One Enchanted Summer

by Jane Erickson

  “You should have stayed. My family unanimously agreed that Lord Felling is an ass and should be publicly whipped. And Lord Pritchard has the good sense to agree with us.” She could hear his footsteps on the bare wooden floors as he stepped farther into the room. “Our carriages are being readied now while our trunks are being packed.”

  “Very kind but unnecessary.” Mia swallowed hard at the lump that refused to move in her throat.

  “I could pummel Lord Felling again. That seems very necessary,” Dominic offered.

  “There was little harm done.” Mia addressed the ceiling and blinked her eyes rapidly so her tears wouldn’t spill out.

  “Perhaps have him tossed on a ship bound for Australia? Whatever you wish, I’ll make it so.”

  Mia prepared to quip that she wouldn’t foist Lord Felling off on the Australians who had a great many challenges already but instead, to her horror, only a pitiful squeaky sound, like air escaping a rubber balloon, emerged. She tried to shoo him away, desperate to retain her composure, but he ignored her. As his strong arms enveloped her, she burst into loud, ragged sobs.

  “You’re safe now,” Dominic murmured, after she had cried herself out and only shuddering breaths remained. “Venetia assures me that Felling find himself persona non grata at every affair and decent household from now until eternity. He likely would prefer another beating or a short prison sentence instead. Furthermore, Venetia has insisted you accompany us to the inn and ride in her carriage. Which is more thoughtful than what I considered. My plan was just to demand one of Darwinkle’s and never return it.”

  Mia laughed, despite her misery. “Again, that’s very kind of you both but I don’t need anyone’s assistance. I was prepared to walk to the inn before your arrival.”

  “It’s not kindness.” He pulled away from her and pulled a small box from his pocket. “I was delayed in coming here because I dropped this in the tussle with Felling. Luckily, Georgiana spotted it in the shadows of the hall when I was frantically searching for it. I’ve informed them that you’ll be not only needing a room at the inn but will also be accompanying us to Swithun Hall because…”

  “No! I don’t want you to ask me now! Not after Lord Felling… Not because you feel a moment of chivalry. I told you earlier that I didn’t need a savior.” She hurriedly added, “But I do appreciate your assistance tonight. It was very timely.”

  A smile lightened his face for a moment before he became serious again. “Miss Mia Tillman, I had every intention of asking you earlier this evening. That is why the box fell from my hand when I encountered Lord Felling. I’m not in the habit of carrying engagement rings on my person.”

  “But I never asked for marriage!” she assured him. And she hadn’t. She always knew that marriage to him was inconceivable. “And I don’t believe you that it was your earlier objective. Your brain is befuddled. It’s likely some emotional reaction to your act of chivalry.”

  “Mia, I’m not denying that I want to keep you from all dangers for the rest of your life, but I do promise you that if Lord Felling attacked another maid, or an heiress, or the Queen herself, I would likely still batter him, but I would not ask any of them to marry me!” Dominic said in exasperation. “I should have considered this in August. But I was…It hardly matters. I am…”

  “No, it’s far better that we forget this,” Mia interrupted as she turned to lift her trunk by one handle. It screeched as she dragged it across the floor, but she was no longer concerned with Mrs. Greaves’s reaction if she damaged the floorboards.

  “I’m not trying to save you or your reputation!” Dominic blocked her efforts and removed her hand from the trunk’s handle. “I was…I was the troll!”

  “The what?”

  “In your favorite story. The maid saves the bear and they marry…” he trailed off, obviously forgetting the fairy tale’s plot and his place in it. He ran his hands through his golden hair in frustration, making it stand up in spikes like the crown of a pineapple.

  “The maid does save the bear from the trolls,” Mia confirmed, completely baffled by the turn of the conversation.

  “But I was in no danger of marrying a troll. Well, perhaps I always was, but I didn’t know it. It hardly matters. But in our story – yours and mine – the maid saves the bear from himself. So I was the troll…and the bear.”

  “And I’m still the maid?” Mia managed to keep her face politely inquiring, but it was difficult. She had never seen him so out of sorts. Even when he was threatening Lord Felling, he seemed completely confident of the outcome of the situation. Now his clothes were hopelessly ruined, his hair was beyond tousled, and his handsome jaw was clenched in frustration.

  “Of course, you’re the maid!” he growled. “But I don’t want to be a bear or a troll any longer.”

  “You want to be the prince?”

  “I was always the prince!” Dominic tilted her chin up so his dark brown eyes could stare into hers. “I just need you to remind me to stay one. Or I could easily revert to my bear-like ways.”

  “Your mother will never agree to it,” she reminded him.

  “I don’t care.” She knew he was lying. Every word he had spoken of his mother and his sisters over the summer, even the ones made in jest, had always had an undercurrent of love. “My house has fifteen bedrooms. She can be easily avoided. Or we can ask her to reside in our townhouse. You wouldn’t care for London, anyway.”

  “Your friends…your sisters,” Mia began to argue again, but he interrupted.

  “Venetia is already your champion. She approved before she even met you. It seems she didn’t care for me being a bear either. And Georgiana was considerably impressed with your actions against Felling. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she gives up these notions of behaving like a delicate wilting flower and emulating Jenny Lind and becomes some sort of lady pugilist. Edith may come around. Or not. She’s young and her nature isn’t quite settled yet.”

  “I…I can’t. I can’t be the cause of your disgrace.” Mia shook her head, her mind boggling at the sacrifices he was considering. “You would eventually regret…everything.”

  “Then don’t accept me today,” Dominic agreed. “But I will continue to hound you. I’ll give up all my worldly possessions to follow you about the country. If you take a position in Middlesex, I’ll be waiting in the nearest village for you to come to your senses. Perhaps I’ll become an itinerant carpenter to support myself. Don’t laugh! I’m becoming quite talented. You should see the bookshelf I’ve built.”

  “Itinerant carpenter is not a profession.” Mia laughed despite the heaviness of her heart.

  “I’m an earl. I do what I like. I may even make it into the newest fashion,” Dominic said as he tilted his head so he could look down his aristocratic nose and pretended to fussily adjust his sleeve cuff. “Perhaps I’ll contact your father and he can help me outfit a wagon. I daresay mine will have to be bigger.”

  “If only to make room for your waistcoats,” Mia quipped, and he nodded in agreement.

  “Yes. Just large enough for my waistcoats and you, when you finally realize I am in utmost earnestness. You said all those other men wanted to marry someone. That they didn’t even know you. I know you. I know that you only eat meat when you aren’t the one to cook it. I know that your feet are cold even in the summer. I know that you pretend you don’t care how people perceive you, that you believe they will only ever think of you as being the daughter of a peddler and a whore. I know every inch of your body and I wish I knew even one tenth of your thoughts. And I want a thousand more summers with you so I can learn a million more charming, frustrating things that I never even knew I so desperately needed in a wife.”

  Mia just shook her head mutely, trying to think of something to dissuade him but all rational thoughts had flown from her head. Movement caught her eye, and she spied Annie, framed in the doorway, her gray eyes wide, her pale lips turned down in a frown, and her hands clasped to her chest as if she had just heard the mos
t romantic thing in her young life.

  Dominic turned his head and glanced at Annie for a moment before turning back to Mia again. He addressed the housemaid even as his dark eyes bored into Mia’s light ones. “Tell her, Annie, is it? Tell her that she has to marry me. That without her, I’ll wander miserably for the rest of my days. Or worse, I marry some troll because no one came along to rescue me from myself. Tell her I need her more than the approval from a hundred princes and a million lords.”

  “Oh, Miss, say yes!” Annie begged, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and not even pretending that she hadn’t been listening to their entire conversation.

  “Say yes,” Dominic parroted the chambermaid but with a serious intensity that caused Mia to tear up again.

  “I…” Mia wanted to remind him of all the trials that this decision would cause but it was hard to think when his handsome face was so earnest.

  “I want to introduce you to my family. I want you to share my name. I want your children to inherit my title,” Dominic murmured in a voice too quiet for Annie to overhear. “You’re worthy. For the coronet. For my grandmother’s ring that you still refuse to admire. For me.”

  “Yes,” Mia breathed through barely parted lips because how could she deny him? Her acceptance was immediately lost to Annie’s delighted, high-pitched squeal. Dominic kissed her fast and hard, and she wasn’t certain if it was the passion of his kiss or the enormity of her decision that made her head swim.

  “Annie, you have our permission to tell everyone the news – Miss Mia Tillman, after much persuasion, has consented to be a countess,” Dominic called over his shoulder.

  Annie’s footsteps could be heard pounding down the hall in her haste for the stairs.

  “Now that we no longer have an audience,” Dominic muttered after a cautious look over his shoulder for other interlopers. “Do me the honor of wearing this ring. It last graced the hand of the Eighth Countess of Swithun, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving.”

  With great solemnity, he opened the box and removed a tiny silk bag. He pulled the tiny strings and emptied the bag into his palm, revealing a large, rectangular violet stone surrounded by dull pearls set in silver and placed on a sturdy gold ring. It hardly glittered in the dull lamplight of the dismal bedroom.

  “Oh,” Dominic appeared non-plussed by the reveal. “I remembered it was a sapphire and assumed it was blue. I hoped it would match your eyes. I haven’t seen it in years. I should have inspected it before proposing. It’s…”

  “Antiquated? Ostentatious?” Mia stared at the jewel in fascination, unable to imagine it adorning her scarred and calloused hand.

  “It’s Georgian and probably fashionable at the time. We’ll have it reset at the jeweler into something a bit more delicate. Or you can choose a new gem entirely.” Obviously embarrassed, he began to return the ring to its silken prison to be forgotten for another decade or two, but she reached out to stop him.

  “No, don’t.” She plucked the ring from between his fingers and held it up to the light. With a gulp, she took the silk bag and rubbed it across the pearls’ settings a few times before sliding it onto her fourth finger. It was far too grand and certainly never something that anyone, even herself, would imagine her wearing. But now that it sat heavily on her hand, she oddly found herself comforted by the weight. She beamed up at him. “It was just a bit tarnished. After a little polish, it’s perfect.”

  “No need to make further allusions to my character flaws, you irreverent miss,” Dominic pretended to grouch and Mia laughingly tried to deny that she was implying anything. He pulled her close so he could silence her protests. “I already admitted to being the bear.”

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  With a groan, Dominic Attwood, the Earl of Swithun, heaved himself to a seated position on the bed, his bare feet shying away from the freezing floorboards. The first rays of the mid-December sun hadn’t yet made their way through the frost on the windowpanes, but the constant nudges against his spine made it impossible to sleep any longer.

  He stretched as he rose. There were a million things to be done; he didn’t truly mind getting an early start to the day.

  He hid a grin as Mia shivered and pulled the blankets closer with a frown, her body already protesting the loss of heat he usually provided, but she easily fell back into slumber. He pulled his heavy robe over his shirt and smalls, still longing for the days when he slept in the nude. But circumstances changed.

  He turned to face the bed just as the ‘circumstance’ popped up from behind her mother’s sleeping form, a halo of wild, unruly curls framing her little face.

  “Morning, Papa,” she murmured, her eyes still nearly shut, and her head cocked drowsily to the side as she swayed slightly despite her seated position.

  “Good morning, Lila dearest,” he whispered as he rounded the bed, knowing the hell he would catch if he woke his sleeping wife in the next hour.

  Now three, Lila had just outgrown the chubbiness of a toddler, her arms and legs seeming almost spindly without their baby fat. Her light brown hair and brown eyes could only be described as ordinary but, whether she was crying or flashing her deep dimples, Dominic still thought his daughter was the most beautiful, precious sight in the world.

  He picked her up, pressing his face against those untamable Medusa-like curls, loving the way her tiny arms wrapped around his neck, and thinking if he could make time stop just for one day, he would choose this one. But he had wished that a hundred times before…from the moment she was first born, her cloudy blue eyes blearily scowling at the world, to when she first said ‘Papa’ to her first stumbling steps. It seemed every age and moment had its enchanting moments.

  A light tap sounded at the door and Dominic hurried over to open it, assuming it was Annie coming to light the fires. Instead, his mother, fully dressed and likely to have already eaten, hesitantly peaked through the slight opening Dominic had provided before spying Lila in his arms.

  “Lila! When I saw the nursery was empty, I knew I’d find you here!” she scolded though her voice held no heat.

  “I like to sleep with Mama,” Lila murmured, her head pillowed on Dominic’s shoulder, not defensive or apologetic in the slightest.

  “Well, come with me. Your cousins are coming this afternoon. You must help me make plans on how we will entertain everyone for the next two weeks.” Lady Attwood held out her hand imperiously, knowing full well the announcement would cause Lila to give an excited squeal. In a flurry, the girl wiggled down from Dominic’s embrace, her skinny bare legs flashing under the hem of her nightgown as she dashed to her grandmother’s side.

  Lady Attwood shushed the darling of her life before whispering, “Don’t wake your mama. She needs her rest. She’s carrying the future earl.”

  “It’s just a baby!” Lila protested as she accompanied her grandmother out into the hall.

  “Well, no baby is just a baby. And Attwood babies are even more extraordinary.”

  “What are your plans for today?” Mia mumbled as soon as the bedroom door clicked shut behind the pair.

  “Did we wake you?” Dominic asked with an apologetic cringe.

  “No, your son managed that by himself.” Her eyes still shut, she set a hand on her rounded stomach, still invisible beneath the voluminous nightgown and layers of covers. “I think he’ll be a terror when he arrives so we should appreciate that he is at least quiet if not still for now.”

  Dominic laughed as he settled into the spot Lila had so recently vacated.

  “I think his sister has prepared us for anything that comes. But yes, his persistent kicking me in my sleep does not bode well for the future.” Dominic leaned over, admiring the long fan of eyelashes against her cheek, the curve of her lips even as she half-dozed. Even after five years, he considered himself lucky to wake next to Mia every morning. It was one of the few things he and his brother-in-law had in common…a continuing infatuation with their wives.

  “Wh
at is on your agenda for the day?” Mia murmured.

  “I’m redrafting the Mines Act though it is difficult with sending letters back and forth. I’m certainly not going to London to meet the other proposers though. You’ll be sure to have the baby and name him without me out of pure spite.”

  “I’m not letting you name the baby Ephraim. Ephraim Attwood, Earl of Swithun. Ugh. I’ll lock you out of the house until his proper name is safely written in the church registry.” Her dimple was almost visible as he scooted closer to her.

  “I thought it would put us in good standing in the church. A fine Biblical name. You wouldn’t let me name our firstborn, so I think it only sporting that I name this one.”

  “Lila is the closest you could get to Lilac without sounding ridiculous! Even Lady Lila sounds like a brothel owner,” she replied hotly, a frown forming between her straight eyebrows, though her eyes remained stubbornly closed against the steadily brightening sunlight.

  Grinning at her irritation, Dominic decided to abandon his teasing. Pregnant women could only be pushed so far.

  “I’m also hoping to finish the rocking horse for Lila. She’s been asking about it daily. Though if I finish it now, the cousins will be sure to squabble over it.”

  “Perhaps you should save it for a Christmas present then.”

  “And you, dear heart? What is keeping you occupied until my family invades our peaceful home this afternoon?”

  “Hmm, the orange oil from Valencia is supposed to arrive today. Hopefully the bottles are still intact. But the roads are terrible which is a shame. I have a rather large order to fill by Friday and now it will be postponed even further. The vicar is coming at luncheon so we can discuss the funding needed for the vicarage’s roof repairs. I told him we’ll save a fortune since someone I know has roofing experience. He insists you keep your shirt on to protect his wife’s delicate sensibilities.”

  Dominic snorted. “More like he’s afraid that she’ll ogle me for days. To be honest, she’ll pester any man who braves that roof. She’s a shameless flirt. When the vicar decided to save that lost lamb, he should have found one not so intent on resisting the crook.”