Marchioness of Helmsley), Jocelyn Shelton Beaumont (Viscountess Beaumont), and Marianne’s daughter, Elizabeth Effington Langley (Lady Collingsworth) had minds of their own. Admittedly, that was my fault. I had written them that way.

  “Who wants to start,” I said brightly, and looked directly at Marianne, who had already appeared to be more or less the leader of the group.

  That came as something of a surprise—I thought I’d be in charge—although it probably shouldn’t have. After all, Marianne was destined to eventually become a duchess, even if at this particular moment she was not. I had invited these characters to tea at the point in their lives that I had known them best—the end of their own stories. Which was a tiny bit awkward for Elizabeth, because at this gathering she was twenty-nine, whereas most of her aunts were younger and her mother, Marianne, was only twenty-one. Still, Elizabeth was a confident, intelligent woman and shouldn’t have a problem with something as insignificant as being older than her own mother. Even so, there was a slight look of unease in her eyes.

  “Where to start?” Marianne drew her brows together and thought for a moment. “I suppose we could begin with what we like best in a man.”

  “A good sense of humor,” Pandora said firmly. “I like a man who isn’t afraid to laugh at the absurdities of life or at himself. A man who makes me laugh with him.”

  “I like a man who treats me as if I were the very best thing to ever happen to him. Which of course”—Gillian grinned—“I am.”

  We all laughed at that. At the smugness of it as well as the truth. The heroes I had paired each of them with did indeed realize how fortunate they were. As well they should. I had created one specifically for the other.

  “A handsome face is important, obviously,” Jocelyn said in an offhand manner, and the others stared at her. “Well, it’s not on the very top of my list, that would be shallow, but if we wish to be honest—” She met my gaze. “Do we wish to be honest?”

  “Sure,” I said weakly. Who knew what honesty might lead to?

  “Very well then, in the interest of honesty, I dare any of you to deny that one of the first things you noticed about the man you ultimately married was his favorable appearance.” She glanced at me. “You did write them that way didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.” I tried not to sound too defensive. “And I haven’t heard any of you complain.”

  “Nor shall you,” Pandora said, and leaned forward to pat my hand. “Certainly it’s a superficial sort of thing, appearance that is, but important in its own way at least in terms of initial attraction. I think we can all agree, we like having the man in our lives be an attractive sort.”

  “I do agree, but one of the first things I noticed about my husband was his overwhelming arrogance.” Marianne chuckled. “He really thought he knew what was best for me.”

  “They all do.” Gillian sighed. “Arrogance is as much a part of the male characters she writes as is a finely chiseled derriere or nicely endowed—”

  Elizabeth winced. “Aunt Gillian!”

  “Don’t sound so shocked, Lizzie.” Gillian stared at her niece. “I’m quite grateful for the attributes she has bestowed upon Richard—”

  “My apologies.” Elizabeth nodded in my direction, then rose to
her feet. “I thought I was made of sterner stuff, but I have a difficult time listening to my aunt discuss my uncle’s…attributes. And I’m certain any minute now my mother will join in to express her appreciation for my father’s…” She closed her eyes for a moment, obviously to pray for strength, squared her shoulders, and smiled politely. “I do so appreciate being invited here today.”

  Elizabeth glanced around my living room. A nice enough living room, really, but definitely not up to the lofty standards of her mid-nineteenth century world of wealth and elegance. She, as well as my other guests, still could not quite get over the fact that I had no servants. That I actually cleaned and cooked. Okay, not well and not often, but by myself. “It’s been most…enlightening but I really do think that the presence of a daughter, even one who is at the moment older than her mother, might have something of a dampening effect on the current discussion.”

  “Not at all, darling,” Marianne said. “We love having you here.”

  “I certainly haven’t felt the least bit dampened,” Jocelyn said under her breath.

  “You never do,” Gillian murmured.

  “Thank you, Mother, but I believe you all can talk much more freely without me, at least about this particular subject. Victoria.” She smiled at me. “Again, my thanks.” With that Elizabeth faded away.

  Elizabeth was not the first character to have left my little tea party. Her aunt, Rebecca—Becky—had previously vanished because, as the others had pointedly noted, she was lacking in substance, since I had not yet written her story. Still, even though we had already witnessed the departure of a guest, and in spite of the fact that I was the only one here who was not fictitious, watching Elizabeth fade to nothingness was definitely creepy.

  “Well, that’s that then.” Marianne took the teapot and refilled our cups. She had assumed that responsibility when the ladies realized that tea pouring was not a skill I had mastered. “Shall we continue?”

  “I don’t know.” Gillian glanced around the group. “Our numbers have seriously dwindled.”

  Jocelyn turned toward me. “Could we invite someone else? To liven up the discussion, that is?”