Miss Winthorpe's Elopement (Belston & Friends #1)(43)

Even her glasses, which had seemed so inappropriate and unfeminine when he first met her, completed the image as the lenses caught the light and threw it back at him, making her eyes shimmer.

His friends would not call her a beauty, certainly. She was most unlike all the other women who were lauded as such. But suddenly it did not matter what his friends might say. It only mattered what he knew in his heart to be true—she looked as she was meant to look. And now that he had removed her from whatever magic realm she had inhabited, he was overcome with the desire to protect her from the coarse harshness of the world around them.

She had reached his side, and tipped her head quizzically to the side. ‘Is it all right?’

He nodded and smiled. ‘Very much so. You are lovely.’

‘And you are a liar.’ But he could see the faint blush on her cheek as she said it.

‘You’re welcome. It is a most unusual gown. Vaguely Greek, I think, and reminiscent of the Penelope of legend. And therefore, most suitable for you. Are you ready to greet our guests?’

‘Yes.’ But he saw the look in her eyes.

‘And now you are the one who is lying.’

‘I am as ready as I am ever likely to be.’

‘Not quite. There is something missing. I meant to deal with it earlier, but I quite forgot.’

He removed the jewel box from where he had left it in the drawer of his dresser. ‘It seems, in the hurry to marry, that we forgot something. You have no ring.’

‘It is hardly necessary.’

‘I beg to differ. A marriage is not a marriage without a ring. Although the solicitors and banks did not comment, my friends must have noticed.’

She sighed. ‘You do not remember, do you? You gave me a ring, when we were in Gretna. I carry it with me sometimes. For luck.’ She pulled a bent horse nail from her fine silk skirts and slipped it on to her finger. ‘Although perhaps I need the whole shoe for it to be truly lucky. I do not know.’

He stared down at it in horror. ‘Take that from your finger, immediately.’

‘I had not planned to wear it, if that is your concern. It is uncomfortably heavy, and hardly practical.’

He held out his hand. ‘Give it here, this instant. I will dispose of it.’

She closed her hand possessively over it. ‘You will do nothing of the kind.’

‘It is dross.’ He shook his head. ‘No, worse than that. Dross would be better. That is a thing. An object. An abomination.’

‘It is a gift,’ she responded. ‘And, more so, it is mine. You cannot give it me, and then take it back.’

‘I had no idea what I was doing. I was too drunk to think clearly. If I had been sober, I would never have allowed you to take it.’

‘That is not the point,’ she argued. ‘It was a symbol. Of our…’ She was hunting for the right word to describe what had happened in Scotland. ‘Our compact. Our agreement.’

‘But I have no desire for my friends to think I would seal a sacrament with a bent nail. Now that we are in London, I can give you the ring that you by rights deserve.’

She sighed. ‘It is not necessary.’

‘I believe that it is.’

‘Very well, then. Let us get on with it.’

Another proof that his wife was unlike any other woman in London. In his experience, a normal woman would have been eager for him to open the jewel case on his desk, and beside herself with rapture as he removed the ring. The band was wide, wrought gold, heavy with sapphires, set round with diamonds. ‘Give me your hand.’

She held it out to him, and he slipped it on to her finger.

It looked ridiculous, sitting on her thin white fingers, as though it had wandered from the hand of another and settled in the only place it felt at home. She flexed her hand.

She shook her head. ‘I retract what I said before. In comparison, the horse nail is light. This does not suit.’

‘We can go to the jewellers tomorrow, and get it sized to you.’

‘You do not understand. It fits well enough, but it does not suit me.’

‘It was my mother’s,’ he said. ‘And my grandmother’s before her.’

‘Well, perhaps it would suit, if I were your mother,’ she snapped. ‘But I am your wife. And it does not suit me.’

‘You are my wife, but you are also Duchess of Bellston. And the Duchess wears the ring, in the family colours of sapphire and gold.’

‘My mother was happy with a simple gold band,’ she challenged.

‘Your mother was not a duchess.’

‘When your mother worked, did she remove the ring, or leave it on? For I would hate to damage it.’

‘Work?

‘Work,’ she repeated firmly.

‘My mother did not work.’

‘But, if you remember our agreement, I do.’ She slipped the ring off her finger and handed it back to him. ‘My efforts here are hardly strenuous, but a large ring will snag in the papers and could get soiled, should I spill ink. It is not a very practical choice.’

‘Practicality has never been an issue,’ he admitted.

‘It is to me. For I am a very practical person.’

‘I am aware of that.’

She looked at the box on the table, which was large enough to hold much more than a single ring. ‘Is there not another choice available that might serve as compromise?’