Page 22 of Make My Wish Come True
“I’m to go ask if there’s any more gingerbread,” she said. “The gentleman says he’s come to visit and hopes it’s not all gone.”
Gwen smiled, startled. “I’m sure Aunt Maisie has made enough for a regiment, but do go ask her to save some, Mary.”
The girl grinned shyly. “He gave me a shilling,” she whispered, showing Gwen the shiny coin. “And he gave Bobby and Sam one each, too, for watching the horse.”
“How marvelous,” exclaimed Gwen. “You must have all done a wonderful job.”
Mary gave her a wide, gap-toothed grin, and took off toward the house again.
Adrian stepped out of the stable, a bulky package in one hand. “I brought you a gift.”
Her mouth fell open. Oh no. She hadn’t expected to see him again, let alone today, let alone hear him say that he’d missed her and had been waiting his whole life to meet her. She had nothing for him.
As she stood gaping, he peeled the cloth off the object in his hands and held it out to her. Topped with a white bow, it was a beautiful peach-colored box.
A hatbox.
“I saw it in Bury St. Edmunds, when I took my sisters,” he said. “It made me think of you.” His faint smile flashed. “Everything made me think of you, but this especially.”
Gwen set down her basket and took the box. Inside was a bonnet of deep blue silk with pale green ribbon trim and a delicate white plume. “Oh,” was all she could say as irrational happiness spilled through her.
“Your bonnet was ruined, and I thought, in case your grandmother hadn’t time to get you one…” He looked down. “Happy Christmas, is what I meant to say.”
She looked at the bonnet, and at the man who had listened to every word she said, and then she put down the hatbox and flung herself back into his arms and kissed him. His arms closed around her and he lifted her off her feet, and for several minutes Gwen completely forgot that she was kissing the heir to an earl in plain view of Gran, Maisie, and all the visitors at Larkspur Cottage.
“You like it, I take it,” he murmured, his lips brushing her temple.
Gwen smiled, kissing the side of his jaw. “You remembered my favorite colors!”
His laugh rumbled in his chest. “They weren’t even my favorite thing to remember about you.” He caught her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I don’t want to remember you, darling. I want to know you.”
You do, she thought as her heart fluttered. “I don’t have anything for you…”
He squeezed her hand. “That welcome was worth more than twenty of the most fashionable bonnets Bury St. Edmunds has to offer.” Gwen gasped with laughter. Adrian grinned. “Allow me to overcome my poor first impression with your family. I’m very keen to win their approval.”
She shook her head. “Poor impression! Maisie was in a flutter, and Gran will smother you with gratitude for bringing me safely home.”
Adrian made a face. “The bare minimum a gentleman could do.”
She touched his coat, smoothing the lapel she had so recently crumpled. “No. It was extraordinary. And I told them so.”
They walked back toward the house, her arm around his this time. She had the hatbox in her free hand, and Adrian carried her basket. There would likely be no greenery at Larkspur Cottage this year, but Gwen suspected no one would miss it now.
At the cottage door, she paused. “This is going to sound mad to everyone. Are we mad?”
He stopped and faced her, wearing the same faint smile he’d worn the first time she spoke to him, only a few days and yet a lifetime ago. “Of course it’s mad. It was mad of me to offer a place in my cramped travel chariot to a woman I’d never met. It was even madder of you to accept. It was mad to ride through a storm to spend the night at a stranger’s home, and mad to agree to share a room, and mad to take a sleigh across frozen country to get home.” He extended his hand. “It’s barking mad of you to allow me to call on you at all, after I left you without apologizing.”
She clasped his hand. “It feels like the most sensible thing I’ve ever done.”
His eyes warmed. “Oh, I rather like this sort of madness. I hope you never get over it. I certainly don’t intend to.”
I think I’m in love, Gwen thought with a startled laugh. The very thing she’d thought, that first night in the Two Owls. Adrian looked at her, faintly puzzled, and she blushed and said, “It cannot be mad to seize a chance at happiness.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s far too rare and precious to risk missing out on.”
Gwen’s heart swelled. She’d been right, that night in The Two Owls. I am in love, she thought, and led him inside to join her family.
