Saturday, the nineteenth of March, dawned bright and clear. Deanna and Sybil awoke with the first trills of the small flock of titmice that congregated every morning with the red-breasted robins in the old elms behind their bedroom windows. The girls washed and dressed so fast that even after they had consumed a substantial breakfast they were forced to kick their heels for quite half an hour before Robert showed himself in the breakfast parlor. Lady Saltash had wished them all a pleasant day when she retired the night before. “It’d have to be something quite out of the ordinary that could drag me from my pallet at such ungodly hour as eight o’clock,” she had said, and a disdainful sniff had accompanied her words. Now Sybil hid a yawn behind her napkin and sipped another cup of coffee she did not really wish to drink. But finally Billings announced that Lord Fenchmore had pulled up before Saltash House.
Felix was driving his curricle with his team of magnificent blacks harnessed to the shaft, and a groom had delivered George’s curricle to be put at Robert’s disposal. The young groom jumped down and handed the reins to Robert, then waited to help the ladies up onto the box.
Felix’s eyes met Robert’s, and Robert nodded imperceptibly. “Come, Sybil,” Felix called. “We are not taking any grooms. That way the betrothed couple may enjoy an hour or two of privacy.”
As though she had run into an invisible wall, Sybil . stopped in her tracks, for she had been walking toward Robert; but Deanna’s hand in the small of her back set her in motion again.
“If I’m to spend the rest of my life with Robert,” Deanna said clearly, “surely I cannot begrudge Sybil a few hours in the company of her dear cousin.” She hastened toward Felix and held out her hand for his assistance. Nimbly she swung up onto the perch and settled herself beside him.
“Who am I to rail against my fate?” Felix muttered piously, and let the thong of his whip flick over the leaders’ heads, then caught it in a neat coil around the whip handle.
Deanna had only a cursory glance to spare for this not inconsiderable feat. She looked back to make certain that Sybil was seated beside Robert, and that they were indeed following Felix’s lead. Reassured on this head, Deanna wrapped herself in silence while Felix maneuvered his restive horses through the hubbub of early morning traffic. The blacks disliked the shouting of vendors and the slow, rattling progress of drays pulled by heavy, plodding nags, and they showed their contempt in their headstrong and restless manner. But Felix easily maintained control over them. He guided the team in a southeasterly direction, and only when they had crossed Vauxhall Bridge and had turned south onto the Portsmouth Road did he allow the horses their heads.
“There now.” He sighed with satisfaction and cast a roguish look at his silent companion. “Give them a good run for five or ten minutes, and they’ll settle down sweet as can be. If only the ladies could be handled as easily.”
Deanna’s bosom swelled in indignation. “Are you speaking of all ladies in general or one lady in particular?”
“One lady.” Felix narrowed his eyes and studied the long stretch of road ahead, empty save for a lumbering farm cart about a hundred yards ahead of them. Just when it seemed as though the flimsy cart would be destroyed under the flying hooves of Felix’s fast team, he swung his horses to the right and passed the gaping farmer with no more than an inch to spare between the wheel of the curricle and those of the cart on one side and even less space than that between the right-hand wheel and a lichen-covered milestone on the other side. “I was speaking of the lady who said she would spend the rest of her life at Robert’s side,” he explained, even before the farmer and his ancient horse had disappeared in the dust behind them.
But Deanna paid no attention to his words. “That was well done!” Her eyes sparkled with admiration, and her momentary annoyance with Felix was forgotten. “I wish you could teach me to drive to an inch.”
“How can I when you made up your mind to remove to Ireland?”
Deanna bit her lip and frowned at the muff in her lap. Something in Felix’s words did not ring true. He sounded—What? Teasing? Smug? Slowly she pulled a hand from her muff and pushed back the hood of her jade-colored cloak to let the gusting wind play in her hair. Even this early in the morning the air felt warm. Or was it Felix’s presence that sent a fire coursing through her veins?
“Here, you shouldn’t do that!” At the concern in Felix’s voice her eyes flew to his face. “You’ll catch a cold in this wind, Deanna,” he warned.
“Not I!” She laughed and turned around to see if Robert was keeping pace with them. “I can’t see Robert’s curricle. Have we lost them?” she asked worriedly.
“Robert knows the way,” Felix said but slowed his team to an easy canter. “Whoa there, my beauties. Steady now. You don’t wish to arrive in Godalming all winded and blown.” He relaxed against the seat and appeared to enjoy himself greatly.
Deanna stared straight ahead as the silence between them stretched into minutes. She wished Felix had not slowed the horses, for when they had flown along the road, his attention had of necessity been concentrated on his team. Now she felt his eyes on her with disquieting frequency.
“Tell me, Deanna,” Felix said after a while. “How does Robby like his new mama?”
Deanna drew in her breath sharply. Now was her chance to put matters to right—if only she didn’t lose her courage. Butterflies appeared to have found a home in her stomach, and her throat felt parched and scratchy. “If you mean me,” she replied, “I have the lowering feeling that anybody in skirts would do.”
Felix chuckled. “One of the faults of childhood. Give him fifteen years, and he won’t be indiscriminate any longer.”
“Felix, this is no laughing matter.”
Deanna might prim her mouth firmly, but she could not hide the smile in her eyes. Entranced, Felix drowned in the deep, silver-gray pools until a jerk on the reins recalled him to his senses. “See if Robert is catching up with us,” he said, keeping his own eyes trained strictly on the road.
“Oh yes! At least, I believe so. The vehicle is so far behind us, I cannot recognize them.”
But Felix’s mind was on other matters. “If Robby is not set on having you as his mama, I wonder why you did not drive with Robert,” he said. “This would have been a perfect opportunity to tell him that you wish to be set free.”
Studiously Deanna avoided looking at Felix. She fastened her gaze on a long stretch of hedgerows that ran by the side of the road. The budding branches with a thin mist of dew still clinging to the tiny leaves shone a bright emerald under the morning sun. “Sybil needed some time alone with Robert,” she said. “If he tells her what she wishes to hear, Robert and I will have no need of words. Their faces will tell me all I need to know.”
Felix cast a quick look over his shoulder. “What does Robert’s arm around Sybil tell you?” he asked.
She jerked around so fast that the long curls she had pinned to the crown of her head blew against her cheeks and temples. “It tells me that Robert loves her—or, at least, that he’s well on his way to telling her so,” she said breathlessly.
“And what do you want to do about it, miss?”
“Do about it?” she echoed, looking at him strangely. “Felix, why do you sound like Lady Saltash?”
“Thunder and turf, girl!” His voice swelled alarmingly, and Deanna could easily imagine the baroness’s cane punctuating each word with a loud thud. “Your fiancé embraces another, and you don’t know what to do about it?”
Was that laughter in his voice? Deanna was quite certain now that Felix was up to something. But I’ll show you, my lord, she thought, that I can scheme quite as effectively!
She smiled suddenly. It was just the barest hint of a smile, and very secretive it was. But it showed Felix that the headstrong young woman, whose dangerous exploits in Bow Street had caused his heart to turn over in anguish and whose determination had saved two men and a team of horses from certain death, had surfaced again; it showed him that his beloved Deanna was put on her mettle.
“I believe I have done all I need to do,” she said, her eyes demurely lowered to the tips of her kid boots peeping beneath her cloak. “You may as well know now that you’ve been kidnapped, Felix.”
He roared with laughter. “And where might you be taking me, if it’s not too forward to ask?”
“You are taking me,” she pointed out sweetly.
“I know I’m handling the ribbons, but surely you have a plan to wrest them from me and force me to some evil dungeon?”
Deanna shook her head, her lips curving upward in a betraying smile. “The vicarage of Godalming is my goal. Since, I assume, that is still your destination as well, force will hardly be necessary.”
Felix scanned the countryside. “You’ll have your wish in less than thirty minutes,” he said. “But if you’re expecting more than a glass of gooseberry wine, I’ll be dashed if I know what it is.”
“I expect much more,” she declared loftily. “A vicar, I presume, is fully empowered to perform the marriage rites?”
“Aye.”
Deanna looked up at his deceptively meek tone and caught the glint of tiny green devils in his eyes. The same mischief-making devils that had captured her heart when she had perceived them for the first time in the yard of the George at Grantham. It gave her the strangest sensation—almost as though Felix had known exactly what she was about and was already a step ahead of her.
A ripple of excitement sent tingles up and down her spine. “You will marry me, and Robert will marry Sybil in Godalming,” Deanna said firmly, but the deep silence that followed her pronouncement had the effect to shake her to the core.
“Don’t you wish to marry me anymore?” she asked, startled.
The gray-green eyes rested on her with an unreadable expression. And then Felix, the famous whip, did something he’d never done before, and if his friends of the Four-Horse Club had been there to perceive it, he would never have been permitted to live it down: Felix dropped the reins. Fortunately the blacks had outrun their fidgets and were as docile as lambs. They slowed to a walk, then stopped altogether while Felix crushed Deanna to his breast. His gloved hand cupped the back of her head, and his lips fastened hungrily on hers.
With a deep sigh of contentment Deanna molded herself to his hard frame and responded to his kisses with unabashed eagerness. But all too soon a second curricle pulled up alongside, and Robert called out to them, “Name your seconds, sirrah! Think I’ll sit idly by while you seduce my fiancee?”
Crimson-faced, Deanna struggled out of Felix’s embrace. She blinked at the bright sun that suddenly dazzled her eyes after she had held them tightly shut the better to savor Felix’s kisses. Both Sybil and Robert were laughing at her, then proceeded to show her that they could easily embrace each other without the slightest trace of embarrassment to mar their enjoyment of each other.
“A duel does not seem in order,” Felix mused. “How does a wedding strike you, Robert? Deanna has just proposed to me.”
“And Sybil’s determined to henpeck me,” said Robert, emerging from Sybil’s arms. His deep blue eyes rested on Sybil with tenderness. “She believes that a widower with a child—and a limp—is just what would appeal to her. She believes me a romantic figure.”
“Well, you are,” Sybil declared hotly. “And you are a hero, too. Just think of all the years you fought against Napoleon!” She snuggled closer to Robert. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get married now!”
Felix tipped his whip to his hat. “Congratulations, ladies. You have neatly solved our little problem, but unless you can also contrive a miracle, the wedding bells may have to wait awhile.” Felix retrieved the reins and stared thoughtfully at his hands in their heavy leather gauntlets to avoid meeting Robert’s eyes. “Even my friend, the vicar of Godalming, cannot perform a marriage without a special license.”
Deanna and Sybil stared at each other across the narrow ribbon of road between the two curricles. The need for a special license had been the least of their worries. Truth to tell, Deanna thought wryly, I never thought about it at all.
“I suppose we shall have to wait then,” she said with assumed brightness.
Robert nodded solemnly. “Unless two licenses miraculously turn up at the vicarage—yes, I suppose we must wait.”
“Just so.” Felix flicked the reins, and they were off at a fast clip.
A short while later, the small village of Godalming came into view. It was a friendly place with thatched, whitewashed cottages and a few two-story brick houses lining the main street. Felix drove around the common and pulled up before the spacious, timber-framed vicarage. Immediately they were surrounded by a swarm of curious boys, and Felix instructed the four largest to take the two curricles to the inn down the road.
“Now, let’s see Mr. Goodwright.” Felix took Deanna’s arm and guided her along the flagged path to the vicar’s front door. The house was set well back in a large garden dappled yellow with daffodils, and a few clusters of purple and white crocuses were growing in a square of lawn to one side of the building.
But just as the lack of a special license had dimmed Deanna’s happiness, so now dimmed the beauty of the vicarage garden when the sun disappeared behind a fleecy white cloud. The tall, budding trees suddenly overshadowed the delicate flowers, and the white-haired vicar, who personally opened his door to receive his visitors, looked stern and forbidding. The vicar smiled, and Deanna scolded herself as fanciful, for no one could look kinder or more welcoming than Mr. Goodwright.
“Good day, my lord.” The vicar beamed at Felix. “It is indeed a pleasure to see you again—and under such special circumstances.” He then greeted Felix’s companions and invited them all into his book-cluttered drawing room.
Deanna pricked up her ears as she caught some of the conversation between Mr. Goodwright and Felix. They were discussing the parishioners as though the vicar had spent all his life in Godalming and knew every child and every adult in the village and the surrounding countryside. But Lady Saltash had mentioned a new vicar with parish problems … ! Then Mr. Goodwright again spoke of special circumstances that had brought Felix to Godalming.
“Ah, yes,” Felix said. “There is just one small problem, I fear. You see, Mr. Goodwright, these two daring young ladies have thought of everything—but the special licenses.”
Deanna gasped. How could Felix speak of her plot in this revolting manner! And to a complete stranger! At least, the vicar was a stranger to her and to Sybil. Deanna peeked at Mr. Goodwright and then wished she could shrink to the size of an ant and disappear in the cracks of the oaken floorboards when the old gentleman’s eyes twinkled in understanding of her embarrassment.
“No doubt some solution will present itself,” he said kindly. “Permit me to retire to my study for just a few moments. Everything should be …” His voice trailed off as he left the drawing room.
Deanna intercepted a look between Felix and Robert. Again she had the eerie sensation that Felix knew more than he let on; that he, in fact, had engineered the situation as much as she had—or more so.
Then the vicar returned, and behind him came Lady Saltash on Lord Blakeley’s arm, and making up the rear, George with two documents fluttering in his raised hand.
Even before Lady Saltash spoke, Deanna knew the significance of the documents and acknowledged to herself that Felix had indeed been a step ahead of her. Quickly she lowered her eyelashes. It simply wouldn’t do to be standing here with her joy blazing from her eyes for all to see.
“Special licenses!” the baroness sang out in a fair imitation of the street vendors. “Special licenses! Two a penny!”
Sybil flew toward her great-aunt with a squeal of delight, but Lady Saltash held her ebony stick before her like a shield and said gruffly, “No, you don’t, my gal. As a bride-to-be you must show some decorum, and then you might give your embraces to those who deserve it. Robert knew where to procure them, and George remembered that you’d be needing them in the first place.”
George laughed and shook his head. “I’ll kiss you when you’re a bride, Sybil, but not a moment sooner.”
Thwarted in all her efforts to show gratitude, Sybil fell into Robert’s arms and looked at him with such deep happiness glowing in her hazel eyes that he felt quite humbled. Gently he touched his lips to hers, then murmured into her ear, “I love you, Sybil. Will you marry me?”
Sybil nodded and tightened her arms around his neck in silent promise.
Deanna’s eyes misted, and her heart swelled with gladness for her friend. She turned to Felix to share this moment of happiness and in doing so found her own. Felix’s regard was warm and tender, and tenderly he enfolded her in his embrace.
“The last obstacle has been removed,” he said huskily. “Let us be married now.”
“Yes, Felix—before you find another excuse not to.”
“Minx,” he said lovingly. “I doubt not that when I’m old and gray you’ll still tease me about these wretched two months. I was the greatest coward on earth, even fearing one tiny little boy as a rival to my happiness.”
“Hmm. So that’s why you schemed so elaborately, including a second special license—to secure another mama for Robby since he couldn’t have me.”
“You may be godmother if you like.”
Felix’s lips claimed hers, dousing all desire to discuss the various schemes that had led to a successful arrangement of a double wedding, and awaking desires of a quite different nature in Deanna. Only when Lady Saltash raised her voice was Deanna jolted back to reality; her wedding was to take place in a few minutes!
“Let’s get on with it now,” Lady Saltash demanded querulously. “I believe the vicar’s waiting. And I hope you plan to serve us refreshments at Fenchmore Hall after the wedding, Felix!” All this kissing and hugging! she thought. It was plain indecent, that’s what it was—and had for her nerves. But when Lord Blakeley’s hand tightened protectively on her elbow, she began to feel much better. Dear Edward.
“You are welcome at the Hall, Lady Saltash,” Felix said. “My housekeeper will have prepared a luncheon for us all. I doubt not she has fixed your favorite raised pigeon pie, Mr. Goodwright.” Felix had a smile for his old friend the vicar, then added politely, “And if you find the return journey too strenuous today, Lady Saltash, rooms shall be prepared for you and Lord Blakeley.”
“Humbug! You and Robert need to be left alone with your brides.”
“Ohh!” Sybil wailed in sudden distress. “Deanna and I have neither a nightgown nor a change of clothes!”
“You wouldn’t, had it been left up to you,” the baroness grumbled. “But I had Raker pack your bags, and Billings packed Robert’s gear. Everything will arrive at Fenchmore Hall during the afternoon. I’ll also send Robby and Katie down in a week or so with Robert’s new chaise, and then you may take the boy to Ireland. But not before you stopped at home and introduced your husband to your parents, my gal!”
The baroness then turned a baleful eye on Deanna. “I need not, I hope, tell you how to conduct yourself toward your mama. Felix will take you to her, after the honeymoon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Deanna and Felix replied obligingly, but Lady Saltash could not be certain they had attended to anything she said. Deanna’s face was tilted up a little, and it was bathed in the glow of love blazing at her from Felix’s eyes.