The Proposition (46 page)

I, Milford Xavier Bollash, fifth Duke of Arles, do hereby acknowledge that the man who presented himself at Uelle Castle this evening, the nineteenth of May eighteen hundred ninety-eight, as Michael Frederick Edgerton is my grandson, son of my own blood, Phillip Samuel Bollash. I do hereby recognize him as my heir and proclaim him due all hereditary honors and properties associated with the duchy of Arles, including the title, and all subsidiary titles, the Marquess of Sissingley, Viscount Berwick, Viscount of Meadborrow, Baron of Berchester.

The letter was dated yesterday evening, signed by the duke with his ducal seal, and witnessed by four men, including the lord secretary of the College of Arms and the Home Secretary himself.

That night Mick dreamed of legs, though it was an odd dream. He dreamed of fine, sturdy legs. Men's legs, women's legs. Beloved legs. Legs lost to him. New legs, strange legs. And all the legs in a dream that was overrun with them were so tall he only came to their knees.

Epilogue

«
^

W
innie married Mick anyway, even though he was a duke.

They traveled to Cornwall for the wedding, where they were united as man and wife in a small ceremony followed by a fine, jovial dinner at Mick's aunt's house. Mick's family was in great attendance: two uncles, three aunts, two cousins, and twelve of his brothers and sisters—one brother being unable to come because he wouldn't leave his wife; she was pregnant with their third child and too close to term. The celebration afterward was a gay affair filled with Cornish voices, much dancing, and warm laughter.

Unavoidably, Winnie noticed that Mick didn't look a thing like his brothers and sisters. He was a head taller than the tallest of them. They were all brown-eyed with pinker complexions. No one seemed to notice though; they all adored him. He was fond of each, from the youngest early adolescent rapscallion to the eldest after Mick himself, a shy sister.

Not a one of them thought a thing of the fact that Winnie's few guests—Milton, several of her former students, and a few of her old friends with whom she had reconnected after the ball—kept addressing herself and her new husband as "your grace."

In general, London society was greatly put out that the new duke should be so private and remote in taking a bride. But it was a precedent. The new duke showed no desire to occupy the center of society in the way the old duke had. Very quickly, people learned the new lord prized above all else family, his wife especially, and the company of dogs, especially terriers—in the first weeks of his marriage, he acquired several from the stock of the famous Reverend Russell.

In London, Mick signed the official marriage documents with his new name, which ironically did not change his wife's name at all—other than to make her the Duchess of Arles. As a matter of course, the new duke granted the dowager duchess the use of the house in London where she had lived with her husband, "for as long as she should want to live there." No kinswoman of his, Mick determined, would struggle to have a good roof over her head. Much to the mystification of London, he granted a family in Cornwall—one by the name of Tremore—the use of the duchy's four lesser estates.

Thus Winnie Bollash, the only daughter of the Marquess of Sissingley, had a remarkable thing happen: Not only did she marry the man she adored who became the Duke of Arles, but through a circuitous route of second cousins, once removed, she regained her family home, Uelle Castle, which was where she and her husband chose to live.

* * *

Mick was out on the river promenade, waiting for her the day she came home from London, having gone to discuss and deliver a copy of her paper on Cockney speech to a playwright who was researching the concept for a play based on the myth of Pygmalion.

"Mick!" she called as her carriage rolled across the bridge. "Mick! Come see!" She had her driver pull right up onto the river walk. "Look what I've brought!" When Mick came close enough, she said the line that she had been rehearsing: "Everyone can always use a little magic."

Then she leaned out the window of the carriage, not even bothering to open the door, and handed him a warm, wiggly puppy.

"Oh, a mongrel terrier!" he said. "My favorite."

"No, a little Magic."

Then she opened the carriage door and let another dog bound out, a dog that leaped up on seeing Mick; it high-jumped five feet into the air.

"Magic!" Mick said. The dog was as pleased to see him as he was to see the animal.

Winnie stepped down from the carriage herself, saying, "He's only visiting. Rezzo won't sell him. But he gave us the puppy as a wedding present." She took the puppy from Mick, letting him deal with Magic, who was beside himself with joy; jumping, jumping. She brought the puppy against her nose, rubbing his tummy. "Ooh, he smells so good." She grinned over his little, round belly, her eyes smiling at Mick as the puppy stretched his head backward to look at him upside down. She assured him again, "He's Magic's son."

Mick nodded, too content to answer.

"How are the ledgers coming?" she asked. She knew, he was overwhelmed by them some days.

He looked up from the dogs. They had already relieved his preoccupation with all he had to learn—all he and she
both
had to learn—about running an estate. He spent hours over its books, trying to make sense of them. "Getting better," he assured her. "The whole thing is rather like breeding ferrets. Once you know who's who and what strengths are where, you start to know which assets to match up with what liabilities. We'll make a lean little animal of this estate yet."

She watched him playing with the dogs, so seemingly at ease in his bespoke clothes—he liked them and had a wardrobe of them—and new responsibilities. Still, though, she wondered if he missed the more ragtag lifestyle of making his own business pay by the seat of its pants. From nowhere, she found herself asking, "Are you happy, Mick? Really happy?"

He looked up, surprised. "Aren't you?"

"Me?" She laughed. "I've landed in heaven. I just worry."

"About what, Win? I love you. I want to be with you."

She shook her head. "No, not that. The life here—"

He winked at her. "Loovey, the life here is grand. I've ended up with my Cornish mother's love, my grandfather's money, and you in a castle on the river. What could be better?"

"Well, there's one thing that could be better," she said. She was sheepish, but grinned in spite of herself. She announced, "I've missed my second mense, Mick."

His eyebrows went up. "Oh." He smiled, abandoning the dogs. "Oh, loovey, that's marvelous."

"Really?"

"Abso-bloody-lutely."

She cackled at that—and with delight as he scooped her up against his chest.

"M-m-m," he said, pressing his face into her hair. "I want a lot of children. I come from a very large family, so large it's two families, in fact. M-m-m," nuzzling her more, "that's wonderful, Win. Really wonderful."

How could a person be more content? she wondered. How could anything be better than this?

Then he showed her: Very softly as he nuzzled her, his mouth near her ear, he began to sing. "I'm so happy with you, la, la
…"
A plant-song. Only this time she let him sing it to her.

* * *

That night, in the huge bedroom neither one of them were quite used to, in a high new bed, on a new feather mattress, Winnie said to him in the dark, "Grow your mustache back."

Mick lay beside her, his long body still. She thought he didn't hear her at first. He looked unconscious in the moonlight as it came through the high windows. It was a balmy night. The sheer, flowing draperies that lined the heavier damask ones blew out into the room. They and the moonlight made Mick's face into a play of shifting shadows. Winnie stared, doubting herself for a moment, as she watched his lips curve in a barely discernable smile.

His head turned toward her, and he opened one eye. He gave her a one-eyed, inquiring look, then he let his head rock back. He closed his eyes again, while she thought she saw a smug smile spread.

With his eyes still closed, he said, "What'll you give me, if I grow my mustache back?"

"Pardon?"

"I have an idea."

"What?"

"You go over to the wall, Win, and lift your nightgown up. All the way up over your bum. Then turn around and put your head like you did that time against the wall. I get to kiss my way up your legs. You can't stop me, no matter what I do, for ten minutes. If you can do that, I'll grow the mustache back. Just for you."

"No," she said, laughing, a little bit nervous. "We're married now. We're not doing—um, that. We don't do
that
anymore."

His head turned toward her again, one sleepy eye slitting enough to look at her. "Winnie, I think in this area you better let me decide what we do and don't do. For a while yet." In the purple-gray of the room, she watched his head roll back again, his expression relax.

What she could see of his smile was faint, fond—and wistful in a way that could only be called wicked.

From the shadows, he said, "You be the student. I'll be the teacher now."

When she said nothing, he rolled his head toward her again and gave her another slitted look, this time with both eyes. "What are you waiting for, loovey? Come on. To the wall with you."

She didn't move.

He nudged her, then he came up onto one elbow, over her, and said, "Do you want the mustache back or not?"

 
"Um—" It seemed like a trick question. "Um, yes."

"All right, then. You can have it, but up with you now." He gave her rump a push. He was serious. "To the wall, Win. And I'm putting you on notice." He bent his lips down her ear. The heat and humidity of his breath tickled as he whispered, "I'm kissing the backs of your legs all the way up to your bum, and anyplace else I want. For ten minutes."

Winnie lay there on the pillows, speechless. For a full two seconds. Then she laughed and said, "Fifteen." She changed her mind. "No, twenty!"

Ah, what a good bargainer she'd become.

* * * * *