Chapter Seventeen #2
Poppy wished he would just go inside and go back to counting Teddy’s marbles.
The cold wind made her shiver. The night was clear and all the stars were out, but it was a waning moon. Could it be their gentlemen? Would they really be out traveling after sunset?
As the lamplights on the front of the carriages grew closer, Poppy began to have doubts. Could it be someone more local? Or perhaps it was travelers, lost and looking for an inn they’d somehow missed on the road?
But maybe, just maybe, it was their gentlemen.
The carriages reined in to a stop, one behind the other. The doors flew open.
It was them. There was Mr. Lelander. Right there.
On her drive. Lord Burkhart was there too.
Poppy felt as if her heart’s pounding must be visible to anybody who looked.
They had been gone. Gone forever. And now here they were.
She had dreamed they would come back, but she had not hoped for it in her waking hours.
Both gentlemen held papers in their hands and began talking over one another. The most she could get out of it was they had a treaty.
A treaty?
The gentlemen suddenly stopped in their tracks.
“Who are they?” Mr. Lelander said in an accusing tone.
“Yes,” Lord Burkhart said. “Who are they?”
“Mr. James Wilderman,” the elder said. “And this is my brother, Mr. William Wilderman. Our father is Viscount Harrowby.”
“Why are you here?” Lord Burkhart asked, his voice full of suspicion.
“Yes, why?” Mr. Lelander said.
“Smythesdon brought us,” Mr. James Wilderman said. “Very jolly fellow.”
“Not like some of the others that give lectures at Oxford, they can be a bit fusty. Not Smythesdon, though, he’s jolly.”
Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart looked at each other. With very dark looks, actually. Poppy began to get the idea that they did not approve of Lord Smythesdon’s jolliness, that they might be jealous. It was a delightful idea.
“He is jolly, indeed,” Mr. Lelander said. “Smythesdon certainly did not waste time! Well?”
“Well what?” Poppy said, trying not to laugh. Mr. Lelander was getting rather red in the face.
“I might ask the same question!” Lord Burkhart said to Pansy.
“Well what’s the game?” Mr. James Wilderman asked, looking around with an amused expression.
“Yes, what’s the game!” Mr. William Wilderman exclaimed. “I bet we laugh and laugh over it!”
Poppy turned. “Oh do go inside, both of you.”
“Yes, both of you,” Pansy said. “At once.”
The Wilderman brothers looked rather surprised to be sent away. But then one brother whispered to the other, “Perhaps it is part of the game.”
They ran back inside, laughing and laughing to one another.
Poppy approached Mr. Lelander. “Will you walk with me, tell me why you left, why you have come back, and what is the treaty?”
Mr. Lelander grabbed her hand and pulled her into the dark of the drive, which she thought was very promising. No gentleman had ever taken her by the hand before. The closest she had come was when Mr. Lelander had caught her when she was in danger of falling on ice.
“I certainly will explain myself,” he said. “First, I must assure you that a peace treaty has been signed between Pepperdon Hall and Westport House.”
“Peace? The Roses War is finally over?” Poppy said. She thought it was a lovely thing to happen, but was not clear what it had to do with why they walked hand in hand in the dark.
“As for the Roses War being over…well I cannot say that,” Mr. Lelander said. “What I can say is that my viscount and Burkhart’s earl have agreed to act like it is over.”
“I see,” Poppy said.
“Do you, though? Miss Poppy, neither I nor Burkhart could see how you and Miss Pansy were to be separated by two houses who acted as enemies.”
“We did not see how it was possible either!” Poppy said. They’d gone to get the peace treaty on her and Pansy’s account? That must certainly mean…
“Miss Pansy Granger, I would be honored if you would consent to be my wife.” Mr. Lelander waved his hands as if to erase what he’d just said.
“That was terrible. What I mean is, I have thought of you every minute I have been gone, was terrified of finding gentlemen like those two jesters in residence upon my return, and really am sadly besotted. Burkhart is in an equal state, and so we were hoping…”
“You were hoping?”
“Well would you? Would you wed me?”
“I certainly would not marry anybody else,” she said laughing. She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss. It was the first kiss she had ever bestowed and she was not entirely certain how to carry on with it.
Mr. Lelander seemed sure, though. He wrapped his arms round her and her shoes left the drive. He kissed her very differently than she had kissed him. It was very deep and passionate and very, very interesting.
As it was so interesting, there did not seem any particular reason to stop doing it, and so they carried on with it.
When Pansy’s father had very casually said, “Ah, that must be them,” it had taken her a moment to think who them might be. Then when it had occurred to her, she could hardly believe it.
She almost did not wish to believe it. If she allowed herself to believe it, to hope for it, then her spirits would soar.
She did not think she could manage having her spirits ground into dust again.
The days had dragged on interminably, now they were further burdened by the presence of the ridiculous Wilderman brothers, and it seemed it would never be sunny again.
Everybody but Poppy wished she would move past her feelings over Lord Burkhart. Poppy understood she could not, though, because Poppy had her own feelings she could not get past.
Though she tried not to allow her hopes to get hold of her as she raced to the doors with Poppy, they did.
What if, what if what if?
The Wilderman brothers followed them out of the dining room and Pansy would really like to clobber both of them over the head. Then she could laugh and laugh about it. Only the manners drilled into her by Miss Millthorpe and the viscountess had held her back from it.
They’d burst out the front doors before Smuckers could get them open and the cold air hit her face with a force.
It was a clear night, but one of those nights when the air seemed to have traveled down from somewhere far north.
Miss Millthorpe had showed them sketches of the Alps once and told them the snow never melted at the top of the mountains because it was that cold all the time.
Perhaps the Alps had sent over some of its air.
The carriages drew closer and closer. Mr. James Wilderman stood behind her, close enough that she could see the mist of his breath drifting over her shoulder. She jerked her elbow behind her, under the theory that if she hit him, then he was standing too close.
Her elbow hit him. She heard a quiet groan and he stepped back. Idiot.
The carriages came at a fast clip and were nearly to the top of the drive.
Who was it? Was it him? Could it be him?
She did not have to wait much longer. Before he even leapt from his carriage, she recognized his coachman. It was him. By some miracle, it was him.
Then, there he was, standing on her drive. She had not thought she would ever see him again, and there he was.
Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander were talking over one another about a treaty of some sort. Were they somehow involved in the government? Had they been sent on some sort of secret mission to broker a treaty?
She did not know. What she did know was that Lord Burkhart had come back and looked highly irritated to find the Wilderman brothers standing there. He wished to know what the two gentlemen were doing there.
Not unexpectedly, the Wildermans had babbled on about Smythesdon being jolly. Lord Burkhart seemed rather dismissive regarding the jolliness of Lord Smythesdon. She and Poppy told those two ridiculous persons to go back inside.
“Miss Pansy,” Lord Burkhart said, “I must speak to you urgently.”
Pansy nodded, as of course she would hear him, whether it was urgently or not.
He held out his arm and they walked away from poor Smuckers, who was standing on the step with a look of consternation. Poppy had already disappeared into the darkness and now she would too.
“I have in my hands a treaty between Westport House and Pepperdon Hall. It ratifies the peace between our two houses and outlines exactly how everybody must carry on with it.”
Pansy had an inkling that she and Poppy had been the cause of it, but she could not claim it without being told. “I am very gratified that the Roses War has finally been laid to rest.”
“As to that, as a Yorkshireman, I will never give up my opinion that the throne was stolen. That is not really what this is. You see, what this is, is a mechanism whereby the ladies of both houses, and any children of both houses, might go between both houses. Freely.”
He was going to have to spell it out directly. “Goodness, yes, that will be more comfortable for those ladies.”
His look of consternation was delightful.
“You’re the lady!” he nearly shouted.
Pansy pressed her lips together to stop from laughing. She said, “I was hoping so. Now do ask properly.”
Lord Burkhart nodded. “Of course I must. Miss Pansy Granger, the moment I arrived to this house, I knew the lady with the beauty spot on her left cheek must rule my heart. I have pressed my father to the edges of his sanity to make it possible, going so far as to threaten to leave his house forevermore. If you would consent to wedding me, I can vow that you will be free to see Miss Poppy whenever and however you like. And I will vow to be a genial husband. You can shop in York as much as you like.”
He paused and Pansy wondered what he would say next.
“Also, I am very hopelessly in love. I wish to wed you.”
Pansy leapt into his arms. “You might have begun there,” she said laughing.
“You are a terrible minx to tease me, you know,” he said. He bent his head to kiss her and it was divine.