by Lauren Royal
“I like it, too,” he confessed, his temperature hiking as he breathed in the scent of flowers. The visual deprivation seemed to make him more aware of his other senses. Her fragrance was making his head swim, and his thigh felt on fire where it pressed against hers. When his hands found her cheeks again—without mishap this time—her skin was silken and exquisitely soft.
And she’d said yes. She wasn’t going to Wales. If everything worked out, she was going to be his Chrysanthemum.
When he noticed his face felt tired, he wondered how long he’d been grinning like an idiot in the dark.
“You’re certain you want me to kiss you now?” he stopped to whisper, an inch from her lips. “Because we can wait—”
“Joseph?”
“Yes, Chrysanthemum?”
“Don’t be such an old fust-cudgel.”
And then they were kissing.
TWENTY-THREE
CHRYSTABEL had broken Arabel’s rule: She had agreed to marry a man without kissing him first.
And now she cursed herself for it. How could she have been so stupid? If only she’d kissed Joseph yesterday in the cellar, when she’d had the chance. Now it was too late. Now she’d wasted a whole day.
A whole day she could have spent kissing him. A whole day she would never get back.
Oh, well. They’d just have to spend the rest of their lives making up for it.
When he tried to come up for air, she made an indignant noise and pulled his head back down, knotting her fingers in his glorious Cavalier hair. This was her first kiss, and she wasn’t ready for it to be over yet.
Everything had happened so fast. In mere days she’d gone from not knowing Joseph to loving him to learning he belonged to another, and now, miraculously, he was hers.
They were betrothed, and they were kissing, and it was the most marvelous thing that had ever happened to her. His lips were soft and gentle and tasted of warm chocolate. She clung to him like ivy, and she had no intention of loosening her grip any time soon.
When she finally did allow him to lift his head for a moment, their breathing sounded ragged in the darkness. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Well?” he said after his breath had calmed a bit.
“Well, what?”
“How was your first kiss?”
Her heart pounded so loudly she wondered if he could hear it. “Oh, I don’t know,” she breezed. “Maybe with a bit more practice—”
“Practice?”
He was absolutely darling. She smiled against his neck.
“You’re teasing me,” he grumbled.
She began to nod, then stopped since he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
“Once we are wed, I shall forbid you from teasing. Viscountesses are far too grand for such behavior, anyhow.”
I’m going to be the Viscountess Tremayne. A little thrill ran through her. Lady Tremayne.
“I won’t listen,” she told him with a giggle. She’d never imagined herself laughing in the arms of her love, but it felt right. Everything with Joseph felt right.
“You think you can defy your husband?” he said with mock outrage.
“Watch me,” she would’ve replied. But she couldn’t, because quite suddenly, his hand curved around the nape of her neck and brought her lips to his again.
It was a long time before he broke the kiss.
“Mmm,” she hummed happily as his mouth moved to touch her nose, her forehead, each of her cheeks.
“And how was your second kiss, Chrysanthemum?” he whispered in her ear.
She tilted her head back to allow him access to her throat, shivering when his warm lips met the sensitive skin there. “Pure magic,” she breathed, eliciting a low, appreciative laugh.
“Just as I thought. Now, about your third kiss—”
They both froze at a scraping sound overhead. Chrystabel peered up at the priest hole’s entrance, not that she could see anything in the blackness.
Until a flicker of daylight told her the wardrobe’s false bottom was being removed. She swallowed her terror, telling herself it was just Arabel, coming to free them at last.
When the bottom was lifted, dim light filtered in first.
“Arabel?” she called softly.
Bright light flooded the chamber as a torch was thrust into the opening above. “I knew it!” Sir Leonard crowed as he descended, sounding disgustingly pleased with himself.
Chrystabel and Joseph bolted upright simultaneously.
She heard the third step snap, a loud crack like a cricket bat slamming a ball in the Grange’s village square. But Sir Leonard didn’t falter. He came closer, waving the torch before him in victory.
“I knew I’d find you hiding with this foul lot. Mark my words, girl, your great friend Trentingham will finally get what’s coming to him. And as for you, Creath, you will marry me today, or—”
“Who is Beth?” Chrystabel squeaked.
“Who is…? Who the devil are you?” he roared as he reached the bottom.
Shakily, Chrystabel rose to her feet. “I am Lady Chrystabel Trevor,” she said with all the dignity she could muster—which was quite a bit. “I’m a guest of the Ashcrofts. I don’t know who this Beth is you’re speaking of, but I can assure you she’s not here.”
“Not Beth, you halfwit—Creath! It rhymes with breath!” He crisscrossed the room frantically, poking the torch into every corner in a fruitless search for his betrothed.
“Creath isn’t here, your worship,” Joseph growled, rising from the pallet, too. “It’s the second time you’ve made this mistake. If you leave now, perhaps we shall pretend it was an honest one.”
“Do you take me for an idiot, boy? If you’re not harboring my bride, why on earth are you hiding in a priest hole?” he bellowed furiously, pulling a pistol from his wide boot top and brandishing it at Chrystabel.
Her heart jumped into her throat. She stumbled back, falling onto the pallet at the same time Joseph leapt forward and shoved Sir Leonard hard in the chest with the heels of both hands.
“Leave her alone!” he hollered. “How dare you point a gun at a lady!” Still advancing, he backed Sir Leonard against the steep staircase. “You witless worm, we’re down here because we have Christmas decorations! That’s right—you caught us celebrating Christmas,” he sneered. “What are you going to do about it? Will you turn us in, o valiant Sir Justice of the Peace? Or will shoot us? Is this what your life has come to, pestering neighbors to confiscate harmless ribbons and twigs?”
“Too right, I’ll turn you in! I’m going to see your family stripped of everything you hold dear, Tremayne. Right after I get my hands on that rotten, ungrateful wench!” He spat on the floor before turning to storm back up the steep staircase, his torch in one hand and the pistol still in the other.
Joseph rushed up the stairs after him. “Wait! The third step!”
Sir Leonard half-turned, but it was too late.
As one foot crashed through the ruined step, terror flashed in his eyes. His pistol went off. Chrystabel screamed and threw herself down on the pallet an instant before the rest of his body plunged through the staircase.
She heard something hit the ground with a great meaty thump and the hideous crack of bone, followed by a small shower of debris.
Chrystabel waited for silence before daring to raise her head. The first thing she observed was that, miraculously, the staircase hadn’t collapsed. Second, she saw Joseph standing halfway up the stairs, apparently unharmed. Her heart began beating again.
Until she saw the body under the staircase. It lay motionless beneath a scattering of wood fragments, its neck at an odd angle, its arms spread out to the sides.
Chrystabel screamed again as Sir Leonard’s torch guttered against the stone floor. The room was plunged back into darkness but for a sliver of daylight that filtered in from the opening above.
“Heaven have mercy! Oh, Joseph, I think he’s dead!”
“What? Chrystabel, did you say someth
ing?” His voice rising in panic, Joseph shook his head. “I cannot hear you! What did you say?”
“You couldn’t hear me yelling at you? I said Sir Leonard is dead!” she yelled some more as she rushed toward him. “Can’t you hear—”
“I’m sorry, I cannot hear you!” He shouted as though she were fifty feet away rather than five. “Do you hear the ringing?” He shook his head again, then clapped his hands over his ears with a howl of pain. “I heard the gun go off, and now I can only hear ringing!”
She gasped when his fingers came away coated in blood. “Joseph!”
“Chrysanthemum? Did you say something? Can you hear me, my love?”
TWENTY-FOUR
A month later
EVERYTHING HAD worked out.
The Church ofSt. Mary the Virgin was immediately adjacent to Tremayne Castle. A high, covered timber bridge linked the two buildings. The duke who built Tremayne had used the bridge to directly reach a church balcony that overlooked the sanctuary, so he could come and go and attend services without deigning to speak to any parishioners.
The duke didn’t sound like a nice man. Chrystabel thought maybe he’d deserved his beheading.
In any case, the bridge was long in disrepair, so the Ashcrofts and Trevors had walked out to the road and over to the church for the wedding on this fine, if cold, day. Since big church weddings were frowned upon by the Commonwealth government, there was only family attending and no parishioners to talk to, anyway.
As they weren’t really out in public, Chrystabel had decided to wear her new strand of pearls for her church wedding, together with a pre-Cromwell gown: a pale blue confection with silver scrollwork and seed pearls on the stomacher and underskirt. She’d changed into it after this morning’s civil ceremony, and Joseph had gaped appreciatively when he saw her all dressed up. Although they had already been declared man and wife by a Justice of the Peace, she didn’t feel married yet. She thought she might not feel really married until after the church wedding and the wedding breakfast. She’d been planning the menu for weeks.
But this service was taking so long that she feared half of her magnificent meal might spoil before their families got to enjoy it.
The tall, majestic church had been built in stages over the last several centuries. It had a Norman doorway, a Gothic chancel, a Tudor bell tower, a soaring dark wood hammerbeam ceiling, and many beautiful, colorful stained glass windows. Standing before the intricately carved altar while the vicar read the interminable service, Chrystabel felt dwarfed in the enormous old building. She normally enjoyed the quiet solemnity of church services, but today she was far too excited to stand still.
Today she gained not only a husband, but an entire family.
When she and Joseph had emerged from the priest hole, Lord Trentingham had been clearly bewildered to learn of their betrothal. But he’d bid her a hearty and sincere welcome to the Ashcroft clan, cracking open several bottles of Tremayne’s best vintage.
Lady Trentingham had, of course, appeared considerably less surprised. But when she’d requested this morning that the bride call her “Mother” from now on, Chrystabel had felt happy tears welling in her eyes.
And that was to say nothing of her three new sisters-in-law, three new brothers-in-law, and a growing gaggle of nieces and nephews. There’d only been time enough last night for kisses and congratulations, but Chrystabel knew they’d all be fast friends. The girls seemed a lively bunch—they obviously took after their mother.
And she’d already taken a particular interest in her eldest nephew, who was just a year younger than Arabel and never seen without a book in his hands. Looking over her shoulder, the bride laughed silently to see the boy reading in his pew and Arabel trying to hide her annoyance at his rudeness.
What a lucky coincidence that they’d been seated beside each other.
When the vicar finally flipped to the back of his prayerbook and cleared his throat, Chrystabel turned her attention forward.
At last, she thought, her heart soaring. She squeezed Joseph’s hand as the vicar began chanting their vows.
“Joseph Ashcroft, The Right Honorable Viscount Tremayne, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?” He was a very soft-spoken man, which she found a bit worrisome. “Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
An expectant silence filled the church.
“Say that last part louder,” Chrystabel whispered to the vicar.
“So long as ye both shall live?” he repeated.
“Louder.”
“So long as ye both shall live?” he fairly yelled.
“I will,” Joseph said, his confident words finally booming through the magnificent arched sanctuary.
Along with everyone else, Chrystabel breathed a sigh of relief.
After the late Sir Leonard’s gun went off right next to Joseph’s head, his ears had been ringing and sore for days. He still hadn’t fully recovered his hearing, though Chrystabel thought he would eventually heal. In any case, over the last weeks she had assured him—very loudly and very often—that she would be just as happy to wed him hearing or deaf.
The soft-spoken vicar cleared his throat again and looked back down at his Book of Common Prayer. “Lady Chrystabel Trevor, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband…”
Tucked into the corner of a pew, Matthew and his new wife held hands, whispering their vows surreptitiously. They hadn’t been able to have a church wedding of their own, so it warmed Chrystabel’s heart to see them sharing in hers today.
After their civil ceremony in Bristol, they’d returned Christmas Day evening to the shocking news of Sir Leonard’s demise.
“Would you like to have our marriage annulled?” Matthew had asked Creath quietly, his face whiter than the snow falling outside. “Until the union is consummated, we can still get an annulment. And now that your cousin is no longer a threat…”
Creath had burst into tears. Racking, heart-rending, inconsolable tears.
Chrystabel had turned her eyes heavenward. “Matthew, you’re an idiot.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Arabel had put in politely.
The new Lord and Lady Grosmont had gone away to Moore Manor—where they meant to reside for the time being—and returned the next day smiling, holding hands, and saying nothing of an annulment. Which Chrystabel took to mean the marriage had been enthusiastically consummated.
Now the two were drawing up plans for a new house on Creath’s mother’s land. Since the authorities had taken nearly a year to verify Sir Leonard’s claim to the baronetcy, the couple expected they’d have plenty of time to build before the next baronet ousted them from Moore Manor.
Creath’s son wouldn’t inherit her father’s title, but eventually he’d inherit Matthew’s title instead. He’d be an earl instead of a mere baronet. She was fine with that.
And Matthew was more than fine with the resolution to his financial troubles. His income from Grosmont in Wales added to the income from his wife’s inheritance put them well on their way to rebuilding the Trevor family fortune.
But that was not why he’d married Creath, of course. Anyone with eyes in their head could see how much he loved her. And everyone who knew them remarked on how well they were suited—both having similarly levelheaded and affable dispositions. Chrystabel reckoned theirs would be an exceptionally polite and agreeable marriage.
Arabel and Creath had become great friends, a convenient turn of events since they were now sharing a home. Arabel would naturally continue living under her brother’s roof until she married. At fifteen and one-half, she was in no hurry to wed.
And given that it would be four or five years until the bookish nephew was old enough to marry, her matchmaking sister saw no reason to rush her.
In the meantime, Arabel was happy to not be in Wales and to h
ave her brother and sister close by. As ever, she was easy to please.
As Chrystabel had dreamed, she’d be living at Tremayne Castle when Joseph’s Tudor gardens bloomed in the summer. But she hadn’t dared to dream of living just a mile from her siblings.
It was clear that she, Arabel, and Matthew had been sorely in need of a fresh start. While they’d always treasure fond memories of their old life at Grosmont Grange, Chrystabel knew they’d make even better memories in their new homes, surrounded by those who held family as their first priority.
“…so long as ye both shall live?” the vicar concluded expectantly.
In the hush that followed, Chrystabel drew a deep breath. “I will,” she pledged, her voice ringing clear and true through the sanctuary.
A few more words, a family heirloom ring slid onto her finger, and she was astonished to find she felt married, the new Viscountess Tremayne.
She felt married. Before the wedding breakfast.
It was, unmistakably, the most wonderful feeling ever.
When her new husband lowered his lips to hers, Arabel burst into applause. But Chrystabel didn’t allow the kiss to be as long or energetic as their usual kisses.
They were in a church, after all.
When he released her, she saw that Matthew and Creath had been kissing as well. And that Arabel was grinning at them like a lunatic, clearly overjoyed for both her siblings.
Chrystabel saw that Lady Trentingham—no, make that Mother—looked thrilled.
And that Lord Trentingham looked cheerful, but perplexed.
He’d been wearing that expression a lot lately.
“I still don’t understand,” he sighed as they all walked back to Tremayne, looking forward to Chrystabel’s masterpiece of a wedding breakfast. “You all met just three days before Christmas. How can it be that four people fell in love so fast?”