The Earl's Marriage Bargain (Liberated Ladies)

is not besotted by her looks. She needs someone older, I think, someone who does not need her money and who admires her looks, but who has the strength of character to manage her moods and fancies. Perhaps, once she is out of mourning, she will find a beau,’ she said hopefully.

‘She can find him with my blessing and without our help,’ Ivo said firmly. ‘She is safe and you, my darling Jane, are in imminent peril of being ravished in a moving carriage.’

‘Is that...possible?’

Ivo’s lips were on the swell of her breasts, her bodice was surprisingly loose and his tongue was finding its way under the edge. It was difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Then the tip of his tongue found the aureole of her right nipple and she squeaked, forgot the question and concentrated in getting as much inconvenient clothing out of his way as she could.

* * *

‘Perfectly possible.’ To his own ears Ivo sounded as breathless as Jane was. ‘I have never tried it and I do not intend doing so now, but I am powerfully tempted.’ He caught her up more securely in his arms, sat back and looked at her in the shadows of the carriage as she sat, bare from the waist up, hair coming loose around her shoulders. Even in the gloom he could tell she was blushing, but she trusted him, loved him. The thought almost brought him to his knees because heaven knew what he had done to deserve her.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said, meaning it. ‘Beautiful inside and out. And we are going to get you back into that gown, somehow, because the first time I lie with you, my love, I want us to have all the time in the world and every candle alight so I can see you properly.’

The effort to find buttons and tapes and hairpins resulted in laughter and teasing, for which he was truly grateful because, for Jane, nothing but the best was ever going to be good enough and he had never found his self-control so shaken.

At her cousin’s house he took her up the steps and saw her in, pressed one last, lingering kiss on her hand. Then he turned to walk to the Merton town house for the night, the last time, he told himself, that he would ever walk away from his true love again.

18th October—Merton Tower

‘You look wonderful,’ said Verity, Duchess of Aylsham, as she tweaked the veil held in place by the wonderful Merton tiara.

‘I feel wonderful,’ Jane confessed. ‘I actually look...pretty?’ Through the gauze her image in the mirror was a little blurred.

‘No, you are not pretty,’ Melissa said, frowning at her. ‘You will never be pretty.’ There was a sharp intake of breath from her other two friends, Lucy and Prue. ‘You are beautiful,’ Melissa concluded.

‘That is love,’ Jane said as she took up her bouquet. ‘Come along, I cannot wait another moment to be married.’

It took more than a few moments, swishing along the corridors, down the great staircase where Mama was waiting, handkerchief in hand, to tweak and fuss.

Jem, newly promoted hall boy, was standing to attention in his smart new uniform, a big grin on his face as she passed him. Then they had reached the chapel door and poor Papa, who was white with nerves as Mama hurried past him to take her place.

There was a swell of music, the rustle of silks and broadcloth as the congregation rose to their feet and ahead of her, beyond the pools of coloured light cast by the stained-glass windows, was Ivo. He was looking at her and even at this distance she knew the expression in his eyes, the tenderness of his smile. He held out his hand and Jane, not waiting to take her father’s arm, went straight down the aisle to her love.

Ivo took her hand as she reached him, raised it to his lips. ‘At last,’ he said.

‘For ever,’ Jane whispered back.

* * *