Page 107 of Desperate Proposals
For she was laughing, truly and in earnest, in tumbles and crescendos, each peal coming quick on the heels of the last. Now this, this she enjoyed. She’d never imagined that laughing would be such a deeply physical sensation, but here it was. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d laughed like that. Sometime in her childhood, most likely. Her eyes watered, and she reached within her cloak to produce a neat linen square, embroidered with her initials, E.H.
“I fail to find any humor in petty theft, sir,” the conductor muttered from behind his stern mustache.
Evelyn ignored him, her eyes fixed upon her wonderful, kind, handsome husband who loved her.
“It’s just that I changed my mind, is all,” Evelyn said to Marcus, her voice shaking with mirth. “At the last minute. And I mean to accompany you.”
Something lit in his eyes, something tentative but hopeful. He reached for her hand, pulled her closer.
“But you’ve not a thing—Christ, Evelyn, you’re in a morning dress!”
Marcus reached up to remove her spectacles, then produced a handkerchief of his own, wiping the lenses without looking. His sincere blue eyes remained upon her, and only her, as if they were not the center of attention of everyone in the carriage.
“It does not matter,” she said with a grin. “The London house is practically inhabitable anyway, it is so lacking in comfort, that I daresay I shall not notice.”
After a moment Marcus laughed too, then pulled her against him, placing her spectacles back upon her face with a slow, tender gesture.
“Evelyn Hartley,” he murmured, eyes upon her mouth. “I find myself completely lost to you. I don’t think you even fathom how much I love you.”
She tightened her grip on his coat sleeves, angling her head toward him.
“Of course I do,” she said, her heartbeat at a full gallop. “For I love you as well.”
She slid her hands up his arms, over his shoulders, and cupped his strong jaw.
“Quite fiercely,” she whispered, the heat flaming in her cheeks.
Marcus smiled.
She pulled his face down to hers. And she kissed him like a woman who’d only just discovered the depths and intensity of her own heart.
For she was.
Behind them, the conductor cleared his throat.
Evelyn paid him no mind.
Epilogue
Knockton, Lancashire, March 1874
The weather was fair,though the turnout middling on account of the prior evening’s storm, as the ground was still terribly soggy and the village green enveloped in a rolling mist. The festive bunting drooped under the moisture in the air, and there were tents pitched about the muddy green, making it look far more like an army encampment than a celebration.
But Marcus refused to let it dampen his spirits.
“Don’t you reckon she ought to have held off on the celebration until the weather was more… cooperative?” Dr. Collier asked from underneath his umbrella.
“Cooperative? Last night it rained pikels with the tines pointed downward, man,” Marcus chuckled. Unlike Dr. Collier, he’d eschewed an umbrella. “This is a fine spring day, all that considered.”
Dr. Collier squinted. “Pikels?”
“Pitchforks,” Marcus replied breezily. “An old Lancashire phrasing.”
“Ah,” the doctor replied, clearly dubious.
“Mr. Davies!” Marcus called out to the old farmer walking past. “Excellent to see you again. Have you received your badge?”
Marcus pointed to the colorful scrap of metal he’d pinned upon his hatband.Knockton Monumental Goat Willow Quadricentennial, it read, altogether too many letters to fit on something only slightly larger than a halfpenny. Marcus had suggested an image of the tree with1474–1874below it, but Evelyn had bristled at the idea, deeming it too abstract. Marcus, of course, paid for the badges all the same.
