Their Foreign Affair (Scandalous Family--The Victorians Book 3), page 17
It was not Kirkaldy tweed lying uppermost in the case, but charcoal worsted wool. Adam’s jacket was folded neatly on top of tweed and satin and cotton petticoats.
“Oh…” Ann said almost soundlessly. Her throat ached as she studied the perfectly cut lapels. She had rested her hand there, more than once.
“Oh, indeed,” Filip said softly.
She looked up at him. “I had forgotten. At the very end, to escape Dahl’s men at the station, we dressed as the locals do. Adam took off his jacket and put on the black cloak…” She swallowed, for Filip’s eyes were narrowed.
Filip hitched aside his long jacket and rested one hip on her writing desk. He had become increasingly more casual in such ways, when they were alone. He picked up one of the valise buckles, which lay close by his knee, and toyed with it. “I didn’t ask you what happened while you were with him,” he said softly. “I deliberately did not ask, and I will not ask now. But…is there anything you wish to tell me about your journey to Constantinople, Ann?”
Ann waited until he looked at her, as she knew he would. Then she shook her head. “Everything that happened on the way to Constantinople served only to show me how I must return to Silkeborg with you.”
Filip considered her for a long moment. Then he gave her a small smile. “For which I am thankful every day,” he said quietly. “But if ever you feel…if you are compelled to explain…” He shook his head, irritated at his own stumbling phrases. “Know that I will listen, Ann,” he said instead. “And know that I will try to understand, no matter what you say. Do you understand?”
Ann met his gaze. “I do understand,” she whispered.
Filip nodded. Then he glanced at the valise once more. “Is that the tweed?” he asked, his tone light.
She picked up Adam’s jacket, to move it out of the way of the tweed. “Yes! Let me show you—”
The small book with the green cover slid out from the inside pocket of the jacket and dropped to the floor with a small thud, silencing her. The journal had fallen open, and like all books treated thus, the pages separated at the place where they were most often opened.
Adam’s strong, plain handwriting filled the pages on both sides, but that was not what cut off Ann’s words.
It was the pressed blue rose bud lying on top of them.
Her eyes ached. Her heart felt as though thorns had shredded it open.
Filip stared at the open book on the floor. His throat worked. “Blue roses…” he murmured.
Ann didn’t move. She didn’t know what to say. And she dared not pick up the book.
Instead, Filip bent and scooped up the book, so that it lay open on his hand. He picked up the flat, dried rosebud and studied the script beneath. “Greek,” he said to himself. “The language of philosophers.” He held up the rose and turned it in his fingers. “I remember you telling me about the blue roses at Innesford, which is the only place they grow.”
Ann couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe. Her heart screamed at her.
Filip put the rose back in the book and shut it softly. He put the book on the table, got to his feet and came around to the end, where Ann stood, frozen. He was not smiling.
He stopped directly in front of her.
Ann desperately sought for words, for some way to reverse this awful moment.
“Where did he get the rose from, Ann?” Filip asked softly.
She had put the bud to one side, on the hay bale. Adam must have found it…and kept it.
Ann’s temples throbbed. “I did not give it to him,” she said truthfully.
“But you had the rose, before he came by it, didn’t you?” Filip’s voice was very soft.
Her tears fell before she could stop them. They unraveled her courage. Miserably, she nodded.
Filip laid his hand against her cheek, cupping her jaw. He leaned back and tilted his head so that he could peer into her eyes and her downturned face. “Have you considered, Ann, that there were two of us on the Galata pier that day…but it was Adam who dived in after you?”
Ann’s breath shook as she drew it in. “It doesn’t matter…” she whispered. “He told me the only honorable thing I could do was go back to you.” She lifted her chin. “And he was right.”
Filip’s throat worked, as if he fought to speak. When he did, his voice was strained. “Which makes this even more difficult,” he whispered. His thumb stroked her cheek. “I have tried to dismiss it, but I cannot. Not now. You ran from marrying me…and you ran straight to him.”
“Adam just happened to be there.”
“Along with all of Silkeborg, both inside and outside the cathedral,” Filip said.
“But—”
He rested his fingertip against her lips, silencing her. A furrow etched his brow, as if he was in pain. “You were so afraid of me, you ran the moment you saw me. You ran off the pier in your haste to escape me.”
Ann’s tears came harder. “I didn’t know that you…I didn’t understand that you cared for me. It changed everything, Filip.”
He drew in a great breath and dropped his hands from her face. “And now everything must change again.” He reached over the desk and picked up the green book. Then he took her hand and laid the book upon it. “I think it is time you returned this to its owner.”
After eight weeks travelling to every warehouse and office the family business ran, from Mashhad to Reykjavik, Adam could no longer avoid returning to Paris. He had run out of excuses and Papa Iefan’s wires and demands for reports and sales figures had escalated in both number and urgency.
The day after his return, he escaped the inevitable questions and demands of the family, and most especially Mama Mairin, by spending his time in the stables repairing harnesses and caring for the horses and the pig who lived in the corner by the dun mare, who would not move if the pig was not with her.
The undemanding company of animals was not the surcease it once had been. The scent of fresh, damp hay made his chest ache.
He returned to the house, his mood fouler than it had been when he left.
The house was mysteriously empty, except for Mama Mairin, who looked at him over her spectacles. “Your mail is upon the table,” she said, and returned to her book. Even though she had arranged for everyone to leave the house so he would not be bothered by them, it seemed she still could not resist a parting shot. “After so many weeks away, there is a small mountain of it.”
Adam didn’t reply. Instead, he went to the table and found that there was a great pile of letters and parcels. Samples from prospective suppliers, bills…it would all be business matters, for he rarely corresponded with anyone. The people he might care to write to were all in this house.
Bar one.
He forced his thoughts away from that blistering pain and turned his attention to the opening of the letters and processing the demands and questions and always-absorbing matters they dealt with.
Work—more and more of it—would have to fill his days, now.
Some time later, a cup of coffee was slid in front of his arm, the scent strong. He looked up.
Papa Iefan gave him a small nod. “The problem with attending to concerns in far flung places is that it always generates a great deal more work.”
“Good,” Adam said shortly.
Iefan grimaced. “Hmm…” He went away.
Adam got back to work. One of the letters was from the driver of the coach and horse he had sold in Hamburg. The man was pathetically grateful for the newer cab and younger horse which Adam had arranged for him.
At least some profited from the venture, he reflected, and opened the next parcel.
His commonplace journal fell out of the ripped brown paper and dropped onto the table with a soft thud.
He stared at it, his heart working hard enough to make his chest ache. He pressed his knuckles there, to ease the pain.
With his other hand, he lifted the book up, so it balanced on its spine, then let it fall open as it wished.
The rose was where he had left it, but it was not alone.
Adam’s breath came harder.
The rose had been turned upside down, so the narrow point of the bud arrowed toward the center of the page.
A second pressed blue rosebud laid over the top of it, also upside down, and also pointing toward the center of the page from the other direction.
“Why…they are Innesford roses, aren’t they?” Mama Mairin asked.
“Yes.” Adam’s voice was hoarse. He picked up the edge of the dry buds and turned them as he would a page in the book. They settled on the other page, leaving the outline of their shape imprinted upon the righthand page.
A heart.
Adam slapped the book shut and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Mama Mairin demanded.
“Innesford.”
Her face lit from within. She smiled and whirled, heading for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Adam returned.
“To pack our trunks!” she cried, her hand on the newel post. “We’re coming with you!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Innesford, September 1890
Ann found it easier to stay in the lounging chair by the side of the croquette court. No one could accuse her of not joining in, while she sat there. She pretended to watch the croquette games, while she left an unread book open upon her lap and let her thoughts drift.
It felt as though it had been a very long time since she had been able to simply pause. Although in her heart, she was not paused at all. She waited.
That was why she was at Innesford, although it did not explain why everyone else was here. There was an extraordinary number of people in the house at the moment, including Ben and Sharla, Dane and Stephen and their six children…who were nearly all adults, now. She had heard Uncle Ben say something about being invited to play football with a local champion but had paid no notice.
Great Aunt Annalies was here—she had travelled from London with Jennifer Jane and Alice, Ben’s daughters, who were living in the old white house with Great Aunt Annalies.
And Ann had been shocked to find her mother and father here, too.
“It was Cian’s idea,” her mother told her, as she shaded her eyes and examined the great garden.
“He told you I was here,” Ann guessed.
“He said you looked glum,” Lilly replied, and squeezed Ann’s shoulders. “As you did not come home, we thought we would come to you, instead.”
“But…Northallerton…”
“Is doing very nicely under Seth’s guidance, for a while,” her father replied.
As the oldest in the family, Ann’s brother would one day inherit Northallerton, and he took his future responsibilities seriously. Too seriously, Ann thought.
“It will do him good to manage on his own for a while,” Jasper added, with a mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes.
That had been three days ago. Ann had learned this morning at breakfast that Elise and Danyal and the new baby would be travelling down from Blackawton later today, to join everyone for dinner.
Ann had waited for the usual, horrible and uncharitable resentment to form in her chest as everyone discussed the latest edition to the family…but it did not arrive.
She had made her way to the third lounge chair from the corner of the croquette court not long after breakfast, to soak up the strong sunshine and pretend to read. After lunch, she had returned to the same chair, for she had neither the energy nor the inclination to play any of the games which had spontaneously broken out upon the long stretch of rolled lawn.
Some time after lunch, she was roused from a sleepy reverie by many voices rising over the top of one another, inside the house. The day was warm enough that Thatcher had thrown open nearly all the doors along the back of the big house, which allowed sounds from inside to reach everyone upon the lawn.
Ann turned her head to peer through the doors, but the strong sunshine dazzled her, as it bounced off the panes in the doors.
Thatcher emerged from inside the house and stood upon the top, broad brick step to look around. His gaze fell upon Ann.
Adam stepped out and stood beside him, and Thatcher waved toward her.
Ann drew in a sharp hard breath. All traces of sleepiness, of the lethargy which had held her for days, instantly evaporated. She sat up, her heart fluttering, her thoughts a jumble, and let her gaze roam over Adam, hungrily reacquainting herself with the breadth of his shoulders, his powerful neck, the strong jaw. And the blue of his eyes, for his gaze was steady upon her.
He moved down the broad steps and across the croquet court, heading directly toward her chair. Behind him, Ann saw nearly a dozen people step through the doors to stand upon the top step, watching them. Among them was Aunt Mairin and Uncle Iefan, and her mother and father, and then she had no time to tally faces, for Adam was right in front of her.
“You didn’t marry him,” he said.
Ann drew in a breath to speak, but couldn’t, despite having rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her mind. She forgot all the words she had devised. They scattered, irretrievable. “I didn’t love him,” she said, instead.
Adam lowered himself down so that his head was level with hers…and then he settled on his knees.
Her heart shot toward the heavens. Ann’s breath shook.
“Marry me, then,” Adam breathed. “Not to save the family—you’ve already done that.”
“I have?” She was genuinely startled.
“You haven’t read the newspapers lately, have you?”
“You have,” she guessed.
He nodded. “I was waiting to hear when your wedding was announced…and every day that passed without the news arriving was…it was agony and it was blessed relief.” He reached for her hand. “Marry me because you want to.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He drew in a sharp, short breath, as if she had punched him.
Ann squeezed his fingers and said quickly, “I will marry you because I love you.”
Adam’s fingers tightened. “I know.” His voice was low. “The rose…”
“I know…Oh, Adam!”
He pulled her to him, then, and kissed her as she wept and wrapped her arms around his neck. She realized that they were both on their knees, on the lawn before the chairs, and that everyone in the house was gathered on the steps or had paused on the lawn to watch them.
And no one looked anything other than delighted.
“Why Adam, the stables! How romantic of you!” Ann breathed as Adam opened the door for her.
“It is one of the few places where we can be alone for a few moments,” Adam told her. He rolled his eyes. “There are so many people here!” he added. “Where did they all come from?”
Ann laughed and rested her hand on his chest. It was something she was free to do now, and the simple gesture thrilled her.
Adam glanced at her hand and then at her. His expression shifted. He was as pleased by the intimate little touch as she was. He covered her fingers with his own.
“You have managed to put up with all those people rather well,” Ann told him. “You have not once bolted for the stables at the first opportunity.”
“I have every reason to stay right there in the room, now.” His voice dropped in timbre, the way it did, she realized, when he was speaking of that which laid closest to his heart…which he did only for her.
Ann’s heart swelled.
Adam kissed her, taking his time with it and rousing her to a thoroughly heated state. “The stalls…” she breathed, pulling at his lapels. “The hay…!”
He laughed and released her, then disentangled her hands. “I brought you here not to seduce you, but to speak to you.”
“Oh…” She fought to hide her disappointment.
“But we might yet get to that,” he added, his voice acquiring the liquid, languid note that it did when he was thinking carnal thoughts.
Ann shivered. “Speak quickly then.” She paused. “Although why you needed to speak to me here alone, when you bared your soul in front of the entire family this afternoon…”
Adam nodded. “Not all of my soul. It was right that they see that much—”
“As you are adopting them now,” Ann added.
It was his time to pause. He lifted a brow, pleased. “Yes, something like that,” he murmured. “I knew you would understand.” Then his eyes narrowed. “But they saw only the smallest fraction of what is really in here…” He touched his chest. “I do not think there are words that encompass what I really feel.” He glanced around the stable, at the hay bales and the straw on the floor. “That day, here…it felt as though…” He shook his head. “You infected me,” he said, his voice flat. “I took the rose but thought nothing of it that day. It was only later, in the days that followed, when I kept thinking about you, that I realized you had lodged yourself in my heart.”
Ann rested both hands upon his chest, her own heart heavy with love and happiness. “I ran to you,” she breathed. “I thought I had run away from Filip, but it was you I wanted.”
“I stayed outside with the horses, because I couldn’t bear to watch you marry him.” Adam caught her hands in his. “I love you, reine de mon coeur,” he whispered. “One day, I will find the words that properly explain how deep that love runs, for at this moment they do not exist in any language I know.”
She sighed. “I think you just found the words.”
Adam considered. “Perhaps,” he prevaricated. “I’m sure I can do better.”
“Ah, the philosopher ponders!” She gave him a little shake. “In the meantime…” She tugged on his lapels, to bring his lips down so she could kiss him properly.
“I may never find the words at this rate,” he breathed, his lips brushing hers.
“You’ll just have to work at it,” she murmured.
“Mmm….”
___________________________________
The next book in the
Scandalous Families – The Victorians series.
Book 4 of the Scandalous Family—The Victorians series will be released in October 2020.
“Oh…” Ann said almost soundlessly. Her throat ached as she studied the perfectly cut lapels. She had rested her hand there, more than once.
“Oh, indeed,” Filip said softly.
She looked up at him. “I had forgotten. At the very end, to escape Dahl’s men at the station, we dressed as the locals do. Adam took off his jacket and put on the black cloak…” She swallowed, for Filip’s eyes were narrowed.
Filip hitched aside his long jacket and rested one hip on her writing desk. He had become increasingly more casual in such ways, when they were alone. He picked up one of the valise buckles, which lay close by his knee, and toyed with it. “I didn’t ask you what happened while you were with him,” he said softly. “I deliberately did not ask, and I will not ask now. But…is there anything you wish to tell me about your journey to Constantinople, Ann?”
Ann waited until he looked at her, as she knew he would. Then she shook her head. “Everything that happened on the way to Constantinople served only to show me how I must return to Silkeborg with you.”
Filip considered her for a long moment. Then he gave her a small smile. “For which I am thankful every day,” he said quietly. “But if ever you feel…if you are compelled to explain…” He shook his head, irritated at his own stumbling phrases. “Know that I will listen, Ann,” he said instead. “And know that I will try to understand, no matter what you say. Do you understand?”
Ann met his gaze. “I do understand,” she whispered.
Filip nodded. Then he glanced at the valise once more. “Is that the tweed?” he asked, his tone light.
She picked up Adam’s jacket, to move it out of the way of the tweed. “Yes! Let me show you—”
The small book with the green cover slid out from the inside pocket of the jacket and dropped to the floor with a small thud, silencing her. The journal had fallen open, and like all books treated thus, the pages separated at the place where they were most often opened.
Adam’s strong, plain handwriting filled the pages on both sides, but that was not what cut off Ann’s words.
It was the pressed blue rose bud lying on top of them.
Her eyes ached. Her heart felt as though thorns had shredded it open.
Filip stared at the open book on the floor. His throat worked. “Blue roses…” he murmured.
Ann didn’t move. She didn’t know what to say. And she dared not pick up the book.
Instead, Filip bent and scooped up the book, so that it lay open on his hand. He picked up the flat, dried rosebud and studied the script beneath. “Greek,” he said to himself. “The language of philosophers.” He held up the rose and turned it in his fingers. “I remember you telling me about the blue roses at Innesford, which is the only place they grow.”
Ann couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe. Her heart screamed at her.
Filip put the rose back in the book and shut it softly. He put the book on the table, got to his feet and came around to the end, where Ann stood, frozen. He was not smiling.
He stopped directly in front of her.
Ann desperately sought for words, for some way to reverse this awful moment.
“Where did he get the rose from, Ann?” Filip asked softly.
She had put the bud to one side, on the hay bale. Adam must have found it…and kept it.
Ann’s temples throbbed. “I did not give it to him,” she said truthfully.
“But you had the rose, before he came by it, didn’t you?” Filip’s voice was very soft.
Her tears fell before she could stop them. They unraveled her courage. Miserably, she nodded.
Filip laid his hand against her cheek, cupping her jaw. He leaned back and tilted his head so that he could peer into her eyes and her downturned face. “Have you considered, Ann, that there were two of us on the Galata pier that day…but it was Adam who dived in after you?”
Ann’s breath shook as she drew it in. “It doesn’t matter…” she whispered. “He told me the only honorable thing I could do was go back to you.” She lifted her chin. “And he was right.”
Filip’s throat worked, as if he fought to speak. When he did, his voice was strained. “Which makes this even more difficult,” he whispered. His thumb stroked her cheek. “I have tried to dismiss it, but I cannot. Not now. You ran from marrying me…and you ran straight to him.”
“Adam just happened to be there.”
“Along with all of Silkeborg, both inside and outside the cathedral,” Filip said.
“But—”
He rested his fingertip against her lips, silencing her. A furrow etched his brow, as if he was in pain. “You were so afraid of me, you ran the moment you saw me. You ran off the pier in your haste to escape me.”
Ann’s tears came harder. “I didn’t know that you…I didn’t understand that you cared for me. It changed everything, Filip.”
He drew in a great breath and dropped his hands from her face. “And now everything must change again.” He reached over the desk and picked up the green book. Then he took her hand and laid the book upon it. “I think it is time you returned this to its owner.”
After eight weeks travelling to every warehouse and office the family business ran, from Mashhad to Reykjavik, Adam could no longer avoid returning to Paris. He had run out of excuses and Papa Iefan’s wires and demands for reports and sales figures had escalated in both number and urgency.
The day after his return, he escaped the inevitable questions and demands of the family, and most especially Mama Mairin, by spending his time in the stables repairing harnesses and caring for the horses and the pig who lived in the corner by the dun mare, who would not move if the pig was not with her.
The undemanding company of animals was not the surcease it once had been. The scent of fresh, damp hay made his chest ache.
He returned to the house, his mood fouler than it had been when he left.
The house was mysteriously empty, except for Mama Mairin, who looked at him over her spectacles. “Your mail is upon the table,” she said, and returned to her book. Even though she had arranged for everyone to leave the house so he would not be bothered by them, it seemed she still could not resist a parting shot. “After so many weeks away, there is a small mountain of it.”
Adam didn’t reply. Instead, he went to the table and found that there was a great pile of letters and parcels. Samples from prospective suppliers, bills…it would all be business matters, for he rarely corresponded with anyone. The people he might care to write to were all in this house.
Bar one.
He forced his thoughts away from that blistering pain and turned his attention to the opening of the letters and processing the demands and questions and always-absorbing matters they dealt with.
Work—more and more of it—would have to fill his days, now.
Some time later, a cup of coffee was slid in front of his arm, the scent strong. He looked up.
Papa Iefan gave him a small nod. “The problem with attending to concerns in far flung places is that it always generates a great deal more work.”
“Good,” Adam said shortly.
Iefan grimaced. “Hmm…” He went away.
Adam got back to work. One of the letters was from the driver of the coach and horse he had sold in Hamburg. The man was pathetically grateful for the newer cab and younger horse which Adam had arranged for him.
At least some profited from the venture, he reflected, and opened the next parcel.
His commonplace journal fell out of the ripped brown paper and dropped onto the table with a soft thud.
He stared at it, his heart working hard enough to make his chest ache. He pressed his knuckles there, to ease the pain.
With his other hand, he lifted the book up, so it balanced on its spine, then let it fall open as it wished.
The rose was where he had left it, but it was not alone.
Adam’s breath came harder.
The rose had been turned upside down, so the narrow point of the bud arrowed toward the center of the page.
A second pressed blue rosebud laid over the top of it, also upside down, and also pointing toward the center of the page from the other direction.
“Why…they are Innesford roses, aren’t they?” Mama Mairin asked.
“Yes.” Adam’s voice was hoarse. He picked up the edge of the dry buds and turned them as he would a page in the book. They settled on the other page, leaving the outline of their shape imprinted upon the righthand page.
A heart.
Adam slapped the book shut and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Mama Mairin demanded.
“Innesford.”
Her face lit from within. She smiled and whirled, heading for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Adam returned.
“To pack our trunks!” she cried, her hand on the newel post. “We’re coming with you!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Innesford, September 1890
Ann found it easier to stay in the lounging chair by the side of the croquette court. No one could accuse her of not joining in, while she sat there. She pretended to watch the croquette games, while she left an unread book open upon her lap and let her thoughts drift.
It felt as though it had been a very long time since she had been able to simply pause. Although in her heart, she was not paused at all. She waited.
That was why she was at Innesford, although it did not explain why everyone else was here. There was an extraordinary number of people in the house at the moment, including Ben and Sharla, Dane and Stephen and their six children…who were nearly all adults, now. She had heard Uncle Ben say something about being invited to play football with a local champion but had paid no notice.
Great Aunt Annalies was here—she had travelled from London with Jennifer Jane and Alice, Ben’s daughters, who were living in the old white house with Great Aunt Annalies.
And Ann had been shocked to find her mother and father here, too.
“It was Cian’s idea,” her mother told her, as she shaded her eyes and examined the great garden.
“He told you I was here,” Ann guessed.
“He said you looked glum,” Lilly replied, and squeezed Ann’s shoulders. “As you did not come home, we thought we would come to you, instead.”
“But…Northallerton…”
“Is doing very nicely under Seth’s guidance, for a while,” her father replied.
As the oldest in the family, Ann’s brother would one day inherit Northallerton, and he took his future responsibilities seriously. Too seriously, Ann thought.
“It will do him good to manage on his own for a while,” Jasper added, with a mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes.
That had been three days ago. Ann had learned this morning at breakfast that Elise and Danyal and the new baby would be travelling down from Blackawton later today, to join everyone for dinner.
Ann had waited for the usual, horrible and uncharitable resentment to form in her chest as everyone discussed the latest edition to the family…but it did not arrive.
She had made her way to the third lounge chair from the corner of the croquette court not long after breakfast, to soak up the strong sunshine and pretend to read. After lunch, she had returned to the same chair, for she had neither the energy nor the inclination to play any of the games which had spontaneously broken out upon the long stretch of rolled lawn.
Some time after lunch, she was roused from a sleepy reverie by many voices rising over the top of one another, inside the house. The day was warm enough that Thatcher had thrown open nearly all the doors along the back of the big house, which allowed sounds from inside to reach everyone upon the lawn.
Ann turned her head to peer through the doors, but the strong sunshine dazzled her, as it bounced off the panes in the doors.
Thatcher emerged from inside the house and stood upon the top, broad brick step to look around. His gaze fell upon Ann.
Adam stepped out and stood beside him, and Thatcher waved toward her.
Ann drew in a sharp hard breath. All traces of sleepiness, of the lethargy which had held her for days, instantly evaporated. She sat up, her heart fluttering, her thoughts a jumble, and let her gaze roam over Adam, hungrily reacquainting herself with the breadth of his shoulders, his powerful neck, the strong jaw. And the blue of his eyes, for his gaze was steady upon her.
He moved down the broad steps and across the croquet court, heading directly toward her chair. Behind him, Ann saw nearly a dozen people step through the doors to stand upon the top step, watching them. Among them was Aunt Mairin and Uncle Iefan, and her mother and father, and then she had no time to tally faces, for Adam was right in front of her.
“You didn’t marry him,” he said.
Ann drew in a breath to speak, but couldn’t, despite having rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her mind. She forgot all the words she had devised. They scattered, irretrievable. “I didn’t love him,” she said, instead.
Adam lowered himself down so that his head was level with hers…and then he settled on his knees.
Her heart shot toward the heavens. Ann’s breath shook.
“Marry me, then,” Adam breathed. “Not to save the family—you’ve already done that.”
“I have?” She was genuinely startled.
“You haven’t read the newspapers lately, have you?”
“You have,” she guessed.
He nodded. “I was waiting to hear when your wedding was announced…and every day that passed without the news arriving was…it was agony and it was blessed relief.” He reached for her hand. “Marry me because you want to.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He drew in a sharp, short breath, as if she had punched him.
Ann squeezed his fingers and said quickly, “I will marry you because I love you.”
Adam’s fingers tightened. “I know.” His voice was low. “The rose…”
“I know…Oh, Adam!”
He pulled her to him, then, and kissed her as she wept and wrapped her arms around his neck. She realized that they were both on their knees, on the lawn before the chairs, and that everyone in the house was gathered on the steps or had paused on the lawn to watch them.
And no one looked anything other than delighted.
“Why Adam, the stables! How romantic of you!” Ann breathed as Adam opened the door for her.
“It is one of the few places where we can be alone for a few moments,” Adam told her. He rolled his eyes. “There are so many people here!” he added. “Where did they all come from?”
Ann laughed and rested her hand on his chest. It was something she was free to do now, and the simple gesture thrilled her.
Adam glanced at her hand and then at her. His expression shifted. He was as pleased by the intimate little touch as she was. He covered her fingers with his own.
“You have managed to put up with all those people rather well,” Ann told him. “You have not once bolted for the stables at the first opportunity.”
“I have every reason to stay right there in the room, now.” His voice dropped in timbre, the way it did, she realized, when he was speaking of that which laid closest to his heart…which he did only for her.
Ann’s heart swelled.
Adam kissed her, taking his time with it and rousing her to a thoroughly heated state. “The stalls…” she breathed, pulling at his lapels. “The hay…!”
He laughed and released her, then disentangled her hands. “I brought you here not to seduce you, but to speak to you.”
“Oh…” She fought to hide her disappointment.
“But we might yet get to that,” he added, his voice acquiring the liquid, languid note that it did when he was thinking carnal thoughts.
Ann shivered. “Speak quickly then.” She paused. “Although why you needed to speak to me here alone, when you bared your soul in front of the entire family this afternoon…”
Adam nodded. “Not all of my soul. It was right that they see that much—”
“As you are adopting them now,” Ann added.
It was his time to pause. He lifted a brow, pleased. “Yes, something like that,” he murmured. “I knew you would understand.” Then his eyes narrowed. “But they saw only the smallest fraction of what is really in here…” He touched his chest. “I do not think there are words that encompass what I really feel.” He glanced around the stable, at the hay bales and the straw on the floor. “That day, here…it felt as though…” He shook his head. “You infected me,” he said, his voice flat. “I took the rose but thought nothing of it that day. It was only later, in the days that followed, when I kept thinking about you, that I realized you had lodged yourself in my heart.”
Ann rested both hands upon his chest, her own heart heavy with love and happiness. “I ran to you,” she breathed. “I thought I had run away from Filip, but it was you I wanted.”
“I stayed outside with the horses, because I couldn’t bear to watch you marry him.” Adam caught her hands in his. “I love you, reine de mon coeur,” he whispered. “One day, I will find the words that properly explain how deep that love runs, for at this moment they do not exist in any language I know.”
She sighed. “I think you just found the words.”
Adam considered. “Perhaps,” he prevaricated. “I’m sure I can do better.”
“Ah, the philosopher ponders!” She gave him a little shake. “In the meantime…” She tugged on his lapels, to bring his lips down so she could kiss him properly.
“I may never find the words at this rate,” he breathed, his lips brushing hers.
“You’ll just have to work at it,” she murmured.
“Mmm….”
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The next book in the
Scandalous Families – The Victorians series.
Book 4 of the Scandalous Family—The Victorians series will be released in October 2020.
