by Julia Byrne
“Oh, my goodness.”
“We’ll leave for Dorset as soon as I procure a license. Your pupils will be very upset if they can’t attend the wedding, so we’ll take everyone with us, of course.”
“Of course,” she agreed faintly.
“There’s just one more thing we need to think about before we make an announcement in the morning.”
“There is?” she asked, quite unable to think of anything he’d left undone.
He grinned. “How are we going to explain that you’ve just become engaged to your man-of-all-work, who, it turns out, is really a gentleman?”
“Oh.” Emily contemplated the question for a moment, then folded her arms across his chest and beamed at him. “Let me tell you what Tibby thought.”
Luke eyed the sunny smile on her face and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not going to like this, am I.”
“No, but that’s what you get for sneaking into my school under false pretences.”
“False pretences? I think I’m insulted, Miss Proudfoot. If not for me, you’d still have a broken pump, a shrieking door, a whole lot of smoking chimneys and a corpse in the attic. Not to mention idiots like young Netherby climbing in through the drawing room window.”
Emily smiled more sunnily than ever.
Luke sighed. “All right. What did Miss Tibberton think?”
“It’s very simple. Tibby thought you’d seen me in London while I was staying with my grandparents after we returned to England, and you fell in love with me, but thought I wouldn’t return your regard because I have no time for Polite Society and you have an earl and a viscount in your family. So you posed as a man-of-all-work to court me.”
“Good God!”
“I know.” She patted him in commiseration. “But it’s preferable to telling the girls that you came here to catch a blackmailer, after which you disappeared at the same time as Charlotte, who left without so much as a farewell. They will put two and two together before you can blink. I will then have a line of parents outside my study door wanting to know why I was harboring a criminal.”
“Hell!”
Emily reached up to kiss his jaw. “The girls will think it’s very romantic.”
“Really? What do you think?”
“I think you’re the most wonderful man I have ever encountered,” she said softly. “And I will love you with all my heart to the end of my days.”
Luke smiled, tightened his hold on her, and rolled so she was lying beside him. “And I think you’re going to bewitch me for the rest of my life, little sprite, but that’s all right, because I will love you to distraction, now and forever.”
*
They were married a week later in the little church on Luke’s estate in Dorset.
Emily had notified her grandparents of her impending nuptials merely as a courtesy, but much to her surprise, her grandfather insisted on giving her away. Her grandmother unbent enough to let Emily borrow her pearls. Luke had cynically remarked that marriage into the Bannister family was elevating her to lofty heights in her grandparents’ eyes, but Emily was too happy to bear a grudge.
The entire Bannister clan turned out for the occasion. As Luke had warned her, his mother, Lady Henrietta Bannister, welcomed Emily with open arms and copious tears of joy.
Luke had stood by, handing out handkerchiefs, until Emily, upon being invited to call Lady Henrietta ‘Mama’, burst into tears of relief and happiness on her future mother-in-law’s shoulder. Then he had picked her up and carried her indoors to her room where he proceeded to make love to her until she forgot everything except the love and fulfillment they brought to each other.
Luke’s cousin, Gabriel Bannister, Earl of Danebridge, had studied her with piercing hazel eyes for several unnerving seconds, before he said, “So you’re the one,” and a wicked gleam transformed his gaze.
Another cousin, Gideon, Viscount Rotherham, had looked intimidatingly stern—until he’d given her a devastatingly slow smile and ruffled her curls.
Emily had decided the Bannister males shared a lion-like trait. They were dangerous. She felt quite virtuous for removing one from the marriage mart.
And now, as she walked down the aisle to where Luke was waiting for her she wondered if it was possible to feel any happier. Faces, both familiar and new, passed before her eyes. Tibby and seven excited students on one side, all smiling broadly and clutching bags of rice. Luke’s family on the other side, his mother already dabbing at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
And then she was standing beside Luke, and he was taking her hand, his golden eyes glittering with sheer male triumph. But as they turned toward the vicar, eyes only for each other, his gaze softened and they exchanged a look of love so encompassing Emily knew it would last for a lifetime.
EPILOGUE
One year later.
On a sunny morning in May, Emily peeped into the library and discovered her husband seated behind his desk and engaged in a rather one-sided conversation with the other occupant of the room.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said as she approached the pair.
Luke looked up, tossed aside the paper he’d been quoting from and rose to walk around his desk. He bent to give her a tender, lingering kiss. “You’re a very welcome interruption, my darling. I was reading this treatise on crop rotation to Leo, but he fell asleep in the middle of it.”
Emily laughed. “As a teacher, I would have to say that crop rotation may be a little advanced for him. Not that Leo doesn’t possess exceptional intelligence, of course.”
“Of course,” Luke agreed, glancing down at the three-month-old baby, peacefully slumbering in the crook of his arm.
Emily stroked the soft ebony down on her son’s head, completely enthralled by the tiny replica of Luke. “Actually, I’m amazed you were able to prise him away from Mama and Tibby.”
He grinned. “It wasn’t easy, but the mail arrived, which distracted them long enough for me to steal him away.” He glanced down at the sealed missive in her hand. “Is that from the Lymingford Day School for Young Ladies?”
Emily waved her letter with enthusiasm. “It is indeed. I think the new name has quite a ring to it, don’t you.”
“The Emily Bannister Boarding Academy for Young Ladies sounds even better,” Luke remarked, carefully tucking Leo into the basket on his desk. “How do your boarders like their new school?”
“Very much. That big house in the village is perfect for a boarding school now that it’s been refurbished. I’m so glad everything has been finished in time for the arrival of Miss Davenport and the three new students next week.” She threw her arms around Luke’s neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “And it’s all thanks to you.”
“All I did was sign the bank drafts,” Luke said. He picked her up, then sat down with her on his lap. “It’s you who’s behind the success of your schools, my lovely Emily. But I hope Miss Davenport proves suitable, because I don’t want you tiring yourself.”
Emily patted his cheek. “I’m perfectly well, and I have so much help it’s a wonder I can hold onto Leo for more than five minutes at a time. Of course, holding onto you takes a lot longer.”
Luke slanted a lazy grin down at her. “If you’re referring to last night, you can hold onto me for as long as you like.”
Emily laughed. She was so happy, she thought, snuggling into Luke’s embrace while she opened her letter. Everything had worked out perfectly. After their wedding, she and Luke had stayed at the school in Lymingford for a couple of months until the new teachers settled in. She had been fortunate in being able to engage Mrs. Pelling, a widowed former governess, together with Mrs. Pelling’s unmarried daughter, also a teacher. The two women were thrilled to take over the running of the school under Emily’s patronage.
Her seven boarders, however, dismayed at being parted from Emily, had petitioned to move the boarding school to Dorset. All the parents were happy with the change of location, so the Emily Bannister Boarding Acad
emy for Young Ladies came into being. Luke’s mother, grieving and lonely since the death of her husband, had also thrown herself into the project, and had discovered a new lease on life in teaching botany and embroidery. The school was rapidly gaining a reputation as the place for professional gentlemen to send their daughters to be educated.
Emily spread open her letter with happy anticipation as Luke retrieved his treatise on crop rotation.
A second later, she sat bolt upright. “Oh!”
The surprise in her voice had him turning his head sharply. “What is it?”
She held out the envelope enclosed with the letter. “Mrs. Pelling received this last week and sent it on. Luke, it’s from America.”
“So I see,” he said, raising a brow. He cast a quick glance at her face. “Do you want me to open it, sweetheart?”
Emily drew in a deep breath and tore open the envelope. “No, it’s all right. It can only be from Charlotte. Or about her,” she added, unfolding the single sheet.
“I know you were disappointed not to receive a farewell message from her when I put her on that ship,” he murmured, stroking a comforting hand up and down her back. “Perhaps this is it.”
“No,” Emily said, scanning the lines. “She writes to say that thanks to the scarcity of respectable, well-bred women in the Missouri Territory where she went to teach, she has married a banker. Oh, I hope she will be happy.”
“Hmm.”
“She says she regrets the loss of our friendship, but she did what was necessary in order to survive.”
“Still trying to justify her crimes, I see. It wasn’t as if she was on the streets, darling.”
“No.” She was silent for a moment, remembering all that had happened. “Luke, would Mr. Gibbs really have had Charlotte hunted down and killed?”
He hesitated. “I can’t tell you about Gibbs just yet, sweetheart. He still needs to work in the utmost secrecy. But only two words are necessary to describe the man. Ruthless and bastard.”
“Oh. I take it the latter term is not a description of his station in life.”
“No, but never mind him. Are you going to reply to Charlotte’s letter?”
“There isn’t a return address, but at least I know she’s all right.”
“Then we can forget about her and Gibbs and what may or may not have happened last year.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed, putting the brief letter aside and hugging him. “After all, people make their own happiness, don’t they, Luke.”
He tipped her face up to his. “I know you have made me happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” he said huskily. “You are my life. As long as I have you and Leo, I have everything.”
“Oh, Luke. It works both ways, you know. You have given me everything I ever dreamed of. I never imagined I could be so happy, or that I could love so much.”
He bent his head to kiss her just as a demanding wail came from the occupant of the basket.
Luke winced. “Excellent lungs,” he muttered. “Terrible timing.”
Emily laughed at the rueful look on his face. “I think our little lion is hungry again.”
“That’s all right,” he murmured, kissing her fleetingly. “We can wait for tonight.”
There would be many nights, Emily thought, as they rose to tend to their baby. All the nights of their lives. And the days, too, filled with work and play and caring.
And above all, the certainty of love, steadfast and strong, through all the years ahead.
The names, characters, places and incidents in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or incidents, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Merilyn Bourke 2015
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
