But Emmaline was gone, turning about so quickly she nearly tripped over the hem of her gown before running out of the room.
He caught up with her in the large foyer, before she could mount the stairs and lock herself in her bedchamber, where she would remain for the next hundred years, if possible.
“Grayson,” he said, his eyes on Emmaline, his hand holding tight to her arm, “if you’d be so kind as to keep Her Grace occupied elsewhere.”
“But…but how should I do that, sir?”
“I don’t care if you tie her to a chair. And it wouldn’t depress me if you included a gag. The woman is a feather-witted menace. Go, and everyone else—leave.”
“John, you cannot just go ordering the servants to—and let go of my arm.”
“I was going to tell you, Emmaline, I swear I was. This morning. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you immediately…but it all just seemed…easier if you thought me a more…a more simple man.”
“I thought we’d live in a cottage. And…and raise our children. I thought…I thought I would be your helpmeet, your companion.”
“And how does my being a duke change any of that? Granted, Warrington Hall is not a cottage, but as for the rest of it? Being duke and duchess does not preclude us from being loving parents. From loving each other, staying true to each other. We won’t ever have to go to London at all, if you don’t want to go. Is that it? Have you taken a firm dislike to London, to Society?”
She shook off
his hand. “I’m not a recluse, John. Charlton refused to take me, that’s all. I adore London, at least most of it.”
“Oh, good,” he said, relaxing slightly. “Because I really think we need to go there from time to time. That is, if you can love a duke even half as much as you could love a simple sea captain?”
Emmaline looked down at the floor. “I’m being silly, aren’t I? I saw us as being so simple, our lives so uncomplicated. Being Charlton’s sister was…very complicated.” She turned her gaze on the man she loved. “How did you know I felt that way?”
“I don’t know. I felt that if I told you who I am, about the damned title, then you’d not relax your guard around me, tell me the sorts of things you told me yesterday. About your family, about your life.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have, you’re correct about that. I don’t think I would have worried about how you’d pay for your room at the inn, either.”
“Darling, do you remember when I said we can’t choose who we love, but we can choose who we like?”
“Yes,” she said, allowing him to take her hands in his.
“I knew I loved you the moment I first saw you. That was the easy part. But then I knew I liked you when you showed such concern for my welfare, when you were more worried for me than concerned with the suddenly altered circumstances of your life. Now, am I forgiven?”
“I don’t know,” she said coyly—imagine, a twenty-eight-year-old almost-virgin, being coy! “I really believe I may have had my heart set on a thatched cottage near the sea.”
He slipped his arms more fully around her and brought his mouth down to nearly meet hers. “We’ll work on that…”
EPILOGUE
THERE WERE TWO musty old aunts in the second pew, a quiet and reserved-looking Charlotte Seavers and her father in the third, and only Emmaline and John sitting in the first pew as the vicar looked uncomfortable in the small chapel hung in black crepe but glaringly absent of coffins.
Helen Daughtry had not only sent her regrets, but had forbidden her twin daughters from attending the service. “Much too depressing for the young dears,” she’d insisted, which was, Emmaline knew, another way of saying, “If they’re there, then I have to be there, and I don’t want to be there.”
Last night, while the two of them were in bed together after the rest of the household was asleep, John had proposed a wine toast to Helen’s absence. If it were possible to love him even more, she did, because he was so impervious to Helen’s beauty and wiles.
The quickness of the memorial ceremony and the absence of the trio who would provide raucous entertainment for them had kept Charlton’s friends firmly in London. As for George and Harold, they were the sort who had acquaintances, men to whom they either owed money or were owed money. Not friends.
It was a sad statement about three wasted lives, lives that could have been so rich as well as privileged.
Now Rafael Daughtry was the Duke of Ashurst, even if he was probably still unaware of his new title. His mother would drive Grayson and the other servants to distraction when she was in residence, and Nicole and Lydia would make them happy again, as all the staff adored the twins.
But Emmaline, who had thought she’d never leave Ashurst Hall, would be departing in the next few weeks to become the Duchess of Warrington. It was obscene, unheard of, for a woman in mourning to wed so hastily, but when she and John had realized that neither cared what Society thought, Emmaline had set her maid to bringing down trunks from the attic so that they could begin packing up her belongings.
“We mourn our brothers, Charlton, George, Harold,” Vicar Wooten droned on—he’d been droning on for nearly an hour and even he seemed fatigued. “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes…um, well, not perhaps in this particular case, begging your pardon.”
One of the aunts stifled a giggle and, for some reason she would never understand, that caused Emmaline to shed her very first tears for her brother and nephews.