Page 115 of The Heiress's Daughter
“A man to whom I’m betrothed,” Clarissa said calmly.
“Even so, it’s not at all respectable behavior.”
Clarissa ignored that. “Good night, Milly,” she said, and began to move away.
“Did you hear that gate squeak?” Milly said. “It’s that place where the rude men have been working. Someone must be trying to get in. Or breaking into the garden, which is worse!” She peered anxiously along the path they’d just come, then paused. She turned and stared at Race and Clarissa. “It was you, wasn’t it? You just came from there. You were in that house, weren’t you?”
Clarissa shrugged. And then a strange expression crossed her face and she half turned away from Milly and formed a kind of a hunch under her cloak. Race frowned. What the devil?
Milly went on, “Which means you must know who the new owner is. Who is it, Clarissa? Mama is desperate to know.”
Clarissa looked up at Race. He couldn’t read her expression.
“The new owner,” Race said, “is a very respectable fellow, from the north, I believe. He’s made his fortune as a very successful manufacturer of”—Milly leaned closer—“sausages, I believe. Pork sausages.”
A muffled snort came from beneath the hood of Clarissa’s cloak.
“Sausages!” Milly exclaimed in horror. “Mama will be appalled. We can’t possibly live next door to a manufacturer of anything, let alone one of sausages!”
“He also does a very fine line in pickled pigs’ trotters, I am told, though I haven’t yet tasted them myself.”
More muffled sounds came from beneath his beloved’s cloak.
“Pickled pigs’ trotters!” Milly wailed. “Mama will die! She’ll just die!”
“Oh, nothing so drastic, I’m sure,” Race said soothingly. “I believe his manufacturing practices are very clean and healthful. You could eat off his factory floor, I’m told. And she needn’t eat the pickled pigs’ trotters, after all.”
Milly stared at him. “Mama, eat pickled pigs’ trotters? You must be mad!” She turned and rushed off down the path to give Mama the appalling news.
The minute she was gone Clarissa exploded into laughter. “You, Race Randall, are a wicked, wicked man,” she said between giggles. “Pickled pigs’ trotters? I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”
“I’m fairly sure they exist.” He added, “But what I’m wondering is why you are standing in that peculiar hunched fashion. Have you hurt your back?”
“No. It’s because you didn’t do my dress up properly and it’s falling down. This is the only way I can hold it up. I was terrified that it would fall at Milly’s feet.”
Chuckling, he reached under her cloak and did up the first few hooks again. They resumed their strolling.
“Now, all we need is for Betty to have forgotten to unbolt Lady Scattergood’s back door. Or for Lady Scattergood to be wakeful in the night and gazing out of her bedchamber window,” she said. “She does that sometimes, you know. She once spotted Izzy sneaking back in from an assignation with Leo in the summerhouse. She summoned Leo to explain himself the very next morning.”
“Then I hope she’s fast asleep,” Race said. “That old lady terrifies me.”
Clarissa laughed and hugged him. “I’ll protect you. Beneath that acidic manner of hers, she’s a sweetheart. But she is quite critical of men, I admit.”
Race opened the garden gate and looked up at the house. All the windows were dark. “Check the door is unbolted,” he said, “and then one last kiss.”
Several passionate kisses later—it was simply not possible to stop at one. He didn’t want to let her go at all—Clarissa slipped inside. Race waited until he heard the bolt slide home, then he returned to the garden and watched until faint candlelight from her bedroom window showed his lady love was safe.
Ten interminable days until the wedding. It felt like an age.
Epilogue
St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London
The organ played softly. Race paced back and forth in front of the altar. Where was she? He pulled out his watch and flicked it open.
“Plenty of time. Besides, brides are always late,” Oliver, his cousin’s husband, said calmly.
Oliver was Race’s best man, and maddeningly placid about the whole thing he was, too. Race would have asked his best friend, Leo, to perform the role but Leo, as Clarissa’s legal guardian, was giving the bride away.
