Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Relief, joy, and desire rocketed through David’s body as he gazed down at the woman who would be his wife.
“I thought you would never ask,” he breathed.
Louisa. His wife. To think that she could be such a thing – a marquis’ daughter! – after all the confusion and pain they had endured…it was too much. His heart was too full.
It did not appear, however, that Louisa was unable to think.
“Kiss me,” she said with a wicked smile.
David lowered his head, his lips finding hers, the place they belonged. He would never have to suffer another Advent without her. He would never have to worry whether he was sufficient for her. He would never have to wonder what could have been.
She loved him, for himself. Louisa loved him as she always had, perhaps more, before he had been an Archduke, before he had desperately sought what else he could offer her. She had kissed him first when naught but a gentleman, and a rather poor one at that.
Now he finally had something to offer her.
It was too much. Joy rose up in his heart as his manhood sprung once more to life, and David wondered whether he would ever be able to go through a day without making love to this woman.
His woman. Louisa.
“Oh David,” murmured Louisa, breaking from his kiss. “Come with me…”
David nodded. How could he say anything else? He would have gone anywhere she desired, into the depths of hell – but fortunately for him, she was pulling him by the hand towards the chaise longue in the corner of the library.
She was swiftly in his arms again, this time leaning backwards, and David placed a quivering hand on her waist as he kissed her reverentially.
The kiss did not remain so. Louisa seemed as eager as he was to deepen their connection, to share once again what only a gentleman and a lady shared in the secrecy of their –
The door banged open and David leapt upwards, cravat askew, hair mussed, and the taste of Louisa still on his lips.
“How dare you!”
David swallowed. Ah. He should have foreseen this, should have known that he would have to face her at some point. But there was no preparing for a truly irate Lady Jarrold.
She was glaring at him and her daughter, who had risen to her feet beside him and had slipped her hand in his.
Lou. The woman he loved. The comforting weight of her fingers within his, entwined together so tightly he hardly knew which were his and which hers, was a comfort to him that he could not describe.
He was not going to lose her again. Not after everything they had endured.
David had faced much in his adventures across the Continent, never knowing whether he would ever be permitted to come back and face the parents of the woman he loved. Now he had that chance. He was not about to fail – not again.
“Lady Jarrold, I apologise for you finding out this way,” David said in a clear, strong voice. It was a miracle he was able to speak at all, but the love he felt flowing from Louisa was somehow able to sustain him. “But the fact is…”
His face, once strong, faded away. He had glanced at Louisa and seen the fear in her eyes. Fear he had not expected to see.
She was not sure. She was not certain of him, he could feel the hesitation in her, and that meant…
She was not going to marry him. Louisa was going to listen to her mother and do what any well behaved and good daughter should do. Despite her own words of pleading, asking him to marry her, Louisa was not certain.
She would reject him. After all he had done to return here, after all his longing for her, after finding her just as in love with him as when he had left, after sharing so much…
David swallowed and watched the flush tinge Louisa’s cheeks. He could not blame her, really. A marquis’ daughter was raised to obey her –
“Well, in that case,” said Louisa, drawing herself up, looking her mother right in the eye, tightening her grip on David’s hand, “I will just have to start packing right away.”
There was silence in the room after this pronouncement. David could hardly breathe, he was so proud of her. His Louisa. She surprised him at every turn. What was a life by her side going to be?
“Wh-What do you – pack what?” spluttered Lady Jarrold.
David turned to her with strengthened resolve. This was not going to be easy, and it would be far harder for Louisa, but he would stand by her. He would do all he could to support her. She deserved that, and so much more.
His Louisa. His Archduchess.
“Well, the thing is, Mother,” said Louisa with a bright smile, “it turns out that after all my complaints, I am actually far more interested in spending Advent with an Archduke than I thought. You were right after all.”
David stifled a grin. So, she had been complaining about his arrival, had she? There was the spiky, passionate Louisa he knew. He should never have doubted her.
“But he…he is nothing!”
Louisa’s polite smile disappeared. “He is not nothing. He is David.”
And it was at that moment, if it was possible, that he fell in love with her all over again. He had not believed it possible, but here it was. Love greater than that which he had ever known. Love which could conquer all, that stirred him and freed him and made him hers, forever.
Not an Archduke. Not a gentleman. Just David.
She loved him. David hardly knew what he had done to deserve her, but she loved him. One day, perhaps, he would deserve her.
“And now that he is back in England,” Louisa continued, “I am going to spend Advent with an Archduke if it is the last thing I do. With the man I love.”
David’s heart swelled. He was a fortunate man.
Lady Jarrold, on the other hand, did not look so appeased.
“But you cannot do that! Louisa, think of the scandal, spending all that time alone, with a man! We will be ruined! You will never be invited into polite society ever again! Your chance to marry well, to marry a Duke – to save us from…well. The scandal!”
David swallowed as he looked between the two ladies.
Mother and daughter. He should not be coming between them, forcing them apart.
He had already been the means to cause discord between father and daughter, and would never be able to forgive himself for that.
Lord Jarrold had died before reconciling with either him or his daughter, something he could never forget.
He would not be the reason why mother and daughter were similarly separated.
“Would it be so scandalous?” he asked quietly.
Lady Jarrold looked outraged. “To spend all that time together, unmarried?”
“Oh, we will be married,” said Louisa confidently, every one of her words giving David a strange tug in his stomach. “I love him, Mother.”
She squeezed his hand. David returned the squeeze. Lady Jarrold burst into tears.
“Oh, Mother!”
Despite Louisa’s words, it was clear her mother’s affection meant much to her. David quickly released her hand to allow her to rush to her mother.
“Please do not weep,” Louisa said as David tried desperately to think what to say.
This was not precisely what he had intended. Tears? Tears from the woman he had always admired yet feared? Tears from Lady Jarrold, a woman who seemed more like to burst into flames than permit a tear to fall down her cheek?
“Mrs. Lane!” Lady Jarrold called out through her tears.
David resigned himself to an uproar. If the housekeeper had been called to remove him from the premises, then –
“Here it is, my lady,” said Mrs. Lane quietly. She had stepped into the room silently and was holding out a letter and a small parcel to the lady of the house. “The banker brought it over just a few minutes ago.”
Lady Jarrold, however, shook her head and did not take the proffered items. “Give it to him.”
David frowned as Mrs. Lane offered him the envelope and the parcel. There was nothing written on either exterior. “What is – ”
“Just open it,” snapped Lady Jarrold, proving that even in tears with her daughter’s arms around her, she was quite able to glare.
David swallowed and looked at Louisa for guidance. She looked just as bewildered as he did, her gaze staring at the envelope and the parcel. Neither gave any clue as to their contents; the only way to find out was…
Well, there did not appear to be anything he could do but open it. The seal on the back was that of the Marquis, which made his stomach lurch. Nothing from the Marquis could be good news.
Slowly pulling out the letter, David started to read.
David,
I am sure you think me a terrible old man, and perhaps I am.
Perhaps I was too hard with you. Your father and I certainly wanted to be certain that your affection for my daughter was not only true, but reciprocated.
That is why we have pulled together this rather clever plan, though I say so myself.
I thought of it last Advent, when I saw the romance blossoming between you and Louisa. You did not realise it until this year, which I think rather bad of you, but there it is.
I have separated you. You have just left my presence now, as a matter of fact, though my own darling wife is not sure whether I should have done it.
Well, ‘tis done. I am sending you to Czar Alexei Dmitry Immanuil Maximilian Konstantinvich. I knew his mother. He will care for you, and find some sort of reason to give you a title in due course. Then you will have a choice. To stay in the Continent and find some fancy woman for you there.
Or return, for my daughter.
Think of it as the ultimate test. I hope you pass. I hope, though fear I will not, that I will be there to see it.
Yours faithfully,
Arnold Jarrold, Marquis of Dewsbury
David had to read the letter a second time to understand its import, and then he had to sit rather hurriedly down.
Think of it as the ultimate test. I hope you pass. I hope, though fear I will not, that I will be there to see it.
“David? David, what does it say?”
His eyes scanned the lines again. Then you will have a choice. To stay in the Continent and find some fancy woman for you there. Or return, for my daughter.