“I love you, Lawrence, and I knew I would, from that moment we spoke at that table, in this awful malcontent’s parlor,” Anne admitted with a sheepish smile. “I saw you staring at that leek soup, and I needed to know you.”
“That soup was dreadful. I certainly hope that’s not the memory of me you will carry into your old days,” Lawrence winced with playful disdain.
“We can’t control these sorts of things!” she declared in jest.
“No, but we can certainly control our future together, Anne. And I’ve made quite a decision for that future, love.”
“And what is that?” she retorted haughtily.
“Colby?” he called to the driver, who smiled as he checked on each of his horses in turn.
“Yes m’lord?” the cheery man pipped up.
“How far do you think the nearest church is from here? And do you think we might manage to rouse the priest from his slumber at this hour?” Lawrence said, as Anne’s eyes lit up in glee.
“It’s quite a ways, m’lord, and I doubt we’ll be rousing any priests,” Colby remarked. “But I doubt that’d stop you, would it?”
“You’re absolutely correct on that,” Lawrence answered, lost in Anne’s eyes, and she in his.
Epilogue
“Do you miss your father sometimes, love?”
Lord Strauss, now Viscount of Roxborough in addition to his title as duke of Amhurst, relaxed lazily upon a plush sofa in the manor he and his wife, the lovely Anne Hatley-Strauss, Viscountess of Roxborough, inherited from her dear father after he passed. He saw only a few seasons more, after Anne’s late-night wedding to the man she had so completely fallen in love with; but, Anne knew that her ailing father had lived those seasons in bliss, seeing his daughter so full of life - and most importantly, seeing her truly free.
“What has you thinking about him, darling?” the viscountess queried with a tilted head and a warm smile as she lounged against him; the study, where Anne had spent so many nights of her childhood sneaking about and reading father’s library of books, bathed in a calm and cozy, flickering fire, dancing in the fireplace. “Have you got the estate’s affairs on the mind again, as you so often do?”
“No, love, it’s not that,” Lord Strauss responded, eyes idly tracing the flames as their glow flickered across the mantle.
“Is something troubling you, love?” Anne asked, concern streaking creases along her face.
“I... I suppose, perhaps,” he declared, lifting her gently from him as he stood, paced towards the fireplace. “For a long time, I struggled to find myself, love. I suffered to see my own place among the vultures and the womanizers. I thought I would never find a soul that resonated with mine so well. And I was certain that when I did, I would do to her what my father did to the woman he had loved - I would destroy her, and destroy myself with her, just as my father did,” the duke mused.
“I trusted you. My heart did, and it has led me to the right place, I’m sure of it,” Anne chimed warmly. “You need not carry those doubts with you anymore.”
“I’ve no doubt in me about my fate, anymore,” the duke dispelled any such thoughts. “You trust in me - and your judgment is clearly far better than my own, what with your talent for managing... well, this entire bloody estate,” Lawrence laughed. “But your father... I was given something dear to him. Not just wealth, or estates, or names and titles - he spoke to me intimately that he wanted to give me something far dearer to him, something that he knew was not his to give, but which he hoped he could see happen. He gave me you,” Lawrence said, dithering as he stared at the fire.
“My father did not give me to you - I found you all on my own,” Anne wryly returned. “Though I know he took a liking to you... and he was right to. No other noble would love me the way you have.”
“I’ve never been a husband... we never train to be husbands. I know women take endless, drab courses on the proper way to be a ‘wife’, but men... we never know if we’re good husbands. And I don’t know if I’ll live up to what your father expected. If I’ll be everything he wanted me to be, for you,” Lawrence mused.
“My love...” Anne’s voice trailed as she sighed pleasantly. She rose from the couch, stepping slowly to the fireside. The flames licked and kicked along the stones and wrought-iron of the fireplace, illuminating the Lady Roxborough - the orange glow cascaded over her form, illuminating the seven-months-pregnant waist of the excitedly expecting young woman. She looked into his eyes, and he into hers, and somehow, she knew that no matter what words they exchanged, or didn’t exchange, they’d always find the answers together.
“My sister would be proud of you. I wish you could have met her. Perhaps one day, you - and our child - will,” he sighed, full of mirth.
“I’m sure she would be proud of you. And so would my father,” Anne responded happily. They embraced, their lips meeting, and it felt as good as it had the very first time they kissed; in fact, it got better every day.
“As long as we have love,” Anne sighed. “We’ll be the best husband, and the best wife, and viscount and viscountess, in all of England.”
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Denying The Duke
By Virginia Vice
Chapter One
Lady Amelia stood poised in front of the mirror and looked at herself critically. It didn’t matter that her curls had been pinned by the expert hands of her maid and that her gown was made of the finest pale, yellow-sprigged muslin. The bright color helped, but did not completely hide, the dark circles caused by reading late into the night. Her shoulders were hidden by a fashionable pelisse with enough ribbons to make it frivolous and hopefully convey that the wearer was by extension a cheerful and slightly vacuous person. Dressing as the sweet, silly daughter was one of her hardest roles, but she tried hard to keep her father’s spirits up.