But Bonaparte was well and truly defeated this time, and plans were already in train to have him banished to St. Helena, where many had said he should have been imprisoned in the first place. The men had all been home for nearly a month and Rachel and Sir Henry had at last been married from Rule’s Roost, with Mary and Tristan acting as hosts to the bride and groom.
“Where are Tris and Mary?” Lucy asked now as her thoughts led her to notice their hosts’ absence. “Surely Kitty and Dex are long since gone on their way.”
“Mary must have had something to do in the house after waving our other lovebirds good-bye,” Jennie guessed, shaking her head as she remembered Dexter’s barely suppressed eagerness to be on his way, anxious to have his bride of one week to himself once again.
Julian leaned down to whisper to Kit under his breath. “Bet they don’t make it any farther than the nearest inn.”
“As long as it doesn’t have damp sheets,” Kit quipped, and the two men laughed at the shared joke as their wives shook their heads at such nonsense.
Upstairs in Rule’s Roost, far from the festivities taking place on the sunlit lawns below, Mary and Tristan Rule stood locked together in a quiet embrace, relishing the momentary respite from their duties to their houseguests.
“Aunt Rachel looked beautiful, didn’t she?” Mary murmured into Tristan’s shoulder, rubbing her cheek against the fine satin of his jacket. “So many delays, so many years wasted. Thank goodness she and Uncle Henry are together at last.”
Tristan’s arms tightened fractionally around Mary’s slim body as he thought about the time he had wasted fighting his love for her, and how his realization of that love had nearly come too late for both of them. “She insisted on waiting until you had recovered your strength, and she could organize our wedding,” he recalled, placing a kiss on Mary’s hair. “I never truly appreciated my aunt’s worth until I witnessed her care of you after the fire. She was magnificent.”
Mary closed her eyes, remembering the long weeks it had taken her to come to grips with the memories the fire in the house off Bow Street had released in her mind. “She didn’t do it alone, you know,” she teased, looking up at her husband with love shining bright in her green eyes. “I seem to recall a rather handsome gentleman who came to call daily, bringing me flowers and pretty trinkets.”
Tristan smiled down on her, his harsh features softening. “And do you remember a certain small cottage near Linton where that same ‘handsome’ gentleman spent six wonderful weeks trying to show you how very much he loved you, how very much he will always love you?”
Pulling her brows together as if trying very hard to recall such an incident, Mary asked, “Would that be the same man who then deserted me this past March to spend the entire spring transporting messages back and forth across the channel from Brussels? I do believe I remember him faintly.”
“I’ve been home for over a fortnight!” Tristan objected in mock anger, sweeping her up into his arms to hold her high against his chest. “You know we’ve scarce had a chance to breathe, let alone be alone above a few minutes at a time. Can I help it if the place has been thick with relatives and servants scurrying everywhere preparing for the wedding?”
Mary tilted her chin down and looked up at her husband through her lowered lashes. “We’re alone now, Tristan,” she purred invitingly, enjoying the color that her words brought running into his lean cheeks.
“But our guests—” he began, his eyes darkening as he remembered the collection of relatives waiting for them.
“What about our guests?” Mary taunted, reaching up to nibble on a corner of his lips with her small, white teeth. “Be ruthless, Tris. Let them fend for themselves for a while.”
Tristan spared only a moment to look out the window at the people relaxing beneath the shade tree before turning on his heels and carrying Mary over to the wide bed that lay waiting in the master chamber.
“My Lord Tristan Rule vows he is no fool!” he quoted softly as he lowered his wife onto the counterpane and the people waiting on the lawn, the memories of the past, and, indeed, all the rest of the world faded joyfully away.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8181-7
THE RUTHLESS LORD RULE
Copyright © 1987 by Kathryn Seidick.
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The ruthless Lord Rule Page 20