by Ella Edon
She saw James close his eyes. "Now I think I understand a little better."
"With the way my mother has always had to work and struggle for all that we ever had, I do feel ashamed of how I begged her for new and expensive clothes . . . silk gowns, a new riding habits, kid gloves . . . and after seeing how Sally Henson drained her family to buy more than she really needed, I am horrified to know that I did something of the same."
James smiled a little. "I believe everyone knows that you were just trying to make a good impression while at special events like the assembly balls, or a party at Albany House, or a cubbing hunt at Worthington. I have seen you working at the inn while wearing plain dresses and rough aprons. It was not as though you expected silk gowns and kid slippers while serving coffee at the inn. That would be very different.
"If I know your mother at all, Merope Robbins, I do not believe she would have hesitated to tell you no if it were really necessary. She would surely tell you to sing to the birds in the trees for new clothes if she did not feel she could afford what you wanted."
Merope nodded, and smiled just a little. "I am sure she would, too. But it was still a strain for her, and I do not want to do that to anyone again."
"I am just as sure that you will not. That you do have a heart and I am the one who has been privileged to see it." Once again, James got down on one knee before her. "Please accept my proposal of marriage, dear Merry. My life without you these past weeks has been empty beyond compare. Please do not leave me alone in such a way ever again."
She hesitated, gazing down at him where he knelt on the damp earth. His coat and shirt were muddy and ruined, just like hers, but it seemed that neither of them was thinking of that now.
"I would like to say yes to you, but there is still something that you do not know, and you have a right to know beforehand."
"Tell me, then, and make it quickly, for this ground is cold and wet."
Merope smiled faintly, and then took a deep breath. "The Robbins Inn," she began. "My mother and I have both kept it running for a very long time, but it does not belong to us."
He frowned slightly. "I suppose I just assumed that – that it must belong to some distant male relative of yours. A cousin, an uncle – someone who did not care that you ran it and lived in it but took care of any legal matters for you."
"Not a cousin, James. Not an uncle. No relative at all. The Robbins Inn actually belongs to Lord Worthington."
"The earl? He owns your inn?" James frowned, and glanced back in the direction of the great house. "How could that be?"
"Please. You are a barrister yourself. You know that a woman cannot own such a property under her name. There was no male relative who could help us. My mother did not wish to have another husband and I myself was too young to marry when my father died. We would have lost our home, if the earl's father – the previous Lord Worthington – had not stepped in."
"Of course. Of course. I suppose I did not mean to intrude on your privacy with such a line of questioning." He shook his head. "It was kind of the earl – both the previous earl and the present one – to do so."
James looked up at her again. "Do you think he would transfer it to me? Allow me to be the owner?"
"The earl has always said that immediately upon my marriage, the inn would be quietly transferred to my husband.I am sure that he would. But, James – you have said you wish to live in the city."
"I did say that. I thought it was true, at one time."
"Later on, it seemed to me that your feelings might have changed… that you were beginning to prefer the country life at Albany House instead."
"I thought so, too. But now I believe that the truth – as they often say – lies somewhere in between."
She looked at him with her head cocked, waiting for him to go on.
"Not the city. Not the country. But the place in between."
"A small town," she whispered.
"Exactly so. I could take the small office beside the inn and work as a solicitor. If your mother agrees, we could take a set of rooms at the Robbins Inn and make it our home, just as you and your mother did."
"Oh, James . . . I cannot think of a better solution!"
"Then are you finally saying yes to me, can I get up off of this cold wet ground?"
"Indeed, I am saying yes to you. I will always say yes to you." Merope watched as he got to his feet and took her in his arms again. "But . . . are you sure that our little inn would be enough for you to call a home?"
He held her close, resting his face against her smooth blonde hair. "If it was good enough for you, Merope Robbins, it is most certainly good enough for me."
Epilogue
The first order of business, of course, was to post the banns at the church, and then in the three months before the wedding, James and Merope worked together at the many new tasks that suddenly awaited them.
They spent plenty of time cleaning and restoring the little empty shop just two doors down from the Robbins Inn. It was indeed very dusty and bare, having first been emptied of furnishings and then hardly entered for at least the last four or five years. The door needed new hinges and one of the windows proved to be cracked.
After thoroughly dusting the entire place, cleaning the remaining windows, polishing the wooden shelves along one wall, and scrubbing down the wooden floors with soap and water, they ordered new glass from a place near London and found hinges among the supplies at the Singer & Sons general store.
James spoke to his family at Albany House and persuaded them to part with a desk and chair that had sat unused in an upstairs room, as well as with a small table and a few chairs.
As a final touch, Samuel Hawkins – the son of old Mr. Hawkins, who ran the livery stable – proved to be quite a fine carpenter. He spent weeks making a set of large and small filing drawers with storage cupboards, and put these in the pride of place behind the desk.
Merope had to divide her time between helping to clean and ready James's new office, helping her mother at the inn as usual, and preparing for her wedding day.
Her first task was to decide what to wear. Many young women did use a wedding as an excuse to buy a new gown and bonnet – often more expensive than what they would usually have – but, as Merope had said to James, she did not wish to strain her mother's finances any more than necessary.
After carefully sorting through all her gowns – and even a few of her mother's – Merope selected one and took it across the street to the Fabrics, Feathers & Fineries shop. There she spoke to Mrs. Vane, explained what she wished to do, and left the gown there to be worked on. Although she did choose a new bonnet before leaving, it was one very reasonably priced.
When the day finally came, the little white church at the far end of the street was decorated with greenery and candles as was appropriate for the week before Christmas. It held as many guests inside as it could, and many more remained outside in the yard.
At last, Merope entered the church, walking on the arm of Earl Worthington, and smiled at James as he waited for her at the altar. She quite clearly saw his eyes widen slightly and flick over the dress she wore, and well he should – for it was the same pink silk gown that she had worn on the night of the Albany House ball.
Merope had asked Mrs. Vane to make a low square neckline lined with white lace, and to add lace to the sleeves and hem and to her creamy white bonnet. The neckline framed her gold-and-ruby pendant, which she wore quite proudly.
Of course, no one knew the significance of this particular gown and pendant, except Merope and James. She hoped he understood that their night together at the mill had been a kind of marriage for her, and that this wedding was merely the formality that finished what they had already begun.
The End?
Extended Epilogue
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Afterword
Thank you for reading my novel, The Rake’s Hesitant Bride. I really hope you enjoyed it! If you did, could you please be so kind to write a review HERE?
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Ladybirds of Birdwell
Book#1
The Earl’s Wicked Seduction
Book#2 (this book)
The Rake’s Hesitant Bride
Do you want more Romance?
Turn on the next page to read the first chapters of my previous best-selling novel: Defying the Dashing Duke
This is the tale of Lady Charlotte Warwick, a young brunette with a beautiful soul, who will need to believe in herself in order to be able to enjoy her unexpected marriage with... the man of her dreams!
Defying the Dashing Duke
Chapter One
“It was just a dream. It wasn’t real,” he whispered to himself in the dark.
His bare feet moved silently, muffled by the thick carpet of the passageway. He could hear nothing over the pounding of his heart and the echo of the scream ringing in his ears. With a horrible sense of certainty he knew that the scream which had awoken him had been his mother’s, but he told himself it was only a nightmare. That’s what she would say when he reached her chamber – only a nightmare, my sweet, darling boy. He simply couldn’t go back to sleep without the reassurance of her softly laughing voice, her delicate hand stroking his damp hair back from his brow, that was all. She wouldn’t mind, he knew. She would press a kiss to his forehead and sit with him until the terror was all chased away, nothing more than a faint, foolish memory.
He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering in his thin linen nightshirt, and softly pushed open the door to his mother’s bedchamber. He expected to find her nestled in her ornate bed, but instead she lay crumpled gracefully on the floor, her beautiful porcelain face gleaming in the moonlight, her jet hair streaming in waves around her. He froze, trapped in the blank stare of her dark eyes, too horror-stricken to move or cry out, when a movement by the long window caught his attention. Clearly silhouetted against the moonlight was the black figure of a man who noiselessly opened the window and climbed out of it to merge with the rest of the shadows.
Kenneth Blackmore, Duke of Rutherford, woke with a gasp, drenched in the familiar cold sweat that always accompanied the dream. At two and twenty, he did not have the luxury of disbelief that had been his temporary refuge at the age of eight. He knew all too well that those events had been quite real, and his mother could never again soothe away his nightmares. He rarely slept without revisiting that night, straining to make out the features of the shadowy man.
That was an exercise in futility, his waking self knew. The identity of his mother’s murderer was no mystery to Kenneth and hadn’t been since that dreadful night. Even if his father’s build and manner of carrying himself had not matched the shadow so perfectly, Kenneth had heard the maids whispering that it was hardly a surprise that the Duke had finally killed his wife in one of his jealous rages. No one had dared to make an accusation, least of all Kenneth, and the story was put out that she had been strangled by a thief.
Kenneth had hoped that the dream would cease tormenting him in the weeks following the death of his father, but if anything it had grown stronger. He had also expected to feel some sense of relief at the death of that monster, yet instead he worried that it had only strengthened the grip that his destructive heritage held on him. He had cut off his affair with his most recent mistress, a stunning blonde actress who was nearly as tall as himself, afraid that even their loveless arrangement might somehow incite him to violence.
Previously he had thought to keep himself from following in his father’s footsteps by avoiding love and marriage, knowing that his father’s obsessive, jealous love for his mother had led him to murder her. Now, even that did not seem enough. Suppose desire, temporary companionship, or mild affection were enough to trigger his foul inheritance? Unable to risk it, he had distanced himself from the actress and from the other numerous and lovely blondes he was reputed to enjoy.
Knowing that sleep would not return for him that night, Kenneth left his bed and lit a candle. Pausing before the mirror that hung in his chamber, he searched his reflection as if looking for signs that he was transforming into a monster. It was a foolish fancy, he knew. His father had always appeared on the outside to be a handsome, respectable man. No one could have known from looking at him that he was capable of such an atrocity. Kenneth resembled his father, a fact he had always despised, but the stamp of his mother’s features had given his strong and handsome countenance a look of almost wicked beauty. Pale and heavy-eyed from troubled dreams and lack of sleep, his dark hair falling in a disordered manner, he was nonetheless strikingly attractive. It was a pity, he reflected, turning from the mirror, that his outward appearance drew women flocking to him when they ought to flee.
He ordered himself to read once again the letter that he had received from his Uncle Roger. Long before the death of his father, Kenneth had considered his uncle to be his only family, and the letter requesting a visit was the only thing that had tempted him away from his melancholy brooding in weeks. Roger was right. He ought to return home, particularly now that he had inherited the family estate. He had not been able to steel himself to do so, feeling that taking possession of Rutherford Hall would bring him that much closer to inevitably following in his father’s footsteps, but he knew he could not put it off any longer. Resolving himself to make arrangements at first light to leave his solitary London home, he selected a book and did his best to while away the rest of the night in its pages.
“Sister! I have been looking for you all over!” exclaimed Louisa Warwick as she hastened to join her sister Charlotte on the bench beneath a massive elm. It was one of Charlotte’s favored haunts for reading and daydreaming, Louisa’s trouble was that Charlotte had so very many such haunts.
“And you have found me.” Charlotte looked up from her book to smile at her older sister. With her soft brown hair, and deep brown eyes hidden behind spectacles, Charlotte was the perfect foil for Louisa’s vivacious, gilded beauty. Yet there was a compelling sweetness in her face that gave Charlotte a loveliness of her own.
“You cannot hope to guess my news, so I shall tell you at once. The new Duke of Rutherford has returned only last night to his estate!”
“Kenneth Blackmore has come home?” Charlotte gasped, letting her book tumble to the ground as both delight and pain flooded her at the news. She was grateful to Louisa for seeking her out and telling her privately, giving her this moment to react without having to guard her expression.
“Yes, darling. He has come home to preside over his ancestral abode, presumably ready to give up his wicked ways as a rake in London and begin a family.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. His return is to be expected given the death of his father,” murmured Charlotte. She retrieved her book, and with it some of her composure.”
“Very natural, indeed,” laughed Louisa. “So, now we must begin plotting how you are to win his heart.”
“Oh, Louisa, no. We were only childhood friends, and he has made it perfectly clear in more recent years that he has forgotten our infant affection. I believe I am the very last sort of woman he would find romantically compelling. You are much more the type he admires, you know.”
“Why, I am scandalized that you would listen to the rumors and reports of him that have been whispered around, as they are scarcely fit for delicate ears such as ours!” Louisa teased her sister, adopting a prissy tone for a moment. “Surely you know that most of those stories are simply the result of him avoiding society as much as possible.”
“You are undoubtedly correct, but the fact remains that His Grace has been markedly cold and distant to me any time we have chan
ced to meet,” Charlotte smiled sadly. “It is only natural that any plotting for his affection would be distasteful to me.”
“That is not natural at all! You ought to be determined to punish him for his poor behavior, make him fall desperately in love with you, and then you could spurn him as coldly as you pleased. Or else marry him, which from what I understand provides an excellent means for one person to torment another.”
“If you think he needs to be punished, you will have to do it yourself, I do not have the heart for it,” Charlotte sighed a little. “Besides, you know, there is-”