“I don’t know where the dogs live,” Hattie explained to Smithson in a wistful tone. “I don’t even know his name.”
“Dimitry,” Berry said.
Enrapt, Hattie turned to him, smiling mistily. “Oh—Dimitry. That is a fine, fine name.”
Berry lowered the gun and with his free hand, cradled her face and kissed her. She had forgotten how wonderful it was to be kissed by him, and clung to his neck because her knees had suddenly gone weak. He lifted his face and said to her, “I love you, Hattie. Do you love me?”
Gazing into his eyes, she nodded.
“Then do this for me.” His gaze held hers. “Please.”
“I do,” she said, and he smiled broadly then kissed her again, very thoroughly.
The vicar could be heard, speaking with some amusement. “I’m afraid we are not yet at this point in the ceremony.”
With some reluctance, Hattie disengaged from Berry but staggered a bit after losing his support. Discerning yet another impediment, the vicar asked with some delicacy, “Is the lady, er—impaired?”
“Proceed,” commanded both Berry and Hattie at the same time and in the same tone. With no further ado, Smithson saw to it that they were wed.
The papers were signed and witnessed, with Smithson enjoined to secrecy. “Although Bing would not be surprised,” Hattie informed him in a complacent tone. “She saw it from the first.”
“Yes,” agreed the vicar with a smile. “But mum’s the word—I understand in the present situation it would be best to keep this happy news sub rosa.”
He thinks we are keeping it quiet because my parents are missing, thought Hattie, and couldn’t restrain an inappropriate giggle. Small influence matters of mourning would have on the determined Monsieur Berry, or whatever his name was—her name, now. With this thought, she paused and tried to gather her wits. I should discover what the date is, she thought muzzily, and write it down somewhere.
After they said their thanks and farewells, Berry steered her into a well-appointed room, where he shut the door and resumed the kiss that had been interrupted by the ceremony, his mouth urgent upon hers and his arms holding her tightly against him. After a very satisfying space of time, she broke away to protest, “I am a drunken bride—and your fault entirely.”
“Nonsense; you are enchanting,” he murmured as his mouth traveled down her neck, his hands busy loosening the lacings down her back. As her yellow dress collapsed around her feet he steadied her arm. “Step out, please—we don’t want it to be wrinkled.”
She obeyed him, asking with some surprise, “Are we truly going to do this now?”
He laid her dress carefully over the back of a chair. “Yes, we are. Don’t be afraid, Hattie—if the way you kiss me is any indication you will have an easy time of it.”
“I am not afraid,” she assured him, her hands caressing his chest. “I asked Eugenie about it.”
He laughed aloud, and kissed her. “Pay no attention to anything she said.”
“She said when the heart is involved, it is simple.”
He paused, and kissed her mouth again. “There are times when Eugenie surprises me.” He gently slid his fingers beneath the straps of her linen shift so as to peel them off her shoulders, leaving her breasts exposed. He then made a sound in his throat that she interpreted as a compliment of the highest order.
“You have been impatient to see this,” she teased, pleased by his reaction.
While she watched in fascination, he leaned in to kiss the hollow between her breasts as he began unbuttoning his shirt. “I will show you how patient I can be. Come, we will lie down.”
He swung her up in his arms and laid her upon the simple bed, murmuring endearments in French and in his own undecipherable language as he divested them of any remaining clothing while trailing kisses across her collarbone and then downward to the peak of a breast, which made her gasp and arch against him in surprised pleasure. His warm hands stroked and caressed her hips as he fitted his body atop hers, necessarily arching due to the difference in height. Overwhelmed by the sensation of skin upon skin, she explored his body tentatively, then with more boldness as she assessed his increasingly heated reactions to her touch.
“Zhena,” he breathed.
“What does that mean?” She gasped against his mouth, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
“Wife,” he muttered with his mouth buried in the side of her throat. “Zhena.”
“Dimitry—” she whispered, and then found she was no longer able to create words, English, French, or otherwise.