Ripe for Pleasure (35 page)

“I, Viola Elizabeth Whedon, take thee, Leonidas Roibert Vaughn, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day
forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey.” Leo smirked
as she hit
obey,
both eyes teasing her. She raised her brows and finished: “Till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and
thereto I give thee my troth.”

The vicar nodded approvingly and continued with the ceremony, the words falling from his lips by rote. Another guffaw flickered
through the crowd as Leo slipped the ring onto her finger and the words
with my Body I thee worship
passed his lips. And then they were kneeling, and the final prayer was being said over their heads.

She was married. The bubble of panic that had been growing in her chest exploded. A deep breath did nothing to calm her nerves.
Her vision wavered, going black for a moment, and she struggled to keep from fainting. If she had the vapors she’d never forgive
herself. Leo squeezed her hand and helped her to her feet.

Hope. That’s what marriage was about. Hope.
Sp
s, spem, spe
, sp
.
Her heart slowed, and she was finally able to catch her breath.

Viola stopped dead in her tracks, causing Leo to do likewise. He pushed her back into motion, the hand at the small of her
back propelling her forward. As they exited the church, his lips brushed her ear. “Is everything all right, Vi?”

Viola nodded, allowing herself a grin of pure delight as her pulse sped for an entirely different reason. She squeezed his
arm as their friends cheered them on. Leo handed her into the carriage, smiling, but with a bit of concern hovering about
his eyes.

He climbed in after her, his weight causing the pretty little open coach to rock like a skiff pushing off from shore. “Vi?”

“I know where the treasure is.”

His brows flew up. “Shall we leave our guests to their own devices and proceed directly to town?”

Viola held her tongue firmly behind her teeth. The secret knowledge burned within her chest like a banked fire. “If I’m right,
it’s been safely hidden for nearly forty years. It can wait a few more weeks, or until spring. It can wait however long
you
can wait.”

“What? Not even a hint? You’re my wife. You just swore to love, cherish, and obey.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“You’re really not going to tell me?”

His look of feigned indignation set her laughing. His mouth quirked up, and he threw himself back on the squabs with an exaggerated
sigh.

“You couldn’t possibly have intended to hold me to
obey.
”

“I suppose not.” He leaned close, rubbing his face in her hair, the tip of his nose pressed against the sensitive skin behind
her ear. “It’s not your strong point, after all, but I’ll have cherish and love by all that’s holy.”

EPILOGUE

London, March 1784

L
eo ripped the vines off the statue and studied it closely. It certainly might have once been St. Jude. It was missing an arm,
and its features had been worn away by time and rain and lichen, so it was impossible to tell really. It was just a vaguely
human-shaped piece of stone, fluted with what might have been the drapery of robes.

“I’d forgotten that the other name for St. Jude was Thaddeus.”

“So had I,” Viola said from behind him. “But then it came to me in the church.”

She was quivering with impatience, like a hound aching to be unleashed. She’d kept her secret all winter long, teasing him
with it, clearly reveling in having solved the mystery. But she had dragged him out to the garden the moment they’d arrived
in London.

Leo laughed. “In the church? When you had nothing better to be thinking of?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “No, when the ceremony was over. Marriage is about hope, and it just came to me in a flash.
‘Hope’ on the inscription. The patron saint of the hopeless is St. Jude, and his other name is Thaddeus. The reason there
were no letters from our mysterious Mr. Thaddeus is that he was entirely incapable of writing any.”

“Being stone and encased in creeping vines,” Leo said.

“Well, here we go. Say a little prayer to St. Jude as I heave him off his pedestal.”

Contrary to his words, Leo lifted the statue carefully from its resting place and set it aside. If the treasure was here,
St. Jude would become a revered icon in their home, regardless of what the Bible had to say about worshipping false idols.
If this Thaddeus had done his job for all these years, he deserved a little pagan worship.

Leo cleared away the remaining vines, and using a spanner from his coach, lifted the platform and sent it sliding off into
the dirt. It landed with a crash, crushing plants and gouging brick.

“Well?” Viola pressed close, her hands clutching at his coat. The memory of the first time she’d done so surged through him.
He’d known from the moment he’d seen her that he was doomed, but it was turning out to be a far more pleasant fate than he
could have ever imagined.

Leo stared down at the large chest that had been concealed inside the stone base. “I think St. Jude just became the patron
saint of the Vaughns, at least of the junior branch.”

“Lost causes, all of us?” Viola asked with a laugh.

Leo wrapped one arm around her and dragged her forward for a kiss. “Happily lost, but more happily found.”

“A fitting motto. We shall inscribe it in Latin over the door.” She wrapped her arms about his neck and smiled up at him.

Leo tightened his grip on his wife, a fierce burst of love and longing and possessiveness burning its way through his veins.
He had the only treasure that mattered right here in his arms.

I
t’s not as though this is the first time I’ve been abducted, you know.”

“An old hand at it, are we?”

Lady Boudicea Vaughn bit the inside of her cheek and studied her abductor for a moment. Mr. Nowlin was so cocksure, so confident
that he would get away with abducting her and that her family would simply acquiesce to such a marriage—and that she would.
It was baffling.

“Yes. Two years ago, it was Mr. Granby. My brothers say perhaps they should have made me marry him. Only by the time they
caught up with us, he wasn’t willing anymore.”

Nowlin grinned at her. Deep dimples appeared on either side of his mouth. It seemed impossible that a man with dimples like
those could be so treacherous or that a man so handsome should need to be.

“Scared him off, did you?”

Beau shook her head and batted her eyes. “Stabbed him. With a fork. The tines went all the way into the bone and stuck there.
So much howling. So much blood. My
brothers caught up with us because we were waiting for the surgeon.”

“I guess you’ll be eating your meals with a spoon on this trip,” he said almost cheerfully.

Beau sighed. He wasn’t listening. Having only a spoon wasn’t going to stop her. “And before that there was Mr. Martin. I was
only seventeen.” She shook her head sadly. “He lives abroad now. Only one eye left. Father felt that was punishment enough.”

Nowlin frowned, his dimples deserting him momentarily. Beau smiled wider and continued. “It’s quite amazing what happens when
you press your thumb into a man’s eye socket with all your might.”

“Well, well. You are a cold bitch, aren’t you?”

Beau smiled and tilted her head, looking at him out of her lashes. “I am my mother’s daughter. The best outcome here—for you,
that is—is that one of the men in my family catch up with us. Left to my own devices, I’m liable to do permanent damage.”

“It would cause quite a fuss if you did. Exactly the kind of thing that a woman in your position should be trying to avoid.”
His words were confident, but the tone was less so.

“And you think blinding a man didn’t have that very distinct possibility? But not one whisper of either affair has ever reached
the scandalmongers, has it?”

The worried frown returned, marring his handsome face. He rapped on the roof, and the carriage slid to a stop. Beau leaned
forward to press her point. “They might—
might—
only have sent you packing back to Ireland. But you had to go and abduct me in public.”