Marquesses at the Masquerade(119)
Lucy tipped her head up so the cloak fell back. Tyne could not make out her expression, but she remained in his embrace, from which familiarity, he took a certain degree of—
She kissed him, gently—an invitation to trust.
“I did not reveal myself,” he said, “because you might have chosen to content yourself with some other man. In that event, I would have encouraged you to wake the poor nodcock up with the sort of direct speech you serve to me regularly. You might have been mortified to think you’d kissed your employer by mistake—not once but twice—and I didn’t want the sweetest, loveliest kisses I’ve ever... oh hell.”
He kissed her back and found the lady was smiling. Then she got a fistful of Tyne’s hair, and then he was smiling, and then he had her up against the nearest oak tree—or she had him—and all manner of public indecencies nearly occurred, except Lucy’s feet got tangled up with the handle of the sledgehammer. She grabbed Tyne for balance, and they both ended up laughing so hard they nearly went top over teapot into the hedge.
While Lucy tried to compose herself, Tyne located his hat and the offending sledgehammer, then offered her his arm and escorted her back to the coach.
Where she promptly went off into whoops again, pausing only long enough to agree to marry him.
EPILOGUE
* * *
“I do believe that the lack of a blue unicorn with a sparkly purple horn will forever live in Sylvie’s heart as the only imperfection in our wedding ceremony.” To the casual ear, Tyne doubtless sounded his usual self: calm, self-possessed, articulate. The typical English lord offering his opinion on the weather.
Lucy’s was not the casual ear, and her new husband was smiling like a Viking with a longship full of plunder.
The coach rattled away from the wedding breakfast, Sylvie and Amanda tossing rose petals at the boot, the crowd of family waving and cheering in the midday sun. Lucy’s brothers had brought their families to Town for the event, as had Tyne’s many siblings, and talk of a house party had already started.
Tyne took Lucy’s hand and kissed her gloved knuckles, then began undoing the pearl buttons that ran from her wrist to her elbow.
“The wedding was perfect,” she said, “because you were my groom. I still say we ought to have wed by special license.”
Tyne had refused her request, insisting on every propriety—while anybody was looking. Behind closed doors, he’d subjected Lucy to diabolically skilled kisses, whispered promises, and caresses of shocking intimacy. On every occasion, though, he’d stopped short of anticipating the vows.
He paused with her glove half unbuttoned. “Our siblings would not have had time to assemble had the ceremony been performed on short notice, and you deserved to meet my family before you became part of it. They’re a loud, opinionated, rumgumptious lot of—”
“Of wonderful people. Much like my own family.” She switched arms, so he could start on her other glove. “You did not want our firstborn to arrive too soon.”
He held her palm against his cheek, and through the thin kid of her glove, Lucy felt the heat of his skin.
“How can I focus on these thousands of buttons, how can I attend to anything, when you tempt me with talk of progeny?”
“Get used to it, my lord. You are married now, and you have tempted me without mercy for the last month.” She patted his thigh— not his knee—and he drew down the window shade. A week before the wedding, Lady Eleanor had whisked Lucy and the girls to her ladyship’s household, which had been wise but irksome.
The girls had needed some time to sort out Lucy’s transition from governess to step-mother. A new governess had to be interviewed—Tyne had ceded that decision to Lucy—and fittings without number had to be endured.
“I nearly stole into your bed more times than I could count,” Tyne said. “With my valet sleeping in the dressing closet, I did not want to start talk below stairs.”
“Did you ask Eleanor to open her home to me?” Tyne would do that, would be that discreet and considerate—also that dunderheaded.
“No, I did not, though my valet will be sleeping elsewhere henceforth.” He had both of Lucy’s gloves half undone, loose enough that he could draw them off. “That veil business next.”
“All you need do is remove some of the hairpins,” Lucy said, “but be careful. I hope our daughters might wear that veil someday.”
He paused, leaning his forehead against Lucy’s shoulder. “ Our daughters. Have I told you that I love you? Have I told you that our daughters love you? The damned pantry mouser had better love you, or I’ll banish him to the stables.”
This demonstrativeness was either a benefit of marrying a widower, or simply Tyne’s way of being conscientious. He told Lucy he loved her, told her he loved to look at her, to touch her. He was surprisingly affectionate, taking her into his lap, sitting beside her of an evening in the parlor, holding her hand when they walked into church services on Sunday mornings.
His fingers searched gently through her hair for pins, though he found rather too many, and before Lucy could tell him to stop, not only her veil, but the chignon fashioned at the nape of her neck had come undone. He drew the veil away and piled it atop the gloves on the opposite bench.
“You’ll arrive to Boxhaven’s estate looking ravished. I like that idea.”