Thor had arrived. Lucy knew that voice, that shape, and even in the shadows, she could see he’d brought his signature fashion accessory.
Giles stood panting beside the tree. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a Norse legend, and you are the disgrace who’s about to bolt hotfoot up this path, unless you want to be the fool I put period to at dawn.”
“Go,” Lucy snapped. “I never want to see you again, and don’t think your identity is unknown to me. Thank every guardian angel you possess that you survived this encounter and stay far, far away from me in future.”
Giles hesitated one instant, while Thor shouldered his sledgehammer, then Giles did indeed take off at a dead run up the path.
His footsteps faded, though Lucy’s heart was still pounding. “Your arrival was timely, sir. Thank you.”
“I considered bringing my usual walking stick, but realized you’d have no way of identifying me if I looked like every other strolling swain. Try being inconspicuous while toting a sledgehammer. It’s impossible.”
He sounded testy, and human, but still formidable. She could not see his features clearly, but she recognized the manner in which he carried his signature accessory.
“I almost didn’t come,” Lucy said.
“I almost didn’t come either. Shall we find a quiet bench?”
Well, that was a relief. Also somewhat lowering. Lucy made sure her hood shaded her face and took Thor’s arm. He was considerate, matching his steps to hers, and giving her time to organize her thoughts. They found a bench in the shadows on a side path, and Lucy spared a moment for regret.
Thor was impressive and doubtless a lovely man, but Lucy’s heart was spoken for, even if the gentleman did not return her interest in the same way. She had respect in Lord Tyne’s house, she had love after a fashion, and friendship.
“Is this an instance when courtesy requires the gentleman to go first?” Thor asked.
“You almost decided not to come,” Lucy said, “but changed your mind, for which I am most grateful.”
“Gratitude. A fine place to start. When you came upon me at the masquerade…”
“You came upon me, sir. Rescued me from a centurion with wandering hands.”
“My name is Darien,” he said. “I see no harm in sharing that with you, for I am very much in your debt.”
Darien wasn’t the most common English name—Lord Tyne was a Darien—but neither was it a name Lucy heard every day.
“As I am in your debt, Darien.”
“If you’d like me to call that scoundrel out, I’m pleased to oblige. You said you know who he is.”
“He’s former military. Meaning no disrespect, but he might know his way around a firearm.”
“I’m former military and a dead shot, but no matter. I’m also a widower. You knew that much about me.”
Lord Tyne had served for a few years in Lower Canada. Why Lucy should recall that tidbit, she did not know, though people in love tended to hoard details about their beloved.
And she was in love, surprisingly so, though not with Thor.
“I know you lost your wife several years ago, but if you think to court me, Darien, then I fear I cannot encourage you.”
He was quiet for a moment, another quality Lucy liked about him. He didn’t chatter, didn’t need to hear his own voice. Truly, he’d make some woman a lovely spouse.
“Perhaps your affections are elsewhere engaged, as mine are. Two weeks ago, I was content to pine after a worthy young lady and ignore my own longings. You told me that I did the woman a disservice by not declaring myself, and I agree with you. When we conclude our appointment, I will focus my energies on winning her affection, but my resolve in this regard…”
Lucy waited, though he sounded very much like Lord Tyne, in his rhetoric, in his willingness to put aside his own desires to look after the needs of others, in the very timbre of his voice.
He even wore the same scent as Lord Tyne.
Oh.
Dear.
Oh, damn and drat. Of all the painful ironies… Of all the infernal injustices. Of all the heartbreaks.
“You woke me up,” he said, giving Lucy’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I was bumbling about, watching my children grow older, making brilliant, dull speeches in the Lords, and going slowly mad. Right beneath my nose is a woman whom I esteem greatly, one as ferocious as a goddess on behalf of those she loves, one who can laugh at herself and at life, one I honestly adore.”
Lucy managed to speak around the lump in her throat, for that young lady was very, very fortunate. She could not think who the lucky lady was, for Lord Tyne was discreet, and his social calendar his own.
“I’m sure you’ll make her quite happy.”
“I’m not half so confident of my success as you are.”
Hope leaped, the hope that this paragon he’d determined to court might not appreciate the gem life was handing her.
“Then the lady must be a dunderhead, sir. If she fails to appreciate you, she must be the greatest featherbrain ever to float down from on high, for I’m sure—I’m certain—that your esteem would be the most precious treasure that young lady could ever claim.”
Another silence stretched, likely relieved on his part, tortured on Lucy’s.
“Well, then,” he said. “Do I conclude that your circumstances are similar to my own? Have you determined to pursue the distant gentleman who has caught your appreciative eye?”
Must he sound so brisk, so cheerful? “You conclude correctly. I harbor little hope that he’ll ever hold me in the same regard I do him, but we respect and care for one another within the limits of our situation. I am content with that.”
Or I will learn to be. A tear trickled hotly against Lucy’s cheek. She didn’t dare raise her hand to brush it away.
“Then we can part friends and wish each other well,” his lordship said, “if you so choose, but I’d like to share with you one other aspect of my evening, before I escort you to your coach.”
Lucy nodded, all she could manage in the way of communication.
“My children accosted me as I prepared to go out for an evening at a relative’s house. They are delightful girls and blessed with the courage of their convictions. They counseled me regarding my future, in no uncertain terms, and then went giggling and conspiring on their way. I thought to be about my appointed rounds, when the children stopped me again at the foot of the stairs.”
What could the girls have been about?
“They faced a moral dilemma,” Tyne said. “Somebody about whom they care enormously had apparently made free with a possession given to me years ago. They’d seen it laid out on the lady’s bed as they’d come to my apartment to assist me with my toilette. The girls didn’t know whether to tattle, confront the thief, or hope a misunderstanding was afoot. I told them a misunderstanding was afoot.”
His voice had become painfully gentle. “I know you, Lucy Fletcher, and I know you would never, ever steal a fur-lined velvet cloak from your employer.”
Lucy Fletcher.
Mortification surged over Lucy, heating her neck and face. “I didn’t want to go to that damned masquerade, I vow this. I only went to appease a friend, and I rue… I don’t rue the decision, but I never want you to think—”
“Lucy, I know you,” he said, drawing her to her feet. “I know you are ferocious in defense of those you love. I know your integrity is bottomless. I know you have more kindness in your smallest finger than most people have in both hands. I know that if I can merely convince you to stay on as governess, then my heart and my household will be the richer for your generosity, but I also know that you kiss splendidly, and I am determined to court you.”
* * *
“Court me?”
Tyne took Lucy in his arms, though that overture required courage on his part. In the night shadows, he couldn’t tell consternation from disbelief from horror, and a man in love was capable of tremendous blunders.
“Yes, court you
. I told myself as I made my way here that I could be the distant gentleman who’d caught your fancy—or it might be some other lucky soul. If I am not that man, I want to be him, Lucy. I want your kisses, your scolds, your future. I want to read fairy tales to you and live them with you, complete with the messy parts—the lost and sick children, the gossiping domestics, the ever-multiplying nieces and nephews. I’ve made enough grand speeches to last a lifetime, but this is the only speech that matters. May I court you?”
She put her arms around him as if weary. “You seek to court me, and you think I’m fierce.”
Her crown fit perfectly beneath his chin. “You have dragged me grumbling and fussing into being a proper father to my children. You have ensured I am not a stranger to my own siblings. You listen to the upper servants when they would drive me barking mad with their petty complaints, though they aren’t petty, of course. You have rescued me from becoming that worst affliction known to society, a speechifying politician. I’d be aiming for a Cabinet post…”
She bundled closer, and Tyne forgot all about Cabinets and posts, though the image of a bed popped into his head. His bed, with himself and Lucy beneath the covers.
“You are awful,” she said. “Why didn’t you simply reveal yourself after you’d run Giles off with your sledgehammer?”
“I thought that was Throckmorton. If he’s that easily routed, no wonder his children rule his roost.”
Lucy tipped her head up so the cloak fell back. Tyne could not make out her expression, but she remained in his embrace, from which familiarity, he took a certain degree of—
She kissed him, gently—an invitation to trust.
“I did not reveal myself,” he said, “because you might have chosen to content yourself with some other man. In that event, I would have encouraged you to wake the poor nodcock up with the sort of direct speech you serve to me regularly. You might have been mortified to think you’d kissed your employer by mistake—not once but twice—and I didn’t want the sweetest, loveliest kisses I’ve ever... oh hell.”
He kissed her back and found the lady was smiling. Then she got a fistful of Tyne’s hair, and then he was smiling, and then he had her up against the nearest oak tree—or she had him—and all manner of public indecencies nearly occurred, except Lucy’s feet got tangled up with the handle of the sledgehammer. She grabbed Tyne for balance, and they both ended up laughing so hard they nearly went top over teapot into the hedge.
While Lucy tried to compose herself, Tyne located his hat and the offending sledgehammer, then offered her his arm and escorted her back to the coach.
Where she promptly went off into whoops again, pausing only long enough to agree to marry him.
EPILOGUE
* * *
“I do believe that the lack of a blue unicorn with a sparkly purple horn will forever live in Sylvie’s heart as the only imperfection in our wedding ceremony.” To the casual ear, Tyne doubtless sounded his usual self: calm, self-possessed, articulate. The typical English lord offering his opinion on the weather.
Lucy’s was not the casual ear, and her new husband was smiling like a Viking with a longship full of plunder.
The coach rattled away from the wedding breakfast, Sylvie and Amanda tossing rose petals at the boot, the crowd of family waving and cheering in the midday sun. Lucy’s brothers had brought their families to Town for the event, as had Tyne’s many siblings, and talk of a house party had already started.
Tyne took Lucy’s hand and kissed her gloved knuckles, then began undoing the pearl buttons that ran from her wrist to her elbow.
“The wedding was perfect,” she said, “because you were my groom. I still say we ought to have wed by special license.”
Tyne had refused her request, insisting on every propriety—while anybody was looking. Behind closed doors, he’d subjected Lucy to diabolically skilled kisses, whispered promises, and caresses of shocking intimacy. On every occasion, though, he’d stopped short of anticipating the vows.
He paused with her glove half unbuttoned. “Our siblings would not have had time to assemble had the ceremony been performed on short notice, and you deserved to meet my family before you became part of it. They’re a loud, opinionated, rumgumptious lot of—”
“Of wonderful people. Much like my own family.” She switched arms, so he could start on her other glove. “You did not want our firstborn to arrive too soon.”
He held her palm against his cheek, and through the thin kid of her glove, Lucy felt the heat of his skin.
“How can I focus on these thousands of buttons, how can I attend to anything, when you tempt me with talk of progeny?”
“Get used to it, my lord. You are married now, and you have tempted me without mercy for the last month.” She patted his thigh— not his knee—and he drew down the window shade. A week before the wedding, Lady Eleanor had whisked Lucy and the girls to her ladyship’s household, which had been wise but irksome.
The girls had needed some time to sort out Lucy’s transition from governess to step-mother. A new governess had to be interviewed—Tyne had ceded that decision to Lucy—and fittings without number had to be endured.
“I nearly stole into your bed more times than I could count,” Tyne said. “With my valet sleeping in the dressing closet, I did not want to start talk below stairs.”
“Did you ask Eleanor to open her home to me?” Tyne would do that, would be that discreet and considerate—also that dunderheaded.
“No, I did not, though my valet will be sleeping elsewhere henceforth.” He had both of Lucy’s gloves half undone, loose enough that he could draw them off. “That veil business next.”
“All you need do is remove some of the hairpins,” Lucy said, “but be careful. I hope our daughters might wear that veil someday.”
He paused, leaning his forehead against Lucy’s shoulder. “ Our daughters. Have I told you that I love you? Have I told you that our daughters love you? The damned pantry mouser had better love you, or I’ll banish him to the stables.”
This demonstrativeness was either a benefit of marrying a widower, or simply Tyne’s way of being conscientious. He told Lucy he loved her, told her he loved to look at her, to touch her. He was surprisingly affectionate, taking her into his lap, sitting beside her of an evening in the parlor, holding her hand when they walked into church services on Sunday mornings.
His fingers searched gently through her hair for pins, though he found rather too many, and before Lucy could tell him to stop, not only her veil, but the chignon fashioned at the nape of her neck had come undone. He drew the veil away and piled it atop the gloves on the opposite bench.
“You’ll arrive to Boxhaven’s estate looking ravished. I like that idea.”
“If I’m to look ravished,” Lucy said, “hadn’t you ought to look ravished as well?”
“Valid point.” He took Lucy in his arms, and for the few miles they had to travel before breaking their journey, she did her best to kiss, caress, and tease him into a nearly ravished state. When they alighted from the coach in the estate’s forecourt, Tyne’s cravat sported two entire wrinkles, his hair was a trifle mussed, and he was missing one glove.
Nonetheless, he was every inch the polite guest when he addressed the housekeeper.
“Her ladyship and I will take dinner in the library after we change out of our wedding attire. We will ring for assistance if we require it.”
The housekeeper beamed at them, Lucy beamed back. Tyne had prevailed on the Marquess of Boxhaven for use of one of his rural properties to break their journey. The marquess, the same fellow who’d hosted the masquerade ball, had cordially obliged.
“I’m not used to being a ladyship,” she said, taking Tyne’s arm as they ascended a curving staircase. “I’m not used to being a mama, not used to being a wife.”
Tyne knew where he was going, for he’d visited Boxhaven at this property in years past. “We will learn together, my dear. I have been a husband before, but I haven’t been
your husband. Nobody would call me a quick study, though I’m diligent and motivated to excel in my new role. I’m also motivated to get all that damned frippery off of you.”
“Language, my lord.”
He bowed her through a doorway to an elegant parlor that adjoined a sizable bedroom. A bed of enormous proportions sat under green velvet hangings, and trays holding tea and sandwiches were on the sideboard.
“Right now,” Tyne said, “I am entirely yours, and not a lord at all. Would you think me very forward if I suggested we put that bed to use in the near future?”
How polite. How aggravatingly self-disciplined. “I’d think you completely backward if you so much as reached for a sandwich, when all I want is to reach for you.”
Tyne came to her, wrapped his arms around her, and all the kissing and teasing in the coach was so much dithering compared to the passion he unleashed on Lucy. His embrace was possessive rather than polite—as was hers. His kisses were plundering, his patience with her clothing nonexistent. He growled—Darien, Lord Tyne—growled—and buttons hit the carpet. Fabric tore, and Lucy tossed his beautiful morning coat in the general direction of a chair.
“We must—” He tried to step back, but Lucy was having none of that. “We must repair to neutral corners.”
Like pugilists. “You must undo my buttons.” Lucy swept her hair off of her nape and gave him her back.
“I have grown to loathe buttons.” Nonetheless, his fingers were swift and competent, and he was equally proficient with her stays. He insisted on removing her shoes, kneeling before her, but Lucy insisted on undressing him too.
She took her time with his sleeve buttons, his cravat, his watch, all the trappings of the lord that covered up the reality of the man: fit, muscular, and endlessly desirable. When she had him down to his breeches, he tugged on her braid to draw her near.
“If you touch me even once more, I will have you on your back on the rug, Lady Tyne.”
Marquesses at the Masquerade Page 36