“Touché,” Damon murmured. “And how long will this contemplation take, my Lady Silence?”
Katy considered the matter with care. “Until after Drucilla’s confinement,” she announced. “If you are Moretaine, it is quite possible you will not care to marry the granddaughter of a wool merchant.”
The colonel’s lips twitched. “I daresay the Earl of Moretaine can bear to be connected to the Duke of Carewe and the Marquess of Montsale.”
“Beast!”
“And just think what I could do with sixty thousand pounds,” the colonel offered.
Katy launched herself at him, fists pounding on his chest, only to caught up in an all-encompassing embrace. “Minx!” he chided softly, when he finally raised his lips from hers. “Come back to me, Katy, else I am lost, for I love you à corps perdu.”
“I should not say so,” Katy confessed, biting her lower lip and peeping up at him with a decided sparkle in her green eyes, “but I have loved you since the moment I first saw you, staggering down the stairs of Farr Park.”
And if Clover Stiles had not arrived at the moment to chivy Katy into dressing for dinner, everything Clover’s active imagination had been conjuring while waiting in the corridor might well have come to pass.
~ * ~
Epilogue
When Drucilla, Countess of Moretaine, was delivered of a girl, it is said her shriek of rage could be heard all the way to Bath. The news was imparted to the former Katy Snow by a letter from the dowager countess. Her fingers shook as she opened it. Her Grandmother Alburton, even her uncle and his wife, looked at her in concern as their dear Lucinda’s face clearly expressed her dismay.
“It is a boy then?” Emily Alburton inquired.
“A girl.”
“And you are not pleased?”
“I . . .” Lucinda smiled. Tightly. “Of course I am pleased. Colonel Farr will make a splendid earl.
“You do not want to be a countess?” asked Margaret, her sixteen-year-old cousin.
“The col—the earl and his mother may not think the match suitable.”
“Nonsense,” declared Jonathan Alburton in his customary hearty and decisive manner. “I daresay those are his wheels I hear upon the drive.”
“Do not tease, papa. That is unkind,” chided the young Miss Alburton.
But the astute son of Matthias Alburton, the wool merchant, was not mistaken. The thud of four matched horses upon the drive was soon quite apparent to all. By the time the new Earl of Moretaine had pulled up his horses before the Alburton’s gracious manor house, Katy was flying down the steps. The curricle’s thin metal boost that had seemed so high in February flew beneath her feet as she launched herself into the air. “See,” she breathed as Damon hugged her tight, “I am naught but a vulgar hoyden, just as you have always said. Are you sure, sure, sure?”
An accomplished whip, the Earl of Moretaine seemed to have no trouble juggling his reins and his darling waif, enabling him to deliver a most satisfactory kiss.
“Bring a special license, did you?” drawled Jonathan Alburton, who had joined them in the drive, along with all but the youngest members of the Alburton family. “Doesn’t look as if you can wait for the banns to be called.”
The earl lifted his head long enough to say, “In my pocket,” before returning to gaze at his beloved Lady Silence with all the besotted fervor of a man who has finally admitted the power of love. “I promise,” he said, looking directly into her questioning green eyes, “I solemnly promise I will not forget you are my partner as well as my love. Will you have me, Katy? Now and forever?”
“Now and forever.” Miss Lucinda Challenor demonstrated her willingness by shamelessly repeating their embrace as well as his words.
From a window, far above, a cheer rang out, as young Jeremy Alburton, age eight, expressed his approval. Cousin Lucy had nabbed an earl. Hip, hip, hooray!
~ * * * ~
About the Author
Although Blair Bancroft is best known as the author of numerous Regency novels, she has also been published in romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and young adult medieval. Under her alter ego, Daryn Parke, she is the author of a mystery set at the Ringling Museum complex in Sarasota, Florida. For more details, please see her websites at www.blairbancroft.com and www.darynparke.com. She also invites you to visit her blog at http://mosaicmoments.blogspot.com.
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