Everything and the Moon (The Lyndon Sisters #1)(84)

“You let me believe that I was stranded here?” she yelled.

“You never asked,” he said, shrugging. “Now then, I suggest you get dressed. As delightful as you are in your current attire, there is a slight chill in the air.”

She held the bed sheets tightly against her body. “My dress is in the next room.”

“You're going to be modest now?”

Her mouth twisted into an offended frown. “I'm sorry I can't be as cosmopolitan as you are, Robert. I don't have much experience with this sort of thing.”

He smiled and dropped an affectionate kiss on her forehead. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're simply too much fun to tease. I'll get your dress right away. And,” he added as he opened the door, “I shall leave you to your privacy to change into it.”





Thirty minutes later they were on their way to London. Robert was having a difficult time keeping himself from breaking out into song. On his way back from retrieving the carriage, he had actually belted out a rather off-key version of Handel's “Hallelujah Chorus.” He probably would have finished the piece if the horses hadn't whinnied in aural agony. Robert quieted down, thinking it best not to offer similar torture to his betrothed's ears—his betrothed! He loved saying that. Hell, he loved just thinking it. Still, his happiness was so great that he couldn't quite keep it all inside, and thus, every so often he forgot himself, and then he'd realize he was whistling.

“I didn't know you liked to whistle,” Victoria said after about the fifth time he caught himself.

“I certainly cannot sing,” he replied. “So I whistle.”

“I don't think I've heard you whistling in—” She paused and thought. “I can't remember the last time.”

He grinned. “I haven't been this happy in a great many years.”

A pause, and then she said, “Oh.” She looked ridiculously pleased, and Robert felt ridiculously pleased that she looked that way. He whistled atonally for another few minutes, and then he looked up and said, “Do you realize how wonderful it is to feel spontaneous again?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“When I first met you, we used to run through the woods at midnight. We were wild and carefree.”

“It was lovely,” Victoria said softly.

“But now…Well, you know how ordered my life is. I am, as you like to say, the most organized man in Britain. I always have a plan, and I always follow it. It feels quite nice to do something spontaneous again.”

“You abducted me,” Victoria pointed out. “That was spontaneous.”

“Not at all,” he replied, waving away her comment. “I planned that quite carefully, I assure you.”

“Not carefully enough to feed us,” she responded just a touch acerbically.

“Ah, yes, the food,” he mused. “A small oversight.”

“It didn't seem small at the time,” she muttered.

“You didn't perish of hunger, did you?”

She swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “And you forgot the special license. When one considers the fact that the entire purpose of the abduction was to marry me, that constitutes a large gap in the plan, indeed.”

“I didn't forget to plan for the special license. I just forgot to bring it. I certainly meant to.”

Victoria peered out the window. Twilight hung in the air, as it would for several hours. They would not make it to London that evening, but they would get more than halfway there. “Actually,” she said, “I'm rather glad you forgot the license.”

“You want to put off the inevitable as long as possible, I gather?” he said. He was clearly teasing, but Victoria sensed that her answer was important to him.

“Not at all,” she replied. “Once I make a decision I like to carry it out immediately. It's just that it is nice to see you do something wrong every now and then.”

“Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “You're nearly perfect, you know.”

“Why doesn't that sound like a compliment? And more importantly, if I'm so damned perfect why has it taken me so long to convince you to marry me?”

“It's because you're perfect,” she said with a sly smile. “It can grow annoying. Why should I do anything if you're going to do it better?”

He grinned devilishly and pulled her against him. “I can think of many things that you do better.”

“Oh, really?” she murmured, trying not to get too aroused by the way his hand was stroking her hip.

“Mmm. You kiss better.” To prove his point, he let his lips drift down onto hers.

“You taught me.”

“You look much better without any clothes on.”

She blushed, but she was growing comfortable enough with him that she dared to say, “That is a matter of opinion.”

He pulled back with a loud sigh. “Very well. You sew better.”

She blinked. “You're right.”

“And you certainly know more about children,” he added. “When we are parents I shall constantly have to defer to your better judgment. I'm liable to launch into a lecture on Newton's three laws of motion before they're out of the cradle. Most inappropriate. You'll have to teach me all the nursery rhymes.”