The Secret Pearl(144)

She was silent for a while. “Fit to kill,” she said.

“Does it make you stop loving me?” he asked.

“No.” She laid a palm against his cheek. “That is in the past, Adam. I have no control over that and you cannot change it. I don’t care about your past.”

“And I don’t care about yours,” he said. “Will you be my duchess, Fleur?”

“Pamela?” she said.

“She seemed a little troubled that I was willing to sacrifice myself by making you my wife just so that I could also make you her mama,” he said. “I had to assure her that it was what I wanted too.” He smiled.

“She adored her mother,” she said.

“Yes, and always will,” he said. “We will have to make sure that she never forgets Sybil, Fleur. And we will hope that memory somewhat distorts the truth. We will hope that she remembers Sybil as a constantly attentive mother as well as a beautiful and indulgent one. You will never be her mother, but you can be her stepmother. And I can tell you from experience that it is possible for her to love both. I have faint, flashing images of my mother and have always associated those images with unconditional love. But I was dearly fond of my stepmother, Thomas’ mother.”

She lowered her head to his shoulder.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, and closed her eyes. There were no other words to say. How could one put into words a happiness that filled one so full to the brim that it was almost a pain?

He settled his cheek against the top of her head and closed his eyes. And felt that there was no further need of words for the moment. It was as he remembered it the night they made love. They could communicate more perfectly through the silence than through the imperfection of words.

“I have a confession to make,” he said at last. “I dreaded having a letter from you to say you were with child, and yet I looked for that letter and hoped for it. You see how in my selfishness I would have made you suffer?”

“I cried when I knew I was not,” she said.

He laughed softly and turned her face up to his with one hand at her chin and kissed her deeply and lingeringly.

“We will have you with child just as soon as can be,” he said. “Tonight maybe?”

“Tonight?” She was laughing against his neck.

“On our wedding night,” he said. “Is it too soon?”

“Tonight?”

“We can wait if you want,” he said. “We can have a planned wedding. We can have it in London if you wish, with half the ton in attendance. I daresay even the king would come if we invited him. But I would rather have it today, Fleur. We could spend our first night here in your cottage. Do you have a guest room for Pamela?”

“Yes,” she said, touching his lips with one light finger. “I have dreamed of having you here with me, Adam. My arms have been so empty without you and my bed so cold.”

“They will not be empty tonight, my love,” he said, “and the bed will be warm. And you will not need to dream any longer. It will all be reality.”

“I won’t need your letter beneath my pillow tonight,” she said.

“Or the pianoforte either,” he said, and they both laughed and hugged each other.

“Oh, Adam,” she said, “I have been so lonely without you. It has seemed such an eternity.”

He turned her face up again and they smiled at each other.

“No longer,” he said. “No more loneliness, Fleur, for either of us. Only our marriage and our children and Willoughby and growing old together. Only our love forever.” He lowered his head and kissed her mouth softly. “And longer than forever.”





On sale August 2006

Simply Love


IT WAS NOT THAT HE FELT INTIMIDATED, BUT Sydnam Butler was nevertheless moving out of Glandwr House into the thatched, whitewashed cottage that lay in a small clearing among the trees not far from the sea cliffs on one side and the park gates and driveway on the other.

As steward of the estate for the past five years, Sydnam had lived in his own spacious apartments in the main house, and he had always continued to live there even when the owner, the Duke of Bewcastle, was in residence. Bewcastle had always come alone and had never stayed for longer than a few weeks at a time.

But this coming visit was going to be altogether different from what he was accustomed to. This time Bewcastle was bringing his wife with him. Sydnam had never met the Duchess of Bewcastle. He had heard from his brother Kit, Viscount Ravensberg, who lived on the estate adjoining Lindsey Hall, that she was a jolly good sort, who had been known to coax laughter even from such a perennial iceberg as Bewcastle.