Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
Laughing and crying on the same breath, she finally got out, "Jason, oh Jason, you incorrigible man! I've suffered agonies thinking that you no longer loved
me.
I was sure you were taking me to Drumoak to announce your betrothal to some other lady. How should I
know
what was on your mind when you've been
so . . .
so
odiously
indifferent that I scarcely recognized you?"
Her words seemed to appall him. "Betrothed? When I'm a married man? I thought you had guessed. It's Raeburn and Miss Spencer who are betrothed. Surely that does not surprise your
"So that's it," she said, covering her eyes with her hand. "Oh Jason, if only you had told me! You have no conception of where my flights of fancy have not led me! But Jason, you were so damnably
vague!"
"But you must have known, when I asked you to wear your wedding gown, what was in my mind?"
"Then why were you so beastly
indifferent
to me?"
"That
was not indifference."
He had taken her by the shoulders and he administered a rough shake as if to bring her to her senses. Maddie was too
happy to make the least objection to this lover-like sign of his devotion.
"What you are pleased to call my 'indifference,'" he said between exasperation and laughter, "was a show of gentlemanly behaviour to persuade you that I could use you as befits a gently-bred girl."
"Well how was I to know? I was half frightened to death! You've never shown me that
horrid
side of your character before."
"Maddie!" he protested.
"Just funning, my love. Can't you take a joke?"
He kissed her very swiftly and when he drew back, she murmured, "Jason, what was I to think when you kept yourself from me for a full sennight!"
"There was nothing else for it. You may recall that I've been under a vow of celibacy? To be near you was too great a temptation to resist. So I stayed away."
She could not help frowning at this. "And who is this lady who so constrained you?"
"My mother, of course," he said, and kissed her frown away. "I was supposed to prove to you that I could be as gentle and as restrained a lover as you could wish."
Into the lapels of his jacket, she murmured, "Jason, how soon . . . what I mean to say is, when will your vow . . . oh, you know what I'm trying to say."
With a grin of pure devilment, he answered, "I'm released from my vow as soon as I get my ring on your finger."
"Oh, Jason," she breathed.
His eyes searched hers, questioned, and read their answer. Wordlessly, he drew her hand through the crook of his arm and escorted her along the flagstoned path. The great doors of the church stood open.
In the narthex, she came to a halt. Lady Sophie, in a pale daffodil muslin came forward. At her skirts clung two pretty little girls clad in white. In their hands, they carried baskets of flowers.
Sophie smiled shyly at Maddie. "Children," she said, addressing the two diminutive flower girls, "make your curtsey to your Aunt Maddie. These are two of your nieces, Penny and Meg."
Maddie just stood there staring. Deveryn took her hand and curled it around a slim ivory bound volume.
"Your grandmother's catechism," he said, "and inside, a sprig of white heather, for luck. I remembered, you see."
"Are
we. . .
are we to be married?" she asked, her eyes blinking rapidly as young Sophie removed her bonnet, and smiling, fixed a white satin ribbon to her curls.
"No. We are already wed, as I've pointed out to you on numerous occasions. I've prevailed upon Mr. Moncrieff to solemnize the declaration we made before witnesses. However, to all intents and purposes, the service will proceed just like any ordinary wedding. Are you ready, love?"
"And shall we say our vows?"
"Yes, my darling, we shall say our vows, and God help either one of us if we don't live up to them."
She removed her kid gloves and set them aside. With heartfelt reverence, she opened her grandmother's catechism and carefully placed her three precious tokens inside the leaves—an angel, a baby, and a ring. To Deveryn's questioning look, she said, "These will become family heirlooms. It's a long story. Oh my love, we never had a chance."
He smiled at that, and offered his arm. "You're mine already," he told her with a show of his habitual, Outrageous possessiveness. "I'll have no man give away what already belongs to me."
As in a dream, she allowed her husband to escort her the length of the centre aisle, her bridesmaid and flower girls following in their train. Shyly, with happiness shining from her eyes, she forced herself to meet the steady looks of the assembled guests. She feared to see reproach in their eyes. Her glances met only with warmth and understanding and more.
From her grandfather, a plea for forgiveness.
From Aunt Nell, a blessing.
From Lord Rossmere—was it admiration?
And from the countess—Maddie looked again—a wink and a smile of congratulation, as if she, Maddie Sinclair Verney, had just done something terribly clever. She winked back.
At the communion table, they halted and the service began. When it came time to exchange their vows, Deveryn sank to his knees. Maddie followed suit. She had not the heart to tell
him that he was following the English tradition.
He slipped his ring on her finger and with more gratitude than she could bear, more happiness than she deserved, she heard his voice, low, unsteady, repeat his vows.
"With this ring, I thee wed; with my body, I thee worship; with all my worldly goods, I thee endow."
And when she thought that the service was over, that there could be nothing more to complete her joy, the minister offered them the sacrament of communion, and she knew that it was at her husband's instigation.
With trembling fingers, she cupped the silver chalice and drank the wine. She offered it to Deveryn, and when he raised his eyes to hers, she could have wept for joy at what she read there.
They came out of the church to bright sunshine. The village children had gathered at the wrought iron gates. As she stepped under the arch on Deveryn's arm, he reached in his coat pocket and withdrew a fistful of silver coins. He threw them high in the air, and the children went scrambling after the treasure trove with shouts of glee.
"To handsel our marriage," said Deveryn. "Janet told me." And he handed her into the carriage.
"We're not going to Drumoak?" she asked when the carriage made a turn at the end of the high street.
"No." He cradled her against him. "We're going to my yacht for our belated honeymoon. Shall you mind?"
"Sounds wonderful," she murmured, snuggling closer. "Where are we off to?"
"I thought I told you." He turned her face up for his chaste kiss. "At first tide tomorrow, we're sailing for Inverness. You see, my love, you've converted me to everything Scottish."
Moments later, there was a hint of apology in his voice when he said, "You'll miss Founders' Day and the performance of
Medea.
Shall you mind very much, my love?"
She could scarcely suppress her shudder. "I'll get over it," she said handsomely, and then to turn the subject into more convivial channels, "Does your yacht have a name?"
"Destiny," he said, and kissed her again.
The name didn't surprise her in the least.
*
*
*
She came to him that night as he had so often dreamed she would, without shyness, without fear, and without shame. The cabin was drenched in the lambent glow of moonlight, touching them with a sense of mystery, and magic, and awe. Their lovemaking was more than the joining of their bodies, more than pleasure, though it was the sweetest pleasure he had ever known. There was a benediction in her kiss, catharsis in her cry of ecstasy. When it was over, he felt absurdly and deeply happy. With infinite tenderness, he laid* his hands against her swelling abdomen. For a moment, he was too choked with emotion to speak. She lay curled trustingly against him, one leg thrown over his hips. He could feel the wet of her tears against his neck—a lover's baptism, he thought.
"Maddie," he said, "tell me why you love me."
She cupped the face that was so very dear to her in both hands and brushed his lips with her own. "Oh my love," she said, "there's no saying why. I could name you a dozen attributes and still not fall in love with the man who possessed every one of them. But you, even when I thought I despised you, quite stole my heart away."
He stroked her throat softly with the back of his fingers. "Do you know, I shall be roasted unmercifully when word gets out that I've fallen for a bluestocking? Who would have believed that a freckle-faced innocent, and a Scot to boot, would have toppled me from my unassailable perch?"
For that piece of malice, she hipped him ferociously on the earlobe. "Aristophanes had the right of it," she said. "We are two halves of an entity. Apart, we're simply not whole. There's no other explanation."
"If that is so, then you are my better half," he answered with feeling.
But she would not allow it, and to stop her protests, he began to make love to her in earnest.
"Jason?" she murmured throatily as he laid her back on the narrow bunk.
"Mmm?"
"Now that our lovemaking has been 'hallowed,' so to speak . . ."
"Yes?" He brought his head up and surveyed her through eyes half-hooded with passion.
"Do you suppose that you could teach me all those
wicked,
wicked
things you introduced me to at Dunsdale?"
For a moment, he stared at her in shocked silence. Maddie covered her face with her hands. When no sound came from him, she slowly and carefully brought them down. She caught the flash of his teeth in the moonlight. Damn if he wasn't laughing at her!
"Well, Jason Verney?" she demanded.
She discovered that he was a patient teacher.
He learned that she had a natural aptitude.
They wakened to a furious pounding on the door as the sky in the east lightened to dawn. Maddie rolled to her stomach and buried her head under the pillow. Deveryn pulled on his breeches and went to investigate. By degrees, she became aware of a subdued commotion on the deck above. She had just slipped into her dressing-gown when her husband strode through the cabin door.
"We set sail in ten minutes," he told her, and sat down on the bunk to pull on his boots.
"What's going on?" she asked.
His face was a picture of suppressed mirth. "Your guardian has arrived poste-haste from Canada. He's at Drumoak now. Duncan has this minute brought a note from my father."
"Well, that's capital. It's years since I've seen Uncle Tom." She could not think what he found to laugh at.
"And will be many more before you see him again, if I have my way."
"What?"
"He's as mad as a hornet and threatens to have our marriage annulled. Would you believe, there's a suitor in Canada he has all picked out for you?"
"Oh," she said, and sat down beside him. "What's to be done?"
"We're eloping."
"What?"
"To England." He was shrugging into a seaman's coarse, jacket. "We're to be married at Dunsdale by my mother's chaplain. My father is on his way there at this very moment. He'll arrange things."
"But we
are
married," she exclaimed.
"So I should hope," he retorted, and planted a kiss on the small swell of her abdomen. "But there are some who will refuse to accept it until it's done English style. Maddie, I'm thinking of the child."
For a moment, her expression turned mulish, and he thought that he might have an argument on his hands. But all at once she said, "Oxfordshire!" and smiled a secret smile to herself.