Guy’s brow lifted. “Whatever does that mean?”
“I have a story about him that will ensure he remains in hiding forever. Louisa will not have to fear him.”
“You secretive little minx. I had no idea your story was going to be something so scandalous.”
She gave a slight shrug. “I had to find a story somewhere, considering I could no longer write about this dastardly earl kidnapping poor, defenseless women.”
“He sounds interesting this earl. Handsome too.”
“Perhaps.”
He pressed a finger under her chin. “I didn’t mind dying, you know. Not when I knew you were safe. Though, I damn well regretted not telling you I loved you.”
Freya beamed up at him. “You can tell me now.”
“I love you.” He kissed her briefly. “I love you, love you, love you.” He followed the words up with three more kisses.
“I love you too, Lord Huntingdon.” She curled into his hold and eyed the burning building with a smile. Hardly the most romantic of settings but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She had the love of the most wonderful man in the world and that was all that mattered.
Epilogue
An English tradition it might be, but Guy hardly expected to be queuing outside his future fiancée’s house.
At least, he hoped she would be his future fiancée. Between broken ribs, Nash’s leg injury and dealing with the insurance for the townhouse, he’d scarcely seen Freya.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw and eyed the back of the messenger’s head. That would change today.
The messenger handed over the letter and nearly stepped into Guy with a muttered apology before moving past him. Guy put a hand to the door before Freya’s father could shut it.
“Oh many apologies, my lord.” Mr. Haversham dipped his head. “I did not see you there. Do come in.” He waggled his brows. “Are you here about the you know what?”
“I am.”
“Best of luck to you, my lord. She’s in the drawing room, replying to one of the letters about her story.” Mr. Haversham lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “One drop of scandal in a story and suddenly everyone wants a female reporter to write for them. If you ask me, her previous articles were much more intriguing.”
“It seems her story has caused quite a sensation.”
“A baron involved in such criminal activities? I am not surprised it has caused a stir. Any chance the man will be arrested? He deserves it for what he did to that poor wife of his. Not to mention burning down your house.”
Guy shook his head. “I have a suspicion he has fled to the continent somewhere. Freya’s story insures he shall never be able to show his face again and his wife will be glad of that.”
“Yes, sounds like he was an awful beast from what Freya said. It is kind of you to aid her.”
“I hardly need offer her much aid. Her sister, the Duchess of Newhampton, is able to provide far more protection than I can.”
The doorbell rang again, and Mr. Haversham released a long sigh. “I wish these people did not know where we lived.”
Guy moved into the drawing room to find Freya bent over the writing desk, her fingers stained and a few inky fingerprints on the side of her face. He cleared his throat and waited for her to lift her head but her brow merely furrowed and she waved a hand. “I’ll look at the letter later, Papa.”
“Not your papa,” he said stiffly.
Her head shot up and a wide grin spread across her face. She rose and rushed over, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him so fiercely he almost forgot why he was here. He had a mission to fulfill and he’d be damned if he was going to forget it.
“Forgive me. It has been such a busy morning since the story of the baron was published.”
“It seems you have already made a reputation for yourself.”
She nodded, letting her hands sit upon his shoulders. “It might not be quite what I had intended to write but the details of the baron’s crimes have everyone quite flummoxed. The fact he had been able to blackmail the highest-ranking members of our society is quite scandalous.”
“I’m proud of you, Freya.”
She beamed at him and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad someone finally recognized your talent.”
“I think it was less talent and more stubbornness.”
“As I know well,” he said dryly. “Which brings me to—”
The door creaked open a little farther and Guy narrowed his gaze at the gap, a string of curses on his tongue when The Brigadier ambled in. He turned a few times on the rug by the fire before settling.
Freya smiled softly. “I know what you are here to say.”
“You do?” Of course she did. Nothing got past this woman and he had surely made his intentions obvious by now.
“Rosie told me.”
He resisted the urge to slap a palm to his head. Rosie had been that excited about the idea of Freya being his wife that he shouldn’t be surprised. Why could Russell not have kept the damned news to himself?
“Well—” He went to move down onto one knee.
“I think if you need to step back from The Kidnap Club then you should do so. Though, you will be missed, I am certain of that.”
He froze and straightened with a scowl. “Step back? No, I—”
“I would not think any less of you, though I hope you understand that I will still wish to help wherever I can.” She pressed a finger to her lips. “You know I was thinking we could use coded messages in the newspapers. It would be safer for you and keep you out of things a bit more. You would have less to worry about. What do you think?”
He blinked a few times. “That’s not—” Guy paused. “It’s a good idea actually but I was not intending to step back. I admit I considered it for a while. Being with you, Freya, made me wonder if I should not be taking more time for myself, but so long as I can take you in my arms at the end of the day, it does not really matter how busy I have been or how hard I have worked.”
Her smile widened. “I feel the same.”
“Which is why—” He bent again.
“Freya, there’s a gentleman at the door for you.” Mrs. Haversham put her head around the door. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lord Huntingdon! Mr. Haversham did not tell me you were here.”
Guy bit back a sigh. “Good morning, Mrs. Haversham. You look well today.”
“I feel it, my lord.” She waved a hand. “I shall leave you to it.” She winked and ducked out of the room.
Freya’s brow wrinkled. “What was that about?”
“Well—”
The door swung fully open and Brown stumbled into the room, his hair mussed and his jacket buttoned up incorrectly. “What the devil are you doing here, Brown?”
He mumbled something under his breath. Guy motioned to Freya. “Do not move. Do not go anywhere,” he ordered.
“I had no plans to.” She swung a bemused look between the butler and him.
“What is it, Brown?” He took the butler to one side while Freya observed them with a raised brow.
“You forgot this, my lord.” He lifted a parcel in both hands that Guy had failed to notice. “I thought you needed it before you asked the”—he glanced at Freya—“question.”
Guy grabbed the parcel from Brown’s hold. The butler wasn’t wrong, but he could have done without it really. “Thank you, Brown,” he said tightly. “Now if you do not mind…”
The butler dipped his head and backed toward the door. “Of course, my lord.” Guy rolled his eyes at the man’s wide grin.
“What was that about?” Freya asked. “And what is that?” She nodded at the parcel in his hands.
“This is actually for you.”
“Miss Haversham,” someone whose voice he didn’t recognize called from the hallway.
“Damn it all to hell.” He stomped over and slammed the door shut. “No more interruptions.”
Freya peered at him, her eyes wide.
“What is—” Her lips rounded when he dropped to one knee. “Oh.”
He tossed the parcel aside and it skittered across the wooden floor. “I had hoped to do this in a more romantic manner, but it seems haste will be the flavor of the day.” He sucked in a long breath. “Freya…” Someone knocked at the door. He ground his teeth together. “Freya, marry me. Be my wife.”
She stared at him for a few moments. Blast, he should have tried harder, been more romantic, given her the gift.
“You want me—” she tapped her chest with the index finger of her free hand—“to be your countess?”
“Most certainly.”
“I might not be very good at it.”
“You will be the best, I know it, and frankly, I do not care one jot if you are the worst countess in history. I need you to be my wife. I love you.”
A smile slowly broke across her face. “I love you too.”
“Does that mean yes?”
A rap at the door sounded once more. Freya glanced at the door then back to him and nodded slowly, her eyes glistening. “It does.”
Guy remained on his knees for a few moments and let the words absorb.
Freya squeezed his hand. “Guy, I said yes,” she prompted.
“Yes.” He eased himself up from one knee. “You said yes,” he said numbly.
“I think you are meant to be happy about that.”
He chuckled, wrapped his arms about her, drew her into his hold and wondered if he would ever be able to let her go. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I am exceedingly happy. The happiest man in the world.”
She nodded toward the abandoned parcel. “What was that?”
“Oh, a new coat for you. You cannot go around being a famous journalist in that awful coat of yours. Brown apparently thought I needed to bribe you to say yes.”
“Poor Brown.”
“The man will be thrilled you accepted so I would not worry about him.”
Another knock at the door resounded through the room.
“Ignore it,” he ordered. “I need to kiss my fiancée.”
“Of course, my lord. Anything you say.”
“An obedient fiancée, who would have thought,” he mused.
She pursed her lips. “Do not get used to it.”
“I would not dream of it.”
“Kiss me then,” she demanded.
“Anything you say,” he murmured before dropping his lips to hers.
THE END
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Read on for a sample chapter of Amelia and the Viscount
Chapter One
“She’s doing it again,” Catherine complained.
Amelia paused in the entrance way of Luckington Grange and grimaced. Their sister was indeed singing again.
“She really needs to stop. No one wants to listen to that,” Catherine continued.
“Let Emma be. She enjoys it.”
Her youngest sister rolled her eyes. “No one else does. Apart from Mama perhaps.”
“Is Mama home?” Catherine shrugged off her pelisse and handed it to the patiently waiting Mrs. Holmes who hung it up with the sort of swift efficiency one expected from a woman who had been serving their household for nigh on two decades.
“No, she’s visiting with Mrs. Reilly. Lucky her. She does not have to suffer endless hours of this racket.”
Amelia winced when Emma reached a particularly high note. “Hopefully she shall tire of it soon. Singing will be like her many other passions with any luck.”
Catherine shook her head. “Well, she normally tires of them much quicker. If we’re not careful she shall be convinced she is the finest vocalist around, and then we shall be in trouble.”
“It shall pass,” Amelia assured her.
“What shall pass?” Covered head to toe in streaks of mud, Julia swept in through the door.
Mrs. Holmes gave a gasp at the sight and shook her head rigorously as she came to take Julia’s filthy pelisse. “You better not go traipsing through the house with those boots,” the housekeeper scolded.
“They’re not so bad,” Julia insisted. “What shall pass?”
“The wailing,” Catherine said dramatically. “The persistent, unending, ear-splitting wailing.”
Julia looked at Amelia. “She’s singing again?” She paused and made a face. “If that can be called singing. Really, Amelia, we need to tell her to stop. She’ll make an utter fool of herself if she does that in public.”
“One has to be out in public to do such a thing,” Amelia pointed out.
“We are all ‘out’. It is just that no one wants us out.” Catherine tossed up her chin. “Not that I care. They can keep their stuffy balls and parties. I would rather be looking at the stars anyway.”
“Not everyone loathes us.” The words came out less insistent than Amelia would have liked.
The truth was the Chadwick girls were known to be unusual. It had started with Cousin Bess, then continued with her, really. First Cousin Bess had run off to America with a vicar’s son, then Amelia’s passion for writing had tainted them all. She regretted that she had not been cleverer when it had come to her first written tales. She should have adopted a pen name instantly, then no one would have ever thought of them as odd.
Although the Cousin Bess scandal would never be forgotten, even if her writing was.
Her sisters did not help their cause much, either. Julia was always outside, studying nature and all those that resided within it. Her latest interest was the mating habits of otters. It was hardly the sort of topic one could speak about at a ball.
Catherine loved the stars so much that she kept hours entirely different to everyone else. The chances were, she was only awake because of Emma’s singing.
As for Emma…Amelia sighed inwardly. She had yet to find her passion. She went through several a year, if not more. Each new thing would be focused on with such intensity that it drove them all mad, but it would pass and she would find something new to put her energy into. Amelia would almost rather she was digging around in the dirt or watching stars all night. Emma needed to find out who she really was somehow.
“Well, I had better wash or else Mrs. H. will kill me in my sleep.” Julia lifted her hands to reveal the dirt ingrained in them. “I made some excellent notes, though. Well worth it.”
Catherine yawned. “And I am going to bury my head under a pillow to drown out that din seeing as Amelia refuses to tell Emma the truth.”
“I do not see why I must tell her,” Amelia protested.
“Because you’re the oldest,” both sisters intoned.
Catherine chuckled. “You see, dear sister, we follow your lead. You are entirely responsible for the disasters that are the Chadwick girls.”
The teasing glint in Catherine’s eyes did nothing to assuage the guilt building in her stomach. Amelia forced a smile but she could not hide from the truth. Their mother and father were far too busy to pay much attention to these unruly girls so it had been up to Amelia to guide her sisters as best as she could. It seemed, however, she had been unable to guide them in quite the right direction.
Another high note vibrated through the house. Catherine shoved a finger in each ear. “I’m off. I cannot stand another moment of it.”
Her youngest sister stalked out of the room and her footsteps could be heard hammering up the stairs like a herd of cows. Julia put a hand to Amelia’s arm then removed it, swiftly realizing her mistake. A dusty brown handprint marred Amelia’s sleeve.
“Oops.”
Amelia shook her head. “It does not matter. I’m not going anywhere today.”
“Why are you hanging about the hallway then? There are better places to escape Emma’s singing.”
“I’m awaiting a letter.”
“From the publisher?”
Amelia nodded. “I should have news on the publication of my latest book.”
&nbs
p; Julia grinned. “If only I could tell the world my sister is a famous author.”
“Not that famous.”
“Famous enough. You are the talk of the ton.”
“How would you know that? You have not been to London in two years.”
Her sister shrugged. “I read the gossip columns just as you do. Your stories are so scandalous, how can they not talk about them?”
Heat warmed Amelia’s cheeks. Writing scandalous stories and talking about them were two different things. What escaped her brain onto paper never quite reconciled with the outer version of her. Her sisters had read her publications, to be sure, but Amelia refused to discuss the books with them. Mama seemed to be oblivious and considered them to be love stories of some kind whilst their father had no idea that Amelia wrote under a pen name. If it were up to her, no one would know at all but she and her sisters had an amazing ability to understand everything about each other. Growing up with so many sisters left little room for privacy.
“Do not blush, Amelia,” Julia said with a twisted grin. “We all know just how naughty that mind of yours is. All that kissing and those naughty liaisons. The ton only talk about it because it’s far too true.”
Amelia would not know. Not really. Her life experience amounted to a kiss with Tommy Bridges in the stables, but as soon as she had entered society she had understood there was more to it than met the eye. Underneath the refinement, were all those things she wrote of—love, scandal, lies.
Of course, her writing had really caught people’s interest when she began writing about true love. And Nicholas.
A sigh escaped her.
“You are thinking about him. I can tell.” Julia’s eyes glinted.
Much like the majority of the Chadwick sisters, Julia had green eyes and red hair. The only one of them to differ was Lavinia. Fair-haired, blue-eyed and buxom. For some reason the rest of them had not been so blessed. Lavinia was the picture of their mother while they were all like their father. Taking after one’s father was not exactly ideal when one was a young lady.
“I am not,” Amelia protested. “I hardly think of him at all.”
“You still love him.”
She lifted her chin. “Do not.”
Taking the Spinster (The Kidnap Club Book 3) Page 20
