Pausing on the staircase, I watched the thrill of my success. There were white-gloved waiters from Wodehall, local village kids for the human-interest storyline, aristocratic lords Finn had bullied into attending, and enough media to make any political hopeful salivate. There were even a few PMs in attendance, thanks to Finn.
Brontë waved at me from across the room, chatting easily to lords and reporters alike. Even if she never could inherit Bracon, she had the air of one born to it.
The rest of the faces were found all over the Instagrams of the young and rich. Famous sons and grandsons of painters, photographers, actresses, and, of course, enough landed gentry to give an American hives. It was probably for the best that Mom still refused to step foot in England, although we’d FaceTimed once a week and she’d given me her blessing to do this thing.
The only thing missing was Finn.
I swished by a tall table set up for the cocktail hour and heard Lord Cooper complaining; I supposed he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“My pig would be pleased with these monstrosities,” Lord Cooper muttered, “but it is not for civilized folk.”
My eyes narrowed. Oh, his pig? Well, let’s see about that. I whistled once. The table, which had been buzzing, went quiet at the audacity of the hostess to whistle. At their silent, judgmental stares, I smiled sweetly, although my palms were starting to sweat and I really freaking hoped he’d listen to me for once.
Finally, I heard him. The beautiful clickety-clack of Boris’s hooves on imported Carrara marble floors echoed through the great hall. A few of the ladies stood and squealed, but it wasn’t like I’d summoned a mythical monster. It was only a pig, and Boris was very particular about his hygiene.
“Boris, come here boy.” I stood up and trotted the world’s most beautiful pig over to Lord Cooper, where he beelined straight for the man’s greasy fingers. “Boris works on tips. He’ll be happy to help finish your food if Horatio Nelson’s banquets are not good enough for your distinguished tastes.”
Lord Cooper leaned so far away he was practically giving the blogger next to him a lap dance. “What is that animal doing in here?”
I picked up the gold plate of food I’d spent hours slaving over with Finn. “Go on, feed him! He likes it straight from the plate. Boris has standards.”
“How dare you!” Lord Cooper railed against the Earls of Arun with a lot of bombast before storming away with his delicate wife in tow, but everyone else laughed good-naturedly.
Camera shutters clicked and phones went wild to capture the moment. I remembered to keep my head high before looping my fingers through the gemstone collar I’d recently gotten him—you know, to distinguish him from food pigs if anyone saw him out and about.
“Good boy. Go on now. Out you go.” I used a fried oyster to get Boris to follow me back outside while my guests chuckled. Lord Cooper’s stodgy, dodgy reputation preceded him.
I went to wash my hands in the kitchens and check on the first course. The chicken and sorrel soup smelled divine, but Finn wasn’t in there, either. I asked the waitstaff, but no one had seen him. I went back to the great hall and politely answered questions, the pit in my stomach gnawing deeper holes and leaving them filled with acidic worry.
Reporters from all over hummed by me, and I answered the best I could, craning my neck around them. It was hard to talk about vintage hand-painted wallpaper with a pimply podcaster when my stomach was churning. Something was wrong.
When a white-gloved waiter passed with his silver tray, I grabbed a glass of the white wine, tamping down memories of the winery tours and my first orgasm in months straight to the one only thirty minutes earlier, and downed it in a gulp.
Okay, that was better. The shaking was beginning to stop. Then, the door to the study burst open and the world turned upside down.
Stone was here.
The Duke was here.
Finn was here.
There was blood drizzling from his mouth. I gasped and jerked forward, stumbling over my dress and ridiculously strappy heels. The movement caught his attention, and when he locked eyes with me, he wore a smile that vaulted my world into the abyss. It was yet to be determined if that was a very bad or a very good thing.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?” Finn boomed into the room. Anybody who hadn’t caught his entrance now stood slack-jawed. The sudden silence made that weird, humming noise in my ears, and we all waited for him to reveal some grand announcement.
Finn made eye contact with everyone in his radius, the quiet stretching out into an uncomfortable silence with even the waiter staff not daring to move.
“I disclaim my peerage,” he thundered. “On the death of His Grace, the Duke of Bracon, the title shall pass to my sister, Lady Brontë. She will be a duchess in her own right with complete sovereignty over Wodehall.” He slammed down a sheaf of papers with a lawyerly looking seal embossed on it. “Everything is already in order.” He had another sheaf of papers that he threw into the blazing fire. They curled and blackened, smoking gray instantly.
No one moved to look at the documents. I didn’t think I could physically move. Finn was renouncing his title? My heart pounded painfully against my ribcage. I put a hand against it and felt it through my dress, hammering the same beat over and over.
He chose me. He chose me. He chose me.
Finn pointed to a camera we’d installed the day before. “Oh, and Stone? See those little black things in the corners? Say hello to the cameras. This entire event is playing across England. I hope you have fun in jail for arson, attempted murder, possession of cocaine, and whatever else I’ll find out you’ve done. It will be my pleasure to personally make sure you can never harm my family again, my family being Lady Perrinton.”
Stone blanched. He turned wildly in circles before darting to the door where no less than six people grabbed for him. I could see the headlines now—the phones of the bloggers were practically on fire from their furious tapping—but my heart felt free. No matter what they wrote about the continuing shame of the Perrinton name, Stone was done. There would be no more fights for my title, and with the dashing no-longer-a-duke by my side, Clarion would rise on dragon’s wings to fight another day.
Speaking of, Finn finally strode over to me. “Hello, Lady Perrinton,” he murmured, bending me back and kissing me soundly on the lips as cheering began. Then the world melted away as I fell into his strong embrace. I threw my arms around his neck and let him kiss me deeply. He was mine.
He pulled back, but he was smiling. Somehow, he managed to keep me from falling, even though I was about as much use as a string bikini in a snowstorm at that point. With a deep breath, he winked.
“I am in love with you, milady. Will you be my real wife?”
Epilogue
Finn
Ten months later
I couldn’t believe it’d been a year since Poppy stormed into my life. At first, it had seemed as if she might reject me, the title-less, penniless pauper I had instantly become.
Who am I kidding? I’m too charming for that.
I will always remember her giggle in the moment Boris figured out the door was open and barreled through it as Madden and Essie and the rest of my mates dragged Stone out.
He beelined for men dressed similarly to Lord Cooper, hoping to get lucky twice.
I was nicer to the Duke than he had any right to and called his driver to take him home. The rest of the party went brilliantly. Like Poppy said, apparently there’s no such thing as bad publicity. We even topped the Queen falling asleep in her carriage and carried headlines for a week.
Poppy and I were much too busy to plan the wedding for the rest of the summer, pulling together another dinner event in honor of the Perrinton ancestor who’d built the original castle after the Norman invasion, appearing on talk shows, and hanging out in recording studios for podcasts. It was all very modern and weirdly wonderful to laugh with her on the national stage. It was certainly better than getting photographed and
maimed in the media for dicking around.
It wasn’t until after the holidays that we settled on a date. It would take place at Clarion Abbey, of course. The most important thing on her list was convincing her mother to attend, which my charming, bastard self was only too happy to help her do. After a ten-minute phone call, an impromptu tarot card reading session, and a sworn affidavit that I would cut my own balls off with a rusty gardening hoe if I cheated on Poppy, her mother hopped on the plane to England.
She swept into the manor in a haze of incense, armed with enough rocks to build a wall. She scattered her “healing crystals” and burned sage, and almost smoked us all out of the place. Then she rubbed the crystals over our naked bodies while conducting Tibetan chants.
“Poppy Seed, you look happy,” she said, appraising her. “Your aura is gorgeous.”
As for me, she watched me with narrow eyes at first before declaring me “reformed royalty” after I cooked my famous shepherd’s pie for her with vegan soy crumbles and a roasted garlic cauliflower mash.
There was a minor meltdown over the date we’d chosen, but Poppy put her foot down. She insisted on getting married with the spring flowers under the May Day pole.
If her mother had been one to wear pearls, she would have clutched them. Instead, she started saged the manor again.
“It’s about creating beautiful memories where before there was only pain,” she complained, waving away the smoke.
She’s sentimental like that.
Now the day had arrived. I was big enough to admit I’d only invited my father as a jab. I owed that man nothing anymore, not even a title and certainly not my upbringing, which he’d foisted off on nannies, so it barely touched me when he sent his regrets.
When I walked outside, adjusting the cufflinks on my morning jacket, I noticed Poppy’s old gardener, Jacob, whom she’d invited personally, sitting in the back row of chairs. Now that I was an integral part of her master plan to shake up the old order, I bent low to his ear. He had his arm firmly planted around his elderly wife’s shoulder, and she looked up, a question in her eyes.
“Please,” I said, offering my arm, “Poppy would prefer you up front after so many years of familial love and service. It’s only fitting.”
Jacob watched me for a minute or so, gauging the man I was now. I remembered him from years past, when I’d run through the roses and he’d taken a switch to me, grunting as he swatted my backside, “Future duke or not, you’ll respect the flowers.”
We could probably use more of his kind.
Finally, he nodded, escorting his wife to the front.
“Take care of the land, and love will sort itself out,” he said before tucking his tails under the chair.
I clasped him on the shoulder and went to make certain for the thirtieth time that my mother’s roses were properly hanging from every corner of the manor. I wanted the entire place bursting with her presence.
As if she had smelled their sweetness, I saw her ethereal ghost drifting toward the library under a trellis of the pink petals. I moved closer, watching curiously. Her back was to me, and she was inhaling deeply.
Poppy was right—Clarion had wild magic.
A camera shuttered snapped, and then it was only Brontë watching me carefully.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I massaged my jaw, looking around her and between the vines. Just my sister. “Yes…something like that. Do you know how much you look like our mother?”
Brontë raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry. I know you never knew her, but I feel her presence, and you look so much like her. It’s a good thing.”
For once, she had no witty comeback, no scathing response, just herself. Regardless of the paparazzi continuously moving around us, I brought my cracked little sister close to me, hugging her deeply.
It only lasted for a second, but we both needed it.
“Oh, shove off,” she said with a push. “You’re crumpling my gown.” Brontë righted her flower crown with a grumpy expression but gave me a crooked half-smile. “You’re a lucky bastard.”
“I know. How is Poppy doing?”
“Not freaking out, if that’s what you’re asking.” The sound of the orchestra settling in for the ceremony drifted through to us. “You better get out there,” Brontë said. “I’ve got to get back to Simone and your bride. Your future mother-in-law was trying to stuff a shriveled llama paw down her bra when I left.”
We walked out together into the sunshine, candles and roses strewn down the aisle. She veered left to wait with Simone, and Madden met me at the end, then walked with me toward the minister.
“I’m proud of you, mate,” he said.
“I know.”
Madden gripped my elbow. “Yeah, but it’s nice to hear. I wanted to gift you a sailing honeymoon on me.”
I laughed. “We’ve got too much to do with Clarion for any honeymoons, but the gesture is not lost on me.”
“I hoped you’d say that.”
We took our places. The orchestra’s tuning stopped abruptly and they shifted into a delicate number. Poppy was here. A vise tightened around my chest the moment she stepped onto the petal-strewn aisle covered in lace and wearing her own flower crown made of Clarion wildflowers and my mother’s roses.
She was gorgeous, and everyone knew it. The crowd stopped fidgeting and got to their feet as one.
Poppy smiled radiantly next to her mother. They walked together, the sunlight glinting off the gold and champagne strands her mother had woven through her hair for the occasion.
With a kiss on the cheek, her mother handed her to me. Poppy looked elegant in her Oscar de la Renta gown, courtesy of Simone’s pull at Selfridges, but I could still imagine her curves beneath and anticipated slipping everything off as soon as possible.
I noticed her necklace: George the Dragonslayer. I brushed my fingers over it as the minister began.
“Do you mind?” she mouthed.
“I love it,” I promised.
Ten minutes later, Poppy echoed a sweet and soft, “I do,” and we kissed under a canopy of draping pink and white wisteria.
The media might have been allowed to invade the outdoor garden ceremony, but—royal-style—were not invited to the private reception held in Clarion’s grand banquet hall. It was only Poppy and me as we walked hand in hand into the gorgeously decorated hall to the cheers and wolf whistles of our friends.
Poppy had unpinned her hair to let the soft waves cascade down her back. Her soft pink lipstick accentuated her Cupid’s bow, and I wanted to suck on her lips more than I wanted a damn reception, but Poppy promised me she wanted the party, at least for a little bit. Honestly, Aphrodite should have been taking notes.
“You are delicious,” I murmured in her hair, inhaling deeply at the crown of her head.
Toasts began immediately, prompted by the clinking of champagne glasses. Madden and Brontë both gave sweet ones while Poppy’s mother sprinkled fairy dust over the crowd, which I was quite positive was glitter, but one never knew with her.
Essie, already drunk, pointed and asked, “Hey, do you think that’s meth? Think she’ll share?” so we discretely got Alistair to put him to bed in one of the upstairs rooms.
Poppy and I never strayed far from each other’s side as we waltzed around the space, alternatively dancing and making small talk with lords and ladies who were bemused at our unique situation. It was another agonizing hour until I could twirl Poppy into a dark corner and ravage her exposed skin, skimming the tops of her breasts with my tongue.
“Escape with me, my love.”
“It’s our wedding night!” she protested.
I rubbed her over her dress and watched with satisfaction as she crumpled into my arms.
“Well, maybe a few minutes,” she conceded.
She was easy like that.
Her lace train swished over the fallen leaves as we raced each other to our tree house, hand in hand. She threw open the door, dazz
led by the sheer volume of twinkly lights I’d added since my last surprise. She eyed the small ottomans burrowed within all the rugs.
I had big plans for those, very not-gentlemanly plans.
“Come here, my bride,” I ordered, untying my bowtie with one hand and reaching out for her with the other.
She smiled and twirled into me, bending to unhook my belt, but I grabbed her arm to stop her.
“Not yet.” I gazed into her hazel eyes. “I want to look at you properly first.” With a soft sweep, I pulled down the delicate lace and revealed her breasts. Her nipples were already pert. “Good girl.”
Nuzzling her breasts, I shimmied her dress down the rest of the way and rubbed soft circles over her pussy. She trembled and moaned, bracing herself on my shoulders when I slid my fingers inside and up into her warmness.
I couldn’t wait to join them inside her, but not yet. I had patience. I had everything I’d always wanted now.
Poppy whimpered at my fingers and tongue when I laid her across the ottoman, her head hanging down one side and baring all for me. She was mine, all mine.
I flicked and sucked her with abandon, my cock already steel from hearing her noises and smelling sex all over her. It was only moments before she clenched around my fingers and gasped, her nails digging into my biceps. Before she had time to come down from her heights, I unbuckled my pants and pushed into her. She responded to the friction by bucking her hips against me.
I pulled her legs over my shoulders for a better angle and drove in, keeping her close. Already chasing another high, her eyes went wide and her legs stiffened over my shoulders.
“Finn!”
That was all it took. We came together, and, hypnotized by this woman, I couldn’t tear my eyes from her as she orgasmed again. Afterward, I cradled her body and laid her in the crook of my arm.
“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” I refused to let her go, stroking her hair and stippling kisses down her spine instead.
A single tear trailed down her face, but her eyes were wildfire.
A Manor of Faking It (The Clarion Abbey Series Book 1) Page 20
