So, she and Lana were carried up the hill path, giggling at the ridiculousness of their modes of transport. Henry had thought of the sedan chairs, she was certain. Or perhaps Lady Langlevit. Together with Lady Dinsmore, she had thrown herself into the wedding plans the moment she’d arrived home, and considering the small guest list, the combined staffs at Stanton Park, Ferndale, and Hartstone, as well as the simple ceremony, things had come together easily and quickly.
Irina turned her face up to the dense canopy, where slivers of the brilliant sunset shone between the leaves. Henry had taken her to the chapel at this same time of day and the setting sun had come through the stained-glass windows so magnificently, Irina had decided to hold the ceremony at sunset instead of the more typical late morning or early afternoon. Now, as they approached the crest of the hill, where the trees thinned and there was a clearing of grass along the hill’s ridge, her stomach twisted into knots.
She wasn’t nervous; she was ready to be Henry’s wife. The knots were pure excitement. Tonight, she would be able to fall asleep beside him, and if they chose to stay in bed for days on end, that would be their prerogative. This was the beginning of everything. Irina placed a hand on her stomach and felt lighter than air.
The footmen, huffing with exertion, lowered the poles and set the chairs on the grass just outside the small chapel. There were murmuring voices echoing off the arched beam ceilings inside, but only Gray was there to help both her and Lana to the doors. Gray escorted Lana in first before coming back to escort Irina to the altar. A maid from Hartstone stood ready with a bouquet of roses for Irina, and once she’d taken them and slipped her arm in Gray’s, the doors to the chapel opened.
A hushed silence fell over the small crowd, and as the first notes of a single violin began to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, Irina’s eyes settled on the only man she had always loved. The only man she would ever love.
Henry stood tall and straight and proper at the end of the aisle, his stance at complete odds with the expression in his eyes, a heated mix of love and desire and happiness. He saw no one but her, she was certain of it. As she walked toward him, and though the half dozen pews were filled, Irina saw no one but him.
He wore a dove gray kit with a cravat that matched the ivory of her gown, and his hair, combed into tousled waves, was lit to a golden hue by the honeyed sunlight. Jewel tones of sapphire and ruby and emerald cut through the chapel, creating a kaleidoscope of halcyon light over everything it touched.
The slowly building smile upon Henry’s lips coaxed her toward him, and when he finally reached for her hand, Irina trembled. As everyone turned to face forward again, the rustling of clothing echoed off the ceilings and the violin approached the close of the wedding march.
“My radiant countess,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m not a countess quite yet, my lord.”
His lips brushed her ear, and as though without a thought to the chapel filled with people, kept them there. “You are already my wife, Irina. In my heart, you are mine. This is just ceremony.”
He pulled back, and she met his gaze. Even as intimate as they had been a handful of times, she had not yet seen so much passion and love in his eyes as she did now.
“In my heart, you have always been mine,” she whispered as the last strains of the violin’s canon ebbed.
He tucked her arm close to his ribs and turned them to face forward, toward the vicar, though his eyes remained on her. “Always,” he repeated.
And then the ceremony began.
It wasn’t until nearly midnight when Irina and Henry managed to escape the party at Hartstone and steal a few moments alone in the dark. There were fewer than twenty people in attendance, including their families, the Duke and Duchess of Bradburne, and the Earl and Countess of Kensington, and Irina knew they’d be noticed missing, but she doubted any of them would bother to be put out about it. They were married now, and newlyweds at that. They could slip out into the garden “for air” all they pleased.
Henry held her hand, something that he had been doing ever since they’d stood at the altar, repeating the vicar’s instructed words of love and devotion and loyalty, binding themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. He’d had at least one hand on her at all times since. A palm at the small of her back or cupping her elbow, fingers threaded through hers. When they had been physically parted, Irina had always been within his sight, and those eyes had held her just as possessively as his hands had.
Now, as they breathed in the sweet, chilled air, damp with a coming rainstorm, Irina leaned against him, their arms wrapped around one another as they walked away from the French doors leading inside to the revelry.
“Is it too much to hope for that they’ll all have departed by the time we return?” Henry murmured. Irina nudged him with her shoulder, but didn’t reprimand him. She secretly wished for an empty house as well. Lady Langlevit had already retired to her rooms, and they would not see her until morning, when they set off for Cumbria. There, they would spend the remaining summer months, visiting the distillery and planning out and constructing a new obstacle course in the woods surrounding that estate. It was something Henry had wanted to do for a while, and Irina got a thrill when he’d asked for her help designing it.
She leaned more heavily against him. Ahead, at the labyrinth’s entrance, there were wide globe lamps hanging from the same kind of poles that had carried their sedan chairs up the hill. Their feet seemed to be taking them in that direction. Perhaps it was exhaustion or pure contentedness, but Irina was surprised that her heart did not constrict with fear. She hated garden mazes or anything that reminded her of the twisting path at Henry’s Cumbria estate and the terrifying day she’d been kidnapped—for the first time. But now, with him at her side and more confidence in herself and her life than ever, the mouth of the maze didn’t faze her. It made her feel a bit giddy.
“I’m only glad we don’t have a ballroom full of London society awaiting us back there,” she said, her head resting against his shoulder.
“As am I,” he said. “I can guarantee the men would all be in terrible moods.”
She glanced up at him. “Why is that?”
“Because there are no fewer than thirty men who lost two thousand pounds this day, the moment you accepted me as husband.”
Irina stopped and tugged him to a halt. “What do you mean? The betting…I thought you said you’d taken care of it?”
Henry had gone to London to post the banns for a few days and had returned saying he’d also “put an end” to the ridiculous wagers.
“And I did,” he replied, a mischievous smile touching his lips. “Wiping the ledgers clean for the marriage pot was out of the question, but raising the stakes was not. Any man could have done it, upping the entrance from two thousand pounds to whatever sum they chose. I simply made certain no one else cared to enter the pot.”
Irina gazed up at her husband, the lamplight slanting down from the globes and gilding his hair.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged lazily. “Put in five thousand pounds. Then I immediately went to my solicitor and had him draw up our contracts and post the banns.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “You entered into the pot?”
“The lady had given me every indication that she was interested,” he said, holding up his hands in mock innocence. “I truly thought I had a chance at winning.”
And he had won. The Earl of Langlevit had won the Quest for the Queen. Irina threw her head back and laughed.
“You took their money?”
“All of it,” he said with a firm nod, gathering her in his arms. “Those fools deserved nothing less. And now the Bradburne Trust will have a princely little sum deposited straight into its coffers just as you had envisioned.”
Irina pushed up onto her toes and kissed him soundly on the lips. He clutched her,
pressing her breasts and hips into him. Within the hour, she hoped, there would be no clothing between their bodies, and they would be coming together in their marriage bed. She thought of her late menses, and her lips broke from the kiss in a smile. Within a few days, she would be certain. She could not wait to tell him.
“Why, Lord Langlevit, I am shocked. I clearly remember you saying more than once that you had no interest in winning any ridiculous bets.”
He angled his head closer and took her lower lip between his teeth. He applied enough pressure to make her wilt against him then with a flick of his tongue, released it. “A man is allowed to change his mind. Especially when the prize is so very tempting.”
She feigned insult and with a dramatic gasp pulled back. “So I am a prize to you after all?”
Henry’s arms became steel and cinched her back against his chest. His eyes turned languid and serious in the golden lamplight. “You are a gift, Irina. The greatest one I have ever received.”
She reached to touch his cheek. This man. Would she ever stop being stunned that he was finally hers?
“This gift wishes to be unwrapped,” she whispered, and with a spark, his gaze turned from adoring to determined.
“Then let us bid our guests good night,” he said. “To hell with politeness.”
Henry ushered her back toward the French doors, Irina’s laughter floating up into the night sky.
Epilogue
Sweat beaded his forehead and clung to both palms as Henry paced in the upstairs corridor of Marsden Hall, his Cumbria estate. Irina had been in labor for nearly a day and a half. In the last few hours, the only people entering or leaving the inner room of the lying-in chamber were Dr. Hargrove and the birthing attendants exchanging dirty linens for clean ones. Dr. Hargrove’s expression had gone from calm to grim in the space of the last half day, suggesting that all was not proceeding as expected. Terror had gripped Henry then, fear for both his wife and his unborn child.
“The birth is imminent,” Henry had been told a quarter of an hour earlier, and as such, he’d taken to treading a hole in the thick carpet in the hallway, wanting to damage everything in his path. His deranged mood was so obvious that the servants scurrying about had started avoiding this particular hallway, taking the long way around instead.
“My lord,” a gentle voice said as a hand reached out to take hold of his sleeve. “You will make yourself ill if you continue like this.”
Henry turned to see his sister-in-law standing there with a compassionate look on her face. Lana carried linens and a fresh change of clothing in her arms. “How is she?” he asked, anguished desperation clogging his throat.
“She is doing as well as can be expected,” Lana said gently. “She is a fighter, as you know.”
His heart stuttered in his chest. “Why does she have to fight?”
Lana drew a deep breath, worry puckering her brow for a moment. She hesitated as if trying to choose her words carefully. “Some births are more challenging than others. It won’t be long now.” She hurried past him. “I know it’s difficult, but try to remain calm. It’s the best thing you can do for the both of you.”
Although Dr. Hargrove, Lady Northridge, and his own mother had insisted that such ordeals were normal, it did not help that Henry had scoured the texts in his library and had learned the staggering, nausea-inducing statistic that one in five women died in childbirth. Even Princess Charlotte had died five years before, a few hours after she’d given birth to a stillborn. She’d been in labor for over two days. That news had rocked England.
And fear of the same outcome crippled him now.
Though he knew that Irina had the best care, and that Dr. Hargrove had delivered many healthy babies, including Irina’s own sister’s, the knowledge had put a coil of fear in his chest that would not loosen. Nor was it alleviated by Irina’s more frequent cries of pain followed by the subsequent rushing of footsteps from the outer room to the inner room and back.
But Lana was right—Irina was a fighter.
Even in in the beginning throes of labor, she’d been a warrior. Hours before, pale and beautiful, she had clasped his hand tightly and told him to be ready to welcome his child. Their child.
Henry allowed himself a tiny smile. Irina had been convinced based on her women’s intuition that their baby had been conceived in Escalles. Henry wasn’t as sure, given how many times he’d kept his young wife abed after their wedding, but it wasn’t surprising that Irina had found herself with child in short order.
“We have a duty to fulfill,” she’d reminded him, when she had boldly initiated their lovemaking one morning shortly after their arrival at Marsden Hall.
He had laughed. “You are quite determined.”
“I never shy away from a challenge.”
Nor had she.
Expectant motherhood had made her even more beautiful, filling out her features and making her alight from within. Henry couldn’t keep his hands off her. And though he’d heard passion diminished for some during pregnancy, it had not for them. Henry never seemed to be able to get enough of her, and she’d been as insatiable as he, even up to recent weeks. When her belly became too rounded for certain positions, he pleasured her gently from behind, which she seemed to enjoy as much as he did.
Like him, Irina had delighted in the changes of her body, and he’d often found her walking the gardens of Marsden Hall, talking to the child growing within.
“What do you say to the baby?” he asked her once. “When you walk.”
Irina’s smile had been radiant. “I tell him or her about their wonderful father, and how much their parents will love them, and how happy we will be to meet them. I tell them that I hope they inherit their father’s eyes and his strength.”
“And what shall they inherit from you?” he’d asked, smiling back.
“My mule-headedness, I suppose.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He had kissed her indignant laughter away then. “I happen to love that about you. You never give up in any circumstance.”
Yes, his Irina was a fighter. And she was far too stubborn not to best the current challenge at hand. Henry drew a deep, calming breath and returned to the outer room where he sat and tried not to drive himself mad with irrational thoughts. He wanted to be there the minute there was any news, and regardless of the outcome, he had to be strong for Irina.
It seemed like an eternity had passed before Dr. Hargrove himself appeared.
The smile on his face immediately put Henry’s tormented heart at ease, though not entirely. He wanted to see his wife for himself.
“My lord,” the doctor said. “Would you like to come in and meet your family?”
Henry blinked at the odd choice of words, but supposed that Irina wanted to tell him herself the gender of their child. As he entered the room, his gaze immediately went to the love of his life, even as it swept over the birthing attendants holding an infant and cooing at the far side of the bed.
Henry was happy to be a father, but he was even happier to see his wife healthy and well. A few dark shadows hung beneath her eyes, and her brow still seemed somewhat pale, though her cheeks were flushed from the effort of the birth and her violet eyes were like jewels, gleaming in her face. Every part of him leaned in magnetic impulse toward her.
“Hello, my love,” he said to her, bending to kiss her forehead. “You have never looked more beautiful.”
Irina chuckled softly and turned her lips up for a proper kiss, despite the lack of privacy. He obliged with a muffled laugh. “You flatter me, my lord. I must look a fright.”
“You are beautiful,” he insisted.
She ran a hand over the stubble coating his jaw, her thumb tenderly stroking across his cheek. “Would you like to meet your sons?”
Dumbfounded, he stared at her. “Sons?”
“Twins.” Irina grinned at his express
ion as the birthing attendants brought two swaddled shapes toward them. “An heir and a spare.”
They were perfect, Henry decided as he stared down from his wife to the two tiny human beings they had created. Both boys were rosy-cheeked with peach fuzz covering their heads. One of them, a ribbon pinned to the swaddling that marked him as the firstborn, opened his mouth to emit a lusty wail, and his brother soon followed. Their cries made a fiercely protective feeling erupt in his heart. They were both already like her, Henry also decided, fighters. Warriors. And not shy about announcing their presence to the world.
Something indescribable filled him then as Henry studied his family. His family. It wasn’t only love. It was awe and pride and incandescent happiness. He’d never thought himself capable of feeling anything so profound…to be so incredibly humbled by the gifts he’d been given. Nor had he ever thought he would be deserving of anything so precious. But he had been. Because of her.
Henry stared at Irina with all the love he felt in his heart. “You never do anything in half measures, do you?”
“No,” she said, reaching for his hand and grasping it in hers, “and it seems, since this was a joint effort, neither do you, my lord.” Her brilliant smile made his heart ache. “We don’t tend to do things by the book, do we?”
“No,” Henry agreed, his chest feeling like it would burst. “And I don’t think we ever will.”
As Lady Langlevit and Lady Northridge came in to welcome the arrival of the Radcliffe twins, Henry could not help feeling a surge of intense gratitude. Seeing the teary happiness on his mother’s face as she welcomed her grandsons made his throat choke up. He watched his sister-in-law coo over how handsome her nephews were and hug her sister while weeping copious, happy tears. Even Dr. Hargrove seemed to be in jovial spirits, proclaiming he’d never delivered such robust twin boys.
But most of all, Henry watched his wife—his fearless, indomitable, lionhearted countess—feeling his body respond to every smile, to every word, to every laugh.
My Hellion, My Heart Page 34
