Page 76 of Miss Determined
“Purvis thinks to see you married to Miss Hecate Brompton.”
“I’m sure Miss Brompton is a lovely person—we’ve stood up together a few times—but the only woman I’ll be marrying is in my arms at this very moment. If she’ll have me.”
“Is that a proposal?”
Trevor stepped back and took hold of Lissa’s hands. “That is a request from Trevor, Marquess of Tavistock, to court Miss Amaryllis DeWitt, late of Crosspatch Corners, Berkshire. If you look with favor upon my request, I will approach your mama and make a proper job of stating my intentions. Then I will swan about Mayfair, ogling your hems and looking poetical, and to blazes with Giles Purvis. I’m giving him his congé next week.”
“He’ll hate that.”
“He’d hate a cell at Newgate more, and that’s what he deserves. I chatted up Ash Dorning over tea, and he’s willing to serve in Purvis’s stead. Kettering will help with the investments, if I ask very, very nicely.”
Lissa treated herself to a more lingering kiss this time. “I don’t want to discuss investments, Trevor, and I don’t want you making any announcements or stating any intentions until your mourning month is over. Don’t give anybody any excuses to look askance at us.”
He seemed to grow taller in the stable’s gloom. “Very well, but whatdoyou want?”
“You, Trevor. No titles or last names allowed. I tried to be angry with you, I tried to convince myself that you’d played me false, I tried to rehearse all the set-downs I’d deliver to you when we met in Town. To no avail. I could not convince myself of your villainy, and the evidence was mixed at best anyway.”
“I gave you a bad scare,” Trevor said, “and you have been played false in the past. I’m sorry for that.”
“You’ve apologized enough, and you are not one of my near misses. Does this stable have a saddle room?”
“Amaryllis DeWitt, I am not making love with you in a saddle room.”
“Why not? You made love to me in a gatehouse.”
His expression, one of fierce concentration, suggested he truly had not brought her to the stable forthatkind of privacy. He had not presumed, hadn’t even planned for the contingency. Clearly, a country upbringing had been denied him.
“The summer cottage,” he said. “It sits closer to the river and just over the lip of the hill, so mostly out of sight of the house. Sycamore doesn’t keep it locked.”
“A redeeming quality,” Lissa said, taking Trevor by the hand. “How refreshing to know even Sycamore Dorning has a few.”
She wanted to bolt down the path and find this summer cottage, but two things stopped her. First, she had no idea where the summer cottage was, and second, Trevor had a firm grip on her, and he was not one to hurry what mattered.
So she strolled along at his side and vowed to make him pay for his perishing decorum, and pay dearly.
ChapterSeventeen
A very kind fate indeed had sent Trevor home to England, ready to seek a bride and even readier to take the marquessate’s affairs in hand. Amaryllis DeWitt was meant to be his best friend, lover, wife, the mother of his children, and his marchioness.
In that order.
Trevor now grasped why Jeanette had abandoned her title and standing to become a mere missus: She and Sycamore were compatible on so many levels, in so many ways, that remaining apart had been unthinkable.
Trevor strolled along hand in hand with Amaryllis, a wonderful sense of rightness pervading him. She had considered the whole business with the assumed name, gone hat shopping, put herself in Trevor’s boots, and decided to overlook the subterfuge.
He had not assumed she would come ’round—being a marchioness would daunt any woman of sense—but she had. She’d not let him down, she’d not cast him aside, and life was lovely.
“That’s the summer cottage?” Amaryllis asked as the path wound over a rise. “Lovely view of the river.”
“And yet, you miss Berkshire.”
She bundled close, though they were still within view of the house. Trevor steeled himself for the wonder and delight of an affectionate as well as passionate marriage.
“How did you know?”
He kissed her cheek and resumed walking, his arm around her shoulders. “Because I miss Berkshire. I miss Roland. He’s a fine conversationalist, by the way. I miss the calm that seems to flow along with the Twid and the stories everybody knows and tells each other again anyway. I miss the gossip competition running between the Arms and the vicarage, and I want more opportunities to argue irrigation and drainage with Phillip Heyward.”
“I do miss Phillip,” Amaryllis said. “He demands reports of our travels, as if we’re junior officers who’ve been out on reconnaissance.”
