Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(72)

The whole world seemed to stop. Her heart stuttered before racing off at a hundred miles an hour.

‘Dominic,’ she whispered and clasped her hand to her mouth as the significance of it all hit her.

‘I know it is unusual, but in the absence of your dear papa and, if it is pleasing to you all, I thought that Mrs Tatton and young Archie might wish to walk you down the aisle and give your hand to the duke.’ Reverend Martin was looking at her with a gentle expression of understanding upon his face.

‘Thank you, Reverend,’ said Mrs Tatton. ‘If Arabella will have it, I would be proud to.’

‘What is happening, Mama?’ Archie tugged at her hand and stared up into her face.

She shook her head unable to believe this was real and not some dream.

‘Mama?’ Archie tugged harder.

She bent so that she might look him level in the eyes. ‘Dominic is to become your papa and my husband. You are the man of the family and you must help Grandmama take me to him. Will you do that?’

‘Yes, Mama. I would like Dominic to be my papa.’

Arabella smiled and she tucked her right hand into her mother’s arm and took hold of Archie’s little hand with her left. And with Reverend Martin following on behind them Arabella walked down the aisle.

Dominic had never seen her look more beautiful. There was such a look of wonder and surprise upon Arabella’s face that he felt his heart swell with love. And when Mrs Tatton placed Arabella’s trembling hand into his and stood back to leave her standing by his side, he had never felt so proud.

He knew that all of the village were filling the pews behind him. And that Reverend Martin was speaking the words of the marriage ceremony, but Dominic could think of nothing other than the woman standing so tall and beautiful by his side. He loved her completely and utterly. He had loved her since first he met her when she was a girl of fifteen. She was mother to his son, and when they left St Mary’s she would be his wife.

Hunter cleared his throat and passed Dominic the wedding band to slip upon the third finger of Arabella’s left hand.


‘With this ring I thee wed. With my body I thee worship…’ He swore his oath before God and all the village. And Arabella swore too.

‘Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder…I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together.’

Arabella was smiling as he took her in his arms and kissed her.

She was his. At last.



It was such a glorious day of happiness for Arabella and it passed far too quickly. After the ceremony the villagers scattered rice over her and Dominic as they left the church, in accordance with tradition, and waiting outside were two gigs, one decorated in cream silken ribbons and pink roses and purplish-blue freesias, the other in pink and purple ribbons with white roses. Dominic lifted her up into the first gig with the cream ribbons, and she watched while Archie and her mother were helped up into the other gig. Then they were off to Shardeloes Hall, where long tables packed with food had been set out on the lawns of the front gardens and a band of musicians were already playing. A great party was just starting to which the whole of the village had been invited.

They ate and they drank and they danced, all the day through. And the sun shone from a cloudless blue sky and the breeze was gentle and soft, and the peacocks displayed the finery of their tails. And as Dominic took Arabella into his arms and waltzed her round the lawn Arabella thought there had never been a more perfect day and she told him so when he led her up the stairs to bed that night.

‘Arabella,’ he sat her down upon the bed. ‘There is still something I must give you.’

She smiled and, taking his hands in hers, kissed his fingers. ‘You have given me everything I could want—yourself and Archie. You have made me your wife. What more could I possibly want?’

He loosed his hands from hers and from a secret pocket inside his waistcoat he produced something she could not quite see, something golden that glinted in the candlelight. ‘I have had it these weeks past; I always intended it to be one of my wedding gifts to you.’ And then he unfastened the chain that was coiled in his hands and she saw it was the locket he had given her all those years ago. The same locket that had been stolen from the room in Flower and Dean Street and that she had never thought to see again. He moved behind her and draped it around her neck. Her skin shivered from the soft brush of his fingers against her skin as he fastened it in place.

‘How on earth did you find it?’ she asked.

‘I hired a couple of very good thief-takers to recover it for you.’ He smiled.

The golden oval lay warm against her breast. She opened it and there inside were the tiny miniature portraits of herself and of Dominic from all those years before when they had first fallen in love. And the curled lock from Archie’s hair that she had placed between. The tears misted her eyes so she could no longer see the portraits properly.

‘Oh, thank you, Dominic, thank you so very much.’ She turned to him and kissed him.

‘More tears?’ he teased softly.

‘I am just so happy,’ she managed to say between sobs and the tears streamed all the more.

He took her face gently between his hands and wiped away the flow of tears with his thumbs, looking deeply into her eyes.

‘I love you, Arabella. You are my duchess, my life, my very heartbeat. Without you there is nothing.’ He kissed her so tenderly, so sweetly. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with all the love that was in her heart.