The horrified squeals of the young ladies echoed in his ears and instinctively he gripped his true love’s hand.
“Aunt Minerva has been made a prisoner to his antics!” cried Lady Fenton. “But…Heavens! I believe he cannot know it’s Aunt Minerva.”
A huddle of something large and trembling in the far dim corner, covered by a large black cloak, was settled across a tumble of cushions; human, and to Sylvester’s discerning eye, most likely Miss Minerva Brightwell, judging by a pair of ruby slippers upon her feet that he recognised.
George Bramley continued to strut in front of her, conducting a monologue, it would appear, stopping every so often to contour his body as if to illustrate something. Something very unattractive, to Sylvester’s mind. Something suggesting the manliness of his manly appendage. And this man sought to marry his Thea?
His Thea. Every sense revolted against such an idea and, surreptitiously, he tightened his grip on her hand in the dark. Her answering squeeze warmed his heart. True, he’d forsaken her only two days since with the heat of their kiss still burning his lips, grateful for her meek acceptance that she was not a suitable wife for him if he needed greater funds to wed.
Yet she’d entirely forgiven him.
Her ability to forgive only reinforced the temporary madness that had possessed him when he’d contemplated giving up the only true and pure love he’d experienced. Thinking of that was even more powerful than making sense of the prurient scene before them in which, clearly, an innocent woman was being held hostage to the rantings of a madman.
They must act, of course, but the crunch of footsteps on gravel made them all stiffen. Approaching from the trees on the other side of the building, a barrel-shaped man dressed as a gentleman but with the bearing of a peasant marched through the door of the Oriental Pavilion and before their very eyes, whisked up the black-cloaked figure that was assuredly Minerva Brightwell and tossed her quivering body over his shoulder. George Bramley looked like an excited monkey as he hurried alongside them, out of the front doors.
“We must do something!” cried Miss Thea.
The balloon was on the far side of the building, across the lawn, and together the they dashed around the side of the Pavilion to see what was happening and arrest George Bramley’s villainy.
“That’s right! Put her into the basket!” they heard Bramley call, clapping his hands before leaping in as the balloon tugged on its moorings.
“Stop!” Lady Fenton cried, rushing forward, as the rest of the party joined in unison. But their voices were drowned out by the sudden arrival of seemingly dozens, and then hundreds, of onlookers who were suddenly streaming down the hill.
“Cut the rope!” Bramley yelled at the top of his voice just as Sylvester rushed forward and snatched the covering cloak from the prisoner…
Revealing Miss Minerva Brightwell, bound and gagged—and George Bramley’s red, shocked face.
The crowd roared at the spectacle but Sylvester had had enough. Amidst the general hilarity, catcalls and equivalent mockery, he turned and clasped Thea’s hands in his. “The Oriental Pavilion is quite deserted with all the action centred here. Will you come with me?”
“Alone?”
“Unless you’d prefer to have witnesses to what I have to ask you.”
“No witnesses, thank you. Not for that, and not for when you show me…” Her delicious lips turned up in a wicked smile.
All the tension drained out of him and he laughed, bringing up her hands to kiss her knuckles.
“Maybe, in that department, it’s best we should wait—”
She affected such a look of disappointment he wanted to hug and kiss her right there and then before indeed showing her exactly what it was she wanted him to show her.
Making a great show of pandering to her, he nodded. “Indeed, how else is Mr Bramley to win his wager?”
When she frowned slightly, he refreshed her memory. “I believe Miss Brightwell was to give birth to a bonny baby nine months after ascending in a hot air balloon.” With a gentle tug of her hand he drew her a little away, setting his footsteps for the Pavilion. “You said you wanted lots of little ones, didn’t you?”
“But you’ve not yet spoken to your man of business.”
“Whatever he says is of no account when it comes to what you want in a family, my darling.”
By the portico of the Pavilion just behind the privet hedge, he went down on one knee and took her hand, bringing it to his lips.
“It seems I have lost my desire for the larger expenses I thought were the lifeblood of excitement. No, Thea—if I can call you that now—I want nothing more than to have you for my wife, to live with you in mutual happiness and harmony and to have as many darling little ones as you wish, even if it means I have to cater to a brood as large as that belonging to our good Duke of Clarence.”
Miss Brightwell’s sigh of pleasure was audible and his own heart hitched in response.
He cleared his throat, emotion making his voice break as he murmured, quietly but with passion, “Miss Thea Brightwell, will you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?”
Tenderly she touched his face, her tearful smile answer enough until she whispered, “Nothing would make me happier…Mr Sylvester Grayling.”
He would have replied, except that a loud screeching was borne upon the air and they looked up in time to see the basket passing low across the moon, highlighting the horror on Bramley’s face as he shouted, “I’ve been tricked!”
This was followed by Miss Brightwell’s shrill response, “It is I who has been tricked! Where is Mr Granville? What have you done with him?”
Across the lawn a flurry of shouts could be heard: “A thousand pounds if you ask her to marry you, Bramley!”
“Fifteen hundred!” shouted others.
“Two thousand if she says yes!” came another cry.
Sylvester had no desire to hear more but his conscience was ready to do business when Thea cried anxiously, “We have to rescue her! Look, the basket is dropping and there’s the rope!”
And so Sylvester leapt to his feet, not because he was a hero, or had a particular desire to extricate Miss Minerva Brightwell.
Not for any reason other than that Thea made him remember what it was to be a good man. A better man. The best man he could be.
So he dashed forward when no one else was bestirring themselves and took hold of the rope which had enough slack that he was able to tie it to a tree.
And thus he became not only Thea’s hero, but also Minerva Brightwell’s, who shortly thereafter declared she would favour Thea in her will as Thea had finally done the sensible thing by choosing a husband who clearly respected Minerva Brightwell as a woman of her consequence demanded.
Chapter 22
Ten Months Later
Thea stretched out an arm and gently caressed her husband’s cheek as she opened sleepy eyes to find him watching her.
“You’ve been in a deep dream. A pleasant one, I think.” He was leaning on one elbow, gazing at her intently, as if he’d been committing her image to heart. “Young Jamie has been waiting patiently for his morning feed.”
Only then did Thea realize the infant was wailing fit to bring the house down as his nurse brought him out from the nursery. Thea had insisted on feeding the child herself, despite the disapproval of almost everyone, especially Antoinette who’d declared that Thea could not possibly have fun if she were so bonded with a creature that would make her his slave.
“I already am,” Thea had replied, “and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Now she arranged herself comfortably and cleared her throat, deciding how to phrase what was so important to her.
“Maybe we should get James a playmate, Sylvester, darling.”
Her husband’s warm hand on her thigh, exploring higher made her realize he misunderstood. Especially when he complained that she was being awfully impatient and shouldn’t she wait until she’d fed James and the nurse had taken him a
way?”
“No, I mean a little fellow he can play with in the nursery. Like a brother.”
Sylvester frowned. “Foster a child?” he asked, and though his arms were just as warm and loving, the tone of his voice made clear his antipathy to the idea.
Thea snuggled against him. He was always at his most amenable like this. “No, not foster or adopt,’ she said calmly. “Just invite a playmate to the house on occasion to keep James company.”
Gently she began to massage her darling Sylvester’s temples and immediately he closed his eyes to savour the sensation. Thea had learned the way to her husband’s heart through gentle touch and persuasion, just as she’d learned to manage the household accounts with the same care she’d learned during the lean years growing up. Sylvester had voiced his wonder on more than one occasion that three seemed to be able to live just as comfortably as one. Yet now he’d made certain economies there was far more at his disposal than he’d realised.
“But he has his cousins, George and Katherine.”
“True, but there’s one little being in particular I can’t stop thinking about.”
Sylvester chewed on his lip as he stared at his beautiful wife who looked like a madonna, bathed in the sunlight that filtered through the bedroom curtains. He traced the corner of her mouth, his smile full of tenderness. “Oh my darling, it’s that child your coachman nearly ran over the day we met, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes. Don’t you think it would be appropriate to offer him something more than the dreary existence to which he’s condemned? Clearly his mother was of good breeding and—”
“Got herself into trouble, which is what Aunt Minerva would call getting her just desserts. Can you imagine what your aunt would say to us taking in a foundling?”
“I can imagine it very well, but when have you ever taken account of anything my aunt thinks, though you’re polite enough when we visit.” She grinned. “Even if you do rile her with your constant references to letting George Bramley slip through her fingers just to make her turn puce.”
“Poor Mr Bramley. What a terrible decision to have to let her go,” he mocked. “He’d have made himself a fortune if he’d married your Aunt Minerva for she didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea. I’m glad there are no more unmarried Brightwells on whom he can have his revenge.” He chuckled and looked about to continue with the topic of Mr Bramley and his odious ways but Thea had not yet secured that for which she hungered: bringing a little happiness to a child who needed it.
“I don’t mean taking in an orphan to live with us, but just occasionally to play with James. Please, Sylvester?”
He kissed her tenderly. “You know I can’t refuse you anything, my dear. If that’s what you wish, then by all means, go and organise it.”
Thea pressed up against her wonderful husband and kissed him back with passion. “Thank you, Sylvester, darling,” she whispered. “I thought I might suggest to Aunt Minerva that we visit the Foundling Home today to do just that. She’s been wanting a girl to help with some of the things I was so useful at doing, like rubbing in her unguents and applying her smelling salts, so we’ll be able to satisfy both needs: a playmate for James and a companion for Aunt Minerva.” Thea smiled up at him, her heart warming as his expression softened even further. It was always so satisfying to persuade the man she loved of the rightness of something simply by appealing to his heart and reason. A novelty she’d never enjoyed with Aunt Minerva.
“No doubt your reference to a ‘companion’ for your Aunt Minerva really means another orphan you can somehow save from a life of drudgery.” He stroked her cheek. “You really are a diamond of the first water, my darling Thea. To think how little value I once placed on a bountiful heart, being only concerned with the bounty my prospective bride could bring me.”
If Thea had been a cat, she’d have purred with contentment. Instead she arched against him and whispered, “And to think how little I was ready to value the physical delights of the marriage bed, believing the act a burdensome means of begetting children.” She ran her hand the length of his thigh and added in a whisper, “And since we are trying for a playmate for young James, I think I’d rather fancy a little more of what we got up to last night, eh, my darling?”
THE END
Will Thea and Sylvester’s decision to foster the young foundling lad unite two star-crossed lovers in The Wedding Wager? (The Wedding Wager is Book 3, previously titled Devil’s Run).
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Rogue's Kiss (Scandalous Miss Brightwell Book 2) Page 23
