[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org) (24 page)

‘Sally?’ he repeated.

‘Mmm?’ She was so happy and at peace that she did not wish to have to move or think, but Jack persisted.

‘You do realise,’ he said, his breath stirring her hair, ‘that you have not told me that you love me.’

Sally gave a little spurt of laughter. It seemed extraordinary that she had never told him when she had known almost from the start that she had fallen in love with him.

‘Well…’ she said, thoughtfully, rubbing her fingers in gentle circles over his chest. ‘I do like you a great deal, Jack. I enjoy your company. You have a delightful family. And although such matters do not weigh with me, I am thrilled that you are so rich—’

She broke off with a muffled gasp as he stopped her words with a kiss.

‘Minx!’ But there was a note of anxiety in his voice that she was quick to hear and she realised with surprise that he was nervous. Jack Kestrel, the last rake in London, was anxious because he loved her so much that he would not be able to bear it if she did not love him equally. Sally’s heart ached as she realised how much he needed her.

‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, ‘I love you very much.’ She hesitated. ‘Although I have known you but a short time, I feel as though I have loved you for a very long time.’

Jack made a sound of satisfaction and wrapped her closer still in his arms. Sally thought fleetingly then of Merle Jameson and of her father and of all the shadows that had haunted the past for both her and for Jack. She opened her mind like a flower opening to the sun and let the regrets and the jealousy and the guilt drift away for the last time, then turned her face up to Jack’s and kissed him until they lost themselves again in one another.

T
hey were married in the church at Dauntsey a month later. Charley and Nell were the bride’s attendants and Lucy made an adorable flower child. The King and Queen were the guests of honour, which gratified Lady Ottoline exceedingly. Gregory Holt was groomsman.

Connie and Bertie did not attend. They were on an extended honeymoon in Scotland. Connie, forgetting that she was writing to congratulate her sister, instead wrote that she detested Scotland; that most of the time it rained and when it did not she was eaten by the midges, that Bertie spent all his time fishing or shooting things and she was bored to death.

After the wedding reception was over Sally, Jack and Lady Ottoline stood in the hall beneath a portrait of Sally, Duchess of Kestrel, and Lady Ottoline took Sally’s hand in hers.

‘One day,’ she said gruffly, ‘you will be Duchess in my mother’s place and in her own image. I know she would have approved of you.’

Sally, looking up at the Duchess’s piquant face and smiling green eyes, thought that she was perhaps right.

Jack’s arm tightened about Sally’s waist. ‘She will be magnificent,’ he prophesied and Sally could see all the love he felt for her in his eyes.

Lady Ottoline smiled. ‘And as for you, nephew,’ she said, ‘I am glad that you have come home at last.’

Jack looked up at the picture of Justin, Duke of Kestrel, on the opposite wall to his wife.

‘The last rake in London is caught,’ he said, an irresistible smile on his lips. ‘He is home and he is very happy with his fate.’