Authors: Cupboard Kisses
“Will they be cut, do you think?”
“I doubt they’d care. If so, a viscountess surely has enough social standing to see them through.”
“Oh. My lord—”
“Kenley.”
She took her hands from under his and twisted them in her lap. “You do not have to marry me, my—Kenley.”
“I like the sound of that, ‘my Kenley’. And I do not
have
to do anything but make you happy. But what bee have you got in your bonnet now, my Bluebell?”
“I…I had almost decided to come to you anyway, with no strings. That’s the real test, according to Marie.”
“Then why is my man Sparling giving in his notice to go into the dressmaking business?”
“Is he? How wonderful!”
“Yes, a one-handed valet was something of a challenge. But still, madam, that does not excuse the slur to my sons’ honor. You cannot expect them to be always defending their parentage, can you? Furthermore, your little Fanny has her heart set on being lady’s maid to a ‘genuine’ lady, and my mother is looking to spoil her grandchildren unmercifully. You wouldn’t disappoint them all, would you, or me, an old sea dog who hopes to give up his rakehell ways and become a country gentleman, enjoying hearth and home and the love of a very, very good woman?”
“But I have no dowry.”
“Good, then no one will accuse me of being a fortune hunter. You do have a dowry, however: that very troublesome house on Sullivan Street and a very fine set of pearls.”
“The pearls! Kenley, were they really a Harwood inheritance?”
He stood and went into the library, where Cristabel could hear him opening drawers in the desk. Coming back, he held out a velvet-covered box. “Of course those were Harwood jewels. Here are the Winstoke engagement emeralds. Will you wear them, Cristabel, my love?”
For answer she stepped into his embrace and their kiss was a promise.
Sometime later, not even a short time later, as these things are measured, when the pins were out of Cristabel’s hair and her dress was not so securely fastened, they broke apart at a cough. The footman Floyd entered the room with a tea tray.
“Who the deuce ordered tea at a time like this?” Winstoke demanded, while Cristabel turned her glowing face away.
“Mrs. Witt, the housekeeper, my lord, she insisted.” Floyd’s voice was shaky and the tea things rattled in his unsteady grip. He put the tray down and fled.
“I think I had better go home, Kenley,” Cristabel said when they were once more alone, before she could answer the yearning in his eyes with her own heart’s hunger.
“You are home, my dear, right here at Harwood House.”
“But I couldn’t…we can’t…”
“Yes, we can, as soon as Sparling and Marie return with the special license and your clothes. Then we can travel together to Staffordshire without offending anyone’s sensibilities, where I am certain my mother will plan a wedding breakfast for the whole county. We are going to do it up right, my prim and proper lady, with no more cupboard kisses.”
…Except maybe a few before the vicar comes.