Lucian, still carrying his niece and nephew in his arms, shepherded his family into Belle Haven. Angel looked with pride at her home. Lucian had spared no expense to obliterate the scars the Crowes had inflicted upon it.
Although as Angel’s husband, he legally controlled all that she owned, he had insisted that Belle Haven was hers alone. Nothing was done on the estate until she was consulted and gave her approval. And it was not just Belle Haven that Lucian discussed with her. Their marriage was becoming the partnership that she had wanted.
The Crowes would never again disturb her and Lucian’s happiness. They had been tried, convicted, and would soon be hanged for her father’s murder.
After Rupert’s arrest, Angel’s mother had been found dead in his London town house from an overdose of laudanum that he was strongly suspected of having administered to her. But that could not be proved.
Later that afternoon, Fritz’s children were put down for naps and their mama, who was feeling unwell after their journey, opted to take one too. Lucian asked his father, wife, and brother to go riding with him. Fritz, who was worried about his wife, elected to remain with her, but the other three rode out.
As they neared the top of a hill near Belle Haven’s boundary, Lucian reined in his horse. “We will stop here.”
As they dismounted, his father asked, “Why here?”
Smiling, Lucian took the older man’s arm. “Because I have a present for you,” he said as he guided Wrexham the final few steps to the crest of the hill.
Lucian held out a large ring of keys to him.
His puzzled father asked, “What are they for?”
“That,” Lucian said with a sweep of his hand toward the house in the dale below them. “It is yours now.”
Wrexham was clearly flabbergasted as he recognized his boyhood home. “Sommerstone,” he whispered. “I never thought I would see this day. How did you manage it?”
“Lord Bloomfield was so grateful for Kitty’s rescue from the Crowes that I persuaded him to sell it to me.”
Wrexham smiled proudly up at his son.
“I am overjoyed to have the estate back in our family, and I thank you a thousand times over for it,” he said in a quavering voice. “But you had already given me the gift that I craved above all else—your love and forgiveness.”
That night after Lucian had made love to her with aching tenderness and soaring passion, Angel lay in his arms, remembering how enthusiastically he had played with his niece and nephew. He would be a good father.
She turned her head on the pillow and lightly stroked the strong line of his jaw with her fingertips.
“Lucian, I have a gift for you, although it will be a few months before I can actually present it to you.”
He blinked uncomprehendingly at her, a sweep of jet lashes over silver, then his mouth curved up in a delighted smile.
“Are you telling me you are giving me a little angel?”
“Or perhaps a little devil,” she said wryly.
Lucian hugged her to him, kissing her exuberantly. “How long?” he asked in a voice husky with emotion.
“Six months.”
He touched her belly reverently. “You have already given me so much—my father and brother back, peace, love, happiness, now this.”
“But I will never be the obedient wife you wanted.”
“No, I thank God every day that a little hoyden flew into my life and promptly turned it and all my stupid notions about love and marriage and the kind of wife I wanted upside down.”
His hand stroked the curve of her hip. “Your father was right as usual. Marriage should be based on mutual love and respect. That is what makes ours so satisfying.”
She said softly, “I did not think I would ever be able to thaw your frozen heart.”
Lucian grinned at her. “When an angel falls in love with a devil, nothing is impossible.”
Devil’s Angel Page 37