Softly, tentatively, he gripped her shoulders and brought her closer, dipping his head and murmuring against her lips, “Guilt? Love? Desire? Who cares what fuels a proposal of marriage? It’s what one makes of it that’s important. Please don’t turn me down until you’ve considered the matter.”
Jemima closed her eyes briefly. She felt faint for a moment, and then never more alive as the world seemed to open up to her. “What if I told you that nothing would persuade me to delay my journey?”
“And that I must wait patiently for you? If those are your terms, then yes. Though I’d much rather accompany you.” He hesitated, adding, “Either as your husband or affianced with a date of your choosing. You see, Jemima, I’m offering myself to you on your terms.”
Jemima tried to control her trembling though she kept her voice steady. She needed the safety of a companion and, of course, a male companion would, some would say, be mandatory in view of the unknown dangers she courted. Miles’s offer seemed too good to be true but he hadn’t retracted. He hadn’t sounded doubtful and he’d continued to gently press her in the face of her objections.
She took a deep breath and asked, “What about your cousin? There will be three of us. I need the services of a reliable woman and, besides, I would hate to deprive her of the adventure of a lifetime.” She could hardly believe she’d dare to say it like that. Miles was coming with her. The man she loved would be by her side. “But the proprieties will be maintained,” she added severely. “I…don’t know what I feel about marrying you, you see. I want to but…I can’t believe it would be possible. And you’ll come to see that, too.”
“Then let us concentrate on the adventure. The adventure of a lifetime. And I shall accompany you in whatever capacity you wish,” he murmured, drawing her into his embrace and adding softly into her hair as he gently took her hand and began to stroke her ring finger, “Though you know what my preference is.”
Suddenly she realised how foolish she was to this chance for happiness when she knew it’s what she wanted. She clasped her hands in front of her and gazed up at him. “Well, then, Lord Ruthcot, let us see this lawyer so I can help frame the terms of this document you speak of.” Smiling at the flare of excitement in his eyes, she halted him before he would kiss her.
“Is that a yes, Jemima? To marriage?”
She nodded. “It is.” The sound of her heartbeat was almost deafening. To her amazement, it grew even louder as Miles reached for her hands and brought them up to his lips. Breathlessly, Jemima said, “I can’t believe how delighted I am at the prospect of becoming your wife, when I thought I could only feel resentment toward you.” She touched her heart. “It’s funny how love has a way of rising to the surface.”
“Has it risen to the surface sufficiently for you to allow me to kiss you properly, then?” He clearly feared she would thwart another attempt.
Jemima hesitated. A rising tide of excitement was making it difficult to think clearly. She had the tablet, and she had the man who had captured her heart. Soon she would become his wife. Such a short time before she had nothing. Now, it seemed the whole word was at her feet. Happiness was like a drug. Her whole body felt relaxed, almost molten with the anticipation of what lay ahead. “I should quite like that,” she said softly. “Indeed, once Miss Bridges has found her own accommodation along the passage, I think I would be quite content to pass the time waiting to become your wife in another pleasurable pursuit.”
“And what would that be, my angel?”
She glanced at the bed. “Being—for an extremely short time, for I do trust you, Miles—your mistress.”
Epilogue
The breeze was fresh and the sails flapped loudly as they heard the cry they’d be waiting for, high above them. “Land ahoy!”
Jemima sighed at the pleasurable warmth of Miles’s arms about her. His embrace was doing a good job of diluting the cold as they leaned against the railing and spied the tiny speck in the distance that was their homeland. She rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed the top of her hair for she’d not snatched up her bonnet in her rush to catch the first glimpse of land.
Three months had passed in strange and foreign places. Three months of excitement and adventure.
All the while enjoying a deep abiding love that fed into her ever-growing happiness.
“Are you excited? You’re not having second thoughts about returning?”
Jemima smiled up into her husband’s eyes and touched his cheek. “Excited, yes. But you know how much I?
??m dreading this.” She stiffened with resolve, adding more grimly as she glanced out to sea, “Well, I don’t care what kind of reception I face.”
“I don’t think you need fear on that score.” The tone of his voice reminded Jemima that this was the truth. For so long she’d lived in fear but nothing could erase the fact that her aunt and cousins were in transports of delight and disbelief at the prospect of her return. And surely, nothing else mattered as long as she had her family and her husband by her side?
Miles had suggested she send a letter to them from Constantinople. This way she could uphold the fiction that she’d fled England immediately after her father’s death, purportedly to seek sanctuary with his old colleague in Constantinople. She’d woven a vague tale of why she’d been unable to contact them earlier.
“How much of the truth should I tell them?” Nervously, Jemima ran her hand up Miles’s coat lapel before he satisfied her need for comfort by deepening his hug.
“Initially, you should tell them as much as—but no more than—you want the rest of the world to know: that you met me in Constantinople when I came here prompted by my growing interest in my brother’s legacy of antiquities. Thus, united by a common love of the land and its treasures—and the fact you’d known my brother—it was only natural we should fall in love and—” he smiled warmly down at her –“marry.”
Jemima clung to him. He’d been a measured voice in every terror she’d admitted regarding her adventures – past and present. He’d been by her side to share her excitement when it proved her translations had in fact resulted in the find of the century, so it had been proclaimed. After the legal distribution of the spoils, Jemima was an heiress but Miles wanted none of it.
More than once he’d told her: “You’re my wife and everything I have is yours, my darling, but this treasure you’ve staked your life and reputation upon finding—and which has claimed the life of your father – this belongs to you alone.”
Now, with her return to society so imminent, Jemima couldn’t help but tremble with trepidation as the ship carried them closer to England. “How will you feel when I am recognised for what I am?”
His look was long and telling, full of the love he felt for her. “What you are is a strong, brave, beautiful woman who had to survive and protect your loved ones, against the odds. Rather, I’d be asking the question: What will Lord Griffith do when he is revealed for what he really is? A murderer.”
An unexpected development had been the discovery of the thug who’d carried out the murder of Jemima’s father. Word that a man had been bragging about his exploits near Griffith House had reached John Wren’s ears and he’d written recently to both Miles and Jemima of the results of his subsequent investigations. There was, indeed, evidence to connect Lord Griffith with the murder of Professor Percy.