Scandal in the Night (44 page)

“But don’t you understand?” He was holding her face and thumbing the salty tears from her cheeks. “That’s what I am offering you—what I want to give you. Your own family. With me.”

“But what about
your
family? What you owe them?” She tried to keep the plea, that small insistent seed of hope, from her voice.

He kissed her—a solemn benediction. A pledge. “I have given them fifteen years of my duty. I owe them nothing but my love. And my happiness.”

“But they will always be looking at me, knowing. I could never stay here now. Even if by some small chance Lord and Lady Jeffrey did not object, there would always be this cloud, shading their perception of me. And I couldn’t bear to see you. Or see your family. And think of you every day. It would be worse than before. Much, much worse.”

“Only if you allow it to be.” His hands firmed on her arms. “But all right, if you insist—if you have to leave, then we’ll leave together. We’ll go to America, or wherever you want. Wherever we can raise horses and a family together.”

She took his hands and set them away from her, until his hand fell back to his side. And then she held her trembling hand out to shake.

He looked at it as if it were as dangerous as a snake. As if he could not divine what on earth such a gesture could mean. But he withdrew a step to stand, and he bowed—a gentleman’s gesture, those manners she had once thought as fine and polished as a maharajah’s jewels. But she could no longer see him, because the heat and the need were building up behind her eyes, blurring her vision.

“Please, Cat.” His voice was low and as threadbare as a fakir’s beard. “No kiss before you break my heart?”

“No.” This time she spat in her palm when she held it out to him. So he would understand. “I was hoping for something better.”

Thomas spat in his palm and pressed it to hers. “Anything.”

“Love me. Love me and marry me, and make me happy.”

Thomas did not stop to ask polite questions as to whether she meant love in a physical or a more metaphorical and emotional sense. To him his love for her was one and the same—abiding, persistent, and strong.

He was made to love her and only her. He did not let go of her hand in his, but used it to pull her toward him, into his chest, so he could wrap his arm around her neck and kiss her.

Her mouth was soft and firm and sweet and bitter and everything, everything he had been longing for. And she was kissing him back, opening herself to him with all the sweetness and generosity he had remembered, and all the heat he had forgotten.

He kissed her to tell her everything he had tried and failed to say. He kissed her to convince her that she was the only one for him, and he for her. He used every ounce of finesse and skill and passion he could use in so public a place.

And his fierce, strong, fragile girl was kissing him back, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging to him as if he were the only thing keeping her upright. Thomas left her lips to skim across the unspeakably soft skin beneath the line of her jaw, where that foul bastard had pressed his gun. He kissed away the hurt, kissed away the pain. He let his hand flow into the fine silk of her hair, as he kissed and nipped and kissed and nipped some more on his way down the long delicious slide of her neck. He was inundated with the scent of lemons this time, not lavender, but still starch. Still prim and crisp. How strange that such a homey, ordinary smell should become so erotic? But it was.

He tried to be careful and slow. She was in a state of shock. He tried to have some restraint. He did try. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. He could not be next to her and not breathe her scent. He could not be within ten feet of her and not want to touch her.

His hand had risen to her face, and the tip of his finger was smoothing along the line of her eyebrow. Her lovely arched, erotic eyebrows. It was fuller, and a bit darker now, from whatever she had said she put in her hair to darken it. Part of her camouflage, like a bird that wears dull winter plumage to blend in with its surroundings.

But her eyelids were fluttering against the pad of his thumb, keeping time with the accelerating pulse along her temple. And she was not moving away. She was leaning toward him, as susceptible to his nearness as he was to hers.

“They’ve grown back a bit. But I can still see the girl underneath, if I try hard enough. She’s under there somewhere.”

For a very long moment she looked at his face, searching it in much the same way that he searched hers, as if he were one of those old Mughal palace ruins they had once visited, with only the barest outline of the walls still visible to make it recognizable. “Am I so hard to find?”

No,” he answered. “No. I can see you plainly. All of you. Every lovely inch.”

She turned her face so that her cheek rested in the palm of his hand, like a wild animal tamed to his touch. “You’ve always been so kind.”

“There you are again with ‘kind.’” Kind was not what he wanted her to think when she looked at him. Kind was not a characteristic that made solemn young ladies toss up their skirts and kick over the traces. Kind was not going to win her over. “I’d rather be something else. Something ardent and persistent. Something more than a lover. Marry me, Catriona Rowan. Please.” He didn’t let her answer. “I’ll wear you down. I’ll keep at it until you say yes.”

“Thomas—”

His name on her lips was like a prayer—a benediction—and she could not know how long he had waited to hear her say it. “Say it again.”

“Thomas.”

“Again.”

“Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.” She smiled at him through her tears. “Yes. Oh, sweet Saint Margaret, yes, I suppose I will.”

As if it were that easy. As if it were the simplest thing in the world and she had not made him wait these years and years.

He thought joy, or at the very least relief, would ring through him like a bell, but the warm, almost mellow feeling that spread through his lungs was quieter, but no less fierce. It was gratitude, and love and lust. Lord, yes, lust. He couldn’t get enough of her, and so he tugged her across his chest so she slid into his lap and he could kiss her over and over.

“Say it again.”

“Thomas.” And then she smiled at him. That breathless, openmouthed smile that she had given him when she had been spread out on the soft cushions beneath him, repeating his name over and over as he had rocked into the soft acceptance of her body.

He smiled back, his happiness writ large across his face. “I meant ‘yes.’”

“Yes, Thomas.”

He kissed the sweet, soft corner of her mouth. “Today. As soon as possible.”

“Is such a thing possible?”

“I’m a prince, remember. The son of the Earl Sanderson. For me, anything is possible.”

“Thomas.” Her voice was mildly chiding and mildly amused. But he didn’t want anything mild from her.

“I’ll get a special license. My father or James can arrange it, and make all the trouble of having influential relations worthwhile.”

“Certainly.” James’s voice drifted to them on a gust of laughter.

“Can you do that, really?”

“Yes.” Thomas was sure. Entirely, wholeheartedly sure. “And they had better hurry, because I refuse to be parted with you for even so long as a night. Since the day I landed in England, I’ve thought of nothing but you. All this time, I’ve waited. And I won’t wait any longer. I refuse to deny myself the pleasure and privilege of waking up next to you in the morning light.”

She nodded, and then shook her head, and made an unpleasant face, squeezing her solemn gray eyes shut even as she smiled, and he realized that she was still crying.

In all the time they had been together, in all the time they had been friends in India, he had never seen her cry like this. “You can’t cry now. Not when we’re to be happy.”

“Of course I can. I can cry now because I’m happy. Happy enough to cry.”

Epilogue

They were married in the Church of Saint Margaret and Saint Bartholomew, in the parish of Wimbourne, in the presence of God, and themselves.

Just the two of them.

And of course the rector. And Lord and Lady Jeffrey. And the children. And all the other servants from Wimbourne, who felt it their sovereign right to come and cry their tears of joy over their Miss Cates, as was.

But Catriona did not cry. She was done with tears. She was done with spleen and disappointment. She was marrying the Honorable Thomas Jellicoe. She was a new woman.

And she was trying to get married in the most unobtrusive manner possible. But it was impossible. It appeared she was too well loved.

The countess had insisted on gifting her with a lovely sea-blue carriage dress of silk gazar, and an endless row of buttons—Thomas would like that—as well as a long length of delicate lace to adorn her new summer bonnet that the housekeeper and housemaids had all contrived to give her.

Gemma and Pippa had conspired with the gardeners to create a sweet-scented posy for her to carry. “It’s ivy for endurance, because you’ve endured, Miss Cates,” Pippa said with starry-eyed fervor.

“Miss Rowan,” Gemma corrected, always in the right. “And lily of the valley for returning to happiness, and primrose, of course, for eternal love.”

“Aunt Catriona, very soon,” Pippa amended. “I shall like that ever so much more, having you as our aunt.”

“I shall like it, too,” Catriona said. And despite her pledge to the contrary, Catriona did feel tears welling at that. She had wanted a family—she had always wanted a family—but she had not realized that her heart’s desire would be achieved so quickly. But it was. In a matter of minutes, she would become part of the Jellicoe family, and the bonds of dedication and devotion that she had worked so hard to create would be made permanent.

Blood wasn’t thicker than gratitude. The Viscount and Viscountess Jeffrey insisted on standing as her family. The viscount himself gave her away, folding her arm over his elbow, and looking at his brother with as grave and fierce a scowl as any father ever could.

And there was Thomas, waiting for her, looking as tall and dark and as handsome as any storybook prince ever had.

And Catriona knew, if she lived to be a hundred years old, she would never forget this moment, this feeling of indescribable happiness. When she was old and gray, she would remember the words and the look on his face, and smile, and think of everything else that had passed as a dream.

And then they were walking together down the long stone aisle, while all of Wimbourne cried and clapped and sighed around them, out into the sunshine of a cloudless blue English summer day.

“Are you ready?” her prince asked her.

“Oh, I sincerely hope so,” she said. “But I’m already married to you, so you’ll just have to take me, ready or not, as I come.”

“My darling Mrs. Jellicoe. Ready or not, I should like nothing better.”

A
LSO BY
E
LIZABETH
E
SSEX

Almost a Scandal

A Breath of Scandal

About the Author

When not rereading Jane Austen, mucking about in her garden, and simply messing about with boats, Elizabeth Essex can always be found with her laptop, making up stories about heroes and heroines who live far more exciting lives than she. It wasn’t always so. Elizabeth graduated from Hollins College with a BA in Classics, and then earned her MA in Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. While she loved the life of an underwater archaeologist, she has found her true calling writing lush, lyrical historical romance full of passion, daring, and adventure.

Elizabeth lives in Texas with her husband, the indispensable Mr. Essex, and her active and exuberant family.

Visit
www.elizabethessex.com

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT

Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Essex.

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.