A Valentine Wedding (38 page)

“Darling girl, you will make me the happiest man on earth,” he declared airily, then added, “and besides, if I ever grow tired of hearing myself abused, I have a very simple way of stopping it.”

“Oh, yes?”

He stopped in the shadows of the lane. His eyes glowed bright as emeralds in the dusk as slowly he sealed her mouth with his. “Do you doubt it, Emma mine?” he murmured, moving his mouth to the soft curve of her cheek.

“No,” Emma whispered. “I have no doubts … none of any kind.” She traced the line of his mouth with her thumb. “Not a doubt in the world.”

Epilogue

“I thought we were going to Vauxhall.” Emma looked in puzzlement as the two oarsmen sculled past the water entrance of Vauxhall Gardens. The myriad lights from the garden illuminated the river, and strains of music from the rotunda drifted across the water on the cold night air.

“I changed my mind,” Alasdair said with a lazy smile. He was sitting opposite her in the boat, his arms folded, his gleaming eyes resting on her countenance. She was looking particularly enchanting this evening in an opera cloak of white velvet trimmed in silver fox fur. The collar stood up at the back, framing her face beneath the high-piled crown of stripey hair. Her eyes looked pure gold under the light of the cresset in the stern, her full mouth eminently kissable.

“I didn’t change mine,” Emma retorted, still very puzzled. “Besides, we were engaged with a big party, you said.”

“I may have exaggerated a little.”

“Just what’s going on, Alasdair?”

“A little surprise,” he replied. “But I don’t intend to spoil it, so you may as well save your breath.”

Emma sat back. She’d noticed something strange about him when he’d arrived in Mount Street to escort her to this party at Vauxhall Gardens—a secretive air; one almost of suppressed excitement, except that Alasdair didn’t really get excited about things.

She regarded him with narrowed eyes, perfectly willing to be surprised. A little thrill of anticipation rippled down her spine. She tucked the fur rug more closely around her knees and watched the riverbank slide past. Soon they left the lights of London behind, and the only sounds were the soft, rhythmic plash of the oars in the dark water.

They turned into a broad reach, where the river stretched wide and long. A light glimmered ahead from the south bank. The oarsmen swung the scull into the bank, to bump gently against a flight of water steps.

“Where are we?” Emma asked, looking up at the bank. At the top oil lamps, hung in the branches of a bare oak tree, flickered and glowed, illuminating the steps and the river, but she could see nothing of what was behind them.

Alasdair merely smiled his lazy smile and stepped out of the scull. He held out his hand to her and she stood up, the little boat rocking slightly on the tide. A waterman handed her up to Alasdair.

Asking where they were wasn’t getting any results, so she went up the short flight and stepped onto the riverbank. A tree-lined gravel path wound away from the river, lit by lanterns in sconces planted at intervals. At the end, she could make out a low-roofed,
whitewashed building, lamplight pouring from every window, throwing golden arcs across a smooth green lawn.

“Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “What an entrancing place.”

Alasdair paid off the oarsmen and came up to her. “I’m glad it pleases you, ma’am.” He smiled at her and caressed her cheek with a gloved fingertip. “Come, let’s go inside. It’s getting chilly.”

He caught her hand, twining his fingers with hers, as they walked up the path.

A maidservant stood in the open doorway. She curtsied and smiled. “Everything’s as you ordered it, sir. If you need anything, you have only to ring.”

“Thank you.” Alasdair took Emma’s hand again and led her to the flight of stairs at the rear of the stone-flagged entrance hall. They climbed one flight and Alasdair turned down a corridor.

Emma was intrigued. She had decided that they must be in the village of Chelsea. But why had Alasdair paid off the watermen? Perhaps they were to return by road. He may have considered that it would be too cold later to return by water.

Alasdair opened a door at the end of the corridor and stood aside to let her pass through. She stepped into a large corner apartment, heavy velvet curtains drawn over the windows on two sides. A log fire blazed in the grate, crocheted rugs were scattered over the luminous polished floor. A four-poster bed dominated the room.

She glanced up at Alasdair with an inquiring eyebrow.

“That’s for later,” he said, reaching over her shoulders to unclasp her cloak. “First we have supper.” He
indicated a gate-legged table and two carved wooden armchairs drawn up before the fire.

The table was set with silverware and platters, crystal glasses and two pewter candlesticks. There was a scent in the warmed air, of lavender, rose petals, and apple blossom. Emma looked for the source and found it in a small pan of potpourri simmering on a trivet over the fire.

Everything about the chamber was soft and sensual. A fragrant, languorous room that seemed to exist in its own space and time. There were no sounds from the building around them, no sense that there was anyone in the world besides themselves.

She turned to look up at Alasdair, who was watching her, smiling, her cloak still hung over his arm. Then he tossed her cloak onto the window seat, sent his own after it, and strode to a sideboard set against the far wall.

Emma’s eyes followed him. There was food on the sideboard. A great silver platter of oysters, opalescent in their craggy gray shells, mounded on lemon-strewn ice. There were quails in aspic, bright pink lobsters with a saffron sauce, a delicate puree of green peas. A feast for the eyes as much as the taste buds.

Alasdair was opening a bottle of champagne, easing off the cork with his thumbs. He poured the straw-colored foaming liquid into a cup.

Emma hadn’t noticed the cup before but as he brought it over to her she gasped with delight. It was a two-handled chalice of engraved silver, studded with emeralds and sapphires.

“A loving cup,” he said, smiling with pleasure at her reaction.

“Where did it come from?”

“Norway, I believe, sometime in the twelfth century.
It’s been in my family for generations.” He held it to her lips.

She drank the champagne, feeling its effervescence on her tongue, the bubbles exploding against her palate like ripe berries. This was no ordinary champagne. Alasdair drank from the other side, his eyes holding hers over the cup.

“The loving cup is only used on certain occasions,” he said gravely, tipping it to her lips again. “We must drink to the bottom.”

Emma drank again. They drank alternately until Alasdair said softly, “Hold it yourself now. See how beautiful it is on the inside.”

Emma did so. She looked into the cup. The reverse facets of the jewels had a dull glow like a stained glass window on a cloudy day. A small amount of champagne lay in the bottom of the cup, and something winked up at her through the pale liquid. She tilted the cup and there was a tiny little clink.

Delicately she reached into the cup, dipping her fingers into the champagne, and drew out a circlet of chased gold. Sapphires of the deepest, darkest blue were embedded in the gold.

She looked up at Alasdair in wonder, unsure what to say or do.

He took the ring from her. “Do you know what day it is, Emma?”

“Tuesday,” she answered, confused by the question.

He took her left hand and held it for a minute. He shook his head at her in mock reproof. “It’s the feast of Saint Valentine. There was a time not so long ago when you decided it would be a very important day for you. Have you forgotten so soon?”

Emma said, “It seems to me that I’ve already achieved what I said I would.”

Alasdair slipped the ring on her third finger. “A lover, and a future husband. Was that right?”

“You know it was.” She held up her hand to the light. Sapphires were her favorite stones and these were heart-stoppingly beautiful. “I didn’t expect a betrothal ring this time,” she said with a rueful little smile. “Having thrown the last one in your teeth.”

“Well, I’m going to make certain you don’t have the chance to do that again.” He reached inside his waistcoat and drew out a paper and a small twist of tissue.

“I have here a special license and a wedding ring. The local vicar will be ready for us in the morning, and until then …”

He caught her chin on his palm, his expression a curious mixture of gravity and amusement. “Until then, my sweet, you and I shall stay in this chamber. I intend to ensure that come morning you will be too exhausted to do anything but stagger up to the altar and stammer your responses. There’ll be no flight to Italy this time.”

“There’ll be no need for one,” she said, meeting his gaze steadily.

Alasdair nodded slowly. “The feast of Saint Valentine,” he mused. “It seemed to me that there was a curious resonance to the idea of spending our prenuptial night in the arms of the patron saint of star-crossed lovers.”

“His blessing might forestall further star-crossing, you mean?”

“Sometimes a little extra help can’t go amiss.” He reached behind him to the sideboard and took an oyster from the salver. “Open.”

Emma opened her mouth and he fed her the oyster.
The cold, fishy, sea-tasting morsel slithered down her throat, and she closed her eyes involuntarily. “I’m not sure I need aphrodisiacs,” she murmured.

Alasdair took the loving cup from her. “I think supper will have to wait.” He reached for her hands and pulled her against him. Holding her tightly, he fell back with her onto the bed, rolling her beneath him. Leaning on his elbows, he looked down at her. “God, but you’re so beautiful, Emma. I want you so fiercely.”

“Then have me,” she said with a wicked little grin. “I am yours, sir.” She flung her arms wide on the coverlet in a gesture of mock surrender. “But don’t tear my gown, or else I’ll have to stand at the altar in my shift.”

“An irresistible invitation,” he murmured, his eyes alive with passion. He kissed her with the savage desire she was inciting, biting her bottom lip so that she could taste a little bead of salty blood. His hands were at the neck of her gown of delicate spider-gauze. He ripped it from neck to hem, and Emma laughed exultantly.

She reached for his shirt and tugged, heedless of the buttons flying loose, lifting her body on the mattress so that he could free her hips and thighs of the half-slip of blue silk she wore beneath the gauze. Her silk stockings tore under a raking fingernail as he felt for her. She tore at the buttons of his waistband, freeing the hard jut of his erection.

He lifted her legs onto his shoulders and in the same movement drove deep inside her. His gaze, as exultant as Emma’s, scanned her. He reached down to touch her face with his palm, then he began to move within her, ever deeper, ever more probing, so that she felt more truly possessed than she had felt before.
She turned her face and bit his palm as the great fierce joy grew and grew until it could no longer be contained. And then just as she knew she was lost, he withdrew to the very edge of her body, holding himself there. Her eyes, drowning in need, lost themselves in his.

Slowly, very slowly, he smiled, then inch by inch sheathed himself within her again.

And they both cried out in savage triumph as the hot juices of their loving flowed and they clung to each other, jubilant in ecstasy.

And Emma thought, as weakly she drew Alasdair down into her embrace, that Ned had been a very powerful deus ex machina. She kissed Alasdair’s damp shoulder and felt his lips on her breast. And she knew that he too was thinking of the man who had insisted that against all appearances, against all the odds, they belonged together.

J
ANE
F
EATHER
is the
New York Times
bestselling, award-winning author of
Kissed by Shadows, To Kiss a Spy, The Widow’s Kiss, The Least Likely Bride, The Accidental Bride, The Hostage Bride, A Valentine Wedding, The Emerald Swan
, and many other historical romances. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in the New Forest, in the south of England. She began her writing career after she and her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1981. She now has over six million copies of her books in print.