“I shall never speak to you again if you disgrace the family in this manner,” Lady Elwynn wailed as she held a hand to her heart.
“Then let us make our goodbyes now,” he said firmly.
Augusta looked on as the scene played out. He had chosen her. When presented with ultimatums and a break with his very own family, he had still chosen her.
“You really do love me,” she said, her hushed tone conveying just how stunned she was.
“Yes, I really do. And I will spend the rest of my days proving it to you,” he promised.
“You will be the ruin of this family!” Lady Elwynn shouted.
“We’re not a family. You are a tyrant and I have been your pawn for far too long already. That ends and it ends now. You may remain in the townhouse in Bath, I will provide an allowance for you, but you will never be permitted entrance to Wynn House again. I wish you good health and above all, I wish you the discovery of some shred of humanity in your soul for I have yet to see evidence of it!”
Augusta allowed Hugh to take her arm and lead her away from his mother. “We’ll have your things packed and sent ahead to Wynn House. We will remove there now and the servants will be instructed to deny her admittance. That way Mrs. Atwell will not have to suffer the indignity of throwing her guest out into the snow… Naturally, Mrs. Wilmont is welcome to join you there.”
“It would be improper otherwise,” Augusta replied, but found she cared little for propriety. She’d happily return to that small cottage with him if she could.
“Felicity’s younger sister still resides there, along with my aunt, Blanche.”
Augusta frowned. “Your Aunt Blanche? Blanche Frederic?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
Augusta shook her head. “Is there a woman of your acquaintance who is not involved in this scheme to bring us together? The small annuity I have received every year, the only thing that has allowed me to live anything resembling a genteel life, has come from Blanche Frederic!”
Hugh raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then began to laugh. “That cagey old… It came from me, although unknowingly. It was just after Felicity and I were wed that Aunt Blanche asked for an allowance. I wondered at it then as she never leaves Wynn House and I couldn’t fathom why she required it.”
“But you granted it… and in turn she had it sent to me via a solicitor claiming to be a relative of my grandmother’s,” Augusta finished.
Hugh kissed her hand. “We were destined for one another, but I hardly think destiny has had so many helping hands as it did this time.”
“Let’s go home so you may finally meet your benefactress,” he suggested.
They walked down the stairs together, ignoring the wailing of Lady Elwynn behind them. Home, she thought, was wherever he was. She’d live anywhere as long as they could be together.
Chapter 16
It had been two weeks since they’d left Seffington Park. As she stood in a chamber in Hugh’s London townhouse, Augusta surveyed her reflection in the looking glass and marveled at the intricate embroidery on her wedding gown. The finest muslin, it was delicately embroidered with silver and gold thread in a rose trellis pattern. With a velvet shawl draped over her shoulders and her hair pulled back in an elaborate chignon and laced with pearls and satin ribbon, she had not looked so fine since her debut when she’d first met Fitzhugh Elliott, Lord Elwynn, the man who would shortly be her husband.
“You’ve never looked lovelier,” Rachel said as she settled a pretty bonnet carefully over the chignon that was a work of art.
“We’ve set all of London on its ear,” Augusta smiled happily. “The gossips have all developed throat ailments from talking so much!”
“Then you’ve finally managed to shut them up,” Rachel said, her lips quirking upward. “Does it matter?”
“Not a whit. I’ll shout it from the rooftops myself!” Augusta’s face was beaming. “I haven’t a tuppence to my name, my grandfather was a wastrel and a terrible business man, and I’m thoroughly ruined to boot, but I will be Lady Elwynn before the morning is done.”
Rachel crossed to the window and looked down to the street below. “The carriage is here. We should go. If we wait much longer, you’ll no doubt throw caution to the wind and run to the church.”
“That very well might happen,” Augusta replied cheerily. Growing serious again, she looked at her friend and said, “Thank you. I don’t know what would have become of me if you and your dear cousin had not taken it upon yourselves to interfere in my life the way you did. I had forgotten, Rachel, forgotten what it feels like to be happy.”
Rachel stepped forward and hugged her tightly. “Then let us get you to the church and cement your happiness with the full support of the Church of England!”
Arms linked, they made their way downstairs to the waiting carriage.
It was not a large wedding by any stretch of the imagination. As far as society went, very few people of consequence were in attendance and that was perfectly fine by him. Simon and Daisy Atwell were seated in the very front pew. A grudging Mrs. Bradford was behind them, Prudence beaming at her side.
The doors opened and Rachel entered carrying the heavy velvet cloak that he’d purchased for Augusta. She walked up the aisle with a brilliant smile on her face. As she stepped aside, he caught his first glance of his bride.
Augusta looked so lovely, he was stunned into immobility. His chest was tight and he could barely draw breath as she walked toward him. Dressed in white, with her bonnet framing her beautiful face, she was the very vision of what a bride should be. A bright smile curved her lips upward and when she reached him, he held his hand out for her, ignoring a censorious harrumph from the bishop.
The service had only just begun when the doors opened again. Hugh glanced back and his happiness dimmed instantly. His mother had arrived. Waiting for the uproar, he was taken aback when it did not come. Instead, she walked in, stiff backed and head held high, to take her seat on the pew next to the Atwells. She nodded to the bishop as if granting her permission for him to continue.
Hugh turned back to Augusta to find her wide eyed with brows raised and a question hovering on her lips. He shook his head slightly. He’d had no idea she planned to attend either. Following the vicious argument at Seffington Park, he’d expected that she would never speak to him again and had made his peace with it.
The bishop continued, the ceremony passing in a blur. It wasn’t until he was signing the register that the reality of it truly began to sink in. Augusta was his wife. The woman he had loved for so long would finally and forever be his in the eyes of God and everyone else.
“Is it really done?” she whispered.
“Yes, it really is,” he answered, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Shall we return home, Lady Elwynn, and entertain our guests over a lavish wedding breakfast?”
“I wish we hadn’t any guests,” she admitted. “I wish it was only you and I, but since it is not… Yes, we will go home and entertain our friends who so valiantly assisted fate in bringing us together again. But what of your mother?”
“We shall see,” he said. “If she can behave, she will be permitted to stay. If she cannot, she will be escorted out.”
The procession returning to the Elwynn townhouse garnered quite a bit of attention. A bevy of fine coaches traveling in succession, two of them bearing the Elwynn crest was cause for much speculation as the family’s squabbles had become fodder for public consumption.
On arrival, they were greeted by the servants. All lined up, they dipped curtsies and bowed to the newest lady of the house. If any of them thought it amiss that the Dowager Lady Elwynn was present, none dared speak of it.
It was not a jovial breakfast at all, but filled with awkward silences as everyone looked from the Dowager to the new Lady Elwynn and waited for the explosion they felt was sure to follow. Confounding them further, the explosion never came.
As the champagne was poured, Hugh’s mother rose to her feet and lif
ted her glass. “I propose a toast to my son’s happiness.” It wasn’t effusive or even overly warm, but it was most certainly an olive branch.
When at last the awkward meal was at an end, when the guests had departed and they were finally able to breathe again, Hugh sank onto a heavily upholstered chair in the drawing room. “It feels very much as if the Sword of Damocles has been swaying perilously above my head for the last two hours.”
Augusta smiled. “That is because it has, my darling. I kept waiting for her to stand up and denounce me as an opportunist, adventuress, fortune hunter, trollop, doxy and fishwife.”
“All of those things, really?” he grinned.
“Yes!”
“Let’s explore this trollop tendency of yours, shall we? I find I’m quite intrigued by it,” he said, grasping her hand and tugging her forward until she tumbled into his lap.
“You shouldn’t tease me so,” she said with a mock pout. “I’m very sensitive about my status as a thoroughly compromised spinster.”
“While you were thoroughly compromised, you are most assuredly no longer a spinster,” he reminded her. “You are now my wife… and as my wife, if we wished to go to bed right now, no one could say a word.”
“It’s barely noon,” she protested.
“So it is… we could spend the entire day abed. Together. With not a stitch of clothing between the both of us. Doesn’t that sound decadent?”
“Not a stitch? Not even that lovely bit of lace the dressmaker sent over that is supposed to be a night rail but doesn’t cover enough to qualify?”
He kissed her then, his fingers delving into her intricate chignon until pins fell to the floor and scattered. “You can put it on later. Right now, I only want to see you… to feel your skin on mine and to hear every soft sigh and moan as I pleasure you.”
Augusta’s voice was husky and breathless as she rose and said, “Then let us not delay any longer, husband. For we are not truly wed until the marriage is consummated.”
Hugh stood up and swept her into his arms, carrying her toward the broad staircase that led to the second floor and their bedchamber. There were no servants to be scandalized as they had all retreated below stairs to afford them privacy and no doubt partake of what was left of the wedding breakfast.
Opening their chamber door, he swept inside and deposited her on the bed. The tapes of her gown had already loosened and it slipped seductively over one shoulder. Unable to resist, he leaned forward and kissed the delicate curve of that bared flesh.
“It would have been easier to take the gown off if I were upright,” she said. During the past weeks, when he’d snuck into her room nightly, she’d grown increasingly bolder, more willing to indulge the sensual aspect of her nature. He reveled in that.
“Anything that results in my removing your clothes more slowly is a good thing, my love. On this day, I will not be rushed… When I make love to my wife for the first time, I want it to be perfect,” he replied, the words fanning over her skin as he kissed the delicate arc of her collar bone, then dipped his tongue into the sweet hollow there.
She let out a blissful sigh, her arms closing around him and her hands sliding over his back, down to his waist where she dipped them beneath the heavy fabric of his morning coat.
“We have the whole day, my lord. There is no reason we cannot indulge more than once,” she whispered seductively as one of her hands slid over the line of his hip, down to the fall front of his breeches. Her fingers closed over him and his own breath escaped on a hiss.
“Lady Elwynn, you are being most improper,” he said.
“Good. I’ve no intention of being proper,” she said and let her fingers glide over him in way that made him grit his teeth. “I was proper for a very long time, even in the face of ruin… and it only added to my misery. From this point forward, I will do what I want with no regard for propriety. If I wish to kiss my husband, then I shall. If I wish to seduce my husband, then I will.”
Hugh gripped her wrist and pulled her hand from him. Lifting her arms above her head, he pinned them to the bed with one hand clasped about her delicate wrists. Their position thrust her breasts upward, nearly escaping the confines of her stays and gown. Unable to resist, he dipped his head and pressed gentle kisses and slightly less gentle nips there. As his teeth scraped her flesh, she cried out, arching beneath him.
“I cannot resist you,” he said, using his free hand to drag her skirts upward until he could reach the silken flesh of her thighs and the haven between them. With her skirts out of the way, he freed the buttons of his breeches.
She was wet and eager for him as he glided into her. The heat of her closing around him, welcoming him, was the closest thing to paradise he’d ever experienced. Her legs came up, locking around his hips, holding him close and urging him deeper. He could do nothing but comply.
Every thrust brought them closer to the precipice. He could feel her muscles straining against him, her body rocking against his as they both rushed toward that peak.
It was on them quickly. She broke first, her body drawing taut and her lips parting on a soundless cry. The quaking of her inner muscles as the waves of pleasure washed through her was too much for him. His control snapped and he thrust into her deeper, harder. Dipping his head, he placed his mouth on the tender skin of her breast, drawing deeply, marking her. She cried out again and he was lost, pumping into her, claiming her in a way that was so much more primal than any ritual.
Eventually, when their breathing calmed and their bodies ceased to quake, he rolled to one side and pulled her against him. Holding her there, he inhaled the scent of her hair, memorized the curve of her lips. Everything about the moment was perfect and he wanted nothing more than to hold onto it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “There is nothing in this world that can part us now.”
“I love you, Augusta. I’ve loved you for so long and I cannot begin to express what it means to me that you are finally mine… I feel as if my life is finally beginning. I am five and thirty and until you walked back into my life, covered in mud and with the haughty disdain of a reigning queen, I was numb to everything.”
She rolled onto her side until they were face to face. Cupping his jaw with one hand, she leaned in and kissed his lips tenderly. “I love you. Even when I hated you, I still loved you. It was buried beneath all the hurt and bitterness but it was always there. You’ve saved me from that… you’ve returned me to the person I was always supposed to be. And we will spend the rest of our lives being precisely what we were created to be.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
She smiled sweetly, like the young girl she had been when they first met. “Together.”
“We wasted so much time,” he said.
“It wasn’t wasted… not truly. Because being apart has given us a greater appreciation of what it means to be together. Not wasted, just… waiting,” she corrected.
“And was it worth the wait?” he asked, stroking her hair and knowing the answer. But he wanted to hear it from her lips.
“More than… I’ve enough happiness in me right now to light the world.”
Epilogue
The coach rocked as it sped along the hard packed mud of the road. They were but two miles from Seffington Park and Augusta could not help but recall the last time she’d been in a carriage bound for the Atwells’ home.
“What are you smiling at?” Hugh asked. He was leaned back, his booted feet resting on the seat beside her and his head against the back of the cushion. She marveled that he could simply be comfortable anywhere.
“I was thinking that this journey to Seffington Park is far different from my last one.”
He laughed. “I should hope so. I bear little resemblance to your previous traveling companion.”
“Silly man… I was referring to the coach, the weather, and the certainty of my welcome. I am arriving in a vehicle that is not only sound but luxurious, I will not be cov
ered in mud and drenched through by the rain. And I know now that my dear friend Daisy Atwell will be happy to see me, regardless of my scandalous past.”
He opened his eyes then to meet her gaze. “And Rachel will be happy to see you again, no doubt.” He leaned forward and placed one hand over the slight rounding of her belly. “I daresay when she hears our news, you will not be let out of their sight—either one of them.”
“Was it very bad of me not to write ahead and warn them? I was so afraid that something would go wrong again.”
Her smile had faded and his did as well. Augusta had discovered she was with child shortly after they were married, but had lost the babe early on. The disappointment and the grief of it had been overwhelming, but together, they had weathered the loss and grown only stronger.
Six months along now, the physician and the midwife were both certain that the child would be carried to term. Otherwise he would never have agreed to make the journey to Seffington Park and on to Wynn House. Augusta had insisted that their child be born at the family seat. He didn’t have the heart to deny her anything.
“I think they will both understand your reasons, and I believe that they will be too overjoyed at the prospect to much care either way.”
She placed her hand over his, moving it slightly until he could feel the fluttering of a kick beneath his palm. “I don’t think your child much cares for traveling.”
“I’d have to disagree. I believe he’s simply kicking up his heels like his father,” he teased.
“And what if it isn’t a boy? Will you be terribly disappointed if you do not have an heir?” she asked with a frown.
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