Artful Deceptions (28 page)

She held out her hand to him to be helped upright and found herself in his arms again. It seemed right to be sheltered against Galen’s broad chest, resting her head on his shoulder. Had anyone told her a month ago that this would be so, she would have thought him touched in the head. But she could not imagine being anywhere else ever again.

“I don’t think it’s selfishness,” she answered slowly, still uncertain as to how to reply to his amazing declaration. “I think I understand what you are saying, but it is all happening so fast, I’m a little frightened.”

Carefully, not daring to hope, Galen lifted her chin so he could look down into her eyes. They were such beautiful eyes, in all the colors of midnight. He would rather just kiss her senseless and let matters take their course, but that would be unfair to her. “Do you think ... ? Is there any chance that you might learn to love me in return?”

Dreamily Arianne closed her eyes and let the touch of Galen’s fingers open the box that she had kept so tightly fastened inside. It felt good to just let the sensations drift out, to not worry and fret about what the next minute, the next day, would bring. If she could just live forever in this moment …

“I’ve never been in love before, Galen. How will I know it’s love? Does it have something to do with being happy when one is with someone, and feeling all confused and empty inside when he is gone? Is it listening for a certain footstep, a particular voice, until that someone returns? Can just talking and laughing and feeling comfortable with someone have anything to do with love? Does it ... ?” Arianne lowered her voice as Galen pressed her head against his shoulder and began to scatter kisses against her hair. “Does love have anything to do with thinking about someone all the time and wondering what it would be like to have his children?”

Galen responded gravely, crushing her close. “All that, and more, my darling. There’s no defining it, I fear. Do you feel like that, Arianne? Can I make you happy?”

The bliss enveloping her shone in Arianne’s eyes as she looked up to him. But before she could speak, a mournful howl developed somewhere outside, followed by shrill screams, and the words were struck from her tongue. She stared at Galen, who had begun to scowl horribly. Then, with a resigned lift of his lips, he brushed a kiss across her brow and pulled her to her feet.

“Will our children be any better behaved than your siblings?” he inquired, pulling her through the darkened conservatory toward the door.

“It’s doubtful,” Arianne answered honestly, running to keep up with him.

“Good, I wouldn’t have them any other way.” Grinning, he propelled Arianne through the rear door to the garden, where the entire household seemed to be converging in nightdress.

Lucinda was hopping up and down sobbing. Davie was down on his hands and knees sneaking through the shrubbery toward some goal as yet unseen by the others. Melanie and Rhys came dashing down the walkway, stopping and looking guilty upon seeing Arianne and Galen emerging from the house. From another door came Ross Richards and the earl in slippers and hastily tied robes. Various and sundry servants were stumbling down stairs and from the stables as Lucinda’s cries grew more frantic.

Turning to see Galen and Arianne, Lucinda ran babbling toward them. “Oh, Lord Locke, you must save Puddles. Hurry, please. I’m afraid Davie will get bitten. They’re fighting. It’s awful. Please.” She tugged impatiently at his hand, dragging him toward the scene of the crime or whatever awful horror had brought the entire household out into the middle of the night.

Not certain who was fighting whom, since Davie was obviously all alone beneath a bush, Arianne rushed to keep up with them. It didn’t escape her notice, however, that Rhys was now grinning as hugely as Galen and his arm was wrapped proprietarily around Melanie’s waist as they sauntered closer to the nocturnal activities causing such a commotion.

Galen arrived first, grabbing Davie by the neck of his nightshirt and removing him from the shrubbery before passing him on to his father, who looked somewhat dazed to be receiving such a burden at this hour of the night. The howling and yapping continued without interruption somewhere in the center of the spreading evergreens.

Galen caught Lucinda by the shoulders and propelled her in Arianne’s direction despite the look of betrayal the girl directed at him. Signaling one of the grooms, he gestured toward the howls. “Grab them when they come out of there, and don’t let either of them loose again, if you value your life.” At the questioning lift of Arianne’s brow, he offered with a wry smile, “A lovers’ spat, I fear. If we’re to keep the family together, we’ll have to marry, or you will have poor fatherless puppies on your hands. A bucket of water will cool them off directly.”

The earl gave a snort of disgust, took in the fully dressed but disheveled states of the young people, and muttered something about calling the bishop in, come morning, before stalking back to his bed.

Ross Richards, still holding firmly to his son’s shoulders, gave Arianne’s mussed hair and clothing a knowing look and pierced Galen with a steely glare. “You can have the Titian as a wedding gift, but my daughter goes back to London in the morning. I’d recommend you stay here until the date is set.”

There was an abrupt interval as a servant ran up with the requested bucket of water and poured it on the animals in the shrubbery. The ensuing howls and chase disappeared into the further part of the garden. Lucinda quit fighting Arianne’s hold and wandered hand in hand with Davie toward the house, wearily leaving the adults to carry on the task.

Through all this, Galen sent Arianne a questioning look, and the reply he found in her smiling gaze allowed him to give the proper response when the noise died down. Holding out his hand to Richards, he said, “The sooner, the better, as far as I’m concerned. How long will it take to have the proper sort of gown made up?” He threw this last to Arianne and Melanie.

“Months!” Melanie replied eagerly.

“A week,” Arianne said overruling her calmly. “One gown should take no more than a week.”

“But, Rainy, you need
lots of
gowns! I will help you pick them out. And Rhys can come along with us and it will be great fun ...”

Rhys firmly regained Melanie’s waist and hauled her toward the house. “Rhys will do no such thing. Rhys will come and call on you and your family properly, and attend the proper functions, but he will not ...” The words faded into the night as they disappeared around the corner.

Arianne relaxed and leaned back into Galen’s embrace as they both met her father’s approving gaze. “I need only a week,” she murmured. “And I don’t need to go all the way back to London for a gown. I’m certain there will be one in Bath that will be quite satisfactory. Since everyone is already here but Evan and Daphne, it seems foolish to go traipsing about the countryside.”

“For once, your logic is compelling, my dear. A week it is then. Mr. Richards?” Galen looked questioningly to his prospective father-in-law.

Ross had found another focus for his thoughts. Seeing his daughter and her intended silhouetted against the night sky, he nodded absently. “I rather fancy Beechey to do the job. An outside setting, I believe. I will speak to him when I return to London.” And turning away, he wandered back toward the house, leaving the young couple laughing silently behind him.

Epilogue

“We can give them puppies for their wedding gift!” Lucinda danced excitedly from the kitchen, her best dress already smudged and her ribbons hanging askew as she ran down the hallway.

The couple watching her approach turned to each other with mutual laughter and understanding as their gazes met with love made stronger by the passing of three months of bliss. Anyone watching would have thought them the couple about to seal their vows, but Lucinda was accustomed to their mushy exchanges by now and waited stalwartly for them to remember her presence.

“ ‘Tis a pity they are not quite ready to be weaned yet. I think it would be most appropriate if we brought them to the church with us.”

Arianne giggled at the mischievous light in her husband’s eyes. Even after three months she was not quite accustomed to seeing the lighter side of things, but Galen was rapidly teaching her. She had worried that the painting they had chosen for Rhys and Melanie’s new home would not be suitable. The idea of wishing a couple of brand-new puppies on a newly married couple made her concerns incongruous.

“Rhys would never forgive you. Don’t you dare. He is trying very hard to act the part of proper baron and settle all the scandal for Melanie’s sake. Turning their wedding into a riot would do no one any favor.”

Galen graciously acquiesced, but only after tweaking the curl dangling by his wife’s ear. “Does that mean my consequence is such that it was quite all right when little sister here beat Davie over the head with her bouquet before you even walked down the aisle at our wedding? And that your father spent the ceremony examining the stained glass while Evan and Gordon argued over who had the ring I gave them to carry? If Rhys had not been the only stable fellow there, I would have to disagree with you, my love.”

Arianne’s laughter wafted through the halls of the London town house, where relatives were beginning to gather prior to the ceremony. In the library, the Earl of Shelce and Ross Richards were glaring at each other over a miniature of Melanie’s parents that the earl meant to present to the couple as a wedding gift. The argument over the quality of the artwork ceased momentarily as the laughter reached them, and when his opponent’s eyes grew misty and his attention drifted off, Shelce snorted and set the miniature aside.

The couple just arriving so they might travel together with Galen and Arianne to the ceremony heard the laughter and stopped in the foyer to exchange glances. Evan smiled and lightly touched the rounding of his wife’s abdomen, bringing a smile of pleasure to Daphne’s lips as her thoughts retreated inward. She tugged her husband’s hand until he bent downward to place his head near hers.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I think your cousin has an announcement to make when this is all over,” Daphne whispered in her husband’s ear.

Evan tweaked an eyebrow upward. “You have become an expert in this field already, have you?”

As Arianne and Galen approached to greet them, Daphne nodded knowingly at the glow on Arianne’s face and pinched Evan when Galen protectively caught his new wife in his arms when she exhibited a slight unsteadiness on the last stair. Evan chortled and held out his hand to his friend.

“Welcome to the family, old man. May we both have sons to look after each other, for heaven forbid that one be female.”

Arianne blushed and Galen looked momentarily taken aback that their carefully guarded secret had come undone, but then he grinned proudly and accepted the offered hand. “We’ll send them off to school together.”

“No, you won’t,” both Arianne and Daphne murmured together, causing both their husbands’ attentions to swerve back to their respective spouses.

As three little boys raced screaming down the back stairs to the kitchen, a mile ahead of the maid meant to watch over them, the women exchanged warm glances.

“We mean to have only girls,” Daphne announced firmly, and Arianne’s laughter seconded the idea.

Copyright © 1992 by Patricia Rice

Originally published by Signet (ISBN 0451173449)

Electronically published in 2009 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

     http://www.RegencyReads.com

     Electronic sales: [email protected]

This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.