Gifford drove them into the park. It was not yet noon and the carriages of the matrons and grandes dames were drawn up along the Avenue, the ton’s matchmakers making use of the pleasant morning to parade their charges on the lawns. She really didn’t feel like socializing, but Gifford pulled in to the verge nearby; inwardly sighing, she followed Sebastian from the carriage.
Although he wound her arm in his, to her surprise he didn’t lead her toward the fashionable throng but rather cut a path parallel to the Avenue, within sight but a little way apart from the clusters of young ladies and gentlemen strolling and avidly chatting under the matrons’ watchful eyes.
She glanced across the lawns at the courting couples—and the reality that had been hovering, the dark cloud at the back of her mind, came rushing to the fore and swamped her. “Ah … yes. Of course.”
Her mission was complete—and their engagement was at an end.
Sebastian glanced at her, puzzled.
She forced herself to lift her chin, to draw in a tight breath and state, “Now we’ve solved the riddle of the blackmailer and put an end to her schemes, we need to address the question of how to dissolve our engagement.”
That was why he’d brought her there, so they could work out their next—and last—plan. How to bring their association to an end.
He cleared his throat. “Yes—I wanted to speak to you about that.”
He didn’t immediately go on. Glancing down, not knowing how—what tack to take, what words to use—to move the moment along, yet desperate to do so—she hadn’t imagined it would hurt so much—she noticed the glimmer of his grandmother’s ring on her finger. The betrothal ring his family had expected him to give to the lady he’d chosen as his bride.
She halted. Drawing her hand from his arm, she reached for the ring. “I should give this back to you.”
She grasped the band, started to wriggle it free.
Sebastian reached out and closed one hand over hers. Waited until she looked up and met his eyes. Hers were strangely dull, unusually somber. He held her gaze, quietly said, “Actually, I wanted to ask if you could see your way to keeping that on your finger.”
When she stared at him, just stared, he clarified, “If you would keep wearing it.”
She blinked. Looked down at his hand, clasped over hers, at the ring still glowing all fire and light on her finger. “But—”
“We make a good team.” Desperation forced the words from him. He’d meant to formulate some sophisticated plea, rehearse an eloquent proposal, but … he shifted to face her. “I know this mission is over, but we could find other missions—do other things. Together.” That was the important thing—him and her together. He caught her gaze as she looked up at him again, held to it as if it were a lifeline and he was drowning. Closed his other hand with the first about her hands, clasped them between his as he said, “I know you think you’re unmarriageable, and that you weren’t—aren’t—looking for a husband, that you aren’t enamored of the married state at all, but we suit so well, and I like all your odd quirks—all the ways you’re so different from other young ladies. I appreciate your unconventionality. We’ve rubbed along together tolerably well and … we’re compatible in so many ways …” Holding onto her hands, he hauled in a tight breath. “I would be honored if you would leave my ring on your finger.”
Tabitha stared into his face, and still couldn’t take it in—couldn’t accept that what her dazed and rattled mind was screeching at her was indeed the true interpretation of his words. In her life, in her experience, things she’d longed for had never fallen into her lap. So, her fingers clinging to his every bit as tightly as his were to hers, she forced herself to ask, “What exactly are you saying?”
She was distantly aware that the strollers by the Avenue were watching; none were near enough to hear, but they all could see—enough to know some discussion of great moment was occurring. She didn’t need to look to know they were waiting with bated breath to observe the outcome.
She cared not a jot. For her, in that moment, only Sebastian mattered.
He was frowning—she thought with self-disgust—as he stared down at her. “Damn!” Pulling one hand free, he ran it through his hair, thoroughly disarranging it. “I’ve done this wrongly.”
Before she could react, he went down on one knee, both hands once again clasped about hers as he gazed up at her, his gray eyes locked on hers. “Tabitha Makepeace, will you do me the honor of being my wife, to have and to hold for the rest of my life?”
She blinked. “You want to marry me?” She had to be sure. “You really want to marry me of your own volition—this isn’t some form of duty that you feel you must honor, is it? Your duty to your family, or because of our … closeness at the inn, and at your house?”
She couldn’t bear it if it were.
“No.” His lips twisted. “I realize that the notion might seem strange, but I really, truly, in all honesty, and with absolute sincerity, want to marry you. Just you—no one else. No one else will do. And I rather think that my trials and tribulations in searching for a suitable wife proved beyond question that I am not that much of a self-sacrificing saint that I would marry out of duty. I tried, but I couldn’t. The simple truth is that I couldn’t imagine marrying any young lady.” He held her gaze. “Not until I met you.”
Tabitha believed him. She trusted him; she always had. She’d somehow recognized from the first that his heart was true … and now it was hers. Truly hers.
She looked down at him, felt her features soften, felt her expression slowly transform as her heart filled and filled, then overflowed with joy…
He saw; he searched her eyes, her face, and read her answer there. His own expression lit—he waited, waited … then abruptly winced. Muttered, “For pity’s sake, say yes and put me out of my misery. This grass is damp, and my knees will cramp, and—”
“Yes.” The word was weak, her voice faint, but she repeated it. “Yes.” Slipping her hands free of his, she grasped his shoulders and tugged. As he rose, she laughed joyously, then caught his hands in hers, held them as she looked into his eyes. “Yes, Sebastian Trantor, I’ll marry you.”
Releasing his hands, she reached up and framed his face. He, his eyes, were all she could see. “I’ll marry you and we’ll make our marriage, our future life, our next mission.”
He smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
She smiled back. “And that I can do.”
She stretched up and kissed him—kissed him and was kissed as no other young lady in living memory had been kissed in the park, in full view of the goggling matrons and grandes dames all but hanging out of their carriages along the Avenue.
They adjourned to her parents’ house to convey the good news, both that the blackmailer had been caught and removed without fuss, and that, contrary to their earlier intention, they would not be dissolving their engagement.
His hand locked around hers, Sebastian smiled proudly at Tabitha. “We’ve decided we’ll make a good team in the wider sphere of life, too.”
She arched her brows at him. “There’ll be challenges, of course.”
Mrs. Makepeace smiled contentedly. “We always knew you were well matched. And challenges, my dear, are what adds spice to a marriage.”
Mr. Makepeace smiled at Sebastian. “So my dear lady keeps telling me.”
Sebastian grinned, and looked at Tabitha again, drank in the sight of her—the joy and sheer happiness shining in her bright eyes and radiating from her. “You may be sure, sir, that I’ll appreciate those challenges as I ought.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Mr. Makepeace said. “You’re no fool.”
They remained in Bedford Square for a private celebratory luncheon, over which they discussed and agreed that their change of heart necessitated no further public confirmation.
At the end of the meal, Sebastian caught Tabitha’s eye. “We should call on my aunts—before they hear of our scene in the park and start speculating as to what it might m
ean.”
“Goodness, yes.” She laid aside her napkin, exchanged a glance with her mother. “We’d better go and reassure them straightaway.”
Her mother nodded benign approval. Her father waved them on their way.
They called at Fothergill house to discover that his aunts had already heard the news.
“Great heavens, Sebastian! What was that all about?” Lady Fothergill raised her quizzing glass and observed the pair of them through it. “You haven’t been giving dear Tabitha any reason to doubt your affections, have you?”
Standing beside Tabitha, her hand in his, Sebastian heard her choke. “No—of course not. We were … discussing our wedding.”
“Oh?” Pamela Trantor’s eyes lit. “Weddings are such wonderful affairs—yours, I predict, will be the highlight of the Season.”
“Indeed.” Lady Fothergill nodded sagely. “The ton always enjoys a good wedding, especially one they weren’t expecting. Takes something extraordinary to stir us out of our ennui these days, but I predict your wedding will do it. Bound to raise all sorts of interest. Daresay even the scribblers will be there—they love to report on all the details these days. Rather unrestrained, of course, but at least you’ll know you’ve made your mark.”
“Ah … yes.” Tabitha took in Sebastian’s blank expression—had no difficulty reading the horror behind it. She plastered on a wide smile and beamed it at his aunts. “I’ve just remembered—we have to rush around and tell Lydia and Ro. They’ll be cross if we don’t involve them in the planning.”
Lady Fothergill indulgently waved them away. “Go, go! We’ll call on your mama in the next few days and start the ball rolling. The date—that’s the first thing to decide on. We’ll have to look into when St. Georges can be had—you’ll want it held there, of course.”
Tabitha just smiled and waved over her shoulder as Sebastian—who had waited for no further encouragement beyond his aunt’s wave—towed her out.
“What possessed you to mention our wedding?” Tabitha asked the instant they were back in the town carriage.
“It was the only thing that sprang to mind. Did you really want to call on Lydia and Gerrard?”
“No—that was just an excuse to allow us to leave.” She stared at him, felt his horror infect her. She slumped back against the seat. “They’ve got the bit between their teeth and God only knows how we can rein them in. What are we going to do?”
“I’m thinking. Bear with me for a moment.”
His moment lengthened to include the time it took for Gifford to drive them to the townhouse in Sussex Place. He dismissed Gifford, saying they were going for a drive in his curricle. Somewhat to Tabitha’s surprise, that proved to be true.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s someone I know who can help us with this. We’re going to see him.”
He didn’t volunteer anything more, but concentrated on guiding his pair of highbred blacks steadily north through the traffic.
When they joined the Great North Road, she glanced at him. “You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure you’ll like it, but it was all I could come up with. And before you ask, the reason I haven’t told you is that if you don’t know, then when we next see our dear families you can claim complete innocence.”
She smiled, slid her arm in his. “We’re in this together, remember. This is our new mission, and we’ll face it together.”
He drew in a deep breath, let it out as he said, “I thought that, as we’d made your family, and mine, and everyone else involved—even your friends and their families, and their husbands-to-be, too—so happy and relieved and pleased, that it was time we attended to our own happiness and relief, and pleased ourselves.” He glanced at her, met her eyes. “You don’t want a big wedding and neither do I. Underneath our glib exteriors, we’re both rather private people, and enduring such an event would place a strain on both of us—one we don’t deserve. So … I thought we should elope.”
When he looked back at the road, Tabitha gathered her giddy wits enough to ask, “To Scotland?”
“No—just to Lincoln. My maternal uncle is bishop there, and he doesn’t get on with my aunt Fothergill. He’ll be thrilled to grant us a special license and officiate, too. Then I thought we might take refuge at my home—Grimoldby Abbey. You haven’t seen it yet and you should.” He glanced at her briefly. “I hope you’ll like it.”
Expectation and exhilaration returned in a rush. Tabitha felt as if she were glowing. She hugged his arm. “I’m sure I will.”
Sebastian nodded. “So that’s my plan, but if you don’t like it, you only have to say, and I’ll turn the horses around and we can book St. Georges and have a big ton wedding … if that’s what you’d rather have.” Again he met her eyes. “Your choice, my love.”
She held his gaze, then slowly smiled. Radiantly. For one instant he thought she might be pleased because he’d given her the option—that she would take him up on it because of some misguided notion that they should please others rather than themselves even in the matter of their wedding—but then her eyes—those bright eyes that had drawn him from the first—lit, too, and he knew she’d never disappoint him. That regardless of whatever challenges came their way, she’d always be with him, by his side.
“Lincoln,” she declared, and her expression conveyed her rapturous happiness.
He swallowed, felt humbled.
Knowing she was desired for herself had transformed her; knowing he’d achieved that transformation had transformed him—he literally felt like a different man, the sort of man he’d been waiting to become.
Then she hugged his arm, leaned against his shoulder as he looked ahead once more.
Stated, in her usual determined and impatient way but he could hear the delight bubbling through her voice, “I want more than anything to get started on our new mission. Drive on, my love—and don’t spare the horses.”
Only Love
MARY BALOGH
Chapter One
Having dismissed her maid from her dressing room, Cleo Pritchard confronted her own image in the dressing-table mirror and made a few frank admissions to herself. And came to a firm decision. It was high time.
First, she would never be married. No one wanted her.
Second, she would never have a lover. For the same reason.
Third, she would never have a suitor. She had never had one, not once in her life, and she was twenty-seven years old.
There.
The facts were out in the open at last, even if she had not spoken them aloud. She felt better now. Well, not really perhaps, but she would. It was always the best policy to be honest with oneself.
Of course, some might say that she must have had at least one suitor in her life, for she had once been married. For five long years, in fact. She had also been widowed for five.
But Colonel Aubrey Pritchard had never been her suitor. Twenty-three years her senior, he had not deemed it necessary to woo her or court her or propose marriage to her in person or even really to want her. He had wanted Elizabeth, her elder sister, but at the time Elizabeth had agreed to marry Charles Darbyshire and too many people knew about the impending betrothal for a stop to be put to it. Not that Elizabeth had wanted to stop it, even though the colonel, as the second son of a viscount, was considerably more eligible. Aubrey had offered for her instead, though she was only seventeen. She would actually suit him better, he had told her father, as she was young enough to be biddable and plain enough not to be a distraction to his men. He needed another wife, he had explained, because an officer was entitled to have someone besides just his batman to minister to his needs.
The late Mrs. Aubrey Pritchard, Cleo had discovered later, had been a distraction to her husband’s men and had had to have biddability disciplined into her. But at the time Cleo did not know this, and perhaps it would have made no difference even if she had. She had made no objection to the proposed marriage even though she had not
set eyes upon her prospective husband more than twice and had never exchanged a word with him. At that time in her life she would have married anyone who would have her. Her elder sister was both pretty and vivacious and her younger sister was clearly destined to be a beauty. Her brother was good-looking and pleasant natured. She was plain. And short. And overweight. And painfully shy. It was already glaringly obvious to her that she was never going to take the eye of any of the neighborhood young men—not that she ever raised her eyes from the ground before her feet when there was a young man within a hundred yards of her. Yet she had had all the needs, all the hopes, all the dreams of any normal girl.
She had been ecstatic, if the truth were told. Married at seventeen. Even before Elizabeth. The colonel had been a fine figure of a man, even if not exactly handsome.
Gazing into the glass now, her elbows propped on the dressing-table top, her chin in her hands, Cleo wondered if she had learned from bitter experience or if she was just as foolish now as she had been ten years ago. But there was no way of knowing, was there? No one was asking her to marry him. No one was even showing any interest in her though she lived in London and had faithfully accepted all her numerous social invitations during each Season for the last three full years. This was well into the fourth.
The only gentlemen who danced with her at balls were acquaintances of Elizabeth’s or their brother Alfred’s. Men who felt obliged to give her half an hour of their lives.
The fault was not entirely her looks, perhaps. It was more her manner and behavior. She so expected to be found dull and unattractive that she found it difficult to look any man in the eye. She always feared they would think she was being forward. And she avoided any conversation beyond the merely mundane lest she bore her partner. And then, of course, she always did bore him. She knew it was foolish, self-defeating behavior. But knowing a thing and doing something about it were two entirely different things.
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