Helen Dickson (27 page)

‘I’m so glad you’re back. I—I was worried about you.’

He turned his head and looked at her. ‘I’m glad to hear your concern wasn’t all for Constance.’

‘I’ve instructed the housekeeper to have a room prepared for you, Charles. I hope you have no objections to that?’

‘Why should I? A night in the comfort of your home is preferable to being relegated to the village inn.’ Folding his hands behind his back, he stared thoughtfully into the flames. His deep voice seemed to fill the corners of the room as he said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were in the park when I fought the duel, Maria?’

Maria stared at his back, surprised by his question.
When he turned she instantly noticed the altering of his expression and watched nervously as he crossed his arms over his chest, watching her, his face inscrutable.

‘Well, Maria?’

‘H—how do you know I was?’

‘Afterwards several things—your odd behaviour, for one—didn’t make sense. When I got back to the house I recall seeing a horse being rubbed down. I didn’t think much of it at the time—it didn’t seem to be important—but then I got to wondering who could have left the house at such an early hour to go riding. For obvious reasons it could not have been my mother or me. That left just you. The groom who accompanied you confirmed my suspicions.’

‘I see. Then what can I say?’

‘So you were there that morning? You did witness the duel?’

‘Yes,’ she answered tightly.

‘When are you going to tell me the reason why you turned down my offer of marriage, Maria?’

‘I—I did so because of what I saw that day. I will not marry a man who keeps a mistress,’ she replied, surprised now she had said it how calm she felt. ‘Although I can see the attraction. She—the lady I saw—is very lovely.’

‘I have to agree with you—she is very beautiful—exceptionally so.’

Maria felt a pain like a knife thrust to her heart. ‘When I marry I will hold the vows I make as sacred, and I shall expect my husband to do the same. I would not take kindly to him committing adultery when he is not with me.’

‘And you have it firmly fixed in your mind that I keep a mistress?’

Maria was not so ready to soften to him—not when the memory of that woman she had seen him embracing was still harsh in her mind. ‘Yes—and with good reason. Does your mother know about her?’

‘No,’ he replied flatly. ‘And neither do you.’

Maria got to her feet, ready to attack, her tone bitter. ‘I know what I saw. I saw how she fell into your arms after the duel—and I saw the two of you together before that—at Westminster—saying your farewells so very tenderly—before you came to me with your proposal of marriage.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You—admit it?’

He shrugged casually. ‘Why should I deny it, when you say you saw everything with your own eyes? What you don’t know is that the lady you saw—the lady you were so ready to assume was my mistress—is, in fact, my younger sister, Georgina—her husband Michael was acting as my second.’

‘Your sister?’ Maria stared at him. Never had she felt so foolish in her life.

‘Yes, Maria, my sister.’ Humour glinted in his eyes. Clearly he was enjoying her discomfiture. ‘Georgina is headstrong and strong willed with a mind of her own. When she got wind of the duel nothing would keep her away. On the day you saw us together at Westminster, she had been to listen to her husband—who is a Member of Parliament for the constituency in which they live—speak in the House.’

‘Oh.’ Maria felt deflated, as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

‘So now what do you have to say?’

Charles waited, not making an effort to touch her
or to make it easy for her. She remained silent, as sweet warmth washed through her. Unbearable relief stirred inside her, seeping over the terrible mortification. What a fool she had been, a silly, ignorant fool. She wanted to say all this, but the words stuck in her throat. She continued to stare at the face, the face she loved so much.

‘Well,’ he said, reading her mind, ‘is there something you wish to say to me?’

After a moment, in the quietness of the room, with a raw ache in her voice, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I have been unbelievably stupid. Please say that you forgive me. I could not bear it if you don’t.’ She turned her face away to hide her growing embarrassment and distress. She could feel her heart beating in slow but gigantic leaps. Her mouth was dry with some inner emotion. Struggling for words to adequately smooth a situation of her making, she suddenly felt inept, and turned back to him.

‘If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I—I will marry you, Charles. Happily.’

Charles laughed softly and, taking her hands, drew her to her feet. He leaned forwards to lift her chin so that he could look into her eyes. ‘I can’t believe that you actually thought I meant to make you my wife while I had a mistress. Dear God, Maria Monkton, don’t you know me better than that? You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met and I am sure I shall have a good deal of trouble with you, but it seems, Maria, that I love you and I know you love me.’

Indignation sparked in her eyes. ‘You know no such thing.’

He grinned delightedly. ‘See what I mean? Stubborn
to the hilt. The truth is that I want you. I have always wanted you, and I know you want me.’

‘I do?’

‘Yes. You say it every time you are in my arms, which was why I couldn’t understand why you rejected my proposal of marriage so adamantly.’

Still cupping her chin, he bent his head and took her soft mouth in a slow, compelling kiss, sensually moulding and shaping her lips to his. As soon as he felt her begin to respond, his arms went around her, crushing her to him, his mouth moving against hers with hungry urgency, his hands shifting possessively over her spine and hips. Dragging his mouth from hers, he drew an unsteady breath. Gazing down at her, he noted the telltale flush on her cheeks, the soft confusion in her searching green gaze.

‘I want you very badly, Maria,’ he said quietly with a tender smile at her upturned face. ‘So what do you say? Are you sure you are prepared to marry me? Say yes, for even though I accept that the decision is yours, I have no intention of letting you get away from me again. And before you start pestering me on the subject of keeping Gravely, you can do as you wish with it or I would never hear the end of it.’

‘You’ve obviously thought it all out, haven’t you, Charles? I’ve a good mind to say no—’ But his mouth claimed hers once more and, like the one before, his kiss was long and deep.

Maria leaned into him, fitting her body into the shape of him, luxuriating in the moment, but she also knew that despite their love they were both strong willed and there would be many times when they would not see eye to eye.

Releasing her lips, but continuing to hold her within the circle of his arms, Charles sighed and looked down at her upturned face, her eyes dark with love. ‘I have been drawn to you ever since the day I saw you handing out bread to starving children and on every other occasion since,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have been in love with you for some time now. Even before we reached England. I think I realised it on the boat. I tried to discount it and lay it down to lust and infatuation, but I had to finally face the truth—although when I did I found it difficult finding the right moment to tell you.’

‘And Henry didn’t help matters—always lurking in the shadows. Did I make it very difficult for you?’ she enquired softly.

‘You did put down my overtures rather firmly when I finally proposed.’

‘You really did want to marry me?’

‘Maria, I wanted you any way I could get you, and that’s no lie.’

Tears filled her eyes, and a softening warmth mellowed her emotions. After all her arguments, implying that she did not care for him in a romantic sense, she could not believe that he really did care for her and that he still wanted to marry her after all she had put him through.

‘I love you very much, Charles. You cannot imagine what torment I went through when I thought you had a mistress.’

‘I think I can.’

‘There is something I must say to you, something I had already decided before all this. I intend to sell Gravely.’

Charles frowned at the seriousness of what she was
saying. Dropping his arms, he took a step back. ‘You can’t mean that, Maria. You love this house.’

‘I did. All those years when I was at the chateau I yearned to be back, always imagining it would be as it was when I left. But it isn’t. It feels empty—full of ghosts. I feel like a stranger—an intruder.’

‘So you have decided to sell it.’

She nodded. ‘I thought of buying a house closer to London—or in London.’

‘And Constance?’

‘Will come with me. My aunt gave me a home when I needed one, it is the least I can do for Constance. She has nothing.’

‘She has you, Maria,’ he said softly. ‘However, since you have agreed to be my wife, it rather changes things.’

Maria looked at him in alarm. ‘I will not abandon Constance. After all she has suffered, she needs me. She has no one else.’

‘I agree, which is why she will always have a home with us—either in London or at Highgate. I am sure my mother will like having her around.’

Maria’s heart swelled with so much love for this man that she thought it would burst. She looked up at him and smiled, and Charles smiled back. Suddenly she felt in complete harmony with the world. ‘Thank you, Charles. I don’t deserve you—not after treating you so abominably.’

‘Let’s leave the past in the past. The only thing that’s important is what’s between us, you and me.’

His eyes blazed suddenly with their own vivid light. Maria breathed deeply as feelings rushed to her in a flood. She loved him so much. He was her destiny, her
future and she had to make that clear to him now. Reaching for him, she pulled him to her, locking her arms about him fiercely.

‘I love you so much. Believe it, for it is true. It’s good to have you back with me, safe, to feel you and hold you. I missed you when I left you in London—which was the most senseless thing I have ever done—and again when you went to France. You see, Charles, after the closeness we shared in France, I’ve got so used to having you near me. You have given a meaning to my life—to everything I do. Always, inside of me, I have had a kind of loneliness, but with you there has always been something private—a special kind of sharing. Not only do I love you, but you have become—in a manner of speaking, a special friend, a best friend.’

Moved by her words, Charles looked at her with admiration and respect, and when he spoke his voice was husky. ‘Then I am indeed honoured, Maria.’

‘I have never shared so much with anyone as I have with you. I was afraid to try.’ A lump constricted her throat so that she could not speak. Taking his face between her hands, loving the feel of his skin, lovingly she traced the lines around his mouth with her finger. Then she pressed herself close to him, as close as she could with a fierce new protectiveness, her eyes large and tear-bright.

Charles seemed poignantly touched by the warm spontaneity of her actions, for he said, in the gentlest of voices, ‘I am indeed blessed.’ He kissed her then, with all the old possessiveness she knew so well. She slid her arms around his neck, and sifted her fingers through his thick hair. How she had longed to do that again.
Drawing away from him and taking his hand, she led him to the door, an adorable twinkle in her eyes.

‘We’ll forget that room, shall we? You can share mine.’

Henry’s body was recovered the next day further down stream, lodged against a tree trunk on the bank. Maria was sorry that his end had come about in such a tragic way, but apart from that she felt nothing. She knew he had no one, no family, and because of their past association, she felt she owed it to him to see he had a decent burial in the village churchyard, close to Gravely, where he had aspired to live.

Maria and Charles were married at Highgate six weeks later. Neither of them wanted to wait any longer. It was a quiet affair, with none of the pageantry that would have accompanied the wedding had it been in London. Constance, Maria’s matron of honour, had recovered from her terrible ordeal in France, although she still mourned her mother and had nightmares over the brutal manner of her death. She was to return to London with Lady Osbourne after the wedding, and Maria was confident she would delight in the society events Lady Osbourne had planned for her.

Lady Osbourne was well pleased with Charles’s choice of bride. Right from the start she had thought that Maria was just the sort of beautiful and brave young woman she would have picked for her son, and she let every one of her friends know it.

Nervous and happy, resplendent in her wedding finery of ivory silk, Maria stood beside Charles as the festivities were about to begin. They devoted them
selves to smiling at the wedding guests who passed by to wish them happiness—exchanging meaningful glances when Georgina kissed them both—before Charles took her in his arms and they led the dancing in the ballroom.

‘Do you mind not getting married in London, Maria?’

‘You know I don’t,’ she returned as he whirled her round. ‘I love Highgate. It’s perfect for a wedding. And I love you, Charles, more than anything. I have never met anyone like you, ever.’