“Time to go inside!” one of her attendant fairies yelped.
“Are we ready?” Lavinia said, smiling down at the cluster of children.
Artie held up her arms. “I can’t see!”
“Miss Gray can’t carry you,” Erik hissed. “You’ll ruin the line of her gown!”
“But I can’t see!” Artie’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re all bigger than I am, even Godfrey. And Fitzy’s feathers are tall.” The fairies were wearing turbans with peacock feathers donated by the castle peacocks, Fitzy and Floyd.
Lavinia leaned down, scooped up the little girl, and put her on her hip. “Does everyone have a mask on? Wands in hand?”
A scuffle ensued because Godfrey hit Erik with his wand for being mean to Artie. But finally they were ready, poised behind the door. Prism gave Godfrey a stern glance and nodded to the footmen to open the doors. “Titania, Queen of Fairies,” he bellowed. “Accompanied by Peaseblossom, Moth, and Mustardseed!”
Parth had been standing with Ophelia and the duke; he turned at the announcement and felt his heart actually stop. Lavinia was poised at the top of the steps, surrounded by his family.
There was an audible gasp in the ballroom as the guests registered the effect of the gold lace, the train, the flowers, the three adorable children around her.
But all Parth saw as he walked forward was Lavinia: saucy, sweet, complicated, brilliant Lavinia. The woman of his heart. Her eyes met his, and a smile broke over her face.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps and held out his hand. He had planned to make a formal announcement of their betrothal. He had planned to stop the music, and then begin with a waltz. He had planned exactly what to say.
But instead Parth lost his head and kissed his lady in front of all polite society—passionately, tenderly, and without a speck of shame.
And that’s how polite society learned that Mr. Parth Sterling had stolen the heart of Miss Lavinia Gray, the most beautiful—and fashionable—heiress in England.
Chapter Thirty-five
Later that evening
Lady Betsy Wilde was lonely.
It was absurd to feel lonely, because the castle was filled to the brim with Wildes and their guests. If flesh and blood didn’t suit, two of her brothers had managed to snare clever, charming women, with whom she would be glad to chat.
But it was almost dawn, the merrymaking had subsided into a pleasant languor, and Lavinia and Diana were now cuddled up with those brothers. Betsy had no illusions about the levels of morality in the castle; copulating couples abounded, married and unmarried.
That was rather clever, not that she had anyone to share it with.
She picked up the red billiard ball and placed it in the center of the table again. “Remind me, if you please, why you won’t play me?”
Silence.
A low voice drawled, “I’m already bored.”
“You’re a brute,” she tossed over her shoulder. She bent, eased the cue onto the felt, and lined up a shot that might—just might—go from the left to the right to the center pocket. It was all a matter of angles. Sometimes she fancied she could see the degree of the angle she needed, though that wasn’t the same as making the ball strike the cushion and rebound at that angle.
No answer from behind her; Lord Jeremy had probably fallen into a stupor again. His sole contribution to wedding cheer had been to sit by the aisle and mutter insults.
Even nearly escaping death hadn’t softened his mood. From the corner of her eye, she kept catching sight of the white bandage wound around his head.
“You’re holding your right elbow too high,” he growled.
She adjusted her elbow because, damn it, he was often right. Then she replaced the ball and tried the shot again. It worked.
“Do it again but bend lower over the table.”
She reached over to retrieve the ball and put it into place—and narrowed her eyes. Turning around, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why?”
“So I have a better look at your arse, it should go without saying.”
“I should whack you over the head and put you out of your misery—and mine,” Betsy muttered, moving around the table.
“This angle isn’t bad either,” he said a few minutes later, after she’d managed to get the shot twice, but only—damn him!—if she kept her elbow down.
Betsy glanced down and realized her breasts were on full view. She straightened, turned her back to him, and adjusted her bodice. She and Jeremy had spent so much time together in the billiard room in the last few weeks that she’d started treating him the way she treated her brothers.
Not that she really felt that way. But it was safer. Less awkward. She couldn’t imagine a worse fate than having an acid-tongued aristocrat with a dark soul and a weakness for drink believing she was infatuated with him.
She’d never hear the end of it.
“You must be desperate,” she said.
“I am,” he agreed, upending his glass. “These old stone walls are crowded with Wilde women, each more luscious than the last. I meant the Wildes, obviously, not the walls.”
“You’re desperate and blind,” Betsy said, setting up the table again. “I’m not luscious. I could put on boys’ clothing and no one would know the difference.”
“Not you.” He put the glass down on the floor with a click. “The others.”
Wonderful.
“All the same, you couldn’t pass for a boy,” he scoffed.
That was better. True, her breasts were small, but—
“You’re flat enough on top, but you wiggle when you walk,” he said, his voice hoarse with whisky and exhaustion. “Makes a man want to watch your arse.” After a moment’s silence, he presumably remembered that she was a lady, because he said, “Sorry.”
“You’ve hurt my feelings,” Betsy said.
“No I haven’t. I can tell.”
“You must play me a game or I’ll tell the duchess that you praised my arse—and guess who’ll be asked to leave?”
God only knew why he lurked in the billiard room, since he wouldn’t play. She suspected it was because the room was relatively tranquil. North, her oldest brother, used to haunt the room, but now he was in love and newly wed, and that drew him to other games.
Ha.
Jeremy rose without a stagger, which was amazing, considering how much whisky he’d put away. “I don’t play without wagering.”
Betsy shrugged. She intended to win, and didn’t give a damn. “What will you wager?”
“What do you want?”
At least he recognized she was going to prevail.
“An adventure,” she said, propping her hip against the table and staring at him. He was a broad-shouldered, brooding type of man, the sort she would never go for. Darkness in his soul and his hair, for that matter. She preferred cheerful men with blond eyelashes.
“Adventure,” he said, trying the word out.
“Three syllables shouldn’t be too hard even for a drunkard like yourself.”
Jeremy had washed up on their doorstep like jetsam thrown from a ship. But North had decreed that no one could question the man about his time at war. Betsy suspected something terrible had happened.
“What sort?”
“The sort boys can have,” Betsy said promptly. “I want to put on boys’ clothing. I want you to take me to London and show me things that only men can see. No, not a brothel,” she added, when he scowled. “A gentlemen’s club, like White’s or Brook’s, where I can play billiards.”
“That’s it? That’s your adventure? Going to London and playing billiards? You’ll likely beat most everyone.”
“You’re not as drunk as I thought, if you’ve reached that conclusion.”
“Much to my dismay, I never am.”
“I should also like to go to an auction at Christie’s and bid on something. I loathe that women aren’t allowed to bid in auctions.”
Lord Jeremy muttered something that sounded like ?
??Ferk me.” Or worse. Betsy let it pass because she wasn’t supposed to know the word.
She grinned at him. “Well, then, are you ready to take me on an adventure?”
The look of horror on his face was almost comical. “Impossible. You might be compromised.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “A woman can’t be compromised unless a man wants to sleep with her.”
He took a step closer. She kept forgetting how large he was because he was always sitting in the shadows.
Lounging in the shadows. His black hair had a touch of silver in it, even though he couldn’t be older than North, since they’d been schoolmates at Eton.
“What?” she demanded, pushing away a feeling of unease. “My father wouldn’t permit the two of us to spend so much time together if you were a man who felt—” She broke off.
His brows drew together. “Desire?”
Betsy frowned at him. “Do you mean to be missish with me? Yes, desire.”
“I feel desire.” The words growled from deep in his chest.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Betsy cried. “For me, you cretin! I don’t mean you ogling my bottom. I mean proper desire, the sort that makes people behave like fools.”
“I could be that sort of fool.”
His eyes were burning at her, and Betsy caught herself before she shifted her weight. Likely this was one of those odd male things. She’d insulted him somehow.
“I’ve no doubt,” she said, carefully.
“If I win, I want a night with you,” Jeremy said, staring down at her. “One night and no ring to follow.”
Betsy’s mouth fell open. “What in the bloody hell—”
The look in his eyes was diabolical. Betsy had obviously trod on his precious male dignity. She sighed. “You don’t want me, and even if you did, you’re a gentleman. If you won, you could never claim your wager.”
His lips stretched into something that was nowhere near a smile. “War burns the gentle out of a man.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it.”
She tossed her head. “You’ve had most of a bottle of whisky and you’ve never beaten me, even once.” A reckless, heady pleasure filled her.
He just looked at her.
“Ladies play first,” she pointed out. That way she could shut him out of the game, as she had the other three times they’d “played.” He’d never even gotten to his feet those times, just lounged in the corner calling out insults.
He nodded.
Now the idea was in the air, she was desperate to escape and go to London. “Would you truly bring me to the city? You’d have to show me how to walk like a man.”
He nodded, his shadowed gaze burning at her. He really was a beautiful man. It was a pity he was so damaged by whatever had happened in that war.
But no one else would even consider taking her to London in boys’ clothing. Her brothers reserved their adventures for themselves.
Ladies weren’t allowed to have any.
Righteous indignation and rebellion stirred in her, not for the first time. “Right,” she said, turning away and reaching for the ball.
He touched her elbow, and a prickle went down her arm. “Is the wager on?”
“It is, and you are about to lose,” she snapped. She’d been running games with herself all evening, and had allowed her invisible opposition a chance at the cue only twice.
He moved to the opposite side of the table and stood there, arms crossed, watching with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. Halfway through the game, she saw his jaw twitch, and she hastily lowered her elbow. “Better?”
“Better.”
“You’re hardly helping your own cause by correcting my stance,” she said, glancing up and catching him looking at her bosom again.
He cocked an eyebrow.
“Last shot,” she said calmly. If she made this, he was shut out.
She kept her elbow down, planned a simple shot: left wall to the right pocket. She took a breath, steadied herself. The cue struck the ball, the ball spun . . .
She couldn’t even hear his breathing.
Slowly she straightened and met his eyes.
Epilogue
Sterling Manor, Cheshire
December 17, 1784
They had been married exactly three years, eleven months, and twenty-two days. An excellent anniversary to celebrate.
“I have a surprise for you,” Lavinia said, entering her husband’s study although she knew he was working. Parth always looked up with a smile, even when he had estate managers and clerks with him.
Today he was alone, and instantly pushed back his chair in a manner that suggested she was welcome to sit on his lap. Or on his desk, though that often resulted in crumpled contracts.
She maintained some distance, because experience had taught her that she might not leave the room for an hour, and she was too excited to accept a delay.
“Please reassure me it isn’t another oddly colored cravat,” Parth said. He rose and went toward her. Her husband’s face wasn’t nearly as somber as it used to be. She caught the humor in his eyes—but these days, other people sometimes saw it too. Joy, it seemed, was hard to disguise.
“But the violet cravat you’re wearing today is splendid,” Lavinia teased. “Perhaps only better if we had edged it in silver lace.”
In the years since their marriage, Sterling Lace had, under Lavinia’s guidance, originated and pioneered techniques of dyeing lace. Now it would be hard to find a lady in the land who didn’t own at least one garment trimmed in rose or blue or even crimson lace, made, naturally, by Sterling Lace.
After their trip to India—during which they not only visited Parth’s family’s graves, but met his maternal grandmother—Lavinia brought home ideas about irregularly dyeing the warp or the weft before weaving threads together. After that, Sterling Lace branched out into silk, and Felton’s became the most fashionable shop in all London, offering fabrics that—since they were the product of Lavinia’s imagination—could be bought nowhere else.
“Come along,” she said now, drawing Parth from the study and toward the staircase.
“Upstairs?” Parth said happily. “In our bedchamber, I hope?”
She shook her head.
“Afterwards?”
“Perhaps.” She couldn’t stop smiling as she pulled him down the corridor.
“Ah, the nursery.” Parth brought her to a halt and kissed her, one large hand cupping the swell of her belly. “Your best surprise isn’t quite ready to join the world.”
“Today I’m giving you my second-best surprise,” Lavinia whispered, kissing him back. And then, because she couldn’t wait a minute longer, she pushed open the door to the nursery.
Her husband stopped in the doorway with a sharp inhalation of breath.
The room’s east-facing windows looked out over the apple orchard; on clear days, the towers of Lindow Castle could be made out in the distance. But the view was not what she had brought him to see. Her surprise filled the south wall, now hung from ceiling to floor by an exquisite, sumptuous, outrageously costly tapestry.
Of angels.
Some were in pairs and groups, and others with harps or lutes, a few just floating.
If one squinted or didn’t look closely, one might not see them at all; one might believe the tapestry depicted snowflakes swirling in a celestial sky.
Parth turned and drew Lavinia abruptly into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “How?” His voice was harsh with emotion.
Lavinia wound her arms around her husband’s powerful body. “Not long after we married, Mr. Felton made a buying trip to France. Because His Grace had a record of the original weavers, Mr. Felton was able to locate the firm, happily still operating. They found the cartoon, the design, in the attic. Felton commissioned it on my behalf. They needed two years to complete it, but here it is, at last.”
Parth kissed her, and then gently bumped her nose with his, the cherished family habit firs
t taught by Lady Knowe. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he whispered, his voice gruff with emotion.
“You love me,” Lavinia said, looking up at him. She didn’t add anything. He wasn’t the only person in the world to love her. Her friend Willa, her cousin Diana, Artie, Lady Knowe, the duchess . . . her mother, as far as she was able, from her comfortable refuge, Gooseberry Manor, where she still lived.
But Parth loved the inner Lavinia. Parth wouldn’t change a single thing about her, and that was the greatest gift in the world.
“I have one more surprise to show you,” she said, because his kiss changed, and she knew that in a minute or two she was going to find herself carried down the corridor and into bed. A few months ago, she might have been pressed up against a wall, but more recently Parth had grown absurdly protective of the baby she was carrying.
“You may have one minute,” Parth commanded. His voice was hungry and left no doubt about his intentions.
With a grin, Lavinia guided him to the center of the tapestry, and pointed to a particular group of angels.
“My mother,” Parth said with wonder, tracing the delicate contour of a smiling angel’s face. “How on earth?”
“I had a copy made of the miniature of your parents and gave it to Mr. Felton to carry to France,” Lavinia said happily.
Even so small, he could recognize his parents’ faces. Between them, holding their hands, was a very small cherub, surely less than five years old. And above that little family a pompous-looking angel hovered, with a cocky tilt to his head and a ducal air.
“Horatius,” he said with delight, one finger touching the small figure.
“You don’t mind that they’re together, do you?”