“Winnefred?!” The voice grew closer. Winnefred!”
Gideon.
It was instinct alone that had her striding to the door and flinging it open. He stood on the other side, looking rumpled and haggard and unbearably handsome, the rotter.
“Winnefred.” He said her name like a prayer.
She slammed the door in his face.
Gideon stared at the closed door before him and listened to the loud turn of the lock. For one brief moment, when Winnefred had appeared, it had felt as if all the scattered pieces of his world had fallen into place. His entire body had sagged under the weight of relief. He’d found her. She was safe and whole and impossibly beautiful, and . . .
And then she’d slammed the door shut, scattering the pieces of his world once more, and neatly reminding him she was also still exceedingly angry. Probably, he should have given that inevitability a bit more thought during his search, but he’d been so anxious to find her, so overwhelmed with worry and remorse, he’d not been able to think of anything else.
And wasn’t that at the very core of his sins? For too long he’d thought only of his own fear, his own past, his own wants and needs. Was he too late to make amends for that now? Had it taken him too long to come to his senses? Had he been so blind, so selfish that he’d lost her? He wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t. She was the biggest piece of his world. If it took him the rest of his life, he would earn her back. Starting now . . . As soon as he figured out how to begin.
“Should I unlock the door for you, my lord?”
Gideon glanced over his shoulder. He’d forgotten the innkeeper was there. He shot the man a disgusted look. “Does the lady appear to want her door unlocked?”
The innkeeper shifted his considerable weight, rubbed at his balding pate as if trying to work an answer to the surface, and finally shrugged.
Gideon was tempted to snatch the ring of keys away for the safety of the other female guests. He pointed his cane down the hall. “Just go.”
The innkeeper shuffled off, leaving Gideon alone with his thoughts. For several moments, he simply stood outside Winnefred’s room, trying to find his footing and the right thing to say. Finally, he lifted a fist and knocked softly on the door.
“Winnefred?”
“Go. Away.”
Oh, yes, she was furious.
“Are you well?” He needed to know for certain. “Are you—?”
“I’ve never been better.”
He let another wave of relief wash over him before speaking again. “Will you open the door, please?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’ve come to apologize.”
“How noble of you.”
“You don’t have to let me in. Just . . . open it a crack—”
“No.”
“Then listen. Just listen.” He placed the flat of his hand against the door and spoke through the wood. “I want to be responsible for you.”
“Oh, go to the devil—”
“Wait. Let me finish, please.” When she didn’t protest, he closed his eyes and spoke from the heart. “I want to take care of you. I always will. You could turn away from me now. You could bar me from your home. You could marry another man and excise me from your life completely. But I will always want to take care of you. I will always want to see to it you are happy . . . because I will always love you.”
His confession was met with a silence. Gideon couldn’t hear a whisper of sound coming through the door. He opened his eyes and dropped his hand. Had she stopped listening? Had she already made up her mind to believe nothing he said? Had she snuck out the window?
“Winnefred? . . . Are you there?”
His answer came in the form of the soft click of the lock as it slid free and the creaking of hinges as Winnefred opened the door. She’d been just on the other side of the wood, he realized, and he took a small step back to give her a little space. She’d been listening and was willing to hear more—both very good signs.
Her countenance was less encouraging. Her amber eyes held an ocean of skepticism, and the way she stood in the doorway, ready to bolt back inside, told him she was far from throwing herself back in his arms. But she’d been listening, and now she’d opened the door. It was enough to light a small flame of hope.
“You love me,” she said, wariness evident in every word.
“Yes.” He had to ball his free hand into a fist to keep from reaching for her. “I know I’ve given you little cause to believe—”
“You love me?” she pressed. “The woman you met in Scotland? The woman who wears trousers on occasion and sometimes—?”
“I know who you are. I know you better than I know the back of my own hand. I know you can’t dance. I know you prefer custard to fruit. I know you learned to swear by visiting a prison and lost a sixpence to a boy so you could teach him to read. I know I hurt you by speaking of responsibility and duty.” He bent his head in an effort to catch her eye. It was vital she understood, and believed, what he said next. “You are not a burden, Winnefred. You will never be a burden. I’ve no excuse for so disregarding your feelings by speaking so callously, except . . . Except I am so deeply in love with you, and it—”
“Do you want to be?”
“In love with you?” He straightened, took a chance, and reached for her hand. The flame grew a little brighter when she didn’t pull away. “Yes. It terrifies me. The idea of children terrifies me. The thought that something might happen to you, that I might let something happen to you, absolutely terrifies me, and always will.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I wouldn’t be rid of that fear for any price. Because to lose it would be to lose you, and the possibility of our children. I . . . I want it—you and children and every moment of fear and happiness that comes with being in love. I want it. All of it.”
The skepticism was fading. He could see the hurt and wariness retreating from her features.
“You love me,” she repeated, and this time, she said it with confidence and the first hints of a smile.
“Yes.” He pulled her closer slowly, until the front of her gown brushed against him. “Yes. With everything I am. If you believe nothing else I’ve said—”
“I believe you.”
“You do?” Hope was no longer a small flame now; it was a blinding light that burned away the vestiges of fear and doubt. “And that you could never be a burden? And that I’m sorry? I’m so sorry, Winnefred. You’ve done all the work, had all the courage. I’ve been a blind and selfish—”
“I certainly believe that.” Her smile grew. “All of it.”
All of it. The good and the bad. He could no more fathom the extent of his good fortune than he could stop himself from asking for more. “I know I’ve done little to earn it, but I had hoped . . . Coming here, I had very much hoped that despite my blunderings, you might be willing to consider, at some point . . . bearing a similar responsibility?”
“That is a perfectly absurd way to ask if I love you.”
“I know.”
“It suits you.” She slid her hand free to reach up and cup his face. “Yes. I love you.”
All the pieces were falling back into place once more. He took a deep breath and found his own courage. “Will you marry me?”
She took a deeper breath and said, “Yes.”
He heard his own shout of laughter over her own. He dropped his cane, wrapped his arms around her waist, and hauled her off her feet, intending to kiss her until they were both senseless.
“Wait.” Laughing, she turned her head in a futile effort to dodge his lips. He kissed her cheek instead. Along with her brow, her nose, her hair—every part of her he could reach.
She batted a playful hand against his shoulder. “Wait! There’s something else.”
Momentarily defeated, he set her down but kept her tight in his arms. “What is it?”
Whatever it was, he’d find it, or fix it, or whatever it was that needed doing. In that moment, he swore he could hand the stars t
o her on a platter if she asked it of him.
“It’s London,” she explained, still laughing softly. “I know you’ve a home there, and it’s a lovely city, but . . .”
“It is a lovely city,” he agreed. He brushed her hair back from her face and, because he could, pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “We’ll want to visit from time to time, I imagine. Particularly when Lilly and Lucien are in residence.”
“Visit,” she echoed, her smile growing even brighter. “Yes, I would like to visit from Murdoch House.”
“On one condition,” he agreed and watched her smile bloom. “We add to the house. I’ve grown accustomed to having staff again. And I want a large music room.” He picked her up again and brushed his lips across hers. “I want to dance with my wife.”
Epilogue
The marriage of the Marquess of Engsly to Miss Lilly Ilestone was the talk of the ton. Not so much because of the groom’s rank, or the bride’s beauty, or the fact that their courtship had been the most elaborate London had seen in years, but because the couple, apparently rendered temporarily daft by their soon-to-be-wedded bliss, had elected to hold their nuptials on Lord Gideon Haverston’s unfashionably small estate in the middle of the Scottish countryside. Some unlikely little farm called Murdoch House.
It was highly irregular. Members of society twisted their lips at the dreadful lack of taste exhibited by the pair, and whispered behind their hands at the absurdity of holding a country wedding during the little season, and carefully checked their mail with every hope and expectation of receiving an invitation.
They were collectively disappointed.
The only guests in attendance on the day of the wedding were family members, Thomas Brown, and a goat named Claire.
The goat came as a surprise to Winnefred. She was certain she’d closed the door of the stall tightly. But there Claire was, lying serenely in the grass between Lady Gwen and Thomas—who she rather suspected of having something to do with Claire’s escape—while Lucien and Lilly stood before the vicar on the banks of the pond.
Winnefred sighed happily. She’d married Gideon in the same spot not six months ago.
Within a week of her return to Murdoch House with Gideon, Lord Engsly had arrived with a special license, and he’d been followed soon after by Lilly and Lady Gwen.
Rather than allowing the Howards to have anything to do with her wedding, Winnefred had sent to Langholm for another vicar, and she’d married Gideon the following day so she could watch his eyes lighten in the morning sun as they exchanged their vows.
He had promised to love and cherish, and she had promised to love, cherish, and obey.
She turned her eyes from the bride and groom to the man standing next to her. She couldn’t imagine not loving Gideon, not cherishing him. Deciding that having kept two out of three promises wasn’t half bad, she slipped her hand into his.
He looked down and gave her a warm smile that filled her heart.
She’d thought herself happy before Gideon had come. She’d believed she was taking care of the home she’d made for herself and Lilly. But she realized now she’d merely been making do for the both of them.
Now, as she watched Lilly laugh and kiss her new husband, and as she listened to the call of her cattle in the pasture, she thought that here was the light and sound and voices she had imagined the first day she’d come to Murdoch House. Here was the life and the laughter and the welcome.
She looked down to where Gideon’s strong hand covered her own.
Here was home.
Turn the page for a special preview of Alissa Johnson’s next historical romance
An Unexpected Gentleman
Coming December 2011 from Berkley Sensation!
Miss Adelaide Ward was, by her own admission, a woman of unassuming aspirations.
In recent years, she had come to the conclusion that it was folly to seek more from life than what might reasonably be expected to materialize. And for an undowered spinster burdened with an eighteen-year-old sister, an infant nephew, a brother in debtors’ prison, and seven-and-twenty years, what might reasonably be expected was very limited indeed.
She wanted a home, the company of those she loved, and the security of a reliable income. These were her dreams. They were few in number and simple in nature, but they were hers. She longed for them as any debutante might long to snare a peer, and she had fought for them as any officer might fight for glory on the battlefield.
It was with some disappointment, then, that on the very eve of seeing her efforts come to fruition, she found herself not emboldened with the thrill of imminent victory, but battling fear, nerves, and the surprising weight of reluctance.
Tonight, Sir Robert Maxwell would propose. She was certain of it. Fairly certain. It seemed a reasonable expectation. The courtship was reaching near to four months, which, in her estimation, was an excessive amount of time to allocate to romance. More significantly, Sir Robert had strongly hinted at the possibility of a proposal should she attend Mrs. Cress’s house party. Well, she was in attendance, and had been for a fortnight. Surely tonight, amidst the music and drama of a masquerade ball, Sir Robert would present his offer.
Mind you, Sir Robert had no great appreciation for music, but he did seem to Adelaide to be inordinately fond of dramatics.
“I don’t care for dramatics,” she muttered.
Her feet slowed in the hall that led from her guest chambers to the ballroom. At best guess, the distance between the rooms required a thirty-second walk. She managed to stretch the first twenty yards into a ten-minute exercise of unproductive meandering. She stopped in front of the mirror to fuss with a rebellious lock of chestnut hair and wrinkle her small nose at the narrow features and light brown eyes she’d inherited from her father. Eyes that, she could not help but note, had begun to crease a bit at the corners.
A few feet later, she reached down to straighten her hem and pull a bit of lint from the ivory silk of her sleeve. Then she peeked into a room, fiddled with a vase, adjusted the low bodice of her gown, and stopped again to examine an oil painting . . . in minute detail, because art appreciation was not something one ought to rush.
And between each pause in movement, she literally dragged her feet. Her dancing slippers made a soft and drawn-out woooosht, woooosht, woooosht against the polished wood floor with every step.
Annoyed by the sound, Adelaide stopped to pull off her mask and fiddle with the feathers. This, she assured herself, was not another bid to stall. The mask required a considerable amount of fussing. She’d constructed the silly piece herself, and having no experience with—nor any apparent talent for—such an endeavor, she’d made a terrible mess of the thing. The feathers were unevenly spaced, sticking out where they ought to be lying flat, and bent in several places.
Sir Robert was certain to take note of it. She could envision his reaction well. His pale blue eyes would go wide, right before they narrowed in a wince. Then he would cover the lapse of manners with a smile that was sure to display his perfect teeth to best advantage. Then he would pronounce her a most charming creature in that awful, condescending tone.
“I don’t care for that tone,” she muttered.
She rubbed an errant feather with the pad of her thumb while the lively strains of a waltz floated down the hall and the scent of candle wax tickled her nose.
It was only a tone, she told herself, a minor flaw in a man positively brimming with things to recommend him. He was handsome. He was fond of her.
He was in possession of five thousand pounds a year.
The mere thought of so much money lightened the worst of her nerves with visions of a happy future. Her sister, Isobel, could have a London season. Little George could have a proper nanny. Wolfgang’s debts would be paid. And the lot of them would have a roof over their heads and no shortage of food on the table. It was her dream come true.
“Right.”
Ignoring doubts that lingered, she replaced the mask, securing it with a double kn
ot and an extra yank on the ribbons for good measure. She set her shoulders, took a single step forward . . . and nearly toppled to the floor when a deep voice sounded directly behind her.
“I’d not go just yet, if I were you.”
She spun around so quickly, she dislodged her mask and tripped on the hem of her gown.
“Easy,” the deep voice continued with a chuckle, and a large, warm hand wrapped around her arm, steadying her.
She caught a glimpse of dark blond hair and light eyes, and for one awful moment, she thought she had been caught dawdling in the hall by Sir Robert. But by the time she righted herself and straightened her mask, that fear had been replaced by an entirely new sort of discomfort.
The man was a stranger. He shared the same light coloring and uncommon height as Sir Robert, but that was where all similarities ended. There was an air of aristocratic softness about Sir Robert; his frame was elegantly long and thin, and his features were delicate, almost feminine. There was nothing even remotely delicate or feminine about the man before her. He wasn’t long, he was tall, towering over her by more than half a foot. And he wasn’t thin, but athletically lean, the definition of muscle visible through his dark formal attire. He was handsome, without a doubt, with broad shoulders and a thick head of hair that was more gold than blond. But his features were hard and sharp, from the square cut of his jaw to the blunt jut of his cheekbones. Even his eyes, green as new grass, had an edge about them.
He put her to mind of the drawings her sister had shown her of the sleek American lions. And that put her to mind of stalking. And that made her decidedly uneasy.
Her senses tingled and her breath caught in her lungs.
She wasn’t sure if she cared for the sensation or not.
“My apologies,” he said quietly. His voice held the cadence of an English gentleman’s, but there was a hint of Scotland in his pronunciation. “It was not my intention to startle you.”
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