Marigold Chain

by Riley, Stella

  Chloë’s vision blurred with tears.

  ‘Alex … you don’t have to … there is no need.’

  His fingers tightened on hers. ‘For me, there is. I love you and I want you as my wife. Do you think I’d have taken you if I’d known?’

  She shook her head, blinking. ‘No. I know that you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Which is why you didn’t tell me until today.’

  ‘Yes. But you - - ‘ She broke off, shaken by unwilling laughter. ‘Alex, you can’t propose to me in bed!’

  ‘Why not? If you consider the key moments in our relationship from the first day we met, this seems fairly consistent. But you haven’t answered me and we’re not going anywhere until you do. So are you going to marry me or not?’

  And put like that, in a manner so typically Alex, there was only one answer.

  ‘Yes and yes and yes. Of course I’ll marry you,’ she said, half-laughing, half-crying. And was swept into the crushing embrace that Alex could no longer deny her … or himself.

  ‘Good,’ he said a little later. ‘Now let’s get dressed and go and see if His Majesty can undo what’s been done. He said he was in my debt - so now he can prove it.’

  *

  Hand in hand, they stood before Charles Stuart while his cynical dark eyes moved from one to the other of them and began to twinkle with amusement.

  ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You want me to annul your annulment.’

  ‘No, Your Majesty,’ replied Mr Deveril calmly. ‘We want to be married. Tonight.’

  The King raised one mocking brow and started to laugh.

  ‘I’m relieved to hear it. There’s far too much laxity at Court.’

  Stifling a laugh, Chloë said demurely, ‘I knew we could count on your understanding, sire – so we have Mr Lewis outside, ready to support Alex through the ceremony.’

  Alex cast her an oblique and very private smile.

  ‘It seems a small enough reward,’ Charles observed, ‘for unmasking a traitor and helping preserve poor London.’

  ‘It’s enough, sire. Everything, in fact.’

  The King surveyed him thoughtfully.

  ‘It doesn’t appear to have occurred to you that I might have some ideas of my own as to how best to recompense you,’ he remarked dryly, taking a large sealed document from his desk. ‘But your reasons are clear … and, moreover, not unpleasing since it’s rare enough that I can give more than is asked. On this occasion, however, I can not only make the reward I would wish, but one poetically just. This.’

  Very slowly, Alex accepted the parchment and, with a hand that was suddenly a little unsteady, broke the seal. Then he drew Chloë close within his arm so that they could read it together. The language was heavily ornamented with legal aphorisms but the sense was plain enough. The Crown was restoring to Alexander Charles Deveril and the heirs of his body, the properties lately held by Simon Robert Deveril – to wit, certain estates in Kent and a town house on the Strand.

  Two pairs of eyes stared dazedly at their sovereign and then turned meditatively to each other.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Alex, with careful restraint. ‘It seems I’ve something to offer you after all.’

  Blinking back tears, Chloë said softly, ‘You always did have.’ And then, for His Majesty’s benefit, ‘But three houses? What on earth are we going to do with them all?’

  A slow, beautiful smile lit Mr Deveril’s face and his arm tightened about her waist.

  ‘I’m sure,’ he replied cheerfully, ‘that we’ll think of something. But first I’m going to take you to Kent for our bridal trip. You’ll like it.’

  ‘Kent?’ she asked gently.

  The radiant eyes laughed tantalisingly back at her.

  ‘Naturally. What else?’

  ~ * * * ~

  LONDON September 1666

  In the end, as in the beginning, silence hung over London. Three-quarters of the City, from Custom House to the Temple and as far north as Cripplegate, was now nothing but a smouldering wasteland of wreckage; and the loss was immeasurable. Houses by the thousand, public buildings by the score and the only bridge spanning the Thames. The craft and heritage of centuries reduced, in four short days, to ashes.

  Alone in his office, the young Surveyor-General, Mr Wren, burned with the fires of enthusiasm and opportunity as he joyfully tore up his recently completed plans for the re-modelling of what, a week since, had been the existing structure of Paul’s Cathedral. For quite a long time he merely sat, chin in hand, and gazed far into the future to the grand new design that was only a part of his vision for a gleaming, orderly city of stone.

  And then, smiling, he drew a sheet of parchment before him and picked up his pen.

  ~ * * * ~