Barbara Metzger (40 page)

“Not a scholar, a schoolmaster,” Amy said. “If you will still give us the dowry you promised, Lucius and I intend to open an academy of our own. One is needed near Rock Hill, and I have always wished to teach.”

“We could pay you back in a few years, I calculate,” the tutor offered.

“That will not be necessary. The dowry is for you and your children, Amy. Building your school is my responsibility, especially since it will serve my dependents’ children and my sons.”

“And daughters,” Alissa added.

He smiled. “And daughters.”

Aunt Reggie and Claymore scratched on the door as soon as the lovebirds left, cooing about Latin lessons and geography globes.

Claymore cleared his throat. “I regret to inform your lordship that I shall be leaving your service, as soon as you have recovered sufficiently. I am accepting Lady Winchwood’s offer to accompany her to Wales.”

“But I thought you wished to retire from butlering, Claymore?” Alissa asked.

“Oh, I do and I am. That was not the offer I accepted, my lady.”

Rockford had to reach for the glass of restorative by his bedside, to avoid laughing at his wife’s wide-eyed look. “We wish you well. Both of you. Both of us.”

When they left, he turned to Alissa, his eyes smiling up at her. “Lud, a tutor for a brother-in-law, a butler for an uncle. What next?”

A duke in the family, that was what. By now Rockford was growing weary. Not of his wound, but of all the company. He wanted to be alone with his wife, by Jupiter.

“Yes, yes,” he told Hysmith before the duke had a chance to pay his formal addresses. “Take her and get out. I wish to spend my last breath with my countess. But,” he told his sister, “there will be no Gretna Green elopements, do you understand? I shall not have my wife and my sons embarrassed by your behavior.”

Lady Eleanor sniffed. “I intend to do the thing up right. St. George’s, Hanover Square, for everyone and his uncle—even Claymore—to see.”

“Lud, St. George’s again?” Rockford turned to the duke. “If you leave her there again, Hysmith, this time I will come after you with my horsewhip, I swear.”

“If he leaves me there again, brother,” Lady Eleanor said, “I shall go after him with my pistol.”

The duke simply put his arm around his lady and started to lead her out of the room. Rockford called them back. “What about your nephews, Duke?”

“They are Lady Eleanor’s nephews.”

“Not good enough. They are my sons.” He could feel Alissa’s hand tighten around his.

The duke nodded. “And my brother William’s sons. Give over, Rock. I have already accepted the countess’s invitation to Rock Hill for the Christmas holidays, along with my sons. My other brother and his children are used to spending their yuletide at Hysmith Hall, so perhaps he will venture to your place too, to meet his nephews.”

While Rockford contemplated how many bothersome guests he’d be burdened with, the duke stepped toward Alissa and took her hand. He bowed over it and raised it to his lips. “My brother was no fool,” was all he said. “I was, and my father.” Before he left, Eleanor at his side, he added, “Oh, and I understand you are starting a school. Half the expense is mine, for my nephews’ education. The William Henning Academy, what say?”

When Alissa’s tears of happiness were dry, and no one else seemed about to enter the room—Hell, Rockford thought, the only one left was old Jake from the stable—Alissa went behind the screen and changed into her night rail, a scrap of ivory lace and ribbons that hid nothing, not even her intentions.

One of those pistol balls must have pierced his lungs, for all the breath left his body. “Dash it, woman, you wear that now?” he said with a gasp. “I have not slept in days, I have been shot by my own wife, drenched to the skin, racked with worry, and badgered by every mooncalf in the county.”

Alissa smiled.

“So…?”

Chapter Thirty

Rockford rose to the occasion. Twice. Rosy with lovemaking, his satiated wife rested her head on his uninjured shoulder, her hair in disarray on his chest. He pulled the covers higher over her satin skin, then tenderly combed his fingers through the soft brown locks, marveling that he had ever thought this woman ordinary, or a mere convenience. His Alissa was about as convenient as a hurricane, but as necessary as sunlight itself. The marvel was that she was his.

“You do love me, don’t you, Lady Rockford?” he asked, kissing each of her closed eyelids in turn. “You did not just say so in a moment’s heat?”

“A moment?” Their lovemaking had lasted through the night. Sleepily she murmured, “I love you, Lord Rockford, as much as you love me.”

He could not let her sleep, not yet. “How do you know?”

“I know because you leaped in front of flying gunshots to save my life, as I would do for yours.”

“I would have had no life without you, my love. I never realized I was only half a man until I almost lost you.”

She frowned and opened her eyes to look into his dark ones. “You would have had four sons to raise.”

“Without you? I would leap in front of a firing squad, by heaven, not just a madman’s pistol.”

She shivered to think of Ganyon, and then to think of her sons, all four of them, alone. “Promise you will never do such a foolish thing again.”

“Only if you are never in danger. Promise me you will never confront a lunatic with a weapon again. I think I lost a year of my life.”

Alissa could not promise, not if it meant saving her Robert’s life. Instead she said, “But we might have made a new life tonight.”

“The daughter you want?”

Alissa stared at him by the dimming firelight. “Do you not want her too?”

He placed his hand on the softness of her belly. “If she has your green eyes and half your courage, I shall adore her. And spoil her unmercifully. With any luck she will not ask for a giraffe.”

“But if she has your brown eyes and twice your pride?”

“Lud, she’d be another Eleanor. And I will still love her to distraction because she will be yours and mine, a child born of this miracle we have made.”

Alissa sighed in contentment and started to drift off to sleep. Then her eyes snapped open. “What if we have another boy?”

She could see his smile by the light of the dying fire as he said, “Well, then, we shall just have to keep trying, won’t we?”

“You won’t mind?”

“Another boy or the trying?” He placed butterfly kisses on her cheeks and her ears and her neck. “Shall I show you how much I mind?”

“Now?”

“Well, I believe we have only reached chapter two of the pillow book I was composing.”

Wide awake now, she gasped in pleasure as his kisses reached her breasts. “I thought you must be at chapter five at least by now.”

“Oh, no. I am a slow writer. So slow that I have had to make a rule.”

Alissa smiled, reaching out to caress him in return. “I am sure you did.”

“Are you making light of me, wife?”

She took the weight of him in her hand. “Never, my husband. Your rules are always, ah…” She gave up searching for the right word, as his kisses trailed lower, searching for her pleasure.

“Yes, well, I have decided that this particular book shall go on forever.”

“That…is your rule?”

He joined with her then and sighed in contentment. “Yes, my beloved.” His lips again on hers, he whispered, “You see, I never intend to write…”

THE END

About the Author

The author of more than three dozen Regency romances, Barbara Metzger is the proud recipient of a RITA and two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards for Regencies. When not writing or reading, she paints, gardens, volunteers at the local library, and goes beachcombing on the beautiful Long Island shore. She loves to hear from her readers through her Web site, www.BarbaraMetzger.com.