by Sue London
“Miss Devonport, I assure you that for all his vaunted opinion of his own power and influence, Josh can very rarely make me do anything. And never anything that I don’t want to do.” He waggled her hand playfully in his and gave her one of his practiced charming smiles. “Come now. Surely it wouldn’t be such an imposition to be married to me. I travel with the earl, so am rarely underfoot. And you should know that I give the very best gifts. Truly. They are stellar.”
Sissy looked down into eyes that were strained from pain but seemed earnest enough. An opportunity to have a family again. To be with a man who not only attracted but also comforted her. Would those things be enough? Mr. Whitman had no particular love for her. How could he? They barely knew one another. He had been protective of her with his cousin, but that was more likely a measure of his character, not of his feelings for her.
She pulled her hand from his and sat on the chair she had occupied for the past fortnight. Doubt flickered through his expression and he watched her carefully. She smoothed her skirts and crossed her feet at the ankles.
“As I don’t have any family to negotiate for me, I suppose I will need to do that myself.”
He gave her a rueful smile and sat down, his back to the bed. “What shall we negotiate, Miss Devonport? Between us we have no property to speak of.”
“We all have things that we want in this life, Mr. Whitman. Very few of them are property. What is it that you want?”
He stared at her as though she had asked a very difficult question indeed.
Chapter Nine
Whit ached in every pore of his body. His aches had aches. He would stand up to pour some brandy if he didn’t think he would pass out from the pain of it. Although he felt more himself after a bath and donning real clothes, it was possible that the activity had sapped all the energy that he apparently needed to ‘negotiate’ his marriage with Miss Devonport.
What did he want? What did he want, indeed.
She kept her solemn eyes on him as though willing him to surrender an answer. For the second time today he found himself discarding all of his usual forms of reply. It wouldn’t do to be sarcastic or quippish. And unlike Josh, she didn’t seem inclined to start talking again without an answer from him.
He finally opted for his best attempt at the truth. “What do you want me to say, Miss Devonport? I’m not a man particularly known for my depth or constancy.” He closed his eyes. “But I am, at heart, a rather simple man. I am rendered content with good food and fine company.”
“Although good to know, that doesn’t tell me what you want.”
Whit raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t know what to tell you.” Her expression had become troubled and he wracked his brain for some response she would like. Honestly, no one had ever asked him what he wanted before. In general his desires were never considered. That was why when he knew of something he wanted he either asked for it, such as when he constantly nagged Grace for sweets, or he took it. “I can tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want the earl displeased with me.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because he’s the earl.”
“How long have you been in his service?”
“I’ve always been in his service.”
She frowned. “I meant actively.”
“I’ve dressed him since he was a child.”
“You’re not that far apart in age.”
“I’m five years the elder.”
“You’ve worked since you were a child?”
He chuckled. “It’s not like I was mining tin, Miss Devonport. I was tying cravats. It’s not the most trying of professions, to be honest. There are times, certainly, when Gideon’s social calendar is quite full and everything is a whirlwind. But for the most part I have time to myself and have only to maintain my lord’s wardrobe and stay informed about changes in fashion.”
She started worrying her plump bottom lip with her teeth, something he found quite distracting.
“Would you like me to tell you what I want first?” she asked.
He swept his hand through the air. “Be my guest, Miss Devonport.”
She still appeared worried and looked away before she spoke. “I think that I want some adventure. Reading The Corsair reminded me of all the books I read as a child and all the places I wanted to go. The answer was always ‘No, Sissy, we don’t have any money’ or ‘No, Sissy, girls don’t ride elephants in India’.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “When I first came here I pretended that I was a princess who had run away to hide as a commoner.” She gave a sad smile. “It kept me entertained for awhile. Not that my head is always full of flights of fancy! For the most part I’m a practical girl. I just… I want to go somewhere, I want to do something. At least once before I die. I like curiosities. Can you imagine what it would be like to travel to Egypt? I think that the earl must have traveled, to have so many interesting things in his study.” She stopped short, as though realizing she had said more than she meant to.
Whit had always found Miss Devonport charming and lovely but now he realized that she was adorable. Such an endearing mixture of solemnity and whimsy. He coughed. “Just to be clear, Sissy is your…?”
She blushed. “My name. My nickname. Short for Cicely.”
“Good to know. I should have asked my Valentine for leave to use her Christian name before now.”
She smiled at him and nodded. “Of course. And I have leave to use yours?”
“As you wish. Sissy.”
She laughed at the significant pause he gave before saying her name. “Well? What is it?”
“What is what?”
“Your Christian name?”
“You may call me Whit.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a diminutive of your last name. Your parents didn’t really name you Whit Whitman, did they?”
“What’s the point in having my Christian name? No one calls me by it.”
“I’m afraid I must insist.” She had a most remarkable way of being both solemn and teasing at the same time. In all honesty, now that he was taking the leisure to watch her, she was one of the most subtle people he’d had the occasion to know.
He gave an overdone sigh. “Percival,” he muttered.
She brightened. “Percival? Like the knight?”
“Percival, like my father.”
“I like it.”
“You didn’t know my father.”
“Don’t interrupt the story that is forming here. This casts you in the role of the knight who has come to save the princess, which is fortunate because she has become heartily tired of scrubbing floors.”
“I don’t mean to destroy your narrative, but I can’t save you from scrubbing floors. I’m in service myself.”
“But you do adventurous things.”
“I do?”
“Yes, I’m quite certain of it. You travel, don’t you?”
“I go wherever the earl goes. Except for right now, of course.” It was disconcerting, not needing to fulfill his duties with Gideon.
“What about your time off?”
“What time off?”
“Certainly you take holidays?”
Whit shrugged. “Cravats don’t take holidays. Social obligations don’t take holidays.”
“Are you saying that you have never taken a holiday?”
“No. Right now I find myself wondering if the earl is strolling naked through the countryside at Kellington, because to the best of my knowledge he doesn’t know how to dress himself.”
“You surprise me, Percival Whitman.”
Whit tried not to grimace at her use of his full name. “How so, Cicely Devonport?”
“You portray yourself as a carefree charmer, but you are actually as steady as they come. You are not at all what most people think.”
“Don’t romanticize me, Sissy. I’ve broken more hearts than I can count and my only defense is that I warned them in advance.”
“You plan to break my heart?”
“No, I plan for you to be the one exception. But it will do neither of us any good if you expect me to be something I’m not. I’m not a knight in shining armor, and I’m not as steady as you think me.”
“Really. Not steady. A man who hasn’t had a holiday in his adult life because someone might need him to tie a knot in cloth?”
“What does it matter anyway? You said you want adventure, not steadiness.”
“And you still haven’t told me what you want.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Sissy.” He was exasperated now. “I don’t know what I want. It’s never mattered what I wanted.”
“But it does now,” she said quietly.
Her soft words caused a reaction in him that he hadn’t expected. A mixture of hope and fear so intense that he felt it as a sharp pain in his chest. His impulse was to tell her that it didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, what he wanted. But she continued to pin him with her gaze, as though she expected more of him. Better. Better than he expected of himself. And that was when the wall that had held back all of his wants and desires broke open, flooding his heart and mind with everything he had known better than to hope for. Among all of it he was sure of one thing. Her. He wanted her. Sissy. With the gentle voice, playful humor, and earnest desire to see the world. He wanted her.
When he spoke again, his voice was rough, raw from the feelings running through him. “At the moment I want you to accept my wedding proposal. Look, I had a charming interaction all worked out.” He rose back to his knees and came to the side of her chair. “You would say yes, and then I would say ‘I hope it’s all right that I borrowed some of your supplies’ and then I would give you this.”
Chapter Ten
Mr. Whitman, Percival… Whit looked tired but quite determined. He was holding up a tiny strip of cloth with trailing threads.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Provided you say yes, which I have yet to hear, I made this promise ring for you.”
“You made a promise ring for me?” She reached for it with trembling fingers.
“I don’t have as fine a stitch or robust an imagination as you, but I hope you will find it adequate.”
She laid the cloth on her palm to inspect it more closely. There was a tiny blue butterfly and a pink flower and stylized green stitching that led to the trailing strings that would be used to secure the ‘ring’ with a bow. A fabric ring. An embroidered fabric ring. It was the most fabulous thing she had ever seen in her life. She felt moisture splash on her wrist.
“No, no. Don’t cry. Why are you crying?”
“It’s beautiful,” she croaked in a tight voice.
“Beautiful sounds good, why are we crying over good things?” He wiped the tears from her cheeks.
She didn’t trust herself to speak again and simply gave him the ring back and held out her trembling left hand, fingers spread, in front of him.
“Do you want me to put it on?”
She nodded.
“Is that a yes, then?”
“Yes,” she squeaked.
Whit actually looked surprised. As though he believed that despite his charm, confidence, and determination she wouldn’t accept him. Some insecurity lurked behind his polished appearance, as she had begun to suspect after hearing his argument with his cousin. He set himself to tying the ring onto her finger.
“Your fingers are tiny,” he complained while tying the strings. When he was done he kissed her hand and looked up at her. “Well, I suppose we are engaged, then.”
She nodded and leaned over to kiss his cheek. His cologne smelled of lemons and cucumber. Fresh and bright, like the man himself. She slid off the chair to her knees and embraced him, burrowing into his warmth and strength.
*
Whit held onto Cicely as she leaned into him, her arms wrapping around his waist. He was engaged. Overall, the last two days were a bit overwhelming. He had awakened to discover he had only narrowly escaped death, especially judging by his usually stalwart cousin’s reaction. While he had been under the weather his employer, a man that he had overseen and assisted since they were both lads, had married and left on honeymoon. And now he was engaged. He was exhausted. It was possible he needed to sleep for another week.
He’d always assumed he wouldn’t marry. But as he buried his nose in her soft hair it was difficult to regret how things had turned out. She deserved better than him, but he found that he wasn’t inclined to fight fate too hard. She was beautiful, clever, and she would be his. His and his alone. His arms tightened around her as he recalled his earlier conversation with Josh. He’d never really had anything, especially anyone, of his own before. Would she, as the wedding vows went, forsake all others for him? And if he recalled from Josh’s wedding, wasn’t there a line the groom said, something like ‘with my body I thee worship’? That sounded particularly good.
He heard her laugh. “Whit, I can’t breathe!”
At least she hadn’t called him Percival. He loosened his grasp and she leaned back to look at him. “We should get you back in bed.”
Now it was his turn to chuckle. “That’s precisely what I was thinking about.” He caressed her cheek and slowly lowered his lips to kiss her. Lord, he hoped they were compatible in this way. He’d known women, beautiful and willing women, who had turned out to be disappointments. The wide-eyed look that she gave him made him have his doubts. Then her eyelids fluttered shut as he brushed his lips gently against the corner of her mouth. He tasted cinnamon and sugar. Certainly an excellent reason to continue this exploration. He kissed the bottom lip she had been biting earlier, soothing it with his tongue. She took a shivering breath and her fingers clutched against his skin. Encouraged by her reaction, he pressed his lips more firmly to hers, deepening the kiss slowly, so slowly. Within moments he stopped thinking and could only feel, could only taste. Yes, he could most certainly worship her with his body. If he felt any more hale he would probably be unable to stop himself from doing so right now.
*
Sissy had never felt like this before. Whit’s kisses made her feel warm and liquid, as though his touch were melting her. She leaned into him, was willing to surrender anything to him. When he broke off the kiss they were both breathing hard. The space he had put between them felt like too much distance and she swayed toward him.
“I really do need to lie down,” he said huskily.
His admission he wasn’t feeling well broke through her trance. “Oh! Let me assist you.”
She helped him gain his feet and crawl into bed. He was pale and exhausted. She should have been more considerate of his health. She looked down at her makeshift ring and smiled. Now it would always be her responsibility to care for him. And his to care for her. She plumped the pillows, pulled the blanket over him, and watched as his eyes fluttered closed.
“I’ll let you sleep.”
His hand emerged from under the blanket. “Sit with me for a bit?”
“Of course.”
“We need to call the banns,” he murmured.
“We will.”
She pulled the chair closer to the bed and took his hand. Even after his breathing evened out in sleep she didn’t let go.
*
Dibbs made sure that the banns were called. The wedding date was set for mid-March so that Whit would be fully recovered. The valet moved back to his regular quarters the morning after he proposed to her, so their only time alone was in stolen moments when no one was looking. She looked forward to his kisses more than perhaps she ought, but he was to be her husband. More surprising than the kisses were the conversations. He chatted with her every day, more often than not telling her stories of his travels. And he would bring her gifts. Little bits of nonsense, often with some story attached to them as well. Although he was still sweet with the ladies, he was never untoward and reserved his true attentions for her alone.
While at first it seemed that it would take forever for their wedding date to arrive, it suddenly seemed like it was comi
ng too soon. Before she knew it she was standing in an alcove at the church as Grace fussed over her gown.
“It’s fine, Grace.”
The butler’s wife fluffed Sissy’s sleeve again. “Of course it’s fine.” Looking at the two sleeves in balance Grace murmured. “But we could make it perfect.”
“It’s fine, Grace,” Sissy insisted. She had nerves enough without her friend going over her like a fancy cake being prepared for sale. And they were friends now. Already like family. The Dibbses had entertained she and Whit en famille twice during the engagement. She had discovered, to her surprise, that once Joshua Dibbs was ensconced in his private quarters with his wife and cousin he was quite friendly, even lighthearted. He clearly adored his wife and treated Whit as a younger brother. Grace herself was like a force of nature, full of humor and enthusiasm. Sissy was terribly impressed at the baking business that Grace was building from virtually nothing.
Sissy needed to distract her friend from errant fluffing. “Is it true that the duke is out there among the guests?” She probably shouldn’t have asked. She was nervous enough without thinking about a duke being at her wedding.
“I wouldn’t know. We can look for him afterwards. He and the earl are easy to spot, they always look so pretty.”
“I don’t think they would want you to call them pretty.”
“Then they should stop dressing like popinjays.”
Sissy stifled a giggle. She needed to stifle Grace, as the earl had offered his services to walk Sissy down the aisle and might happen upon them any moment.
She was going to be given away at her wedding by an earl. Her life had already taken a more adventurous turn. But that didn’t mean that she missed her family any less. In her heart it should have been her father walking her down the aisle. Her mother fussing over her dress. And her sister standing with her at the alter.
“Are you all right?”
Sissy roused herself from her thoughts to look at Grace. “Yes, of course.”
“Good, because the earl is coming this way. That means it is almost time.” Grace leaned in to whisper, “And I told you he would look pretty.”