Forever

by Holt, Cheryl

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “You’re like a giant wrecking machine,” she said. “You bluster in and throw your weight around, and you destroy everything in your path.”

  “I haven’t destroyed you,” he blithely retorted. “Yet.”

  “It feels like you have.”

  They glowered, a thousand unspoken comments flitting between them. She could practically see the wheels spinning in his head. He was desperate to garner her compliance, and she wasn’t behaving according to plan.

  He walked over to her, and his eyes were warm, filled with affection. She yanked away, refusing to look at him. When he was sweet and fond, she couldn’t remain strong and detached.

  He sat next to her on the bench, and they dawdled side by side, staring at nothing.

  “Mary and Millie are going to live with me at Middlebury,” he said.

  “Should they?” she said without hesitating, but it wasn’t her place to have an opinion on the topic.

  “I think they should.”

  “What if it stirs a quarrel with your sister or Mr. Wallace?”

  “It won’t. Abigail is so delighted to have me back that she’ll agree to whatever I suggest, and Wallace avoids me and minds his own business.”

  “For now,” she said. “If you distress his wife, he might not be so complacent.”

  “Probably not, but I’m proceeding anyway.”

  “Of course you are,” she fumed. “You never consider anyone but yourself.”

  “It’s true, but in my own defense, for many years I didn’t get to have my own way. Ever. I’m making up for lost time.”

  “Then I’m certain it will work out famously.”

  “I’m certain it will too—although if I insist on having custody, I’d like them to have a mother.”

  “Yes, girls should definitely have a mother,” she snidely said. “You can look at Becky as an example of how they grow up when they don’t.”

  “You have a point, so I should marry. I had intended to delay, but I can’t.”

  The announcement incensed her, and she shifted toward him. “You’ll marry? Just like that?” She snapped her fingers under his nose. “You’ll find yourself a bride?”

  He shifted too, and he smirked. “Yes, just like that.”

  “Will you ride to London and scour the Marriage Market for a juvenile child who’s just out of the schoolroom?”

  “Could I locate a viable candidate there?”

  “No! What is wrong with you? Will you bring a silly debutante to Middlebury to raise your daughters? How could you want that?”

  “They are very special, and they had a rough beginning when they were still living with their mother. I have to stabilize things for them.”

  “With a debutante?” She scowled. “Oh, wait. You were eager to have a princess. Isn’t that what you boasted on Tenerife? You’ll wed very high, as high as you can.”

  “It’s an option.”

  “Would you hand them over to some snooty, royal…girl? She might not even be British. She might be a foreigner! Is that who you’d choose?”

  “When you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous.”

  “Yes, but it’s precisely what I’d expect of you. They deserve a real mother who genuinely cares about them.”

  He nodded. “It’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  “It is not. Don’t tell lies. It’s so annoying.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m determined to wed a female who will love them as much as I do.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Actually, I’ve stumbled on the perfect woman,” he abruptly declared.

  If he’d taken out a knife and stabbed her in the heart, he couldn’t have wounded her any more painfully.

  For most of a year, she’d been madly in love with him. She’d met him by accident in the Canary Islands, then had lost him, then had found him again. Their relationship had seemed destined to occur, as if Fate wouldn’t let them part. Or at least that’s what she had thought. What had he thought? Clearly, their opinions were vastly different.

  He’d already moved on? He’d selected a bride? He’d selected the mother for his children? It was enough to make her break down and weep for a week.

  “You’ve picked your bride,” she tightly said, “and it appears you’re about to wax on about this paragon, but I can’t listen to you extolling her virtues.”

  He gaped at her as if she were deranged, then he laughed and laughed. “You constantly prove that you are the most crazed person I’ve ever encountered. I have no idea why I bother with you.”

  “Why, thank you for the compliment, Lord Middlebury,” she sarcastically retorted. “I’ll always cherish it.”

  He reined in his mirth. “It’s you, you little dunce.”

  “It’s me…what?”

  “I want to marry you.”

  She scoffed. “No, you don’t.”

  “Why else would I be here?”

  “I figure you’re simply hoping to ruin another piece of my life before you head to your sister’s wedding.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I swear, Helen, I really fear for you. Your thought processes are absolutely convoluted.”

  “My thought processes are fine, and if you’ll excuse me, I have chores.”

  “I don’t excuse you,” he pompously said, “and you don’t have chores. You’ve been let go, remember?”

  As they’d bickered, she’d conveniently forgotten that fact. What was she to do? If she departed the school, what would be her destination? Normally, she’d have sought shelter with her father, but he was at Middlebury, and it was the one spot she’d resolved to never visit again.

  She stood, anxious to speak to Katherine, to plead if need be to be allowed to stay on. Katherine didn’t understand that Hayden Henley was a confirmed lunatic who should be ignored.

  He stood too, blocking her in so she couldn’t race to Katherine’s office.

  “Would you hold on for a second?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I’m about to ask you to marry me.”

  “That can’t possibly be true, Lord Middlebury. On several occasions in our abbreviated acquaintance, I’ve heard you expound on the notion of matrimony. You’ve been very blunt that I am too far beneath you, and I recognize how the world works. I wouldn’t presume to argue with the way things are. A man of your station doesn’t wed a woman of mine.”

  He grinned. “Unless he feels like it.”

  Stunning her, he dropped to a knee and clasped her hand. She tried to yank away, but he tightened his grip.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “You know what. Now hush.”

  “I won’t. Someone should talk some sense into you, and I’m the only one here.”

  “So? I never listen to women.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You’re quite unhinged yourself,” he said. “Now hush! And pay attention for once.”

  He was gazing at her so intently, and his keen focus was disturbing. When he displayed such visible affection, she couldn’t ward it off.

  “I was raised as a spoiled, vain aristocrat,” he said, “in a rich, prominent family.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “But I spent a hard decade where my past and my antecedents were completely irrelevant. I arrived home totally changed.”

  “Yes, and your path will be difficult because of it.”

  “You sound like Robert. Or your father.”

  “They’re older and wiser than us, and they’re right about you.”

  “I think they are. Robert, especially, has been scolding me to not pick a debutante or a princess.”

  “I always thought he was very smart.”

  “I persuaded myself that I could walk away from you. I persuaded myself that there was no place for you in my life.”

  “There’s not,” she churlishly said.

  “That�
��s where you’re wrong, Helen. You’re so wrong.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a ring. It was gold with a pretty emerald stone in the center.

  He slipped it onto her finger. “Marry me. Say yes.”

  “I never could.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m Helen Barnes and you’re Lord Middlebury.”

  “How many times must I tell you that I don’t care about that?”

  “You should care.”

  “I don’t. Marry me.”

  “I’m too afraid of you.”

  He frowned. “Afraid? Of me?”

  “You’re laboring under elevated stress from meeting your family, and obviously, it’s warped your reasoning ability. Suddenly, you believe marriage to me is a viable solution, but what if I agree, but in a few months, you realize your error? What then? Where would I be?”

  “You assume I’d renege? You assume I’m that fickle?”

  “Yes. So far, my experience—dancing on the fringe of your world—hasn’t been all that grand.”

  “I’ve been horrid. I admit it, but I’m not about to take no for an answer.”

  “Maybe you’ll finally have to, you arrogant beast.”

  “No, and I always get my way.”

  She hated to have him prostrate before her, and she lifted him to his feet. He towered over her, and he was so confident. How could he be so sure of what should happen, when she was so unsure? How could they have such divergent views?

  It reinforced her opinion that he was suffering from some sort of delusion, but he’d perk up quickly enough. Probably about the time a princess with a fat dowry strolled by.

  “Marry me, Helen,” he said again. “Come to Middlebury. Be my bride. Be my wife.”

  They were the words she’d been dying to hear, and they had a magical quality that rattled her, that drew her in when she couldn’t bear to be drawn.

  “Hayden, please. Stop pestering me.”

  “I won’t stop. My girls and I need you. You’ve observed how incapacitated I can become. My ordeals have left me crazed in the head to where I occasionally act quite mad, but you know how to soothe me, how to calm me.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “My daughters require that same kind of calming influence. They had a terrible beginning. Their mother is so deranged that Alex Wallace had flirted with the notion of locking her in an asylum.”

  “My goodness!” She blanched with dismay. Asylums were awful places.

  “They were reared like vagabonds, like orphans who had to fend for themselves.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s improved for them recently. My sister, Abigail, fixed many of their problems by marrying Wallace, but they’ll never be the same as they might have been.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured again.

  “I want all of us to be together at Middlebury. I want to wed you there. I want you to mother my daughters and give them the future they deserve to have. I want you to give me more children too. I just want us to be happy.”

  “I want that too.”

  The picture he painted was so stirring, and it called to a hunger deep inside her. For so many years, she’d been in a state of flux. She’d clung to her licentious father, putting out the fires he ignited with his immoral conduct.

  His sins, committed over and over, had guaranteed they were pariahs. They’d moved constantly and had no friends. Acquaintances ignored them on the street, and relatives declined to claim them.

  She’d never belonged anywhere. It was her greatest dream to be part of a family, to build something real and true. To…belong.

  She took care of people. It’s what she did best. It’s what she was good at. She’d taken care of him—when he’d let her—and she could take care of his daughters too. She had no doubt.

  But…she was worried that he didn’t mean it or that he’d change his mind later on.

  “Swear to me that you’re serious,” she said.

  “About what? About marrying you? Honestly, Helen, are you deaf? Try to concentrate.” He dropped to a knee again, her hand in his. “Marry me. Say yes.”

  “I’d need some assurances.”

  “What type of assurances?”

  “My father and sister would have to be allowed to remain at Middlebury.”

  “I already decided that. What else?”

  “You’d have to stay there with me. If you develop a wanderlust and grow anxious to travel, you can’t. You have to stay by my side.”

  “If you think I’d climb on board a sailing ship ever again, you’re mad.”

  “And if a rich heiress waltzes by, I’d better never hear that you wish you’d picked her instead of me.”

  “You deem me so shallow that I’d choose money over you?”

  “You’re a man and a very thickheaded one at that, so yes, you’d choose money over me.”

  “I almost did,” he confessed, “but I came to my senses. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I love you so much I’m dying with it.”

  “Oh, Hayden…”

  Their conversation dwindled, and he stared up at her, looking lonely and alone, but wonderful and devoted too. His affectionate gaze washed over her like a sweet caress.

  “I love you too,” she said. The words burst out of her. She couldn’t tamp them down. “I love you, and I always will.”

  He raised a cocky brow. “You haven’t answered me.”

  “What was the question?” she teased. “I seem to have forgotten it.”

  He cleared his throat, shoving away a surge of potent emotion. “Miss Barnes, will you do me the honor of becoming my bride?”

  She hesitated before responding. She was determined to absorb every detail of the moment: Hayden Henley on his knee, a pretty ring on her finger, the sky so blue, the grass so green.

  He’d never been very patient, and he shook her. “Miss Barnes! I’m waiting! What is your answer? It better be the one I’m expecting. Don’t you dare get some insane bee in your bonnet and refuse me.”

  “I will marry you, Hayden Henley. I would like that very much.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m very sure.”

  “With me it’s forever.”

  “With me it’s forever too.”

  He smiled. “So…is that a yes?”

  “I believe that’s a yes.”

  She pulled him to his feet, and he scooped her into his arms and delivered a stirring kiss that left her weak in the knees.

  “I knew I could convince you,” he said as he drew away.

  “I’m putty in your hands. I admit it.”

  “Yes, you are, and you always will be.”

  Behind them, the twins were suddenly running across the courtyard. They’d probably been watching the entire spectacle from inside the building.

  “We saw you give her the ring,” Millie said, “then we saw you kissing. Does this mean she agreed to have you?”

  “Yes,” Hayden said. “She agreed.”

  “We knew you could convince her,” Mary said as her father just had. She sounded just like him too.

  “Ha!” Hayden laughed. “I told her the very same.”

  “I held out as long as I could,” Helen said, “but I couldn’t resist.”

  “Why would you want to resist?” Millie asked. “You’ll get to have Hayden Henley as your husband for the rest of your life. Who wouldn’t want that?”

  “Who wouldn’t indeed?” Helen said.

  “It’s like a story out of a fairytale, and you’re the princess.”

  Hayden nodded. “I think that describes you perfectly, Helen. You’re the princess I’ve always needed, and I didn’t even have to search. Aren’t I lucky?”

  EPILOGUE(S)

  Hayden gazed out the window of the manor at Wallace Downs. He was in a deserted salon on the second floor and peering down into the driveway. His daughters, sister
s, and fiancée were climbing into carriages, heading to the church for the wedding. There were so many of them it would take two vehicles to convey them all.

  Attired in new gowns, with their hair curled and braided, they were all so pretty, like a bouquet picked from a beautiful, well-tended garden.

  He too had fussed over his clothes and had dressed like the earl he was. He’d groused and complained about it, but Helen had demanded he look like an aristocrat and not a pirate. He was wearing a formal gray suit, as were all the men in the wedding party, and he was ignoring how the tight coat rubbed the scars on his back, how he felt as if the cravat was choking him.

  It was to be a triple event, with Abigail, Catherine, and Sarah speaking their vows before a vicar. All three of them had married in a hurry. Sarah had eloped to Scotland while Abigail and Catherine had used a Special License.

  They were simply affirming their hasty decisions, and he had to admit that they’d all made good choices. Even Abigail—who’d shackled herself to his old foe, Alex Wallace.

  Mildred Farnsworth, Helen, and Becky were with his sisters. Mildred had become the twins’ grandmother, so she would have a seat of prominence in the front pew. Helen and Becky would sit with her due to the fact that Helen was his betrothed and they would have their own wedding the following spring.

  His sisters had urged him to join them in the ceremony, to have the vows repeated four times instead of three, but he was too vain to proceed that way. He intended to show off with Helen, but to honor his ancestors too. As was expected when the Earl of Middlebury took a wife, he would marry her at the cathedral in London, with the organ blaring and five hundred of England’s premier citizens watching them.

  He was eager to have the whole country commemorate his nuptials. He wanted the streets lined with cheering crowds as he rolled by in a golden carriage like a bloody king. It was an enormous amount of conceit, and Helen had protested that it was too ostentatious, but he would flaunt himself anyway.

  For the rest of their lives, they would reside quietly and modestly at Middlebury, but at the beginning, on the first day of their wedded life, they would celebrate as was appropriate to his rank and station.

  His part in the current ceremony would be to walk each sister down the aisle and deliver them to their husbands. When the vicar read the section of the vows that said, Who gives this woman in holy matrimony?, he would be present to state, I am their brother, and I gladly do.