* * *
Gilan ran like a man possessed, muscular legs covering the ground in graceful, loping strides, heavy rain striking the shadowed angles of his face. As soon as he had seen the empty bed, the linen on the mattress imprinted with the sweet outline of Matilda’s body, he had raced from the chamber and down to the gatehouse, seizing a flaming torch from an iron bracket on the way out.
There was only one way she could have gone.
He followed the track into the forest, his eyes sweeping across the twilight, searching frantically, for the slightest clue, the smallest movement. Sparks radiated around his head, spitting out from the flaring torch, sizzling as the rain hit the flames. He would find her. Her mattress had still been warm from her body, fragrant with lavender scent.
‘Matilda!’ he yelled. ‘Matilda, where are you?’
Perplexed, she heard the hoarse shout, then shook her head, thinking she had imagined his voice. Gilan? Why on earth would he come after her? Surely he would be pleased that she had taken it upon herself to leave now that he was with Isabelle again?
‘Matilda!’ The voice was closer now, yards from her back.
She stumbled again, finally succumbing to the frailty in her legs. Sank to the ground in a puddle of skirts, knees embedding in a sticky patch of mud. So be it. Let him find her. She didn’t care any more.
‘Matilda!’ He crouched down beside her, tipping up her chin with one finger, scrutinising her pale, wan face in the light of the flickering torch. Her voluminous hood fell back, silk rumpling in plush folds behind her slender neck, the lilac colour highlighting the startling blue of her eyes. Water sluiced down her face, dripping off her chin. ‘Why did you leave?’
Raindrops sparkled on her eyelashes, fringing her eyes with diamonds. ‘Because…because I have to find Thomas!’ The words ripped out of her, jagged, uneven. ‘I will lose my home unless my brother takes his rightful place as Lord of Lilleshall. John will take it all and try to take me, too.’ She hoped he couldn’t see her tears, the reddened skin around her eyes. Not that it mattered, of course.
‘But that was no reason to leave. I told you, I will help you find Thomas…when you are recovered,’ Gilan said softly.
‘Yes, but that was before…before…’ Her speech trailed away miserably, cold hands pillowing in damp skirts.
‘Before…?’ he probed gently, his hand reaching out to brush her forearm.
‘Before that woman told me you were going to marry her!’ she blurted out.
A rueful smile lifted the corners of his mouth. ‘Isabelle isn’t going to marry me.’
Matilda hunched her shoulders forwards. Sniffed, then looked away. ‘Why would she say such a thing, then?’
He smiled. ‘Because she’s mad, Matilda. She sits up in her chambers, dreaming up these barmy schemes, working out what would be best for her. The baby isn’t even my brother’s, yet she makes out that it is. She’s always been unstable, unpredictable. My poor brother had a devil of a time dealing with her. But all that matters is that it’s not true.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter to me anyway, whether you marry her or not.’ Pushing her chin in the air, she attempted to inject an air of confidence into her tone.
‘Doesn’t it?’ he said quietly. His husky voice sifted around her, nudged up against her heart. In the jittery flame of the torch, his hair shone like knife blades. Above their heads, the breeze picked up and stirred the tops of the trees, rustling the leaves.
Her breath wobbled in her throat and she stared deep into the shimmering grey of his eyes. The words hung on her lips, the words she wanted to say. The truth. Dare she risk it? She plucked at the jewelled belt that Isabelle had insisted that she wore, her manner hesitant, uncertain.
His hand covered hers, warm and strong, stilling her nervous movement. ‘There’s only one person I want to marry, Matilda, and she’s sitting right here in front of me.’
‘W-what?’ she stuttered out, jerking her head up, stunned.
‘I’ve been an ignorant pig,’ he said. ‘A stupid, blockheaded, ignorant pig.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t—’ she began.
‘Don’t you dare tell me that my behaviour was fine, that you understand,’ he interrupted her, grinning. ‘Because it wasn’t fine and you have a perfect right to hate me, after the way I treated you. God forbid that I ever treat you like that again!’
She shook her head dumbly, a sense of wonderment flooding through her. The smallest trickle of hope seeped through the hard-packed earth of her resolve, gathering strength, knocking at her heart. ‘I don’t understand…’ Her voice quavered. ‘I left because I didn’t want to be a burden to you. I didn’t want you to feel any responsibility for me…after…after what happened between us. And then when Isabelle said you were going to marry her…’ her voice drifted to such a subdued pitch, he had to lean forwards to catch her words ‘…I couldn’t stay and watch all that. I thought that was the end.’ Her tone trod carefully, muted, not daring to hope.
The calloused pad of his thumb caressed the delicate line of her jaw, ran over the rosebud push of her mouth; her flesh shivered beneath the delicious sensation. ‘I’ve been a fool, Matilda. From the moment I first saw you, drawing back your bow at the top of the ruined turret, you began to change me, but I refused to admit it. I thought that after Pierre died, my heart would never recover, would never know again how to love another.’
His fingers tangled with hers, tightened.
‘Love?’ she whispered. Emotion rocked her, her tears of misery turning to those of joy. ‘Are you saying what I think you are saying?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I love you, my sweet darling Matilda, I love you with all my heart.’ The flaming torch dropped to the ground, hissing and spitting against the wet ground, as Gilan wound his arms about her slight frame, drawing her closer, upwards so the thud of his heart matched the race of her own. He touched his lips to hers, then groaned, covering her mouth with his in a kiss that would bind them together, for ever.
Epilogue
Summer flowers trailed from the hefty wooden rafters of the great hall at Chesterham: huge garlands of pink roses, entwined with glossy ivy, honeysuckle, and lavender. The fragrance filled the hall, the scent thick and heavy. A makeshift band played, lively fiddle music accompanied by pipes and drums. The trestle tables had been pushed back and couples danced, faces happy and flushed with wine, linking hands and arms as they skipped across the uneven flagstone floor.
‘Oh, Gilan, I cannot believe this is truly happening,’ Matilda leaned over and whispered in her husband’s ear, her heart swelling with love for the man at her side. Tiny white rosebuds had been woven through her beautiful silky hair, complementing the cream silk of her wedding gown. ‘Are we actually married? Is this real?’ She stared down at the simple gold band shining on her left hand.
‘If it’s not, then I’m having the same amazing dream as you,’ Gilan replied, planting a delicate kiss on the end of her pert little nose. A roar of appreciation rose from the throng of people dancing below the high dais.
‘And Thomas…Thomas is here,’ she breathed, following the tall, dark-haired man weaving in and out of the dancers. ‘Thank you Gilan, thank you for finding him, for bringing him here.’
‘It wasn’t difficult. Once Henry had challenged King Richard, his knights were happy to return to their homes. Sick of all the fruitless fighting.’
Matilda covered Gilan’s hand with her own. ‘Now Thomas can return to Lilleshall and claim his home once more.’
‘And appreciate his little sister for all her hard work,’ Gilan added, flexing strong fingers beneath her warm palm, ‘as well as all the sacrifices she has made to keep the estate running.’
Matilda shrugged her shoulders. ‘He does appreciate what I have done, Gilan. Besides I enjoyed it—’ she caught her husband’s wry express
ion ‘—well, most of it, anyway.’
‘I’ll have to make sure I find some heavy farm work for you to do when we return to Cormeilles,’ he teased. ‘And a few outlaws for you to shoot.’
‘Oh, Matilda’s never happy unless she’s scavenging around in the fields somewhere,’ Katherine chipped in, her tiny daughter sleeping contentedly in her arms. With John pleading illness, she had come to the wedding alone with only her ladies-in-waiting in attendance. ‘You’ll have to remember to rein her in, Gilan. She’s a regular hoyden.’
Gilan laughed. ‘I will do no such thing, Katherine. I love Matilda of Lilleshall exactly the way she is. Beautiful. Kind. The sweetest person I have ever had the luck to meet. I love her with all my heart.’
Along the table, he caught his father’s eye and grinned. With one arm tight around Gilan’s mother, Ranulph lifted his pewter goblet, inclining his head in silent congratulation towards his son. At his father’s quiet gesture, a soaring happiness rose in Gilan’s chest, an overwhelming joy, brimming with possibility and hope, but above all with love—love for his family, and love for the darling wife at his side.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE MARQUIS’S AWAKENING by Elizabeth Beacon.
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Chapter One
Tom Banburgh, Marquis of Mantaigne, thought the polite world was about to be bitterly disappointed. If the wolfish glint in Luke Winterley’s eye was anything to go by, he wouldn’t be letting the former Lady Chloe Thessaly out of his bed long enough for her to go to town for a very long time, so the ton wouldn’t be able to pass judgement on the new Viscountess Farenze until her new husband could spare her—some time in the next decade, if they were lucky.
‘Can’t this wait until after your wedding journey?’ he asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as Lady Chloe took a sealed missive from the neat reticule she was carrying. He should have been suspicious of that, since Luke was waiting to whisk her off on their bride trip and she hardly stood in need of whatever ladies carried in them when she had a husband all too eager to provide for her every need, and a few she probably didn’t even know she had right now.
Feeling a fool for not remembering his godmother’s infamous will, even on this joyous day Virginia had done so much to bring about, he realised he’d stepped into the book room with the happy couple as naively as a débutante at her first grown-up party. As if they would have anything else to say to him before they left for Devon on their honeymoon but here you are; you’re next.
‘Here you are; you’re next, I’m afraid, Tom,’ Chloe said with a rueful smile to admit he wouldn’t be pleased to take it and how could a few bits of expensive paper feel so heavy? ‘Luke says we won’t be back from Devon for weeks, and you must begin whatever you have to do for Lady Virginia before then if you’re to get it done in the allotted three months.’
‘Dash it all, though, it’s the beginning of the Season,’ Tom managed to utter after a heavy pause as he fought off a craven urge to throw the letter back at his best friend’s new wife and refuse. ‘Ah, well, suppose I might as well get it over with,’ he said as lightly as he could while turning the letter over again, as if he might conjure it into someone else’s hand if he put off reading it long enough.
‘Look what my quarter of a year brought me,’ Luke told him with a besotted smile Tom did his best to find nauseating.
‘And can you see me neatly paired off at the end of whatever wild goose chase Virginia insists I carry out for her?’ he demanded past a nasty little suspicion that was exactly what his wily godmother intended to happen, if Luke’s adventures were anything to go by.
‘One day you’ll have to consider the succession,’ Luke said half-seriously.
‘I have and decided there’s nothing very wonderful about the Banburghs, so who cares if there are no more of us?’ Tom replied with a cynical smile that felt a lot better than the dread of being the next one on his godmother’s list.
He ordered himself not to squirm under the sceptical mother’s glance Chloe had perfected on her young niece. She and Luke would no doubt raise repellent quantities of brats in their joint images and be blissfully happy together for the rest of their lives, but he had no wish to follow in their footsteps and had managed without a family all his life.
‘True,’ Luke agreed with an impatient glance at the door. ‘Why not leave him to read it in peace now, love? A very small part of me would like to stay and watch Mantaigne perform like a dancing bear in his turn, but the rest can’t wait for us to begin our honeymoon.’
‘I doubt your best friend relishes the task in front of him though, Luke,’ she told her new husband sternly, then seemed to find it impossible to see anything but him once she’d turned her fascinated gaze his way.
‘Have you any clue to what my quest could be, Lady Chloe?’ Tom asked to remind the lovers he was still here, before it was he who needed to leave the book room in a hurry instead of them.
‘Oh, that quest. No, I only hand out the letters,’ Chloe said with a shrug that admitted she was so deep in love with Luke they were very poor company.
She flicked a glance at Tom’s name and titles inscribed on his last message from his godmother and he was in danger of being ambushed by grief all over again. It was such a stark absence, having to acknowledge Virginia’s wit, warmth and energy had left this world for the next. She and Virgil had lit up his life, and he felt the loneliness of losing both hit him anew.
‘I had such plans, very seductive and beautiful ones they were as well,’ he grumbled to hide his true feelings on such a joyful day.
‘Rakehell.’ Luke dismissed that objection with the wolfish good humour of a man about to have his own wildest fantasies come true. ‘And where would be the fun in my great-aunt being predictable in death as she never was in life?’
‘Fun for you, I suppose, Romeo, now your task is safely over.’
‘True, watching you squirm is a pleasant side effect of standing at my own Lady Farenze’s side while I watch three more idiots run about in their turn. If Virginia can see us from her place in heaven, I bet she’s enjoying the view even more than I am right now.’
‘Knowing her, it won’t be some simple task easily got through and back to town before anyone misses me either.’
‘Oh, I suspect those seductively beautiful plans of yours will, but we have to leave, and you need to discover whatever it is Virginia wants you to do in private,’ the new Lady Farenze intervened.
‘The fun’s just starting—do we really have to go when it’s getting interesting?’ her lord said with the easy humour of a man whose task had come to a deeply satisfying conclusion.
‘We do, Luke Winterley,’ Chloe said with a severe look that only made him laugh.
Tom hadn’t seen his friend and honorary brother this carefree since he was a dashing and hopeful youth, always game for a lark. The marriage his father arranged when Luke was barely twenty certainly knocked the youthful high spirits out of him far too young and he’d turned into a virtual hermit when the silly chit left him. After that Luke had locked himself away in his northern stronghold to raise their baby daughter and Tom blessed Virginia for managing to chip Luke out of frozen isolat
ion, but he didn’t want to be next the next victim on her list all the same.
‘Well, we’ll leave you to it then, Mantaigne. Try not to miss us too much, won’t you?’ Luke said with a mocking grin at Tom and a hot look at his lady that made her blush, then stride ahead of him, clearly in nearly as much of a hurry to begin married life as he was.
The door shut after them with a soft snick and Tom was left with the last letter he’d ever receive from his godmother, wishing she was here to tell him what maggot had got into her head this time herself. He’d spent the best years of his boyhood in this house and sometimes wondered if he had imagined his stark early childhood as the true lord of an ancient castle and vast estates, but master of nothing.
* * *
‘Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard could be marching about on the cliffs tonight and we wouldn’t be any the wiser.’
Polly Trethayne shook her head, then remembered her companion couldn’t see her in the heavy darkness. ‘I really think we would,’ she whispered, wishing her friend and ally had stayed inside. ‘If it is smugglers, we really need to be quiet.’
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