by Hope Tarr
Even with his back turned to her and wearing an outer coat and hat, she knew him. She would recognize those broad shoulders and that cocky, confident stride anywhere. “Ralph!”
He cocked his head to the side and turned around almost as if he heard her.
Giddy hope flooded her. She waived her aching arm like a flag and pushed her way toward him. Ticket or not, luggage or not, if Ralph boarded that train, then so would she.
A porter hauling a luggage cart stepped into her path. They collided, the impact knocking her to her knees.
Surrounded by trampling feet, panic seized her. But then strong arms lifted her upright. “Good God, are you all right?”
Cheek pressed against Ralph’s tweed-clad chest, her nostrils filling with lemon and warm, well-worn wool, Bea nodded. “I am now.” She pulled back to look up at him. How could she have known that security could look and feel and smell so good?
“I’d think you would be weary of the ground,” he said, his mouth quirking in that wry smile she so loved to see.
Bea smiled, too. “I wasn’t there for long. You caught me.” Indeed, like the fairy-tale prince of her girlhood fantasies, Ralph had come to her rescue in more ways than one. The best part was Ralph was real and, she hoped, still willing to be hers. Steeling herself, she drew back her shoulders and stuck out her chin. “I’ve come to tell you I love you—again. And I either want to go with you or take you back with me. Regardless, I don’t want us to part, not now, not ever again.”
Raised brows greeted that pronouncement. “What of Mr. Billingsby?”
“I broke off our engagement. I sent him a wire from town the other day. I never expected him to seek me out in Scotland.”
He shook his head, but his eyes grew encouragingly warm. “I saw the two of you in the library. Are you quite certain he knows that was an ending, not a beginning?”
So that explained his flight. Kate had been correct. She owed her sister a proper apology once she—they—got back. “Indeed, he does. It would seem I’ve become rather good at speaking my mind as well as asking for what I truly want.”
Ralph swallowed. “If recent memory serves me, you’re rather good at a lot of things.”
She didn’t deny it. Because of him, she’d learned to respect her body and trust her heart. Only she didn’t want him as her tutor anymore. She wanted him as her husband.
And so she steeled herself to be braver than she’d ever before been. “Marry me, Ralph.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re proposing?” He backed up a step, hardly the most encouraging response.
But Bea had come too far to back down now. Advancing, she said, “I am. Does that shock you?”
He hesitated. “A little,” he admitted.
“Good.” Lowering her voice, she added, “I’d only ever thought to have a companionable marriage with satisfying sex. Never ever did I think I’d love anyone so very dearly or so very much.” She paused for breath. “I know my proposing is unconventional…very well, scandalous. Then again, considering all the scandalous acts in which we’ve so far engaged, a marriage proposal seems tame indeed.” Not only tame, but right, so very right—provided he said “yes.”
Ralph smiled at last. “Do you mean to go down on one knee?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I believe I’ve spent more than sufficient time on my knees this past week, wouldn’t you agree?” Without waiting for his answer, she added, “I’d rather say it’s your turn.”
He hesitated. “Very well.” Stepping back to clear space, he went down on bended knee. Lifting his gaze to hers, he took both of her gloved hands between his. “Beatrice Lindsey, I accept your proposal of marriage and ask most humbly that you do me the honor of accepting mine in return. Will you, darling? Will you spend your life with this erstwhile thief? Before you answer, you should know I am not penniless. Thanks to an investment I had Rourke place, I have come into a small fortune.”
Eyes welling, she clasped his hand. “That there is money for our keeping is welcome news, but I would have married you were you a pauper. I would gladly wed you this very day only my wedding gown is in London with Aunt Lavinia.”
“The very one with despised Brussels lace?”
“If you must know, I fibbed. It’s French satin with very little trim,” she admitted with a grin.
He tossed back his head and laughed. “You’d be beautiful walking down the aisle in a granary sack or better yet, nothing at all. Still, I’ve a fancy to see London again. I’ve been away too long. A fish out of water is just that.” He hesitated. “Once there, shall we call upon your father so I can ask for your hand? He’ll refuse me, of course, but I’d like to make the effort and pay him proper respect if only for your sake.”
She shook her head, her horror in no way feigned. “Papa may be the Earl of Romney, but steeped in debts as he is, he’ll be only too glad to pawn off my keeping to someone else.”
“Then I’ll ask Rourke. Assuming he lets me live, I mean to have him stand for me as best man.”
“Why should he mind our marrying?”
He sent her a quizzical look. “My corrupting your innocence could be seen as a breach of trust.”
“Oh, that.” Men could be such ninnies. “We need have no worries on that score. Kate is on our side and if anything, you shall seem a hero for taking a soiled sister-in-law off his hands.”
“You’re not soiled,” he said with feeling, looking so deeply and searchingly into her eyes that she felt naked albeit in the very best of ways. “You’re perfect, completely and utterly divine.”
She smiled, happy tears trickling down her cheeks. “I know you’ve become accustomed to acting the tutor and me the pupil, but really, Ralph, don’t you think you might get up and kiss me?”
“Indeed, my bride-to-be, that’s a capital plan.”
He reached out, lifted her chin on the edge of his hand, and drew her face to his. “I love you,” he whispered, so close that she tasted his breath upon her lips. He kissed her top and bottom lip in turns and the corners of her mouth before matching his lips to hers.
Brushing her mouth over his, she smiled back. “I love you, too.”
He slid his tongue along the seam of her lips and though they were in a public place, a most public place, still Bea had no thought of denying either of them.
“I’m glad, for I’ve waited all these years for someone to love me, I shouldn’t care to be loved but a little.”
She started to answer, but his tongue stroking inside her mouth stalled her from speaking. He kissed her both deeply and gently. It was their first kiss revisited, only this time the tenderness wasn’t by way of being a lesson, but an honest expression of not only great passion but also great love mutually shared.
Cries of, “Jaysus, let a room,” and “Bloody hell, put a ring on the lass first,” had them pulling apart. Breathless and giddy, Bea took a shaky step back. “You’re no Mr. Billingsby, but I expect you’ll do.”
She looked up into Ralph’s smiling eyes, and for the first time it struck her that this beautiful, wonderful, miraculous man was hers, all hers. Not for seven days but for the sum of the rest of their happily ever after lives.
Sobering, he said, “Be that as it may, my darling, do you think we might manage to pass the next, oh…fifty-odd years without evermore uttering that most unfortunate gentleman’s name?”
“That might be managed.” Rather than risk spoiling the moment, she refrained from pointing out that from here on they’d be addressing her former fiancé and hopefully now friend as Hamilton.
Ralph hesitated. “Before we put your former fiancé to bed, so to speak, I’ve one final question.”
“And what is that, my love?”
“Was he really that wretched in the sack?”
Bea hesitated. Having made their peace, Hamilton was her friend now. She had no wish to speak badly of him. She already felt sufficiently guilty on that score. And yet Ralph was not only her lover, but also the love of her life and her soo
n-to-be husband. She owed him nothing less than utter honesty, undivided loyalty and the whole of her overflowing heart.
She nodded, fighting a giggle. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
Predictably he grinned. “That’s very sad…for him.”
She swatted his arm. “It’s most unfair and ungrateful of us to poke fun. Poor Mr. Billingsby…I mean, Hamilton is our benefactor, after all.”
“Our benefactor?” One dark brow lifted. “How so?”
“It was his very…shortcomings that sent me back to you, the perfect place from which I should never have strayed and nevermore shall leave.”
The melting look he sent her seemed to send the temperature in the chilly train shed rising by several notches. “In that event, I feel myself quite warming to the unfortunate fellow. Perhaps he only wants for some…tutelage.” He grinned.
Smiling, Bea shook her head. “If so then he must look elsewhere, for my mind, body and heart belong wholly to another. They belong to you for now and the rest of my days.”
“Beatrice?” The telltale sheen to his eyes and the gravity of his tone had her heart skipping beats.
She raised their clasped hands and brushed her lips along his knuckles. Lifting her gaze to his, she smiled. “From here on my place is by your side. There, my dearest, darling tutor is the only place I shall ever again wish to be.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6002-7
THE TUTOR
Copyright © 2010 by Hope Tarr.
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