“My lady, are you sure this is what you want?” Determined to bring her to some understanding of his own inadequacy, he stood up and spread his empty hands. “I can’t give you any of the things you’re accustomed to.”
“I’ve had ‘things’ in abundance, John,” she said with a trace of the old bitterness. “In general, I find them vastly overrated.”
“I have nothing to offer you,” he insisted.
“Nothing except yourself, perhaps, but that is all I want.”
How in the world, he wondered, was one to remain noble and self-sacrificing with such a woman? “My lady—” He shook his head in bewilderment. “What did I ever do, to deserve that you should love me?”
“It isn’t what you did, John, it’s what you are.”
“A pickpocket and a thief?” he asked ruefully.
She smiled tenderly at him. “Among other things.”
“You may feel that way now, but sooner or later you will regret the loss of your friends, your place in Society. If I believed you could really be happy with me—”
“When I was first married to Frederick,” she said with great deliberation, “if anyone had asked me, I would have sworn we would be blissfully happy for the rest of our lives. You know how that turned out. I am older and wiser now, and I know there are no guarantees. I cannot promise you that I will always be happy, that I will never know a moment’s regret. But if the past few months have taught me anything—indeed, the past week alone would have been sufficient to inform me, had I not already made the discovery!—if there is one thing of which I am absolutely certain, it is that I should be utterly miserable without you.”
It was an unanswerable argument, for he had endured those same months of misery. There was one more question he had to ask, however, one detail from the dream that had been no dream, which in the harsh light of day seemed even more unbelievable than all the rest. “My lady, did you really keep a lock of my hair in your—in your—” He made a vague gesture in the direction of her bosom.
She stood and laid her hand on his chest. “I kept a lock of your hair against my heart, John. As I told you last night, I was afraid it might be all I would have left of you.”
The world might have run mad, but this, at least, he knew how to answer. With the relieved sigh of one abandoning an unequal struggle, he took her in his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly, and suddenly the idea of a marriage between them seemed not only possible, but the most natural thing in the world. At the conclusion of this pleasant exercise, he lifted his head and straightened himself to his full height.
“ ‘Delightfully,’ you said?” A smug little smile played about his mouth.
“With practice,” she reminded him. Confidence was one thing, but it would not do to let him grow complacent too soon.
“I see.” He stroked his chin, considering this implied criticism. “And does her ladyship have any suggestions as to where I am to get this practice?”
She smiled archly up at him. “Her ladyship does not, but Mrs. Pickett is just full of ideas.”
“In that case,” he said, bowing deeply from the waist and offering his arm, “Mrs. Pickett, will you do me the honor?”
“Why, Mr. Pickett, I thought you would never ask!”
She laid her hand on his arm with great ceremony, and together they entered the tiny bedroom and shut the door.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane really did burn down on the night of February 24, 1809. The cause of the fire was never discovered, but from the incident we get the charming account of Richard Brimsley Sheridan—playwright, Member of Parliament, and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre—watching the blaze from a nearby coffeehouse. When urged by his friends to go home, he is reported to have said, “Can a man not enjoy a glass of wine by his own fireside?”
While researching the fire for this book, I made a most unwelcome discovery: the theatre was completely empty at the time. Few performances were staged during Lent, and no play, not even a rehearsal, had taken place on that particular night. Now, I’m sure this must have been very good news for all the people who would normally have been in the theatre and thus at risk, but it makes for dull fiction. So, for the purposes of this story, I took it upon myself to fill the theatre to capacity and mount a production of Handel’s oratorio Esther. Aside from the fact that this particular piece was frequently performed during the Lenten season, the romantic duet between Esther and the king made it an easy choice.
And now, I have a confession to make. When I first began writing this series, I assumed it would end once the romantic relationship between John Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst was resolved. But now, having reached that point, I decided a marriage as unequal as theirs deserved to be explored further. By the time you read these words, I will have completed the sixth book in the series, titled For Deader or Worse, in which Pickett faces his greatest challenge yet: meeting his in-laws.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sheri Cobb South is the award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including five titles in the John Pickett mystery series as well as several Regency romances, among them the critically acclaimed The Weaver Takes a Wife. A native and longtime resident of Alabama, Sheri recently moved to Loveland, Colorado, with her husband, and now has a stunning view of Long’s Peak from her office window. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, doing needlework, and singing in her church choir. She is also a sucker for old movie musicals and BBC costume dramas. Sheri loves to hear from readers, and invites them to email her at [email protected], “Like” her author page on Facebook, and/or visit her website at www.shericobbsouth.com.
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