“Yes?” Maris said, turning away from the fire. For a moment, her eyes still dazzled from the flames, all she could see was a tall shadow, his riding coat sweeping the floor as he entered. The door closed behind him.
“What in the name of God do you think you are doing?” he demanded.
“Kenton?” Her hand flew to the base of her throat. “I beg your pardon. Lord Danesby, how came you here?”
He swept toward her, throwing his hat aside. She caught one glimpse of his face, hard, set, his eyes brilliant, before he clasped her against his body. With one hand, he pushed her chin up, none too gently, and then he kissed her.
Shock held her rigid but nearly as quick and far stronger came delight. She didn’t know how to kiss him in return, though in dreams she often had. Surely, though, she could do more than just stand here while he made all the effort.
At the first intimation of her struggle to get her hands free, he misinterpreted her move and let her go. Maris pressed her fingers to her lips, hardly believing what had happened. She shut her eyes tightly, sure that when she opened them, he’d vanish like the figment of her imagination he must be. One moment, she’d been waiting for Rigby to return and the next she was being unmercifully kissed by Kenton. Perhaps there’d been a carriage accident she didn’t recall and she was at present lying somewhere either unconscious or under opiates. She didn’t care how badly she was hurt so long as this hallucination held.
Kenton paced several times up and down in front of the fireplace. Her eyes dwelling on him in loving amazement, she saw that he wore riding dress and his boots were rather dusty. His hair was more disarranged than she’d ever seen it. She wanted to smooth it down, especially the one twist that rose from the back of his head.
He came to her and took her hands. “Maris, I swear I’ll never ask you again what you are doing here with Barrington. But I must ask you to come back to Bath with me now.”
“Back to Bath? But yes, that’s where we’re going.”
“In an hour? Are you worth no more time to him than that?”
Now she was even more confused. “You may not ask me what I am doing here, Lord Danesby, but I must ask you. Unless the Coachwheel is your usual evening haunt?”
“Hardly,” he said with a twist of his lips. “I overheard you and Harrington talking in the Sydney Gardens this afternoon.”
“Oh, I see. No. You couldn’t have possibly thought this an assignation, which I assume you are hinting, if you overheard us there.”
“I only heard part.”
His clasp on her hands had gradually loosened, rather to her disappointment. Now he released them, and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece. She saw that the laughter had come back into his eyes. That was a relief, but at the same time, she had thrilled to the blazing brilliance she’d seen there just before he’d kissed her. She’d been unable to interpret that look then. Now she could hardly wait to see it again.
“Start at the beginning, Maris. If you please.”
“It’s very simple. Three years ago, Rigby went to Spain to visit his younger brother.”
“During the war?”
“Yes. His brother was stationed in Barcelona—is that the right word? Stationed?”
“What does Barrington’s travels have to do with you being here alone with him?” Ken ton asked.
“I’m not alone with him; I’m alone with you,” she said saucily. For an instant, she thought she saw that blaze again as he straightened. She decided, as he once more assumed his relaxed pose, that it had merely been a reflection from the firelight.
“At any rate, Rigby went to Barcelona and there he met a girl. To hear him speak, one would think she is an angel from heaven but to hear the landlady tell it, I have my doubts,”
“The ‘Spanish madam’? You mean the girl is here?”
“Yes, upstairs. Rigby went up to her not fifteen minutes ago, though I think he rather underestimated the time necessary for a reunion. They have been parted for so long, you see.”
“Did he marry her in Spain?”
“Yes. It was quite the romance, though sadly they were separated soon after they were wed. He didn’t know if she was alive or dead until just a few months ago.”
“Most touching,” he said dryly. He shook his head, disarranging his dark hair even more. A stray lock fell over his forehead and Maris’s fingers itched to brush it back. “I cannot picture Rigby Barrington wooing and winning a Spanish beauty. Even if he did, how do you come into it? He never drove you here at this hour of the night to meet his wife.”
“But he did. She only arrived today. He is hoping, as his mother quite likes me, that I can give Yolanda a few hints on how to please her. I told him that the mere fact of his marriage should be enough, but he doesn’t believe me. You see, his brother died in Spain and he’s afraid Lady Barrington will hold that against his wife.”
“This is the greatest rigmarole I’ve ever heard in my life,” Kenton said. “Lady Barrington is more likely to fall on the girl’s neck than turn her from the door.”
“That’s what I thought,” Maris said, an uncontrollable chuckle on her lips. “Poor Rigby. I fear he’ll never know another moment’s peace. I couldn’t refuse him; he painted such a touching picture of his poor little lost bride, all alone in a great strange country.”
Kenton nodded. “The man’s a romantic fool. Unless she was wafted across the sea by angels, she must have managed quite well on her own.”
“I believe he spared no expense once she was located.”
That seemed to dispose of Sir Rigby Harrington’s affairs. The memory of Ken ton’s entrance and the kiss hung between them. Maris glanced up into his face. Finding him studying her, she found the fire fascinating once again.
“Maris ...” he said quietly. “I’m not going to apologize.”
“I didn’t ask you to. You ... you had your reasons, no doubt.” The expectant quivering in her heart spread to her whole body. Could she be such a fool as to allow her feelings for him to reanimate?
“Yes, I had. They were good reasons. Would you care to hear them?” She didn’t care what his reasons were, so long as they still held true. “I couldn’t let you throw yourself away on a popinjay like Barring-ton. I know how lonely you must be, Maris, but don’t choose a mate because of that.”
“How did you know I was lonely?” she asked wonderingly. “I didn’t think anyone guessed.”
His smile held all the tenderness she’d dreamed of. “I’m lonely too. I never realized how much I needed you until you refused my offer at Durham. I didn’t propose because of that nonsense with Mrs. Paladin. You didn’t believe me then but I was so happy that I’d been handed that chance. It made me see the truth.”
“What truth?” she asked, wanting him to stop talking and wishing he would go on.
He reached out and gathered her in, hands, shoulders, waist “That I’d fallen in love with you the first time I saw you, laughing in St. Paul’s.”
Borne away on the bliss of Kenton’s embrace, she did not think it necessary that he’d seen her once before that and had not found her at all prepossessing. Perhaps she’d tell him about that some other time, or perhaps not.
“Did you?”
“I must have,” he said, kissing the corner of her mouth, right on the dimple. “I cannot imagine why else I would have suffered such a sudden revulsion of feeling at the thought of continuing with Flora Armitage. The only element that had changed was your presence there.”
Standing this close to him, cradled against his chest, Maris could smile at his previous association. “How do you usually break off your connections?”
“With delicacy and tact. But you needn’t worry. There won’t be any more.”
“So if you suddenly become terribly tactful, I should have a care.” The immediate tightening of his arms and the gratifying roughness of his kiss relieved her mind. This time, she had her hands free and felt a wild new sense of freedom as she slipped her hands shyly about his neck, smoot
hing the wayward lock of hair at the back of his head. His hair was thick and soft. She ran a finger over the edge of his ear and down his throat, so different from her own.
His voice grew gruff. “Maris. I’m in love with you.”
“Yes,” she said dreamily, lifting her chin for another kiss.
He gave it to her, then, putting his hands to her shoulders, he pushed her back an inch. Maris rocked slightly on her heels, opening her eyes. His smile was half amused, half eager. “Maris, did you hear me?”
“Of course,” she said, trying to move in again but his strong forearms were braced against her.
“What do you say to that?”
She paused. “Thank you?”
“Maris,” he said, the twinkle in his eyes fading. “Without sounding like a popinjay, I know you loved me once ...” He stopped when she shook her head, his hands dropping slowly away, as though cherishing this last instant of contact.
Maris smoothed her own hair back from her forehead, her coiffure having unaccountably begun to loosen. “I never loved you, Kenton. That wasn’t love. It was a mixture of hero worship, immaturity, and self-preservation. I wasn’t about to risk falling in love with someone who might love me back. Much too frightening.”
“I understand,” he said. Kenton stepped back, folding his arms across his chest as though holding some pain at bay.
“No, you don’t.” Maris pushed him gently into the big armchair beside the fire and sank down on her knees beside him. “I didn’t fall in love with you—with you, Kenton Danesby, not some imaginary, untouchable prince—until we met in London. You were so approachable, so friendly. I felt happy whenever we met. Then you became so entangled in that woman’s plotting that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for you. Something, by the way, the great and noble Lord Danesby never made me feel. He never needed anyone’s help or fell into any difficulties from which he could not instantly extricate himself. But you needed me, if only to refuse to marry you when all the world seemed to demand it.”
“And now, Maris?” Kenton said, grasping her hand and pulling her up onto his lap. “What now?”
Breathless and trembling after a kiss wherein she gave as much as she received, Maris whispered, “Whatever you want, Kenton.”
“I think we should be married, don’t you?”
“Gretna Green? We could borrow Rigby’s chaise.”
Kenton pulled another pin from his beloved’s hair. “We owe it to the ton to be married as ostentatiously as possible.”
“With two marchionesses to hold up my train,” Maris murmured. “But I’ll settle for doves.”
“Whatever you want, my darling.”
Half an hour later, still ensconced together in the big armchair, they heard a commotion on the stairs. A baby was crying lustily, a woman was speaking very rapidly in a foreign tongue while another woman defended herself in far from parliamentary tones. Every now and again a voice unmistakably Rigby Barrington’s broke in, throwing conciliatory clichés into the storm.
This cacophony burst into the coffee room as though shot from a cannon. Without ado, Kenton stood up, swinging Maris to the floor. She stood, trying to bundle her fair hair into some sort of order, while he attempted to achieve silence.
A short, plump, and very blond girl pushed the crying child, an infant of about two years of age, into Kenton’s arms. The little body piked straight out, as though tacking a sailboat.
“My wife,” Rigby said. “Lady Barrington.”
“And I told her and told her that a little warm goose grease rubbed in careful like would relieve it, but she didn’t pay me no mind,” said a young woman who bore a remarkable resemblance, minus a few years and a few pounds, to the landlady. “It’s not my fault that baby is possessed of a devil, is it?”
At this, the Spanish girl’s shaky English broke down and she began throwing the sort of phrases that made Kenton glad Maris didn’t understand Spanish.
“Pray be quiet, both of you,” he said. “Silencio! Silencio, por Dio.”
Maris, laughing at him, took the baby from his arms and began to joggle it gently. “There, there, little man. What’s the matter, then?”
“He cry and cry,” his mother said, changing with bewildering rapidity from shrieking virago to concerned parent. “I t’ink milk in this place not like him. It smell of onions.”
Maris had noticed that the baby’s stomach seemed rather distended. “We’ll find something in the kitchen to ease him,” she promised.
“I told ‘er goose grease,” the landlady’s daughter put in. Maris had noticed from the smell that this remedy had already been tried.
“Enough about the goose grease,” Maris said, giving the baby back to his mother. “We shall manage without it. Come with me, Lady Barrington.”
“You will call me Yolanda,” the Spanish bride said with the same air of decision that marked her mother-in-law. “We are to be friends.”
Maris stopped on the doorstep. “The chaise won’t hold us all, Kenton. Will you make the arrangements for everyone?”
He bowed. Turning to the landlady’s daughter, he ordered two pints of ale to toast his lady in. Sir Rigby would never be his dearest friend, but he had been the indirect cause of all his happiness. He’d share a drink with him. Besides, the man looked as if he needed it. “A fine son,” he said.
“It’s a daughter. I didn’t know Yolanda was pregnant when I left Spain.”
“Your mother will be delighted.”
Rigby brightened. ‘That’s true. So am I, actually. You should get married, Danesby. There’s nothing like it.”
* * * *
Yolanda Barrington had been very grateful for Maris’s assistance with her child but had scorned the idea that she needed anyone to soften the news of her existence. Maris, knowing Lady Barrington’s yearning for a grandchild, knew Yolanda already had the only advocate she would need and so let Rigby and his bride go on their way without a qualm.
In the dark, riding home cuddled up close to Kenton in the inn’s hired gig, Maris felt a great sense of peace, as though she’d come to a resting place. It was not the end of a journey, but a pause before she began on a new path. With Kenton to aid her, she wondered how high she could climb.
They stopped in the square and it was some time before Maris even thought of going into her house. “It’s really your house, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes. I leased it to Dominic.”
“But Tremlow said ...Tremlow? Your butler?”
“My butler. And Dominic is now the Duke of Saltaire. It’s a long story, full of second cousins once removed, attainders, and attorneys. You’ll hear all about it later.”
“Later is better,” she said, drawing his head down to hers once more.
Though there wasn’t much room in the gig, after a little, Kenton put Maris into the farthest corner and sat with as much distance between them as was possible. “I shall go to London tomorrow for a special license. How soon can you and Miss Menthrip return to Finchley?”
“For this, she would travel all night.”
“And you?”
She laughed, softly and tenderly, stealing her hand into his. “I wanted to go to Gretna, remember?”
Kenton reached for her again but restrained himself to Maris’s expressed disappointment. “I’ve bent my gentlemanly code far enough for one night,” he said, tucking his hands firmly under his thighs to keep them from wandering. Unfortunately, that left him with no means of defense.
This time, she called a halt. “Is that a constable?” she asked, peering into the darkness under the oak.
“I’m surprised it isn’t an outraged moralist,” Kenton said, touching his cravat. So much for his reputation as a well-dressed man. “You had better go in. What excuse did you give to Miss Menthrip for your leaving with Barrington? “
“A whist party that needed an extra player. Which explains why I seemed to be eloping in pale coffee silk.”
“Which becomes you very well,” he said.
> “Well, it’s sadly crushed now, isn’t it? I shall have to hold my cloak together and hurry upstairs.”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Kenton said, slip ping an arm around her. The pale coffee silk warmed like flesh under his hands. He felt giddy, like a boy in the throes of his first affair, and yet sanctified, knowing that this was his true wife in every way but the lawful one. That would happen as soon as humanly and legally possible.
“I’ll come to visit you in the morning. Can you leave for Finchley by noon? That way, I can escort you until your halt for the night. Then I’ll head toward London and you’ll have only a half day’s journey on. We can hire outriders at the George in Shifton.”
“I think so,” she said hesitantly.
“What is it?” Kenton asked, alive to every shade of nuance in her voice.
“Couldn’t we be married in London? I’ll write Mother ...”
“We could. But, well, all my family has married at Finchley, ever since the beginning. Except my great-grandfather but we don’t discuss him.”
“If it’s a tradition that we flout at our peril, then of course we shall marry in Finchley.”
“Why not?”
“It’s only that... I’ve heard them talking at home about you and what it is to be lord and lady of the manor.”
“You will make a splendid lady of the manor.”
“But they expect you to bring home some amazingly accomplished creature to be your lady. Someone to guide them and be an example and a Lady Bountiful. And what are you bringing them? Me—the girl next door whom they’ve known all their lives and, to be truthful, don’t rate very highly. What will they think?”
Kenton laughed. “They’ll think it is the greatest romance of the century.”
And so they did.
Copyright © 2004 by Cynthia Bailey-Pratt
Originally published by Zebra (ISBN 0821776355)
Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
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