“I won’t be.”
“You saved my life again,” Willa whispered, bending down to kiss his brow.
“No need to get the wind up,” he murmured. “Course I did. You’re mine, Evie.”
A tear slid down her cheek and splashed onto his hand. “I love you so much. I was terrified that I’d lost the chance to say it to you.”
“Those words needn’t be spoken,” Alaric said. “I am loved, and I love.”
She smiled at him through tears.
“Even that daft, murderous woman understood that I will always care for those I love. Where is she, by the way?”
“Your father sent her away to Wales under heavy guard. If she was found guilty of attempted murder—and obviously, she would be—she’d likely be given a year’s hard labor. None of us wanted that, so he sent her to an institution that your aunt knew of. If she recovers her sanity, she’ll be escorted to Africa with no possibility of return. But she might well live out her life there, under lock and key.”
Alaric nodded.
“When Lavinia was infatuated with your books, I didn’t believe you were a hero,” Willa said, a sob catching her voice. “You are a hero. I was wrong, so wrong.”
“I wasn’t a hero.”
“Yes, you—”
“Not until I had to be,” Alaric said, cutting her off. “Not until I met you. Stop crying, Evie, because you boasted that you never shed a tear, remember?” His eyes closed and he abruptly fell asleep, his hand still held tight by hers.
Willa remained by his bedside as the sun came up, feeling his forehead every few minutes and making bargains with God. No unnatural heat crept under her palm. Alaric turned his head toward her at some point and smiled drowsily.
She crawled in next to him and fell asleep.
Twenty-four hours later, Lord Alaric wore a fresh linen shirt and a waistcoat at his wedding, but no coat; between the bandages and the sling he wore, a coat was out of the question. Willa wore one of her favorite gowns, as simple and plain as his shirt.
He didn’t bound to the altar in Lindow Castle’s private chapel, but he did walk there steadily. He didn’t pick up the bride and carry her over the threshold to his bedchamber in the east tower, but he did kiss her.
Repeatedly.
When they were finally in bed, he lay flat on his back and grinned up at his wife. “I am terra incognita,” he said.
“An undiscovered country?”
“Exactly. Yours. All for you.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Two days later
I am exceedingly annoyed that so much happened while I was in Manchester, buying bonnets,” Lavinia complained, not for the first time. “Diana ran away, and you nearly sank into the bog, and now you have stolen the man whom I loved for at least three years!”
“But you stopped adoring him,” Willa pointed out. She was trying on Lavinia’s new hats. There were eight, each more delightful than the last. “Did I tell you that my straw hat with the roses was lost in the bog?”
“A worthy sacrifice,” Lavinia said, “in light of what followed.”
“I love this darling veil,” Willa said. She held up a summer hat with a swooping brim, a number of white and lavender plumes, and a veil in the back that floated almost to the waist.
“You must have it! It’s my gift, in honor of your wedding. I do so wish I had been there.”
Willa leaned over and kissed Lavinia’s cheek. “You couldn’t have ridden through the night, the way Leonidas did. As it is, he fell asleep in a pew and missed the ceremony.” She adjusted the bonnet so the brim hung rakishly over one eye. “Thank you for this lovely gift!”
“You’ve changed,” Lavinia said, narrowing her eyes.
“How so?” Willa readjusted the bonnet so the plumes swept around the side of her face. Which made her sneeze.
“It must be something to do with bedding a man,” Lavinia said thoughtfully. “Or perhaps it’s a matter of becoming Lady Alaric Wilde. You’re more yourself. The way you are when we’re alone.”
“Oh,” Willa said. She threw her a quick smile. “Our rules were only designed for the hunting season, after all.”
“Your hunting season is over, since you’re married to one of the most handsome men in the country. And one of the richest. Mother heard that Parth quadrupled Alaric’s and North’s inheritances.”
“You’ll have to stop calling him ‘simple-minded,’ ” Willa said with amusement.
Lavinia shrugged. “Now Mother has come to the conclusion that I should catch North before Diana changes her mind. She can’t decide whether to remain here or go to London. I think she’ll remain here, because the chances are pretty good that Mrs. Belgrave will have some harsh words for Diana’s chaperone.”
“As far as I know, neither Diana nor North has sent any messages,” Willa said.
“I just wish Diana had confided in me,” Lavinia said, twisting a ribbon around her finger. “She’s my cousin, after all. I would have helped her. I feel as if I failed her, somehow.”
“Diana is the sort of woman who keeps her own counsel,” Willa pointed out.
“It’s sent my mother into a frenzy, trying to persuade me to entice North to marry me. But—remember?—we decided not to accept anyone’s hand until the end of our second Season.”
“That was before I met Alaric,” Willa said, feeling that was an entirely logical response.
“Whereas I still haven’t met a man I could bear to live with for more than a week,” Lavinia said.
“You’ve never really considered North, inasmuch as Diana disqualified him,” Willa pointed out. “But I quite like him.”
“Diana bumbled it, didn’t she? Why couldn’t she simply behave like a civilized person? Running away is so dramatic.”
“Not only dramatic, but uncomfortable, since she rode the stagecoach,” Willa agreed. “I heard that North shouted at poor Prism for not sending Diana to London in one of the estate’s carriages. But Prism had no idea why she wanted to go to the village, so he lent her the pony cart, as she requested. Just imagine Diana crowded into a stagecoach!”
“I don’t believe she owns a gown that doesn’t double her width. All the same, I shall leave North to his melancholy. I have no interest in her castoffs.”
“May I wear this hat to the archery range?”
“Certainly.” Lavinia snatched up another new hat and put it on. It was smaller and adorned with a great many purple striped ribbons that formed bows and loops that made her look like a stylish ship, albeit with swelling sails. “Did I tell you that Parth Sterling has returned? He was barely inside the door before he insulted me.”
“He’s come for the wedding ball tonight,” Willa said apologetically.
“Don’t you dare tell him about all these bonnets!”
“Why on earth would I?” Willa asked, astonished.
“He said that I am a mercenary, grasping woman,” Lavinia said. “That I do nothing but visit shops, and am fit for nothing else.”
“He’s wrong,” Willa said, dropping the bonnet and giving Lavinia a hug. “He’s terribly wrong and I shall tell him so myself.”
Lavinia scowled. “Perhaps I’ll slip up with my bow and arrow. I’m a terrible shot, you know.”
As it happened, Willa never found out whether Lavinia came close to shooting Parth on the archery field, because no sooner had she made her appearance downstairs in her fetching new bonnet, than Alaric declared himself to be suffering terribly from his sore shoulder.
Which necessitated that they both return to the east tower and go to bed.
Willa did not, on the whole, believe exuberance to be an emotion that adults should indulge in often or at length. It seemed to her a childish emotion, one suited to parties and puppet shows.
Yet she knew perfectly well that the emotion brewing in her chest was just that: exuberance. She couldn’t stop smiling, for one thing. If she kept this up, she would resemble Lavinia.
But who wouldn’t smile?
She had spent the afternoon intoxicated by Alaric’s kisses, not to mention by the musculature of his chest, his long fingers, his eyelashes, his … other parts.
The duchess had summoned most of the Cheshire gentry to the castle for a ball that night to celebrate the wedding. Willa had returned to her old bedchamber to dress, while her husband lounged, book in hand, to one side.
Sweetpea had offered him a polite sniff, and then returned to her busy work; to wit, emptying Willa’s knotting bag of walnuts and stowing them under the bed, from whence the maid would fish them out and return them to the bag in the morning.
Alaric wasn’t sitting alone: stretched across his knees, purring, was a lanky orange cat. Hannibal’s fur was starting to shine, and his ribs weren’t quite as visible.
“You are the most exquisite lady in this castle, Evie,” he said, looking up from his book. “That apricot thing you have on, with all the satin flounces, makes you look like a princess.”
Willa glanced down at her favorite ball gown. It was a soft rose, not apricot; cotton organdy, not satin; a gown, not a “thing.”
“I am particularly partial to the bodice,” Alaric added.