Camilla didn’t laugh. After only the briefest of pauses and somehow managing to sound a great deal calmer than she felt, she said, ‘Yes. I will.’
At the same time, still desperately trying to think of something that might make his proposal irresistible, Adam said, ‘I realise you’d decided against marrying at all but I promise you --’ And there he stopped, his brain finally registering the fact that she’d answered him. ‘What did you say?’
‘Yes. I said yes.’
The words had come out before she’d known she was going to say them, born of the sudden starburst of joy inside her. She’d forbidden herself to think of what her answer might be if he asked because he might not ask. But what she had truly never imagined was the feeling of rightness … or guessed that sheer, blinding happiness could light up the entire world between one heartbeat and the next.
Adam, on the other hand, felt as if he’d been hit on the head with a brick and decided he’d better check for understanding before he made a fool of himself. What, exactly, had he asked her? He said cautiously, ‘Yes, you’ll let me try to persuade you – or yes, you’ll consider it?’
‘Neither. Yes, I’ll marry you.’
He still couldn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. ‘You will?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean it? You’re … sure?’
‘I mean it and I’m quite, quite sure.’ She smiled at him through the tears gathering on her lashes. And when he continued to stare at her, slack-jawed and apparently dumbstruck, she laid her palm against his cheek and said unsteadily, ‘I love you and trust you and want you, Adam Brandon. So yes – of course I’ll marry you. Why is that so hard to believe?’
‘I don’t know.’ He trapped her hand with his. ‘I thought … I truly thought the very best I could hope for was that you would think about it.’ He gave a shaken laugh. ‘I hardly know what to say … except that you are the most extraordinary woman in the world and that I love you with everything that is in me.’
‘That’s a good start,’ she murmured, freeing the hand he held so she could slide both about his neck. ‘But right now, a kiss would be enough.’
‘No.’ Adam shook his head. ‘One will never be enough.’
And then they were in each other’s arms and the world around them ceased to exist.
Eventually however, breathless and dishevelled, Adam settled her against his shoulder and said, ‘This is all new, so you’ll have to forgive me. Do I have to ask for permission to marry you? From Guy, perhaps … or your uncle?’
‘You certainly don’t need Guy’s permission – not that, after what you’ve done for him, he could possibly withhold it. And since I’m twenty-three years old, you don’t really need Uncle Hugh’s either – though you might ask for it purely as a courtesy.’ She turned her head to look up at him and was promptly distracted by a need to kiss his throat, so it was some time before she voiced the question in her mind. ‘Why did you think I’d say no?’
He sighed, not sure he wanted to venture into potentially risky territory.
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes. I really do.’
‘I thought a part of your heart still belonged elsewhere and I believed that you no longer had faith in either marriage or men generally. Also, although I knew you liked me, I knew that wouldn’t be enough. Taking those things into account, my chances didn’t look very promising.’
Camilla remained silent for a very long time whilst trying to decide what to say and what not to. Then she recognised that he’d never asked and never would … and that, if he was going to be her husband, there were things he had a right to know.
Snuggling back against his shoulder and twining the fingers of one hand through his, she said, ‘I didn’t love him, Adam. Oh – I thought I did. I thought it until I began having feelings for you that were a world apart from any I’d ever had for him. And the more those feelings grew, the more I realised I’d never loved him at all. Not even a little bit. I’d just been blinded by the good looks and charm and the fact that, though he could have had any girl he wanted, I was the only one he looked at.’ She made a small exasperated sound and added, ‘I can’t believe what a fool I was.’
Still holding her close, Adam said gently, ‘You don’t have to talk about this.’
‘I do. I spent too long not talking – not even thinking – about it. And I want you to know. I was credulous and naïve and, above all, stupid because I never questioned any of it. I never wondered why me. No great beauty; in what, had my parents not died, would have been my fourth Season; and generally held to be the Least Charming Girl in London. I didn’t question the whirlwind courtship or wonder why he never once tried to kiss me. And I not only convinced myself that I loved him – I also managed to convince myself that he loved me. Not just stupid, but monumentally stupid.’
‘You don’t think you’re being a bit too hard on yourself?’
‘No. It’s how it was. It’s why, even when I discovered that for years he’d been having an affair with a married lady he’d no intention of giving up and by whom he had two children, I let it matter so much.’
Adam swallowed the bad taste in his mouth. He said, ‘It’s not a question of letting it. It did matter,’
‘Perhaps. But that’s all over now. There is no question of any part of my heart being elsewhere because it never truly was. And I have the only faith I need. It’s in the future … and in you.’
He drew a long breath and loosed it, tilting her face up to his.
‘Thank you. I’ll try to live up to it.’
‘Then why,’ she asked, with a wicked smile, ‘not start as you mean to go on?’
‘Oh well … if I must.’
His kissed her with tantalising languor … slowly, sweetly, a kiss of endless promise. And then, no longer able to resist it, he did what he’d forbidden himself to do before and let his hands stray over her body. He traced the curve of waist and hip, discovered the contour of her breasts and managed to uncover a few inches of soft skin before the buttons of her riding jacket defeated his increasingly impatient fingers. Finally, he groaned into her hair and muttered, ‘Please tell me you don’t want a long engagement.’
Every bit as reluctant to stop as he but knowing they must – they were in a church, for heaven’s sake! – Camilla pushed back her hair and, peering down at the buttons, made a clumsy attempt to re-fasten them. ‘I don’t. But if you’re asking how soon we can be married … I suppose that will depend.’
‘On what?’ Adam brushed her hands aside and, taking his time over it, set about doing the job himself.
‘On how and where we marry. Here, with banns … or London, with either banns or a special licence. Unless you want to elope?’
‘I would dearly like to elope – but my mother would kill me.’
‘She would?’
He nodded. ‘Max and Frances deprived her of a wedding by tying the knot in Scotland. If we do something similar … well, let’s just say I wouldn’t like to face the consequences.’
Camilla laughed and, while he struggled with her buttons, made an attempt to re-tie his hair. ‘Is your mother really such a tyrant?’
‘She’s more terrifying than you can possibly imagine.’
Just for a moment, she almost believed him. Then she caught sight of the tell-tale quiver at the corner of his mouth and gave his queue a hard tug.
‘Ouch! That hurt.’
‘It serves you right. I know you adore her – so tell me the truth!’
He laughed, dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose and said, ‘Mama only wants one thing for her children and that is for us to be happy. She’ll love you just as she does Belle’s husband and Max’s wife. If she misses our wedding, she’ll be disappointed but she’ll put it aside for our sake and never say a word. I don’t want her to have to do that.’
‘In that case, neither do I,’ she replied firmly. ‘So how about a big society wedding at St George’s, Hanover Square followed by an extravagant wedding breakfast at Alveston House, perhaps even concluding with a ball?’ The look of utter horror on his face made it difficult not to laugh. ‘Or would you prefer something a little less grand?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Adam chokingly. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘I suppose,’ she sighed, as if making a huge concession, ‘we might do without the ball.’
‘That would be a good start. Thank you.’
‘And we don’t really need to be married by a bishop.’
‘I wouldn’t think so, no.’ His finger beneath her chin made it impossible to avoid the answering gleam in his eyes. ‘What else?’
‘I might manage without the twelve bridesmaids and – and the fanfare of bugles.’
There was a long silence. Then Adam said, ‘You realise there will be retribution for giving me such a scare?’
‘There will?’ She smiled cheerfully at him. ‘Oh. Good.’
They arrived back at Dragon Hall to find Rainham still absent.
Camilla went directly to her brother’s bedchamber and found him arguing with Ned between bouts of coughing.
Rolling his eyes, the footman said, ‘He wants to go downstairs for dinner, Miss Millie, but the doctor said he was to stay in bed for at least another day or two.’
She nodded. ‘Leave him to me, Ned. Goodness knows, you’ve earned a break.’
‘I can speak for myself,’ croaked Guy crossly. ‘And I want --’
‘Want away, then. You’re not getting up today and that is final.’ As Ned slipped gratefully from the room, she sat on the side of the bed and took one of his hands in hers. ‘Be patient. You’ve had a horrible time, you haven’t been home for twenty-four hours yet and you know you’re not well. Let’s see what Doctor Quinn says in the morning.’
His free hand plucked fretfully at the bed covers and he avoided her eyes.
‘They’re going to want to talk to me, aren’t they?’
‘Rainham and Adam? Yes.’
‘Nobody’s explained anything.’ He stopped, controlling a cough. ‘I still don’t know how come Viscount Rainham is involved in – in all this. I mean … Rainham, of all people.’
‘Uncle Hugh sent him.’
‘Yes. But why him? It doesn’t make sense.’
Camilla sought a way of skirting the truth.
‘Not to us, perhaps. I can only surmise that Rainham has hidden depths Uncle thought would be useful. As, indeed, they have been.’ She grimaced slightly. ‘I hate to say it … but I suspect this is one of those times when someone is going to say, Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies … which means we probably shouldn’t. Now can we please stop this? There is something important that I need to tell you.’
Guy opened his mouth to answer but started coughing instead and was forced to lean back against the pillows, breathing hard and clutching his ribs.
‘And that,’ observed his sister flatly, ‘is why you won’t leave your bed today.’
It was a while before he could speak but finally he managed to say, ‘Point made. Go on.’
It was Camilla’s turn to draw a bracing breath. She and Adam had agreed that Guy must be told the news first but neither of them had been sure how he would react.
‘Mr Brandon – Adam – has asked me to marry him. And I said yes.’
Guy stared at her, shock, disbelief and wariness chasing across his face in rapid succession. Finally he said, ‘You aren’t joking, are you.’
‘No. Far from it.’
He frowned. ‘But … why him, Millie? You hardly know him.’
‘That’s not true. We were already getting to know each other before you were abducted. But during the days Adam was moving heaven and earth to get you back, we grew very close. And now … well, it’s very simple. I love him and he loves me and we are going to marry.’ She paused, her gaze locked with that of her brother. ‘It goes without saying that we would like you to be happy for us. And I think that if you allow yourself to know Adam better, you won’t find it very difficult.’
There was a long silence. Finally Guy muttered, ‘We didn’t get off to the best start. I was … I know I was rather rude to him.’
‘You were. But does it look as if he’s bearing a grudge?’
‘No. And that doesn’t make me feel any better.’
‘If you want to clear the air and shake his hand before --’
‘Before he interrogates me? Yes. I’ll do that. But not until I’m in a chair, wearing more than a night-shirt. I’m at enough of a disadvantage already.’
Having changed into a becoming gown of aquamarine silk, Camilla found Adam awaiting her in the parlour, elegant in a coat of dark grey brocade over a rather flamboyant scarlet vest. With a sudden odd flicker of shyness, she said, ‘You look very smart this evening.’
‘Which, after the last few days, makes a pleasant change,’ he replied, catching her in one arm to steal a kiss. ‘You, of course, look as lovely as you always do.’
She laughed up at him. ‘Is Rainham back?’
‘Yes. He came in a little while ago and is making himself presentable. How is Guy?’
‘The cough is still aggravating the damaged rib … but he’s fit enough to talk now.’
‘Did you tell him about us?’ And when she nodded, ‘How did he take it?’
‘He was surprised more than anything. I thought he’d ask to see you right away but he doesn’t want to have to face you from his bed.’
‘I can’t blame him for that. But tomorrow, perhaps?’
‘Yes. If this was just about you and me, I’d probably wait another day. But it isn’t, is it?’
‘No. And Rainham’s losing patience. Speaking of which … are we going to tell him?’
‘Tell me what?’ asked his lordship, sauntering through the open door in time to hear this. ‘Good news, I hope?’
‘The best.’ Adam drew his love’s hand through his arm. ‘Camilla has done me the great honour of agreeing to be my wife.’
For a moment, Rainham merely looked from one to the other of them, a faint smile lurking in his eyes. Then, ‘If you’ll forgive me saying so, Millie, you missed an opportunity there.’
‘I did?’
‘Yes. You ought to have kept him in suspense for a little while.’
‘Oh? Is that what Vivian did?’
‘Lord, yes. She made me go through the whole down-on-one-knee rigmarole three times before she said she’d have me.’ He grinned at them and held out his hand to Adam. ‘But seriously – I’m delighted for you. My warmest felicitations to you both.’ Having shaken Adam’s hand and kissed Camilla’s cheek, he added, ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’ll find that Goddard will be equally pleased.’
‘I hope so,’ murmured Adam, not relishing the notion of opposition from that quarter.
‘Uncle Hugh, like Grandmama, will simply be relieved to finally get me off the shelf,’ declared Camilla firmly. ‘And the sooner, the better.’
‘I’m all in favour of that.’ Adam accepted a glass of wine from Rainham and said, ‘Did you have any luck this afternoon?’
‘No. I visited Sir Victor Amory and the solicitors, Bagshott & Soames, in Hythe and was not only assured that their secretaries and valets were present and correct but was also introduced to them. The same was true in Dymchurch with the Lord of the Level – although naturally Sir Cuthbert wanted to know why I was asking.’
‘Did you tell him?’ asked Camilla.
Rainham shrugged. ‘I didn’t see any reason not to. Our parameters have changed since recovering Guy. Speaking of which … is he both compos mentis and fit enough to talk?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Adam firmly, ‘as we have already agreed.’
‘Fine. Still nothing from Goddard, Millie?’
She shook her head. ‘I only wrote to him two days ago.’
‘It seems longer.’
‘Well, it isn’t. He’s probably only just received my letter – which means Vincent’s barely had time to look at the despatch, never mind decode it.’ She grinned at him. ‘But if you want to try doing it yourself after dinner, you’ll find Corbeau’s original in the library. The brandy is there, too, if you recall. But don’t ask Adam to help you. We have plans to make – so my need, as a newly betrothed lady, is greater.’
Rainham laughed. ‘God, Adam. I hope you realise what you’re getting.’
‘Not entirely. But I look forward to finding out.’
* * *
Whether on account of the French despatch, the brandy or a fit of tact, Rainham did indeed withdraw to the library after they had eaten. Having gone to check on Guy and found him comfortable and sleepy thanks to the small dose of laudanum Ned had put in the one glass of wine the doctor had grudgingly agreed was permissible, Camilla returned to the parlour – and Adam’s arms, which encircled her the instant she walked through the door.
The first passionate and extremely satisfying kiss soon led to her lying half on his lap and half leaning back against the sofa cushions while his hands and mouth roved about, teaching her and learning for himself other new and delicious pleasures. Eventually, however, a voice at the back of his mind told him that it was time to call a halt before things went too far so he said huskily, ‘Sweetheart … you have to tell me to stop.’
She trailed her lips along his jaw. ‘But I don’t want you to stop.’
‘Neither do I. But I must. And I will if you tell me to.’
‘But not,’ she whispered hopefully, ‘if I don’t?’
Realisation that he wasn’t going to win this argument and must therefore locate more will-power than was currently at his disposal arrived slowly but finally forced him to do what must be done. Hauling her off his lap and into a sitting position at his side, he took in the tumbled hair, smooth white shoulders and quite a lot of curving bosom … and somewhat grimly told himself that he was a hero.
Camilla, meanwhile, toyed idly with a lock of thick, wheat-fair hair and murmured, ‘You know … I’ve been thinking.’
‘What?’ The bucket of cold water he’d needed five minutes ago arrived without warning. ‘Thinking? Just now? While we were --?’
She laughed up at him. ‘No. Of course not then. Earlier.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he muttered. Then, ‘All right. What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking that we’re not going to be married as soon as we would like. As things stand, there’s no saying when we’ll be able to leave for London. And when we do finally get there, the banns must be read and --’
‘The words ‘special licence’ were mentioned, as I recall it.’
‘They were – and I’m sure Uncle Hugh could procure one of those for us. But there’s still the matter of wedding arrangements and your family travelling from Yorkshire and … well, it will all take time.’
Adam gently stayed the clever fingers currently making their way inside his shirt.
‘I know. But, undesirable as it is, we are going to have to put up with it.’
Camilla said nothing for what seemed a very long time and during it, Adam began to suspect the direction in which her thoughts might have been travelling. He said, ‘I’m going to risk being emasculated or otherwise maimed with a kitchen utensil … but please tell me you aren’t going to suggest that we anticipate our wedding vows.’
‘Oh.’ Stricken silvery-green eyes flew to his face. ‘You don’t want to.’
He knew he ought to simply agree but, with the part of his anatomy which had only just begun to settle responding enthusiastically, the best he could manage was, ‘What I want isn’t the point. It’s just not --’
‘So you do want to?’
‘I’m a man, Camilla,’ he ground out. ‘And given what we were doing just now – what do you think? But that doesn’t change anything. We can’t.’
‘I don’t see why not. We’re betrothed, after all.’
Even in the privacy of his head, Adam very, very rarely cursed but he wanted to curse right now. Didn’t she know how tempting it was? How well-nigh impossible it was to say no? Worst of all, had she any idea just how easily she could make all his good intentions crumble into dust?
As gently as he could, he said, ‘We’re betrothed but, as you just pointed out, without any notion of when we’ll be able to marry. I love you, sweetheart and of course I want to take you bed. But I won’t do it yet.’
‘Oh. And there’s nothing I can say to change your mind?’
Nothing you can say. But I’m only human, so for pity’s sake, don’t think of the something you could do or I’ll be lost, he thought. But said, in the most implacable tone he could find, ‘No. Absolutely nothing.’
‘And that’s your last word?’
‘Yes.’
Camilla sighed and curled into his shoulder. ‘I knew you’d say that.’
He blinked. ‘You did?’
‘Yes. It’s all honour and respect and doing the gentlemanly thing, isn’t it? All the values you were brought up with. I know what you are and I wouldn’t wish you any different so I knew you’d say no. But I couldn’t resist trying.’
‘You couldn’t resist … trying,’ he echoed ominously, tilting her chin in order to trap her gaze with his own. ‘Do you enjoy subjecting me to the torments of the damned?’
‘I didn’t,’ she protested. And then, entranced by the possibility, ‘Did I?’
‘Yes – and it’s the second time today. God knows the threat of a wedding resembling the Lord Mayor’s show was bad enough. But this? This is just wanton cruelty.’ He felt a tiny tremor ripple through her and gave her a shake. ‘Stop that, you wretched girl. It isn’t remotely funny.’
But suddenly, when she began to laugh in earnest, it was. And when she twined her arms about his neck to lay her cheek against his, Adam found himself laughing with her.