They were alone.
Entirely.
Mary exhaled, and looked up at Geoff, who had already been looking at her.
Without a word, he pushed her against the wall and once more his lips were on hers, just as insistent and hungry as they had been moments before. His hands held her face, her hands latched into his hair, and she matched him kiss for bone-melting kiss. Then it occurred to her, ever so faintly, that she had yet to actually tell him what she needed to.
“Geoff,” she murmured when he let her breathe.
His lips had no reprieve for her as they made their way up her jaw.
“Geoff!” she hissed as her eyes fluttered helplessly.
“What?” he said against her skin, perfectly content to continue tormenting her.
“I have something to say.”
He chuckled breathlessly. “Oh, have you?” He took her lips in another long, lingering kiss.
With a whimper, she broke off and put a hand on his chest. “Yes,” she said, her voice sounding like a mix of a whisper and a sigh, but it was firm.
He sighed and looked at her, still keeping her face between his hands. “What is it, Goose? Make it quick, I have work to attend to.” His eyes told her exactly what he meant by that, and her stomach nearly burst into flame.
She swallowed hard, then cleared her throat. “I… I thought about what you said.”
One side of his mouth curved up in a grin. “Yes, I gathered as much from your delightful ruse on the stair.”
She blushed and ducked her head. He was quick to tilt it back up.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he laughed softly. “I loved every second of it.”
“I thought you were leaving.” Strangely, she found herself close to tears again and she shook her head. “I thought you were angry and leaving, and I couldn’t…”
He laughed again and stroked her cheeks. “I was coming to dance with you, Goose. I’d had enough of watching you dance with other men. I wanted to claim what I have always thought was mine.”
A hot thrill shot through her and she smiled at him. “Then why, if you felt that way, didn’t you let me answer you earlier today?”
He groaned and dropped his hands to her shoulders. “I was so headstrong, bursting into your room like that, and then telling you all of those things… I didn’t want to presume to…”
“I would have said yes.”
He stopped talking and stared at her, eyes wide.
Mary smiled and touched his chin softly. “I was going to say yes.”
Geoffrey stared at her for a long moment without speaking. Then he shook his head on an exhale, then leaned forward and gently kissed her, nuzzling softly.
Mary felt the emotion in his kiss, the disbelief, the joy… She understood, and her heart thudded with the same emotions. “Geoff,” she whispered, laying a hand on his cheek.
“Yes, love?” he murmured as his lips dusted her cheek.
It took her a moment to find words after the endearment, and she absently toyed with his waistcoat. “I was in love with you.”
She felt him stiffen. “Was?” he asked slowly.
She nodded, still not looking at him. “For most of our friendship, even at the beginning, I was in love with you.”
He chuckled in a low tone. “I know. I found your diaries.”
She closed her eyes as more embarrassment rushed in.
“Mary…” he said softly, touching her cheek.
She nuzzled against his touch and met his eyes. “Then I grew up and I was so sure, so determined that I wasn’t in love with you. I knew you’d never love me in return, so it was easy to believe.”
He shook his head, his eyes full of anguish. “I am so sorry.”
“I’m not blaming you,” she assured him, laying her hand on his chest. “You were just too perfect, and I was… Well, I was me.”
“I love you,” he said fiercely, placing a hand over hers. “Just as you are, just as you always have been.”
She smiled and pulled his hand to her lips. “I had hidden my feelings so deep I didn’t even know I still had them. It didn’t occur to me until recently that they had always been there.” She shook her head, tears threatening once more. “I had roomfuls of men. Great men, fine men, fops, rogues, scholars… Roomfuls of men, and all I really wanted was to see your face among them.”
His breath caught and she stroked his cheek gently. “I just wanted you. I love you, Geoffrey Harris, and I only want you.”
This time, she pulled him in for a kiss, and this one was long, leisurely, and so filled with passion and promise that it made her weep. They had all the time in the world to be together, to love each other as they should have done years ago and every day since.
A screeching filled the corridor and Geoff broke off with a groan. He touched his forehead to Mary’s and looked towards the sound.
Cassie and Simon stood at the entrance, looking bewildered and delighted.
“It’s your sister,” he murmured, turning back and closing his eyes.
“I figured as much,” she muttered back.
“Geoffrey Harris,” Cassie called, her grin evident. “What are you doing with my sister?”
“Cassie, go away!” Mary yelled back with a roll of her eyes.
“Be nice,” Geoff whispered, unable to keep from smiling himself.
Mary gave him a look. “What transpired before she appeared, that was nice. That scene in the ballroom, also quite nice. Being interrupted, not so nice. I’m entitled to being more than a little agitated.”
He swallowed and let out a shaky chuckle.
“Ahem,” Simon called out.
“Oh, lord,” Mary moaned, dropping her head back against the wall. “I may kill them both.”
“Harris, I believe as the future brother-in-law of the woman you are with at this moment, I must ask… what are your intentions?” Simon asked, sounding innocently concerned.
Cassie giggled. “Yes, Geoff. What are your intentions?”
Now Geoff growled. “You impertinent children. Very well, my intentions are to continue my activities with Miss Hamilton here, marry her as soon as we can manage, and spend the rest of my life giving you ungrateful cretins as many nieces and nephews as I can. Fair enough?”
While Simon coughed in surprise and Cassie squealed with glee, Mary grinned rather salaciously at him. “My, my, that does sound appealing,” she murmured.
“Don’t you start,” he hissed, giving her a warning look. “I’m on thin ice as it is.”
“Well, perhaps we should announce your engagement presently? Quite a few people are talking about it,” Cassie said, her voice sounding rather authoritative. “Reputations must be preserved, and all that. Simon and I will start spreading the word that the two of you have been engaged for some time, but due to his misfortune and then reappearance and our subsequent engagement, you chose to keep your own a private matter. I think your friends will corroborate it.”
“Whatever you like, Cassie,” Mary called out with a sigh. “You know best.”
Geoff bit back a laugh and touched his forehead to hers again.
“And you had better be married as soon as banns can be read,” Cassandra continued, as if she hadn’t said anything. “Three weeks. I’ll get to work on that right away.”
“Very good, Cassie,” Geoff said, staring at Mary with warmth. “It sounds grand.”
“You need to make a re-appearance,” she went on. “People may think you’ve run off to Gretna Green, and that wouldn’t be…”
“Thank you, Cassie,” they chimed in together.
“Darling, let’s go back in and start quelling rumors,” Simon said quietly, though his voice carried. “They’ll be along shortly. Now, who do you think we should start with?”
“Oh, Geoffrey’s friends, absolutely,” Cassie said as they turned to go and continued down the hall. “We need their cooperation first of all.”
When it was silent once more, Geoff and Mary burst out laughing toget
her.
“Well, it appears your sister is now planning our wedding,” Geoff said when he could speak.
“So it would seem,” Mary replied with a sigh, her hands sliding around his neck.
“I suppose the polite thing to do would be to officially ask for your hand in marriage,” he mused, his hands finding her waist.
Mary nodded soberly. “That would be very polite, yes.”
He cleared his throat and became serious. “Mary Hamilton, would you do me the honor of consenting to marry me?”
“Geoffrey Harris, I would be delighted,” she replied very properly. “Now stop talking and kiss me.”
He grinned rather wickedly. “I love you.”
She matched his grin. “I love you.”
And then Geoffrey, being the epitome of a gentleman, after all, complied with the lady’s request.
Epilogue
The hallway was littered with men. It couldn’t be helped when they’d all arrived in such haste and without plan, and considering the bustle of the house, there were no servants available to prepare a room for any of them. No one complained, not even the stray servant that had to weave between the lot of them to get by.
Not that Geoff cared about his companions or their well-being. He had quite enough to be getting on with.
No one was telling him a blasted thing.
He had been sitting out here in the hall for hours without any idea of what was going on. Duncan paced anxiously back and forth, Colin sat against a wall and stared at the ceiling as if it held all the answers, Derek stood like a soldier by the stair in preparation to ride off as needed, and Nathan leaned against a wall nearby with his head bowed. All of them seemed as anxious as he, but that wasn’t possible. They had all lived through this. They were all fathers multiple times over.
But Geoff, despite his almost six years of marriage, was not.
He knew how Mary had ached for children, cried in the night when she thought he was asleep, and wondered if her advancing age had prevented it being possible.
She was not that old, as he was constantly reminding her, and women of thirty-three had children all the time. But she was convinced that this was all her fault, that she had missed her opportunity, and she had prevented him from the joys of fatherhood. He’d done everything in his power to persuade her otherwise, and assured her that being with her was enough.
The six years they had spent together had been the best years of his life. He had grown to love her more and more every day. Not that theirs was a perfect marriage, for they had their share of disagreements and disputes. But at the end of the day, there was friendship and love between them, and there was no obstacle that they didn’t face together and no problem they couldn’t solve.
Except this one.
His heart had come close to breaking for her, knowing what an extraordinary mother she would be, if given the chance. She couldn’t know that those nights that he held her when she cried, he’d cried as well. He would have moved heaven and earth for the merest chance of granting this dream for her.
And then… the most miraculous thing had occurred. Seven months ago, Mary had told him over his breakfast that she was with child, and then after enduring his ebullient celebration that involved him swinging her around and around, and then waltzing with her around the breakfast table, she’d become sick all over his shoes. It was his first inkling that the pregnancy might not be as smooth as that of his friends and their wives.
She had been sick for her entire pregnancy and only recently had been feeling well enough to let her friends visit. Geoff had been tending to her the entire time, waiting on her hand and foot for months, and apparently, he’d made quite a nuisance of himself, as she had forbade him from doing anything anymore.
Last week she’d insisted that he accompany his friends to one of Derek’s northern estates to oversee some repairs. He’d utterly refused, with her being only weeks from her time, but she had been adamant. More than that, she had already arranged for Moira and Kate to be with her while he was gone. As those two women were mothers multiple times over, he was relented. He still had his doubts, but when his wife had her mind set on something, there was no sense at all in arguing the point.
They’d only been gone one night when he received word from an express rider that the baby was coming and he needed to return.
It spoke of the quality of the men he called friends that they had not only come back with him, but had ridden just as hard.
They arrived with the word that the baby had not come yet, that Mary did not want him in the room, which perturbed him on a great many levels, and that the doctor was feeling encouraged by her progress.
So here he was out in the hall he was with his friends, trying his best not to turn completely insane with worry and anxiety. He’d started with pacing the halls, then turned to sitting and fidgeting, then finally took up a position just before the door, facing it, waiting. Faintly, he could hear the sounds of distress from their bedchamber and each sound gripped his heart in a vice and made his hand clench to reach for the doorknob.
He asked every fifteen minutes if he was needed, but she always refused. It troubled him. Moira had called for Nathan during her first delivery, and he had been just as present for the subsequent children. Kate, on the other hand, never allowed Derek on the same level of the house as she was when she delivered. He had attempted to barge his way in with their first son, but she’d made Duncan carry him from the house and contain him in the garden until the child was present. As far as he knew, they still fought over it, but Kate was always victorious.
Geoff loved his wife, and respected her a great deal, but he now understood Derek’s frustrations. His place was in there with her, not out here wondering what was going on, wondering how much longer she would have to endure this, and wondering, God forbid, if she should live or die. He’d never let his mind dwell on the possibility, but now it loomed before him with terrifying power.
A series of short and very young cries emanated from the room beyond him and he felt his chest expand with surprising swiftness. He faltered a bit as he became slightly light-headed, but Duncan held him steady.
“Congratulations,” Duncan said with a laugh as he pounded his back. “Your child has quite the set of lungs.”
Geoff laughed himself and turned to embrace his friend tightly.
The others eagerly extended their felicitations with hugs and handshakes and back thumping. He would later recall seeing the slight sheen of tears in Colin’s eyes, but at this moment, he could only stare at the door in anticipation. His child… their child… continued to wail from inside, and he grinned at the sound.
When no one came to bring him in, he started to feel the slightest rise of panic.
“Oh, it can take a while,” Derek assured him with a hand on his shoulder. “When Helena was born, Kate had me wait an entire hour before I could even go into the room. You all left before that happened, but I was a mess. Turned out Kate wanted to sleep before I came in to bother her. Didn’t see the need to have me informed of that.”
“Moira did the same with Lizzie,” Nathan said with a laugh. “Kicked me out of the room once she was born and wouldn’t let me back in until she had rested. Perhaps this means you have a daughter, Geoff.”
He smiled at the thought, but it didn’t make him worry any less.
He could hear the room bustling beyond, but no one made any sounds of distress or horror or mourning that he could hear. Even the child had stopped crying, for whatever reason.
The wait was agonizing. Colin resumed Duncan’s pacing, Derek sat where Colin had, Duncan stood next to him, and Nathan took up his former place on the wall.
He started bouncing on his heels when Duncan muttered, “Easy, Geoff. If there was a problem, you would have been informed of it by now.”
“Doctor Durham is the best,” Colin said even as his pacing increased. “Just ask Thomas Granger, he wants the man petitioned for Sainthood, I swear.”
The other
s nodded in affirmation of his claim.
As the Grangers lived only two estates over from this house, Geoff was inclined to believe him. But he would make a point to verify that with Granger once things were settled here. Colin didn’t know all the particulars of the Granger’s story, or perhaps he did, as it was Colin, after all, but the others knew even less.
Still, Mary was in capable hands with Moira, Kate, and the inestimable Doctor Durham.
He exhaled slowly and waited.
Just when he thought he was about to be driven mad, he could hear the baby cry again and laughter resounded from the room. He felt himself breathe easier. Laughter was a sound he had nearly forgotten in his wait.
“How long was it?” he murmured to Duncan.
“Twenty-five minutes,” he promptly replied, checking his pocket-watch.
Geoff nodded, narrowing his eyes. “She’ll pay for that.”
All of the others laughed loudly. “I think she just did,” Colin crowed as he came over.
“You’ll never win another battle again,” Nathan assured him with a slow nod. “After what she has just endured… You’ll never match it.”
Geoff sobered slightly, knowing it was true.
The door opened and Kate appeared, looking rather haggard, but beaming. Her hair, normally so perfect, was in a bit of disarray, but she didn’t seem to care. She looked straight at Geoff with a smirk.
“Well?” he said with a touch of impatience when she didn’t say anything.
“Mary did beautifully,” Kate replied in a soft voice, smiling. “I’ve never seen a woman deliver so quietly, but she is very strong, your wife. She is tired, obviously, but altogether quite well.”
He swallowed down a rather extensive lump of emotions that had lodged in his throat. “Can I see her?” he rasped without shame.
She smiled. “Of course. But don’t you want to ask after anyone else?”
Secrets of a Spinster Page 28