More Than a Duke(106)

A little hiccoughy laugh emerged more as a sob from her lips. He still did not realize he was all she wanted, all she’d ever wanted. “Are you trying to convince me to wed another? Because if you are, it’s really not well done of you, Harry.”



He stroked her cheek. “I love you, Anne. Marry me.”



Four pairs of eyes looked intently back at her. She leaned up on tiptoes. “Yes,” she whispered. And pressed her mouth to his.



~*~



Four days later, in the presence of Mother, her brother Benedict, and Anne’s sisters Aldora and Katherine, along with their families, Anne found herself in the most unlikely of places. A rueful smile pulled at her lips as she glanced around at the pink, red, and peach rose bushes. But then, not all that unlikely if one knew Harry, the Earl of Stanhope.



A disapproving vicar beat the small black leather book in his palm which she suspected was the beginning of a rather hastily thrown together ceremony.



“Are you having second thoughts, love?”



She jumped at Harry’s teasing whisper. She gave her head a shake and stole a glance at her family. Her sisters waved, matching smiles on their faces. “Of course not,” she assured him. Though… She stole a glance at her mother. Mother certainly appeared hopeful her daughter would march from Lord Essex’s prized gardens and leave Harry standing there at the altar…well, an altar of flowers anyway.



The vicar fanned the pages of his book.



She winked. “My mother on the other hand…”



A bark of laughter escaped Harry and the vicar dropped his Bible. He bent to retrieve it, muttering something about reverence and bold, hastily thrown together ceremonies. Anne took this for clear disapproval with her and Harry’s not waiting the requisite period of three Sundays to have the banns read.



Anne schooled her features in a semblance of piety. Even as her husband-to-be stifled a yawn. Her shoulders shook with the force of her amusement. “Achoo!” Harry withdrew a kerchief and handed it over.



“Shall we begin?” the vicar began and glared at Anne for doing something as impolite as sneezing before he launched into the service. “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony; which is an honorable estate…”



Anne glanced across the Marquess of Essex’s infamous conservatory.



The old lord’s loud whisper cut across the vicar’s recitation of her and Harry’s marital vows. “I do say, quite unconventional. A pleasure, nonetheless, just an unexpected pleasure,” the wizened gentleman rattled on to the Duke of Bainbridge. “Not every day a couple wants to be married in my gardens. Not that I can blame them,” he said on a rush, lest anyone present believe the man disparaged his own well-tended space. Her brother-in-law kept his gaze directed to the front of the room, wincing as the Marquess of Essex carried on. “It must be my prized peonies.”



Anne looked up at Harry and they shared a smile.



“I knew the gardener was well worth the sum he demanded,” Lord Essex said with a pleased nod, eyeing the small cluster of people and the vicar in his conservatory. “Or I supposed it might have been my rose bushes.” His brow wrinkled. “Then, there are the prized hibiscuses. Brought from Africa you know, they are. All very exotic. Er…Africa, and the flowers, that is…”



The Marquess of Essex’s ramblings reached Anne once more… “Achoo!”…As did the scent of one of those prized, exotic hibiscuses. Harry fished out a second handkerchief and handed it over. She blew her nose noisily into the fabric.



The vicar glared at her in response, clearly taking slight to her inability to control the flurry of sneezing.



It really was quite inconvenient that was the place they should have first met.

“Achoo!” She buried the sneeze into Harry’s kerchief and grinned up at him.



He returned her smile.



But there was no more perfect place for them to be wed. Her mother continued to glare in their direction. Even if Mother quite disagreed.



“….Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined…”



“I’m going to try my hand with the azalea bush,” Lord Essex said noisily. A muscle ticked at the corner of the duke’s right eye, and Katherine’s lips twitched with silent amusement. “They say the soil acidity effects the color of the bush. What are your thoughts on that, Bainbridge?”