When a Marquess Loves a Woman (21 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

E
ven after five days had passed, Max was hesitant to enter the study when he learned that Mother had invited Lady Cosgrove and Juliet to dinner. Saunders, however, informed him that Lady Cosgrove had come alone.

The tightness beneath Max's chest gradually faded. Or at least it lessened a degree. In time, it would fade completely.

When Max entered the parlor, he greeted Mother and Lady Cosgrove but did not ask after Juliet. No one seemed to notice. Therefore, he took the liberty of fetching their sherry from the sideboard.

“I have heard the good news,” Mother said to her friend. “And I must say that I am heartily relieved to know that Juliet's tragedy was a mere accounting error. She must be glad to have her fortune once again.”

Mother had told Max the news as well, and he was glad for Juliet. He would not have to worry about her in any way. She could do with her life as she wanted.

“I hesitate to tell you,” Lady Cosgrove whispered, likely not knowing how well sound traveled in this room.

“It is fine,” Mother whispered back. “Maxwell will not hear you from across the room.”

A brief pause followed, during which Max opened the sherry and began to pour.

“This afternoon, Juliet informed me that it was all a ruse,” Lady Cosgrove continued in hushed tones. “She never lost her fortune, not even for a single day.”

“No!” Mother gasped quietly. “But what could have been her reason?”

Max went still, eager as well for the next words.

“And that is the reason for my hesitation. You see, it has to do with your eldest . . . ”

“Say no more.” Mother clucked her tongue. “I suspected that Bramson was only interested in her fortune, and that is why I pushed him to make a declaration that day.”

Damn! Max looked down at the cabinet and saw that he'd spilled the sherry. Likely he'd drained half a bottle, and now it dripped on his shoes.

“But Maxwell saw to it that his debts were paid, and he was free to marry whomever he chose. And from what Bramson has told me, he has chosen Miss Leeds, whose dowry is five thousand pounds,” Mother continued. “He is a few miles north of town at her family's country estate for a few days.”

“Which is what I had heard; however, just before I left, Juliet received a missive from Bram. Apparently, he has had a change of heart and asked permission to renew his address to her.”

“He has?” Mother's voice was slightly raised in surprise before she lowered it again. “And surely he could not have heard the news of her good fortune while he was away. So perhaps he does possess true affection for her.”

“Perhaps. She sent a response to him immediately.”

“Maxwell, what is taking so long?”

He nearly jumped at the louder sound, dropping the towel he was using to mop up. “A bit of a spill, but I have recovered now.” He turned and crossed the room to hand them their sherry glasses. “Have I missed any important news?”

Mother blinked owlishly. “None whatsoever.”

“And you, Lord Thayne—any news regarding your upcoming travels to Lancashire?”

He sat in the chair opposite and swirled his whiskey thoughtfully, wondering what could have been Juliet's reason for the pretense of losing her fortune. “My trunks are packed, and I am prepared to depart at first light on Monday.”

“And what of your quest for a bride?” Mother asked.

“Halted for the time being. I think I would rather be settled into my estate. Then, in a year, perhaps . . . ” He let his words trail off with a shrug. But he knew that it would be a long time before he would think about marriage again.

“You are not the only one planning a trip,” Lady Cosgrove said after a sip. “Juliet has decided that she too will be traveling. Though not until the sale of the house is final.”

“The house?” He frowned.

Lady Cosgrove looked to Mother and then back to him, her expression grave. “Forgive me. I thought you'd heard. She is selling the townhouse.”

“Did she give a reason?”

“Her words were a mystery to me, but I believe she mentioned something about a painful lesson and a desire to let go of the past.” Lady Cosgrove shook her head slowly. “Now that you have me thinking, I remember that I was to pass along a message to you, Lord Thayne, stating that she fully intends to have the bank draft made out to you, since the house was yours, after all.”

Max gritted his teeth. He was not going to let her pay him for the house. If he allowed that, then it was like none of what had transpired since had even happened. And that Juliet was simply getting exactly what she'd wanted from him all along—to buy the house from him.

Now, the fact that she
wasn't
going to live in the house that was four doors down from his mother bothered him to no end.

“A
nd you're sure he heard all of it? Every word?” Juliet asked when Zinnia returned later that evening, practically ambushing her in the foyer.

Zinnia nodded, removing her hat and gloves. “He spilled sherry everywhere.”

Good. That was definitely a good sign. “What about the news that I'm selling the house?”

“Completely incensed.”

Better and better.

“Was that muscle along his jaw ticking?”

“Violently,”
Zinnia drawled.

Juliet smiled and embraced her cousin. “Now we simply have to wait for tomorrow.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

B
ram returned to Harwick House early Sunday morning as the family and servants were preparing to leave for church. Without any pomp or circumstance and still in his traveling clothes, he joined Max and Mother in the carriage.

While Mother was glad to receive him, Max would have preferred if he'd made an excuse to stay behind. After overhearing the conversation last night, Max guessed that Bram had learned the latest rumors from town and made certain to renew his addresses to Juliet.

And this time, Max was not going to be around to watch the spectacle.

“I did not expect your return for another two days,” Mother said to Bram as he brushed the travel dust from his trousers and onto Max's shoes.

“I thought it unfair to accept Miss Leeds's and her family's hospitality when I am no longer certain she is the bride for me.”

“This is news, indeed,” Mother murmured with a trace of incredulity. “Have you decided to wait for a more appropriate time to marry?”

“Not at all.” Bram offered a half a shrug. “The truth is, I find that my heart is engaged elsewhere.”

This pretense of his brother's was testing Max's patience. “This does not happen to have any bearing on recent news regarding Lady Granworth, does it?”

“Recent news?” He lifted his brows in innocence and placed a hand over his heart. “I do not know what you mean. However, the name that you have spoken is the very same that plucks at the strings of this organ beneath my breast.”

“Then you have no idea that her fortune has returned to her.”

“No, indeed, little brother. I am merely here by her summons.” He withdrew a letter from his inner coat pocket and unfolded it. “She writes: ‘If you are able, then return to town at your earliest convenience, as I have an important announcement regarding my future marital arrangements.' ”

Max reached across the carriage and snatched the letter out of Bram's hand, expecting it to be an invention of his brother's imagination. What he saw instead was confirmation of every word.

Juliet was planning to marry? No. This couldn't be true. Max knew her too well.

When they pulled up to the church, Bram removed the note from Max's numb grasp and slipped out of the carriage with a triumphant chuckle. “As I said before—when a woman mentions marriage, she is thinking about marriage.”

All through the service, Max sat stunned, waiting for it to end. He didn't want to believe that Juliet had chosen to marry another, but her handwritten words proved otherwise. More disturbing was that she had sent the letter to Bram, as if she'd summoned him back to London with a single purpose in mind.

Then, at last, they were nearing the end of service. He could hear the restless shuffle of hymnals and reticules as the parishioners prepared to depart.

“This is the first reading of the banns,” the reverend began, his voice booming from pulpit, “for a holy union between Lady Granworth of Somerset and . . . ”

No!
Max jumped to his feet in an instant. This couldn't be happening. Was she truly intending to marry Bram?

Max wouldn't allow it. Turning, he saw her sitting three rows behind in her usual place.

“The Marquess of . . . ”

She smiled at him, her eyes beaming like gems in the sunlight. She looked so happy, so in love, the way he'd always wished she would have looked at him.

And suddenly he knew that he could not ruin this for her. If she loved . . .

“Thayne of Lancashire,” the reverend concluded.

There was a collective gasp in the church that echoed up to the ceiling and down again, settling inside his chest. At first, Max didn't think he'd heard it correctly. His ears were suddenly ringing.

“Should you know of any impediment . . . ”

Beside him, Bram stood too. “I believe you are mistaken, Reverend Thomas.”

The reverend looked at the card again and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “Lady Granworth of Somerset to wed the Marquess of Thayne of Lancashire. Lady Granworth, is this correct?”

Now, Juliet stood. The church had gone so quiet that he could hear the rustle of her pink skirts.

“It is,” she said with a nod, still looking at him—
him!
—with that glowing gaze. “In three weeks, Wednesday next, I will marry the Marquess of Thayne. The man I love.”

If his brain were functioning, he would have been stunned by her public declaration.

But his heart heard the most important part . . . she loved him.

“And Lord Thayne, is this correct?”

Max was already sidestepping his way out of the pew and striding down the aisle. He took her hand in his, feeling that this was exactly how it was always meant to be. “It is, but I might have to argue about the date.”

Already he'd imagined a dozen ways to coax her to the altar sooner.

She laughed, squeezing his hand. “Would you care to wager on that, Max?”

T
he Season Standard—the Daily Chronicle of Consequence

Dear readers, the day we have been anticipating for three weeks is here at last! Doubtless, many imagined that news of an elopement between our Lady G— and the Marquess of Th— would certainly preempt this morning's planned ceremony. Reports abound of innumerable high-stakes wagers on the outcome. Scandalous!

This paper, however, suspected that our resident
goddess
and this Season's
Original
would have her grand day. For rumor has it that a length of the finest blue satin was delivered to a certain house on Hanover Street, which is guaranteed to draw many a passerby to catch a glimpse of the bride on the pavement in front of St. George's.

In other news, whispers regarding the sudden withdrawal of the Marquess of E—e . . .

“Y
ou cost me a hundred pounds, Thayne,” Jack Marlowe, Viscount Locke, growled, gripping Max's shoulder with a broad fist. While his voice was gruff, the smirking eyes beneath his tawny brow were not. “Even Lilah thought you would elope with her cousin.”

Standing beside him in the violet parlor at Lady Cosgrove's townhouse, Liam Cavanaugh, the Earl of Wolford, flashed a playfully threatening grin and clutched Max's other shoulder. “Aye. And I doubled the wager, as Adeline wanted a gambling adventure, so now I am out
two
hundred pounds.”

Sensing a good deal of ribbing ahead of him, Max chuckled as he shrugged them both off and looked at the Duke of Vale standing across from him. “And I suppose, you're out
three
?”

Max glanced once more at the doorway, hoping to catch sight of Juliet coming down the stairs amidst the parade of trunk-toting servants. They had just finished their wedding breakfast, and she was now upstairs with the other wives, changing into her traveling clothes before their honeymoon.

His
wife
was upstairs . . . The thought sent warm currents of jubilation zipping through him.

“No, indeed,” Vale responded with a smug arch of his dark brows. “I have
gained
three due to pure logic.”

Turning his attention back to the room, Max eyed Vale skeptically. “Surely you could not have come up with an equation for the possibility of an elopement.”

“Correct. I do, however, have a greater resource than mathematics, and that is Ivy.” Vale offered a scholarly nod, as if this were a well-known fact. “She explained that a man who has patience enough to endure five years can certainly withstand three more weeks.”

Max scoffed. “Then it was by pure chance that you won the wager, because patience abandoned me the moment the banns were read.”

Locke and Wolford exchanged knowing looks and a grumble or two. Vale was seemingly pleased by the news. As for Max, even now his heart raced with anticipation as he looked at the clock on the mantel. While the long hand stated that Juliet had only been apart from him for ten minutes, to Max it felt as if ten days had passed. And if she didn't appear soon, he would climb the stairs, toss her over his shoulder, and carry her out the door.

In fact, the only reason he possessed enough sanity not to resort to a more primitive action was due to their frequent encounters. Calling hours, carriage rides, dinners, and parties had afforded them creative opportunities to indulge in intimacies. But those moments only whetted Max's appetite for more. He wanted her with him when he awoke, when he drifted to sleep, and for all the moments in between.

Yet there was also another reason he'd withstood these three interminably long weeks—his new wager with Juliet.

“Y
ou made another wager with Lord Thayne?” Lilah asked from the tufted bench at the foot of Juliet's bed. Adeline sat beside her, fixing the trim of Juliet's hat. Ivy and Gemma stood near the jewelry armoire in search of a sapphire hatpin to match the wedding ring on her finger, but at the question, they all stopped and waited for an answer.

Eager to leave the room so that she could be with Max, Juliet paused in the hurried buttoning of her pale blue pelisse to answer.

“A small one, yes.” Yet the stakes were certainly nothing like their first wager or their second. “If he managed to wait out our betrothal without stealing me away to Gretna Green, then he would decide our honeymoon—the destination and duration. And if he'd failed, then I would.”

Though the truth was, she never imagined he'd last a week, let alone three. And there were ample times when
she'd
been fully prepared to abscond with
him
. If not for their clever trysts, she never would have survived.

Tucking a butterscotch-colored lock behind her ear, Adeline came to her with the silk-lined hat. “Do you know where he's taking you?”

Juliet shook her head, even as eager anticipation caused her pulse to flit from one place to another. Already, she could feel her skin turning warm and pink. Thankfully, her pelisse was now buttoned up all the way to her throat and hid the evidence. “I was hoping one of you might know. Surely Max hasn't kept it a secret from everyone.”

Her three married friends all shook their heads, each one in turn confessing that they had heard nothing from their husbands. In the next moment, however, Juliet learned about the wagers that had commenced between the gentlemen.

“I confess,” Gemma said on a sigh, “that Ivy and I also . . . speculated on your actual wedding date.”

“And I am pleased to say that Gemma has
agreed
”—Ivy flashed a triumphant smile—“to try one more Season before she gives up on the idea of marriage altogether.”

“Though I don't believe it will do much good . . . ” Gemma grumbled, lifting her myrtle green eyes to the ceiling.

Lilah laughed in clear understanding. “You may be surprised at the difference one Season can make.”

“It's true. Sometimes love simply stumbles through your door,” Adeline added with a shrug.

Juliet couldn't agree more. “One thing is for certain—love always happens when you least expect it.”

She reached for the kid gloves waiting on her vanity. While putting them on, however, she found herself distracted by the lovely cabochon ring on her left hand. The same ring that Max had kept for her for five years.

“Madame,” Marguerite said from the doorway. “The carriage is packed. You are ready for your honeymoon.”

Her skin heated once more, her heart beating wildly. She was ready to spend the rest of her life with Max. She just wondered why it had taken her so long to figure it out.

“Marguerite,” Lilah began, stepping toward her, “did Lord Thayne happen to mention where he was taking Juliet?”

With a sly grin, her maid nodded. “
Oui
, Lady Locke.”

This gained Juliet's attention, as well as everyone else's. “Would you care to elaborate?”

“All I will say is that Lord Thayne's valet and I will not be following your carriage until tomorrow.” Then that saucy minx simply curtsied and left them all to speculate.

“You won't be traveling far today,” Ivy said as they all moved through the doorway, one by one.

Another palpitation fluttered beneath her breast as her hand curved over the banister. Hmm . . . just what had her new husband planned? She was only steps away from finding out . . .

“Oh, my dear, Juliet,” Marjorie said, rushing out of Zinnia's chamber, her arms open. Her eyes shimmered with moisture, and her face glowed with her smile. “My daughter, at last.”

Juliet returned her embrace, a wealth of tenderness overflowing inside of her. Not only for Marjorie but for everyone with her today. They were all precious to her—a true family. “It seemed to take me forever to find my way here.”

Marjorie pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Never fear. The rest of your life can begin on any day.”

Emerging from the doorway ahead of Zinnia, the Dowager Duchess of Vale cast a pointed look to her niece. “I completely agree, and one must always be prepared.”

In response, Gemma crossed her arms. “As I have said before, Aunt Edith, I doubt there is a match for me.”

Juliet, Ivy, Lilah, and Adeline all inhaled sharply, knowing better than to present a challenge to a trio of women who believed themselves to be matchmakers. At the breakfast this morning, Edith, Marjorie, and Zinnia had taken full credit for every happy union in the room. Juliet, however, hadn't felt guided into her match but more like she'd unwrapped it, bit by bit. Nevertheless, too content to argue, she had raised her own glass in the toast.

Now, however, the trio in question exchanged a look and then a nod.
Poor Gemma
. She would have not one but three women determined to find her a husband.

“And speaking of husbands,” Juliet said with immeasurable pleasure, “mine is waiting below. So I will leave you to your discussion and bid you each a fond farewell.”

Zinnia embraced her, tears welling in her eyes. “Promise you will write.”

“Often,” she promised. “And when we are settled in Lancashire, you must come and stay with us.”

After Zinnia agreed, and Juliet pecked nearly every cheek in the hall, she finally swept down the stairs.

“W
here are you taking me, Max?” Juliet asked from beneath the dark silk he'd tied around her eyes in the carriage.

It took every ounce of willpower to fight the temptation to kiss those pouting pink lips.

Soon
. . . he promised himself and continued to guide her along the garden path to the doors of their townhouse. “You will see.”

She huffed playfully. “Says the man who isn't currently blindfolded.”

He stopped abruptly for effect. “Wait a moment. I thought
I
was the one wearing the blindfold, and you were leading me. I wonder where we could be.”

“Max—”

Before she could scold him or swat at him, he bent down and swept her into his arms, laughing when she gasped and clung to him. He relished the feel of her in his embrace, the warmth of her body, the supple curves beneath his hands. Holding her close, he pressed his lips to her hair as he found the door latch and carried her over the threshold.

After he closed the door behind them, she lifted her head and breathed deeply. Then, with a smug grin, she said, “I know where we are. You have brought me to our townhouse.”

Contrary to what Max had overheard between his mother and Lady Cosgrove over three weeks ago, Juliet never intended to sell the house. He knew this because when he'd threatened to purchase it from her and pay double the price, she'd laughed and confessed her entire scheme.

“Did you believe that I would want to spend my wedding day traveling in a carriage?” he asked, carrying her down the hall and then through another doorway before placing her on her feet.

“Hmm . . . ” She laid her hands over his heart and lifted her pert chin. “I did not know what to think. After all, you have not seemed at all eager today.”

“Not eager?” He scoffed tenderly, skimming his hands down her back and drawing her closer. “How could you doubt it? For someone who knows me better than all others, I am surprised by this claim.”

“But you have not kissed me once since we have become married.”

Slipping her blindfold over her head, he framed her face with his hands. “Because I wanted this first kiss to be right here.”

Darting a glance around the room, she smiled, her eyes beaming with love when they met his. “The library.”

Now, he too drew in a breath, finding the familiar scents of leather and citrus blended with rose water and sandalwood. This was the comforting fragrance of their home and reminiscent of many happy memories. Not to mention all the new ones to come.

He'd made certain that the laborers had restored this room to exactly the way it had been. Only now, a few more books were added, both his and hers, mingling together.

“This is the first stop on our honeymoon tour of exceptional libraries.” Pausing between each word, he leaned in and brushed his lips across her brow, her petal-soft cheek, and both corners of her mouth before resting in the center.

For a moment, they both went perfectly still, eyes drifting closed. There was no rush. They had a lifetime to linger. And, at long last, she was his.

The End