“Mama,” Faith exclaimed, shattering the moment. “Look.” She held up a small bouquet of yellow buttercups. “Look what Miles brought me and Violet.”
“Flow-ra” Violet shook her gift wildly and then hurled it at Miles. It hit his chest. With a grin, he ruffled the top of Violet’s head.
Oh, God. How effortless he was with her daughters. How good and gentle and all things wonderful. Her lower lip quivered.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Faith chimed in happily.
“Most beautiful,” she said past a tight throat. Miles climbed to his feet and her eyes went to the small bouquet of buttercups in his hand.
“Those ones are for you, Mama,” Faith exclaimed, pointing at the flowers. “He even picked them himself, he said.” She swung her gaze up to the silent gentleman beside her. “Isn’t that right, Miles?”
He stretched his hand out. “Indeed. I had a most excellent tutor,” he said and her heart twisted under the beautiful sweetness of that acknowledgement.
“Faith, take Violet and find Miss Cynthia.”
Chest puffed with girlish pride, Faith collected her sister’s hand. “Come along, Violet.” The girls waved and then with a final goodbye to Miles, left.
Philippa smoothed her palms over her skirts.
“You were going to leave.” His was a gruff accusation more than anything and still she nodded.
A flash of hurt glinted in his eyes and twisted the guilt deep inside her. “It is for the best.” Surely he saw that?
“Why?” he shot back, striding over.
She looked blankly at him. Surely, given the scandal gracing the pages he had to see she had no place in London. Miles held his buttercup offering out and she accepted them with tremulous fingers. Philippa raised them to her nose and inhaled their sweet, fragrant scent.
Miles fished around the front of his jacket and brandished a thick, ivory vellum sheet. “It is a special license from the archbishop.” The flowers slipped from her fingers and sailed into a soft, noiseless heap beside them. “Marry me.”
“You don’t have to—”
He slashed the air with his hand. When he spoke, his words were steeped in impatience. “This is not about what transpired last evening.” And what now littered every scandal sheet in London. “This is about me, asking you to not leave with your family, but to remain here. With me.” He held her gaze squarely. “Marry me.”
And just like that, he held out every gift she’d never believed possible for herself. “Miles,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. How did he not see that in being here, he was taking apart her heart?
“Please,” he added, the faint entreaty reaching inside her.
She closed her eyes a moment. “I cannot,” she said with an aching regret, which knifed away at her insides. “I—”
“I love you,” he said.
The air left her on a swift exhale and Philippa pressed a palm against her mouth.
“I love you,” he said cupping her cheek with infinite gentleness and she leaned into his caress. “And if I were skilled in verse, I’d offer you the pretty words you deserve.”
“I never needed sonnets and poems,” she said achingly.
“But you deserved them, anyway,” he rasped, stuffing the special license in his jacket front. “If you reject my offer because you do not love me, I can accept that with the hope you will find a man deserving of you, who earns the gift of your heart.”
A sound of protest stuck in her throat. How could he not know that he was the only man her heart would ever beat for? “I love you,” she whispered. “And that is why I cannot marry you.” A tear slipped down her cheek. Followed by another. And another. He caught them with the pad of his thumb, dusting away the remnants of her sadness. “There will come a time when you require your heir, Miles—”
“My mother had no right speaking to you about what I required.” Oh, God. He knew that. “I do not require an heir,” he bit out. “My brother can carry on the blasted bloodline.”
“Then want one,” she amended. “You will want one.” For isn’t that what all gentlemen ultimately wanted?
“Oh, Philippa,” he said, his words husky. He cupped her cheeks in his hands. “Do you truly believe I would ever think an heir more important than your life?” He passed his strident gaze over her face. “There do not have to be babes. There are precautions I will take. I would neither want nor ask you to risk your life for that. You are all I want. You, Violet, and Faith.”
A shuddery sob spilled past her lips. Oh, God. How was it possible to love him any more than she already did? And yet…in this moment, she fell in love with him all over again. Tears flooded her eyes. She wanted to be selfish and she wanted to take what he offered, and spit in the face of his mother, and all Societal conventions. But she could not. “You deserve more.”
He pressed his forehead against hers and released a painful laugh. “Do not decide for me what I need or deserve. You are more. You are everything. I want you. I love you. And I will love your daughters as if they are mine and you three will be all I ever need.”
Her shoulders shook with the force of her silent tears. For so many years she’d been taught to believe she served one purpose so that she’d come to believe it—until now. Now, with Miles promising her his heart and forever, putting her before all, he gave her the one gift she’d thought to never know. But the doubts lingered…she wet her lips. “You are certain? You—?”
Miles took her mouth under his in an aching kiss and then drew back. “I love you,” he whispered, his breath fanning her lips. “Marry me?” he asked, once more. “Let me spend the rest of our lives showing you the happiness you have been so robbed of.”
As the years’ worth of self-doubt and purposelessness lifted, she was filled with a buoyant light. Philippa touched the necklace at her throat. “There is something I must do,” she said softly.
His arms fell uselessly at his side. The muscles of his throat moved.
She smiled slowly. “I must inform my family that we cannot leave yet.” He went still. “Not until at least after our wedding.” And as Miles took her lips under his once more, warmth suffused every corner of her person.
After years of having given up on happiness for herself, it seemed she’d been wrong—happily-ever-afters did exist.
Epilogue
Sussex, England
One month later
“What is it? Pleeease, tell me,” Faith pleaded, as she walked between Philippa and Miles through the gardens of their Sussex estate.
Miles set aside the picnic basket and snapped open a white sheet. It fluttered in the early summer breeze and then he laid it down on the ground. “Soon,” he promised.
“Soon. Soon.” Violet parroted back and, squealing, all but leapt from Philippa’s embrace into Miles’.
As he took the small girl in his arms and tossed her into the air laughing, easily catching her, Philippa stared on. Warmth swelled in her breast. And just as she’d fallen in love with Miles Brookfield, the Marquess of Guilford, that day in Hyde Park just over one month earlier, she fell in love with him all over again in the gardens of their country estate.
Faith turned to Philippa and pleaded with her eyes. “What is the present, Mama?”
Over the top of Violet’s head, Miles held Philippa’s gaze. He flashed her a secretive smile that caused a familiar fluttering in her belly. I love you, he mouthed. She touched quivering fingers to her breast. I love you, she returned.
“Mama?” Faith tugged at her skirts again.
“I am afraid I do not know what surprise Miles has for us.” And she didn’t. She knew nothing more than his calls for a picnic outside in the gardens where he would give Philippa, Faith, and Violet a very special gift.
“Is no one ready for a present?” Miles asked. Shifting Violet to the nook of his right arm, he used his spare hand to scratch at his forehead.
An excited squeal escaped Faith. “I am ready, Miles.”
He set Violet down and
her older sister rushed to claim a spot beside her. Violet bounced up and down, clapping. “Ready.”
“This is a very special gift,” Miles told them in solemn tones. His tender effort to always present his mouth so Faith could see caused tears to blur Philippa’s vision. She blinked them back and found him studying her. “All my special ladies must be here.” He held his hand up for Philippa.
She allowed him to help her down to the spot beside him and as he turned his attention to the basket and fished out three small packages, her curiosity piqued. No one had ever given her a gift. Her late husband hadn’t cared enough about her to know her interests. Her family had been so mired down in simply surviving that those whimsical pleasures had escaped them.
Miles handed a small, wrapped package to each lady.
They stared expectantly back.
“Well, open them,” he urged. “They are yours.”
Faith tore into the soft wrap, as Miles helped Violet through the fine movements in opening hers. Philippa attended her package.
“Books, Mama,” Faith cried, waving around the small, thin, leather bound book. “He bought us each a book.”
“The same book,” Miles clarified.
Faith tipped her head. “The same?”
A gentle breeze wafted about them, tugging at the edge of the blanket. “Yes. For you see, this is not just any book,” he continued in those hushed tones that always managed to capture even Violet’s fleeting attention. “This is a special fairytale about a princess who was lost in a park.”
Dropping her attention to the leather book, Philippa opened it and her gaze snagged on the title. Our Story. Her heart started.
“The princess was lost like me,” Faith piped in.
“Like you,” he confirmed. “And this princess had a laughing, loving sister.”
“Violet,” Faith exclaimed.
Violet tossed her book aside and scrambled onto Miles’ lap.
Oh, God. Her fingers shaking, Philippa set aside the treasure he’d given them. Just one more beautiful gift. Her heart swelled.
“And these two princesses had a strong, courageous mother.” His voice hoarsened by emotion, Miles stretched a hand out and, wordlessly, Philippa slid her palm into his. The same heat that always burned at his touch went through her. “This mother was brave and beautiful in every way.”
Scrambling up onto her knees, Faith rushed over to Miles and clung to his shoulder. “Does the prince become a papa to them, like you are to me and Violet?”
Philippa buried a little sob in her fist, as he gently brushed a dark curl from Faith’s brow.
“He does,” he said quietly.
Faith took Miles’ face between her hands. “It is the perfect gift, Papa.”
The column of his throat worked.
Papa. For so long, Philippa had believed a nobleman incapable of seeing a child. She’d believed the tenderness Miles had shown Faith and Violet an elusive dream only recorded in fanciful tales. Until Miles. How much he’d shown her about love and life.
An orange-winged butterfly floated by and Violet wiggled off Miles’ lap and toddled over to it. “I touch it. I touch it.” As the little girl ambled over to the fluttering creature, Faith surged to her feet with a laugh and set out in chase.
Miles scooted over to Philippa’s side so they were shoulder to shoulder, staring out at their girls. “It is our story,” Philippa whispered. “You wrote our story.” A tear slid down her cheek and he turned and caught the drop with his thumb, flicking it away.
“You once told me that you’d ceased to believe in fairytales.” Gathering her fingers in his, Miles raised her knuckles to his lips and placed a lingering kiss that sent shivers radiating. “I wanted to gift you and our daughters with something to forever remind you of my love. A gift to remind each of you that fairytales are very much real.”
Another tear slid down her cheek. Followed by another. “Oh, Miles.” She shifted so they faced one another and worked her gaze lovingly over the planes of his face. “How can you not know?”
He shook his head.
Philippa rested her brow against his. “Together, you, Violet, and Faith, are the only gifts I ever wanted or needed, Miles. You showed me all those dreams are possible.”
The wind tossed one of his ginger strands over his eye. “Then let us write the rest of our story together.”
And with their daughters’ laughter ringing in the gardens, Philippa claimed his lips in a kiss, knowing that is just what they would do.
The End
To Redeem a Rake
By
Christi Caldwell
Dedication
To Rory
From the moment, you were born, you were a fighter. You fought to do everything that came natural to most: eating, drinking, crawling, walking. Gifts I once took for granted, you showed me were great miracles. Eight years later, you are still a fighter. Do not let a single person ever tell you that you cannot do something. Let no one limit you. Trust that no dream is unattainable, not only because we’re at your side…but because of who you are.
The sky is the limit.
Miss Daphne Smith’s story belongs to you.
Acknowledgements
Daphne and Daniel’s story was one that was very close to me for personal reasons. As such, I am forever grateful to Louisa Cornell for being the first person to read it and help me bring forth the vision I had.
Prologue
Spelthorne
Surrey, England
1801
With the blazing summer sun filtering through the trees, Miss Daphne Smith accepted the ugly truth. She was going to die here.
Even the excruciating agony shooting a path up her leg wasn’t distraction enough from that inevitability. And it would be no one’s fault but her own.
Draping an arm over her face, she attempted to lessen the glare of the sun’s rays still burning her face. It produced the kind of heat that a red-haired girl could feel cooking more freckles. That mocking sun. That blasted, showed-itself-too-late ball of agony in the sky.
Another shuddery sob slipped from Daphne’s lips and she closed her eyes, willing back the pain. Yes, she was going to die here, in her favorite copse, after having been expressly forbidden from coming—would Mama and Papa even know to come look for her? Panic filled her. Why would they come, when they’d threatened to take away her mount if she disobeyed them and visited this place? They would know there was nothing she loved more in her ten years than riding Ginger.
And she’d gone and ruined it all by setting out in a rainstorm to chase the rainbow.
“You silly girl.” She brushed the back of her hand over her tear-stained cheeks. Now, she’d never ride again.
Her left leg throbbed all the more. Shoving onto her elbows, Daphne peered at her foot. Nausea twisted in her belly at the ghastly bend of her leg. Why does it look like that? Thrusting aside the fearful question, she bit hard on her lower lip and made one more attempt to stand. She wiggled onto her belly and pushed onto her right foot. Then she placed a tentative weight on her left. Another cry spilled past her lips and as several wrens took off in a noisy flight from the trees above, Daphne crumpled to the damp ground, landing hard in a deep puddle.
With her nose caked in mud, she lay there. The feel of the wet ground was cool on her cheek as her tears blurred with the earth. Blasted rain.
She rolled onto her back and glared up at the cheerful sun. The same sun that hadn’t made a single appearance in nearly six days, except for early that afternoon. And then there had been the rainbow. And the promise of fortunes at the end of it. And well, everyone in Surrey knew they needed fortunes—even if Papa would never, ever dare admit to it. But Daphne knew. She’d been so convinced of it that she followed that brightly colored prism.
Now, she was going to die for it. She’d die alone beneath the oak, not even able to touch her fingertips to her rolling brook. Even her horse had bolted off and abandoned her.
Tears seeped from bene
ath her lashes and poured onto the muddied earth. Her cheek itched and she focused on that slight discomfort, for she wouldn’t have to fix on the agonizing pain of her foot and leg. Sniffling, she turned her head and stared into the near distance. The pristine surface of the lake she’d first learned to swim in rippled as a faint breeze stirred the trees.
“Stupid s-sun.” Daphne whimpered as she moved her left foot and then something glittered in the light. Her heart kicked up a beat and she stretched her hand out. Her fingers collided with the cold press of a rusted guinea. Her fortune? She wrapped her hand around the coin with a jagged lightning-like scratch down the middle of King George III. This had been the treasure?
A branch snapped and she went motionless, not taking her gaze from the lake. Salvation had come.
“Daphne?” Oh, no. Not Daniel. Anyone but Daniel. He was forever teasing her about all the scrapes she landed herself in. “Is that you?” Except… His voice, usually so full of his boyhood confidence emerged hesitant.
She sniffled and brushed the back of her hand over her leaking nose. “D-Daniel.”
Then, who else had she hoped would come to this spot, other than Daniel Winterbourne, the Earl of Montfort’s son? He was the only person who loved these grounds more than she did. So much so, that he’d ordered her from them too many times to count when she’d been a small girl of five because they would one day belong to him. By the time Daphne was six, he’d realized she was not going anywhere and certainly not because he, a silly boy, had demanded it. Since then, they’d struck a truce and shared the lake and every other part of the countryside when he was here.
Well, they had, until her parents had forbidden her from coming.
“What are you doing on the ground?” he called from several paces away.
“Looking at the m-mud.” Her attempt at sarcasm was ruined by that tremor of pain. She’d sooner die here alone than let any boy see her in pain, especially Daniel who was always so good at everything, so she rolled onto her back and shoved herself up onto her elbows.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 74