'I think that she replied to his sudden proposal more clearly than you did to mine, my love.'
'Oh, she looked happy, did she not? She is not making a mistake?'
'If there was ever a smitten individual, it is Audley. He was trying not to marry her because he was not good enough for her.'
'I do not understand. But it seems he loves her.'
'We shall leave Sally to tell you all about it when she visits your room later,' said Lady Aurora, knowingly.
'Oh, should I have left her alone with him?'
'They are affianced now. I think it quite permissible, do not you?'
'You should go, my love,’ said Emma Richards to her betrothed. 'It is late to travel, even so far as Audley.'
'I will stay the night,' said Steadman decidedly. 'I will want to interview Audley at breakfast time in my new role as Papa.'
'Oh yes, dear, so you should. Although I think it impossible to stop them now, do not you?' said Emma Richards.
'I must say, both you and Audley are making free with bed and board at the baron's expense,' Fenton remarked.
'And you, sir,' countered Steadman. 'Did you receive a formal invitation to stay?'
'I shall take my wife to her chamber now,' said Fenton, ignoring him. 'While you await the lovers. You should order more tea. I foresee a long wait.'
'Ianthe and Fox—' said Lady Richards, once more worried about the proprieties.
'Don't worry about Ianthe. I never worry about Ianthe. She always comes about.' Leading out his wife, he left the room.
'Jenkins,' he ordered that individual when in the hall, 'have another two rooms made up this evening. Lord Fox is too occupied to mention it, but I believe that Mr Steadman and the Marquis of Audley will stay the night.'
'Yes sir, I had already foreseen the possibility, sir, and have arranged the matter.'
'Of course you have,' approved Mr Fenton, nodding his head in passing.
***
It was a little chilly on the terrace and Sally drew the shawl tight around her as they walked, her head resting on Audley's upper arm where he had drawn it to him, her hand threaded through his arm.
'Is my gown really unbecoming?'
'In this light, it is tolerable,' replied Audley, in a rollicking mood.
'It was very expensive. In fact, Lord Fox bought it for me.'
'What?'
'He sent Mama funds for my come out.'
'Damn his hide. I will buy you a dozen prettier ones.'
'Will you? But I like this one.'
He pulled her closer. 'And I like it too. I like everything about you since you have agreed to be my wife.'
'Did I? I wonder why I did that?' said Sally, in a rollicking mood herself.
'So that you may ride Sapphire on a daily basis, I expect.'
'I expect that was it,' agreed Sally seriously. Then her voice became low and husky. 'Audley, why did you change your mind?'
'Your little performance with Ianthe must have worked,' he said with one raised eyebrow.
'It was not a performance, but a resolution,' Sally sniffed.
'Which you changed with alarming promptness when somebody made you an offer,' remarked the marquis, to see her light up again. He had his arms firmly around her waist, however, and was laughing down at her.
'Not someone — you!' said Sally fiercely. 'Ianthe and I resolved never to marry since the two idiots whom we loved would never propose.'
Audley stopped and pulled her closer. 'Love. I needed to hear that word from your lips.' He kissed her and she closed her eyes and melted further into his arms. Her lips were soft and warm, she was a little shy, but as his mouth moved on hers, she raised her hands to his shoulders as if to stop herself from swooning.
'Oh, so that is how you kiss women,' she said as she pulled away. 'How many of them?'
'I told you before. Too many.'
'Five?' she asked. 'Ten?' She looked aghast. 'Not more?'
'Remember that I have ten years start on you,' he said, playing with a curl and looking deep into her eyes.
Sally said, 'Oh well, if you have had ten years start, I had better catch up quickly. Where can I find ten men to kiss? Mr Markham might oblige. But that is only one.'
He shook her by the waist. 'That's enough. I found lately that jealousy, an emotion I thought for schoolboys, was near to eating me alive.'
'You were jealous? Of me?' Sally jumped up and down in delight. 'Oh, how wonderful! I wanted to poke Lady Sophia's eye out with my fork, only for smiling at you.’ He blinked and grinned at this new side to his love. ‘And I was even a little jealous of Ianthe on our rides, though I was very ashamed of myself.'
'My jealousy was not wonderful. It was beneath me. But though I had decided I could not offer for you, I had to leave for London in case I killed my old friend Markham stone dead when he smiled at you.'
'You made me suffer so much. I thought you just a friend, but when you were gone I felt as though a limb had been torn from me,’ he touched a soothing hand to her hair, but it was evident he was delighted. ‘And even when Mr Markham smiled at me, I just wanted you to be horrid instead.'
'You may now be horrid to me every day for a lifetime,' he said encouragingly.
'I will!' she assured him. Then her tone changed to being a little uncertain. 'Do you think you will miss them, those dreadful pleasures?' she asked, touching his cheek.
'No.' He was smiling and smiling at her.
Her eyebrows shot up. 'Then you will no longer wager?'
'Well,' he tempered, 'at my club of course, like any man.'
'Or drink?'
'Well every man must savour wine in his life,' he said reasonably.
'Not to excess then?' She inquired.
'There may be occasions when it is needful to keep my good friends company. Sometimes one may be excessive—'
'Audley!’ Sally reprimanded. ‘You are not intending to deny a single one of your pleasures so far.' She held on to his lapels and looked up at him piteously. 'And the female amusements?'
The marquis was not deceived by her look but reassured her anyway. He gazed down into her lovely pale eyes. 'I shall need no other female amusement than you, my lovely, lovely—' he broke off to kiss her, and inside, Sally laughed and laughed.
***
Fox dragged Ianthe into his study and locked the door, which she regarded with an approving eye. He moved towards her hesitating just a second, took her shoulders and bent to brush his lips gently on hers. As she stepped forward and lifted her fingers to his face, all hesitation flew and he took her to a winged chair near to the fire and sat, pulling her on to his knee.
He kissed her thoroughly, violently holding her curls, then pulled back, taking a breath and looked at her. 'Why did you not tell me I adored you?' he asked her again.
'I was not always confident that you did,' she said surprisingly shyly, pulling at his cravat in a distracted manner.
'You? Not confident?'
'Is anyone confident in love?’ she fingered the damage she had done to his cravat, still not looking at him. ‘I could not really be sure. Especially as you did not know yourself. I only knew it had happened to me.'
He hugged her to him, and his chin rested on the top of her curls, and her arms snaked around his neck.
'When?' he asked her.
'I think from the first, but I did not really know what it was. You are very handsome of course—'
'Am I?' he asked, amazed.
'I am so glad you did not realise that. Well done for not becoming Audley. Do not the young ladies in town pursue you?'
'No.'
'I expect they do,’ she said wisely, ‘but you have not noticed. Has a young lady ever fallen at your feet?'
'Miss Young tripped once, and Lady … never mind,' he said, seeing the martial light in Ianthe's eye. 'Well, she slid on a stair at the opera.'
'They were both trying to entrap you, in all probability, but you were too foolish to notice. I am so glad you are Mr Fenton's
ass.' She played with his hair. 'Was there really no one that you felt that coup de foudre for? No one at all?'
'There was.' Ianthe sat up straight and pulled back. 'A maid who put cream in my porridge when I was in school. She smiled at me a lot and I loved her madly. I was eight.'
'I hate her,' said Ianthe, but laid back on him again. 'At first, or perhaps second, glance, I trusted you, Edward. It was new to me to trust a man of your age. Audley did not count, and I never quite trusted Antoine. But I trusted you immediately even when you were offering to make those dreadful provisions for me.'
'I was awful to you and spent most of my time being angry — why on earth would you bestow your trust on someone like me?' he wondered, searching her face.
'You were saying ridiculous things, of course, because you have no facility to express how you feel, but your eyes were kind.' She looked into his fox eyes now, those warm and deep eyes, a little dreamily. 'And though I often have seen you angry, and so mired in your own misery that you could not consider those around you properly, still you never were first to do the hurtful thing.' She raised her brows. 'I am much worse than you, there.
'I agree. I cannot count the designing things you have come up with to torture Lady Fox. I could not have thought of the half of them.'
'That is because you are much kinder than I,' she said, taking his face in both of her hands.
'No. We are all changed by your kindness, Ianthe, though it might have come in a strange form.’ He kissed her again. ‘Ah, I cannot believe you will agree to marry me and live all your life with the Fighting Foxes.' He sighed. 'I will try to make it up to you.'
'Do not fear.' She looked so like her old naughty self that he raised an eyebrow. 'Curtis will move to Broadbank and take his mama with him. Sally thinks he has fallen in love on his last visit there and means to marry a young lady from a neighbouring estate. We shall be just us three. You and I and maman, of course. My Cherie.'
'I could always tell that she was special to you. The servants will talk, I suppose, but we will keep the secret within the walls.'
'Oh, don't worry about that.' Ianthe grinned. 'Wait until you see her tomorrow. She has had little to do with anyone but Jenkins, at my request. She has slept and eaten in my room for the most part, and when the other servants see her tomorrow, they will not recognise her.'
'You think so?'
'Audley will take her out in the carriage and bring her back later. I shall instruct him to do so. She will come as my maman, newly arrived from France.' Ianthe twinkled. 'Freeing my maid to return to her family in France.'
'Still,' said Fox, as though loath to mention it, 'there is a rather identifying mark.'
'Ah!' laughed Ianthe wickedly. 'The eyebrows are not real, you know, but drawn on. Wait until you see how lovely she is! I insisted on the disguise you know, because whatever she thought, I knew I would claim her to stand beside me, even when I did not know she was my real maman. You will love her, Edward. It is impossible not to, Papa always said. She is as kind as you. And she has a temper too, but only when someone tries to harm me.'
'I shall do my level best not to incur her displeasure.'
'You had better not. She carries a pistol, you know.'
'What?'
She laughed. 'Oh, Edward!' She moved her mouth to him again, and he claimed it.
'Ianthe, I know I have come to this realisation of love so late, but from the first day I was shaken by you. Not just because you are lovely—'
'You think so? You have never seemed swept away by beauty. I have not seen your eyes linger on me as some others have.'
'But they did. I must have been rather better than them at not getting caught. But I did not want to admire you, to fall for a pretty face. Only, you kept upending my life. You invited me in to play — first with you and then with the Richards. And suddenly I had a real family, as I remembered from childhood. One where people laughed and teased each other, where they trusted and backed each other up in adversity. I began to love you all then. I felt alive again.'
'And you shall not lose that family, with Cousin Emma at Stone Manor and Sally at Audley.’ He smiled, and Fox’s genuine smile was enough to make Ianthe’s knees turn to water. ‘It is not surprising that you locked that big heart away, for it had been badly treated. But your mother's love must have made you the man I trusted from the beginning.'
'When did you know that the trust was more than that? That it was love?'
'Trust is always love, I think. The very best kind of love.’ He gazed at her, his strong fingers tracing her face, his breath coming deep. ‘But when you were near me, my heart fluttered a little. No, a lot.'
'Mmm. I frequently lost my ability to breathe, but I thought it was just the usual male reaction to the nearness to a beauty such as you. I had never before experienced that, you know.’ He kissed her neck. ‘You have always touched me. I was so affected by that, since it is practically unknown in my adult life. I believe you have touched me more since I have known you than in my life previously.'
'I suppose I did touch you somewhat.’ She laughed at him. ‘But you did so more.’ He looked stunned. ‘It seemed natural to me to have you do so, but it shook me, too.'
Edward Fox’s face became dreamy. ‘It was me,’ he said, thinking back. ‘I grasped your hands, your shoulders. I never have done so before, but somehow…’
‘Yes. Somehow…’ she said, dotingly, watching him understand.
'But you, too, touched me. Your hand on my arm, or on my cheek. I thought it perhaps a French custom. But I began to long for it.'
'A Frenchman, given such encouragement, would have taken full advantage. And still you did not know you loved me?' she teased.
'There is no denying it,' Fox laughed at himself. 'Fenton is right. I am a complete ass.'
'Yes, my dear, dear idiot. You were.'
He kissed her again long, deeply and lovingly. 'I seem to be becoming proficient at this,' he remarked. 'Today, I’m afraid to tell you, was my first kiss.'
Ianthe curled her legs up and squirmed around to face him, still on his knees.
'Ouch,' he complained.
'Never mind that. Your first kiss? But you are so oooollllld.'
'Yes,' he said, kissing her again. 'I have a lot of time to make up for.'
'You did not manage to kiss the maid?'
'I was not tall enough to reach her, alas.'
'And in London? Not even with ladies, with ladies from those places?'
'No. Those places, which young ladies should not know of,' he reproved her, tapping her nose, 'never interested me.'
‘You are as different from Antoine as it is possible to be,’ she sighed. ‘I am so glad.’
He narrowed his eyes. 'I must suppose you to have been kissed many times, racketing around Europe as you did.'
'I did racket around Europe. But I did it with Mr Joseph Eames and Cherie. Let us just say that certain behaviours would not be tolerated.'
'Not even…' he paused.
'Not even Antoine. He did kiss me on the hand a number of times. Passionately too. It was thrilling.'
Fox growled like the animal he was. He took her hands in his and showered every inch of them with kisses. 'He shall not do so again,' he said.
'No, my love, my dearest, dearest love.' She was laughing at him.
'You are a vixen!' he cried and kissed her again. He laid back, hugging her closer. 'How did I come to be this happy, Ianthe? It has been creeping up on me in steps since you arrived, and I cannot find the words to tell you.'
'Finally, I am a vixen! The proper Fox's mate. Let us sit like this for a while, Edward.' He moved his head. 'No, do not kiss me, for if we do so, we may never stop. As beginners, we are too proficient, I find.’ He laughed and pulled her to him again, but she did not permit it. ‘Lady Richards will be waiting. And Sally.' She laid her head on his chest. 'Let us just stay like this for a while before I go to them.'
'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ he quoted, ‘you wil
l still be mine.’ He hugged her close, and they stayed that way for some time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Epilogue
When Mrs Eames arrived, the mother of the future Lady Fox, Jenkins the butler blinked for half a second, met her eye, then bowed, very low.
Mrs Eames was found to have a copious amount of natural black curls, only a few silver strands to reflect her age, and her beautiful black, luminous eyes, rimmed with long dark lashes and framed by delicately shaped brows, rivalled those of her step daughter. She was dressed in a claret coloured moiré pelisse that Ianthe remembered from London as Lady Aurora's. That lady had obviously decided that Cherie's true clothes, hidden so long among Ianthe’s, while lovely, needed an extra punch from herself. A large velvet muff covered her hands, a reticule hung from her wrist, an extraordinary bonnet, soon discarded, had been atop her head and framed the dark curls beneath. Her hands and feet were clad in the finest kid. The maids, with not a hint of recognition from one of them, curtsied low, and Cherie swept in to meet the others. She was greeted by Ianthe, who naturally enough, ran into her mother's arms.
Wilbert Fenton smiled as the others were stunned by the transformation. Mrs Eames bowed to the baroness with just the right degree of discernment while that lady was goggle-eyed.
'My word,' said Curtis. 'What a beauty!'
It was said so innocently that the company laughed. Edward led her to a chair and seated her with great attention. Mrs Eames sat with the grace of a true lady.
Fenton bowed at her ironically.
'My dear friend Wil-bert,' Cherie said pleasantly. 'It is an age since we met.'
It had been but a few hours ago that he had seen her in his wife's chamber. Fenton smiled at her, a twinkle in his eye, then looked at first at Curtis' smiling face, then Lady Fox's expression, reluctantly accepting, and even relieved that this woman would not disgrace them. And Fox beamed. It was disconcerting, admitted Fenton to himself, that Fox beamed. That stone cold, or alternately angry face seemed gone for ever. He exchanged a humorous glance with Audley, who was standing nearby with his betrothed.
'It could only be done by Ianthe. So many happy endings, it seems, are due to her persuading Fox to your dinner that night.'
Ianthe and the Fighting Foxes: The Fentons Book 4 Page 27