Page 65 of Miss Whittier Makes a List
“I have paid them a ridiculous sum of money to reain behind and wait for the coach I was following you in to change horses,”he explained, sounding perfectly reasonable.“They were a bit disagreeable at first, even with all that money, until I told them it was a matter of the heart.”He took her hand and twined his fingers through hers, pulling her back down beside him.“Americans are so absurd.”
Hannah rose in stupefied silence, looking down once to make sure that it was Daniel Spark’s hand she held, and that her wits had not finally wandered away for good.“It’s your hand,”she mumbled.“I’d recognize it anywhere.”
“Well, yes. It’s attached eventually to a shoulder that reallycries out to be leaned upon. Ah,excellent, my dear. Actually, if you don’t mind too much impertinence so soon afterlunch, I would rather put my armaround you. I seem to recall that you fit so well there. Better and better.”
It required no great strength of will to slip her arm around behind him, and he smiled as she patted him to make sure he was real.“It’s really me. Hannah.”he insisted.“If you have any doubts ....”He kissed her then, pulling her onto his lap as the coach rolled along through some ofVirginia’s prettiest unappreciated scenery. One kiss led to another,and another, until she was rosy with whisker burn. He stopped finally to rub his chin.“I’ve been traveling some pretty terrible roads to catch up with you,”he said.“That last inn ran out of hot water before I could even lather up.”He touched her red cheek.“You should have told me I was hurting”He grinned.“If I was.”
She did not waste time with words, but kissed him instead until he was breathless and breathing hard. Then she held herself off from him and gently touched his face with the back of her hand. Thelittlegesture sent tears to his eyes.“I am not going to disappear, Hannah,”he managed finally.
“Thee did before,”she reminded him as she arranged herself more comfortably on his lap.
“I was a damned fool,”he replied, placing his hand possessively on her hip.“Your mother pointed that out to me in her letter.”
“Her letter ....”Hannah began. Her eyes widened.“My mother wrote thee a letter?”
“Well, to be more specific, she sent copies of the sameletterto the Blockade Fleet, the Admiralty House, my brother’s estate in Kent,my home in Dorset, Mama’s town house in London, and one to the Prince Regent for good measure,”he said, and grinned at the startled expression she knew was on her own face. He hugged her close.“I wonder...I must ask her someday if she sent one to Napoleon, on the odd chance that I was languishing in one of his prisons awaiting execution.”
“Did you keep a copy?”Hannah asked.
“I havethe one from the BlockadeFleet.”Hetugged off her bonnet and tossed it across the coach.“It’s such a hindrance to fine kissing, Hannah. I have it on good authority that the other letters are on their way to becoming collectors’items. Lord”
She took in that piece of news and allowed him to lean forward and rest his head against her breasts.“Hannah, she told me plainly that if I wanted tobe noble and self-sacrificing, I was to do it with someone else’s daughter.”
“Mama wouldn’t say boo to a goose,”Hannah marveled, unbuttoning her pelisseso the buttons would not dig into his face as he rested against her.
“Well, she did, and so did your father, when I met them inNantucketa month ago!”he said.
“You didn’t!”
“I did!How do youthink I knew where you were?”
“Was I hard to find?”
He kissed her.“You would ask such a question of the man who raised theAzoresin a fog bank from the deck of a sinking ship? Of course, I did have to stop inWashington.”He winced at the memory.“I would blush tocallit a capital city, but Lord Erskine, our ambassador, assures me that it will improve. Hannah, those pigs in the streetsreally must go.”
“Washington?”she asked. The mail coach was getting so warm that she removed her pelisse entirely.
“Yes, my love. Which reminds me....”He set her careully off his lap and rapped on the side of the coach again. It rolled to a stop and he opened the door.“Sir, perhaps you wouldturnthis vehicle back to theDistrict of Columbia?”
Inanother momentthey had started back up the road they had just traveled.“Lord Erskine assured me that he could take care of any legalities concerned with ourmarriage, and I have a notarized letter in my pocket from your father, giving his consent to our nuptials. I think all that remains is for us to collect the documents from Lord Erskine this afternoon and present our bodies before some magistrate and say‘Yes,’or‘Hell, yes,’or maybe‘It’s high time.’”
“Daniel, I love thee,”she said softly.
“I know, my love, I know,”he whispered as he pulled her close again.“My feelings are precisely as I expressed in that letter. I still love you too much to marry you, but it seems the entire British navy, my regent, and my relatives will flog me around the fleet if I cannot come up to scratch and do my duty.”
“Not to mention my mother,”she added. Her hands trembled as she cupped them about his face and looked deep into his eyes.“I know exactly what I am getting into. I can wait inDorsetfor the war to end, but when it does, thee must promise me to leave the sea for good.”
“Done, madam,”he said and turned his face to seal the promise with a kiss in each palm.“After we return toDorset, it’s back to the blockade for me. We’re in for some rough years yet ....”
She put her finger to his lips and shook her head.“They will be years thee will look back on with great joy, my love. I can make that happen for thee, and thee for me.”
“Done again, madam,”he said as tears shone on his cheeks.“Promiseme one thing, though.”
“Yes?”she asked as she wiped his face with her sleeve.
“No more lists, my love. Well, nothing beyond shopping lists for trips into the village, or perhaps Christmas presents.”
Her arms were around his neck then, her lips against his.“Thee won’t mind if I write over and over,‘Hannah loves Daniel’?”
