After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(101)

“Give me back your hand. No, without the glove.”

She smiled, baring her hand. He slid the ring on her finger, gold and radiant for all to see. Her eyes shone.

“Camilla,” he said, “I love you. I love you more than any other woman in the world, and I want you by my side for decades and decades. I choose you above everyone else. Will you please make me the happiest of men by giving me your hand in marriage?”

Her eyes sparkled. “That was so good,” she said. “That was the best marriage proposal I’ve ever received.”

“Oh, you’ve received a lot of them, have you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Last time you had to marry me, you said ‘no.’ This was a thousand times better.”

Adrian shook his head. “Will you please answer me?”

“Well, you said you wanted a long, slow falling in love. Getting a bit impatient, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Then he took a step toward her and wrapped her in his arms.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes. I love you. I love you. I want you, and only you. I want you forever.”

And then he was kissing her, laughing and holding her, with the sun all around them.



* * *



“I’m sorry it has taken so long.”

Theresa stood beside Judith in the solicitor’s office. They had been ushered into a side room and asked to wait. The room they were in was lined with books, books, books, and more books. Oddly, however, it smelled nothing like the General Register Office had smelled. That had stunk of must and ink. This was a slightly more pleasant smell—old paper and tea.

“I didn’t mean to make you wait several weeks to see the letters—such as they are—but between Camilla’s hearings and everything else…”

“Of course,” Theresa said. “You’ve been busy. And I’ve enjoyed going about the country with Camilla by train. We’ve been to ever so many places. I get to pretend that I’m a lady while I’m doing it.”

“Theresa, you are a lady.” Judith said this with a smile and a shake of her head. “I do wish you’d believe it.”

Let them call you whatever they want, the dowager marchioness had told Theresa. Just keep the truth in your head, and you don’t need to tell them they’re wrong.

“I suppose,” Theresa answered dubiously.

For some reason, this just made Judith look all the more determined. “Whatever it takes, Tee. I’ll give you whatever you need until you can finally believe it.”

Someday, Theresa suspected she and her sister were going to have a giant row—larger than their usual, regular-sized rows—about the whole lady thing. Not today.

The door opened behind them, and an errand boy entered with a folder in hand. “Here they are, my ladies.”

My ladies again.

But it didn’t matter what the errand boy called her, if he gave her what she wanted. The folder he handed over was exceptionally thin.

Theresa eyed it askance. “Anthony has been gone for almost a decade, and that’s all his correspondence?”

Judith just rolled her eyes. “Nobody will ever accuse our brother of being an avid letter-writer. I did tell you they were letters—such as they are. I’ll leave you to them, then.”

Letters, such as they are turned out to be a good description of her elder brother’s terse missives. The first could be summarized as, “hope you are all well, I’m not dead yet,” spread over four sentences with a handful of connecting words.

The second was a little better. He made stupid excuses for his inattention to his family, and said unbelievable things about love. Ha. If he really loved them as much as he claimed, he would write more. Still, Theresa immediately recognized the part Judith had feared would set her off.

When she’s old enough to understand, tell Tee-spoon that I send her all my love, as does Pri.

Theresa stopped reading, her heart giving a sudden twinge. Priya was the name of Theresa’s imaginary sister.

When Theresa was a child, and her father had first been convicted of treason, she remembered throwing tantrums that had scared even her with their ferocity, demanding that her sister—not Judith, not Camilla, but her other sister—appear.

They had scared her at every moment up until this one. She remembered believing with every fiber in her being that she had actually had a sister named Priya.

It had taken her years to be convinced that no such person had ever existed. That her memories were fallible, stupid things. That she’d invented a sibling to pass time on a boring voyage, and then convinced herself that she did exist out of sheer obstinacy.

Judith had needed to show her their family Bible with marriage lines and birth dates and everything. Finally, at the age of eight, Theresa had accepted that it had all been in her imagination.

Looking at those words on the page—seeing Anthony write the name out like that—was a blow. Anthony was no doubt an idiot about a great many things, but he would know that his fifteen-year-old sister wouldn’t want to play a game remembering an imaginary sister. Anthony communicated nothing at all in these stupid letters. No pleasantries. No information. Just excuses. And still he’d mentioned Pri.

There was only one possible explanation. He wasn’t telling her about an imaginary sister.