Not Quite Married (39 page)

There, he had to speak up. “Strictly speaking, the money was for the wedding alone. I threw the ‘bedding’ in for free.”

“A distinction ‘most people’ won’t appreciate,” she said with an arch look. “Thus, I suggest we keep the details of our ‘courtship’

to ourselves. Then there is the problem of how to convince my father that I haven’t taken complete leave of my senses . . .

showing up with a two-year-old marriage, when I’ve been ranting and raving about hating wedlock and motherhood and everything in between, for those very same two years.”

“Hmmm.” He nodded. “He was married himself at one time, wasn’t he? He should be used to women saying one thing and doing another.”

She sent him an exceedingly narrow look. “Then there is the more immediate problem of ‘one bed or two?’?”

“One. Most definitely,” he answered, sitting straighter.

“One house or two?”

“One.”

“One country or two?”

He was a bit slower in answering. “One.”

Then she asked the question that had no easy answer.

“Which one?” She moved closer, her light tone gone, her eyes filled with questions that had burdened her heart for weeks.

“Which country will we live in and call our own? You once said to me, Aaron, that I only had to name the conditions. Is that offer still good?”

She held her breath as he studied her.

And he learned the truth of a second important male precept.

If for some reason the woman doesn’t fill the silence . . . the man
had better.

To fill that silence with the right answer would be to fill the rest of his life with joy and belonging. But in giving that answer, he would put his life, his destiny in her hands.

Designing ships, making his own mark in the world, helping to carve a new country out of a vast sea of wilderness and possibility . . . all of those things paled to nothing if she weren’t there to support him and share the struggles and the successes.

Life with her was what gave striving and accomplishment meaning. It was what he needed above all else, and it was time he faced that truth.

“After we left Boston, I sat in the cabin of the
Secret
for three and a half weeks, remembering the way you looked when you opened my door that night . . . how your touch warmed my skin like the Caribbean sun . . . how I absorbed your kisses like April rain . . . and feeling like a part of me would just wither up and die without those touches and kisses. Suddenly I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life without you.

“I’d rather argue with you than agree totally with someone else.

You turn my attitudes and ideas upside down and inside out, and make me take a different look at things I’ve always taken for granted. You make the right of things seem more urgent and the wrong of things seem completely unthinkable. Around you, the decisions of life seem a whole lot clearer and easier to make.

Including this decision.” He stood up.

“Hell, yes, that offer is still good.”

When he opened his arms, she walked straight into them and released the breath she’d been holding. She buried her face in his chest and held him fiercely . . . letting his warm, vibrant presence search out the cold, empty pockets of her heart and fill them with love and acceptance and new possibilities. From that moment on, there would be nothing closed off, nothing held back. She would live the rest of her life with him on the new path spreading out beneath them and ahead of them.

The right path. Destiny’s choice.

“Then I accept.”

They made love right there in the middle of the schoolroom, on the rug where he used to build ships of wooden blocks and pretend to sail them into a dashing future. It was quick and hot and explosive and when it was over they lay breathless and entwined and giggled like naughty children.

“I love you, Aaron Durham,” she said, exulting in the moment.

“I believe we just established that.” He grinned and she gave him a playful shove.

“But there is one thing I must have and have soon, or the deal is off.”

“More food I suppose. Another gallon of milk . . . a second bushel of bread . . . a fresh side of beef . . .”

She glared at him and he laughed. A bit nervously. It was reassuring to see that he wasn’t entirely without sensitivity.

“No, dear husband. Hot water. And plenty of it.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “A bath it is. And maybe
then
another side of beef.” He collected her gaze in his and refused to release it until she yielded up the truth. “You are with child, aren’t you?”

She quickly slid her hands across her waist and abdomen. It was almost a relief to admit it for the first time outside her own head.

“Yes, I am.”

“I knew it!” His face nearly split with a grin as he hugged her to him and rolled with her to put her beneath him. “A baby. I’m going to be a father!” A moment later, as the impact of it sank in, he sobered. “And just when were you going to tell me about our offspring? Presumably sometime before he or she made me a
grandfather
. . . .”

“I-I was coming around to that,” she said, reddening. “I just wasn’t sure you would be happy about having a child who would be raised in England.”

“How could I possibly not want . . .” He scowled as the ramifications of it struck, and she could see it would take some adjusting.

“There are worse fates, you know,” she prompted. “I mean,
you
were raised in England and look how intelligent and wise and sensible and upstanding and forward-thinking you turned out to be.”

“You make a very persuasive argument,” he said dryly, his frown easing.

“You learned to design ships and sail them, to fight for what you believe in, and to stand on your own two feet.”

“That’s fighting dirty.”

“You charted your own course, lived your own way, found your own love and your own destiny. What makes you think our child—with all the love and support and guidance we will give him—won’t be able to do the same?”

After a moment he drew a deep breath and sighed heavily.

“Remind me never to get into a real battle with you.”

She laughed and pushed him back, scrambling to her feet.

“Now, about that bath . . .” She lowered her lashes and gave him a look through them that made the skin of his belly heat. “Do you suppose dear old Peters has a tub big enough for two?”

Twenty-Six

GOLDEN LIGHT FILTERED past the edges of the heavy brocades at the windows the next morning. A footman had come earlier to stir and rebuild the fire and, upon a meaningful scowl from Aaron, had withdrawn and warned the other servants not to disturb them.

Now, almost an hour later, Aaron heard something that sounded like distant voices . . . raised voices. Peters wasn’t the sort to roar and bully. The earl wasn’t likely to be home this soon, even if he’d left Cambridge the instant he’d gotten the message Peters had undoubtedly sent. Aaron slid from the bed and hurriedly donned his breeches and boots. The voices grew louder as he grabbed his blade and bolted out the door. They had been found.

And from the sound of things, not by friendly forces.

The entry hall was clogged with redcoats pushing their way past Peters and several of the footmen.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, bracing halfway down the stairs, his blade poised for action and his heart sinking at the sight of a dozen muskets . . . swinging around to aim at him.

“How dare you charge into a nobleman’s home uninvited?”

“Where the devil is she?” A tall, well-dressed man of fifty pushed to the front of the soldiers. “What have you done with her?”

Before Aaron could answer, he turned to the officer and ordered,

“Search the place! She must be here somewhere!”

“What have I done with whom?” Aaron demanded, descending two more steps and coiling to resist the soldiers coming toward him. “Who are you—” Just as it came out of his mouth . . . just as they launched up the steps toward him . . . just as he spotted Dyso through the open door—dragging four soldiers who were trying to hold him, up the steps with him . . . he realized who that hot-eyed man in the elegant gray frock coat was.

“Wait!” he cried as they grabbed him and dragged him down the steps. “You’ve got to listen to me—Brien—she’s all right—”

But Dyso chose that moment to throw off his captors and try to grab Brien’s father. The soldiers, thinking he was attacking the earl, reacted swiftly, and shortly Dyso was lying facedown on the floor of the great hall, with a lump the size of a goose’s egg on the back of his bald head.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Aaron cried. “He was only trying to tell you—”

“Father!” Brien’s voice cut through the noise and caused every muscle in the hall to still. Every eye looked up to find her standing near the top of the stairs in a filmy silk dressing gown she was holding together. “What are you doing here? With soldiers?”

The earl blinked at the sight of her, his jaw dropped, and he drew in his chin. “Well, I . . . Dyso came to get me . . . and after that letter from the marquis, I expected . . .” He stiffened with outrage. “Dammit, Brien, I came racing out here, expecting to do battle to free you from . . . and now I find you . . .” He swept her exposed form with a furious hand, then ran out of words to express the depths of his outrage, and stalked to where the soldiers were beginning to loosen their hold on Aaron.

“Where is Saunier?” He pushed his face into Aaron’s. “And you—who the devil are you?”

Aaron swallowed hard and looked up at Brien.

“He is my husband, Father.” She answered for both of them.

There was a moment’s shocked silence. “Damn and blast!” the earl roared, his arms exploding out from his sides and his face catching fire. Aaron was close enough to see the veins standing out in his temples and feared he might have an attack of some kind.

“Please, your lordship—we can explain,” he called, trying in vain to wrest his arms free. “The marquis kidnapped Brien—two nights ago—”

“I had gone to the Hennipens and he found me there,” Brien clarified. “He forced me to go with him to St. Anne’s, and the new vicar tried to make me marry Louis, and Aaron got there just in time . . . but then it turned out it wouldn’t have mattered, except that they might have started another fire to try to get rid of me . . .”

“And Dyso, your lordship. He was with me and my first officer, Hicks . . .”

“He rescued you from a forced marriage”—Weston pointed at Aaron—“and you wedded
him
instead?”

“Not exactly,” Brien said, hurrying down several steps and halting as her father stiffened in horror and backed up several steps. “It turns out . . . Father, my dear, dear father . . . that we’ve been married for nearly two years.”

Another of those pregnant,

suddenly-the-world-makes-no-blessed-sense silences fell over the hall.

“That does it!” the earl bellowed, turning on the young redcoat officer. “It seems I’ve led you on a fool’s errand, sir. I deeply regret the inconvenience to yourself, your commander, and your men. Now if you would be so good as to withdraw.”

“Father, wait!” She ran down the steps as the soldiers released Aaron and began to file reluctantly out the door, bumping into one another as they craned their necks to catch what would happen next.

Aaron hurried to check on Dyso and, deciding his injury wasn’t serious, called the visibly unsettled Peters and the footmen over to carry him to his room.

“You have to give me a chance to explain,” she cried, grabbing his arm to keep him from striding out the front doors. “Please, hear us out. I beg you.”

“There is nothing to explain,” Weston declared, turning, looking from her to Aaron and back. “I have two good eyes. I can see for myself that you had no need of rescuing.” His mouth twitched with humiliation. “You’ve succeeded in making a mockery of me more than once on this very point. One would think that after a while I would learn—”

“But I did need help. It’s just that . . . Aaron rescued me first. I knew the marquis had sent you a letter and I was afraid you would be frantic . . . then Dyso took it upon himself to go and look for you . . .”

Weston watched the footmen struggling to hoist and carry Dyso’s limp form from the hall, recalling how frantic the big servant had gotten when he went to the garrison and insisted the commander give him a squad of soldiers to help him free his daughter.

“He made all of those damned signs of his.” Weston made a flurry of wild hand motions. “But he nodded ‘yes’ when I asked if the marquis had you.”

“It was all a misunderstanding, Father,” she said, entreating him with every weapon in a daughter’s emotional arsenal.

A moment passed in which Weston searched his daughter’s anxious face and saw tears forming. He closed his eyes and mustered every scrap of his much-abused patience.

“All right. One hour. I’ll give you one hour to explain.” He jerked his head and gaze to the side. “But only if you make yourself presentable.”

Her face flamed. Dearest heaven! He must think she’d gone completely mad, running around a strange nobleman’s house clad only in a thin wrapper.

“Yes, Papa.” It was a term she had not used for him since she was a small girl. It caught Weston by surprise and inserted a wedge in the closing door of his pride.

He stumbled over to a boot bench at the side of the front doors and sat down with a thud, watching his daughter grab the arm of the brigand she defended so passionately and haul him up the stairs with her. Now that the pair was side by side, Weston could see he was a formidable man . . . tall, broad-shouldered, and striking. And he could see in his daughter’s behavior that she was quite familiar with him.

He looked up moments later to find the butler approaching. “My lord. Perhaps you would care to wait for Master Aaron in the salon.”

Shoving to his feet, Weston clasped his hands behind his back and followed the butler into a grandly appointed salon more suited to a London great house than a country estate. He chose a couch upholstered with feather-stuffed cushions and sat down.

“Anything else I can do, my lord?”

“Brandy,” Weston said with a bit of a wilt. “A big one.”