Always Forever (Emerson Book 5)

by Maureen Driscoll

  The vicar continued. “I promise to love, honor and obey thee, in accordance to the divine will of God.”

  “I promise to love, honor and obey thee in all things reasonable, in accordance to the divine will of God.”

  Rose wasn’t certain who it was, but one of her brothers let out a snort of laughter. It was likely Colin.

  “Lady Rosemary,” said the vicar reproachfully, “you did not repeat the vows correctly.”

  “Mr. Peabody,” said Nate to the vicar. “She repeated them to a satisfactory degree. I suggest we move on.”

  “But…” began Mr. Peabody.

  “It shall be a sizable donation.”

  The vicar looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end decided he would rather have the money. “It is most irregular, but I suppose I can continue. Repeat after me, my lord. I, Nathaniel Gage, Lord Grayson, take thee, Lady Rosemary Emerson, to be my wife.”

  Nate repeated the phrase, looking into Rose’s eyes.

  The vicar continued. “I promise to protect and defend thee in accordance with God’s will and to act as your lord and master.”

  “I promise to protect and defend thee in accordance with God’s will and I will love you faithfully and eternally.”

  “That is not the vow as I told you to say it, Lord Grayson.”

  “Yet it is the one I pledged. May we finish this up?”

  “In accordance to the Church of England and the authority of the Crown, I pronounce you man and wife. I did not yet give you permission to kiss.”

  But it was a moot point, since Rose and Nate were once again locked in an embrace.

  Rose was so caught up in the kiss, she was only vaguely aware of Nate pulling away, then escorting her up the aisle, only to be stopped by her family. After everyone had hugged her and the men had all pounded Nate on the back with alarming force, they were once again outside of the church, where one of the Bancroft carriages waited. It was festooned with hothouse flowers.

  “Nate, it is lovely,” said Rose, touched that he would remember to do such a thing.

  “I am glad you think so, love,” he said. “I thought we should have a few moments alone before the wedding breakfast.”

  “I would like that,” she said. What she would really like was for the carriage to take them directly to the castle. Hang the wedding breakfast, though she knew Maude had worked very hard on it and her family would be disappointed to see the festivities cut short.

  So she accepted Nate’s help into the carriage, then let him hold her as she realized she had the rest of their lives to be alone together. Today was for the family she loved so much, as she stood beside her heart’s desire.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rose had been too nervous to notice much about the dower house when she had departed for the church that morning. But when she and Nate arrived after the wedding, she was astonished to see how it had been transformed. Maude and Victor must have stayed up much of the night turning the dining room into an elegant setting for a wedding breakfast.

  The table was set with the Ridgeway china and apparently Letty and Anna had brought back even more flowers than she had thought, because there were vases of them throughout the ground floor. There was delicate silk bunting and the fresh spring air was wafting through the windows.

  “It is so lovely,” said Rose, as she walked hand-in-hand with her husband. Husband. It was so hard to believe she had one now.

  “It is all quite nice,” said Nate. “But the real beauty I see is standing next to me.”

  Rose leaned in to kiss him. And what started off as a light peck lingered until she finally pulled back. “Are you going to be one of those husbands who pays his wife lovely compliments when he is first married, but then turns his conversation to things like the weather or, worse, horses as time goes on?”

  “Never. For one thing I cannot abide talking about the weather,” he said, as he kissed her again. “And for another, I cannot conceive of a day when the first and last thing I think of isn’t how very fortunate I am to have you as my wife. I may, however, speak about horses from time to time, but, if you like, I can whisper about them and only when alone in the library.”

  “You will forever make me laugh.”

  “And you will forever make me love you.”

  They kissed again and this time Nate’s hands travelled down her back and rested lightly on her bottom. “I do not suppose,” he said, as he nibbled on one of her earlobes, “that we might disappear to your bedchamber before your family arrives?”

  Rose was about to give her enthusiastic assent when the front door opened and her family entered the house.

  * * *

  Mirabelle Gage, the new Duchess of Bancroft, was already out of sorts as she looked out the window of the duchess’s bedchamber in her husband’s London mansion. She and Bancroft had been married by special license by the archbishop a week earlier. She had purchased a lovely gown for the ceremony, though the drafty old cathedral had made her shiver most unattractively. Bancroft had leered at her bosom the entire time and, unless she’d missed her mark, the archbishop had given it a few lengthy glances as well.

  Mirabelle had wanted a wedding trip to Paris and a tour of the continent, but Bancroft had declared it out of the question. She had been most disappointed and had taken great delight in feigning womanly problems on the third night of their marriage. The first two nights of relations had been as distasteful as she had imagined. The man needed more help than she liked giving to prepare for the act. Fortunately, he was quick to finish on those occasions when he was able to do so. Unfortunately, on the nights he was unable to complete the act, she was forced to tend to him with all means at her disposal.

  She prayed she would become pregnant quickly, so she would not have to suffer his attentions much longer.

  They had had a wedding breakfast after the private ceremony. Despite his wealth, Bancroft had balked at spending too much, though he did take pride in showing off his young bride to all his lecherous friends. Their wives clearly disliked her and if it wouldn’t mean having relations with yet another old man, she would gladly cuckold Bancroft with one of his friends just to spite the women.

  Speaking of cuckolding Bancroft…Mirabelle had hoped to pay a visit to her amorous footman, but Bancroft had been tracking her movements like he owned her. That would grow tiresome quickly. Fortunately, he did not seem to be that anxious to be underfoot when they were in the same house. He spent most of his time holed up in his library where he received various visitors, including his loathsome man of business, Jones.

  Bancroft had informed Mirabelle earlier that day that they would soon return to the castle in Wiltshire, then remain for some time. The announcement had disappointed her. What good was it to be a duchess if one couldn’t lord it over the snobs of the ton? Or, better yet, spend the duke’s blunt on clothes, gaming and the occasional murder? There was nothing quite like having enough money to have someone killed, as her late husband found out just before he died.

  Who knew? Mayhap the duke would have a riding accident in the country, then all his lovely money would be hers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Rose could not help thinking that the carriage ride from the dower house to the castle was unexpectedly quiet, especially after the day of laughter they’d spent with her family. There had been tears at the end as Letty and Anna said how much they would miss her. Rose’s heart had broken a bit to leave them and the rest of her family, but Nate had been by her side pledging that they would all see each other so much it would be like they had never left.

  Rose hoped that would be the case. But as they approached the castle, which looked so mysterious at night, she began to worry about what lay ahead.

  “What are you thinking, my love?” asked Nate as he took her hand.

  She took a deep breath to steady herself. “About all the ways my life is about to change, starting with tonight.”

  “Rose, if you are worried about tonight…”

  “I know,
if I am worried about tonight, we do not have to do anything. Win told me you might say something like that.”

  “I wasn’t about to say anything of the sort,” said Nate, pulling her closer. “I do not know where your sister came up with such a hen-witted thing to say, though I can only imagine it was Alex’s fault. He is too gentlemanly by half.” He pulled the lap robe around her to ward off the early evening chill.

  “You cannot fool me, Nathaniel Gage. For I have a feeling if I said I wished to delay our….relations, you would do so.”

  “Now I do not know how you have come up with such a hen-witted notion,” said Nate, though he did not refute her claim. “I may have to speak to Colin about the odd musings of his female relations.”

  “I fear you have a wife of extremely odd musings and it is too late to do anything about it.” She snuggled into his arms as the castle came into view. “Tell me about your home.”

  “My home right now consists of my wife in my arms and I suspect that will never change. As for the building in which I was raised, it is old, having been built several centuries ago and allegedly improved upon by various dukes who wanted the size of the spires to denote the size of their, uh…”

  “Yes?”

  “Never mind. Mayhap that is a story for our second night together. The interior, as you may have noticed on previous visits, is a mixture of modern wood and ancient stone. The stone portions are cold in both aesthetics and temperature. There have even been rumors of various ghosts throughout the years.”

  “Do you believe the rumors?”

  “I believe various maids and footman have likely been making noises in the distant parts of the castle for some time, then came up with the ghost stories to conceal their activities.”

  “But you have never seen a ghost yourself?”

  Nate hesitated just a moment before replying. “’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

  “You are quoting Shakespeare.”

  “I am quoting Shakespeare so that my clever wife will think I have picked up a book for some purpose other than to set my drink upon it. Though, I suppose a Hamlet reference does not bode well in my current circumstances.”

  Nate held her just a bit closer and she could sense how worried he was beneath his glib exterior. “Our current circumstances,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “This business with your father is ‘our’ problem, not yours to bear alone.”

  “See here, Rose, you will not involve yourself. I still have a mind to ship you back to Ridgeway or to Lynwood in London.”

  “I simply would not go. You cannot have forgotten that I omitted from my vows the portion about obeying you.”

  “I have not forgotten, though I have a most unromantical confession for you.”

  “That does not surprise me, though I hope it does not make mention of another woman.”

  Nate pulled back and looked at her directly. “No, love. There will be no other woman in our lives. Ever. I also hate to disillusion you by saying there were never as many as you thought in the first place. My reputation far outstripped the reality.” He kissed her. “No, my unromantical confession is that as much as I find you beautiful and in all ways alluring, one of your most attractive qualities is your intelligence. I fear your keen wit will best me for our entire lives. Songs will be written about clever Lady Grayson and the lackwit she married.”

  Rose laughed so hard she snorted, which made Nate laugh. Fortunately, the carriage drew to a halt as they finally arrived at the castle.

  As they got out, a cool breeze swept through the curved drive. Nate held Rose close to his side as they approached the front doors, which opened as they drew near. Westfield bowed them in.

  “Lord and Lady Grayson, may I extend the best wishes of the staff and myself.”

  “Thank you, Westfield.”

  “As per your request, I have given much of the staff the night off. You shall have your privacy.”

  A delicious shiver went up Rose’s spine as she thought about what Nate could want to do that would require that much privacy.

  She looked around the grand foyer and even though she had been there before, it was like seeing everything for the first time since this was now her home. The grand stone staircase on both sides of the hall did seem cold and a bit forbidding. There were portraits of various members of the Gage family through the years, but not one of Nate that she could see. However, one portrait at the top of the staircase did catch her eye.

  “That is a very good likeness of his grace,” said Rose about the unsmiling portrait.

  “Yes. He posed for it just two years ago. He was quite adamant that it be placed there undisturbed. Even the maids have been told not to dust it. The only people who can touch it are his grace and Westfield. If I ever get to be so full of myself when I am the duke, please cosh me over the head.”

  “Heavens, I shall not wait that long.”

  “I see we are already well into the Adventures of Rose and the Lackwit. May we continue onward with the tour?”

  Nate ushered her up two flights of stairs to a long hallway of rich wood-paneled walls. At the end of the corridor, he took her elbow.

  “Careful, love, there is a step downward here.”

  They entered one of the original wings of the castle, which was considerably colder than the rest of the building due to the stone walls.

  “This is beautiful,” she said.

  He looked at her with curiosity. “I am glad you like it, though I am certain you can already tell what I meant about it being cooler. The original ducal chamber is at the end of the corridor. It went into disuse about two hundred years ago when the addition was built. I imagine some duchess grew tired of forever being cold in her own quarters.”

  “But your parents chose to send you here?”

  “No, I chose to exile myself here. When I was a child, I lived in the nursery, which is in the new part of the house. When I was older, I had a suite in the main family wing. But as my father and I began to fight more and more, I decided I wanted the privacy of the old wing. There is something calming in the old nature of the place. That should show you what a morose young man I was.”

  Rose put her hand on his arm. “You never fooled me, Nate. I always knew there was more to you than the man who made everyone laugh.”

  “Yes, well, I can only hope you are truly not a mind reader, since I am fairly certain you would be shocked by my plans for the evening.”

  “And I am fairly certain I would be quite excited.” Rose couldn’t believe how daring she was being. She was rewarded for it when Nate pressed her against the wall and began kissing her mercilessly. “Do we not have a perfectly serviceable bedchamber just down the corridor?” she asked when he finally let her come up for air.

  “Yes, but I had to kiss you just then. I fear once we reach the bedchamber, I will get caught up in other activities, so I took advantage of the opportunity to kiss you now.”

  “Will this be a common occurrence in our marriage?”

  “Absolutely. Would you like to see our suite?”

  “I have waited a very long time to see it, so yes.”

  He opened the heavy oak door to a large room with a set of French doors to the balcony, as well as three windows which revealed the night sky. There was a large tester bed, as well as a vanity which looked to be at least one hundred years old. Rose’s trunks were inside the adjoining dressing area and a gold-inlaid wardrobe was open to show her gowns.

  “But where are your clothes?” she asked.

  “In my dressing room.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Off the old ducal chamber.”

  “This is not your bedchamber?”

  “No, and it is not yours, either, although you are perfectly welcome to store your clothes here and, I suppose, you could spend time here reading or doing needlework or whatever you wish to do, though I do not see why you couldn’t do any of that in my
presence. In fact, it would be just as good if you did not use this room at all.”

  Rose had to smile at his possessiveness. “Mayhap, you can show me the other bedchamber before you forbid me the use of this one.”

  “An excellent idea,” said Nate, as he pulled her to him for another kiss, then opened a door that led them into a sitting room.

  Rose was not given a chance to look around before he ushered them into his bedchamber, which looked to be more than twice the size of hers. It had three sets of French doors which opened onto the balcony, as well as two dressing chambers. The bed looked like it could easily sleep four people, though she didn’t wish to know if that had ever been put to the test.

  “Ahh, Rose,” said Nate, as he pulled her into his arms, “I finally have you, here and now, in the place I have dreamt of you being for so long.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nate realized he had not known the extent to which Rose would change his life until they had entered the castle. As a small boy, the place had always given him an eerie sense that not everything was as it should be. He remembered winters when his parents were in London and he had naught but the servants to look after him. Things were even worse when his parents were at the castle – though they were rarely there at the same time. The castle had always been cold to him, regardless of whether he was in the old stone corridors or the new ones.

  But as soon as he had walked into the castle with Rose on his arm, the entire place seemed to take on a warmth he had never experienced before. Even when they had stepped into the stone corridors, the walls seemed to reflect the light of the lady beside him.

  It was yet one more reason why he was glad she was there. As for the most important reason…

  Rose was still looking around the bedchamber. She seemed a bit nervous and he hoped she did not regret marrying him. He knew she had arranged it primarily to save him from his father. But he hoped at least a part of her truly wanted to be his wife.