A Season of Hope (Danby #2)(20)

He pulled out the envelope from within the front pocket of his jacket and extracted Danby’s Christmas gift.



I hope you don’t believe I’d ever let a legal contract stand in my way, Marcus.



Marcus shuffled through the sheets and stopped on the third parchment.

He needed her.

“Olivia,” he shouted.

The butler seemed to anticipate Marcus’ actions, and held open the front door.

Marcus cursed his faulty vision as he ran out of the castle and peered after the carriage as it pulled down the long drive.

He flew down the steps. His Hessian boots tossed up snow and ice but he didn’t feel the cold. He needed to get to her, needed to stop her.

“Olivia,” he cried and raced down the drive after the Marquess of Tewkesbury’s carriage. His lungs felt near to bursting from the exertion of his efforts but he urged his legs to move faster. “Olivia!” he cried again, her name coming out as a raspy, gasp of air.

The conveyance disappeared from sight and he stumbled to a stop.

He hunched over, his palms pressed against his knees as he desperately tried to suck in a breath.

Gone. He’d lost her.

“No,” he whispered and then the enormity of his loss ravaged him. “Olivia,” he shouted, her name carried through the barren winter sky.

“Yes, Marcus?”

Marcus jerked upright and he spun around.

Olivia shoved the hood of her cloak down and looked at him. Her head, cocked at an endearing little angle.

Dreaming. He was dreaming. He looked from her to the point where the coach had disappeared.

“I didn’t go.” She held her gloved hands, palm up. “I couldn’t leave you.”

Tears flooded Marcus’s one good eye and he blinked it back.

“I saw you leave.”

She shook her head. “No, you saw me walk out the door. I didn’t leave, Marcus. I love you,” she said.

“I don’t deserve you,” he rasped.

A mischievous little smile tilted the corner of her lips, red from the cold. “Most of the time you do.”

Marcus closed his eye again, a laugh thundered within in his chest and grew and grew until his entire frame shook with relieved amusement.

Olivia took a step toward him.

He held up a palm.

Then, reached inside his jacket and pulled out the envelope. He withdrew the Duke of Danby’s gift and shook it in the air. “This is a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

Her eyes went wide, the deep blue of her irises a splash of color in the grayish-white day.

Marcus dropped to a knee. “I want to marry you, Olivia.” He frowned. “No, that is, I need you. Rather…”

Olivia flew across the drive, her long strides eating up the distance between them. She launched herself into his arms until Marcus toppled backwards into the snow.

His fall was braced by the blanket of snow, her body soft and gentle against his. Olivia touched her nose to his. “Yes, you daft man. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Their laughter blended together with the sweet promise of hope for the New Year—and all to come.





Epilogue


The Duke of Danby peered out his office window.

Even with the two stories separating him from the young lovers in his drive, the sound of their merriment rose from the grounds below and danced off the windowpane.

With no one around, he was free to smile.

Tewkesbury would assume Danby had acted merely in an effort to thwart Olivia’s marriage to the earl.

His grin grew. Yes, there was really no reason for anyone to know that the great Duke of Danby had in fact been enlivened by the hope, promise, and joy of the Christmastide season.

He dropped the curtains back into place, humming a Christmas carol.