Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light within, but the moment they did, her gaze found Griff, standing next to the vicar. He looked so tall and devastatingly handsome in his tail coat. Her breath caught and she floated down the aisle toward him.
As a woman who rarely floated anywhere, she knew it was him who so effortlessly gave her grace. An extra bounce entered her step as she closed the gap between them.
The moment her hand slipped into his, a sigh escaped her lips. She was home.
“You look stunning,” he murmured, reaching for her other hand.
A good thing, too, or she would have been tempted to smooth her skirts. At his request, she wore a gown of blush pink satin, with a thick matching ribbon tied at her natural waist and streaming down her back. “Thank you,”
“Let us begin,” the vicar announced as everyone stepped into position.
The words floated past Daisy but the meaning of her vows, those settled deep into her heart.
Yes, she would love, honor, and cherish this man...forever.
Griff gazed down at the woman about to become his wife. He wanted to kiss her.
He squeezed her hands tighter, repeating his vows. Soon, he consoled himself. But his heart was so full, he could barely contain the beat of it as Daisy smiled up at him, love and happiness shining in her eyes.
He knew his own gaze reflected the same emotions.
Her hands shook in his and he held them tighter. He’d hold hers forever. He knew that without question.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.” The vicar’s voice boomed off the high church walls.
Finally.
He let go of one of her hands to cup her cheek. His thumb stroked her temple as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Soft and warm, he breathed her in as their lips met. The kiss was every bit as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be and their friends and family gave a loud cheer of approval.
He heard Merrick whoop as Lily called out, “It’s official.”
He chuckled against her mouth then kissed her again, shifting closer. Daisy was his. Now and forever.
“We did it,” she gushed as she looked up at him. “We’re married.”
He laughed again, his shoulders relaxing even as he pulled her close. “We did it.” His forehead rested against hers. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life.”
“Me too.” She touched his chest, a light stroke of her fingertips before they turned toward their assembled guests.
Even her mother beamed with pride, her hands fluttering near her face as he began to walk Daisy back down the aisle, one arm about her waist as the other held her hand.
He quickened the pace, wanting just a moment with his bride before the guests joined them again.
They stepped into the early morning sun as it began to warm the day. They’d return to her parents’ home for their wedding breakfast and then they’d take the short carriage ride back to Carrington Abbey, their forever home.
“You told me on the first night of the house party that you’d had romantic feelings for me as a child. Did you know this would happen?”
She looked over to him, her eyes still shining. “In all my wildest imaginings, it was never this perfect.”
He laughed then pulled her close once again and stole a kiss one last time before everyone else stepped outside.
“Perfect, hmm? Oh no. That is a lot of pressure.” He raised his head, gazing down at her once again.
She shook her head. “I don’t mean it like that. I love you just as you are. I don’t need you to be perfect. I just wish for you to be...you.”
He shook his head. “I want the same, Your Grace.”
She gasped, laughing a bit. “I’ve been so focused on making you my husband, I nearly forgot that I was also becoming the Duchess of Dolan.”
He laughed as well, the sound ringing out and echoing across the open land. “Daisy. You are truly one of a kind and you’ve made me happy beyond measure.”
She pushed up on tiptoe and gently placed another kiss on his mouth. “And you me.” As Daisy lowered back down, her parents stepped out into the sunshine. “Are you ready to begin the rest of our lives?”
“Ready,” he answered.
She was right. This wasn’t the end…it was just the beginning.
This is the first of a three book series! A Lord for Miss Lily and A Marquess for Miss Marigold can be found on Amazon today!
Keep reading for a sneak peek of A Lord for Miss Lily!
A Lord for Miss Lily
Chapter One
Five years later...
Lily peered through a rose bush, attempting to avoid the thorns even as she pushed closer. If she just shifted a bit to the left, she would both be able to see and hear the Duke of Dolan as he escorted Miss Pearson through the rose garden. Balancing on one slipper, she peeked through a rare gap in the leaves, now able to see the path where the tour of the garden would end.
“It’s not polite to spy, you know,” her friend and ally, Marigold, softly whispered from just next to her as she also hunched trying to see through the dense thorny foliage.
Marigold was naturally more shy and cautious. Both traits Lily loved about her friend. Except for right this very moment.
“Hush,” she replied, not looking at Marigold. “You know you want to hear what he’s saying. Daisy is counting on us.” She reached out and patted her friend’s shoulder even as she leaned further to the right, trying to catch a glimpse of His Grace. “Now head over to the next row so that we might be able to piece together the entire conversation.”
Marigold let out a sigh, but straightened. “Fine. But only because I think it will help Daisy. Not because I approve.”
Lily smiled to herself, glad her friend had finally come ‘round to her plan.
The Duke of Dolan had been paying special interest to Daisy until this afternoon. Lily could tell that his sudden turn of attention had hurt Daisy deeply and Lily was determined to understand why. And that was why she was here. Spying.
Of course, she also hated most social rules and flaunted them whenever possible. She took great pride in not conforming, and that included—but was not limited to—spying in rose gardens.
Her mother said that she only engaged in such behavior to prove that she didn’t care about the ton’s rejection. She always fired back that she acted as she did because she’d never cared whether they’d accepted her or not.
But either way, she’d been designated a wallflower, which was fine by her. It meant no one gave a fig what she did.
And it wasn’t as though she was unhappy or lonely. She had Daisy and Marigold.
Her friends had been her saving grace the past few years and she’d do nearly anything to help them and make certain they were happy. Spying on one duke...easy.
“It’s not polite to spy, you know.” The words were a repeat of Marigold’s but everything else about the statement was completely different. This time it was said with disdain, not resignation.
The words rumbled low and deep in a baritone she’d recognize anywhere. Lord Merrick.
She had no use for him.
“Who said I was spying?” She sniffed, not turning to look at him. She didn’t need to. She knew every line of his face, every nuance of his classically handsome features from his square jaw, to his full mouth, to the aristocratic arch of his brow.
Right about now his warm brown eyes would be glittering with annoyance.
“Laura,” he said, disapproval evident in the way he drew out the last syllable.
“It’s Lily now, thank you very much.” She refused to stand but she’d stopped seeing the path visible through the bushes, her eyes clouded with her own irritation.
He scoffed deep in his throat. “Lily? Really? You’ve changed your name now?”
She shrugged, finally straightening. Slowly, she pivoted toward him. She always managed to forget how tall he was. The width of his shoulders held a power that, a few y
ears ago had seemed like a safe haven. Now they just reminded her of how much it hurt when a friend abandoned a girl for prettier, more sought after ladies. “Lily suits me.”
“Suits you? Flaunting your position against the wall suits you?” He crossed his arms, staring down his nose at her as though he knew far better than her what was good or right.
“Please.” She waved her hand in the air, lifting her chin higher. “What do you know about it? What do you know about anything?”
“I know that you’ll never make a good match like this. You have so much potential, Laura.” He frowned, that perfect impersonation of his father. In fact, it was the very face they’d made fun of as children.
She wrinkled her nose as though she’d smell something foul. “You look and sound exactly like him.”
She didn’t need to say his name. They both knew she meant his father and her arrow hit its mark. His face turned to granite, only a small flicker of pain crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I, unlike some of us, have grown up.”
Her hands came to her hips. “Grown up? Is that what you call becoming as snotty as the rest of them?”
He scoffed, stepping closer. “They will find husbands.”
Ouch. He’d struck back, and his blow had been just as hurtful as hers.
She’d spent her first season sitting on the sidelines. She’d watched others dance and make merry as she sedately stood at her mother’s side. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wished to dance. That year, she’d been...unable.
Ravaged by a disease of the lungs, she’d hardly made it through alive. In fact, her mother hadn’t wanted her to participate in that season at all. She’d thought her daughter should wait until she was stronger so that she might make the best impression.
Lily had refused. At the time, her best friend, Lady Abigail Purewater had been coming out and she’d desperately wished to join her. Back then she’d considered Abigail a sister. If she were honest, she’d dreamed the two of them would be the toast of London. She’d convinced her mother to allow her to participate.
In the end, her mother had been right. She’d have been better off at home.
But she’d not tell him any of that. She’d not tell anyone. Let them think her strong headed and ridiculous. She cared not. She’d not share that she’d been weak.
“I don’t care if I find a husband.” Her spine straightened with every word. “I am more content to be me than to be valued by others.”
He shook his head. “You’re so stubborn. You know that, don’t you? You’ll become a spinster rather than compromise even the slightest?”
Her lip curled. Become one of the Abigails? Simpering and sweet on the outside but absolute vipers within? She thought not. “Have you ever considered that I am right and that you and all the rest of them are the ones who have it wrong?”
He frowned at her, the perfect arch of his brow drawing together. “As I was once like you, I have carefully considered both sides so I can tell you with absolutely certainty that you are wrong and-—”
“Stop.” She held up her hand. “I’m sorry I asked the question. I don’t want to hear your answer.”
He shook his head. “Laura—”
“Lily.”
He drew in a long breath, staring at her. “Laura.”
She raised her brows. “And you say that I am stubborn.” She moved toward him holding up a single finger. “Lily.” She spoke the name slowly as though he might not understand.
He grumbled deep in his throat. “Using that name only encourages your nonconformity.”
She shrugged. “Even my mother has begun using it.”
His brows lifted at that. “Your mother,of all people, is using your wallflower name?”
That made her smile. Granted, after Lily’s near death, her mother had become far more flexible, but she was still a formidable woman, as Merrick well knew. “She’s come around to see things my way.”
He shook his head. “How did you manage that?”
Lily stared to the side, for the first time during this conversation, she wasn’t irritated and she certainly didn’t feel confident. Memories of the months she’d spent in bed flooded her thoughts and her shoulders hunched.
“Lily?” he asked softly.
That nearly made her smile. He’d used her new name and he’d always managed to sense when she needed him to soften the most. “It doesn’t matter, Merrick. She did.”
“I sense that there is more you’re not telling me.”
She shrugged. “What you need to know is that I will never be the person you want me to be.”
“But why?” he asked. He took the last step that brought him within arms reach. “Try to understand. Our friendship was always so important to me. And we could be like that again. Compatriots, not in a rebellion against our parents, but in the battle of finding the perfect match.”
So that’s what he wanted, was it? The perfect match.
Not surprising. After Abigail had unfriended her to join a group of proper ladies, she and her new group of friends had seen fit to torture Lily at every opportunity. They’d put nettles in her skirts, made sure she didn’t get the best invitations, bumped into her on the dance floor on the rare occasion she was asked to dance.
That’s when she’d hidden along the wall and met Marigold and Daisy.
And what had Merick done? He’d courted Abigail.
It wasn’t as though Lily had wanted Merrick to court her. He was her friend, that was all. In fact, he wasn’t even that. He’d been her older brother’s friend, but she’d thought they’d had a friendship of their own as well. She’d always seen him as her fiercest ally, even after he’d gone off to tour the continent.
But she’d learned the truth when he’d returned to London that season a changed man. Rather than be her friend and take her side against the merciless snobs of the ton, what had he done?
e’d courted the very woman who had seen to her social humiliation.
She’d die before she tried to join that woman’s circle now, and having Merrick ask it of her now only strengthened her resolve.
“But I thought you’d found the perfect match already,” she said, her smile cool and detached. “Are you not still courting Lady Abigail?”
His face flinched in pain, every muscle tightening as a muscle in his jaw ticked. “As a matter of course, I am not.”
She cocked her head to the side, shock warring with curiosity. “Did you end it?”
He reached up and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “That is none of your business, Laura.” Then he turned to leave.
None of her business? He was no longer courting her sworn nemesis? Her friend turned enemy?
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Lily needed to hear this story.
Chapter Two
Lily would follow him.
Merrick knew she would follow him, and yet he still tried to make his escape.
Daisy, the sweet young lady he’d been escorting on the garden tour was safely back in the care of her parents, his friend the Duke of Dolan was no longer being spied upon by a pigheaded overgrown child with uncommonly bright red hair, and he still had plans to escape the crush of this crowd for a few blissful hours before this evening’s entertainment began.
But he should have known all hopes of a quiet rest was an impossibility the moment he’d spotted Laura—or rather, Lily—peering through those rose bushes.
“Merrick, I am talking to you,” her voice called out.
He flinched. A part of him wanted to keep ignoring her as she all but ran alongside him, but he was keenly aware of the looks they were getting from those garden tour attendees who were already heading back to the great house—no doubt sharing his same wish for a little peace and solitude.
Two words that this brash redhead had never comprehended.
“Merrick, I—”
“Do stop shouting, Lily,” he said under his breath, finally caving to the inevitable as he came to a stop near the entrance to th
e gardens. Still in full view of the others for respectability but far enough apart from the crowds to be overheard.
Lily scowled up at him, and it was an expression he knew well. It was the only look he seemed to get from her these days. Once upon a time, she’d have greeted him with a smile. That freckled, upturned nose of hers would have wrinkled in delight at the sight of him. Her laughter would have made him smile in turn.
He had to confess that her green eyes, fringed with long dark lashes, always sparkled, whether in anger or camaraderie. The slightly upturned shape of them was marred now as they crinkled in irritation but that made them no less lovely.
“I was not shouting,” she said, crossing her arms with a huff. “However if you keep avoiding my questions, I very well might start.”
He glared down at her, taking in the stiff posture and the chin tilted up in defiance…
She would do it.
That was the really aggravating thing about his former friend. Lily did not make idle threats. He shifted closer to her, noting how she held her ground.
Of course she did.
“I do not see how my relationship with Lady Abigail is any of your concern.”
It might have been, once upon a time, but when it came to Lily, he’d realized years ago that it was no use living in the past. Like it or not, they had grown apart. And while some might have moved on amicably, accepting their differences—amiability was not in Lily’s nature.
Her brother Sebastian, his closest friend during his school days, used to say she was a force of nature. Merrick had always laughingly agreed. It was the trait he’d once loved best about her.
Until she’d turned against him and shunned him as a friend.
Now that same quality that he used to find so endearing was just...exhausting.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he eyed the great house longingly. So close to reprieve and yet so far away.
“Just tell me what happened, Merrick,” she said with a sigh of exasperation.
As if he were the aggravating one here.
A Wallflower's Wish Boxed Set: Three Regency Romances Page 13
