A Wicked Pursuit (42 page)

“It’s because I love you, Gus,” he said, as if it all were obvious. “I didn’t want to see you hurt. I wanted things to be right for you. It doesn’t have anything to do with my leg.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Your leg doesn’t matter to me, not a bit. I don’t care if you never dance with me. You’ll always be perfect to me, Harry, because I love you, and you love me, and that’s perfect, too.”

“No, Gus,” he said slowly, pausing just long enough for her to feel a little lurch of uncertainty. “It’s you who’s perfect. You understand me better than I do myself. I needed you to show me what was truly important, Gus, because I was clearly too thick-witted and stubborn to see it for myself. I could break my other leg and both my arms as well—”

“Hush, don’t say such things!” she exclaimed anxiously. “Don’t tempt Fate!”

“Why shouldn’t I, when Fate has already dealt me the best hand of cards ever given to a man?” He raised her hand, kissing the back of it lightly, his gaze never leaving her face. “Fate put me on that infernal horse, and threw me from it as well, but Fate also brought me you. And that’s what matters most. You, Gus.”

She was speechless, but in the best possible way, because it meant that there was, for once, nothing left to say. He’d said everything. She longed to kiss him, there in the line of other peers waiting for admission, and she’d already arched up toward him with her lips parted when she thought better of it. He did not, and kissed her anyway.

“There,” he said. “That’s for luck. Not that my wife requires it, but just in case.”

She laughed softly and blushed, aware of the disapproval of others waiting around them. She didn’t care. Harry was her husband and her love, and there could never be anything wrong with kissing him.

Yet as they reached the doorway to the drawing room, her bravado faded. The room was large and very warm, with the summer sun streaming in through the tall windows, hung in red, along one wall. Throngs of courtiers lined the walls, watching the presentations, and somewhere among them would be Brecon and Celia and the rest of Harry’s large family. At the far end, beneath a small red canopy, sat Her Majesty in an elaborate armchair, her attendants clustered around her.

“It’s much farther than I thought it would be,” Gus whispered with trepidation as their turn came closer.

“Be brave,” he whispered back, and though he smiled, she saw he was anxious, too. Of course he’d be: this walk would be far more of a trial for him than it ever would for her.

She smiled back, as warmly as she could. “You be brave, too.”

“Together,” he said. “We’ll be brave together.”

She nodded and took a step apart from him, letting him hold her left hand slightly raised, the way that was required. Then, at last, they began to walk toward the queen.

Gus held her head high, mindful of her plumes, and stared straight ahead. She tried not to think of the dozens of important people watching her, or of the queen waiting at the other end of the room, and she tried, too, not to clutch too tightly to Harry’s hand. She measured her steps to match his, something that came naturally to her now, as it should.

“I’m sorry, Gus,” he said softly, startling her.

She glanced at him sharply. He was still looking straight ahead as they were supposed to, reminder enough to jerk her eyes back forward as well.

“That’s the rest of what I needed to say,” he continued, so softly that no one else would guess that he’d spoken at all. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done or said to hurt you. Forgive me, if you can.”

They were nearly to the queen, close enough that she must answer him now, or not at all.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Always.”

She wanted to say more, much more, to tell him how much she loved him in a thousand different ways, but the queen was directly before her, looking up at her expectantly.

“The Countess of Hargreave,” announced a slightly bored male voice.

Harry’s fingers tightened briefly around hers and then released her. She was on her own now, and as gracefully as she could, she curtseyed deeply, her hoops and stays creaking and her skirts crumpling around her on the floor. With her head bowed, she saw the queen’s hand, plump and white and not unlike her own, before her. She bent and briefly kissed the back of it, and then rose, her head still bowed. Now all she must do was retreat backward to rejoin Harry, and relief swept over her. She hadn’t fallen. Her tiara hadn’t tumbled from her head. She hadn’t embarrassed herself or Harry. She’d survived, and she was done.

Her Majesty, however, had other ideas.

“You are the new country bride of Lord Hargreave, yes?” she asked in heavily accented English.

Startled, Gus looked up. Harry had assured her there’d be no conversation, and here the queen was speaking to her.

“Ye-yes, Your Majesty,” she stammered.

The queen smiled. She wasn’t very pretty, with a broad face and flaring nostrils, but to Gus she looked kind.

“We have heard the story of your courtship,” she said. “We are pleased by your devotion to Lord Hargreave whilst he was ill. You are improved, Lord Hargreave?”

“Yes, thank you, Your Majesty,” Harry said behind her. “Because of my wife, I am.”

“We are glad of it,” the queen said. “Such love and devotion are to be praised. We trust we will see more of you both at court.”

She nodded, dismissing Gus, who was at last free to retreat as the next name was called. Harry took her hand, and solemnly they backed away the required number of paces, before, at last, they could slip among the bystanders. She was vaguely aware of people praising and congratulating her for doing so well and receiving the queen’s favor, but all that mattered to her was Harry. He pulled her to the back of the crowd, into an alcove by a window.

“You did it, Gus,” he said. “You were perfect.”

“
We
did it,” she said breathlessly. “We showed them, didn’t we? We showed them
all
, and—and—oh, Harry, I love you so much!”

He pulled her close and kissed her, heedless of how many people were watching or her plumes or his crutch or anything else, because nothing mattered except that they were together.

Together.

Vauxhall Gardens, Kennington, near London
June 1769

The evening was
warm for June, with countless stars in the cloudless night sky reflected in the silvery surface of the Thames. But for the Londoners who’d been rowed across the river that night, the stars and moon couldn’t begin to compare with the excitement they found at the pleasure garden at Vauxhall. Whether in the gaily-painted supper boxes or simply strolling the wide paths beneath the trees, the throngs of merry-makers laughed and flirted and drank and danced, every one of them enthused to be able to enjoy themselves in so delightful a spot.

Harry and Gus were among them. They had come to Vauxhall with his father the duke, Celia, and several other members of the family, claiming the very best supper-box: close enough to the orchestra pavilion to enjoy the music, but not so close as to make conversation impossible. Their supper was long done and cleared away, and the rest of their party had gone to stroll through the gardens’ walks, leaving Harry and Gus alone together on a cushioned bench in the box.

“Was there ever so lovely a night, Harry?” asked Gus, her head pillowed against his shoulder. “I do not know which shines more brightly: the stars in the sky, or the fairy-lights in the trees. I do love the fairy-lights.”

“An excellent guess, sweetheart,” Harry said. “But fairy-lights in the trees are not my surprise.”

“Oh, you and your confounded surprise!” Gus sighed and turned around to face him. “Honestly, Harry, I have heard so much tonight of this great surprise that when it actually occurs, I shall be so weary of the subject I will take no notice.”

In Gus’s mind, there could be no better way to pass the summer evening than lying lazily against her husband’s chest as the music drifted around them, tucked back into the shadowy corners of the supper-box. A surprise seemed entirely unnecessary.

“I thought you liked surprises,” Harry said, curling his arm protectively around her waist, or where her waist once had been. She was five months’ gone with their first child, and the soft swell of her growing belly had begun to show beneath her silk skirts. “I thought they amused you.”

“They do,” she said, running her fingers lightly along his jaw. “If they didn’t, I would never have survived being married to you, Harry.”

He chuckled. “But you must admit you are never bored.”

“Not at all,” she said, “nor do I wish you to change, not ever. Which is why I find your insistence on the significance of this particular surprise particularly vexing.”

He sighed dramatically. “Clearly you have waited long enough,” he said. “Come, on your feet. Time for your surprise.”

Reluctantly she rose, and he stood beside her, linking his hand fondly into hers to lead her down from the box, leaning on the ebony cane that had finally replaced the crutches. They slowly made their way through the crowd toward the music, a footman in their livery walking respectfully behind them. After nearly a year of being the Countess of Hargreave, Gus was now accustomed to the attention that followed her and Harry wherever they went. They’d become a popular couple in London society, and the love they shared was so obvious that they made even strangers smile.

“So what
is
this surprise, Harry?” Gus asked. She was curious now; she wouldn’t deny it. “Is it a musical surprise?”

“In part,” he said. “Here, this way, toward the front.”

She hung back, watching the two rows of dancers skipping and hopping through a raucous country dance. “Wait until they’re done, Harry,” she said. “I’ve no wish to be trod upon.”

“I cannot promise, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m sadly out of practice.”

She frowned, the music ending and the dancers scattering. “Practice for what, Harry?”

“For dancing.” He handed his cane to the footman and bowed to Gus. His expression was solemn, but his blue eyes sparkled as he reached out to take her hand. “Will you honor me with this dance, my lady?”

She caught her breath, her hand fluttering to her mouth. She noticed now how none of the other dancers had returned to the floor; instead they crowded around its edges, watching and smiling with anticipation. She saw, too, how Harry’s father and Celia and the others from their party were there now as well. Even the orchestra’s conductor was smiling, beaming down at them from his stand.

“Oh, Harry,” she said, torn between being immensely flattered, and fearing that he was making an equally immense misjudgment. He managed about the house without his cane, but she hadn’t seen him trust his leg like that anywhere else, let alone dance upon it. “Are you certain you wish to do this?”

“I promised you last summer I’d dance with you beneath the stars at Vauxhall,” he said. “True, it has taken me longer than I’d hoped, but tonight I will keep my promise to you, Gus. If you’ll accept.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, his gaze never leaving hers, and it was more than enough to make her heart skip.

“Then yes, my lord,” she said, letting him lead her forward. “I will dance with you.”

“A good thing you accepted,” he said to a smattering of applause around them. “I would have felt like a deuced idiot if you hadn’t.”

“You know I can never refuse you anything, Harry,” she said, standing across from him. “Not even this.”

“Especially not this,” he said, and winked. “My first dance with you. Catch me if I stumble, sweetheart.”

She gasped, not even wanting to consider that possibility, but the music had already begun, and now it was too late to stop. The dance was an old, familiar piece, with the conductor slowing the rhythm to a pace that was almost stately. Back and forward, turn, turn, and back again: The steps came effortlessly to her, and to Harry, too. It was not perfect, but it didn’t need to be, and when the last note rang out over the trees, Harry pulled her close and held her tight, there with all of Vauxhall cheering.

“Were you surprised, sweetheart?” he said, his voice low by her ear for only her to hear. “Wasn’t it worth it?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, so happy that tears stung her eyes. “You kept your promise, exactly as you said you would.”

“I always will for you, Gus,” he said. “It’s part of loving you as much as I do.”

“Then promise you’ll always love me as much as I do you,” she said, reaching up to kiss him.

“Forever,” he said, just before his lips met hers. “Forever.”

Read on for an exciting preview of Isabella Bradford’s next Breconridge Brothers novel