The Nightingale Legacy (Legacy 2)

North took the box from him and opened it. “Letters,” he said. “There are at least half a dozen letters here.” He pulled one out and spread out the single piece of paper. “Bloody hell,” he said, “you’ll not believe this one.” North cursed some more, stopped himself from stamping his booted feet on the floor in sheer frustration and disappointment.

Flash took the letter, read it, and sighed deeply. “Well, that more or less lets our boy off the hook, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” North said. “Damnation, it shows he was in London for those days surrounding Eleanor Penrose’s death, if this letter is to be believed, which I suppose it must.”

“He was such a meaty suspect,” Flash said. “I had pinned such hopes on him.”

“Where do we go from here, my lord?”

“Home to bed, Flash. I’m gett

ing married tomorrow.”

20

BISHOP HORTON FROM Truro married Frederic North Nightingale, Baron Penrith and Viscount Chilton, to Miss Caroline Aiden Handerson Derwent-Jones, spinster, the following morning at precisely ten o’clock in the drawing room of Mount Hawke in a ceremony that lasted precisely eight and a half minutes. The final five and a half minutes of the ceremony took place with eyes closed. Bishop Horton prayed. He began with praise of the metaphorical wedding of Adam and Eve, came smoothly forward to the glory and the Christian purpose of the wedding currently under way, then moved onward to extend well into the future to North and Caroline’s progeny, who would doubtless, if God so ordained, find as noble spouses as their ancestors had. Caroline found that she was getting confused between herself as an ancestor and some Chilton now long dead. Or was it someone long dead in the distant future?

When Bishop Horton decided he’d been as thorough as was pertinent to the proceedings, he beamed on Caroline and North, then asked if anyone would like to step forward to take exception to this blessed union. To everyone’s relief, no one moved, including Mr. Ffalkes. After the bishop’s final blessing, Caroline was beginning to feel less dazed at how the entire course of her life had been changed all in the space of three minutes of spoken instructions and the rest in a prayer that recounted and praised untold generations of marital bliss.

North kissed her after Bishop Horton closed his Bible and nodded to him. It was a very chaste kiss, over quickly.

Mount Hawke servants—male to the man—stood on one side of the drawing room, and the denizens from Scrilady Hall—female all, save the stable lad, Robin—stood on the other. There were locals there as well, the most notable amongst them Mrs. Freely, Mr. Peetree, the Treaths, Mr. Brogan, and the Carstairses. Mrs. Freely had spoken behind her hand discreetly, commenting on Caroline’s gown, the lightness of her face powder, the speed with which the young couple were marrying, how the bride looked thin as a rail, which was a good thing, wasn’t it? Both North and Caroline heard every word, as did every other guest.

Caroline was at least pleased with Mrs. Freely’s opinions on her gown. It was a soft ivory satin that was simple and elegant, binding her beneath her breasts with a ribbon just a shade darker than the gown, and matching the ribbon and soft white burnet roses threaded through her chestnut hair, gleaming bright and clean in the clear sunlight pouring into the drawing room. The bodice was low and filled with an ivory linen chemisette. She didn’t wear a veil over her face. She looked tall and slender, radiant and smiling, her eyes bright, the excitement clear whenever she looked at her husband.

“A love match,” Victoria Carstairs said to her husband as she watched North turn away from his bride to begin accepting congratulations. “How lovely.”

“More a lust match on North’s part,” Rafael Carstairs said. “His eyes nearly turn black when he looks at her. I doubt the poor girl will get much sleep this night, or any other night for the next year or so.”

“His eyes are nearly black anyway,” Victoria said, her hand lightly resting against her flat belly where their babe nestled. “You’re being obtuse. Besides, you don’t let me get much sleep even now, and you swore to me it wasn’t just male lust. You swore you cherished me and adored me and were even building a pedestal upon which I would sit two nights a week so that you could bow and scrape and worship me—”

“That’s nauseating, Victoria. Now, heed me. Naturally I felt and still feel lust for you. I understand lust, most men do. This other, well, it’s all well and good and makes a man’s life more happy than not, usually, if the wife is kept in her proper place, and naturally you’ve always known that place.” He grinned down at her like a bandit.

“He’s a beautiful man,” she said. “North Nightingale, I mean.”

“Passable, little more. He is nothing to me. You told me I was the most beautiful man in all of Cornwall, in all of Devon, too.”

“Did I? My memory fails me. Ah, but North, just look at those white teeth of his, and how muscular he is, and so very lean and hard and—”

“Victoria Carstairs, would you like me to do something you will surely regret?”

She looked up at him, a siren’s smile on her mouth, and said, “Yes.”

He eyed her for a long moment, cursed, and took himself off to congratulate the bride and groom.

Caroline stared up at North, marveling that he was hers, all hers, and all because Owen had gotten ill and she’d gone into the taproom of the inn in Dorchester to find help and he’d been there. It was scary that one’s life could be swayed and changed by such random chance. Ah, but in this case, it had been a wonderful random chance. He was hers at last. It had taken only eight and a half minutes.

She watched his profile, watched him smile at something Rafael Carstairs said. She wanted to touch his straight nose, his mouth that was so very beautiful she wanted to kiss it until she lost her breath. She wanted to touch his tongue with her fingertip and her own tongue, to feel his heat, to taste his taste and breathe in his scent. She saw herself standing on the beach, holding up her skirts and petticoats whilst he was on his knees, caressing her and touching her with his mouth. Oh dear. That had been something. She rather hoped he would be compelled to do that again. She shuddered, smiled like a fool, and continued her perusal of her new husband. His jaw was firm and stubborn, which was fine with her. He wasn’t a man to back down. A good opponent always brightened her up.

“Caroline.”

“Huh?”

“Where are you?”

“Oh, North. I was just looking at you and thinking that we will have wonderful fights. Actually I was thinking other things before that, but it wouldn’t be at all proper to mention those other things here in the drawing room. Yes, we will have marvelous fights.”

“So this is the future you envision for us? That pleases you?”