Page 68 of Her Beautiful Bastard
“Well, Sinclair … I can confess you’ve caught me off guard,” he said with a little laugh. “Here I’ve been thinking I would take you to task for taking advantage of my sister, and you come in here and say such wonderful things about her. I hardly know what to say to that.”
“Say you’ll give us your blessing to wed,” Sinclair replied. “It is what I want, and it is what Lydia wants. Too many things have stood between us up until now. We just want to be together.”
Michael took another sip of his whisky, then smiled. “Amelia and I had a less than conventional beginning, so I can hardly begrudge you that. The circumstances aside, I can see that you truly do care for my sister. So, I will give you my blessing to wed her and help smooth the way with my mother … if you give me something in return.”
The tension in Sinclair’s spine eased a bit, and he released a little sigh of relief. “If it’s within my power, you can have it.”
Michael’s expression grew serious again as he sat up straight, leveling Sinclair with a meaningful glance. “Nine months.”
Sinclair frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“I want you and Lydia to wait nine months before you marry. Hear me out,” he said quickly, when Sinclair opened his mouth to protest. “I assume you intend to reside primarily in Hertfordshire with Lydia, at Buckton?”
Sinclair nodded, wondering what Michael could be getting at. “Of course.”
“As I thought,” Michael replied. “You would take Lydia back to Buckton now and wed her, three short months after your wife’s death, after Lydia has lived in your home as a governess for several months before that. Do you not see how this could pose a problem for you both?”
Sinclair’s heart sank as he considered this. He hadn’t thought of how things might appear to anyone else. He’d been so determined to make Lydia his, to end both their torment.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said, bringing his fingers up to one pulsating temple.
Nine months without Lydia? He had already gone so long deprived of her, and was not certain he could survive another nine long months. He would have been away from her for an entire year by then.
“You should come to visit her whenever you can,” Michael went on. “She ought to remain here, so that a time of separation can offer her a bit of respectability. If rumors have begun circulating about the two of you, the time apart will help to squelch them. I will not keep you from her. Come as often as you wish. You will be welcomed here at Oakmoor, where we have dozens of guest chambers you may use—some of which may or may not be situated near Lydia’s room.”
Sinclair chuckled at Michael’s meaningful glance, then nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Though, I can tell you, Lydia will not be pleased with being made to wait.”
Michael snorted. “You leave her to me. So long as you honor my request, and she does not turn up pregnant before the wedding, you have my most ardent blessing.”
Rising to his feet, Michael set his glass aside and offered Sinclair his hand once more. “Do we have an agreement?”
Sinclair stood, as well, accepting Michael’s hand with a nod. “We do. Thank you for hearing me out.”
“I was willing to give you a chance simply because Lydia loved you. Now, I feel confident in my decision based off our conversation. May I be the first to welcome you to our family? We are loud, and our numbers are high, but there’s always room for one more.”
Sinclair couldn’t help another smile at that as Michael took his shoulder and guided him toward the door, declaring it was time to join the rest of the family.
Family.It had always been the most uncertain part of his life. He’d lost his mother, only to learn his father had decided to take him in. Even then, his father’s true family had shunned him, his half-siblings following their mother’s lead in treating him as an outsider. The Strattons had been the closest thing he’d ever had to a family, and Drucilla had tainted that for him over the years. Henry was all he’d had, and had been enough for him thus far.
But, as he entered the drawing room to find the Darling brood with Lydia sitting in their midst, he realized that that part of his life had just come to an end. Lydia rose from where she’d sat on the floor playing with children he assumed to be her nieces and nephews and came to him, gaze searching, expectant. Grasping her shoulders, he kissed her cheek.
“Well?” she prodded.
“Nine months,” he told her, his voice low so the others could not overhear. “Michael has asked we wait that long to wed, and we have his blessing.”
She started as if he’d struck her, indignation rising swiftly in her expression. “Nine months?”
He kissed her on the lips this time, chastely—the most he dared to do with Lydia’s mother looking on from the corner of the room. “It will help keep the gossip to a minimum over the swiftness of our union. When I bring you to Buckton as my wife, I would hate for our neighbors to shun you, spreading gossip over things they know nothing about. It will be better this way, you’ll see.”
Lydia sighed, seeming to relent, though she still did not look pleased. “I suppose you are right. But, nine months is such a long time when it feels as if we’ve already been kept apart so long.”
Giving her a little smile, he stroked her cheek. “I feel as if I’ve been waiting for you my entire life. What is nine months in comparison to that? Besides, we will not be kept apart. I would never allow anything to keep me from you. We will be together, and it will be forever.”
Lydia returned his smile, the last of her reticence melting away. “Have I told you how much I love you?”
He chuckled. “Yes, but I’ll never grow tired of hearing it. Now, your family is starting to stare. Perhaps you might introduce me?”
“Oh!”
