Page 71 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
He shook his head.
“Because you are my everything, earnest and bright. You are all the colors of my sea and earth and sky. Even the spectrum of heaven. I love you, Clive Davenport. I love you. And if you will have me as your wife, I will rejoice in the thousands of ways you have filled my world with the hues of tenderness and sweet regard.”
Tears dotted his blond lashes. “I will have you, my darling. I will have you for the rest of our lives. Never to part. What say you to a wedding next week?”
She slanted two fingers across his handsome lips. “In Richmond.”
He curled her close. “You want to live there?”
“When I saw it months ago, a crisp winter sun gilding the white stones, I told myself I could find happiness in its walls. Then I asked in town whose house that was, and to my delight they described the man whom I’d glimpsed and admired his form, his stance, his mien. I caught your title, but then moved it to the back of my mind. I never thought to meet you. Nor have you. Never thought you might care for me, too. So, yes, I would like to be married in your Richmond house and live in it whenever you wish.”
“Wherever you wish to be, there I am also, my darling.”
*
Two days later,they stood at the front door of Lady Tracy’s home, their luggage loaded in Clive’s traveling coach, which he’d had sent from London for their journey to Richmond.
“You have been so gracious to us,” Giselle told the young widow.
“We can never thank you enough, my lady.” Clive shook hands with Halsey’s cousin. “You will come to our wedding, I do hope.”
“I would not miss it. Nor would Reggie.” Lady Tracy hugged her son close to her side.
Giselle bent to the little boy who had so eagerly come to her room each afternoon this past week and read her his favorite stories. All of them were the English translations of the fabulist La Fontaine’s stories for children. Reggie would read in English and Giselle would sit, entranced that this young boy of eight did her such a service.
At one point reading “Le Loup et la Cigogne,” or “The Wolf and the Crane,” Reggie had wondered what the original book would look like with pictures. Giselle, remembering with fondness her mother reading the same story to her, asked him to get her a paper and pencil. She recreated for him the illustration she recalled in the little, well-thumbed book in her family’s chateau library. Reggie had wished to trace her drawing, and Giselle, surprised and pleased by his interest, had helped him.
Afterward, the little boy had pressed his drawing to his chest and said, in imitation of the moral of that story, “I shall always thank those well who do a kind service for me.”
She had hugged him to her, telling him she wanted him to come to her wedding to Lord Carlisle, and read stories to a new little friend, Annabelle.
Now he stood beside his mother, his little lips pressed together as a tear slid down his charming cheek.
“I will see you very soon, Reggie.”
“We will read more stories, madame?”
“We will, over and over.”
“Will you teach me how to draw the other animals in Monsieur la Fontaine’s fables?”
“I certainly will. We will encourage Annabelle to join us.”
He stood taller with that idea. “We three can write a book and draw the illustrations together!”
“A fine idea, Reggie. I am eager for your visit.” And what she told him was to encourage him, but also to see herself as a tutor of those who wished to learn how to draw.
The young boy kissed her on the cheek. “Au revoir, madame.”
She ruffled his hair. “Au revoir, monsieur.”
*
Minutes later inthe carriage, she snuggled closer into Clive’s sure embrace and allowed herself to shed the tears she had contained at their departure.
He dug out a handkerchief and dabbed at her cheeks. “Reggie has a good point, you know.”
She sniffed and smiled up at him. “I think so, too. It’s a refreshing idea. I welcome the prospect. I certainly need to buy all new pencils and chalk. Watercolors and oils and brushes and… I do rattle on.”
