Slightly Dangerous (42 page)

She laughed, as he had intended. She came around and sat on the seat.

“Your grace,” she said, “I—”

“
Must
you
your grace
me?” he asked her. “Must you, Christine?”

“It seems presumptuous to call you Wulfric,” she said.

“You did not think so when you were in bed with me at the dovecote,” he said.

She blushed quite rosily, though she would not look away from him. It was amazing to think that it was that very fact that had first caused him to notice her at Schofield Park.

“Wulfric,” she said, “I am thirty years old. I had my thirtieth birthday three days ago.”

“Ah,” he said. “For a few weeks, then, I can pretend that I am only five years older than you. I am not yet quite thirty-six.”

“Oh, you must know what I mean,” she said. “Even if I were not barren I would be approaching the end of my fertile years. But I
am
barren. I ought to have said no when you asked if you could come here. But I was not thinking straight. I was thinking only of how wonderful those days at Lindsey Hall had been and of—”

“Christine,” he said, “
do
stop talking nonsense. I have told you before that I have three brothers, any of whom I would be happy to have succeed me. You have met them for yourself. And, if Aidan produces no sons, I could happily think of young William eventually taking over the title. I did not really expect to marry. After trying and failing to make a dynastic marriage when I was twenty-four, I knew that I could never marry unless I met the woman who could be soul of my soul. Frankly, I did not expect ever to meet her. I am not a man who has inspired much love.”

“Your brothers and sisters love you dearly,” she said.

“Christine,” he said, “you are light and joy and the embodiment of love. If you were to agree to be my wife, I would
not
expect you to shape yourself into your image of what a duchess should be—or into anyone else’s image either. Aunt Rochester would have a good try. I would expect—I would demand—only that you be you. If anyone does not like your style of duchess, then to hell with that person. But I would not expect it to happen. You have a gift for attracting love and laughter, even from people who have no intention of loving you or laughing with you.”

She looked down then at the hands in her lap, and her face was hidden beneath the brim of her bonnet.

“I will always be the stern, aloof, rather cold aristocrat you so despise,” he said. “I have to be. I—”

“I know,” she said, looking up quickly. “I would neither expect nor want you to change. I love the Duke of Bewcastle as he is. He is formidable and magnificent and dangerous—especially when he hauls villains to their feet with one hand and dangles them above the floor and throws terror into them with a few soft words.”

The familiar laughter lurked in her eyes.

“But I will always be Wulfric Bedwyn too,” he said. “And he has discovered that it can occasionally be fun to dive into lakes out of forbidden trees.”

The laughter spread to the rest of her face.

“I
love
Wulfric Bedwyn,” she said, and there was a wicked inflection in her voice.

“Do you?” He closed the distance between them and took both her hands in his. He raised them one at a time to his lips. “Do you, my love? Enough to take a chance on me? I had better warn you. There is a Bedwyn tradition that we do not necessarily marry early in life but that when we
do
marry we give our whole devotion and fidelity to our spouse. If you marry me, you must expect to be adored for the rest of your life.”

She sighed. “I think I could bear it,” she said, “if I try very hard. But only if I can do the same to you.”

She laughed at him, and he smiled slowly back at her.

“Well.” He gripped her hands more tightly. “Well.”

He knelt on the grass before the bench and kissed her hands in her lap again.

“You will marry me, Christine?”

She leaned over him and kissed his cheek.

“Yes, I will,” she said. “Oh, yes, I will, Wulfric, if you please.”

He turned his head and their lips met.

S
ITTING IN A
pew in St. George’s, Hanover Square, when the church had been half full for Audrey’s wedding to Sir Lewis Wiseman at the end of February had inspired Christine with awe.

Viewing it from the end of the nave when it was full to capacity with almost every member of the
ton
who was still drawing breath for her own wedding in the middle of June filled her with such terror that she was afraid that her knees would forget how to lock themselves in place and her legs would forget how to move one at a time and she would collapse in an ignominious heap as soon as the organ started to play—which it was doing
now
—and Basil would have to drag her down to the altar so that she would not lose her chance of becoming a duchess.

Charles was helping at the altar, and so there had been no conflict about which brother-in-law would give her away.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured, in deep distress.

“Steady.” Basil patted her hand. “Everyone is waiting to see you, Christine.”

That,
she thought, was the whole point.

Wulfric had given her the choice of where she wanted their nuptials to be solemnized. She would have been very happy with the church in the village, with Charles officiating. She would have been equally happy with the church at Lindsey Hall. And
he
would have been too. He had said so. But no, she had had to be noble about the whole thing. He was the Duke of Bewcastle, after all, one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the land. Surely, then, it was important for him that their wedding be solemnized with all the pomp and ceremony due to his position. And so she had settled on St. George’s, where all the fashionable weddings of the beau monde took place during the Season.

So there was really no one to blame for this terrifying moment but herself.

And then Basil patted her hand once more and they began to walk toward the altar—and she discovered that her legs and her knees
did
remember how to function. But it was not her legs or her knees that she had to thank for that fact.

She had looked ahead—down the long aisle to the altar rail.

He was wearing cream and brown and gold and looked quite astonishingly gorgeous. There was one moment—perhaps even two—of unreality and disbelief. He could not possibly be waiting for
her
. She must have stumbled into someone else’s dream and would wake up any moment in the schoolroom or in Hyacinth Cottage.

But then his face came into focus. It was handsome in a cold, austere way, with stern jaw, thin lips, high cheekbones, and a prominent, slightly hooked, finely chiseled nose. The face of the Duke of Bewcastle.

The face of the man she loved with all her heart.

Wulfric’s face.

Through the veil of her moss green bonnet, she smiled at him.

But finally, as she drew closer on Basil’s arm, it was only his eyes she saw—his silver eyes, glowing with an intense light as he watched her come, oblivious, it seemed, to Lord Aidan at his side and everyone else in the church.

And then he smiled slowly at her in that way he had of transforming himself into surely the most handsome man who had ever lived.

She was at his side then, and it no longer occurred to her to be nervous. There was no one else in the world except Wulfric and herself—and the clergyman who would make them into man and wife for the rest of their lives.

“Dearly beloved,” he began in the sonorous tones peculiar to the clergy on all solemn occasions.

W
ULFRIC HAD HIS
first taste of what was to come for the rest of his married days when the service was over and the register signed and the organ playing for the solemn procession out of the church, past all their guests, who sat with quiet dignity in their pews.

Christine clung to his arm and he looked down at her with warm sympathy. He knew she had chosen St. George’s and a large, very public wedding for his sake. He guessed that she was very nervous, facing their guests for the first time.

She was smiling sunnily and happily, the veil thrown back over the brim of her bonnet. She was smiling right and left, at her family, at those few of his who were in evidence, at other acquaintances.

Ah, he need not have been concerned.

And then, when they were halfway out and the organ had reached a crescendo of the stately anthem, she pointed with one outstretched arm to the far corner of the church.

“Oh, look, Wulfric,” she said aloud, “the children are here.”

They were too—all the younger ones, with their nurses, close enough to the back that they might have been taken out if they had proved troublesome.

“That’s Aunt Christine,” William said quite distinctly.

“And Uncle Wulf,” said Jacques.

And Christine raised her arm and waved gaily at them—with all the
ton
looking on.

Wulfric paused and waited until she was ready to resume the solemn procession. And since there was nothing much else to do while he waited, he raised a hand and waved too. And grinned.

Life, he guessed, was going to be an adventure now that he was thirty-six. This was, in fact, his birthday.

“I had better warn you,” he murmured as they reached the outer doors. “I am not sure if you noticed a few empty pews at the front of the church on the way out. The people who ought to have been occupying them are waiting for us outside.”

And, sure enough, there were all the Bedwyns and their spouses and their older children lined up between the doors and the waiting carriage, armed with rose petals.

There were hordes of other people out there too—the curious masses, who had come to view a society wedding. Someone set up a cheer, and the crowd picked it up.

“Oh, Wulfric,” Christine said, “this is so exciting.”

He laughed and took her hand and ran with her. Petals rained down on them. But inevitably she stopped halfway to the carriage and stooped down to scoop up a handful of the petals, which she threw back at Rannulf and Rachel and Gervase with a delighted laugh.

They were in the open carriage then and she settled her very smart cream, green-trimmed dress about her while he picked up bags of coins from the seat and tossed their contents by handfuls over the heads of the gathered crowd. One liveried footman joined the coachman on the box and two others jumped up behind, and the carriage drove off—making a huge clatter as it did so, since it had to drag an assortment of old boots and other clutter behind it as well as cascades of bright ribbons.

Wulfric looked across at his bride, his wife, his duchess, and took her hand in his.

“At last,” he said. “I would not believe in our happily-ever-after until now.”

“Oh, not happily-ever-after, Wulfric,” she said. “That is such a static thing. I don’t want happily-ever-after. I want
happiness
and life and quarreling and making up and adventure and—”

He leaned across and kissed her on the lips.

“Well, and that too,” she said with a laugh while the crowd about the church set up another cheer and the two footmen on the back of the carriage stared woodenly ahead.

E
PILOGUE

I
T WAS THE
D
UKE OF
B
EWCASTLE
’
S BIRTHDAY
—
HIS
thirty-seventh. He had never, however, been in the habit of celebrating the occasion with a great show of guests at Lindsey Hall.

It was also his first wedding anniversary. But though he would undoubtedly have celebrated the occasion with his duchess, it was doubtful that he would have invited guests to share it with them.

It was far more probable, he thought as he sat patiently for his valet to tie a perfect knot in his neckcloth, that they would have gone to the dovecote, where they had spent much of the Christmas holiday.

Nevertheless, there was a crowd of guests staying at the house—even more than there had been over Easter last year. And more guests were expected back at the house after the church service that they were all about to attend.

The occasion was neither the birthday nor the anniversary. The duke and duchess did not even expect to be the focus of attention.

James Christian Anthony Bedwyn, Marquess of Lindsey, had that distinction.

But one hour after the Duke of Bewcastle’s neckcloth had been successfully tied and the rest of his attire donned, and after the Duchess of Bewcastle was properly clad in a new blue dress to match her eyes and a new bonnet to match both, the marquess seemed quite prepared to relinquish the center of attention to them.

He was sleeping.

He
did
awake with a start when water that was supposed to be tepid but which felt icy cold to him landed on his forehead and trickled back over his head. And for two or three minutes he gave lusty expression to his wrath.

But the water was soon wiped away, and he was soon handed into the keeping of someone whose arms told him quite firmly that while he was unconditionally loved, he nevertheless must learn not to disgrace himself by bawling over nothing.

Rather than argue the point, Lord Lindsey went back to sleep.

He had just been christened. He was wearing the gorgeous christening robe that all children of the Dukes of Bewcastle had worn for generations past.

He had aunts and uncles galore to fuss over him, as well as a grandmother and a great-aunt, the handle of whose lorgnette got tangled up in the lace of his skirt for one anxious moment. He also had cousins, most of whom demanded to be allowed to hold him after he had been carried back to the house in his papa’s arms—much to the surprise and chagrin of his nurse. Almost the only ones who did not make such a demand were the eldest, Davy, who considered such a thing beneath his male dignity, and the youngest, Robert, son of Uncle Alleyne and Aunt Rachel, who was asleep in a crib in the nursery. All the cousins were denied permission except for Becky and Marianne, who were made to sit down first and hold out their arms just so in order to hold the Marquess of Lindsey for one minute each.