Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The water in the bathtub had gone cold, but neither of them moved. She lay back against his chest, nestled between his thighs, protected, not his prisoner. She understood the distinction perfectly now.
“The only part of me that’s not wrinkled is the hand you’re holding.” She watched as he measured her fingers against his as if the difference were some marvel of nature.
He laced their fingers, locking them together.
She’d defy a heathen army to break them.
They were no longer chasing a villain. Only their future remained, and what lay beyond this hotel room.
Perhaps he sensed it too, the need to speak weighed against the risk of saying the wrong thing.
Amid the crackle of the fire and the rumble of carriage wheels outside, she could almost hear his questions gathering.
“A penny for them,” she said, prompting him to pick one from the long list. “I’m happy to spend my only shilling.”
He kissed her hair, choosing the one problem she didn’t want to face. “We need to arrange your father’s funeral.”
We. Not you. One small word that steadied her world.
“It’s a kindness he doesn’t deserve.”
“Perhaps we could fasten a weight to his ankle and toss him back into the Thames. Or pack him into a crate bound for India.”
“Yes, a gift for the commissioner Mr Irving mentioned.”
“He’d best stay in India. He’ll face a dawn appointment if he dares set foot on English soil.” The threat lacked its usual spark. His quest for vengeance had not ended as he’d hoped, with a grave he could visit just to curse.
“And Aunt Augusta alongside him.” She trusted Mr Moseley to keep his word, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. “Hopefully the magistrate will receive her confession, and we can finally lay the past to rest.”
In the brief silence, she waited for a pang of guilt.
None came. Her aunt deserved no one’s mercy.
She looked at the flames, recalling how many times Mr Beattie had made her build the fire that first morning at Shadowmere. The bitter chill of that room a reflection of her heart.
She wasn’t cold anymore. She wasn’t afraid.
“I’m not sure Carter believed our version of events.” Dominic’s hand came to rest on her thigh, the soft stroke a welcome distraction. “Though them fleeing after realising they’d been overheard was a plausible explanation.”
“It’s fortunate Charlotte came when she did. At least she saw my aunt leave in an unmarked carriage.”
He fell silent at the mention of her aunt.
She knew why.
He’d spent years hunting a monster. He hadn’t expected her to wear a mourning dress and pour tea.
“We made the right decision.” She pressed a lingering kiss to his knuckles. “You can’t imagine the horrid things a barrister would have said about our mothers. They don’t deserve that.”
“No. And I’d have wanted to bury your aunt.”
They lay watching the flames in the grate.
His lips brushed her damp hair before drifting to her temple. She tilted her head and met his mouth, the kiss slow and deep. Her hand rose to his jaw, her fingers slipping into his hair as she drew him closer.
“Come home with me?” he whispered, nipping the corner of her mouth, then kissing her softly. “That’s a question, but it would be a command if I thought you’d obey.”
Her heart missed a beat. There was nowhere in the world she would rather be. But how did he envisage their future? She had to know.
“Will you visit me in the cottage when the stars are out? Will you woo me with hot chocolate and white roses?”
He took her chin between his fingers. “I’d kneel at your feet, pump the water while you washed. I’d dry every inch of you, carry you to our bed. The cottage could be our own personal observatory when we need an escape from the children.”
She swallowed. “The children?”
“There’ll be many. I can’t keep my hands off you.”
The heat between her legs took the chill from the water, but practical things filled her mind. “At Shadowmere?”
He paused, as though catching himself. “They’re hopes, not presumptions. There’ll be no more guests, no more wild parties. It will be a place to raise a family. The home my mother always envisioned.”
Oh, he knew how to steal her breath.
How to paint the perfect picture.
She would embrace almost all of it.
“I don’t want you to change, Dominic.” All the time, she’d thought she would be the one to bend. “I love the man who takes command of every situation. The man who makes me feel safe.”
“Don’t think I’ll be soft, angel.”
She shifted in the tub. “There’s no danger of that.”
“When I lift you out of the water, I’ll drive the point home. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking I’m the one in control.”
She smiled. “You think I hold the cards.”
“The one that matters.”
“And what’s that?”
His eyes held hers. “The answer to the question I’ve been keeping close to my heart since the day you left me. Will you marry me?”
Tears filled her eyes.
She’d once told him he could never give her what she wanted. Love. A home. A family. She’d been wrong. She looked at the ring on her finger, his mother’s peridot catching the firelight.
“I love you, Dominic. I’d be proud to be your wife.”
“Is that a yes, angel?”
“You know damn well it is.”
One month later
“You’re here as a guest, Beattie, not to direct the hired staff,” Dominic said when he found his housekeeper fussing with the champagne.
“Sir, I’ve managed Shadowmere for a decade. Such things are second nature. At least let me make sure the kitchen is running smoothly.”
He placed a hand on his man’s shoulder. “You know I don’t tolerate disobedience. For you, I’ll make an exception.”
Beattie smiled as though he’d been given a knighthood.
Ramsey approached as Beattie departed. “You know he’s barely slept this week. The list ran to ten pages. I doubt there’s a white rose left in London.”
Dominic glanced at the vases of flowers in the drawing room, white roses taking pride of place amid the myrtle.
He thought of his mother and smiled.
“Things will be less chaotic here in future. I’ll have to give him a project. The man lives for a list.” Given the time Dominic spent in bed with his wife, Beattie could organise a nursery.
His gaze moved to her. Her silk gown was simple, and she wore it like a woman who knew her own power. He was not in the habit of counting his blessings, but he knew a rare fortune when he saw it.
She was laughing at something Charlotte said when she turned her head and saw him. Her eyes softened. Her lips parted. And everything they meant to each other was there in that single beat.
He turned to find Stanton staring at him as though making notes for the morning edition. “I can see the next headline in The Sentinel. The formidable Dominic Hawke tamed by a woman. We’d sell out within the hour.”
Ramsey laughed. “He’s been this way for over a month.”
“I wasn’t tamed. I handed myself over willingly,” he said, his gaze moving between them. “A man obsessed with facts should choose his words carefully. I look forward to the day you both meet the same fate.”
Ramsey took that as a cue to check on Beattie.
Stanton merely found the idea amusing. “God help the woman who thinks she has a hold on me.”
“I recall saying something similar once, when Shadowmere was the netherworld for the depraved.”
He was not ashamed. It had been a means of survival. Life was different now.
“One of your disappointed guests has turned her attention to The Sentinel.” Stanton checked that people were occupied with their champagne. “Though she had the grace not to name you while debasing my good name.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Dominic gripped Stanton’s arm and drew him aside. “Who is it? What did she say?”
He should have walked away.
The last thing he needed was another damn quest.
“Like a true coward, she remains anonymous. Apparently, being friends with you must make me a bare-faced liar.”
He pursed his lips, trying not to grin. “A low blow. The lady has done her research.”
“Not well enough.”
“What does she want?”
“My head on a spike.”
“Not everyone agrees with what you print. It’s never bothered you before.” Stanton had survived religious fanatics, rotten tomatoes, and a brick through his office window.
He drew a letter from his pocket and thrust it under Dominic’s nose. “Smell that and tell me this isn’t a wicked form of intimidation.”
He inhaled once. “And you have the gall to accuse me of losing my mind. I can’t smell a thing.”
Stanton drew back and frowned. “It’s potent. I hate the woman but love her perfume. It’s a bloody conspiracy.”
“We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Not on my wedding day.”
Stanton drew his hand through his hair. “Forgive me. It’s nothing. I was wrong to mention it. She’ll tire of writing eventually. They always do.”
Thankfully, Beattie appeared in the doorway, gave one ring of his handbell and invited everyone to take their seats in the dining room.
The wedding breakfast passed in a blur of toasts and laughter. Montfort rose first, glass in hand, and said something about love that made Charlotte snort and Stanton reach for more wine.
Dominic kept Daphne at his side, his chair drawn close enough that their shoulders brushed when he turned to speak. Beneath the table, his hand found hers. Their fingers laced, hidden by linen, the quiet pressure of his grip a silent promise.
When the guests rose to return to the drawing room, he leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. “We could slip away to the cottage for half an hour.”
“Won’t our guests wonder why we keep disappearing?”
“Let them wonder. I need to know if you’re wearing the garters I saw in that silk-lined box.”
She smiled. “Always so impatient, Mr Hawke.”
“Only with you, angel.”
Her breath caught. “Call me that and I’ll follow you anywhere.”
They were about to sneak through the terrace doors when Ramsey found them. “There’s a delivery. A wedding gift. The fellow wants you to check for damages before he leaves. Beattie told him to take it to the cottage.”
“Can it not wait?” The sigh was for Ramsey’s benefit. He turned to Daphne. “As it’s a wedding gift, we should both inspect it.”
“Yes, we should study it closely.”
He held her hand as they walked to the cottage. The last time he’d made this journey, he’d been half out of his mind with panic. Today, he was the luckiest man in England.
Propped against a chair and wrapped in hessian was a gilt-framed painting of Shadowmere. Not the dark, fortress-like structure he knew. Not the house where the past clung like cobwebs in every hallway. The sun shone. White roses filled the Grecian urns on the steps. The doors stood open.
It was the home he’d imagined as a boy.
He recognised Saint-Clair’s hand in every brushstroke. A dream made real. His mother would have hung it above the fireplace.
Daphne stepped back. “It’s beautiful. But there’s no card. Where’s the man who delivered it? He may know.”
“We don’t need a card. I know who painted this, and who delivered it. That’s his greatcoat on the chair.” He looked to the door leading to the kitchen. “You can come out. I know how you hate hiding in dark corners.”
Dominic laughed when Saint-Clair appeared. He’d grown a goatee, wore an eye patch, and a dusty tricorn hat. “Been grave robbing again?”
“I got the hat for a shilling from an ostler at the Pig and Whistle.” He crossed to Daphne, took her hand, and bowed. “I trust you know who I am, Mrs Hawke.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, sir,” she teased.
Saint-Clair knew Dominic kept no secrets from her.
“Good. Then I come merely to pay my respects and meet the woman who ruined my poor friend before the ton.” Saint-Clair looked at him when he said, “You’ve made an honest man of a rotten scoundrel. There’s hope for us all yet.”
Yes, even for a man destined for the gallows.
“Don’t let it unsettle you,” Dominic said, though the threat of the noose had never unnerved Saint-Clair. “It won’t happen overnight.”
“Never in my case. Women want roots. I was born for the open road.”
Daphne touched Saint-Clair’s arm. “Well, you paint like a master, sir. That involves considerable time standing in one place.”
Saint-Clair grinned, knowing she could see through his bravado. “Master is somewhat of a stretch, but I’m a fool for a compliment.”
“It’s deserved.” Dominic met his friend’s gaze. “We couldn’t have asked for a more poignant gift.”
Saint-Clair brushed it off like road dust on his sleeve. “Take a turn about the kitchen with me, Mrs Hawke. Tell me what Hawke’s really like when no one is watching.”
He heard whispering and Daphne’s laugh. Saint-Clair could charm the birds from the trees or freeze a man where he stood, depending on his mood.
A minute or two passed before they returned.
Saint-Clair kissed Daphne’s hand and gave Dominic a sly wink. “Well, I’ve left Armand in charge of the carriage, and the man is a self-professed drunk.” He retrieved his greatcoat from the chair and was gone in the blink of an eye.
Dominic slid his arm around her waist. “You’ll get used to him, though he has a habit of appearing like a ghost in the night.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but kissed her like he couldn’t breathe without her.
“Dance with me,” she whispered against his mouth.
“There’s no music.”
She smiled as she wound her arms around his neck. “We’re so in tune we always find the right rhythm.”
“You’re wearing your mother’s locket.” Only the chain was visible. He knew she wore it against her heart.
She glanced down. “And your mother’s ring.”
“I have a gift for you in the house.”
“What is it?”
“Something Mrs Foster helped me find in return for paying off Ainsley.” The lord was lucky he’d not knocked out his teeth.
She stopped, her throat bobbing. “Pearl earrings and a cameo brooch? Were they still at the pawnbroker’s?”
“Not quite, but I paid enough to see them returned to you.”
She collapsed into his arms, weeping and laughing at the same time. “I knew the night we met that my life would change for the better.”
He brushed her hair behind her ear. “I was set on ruin until a woman with sad eyes waltzed me to salvation.” He’d never forget it. The instant recognition he fought to dismiss. The rightness in that first touch. “Still, I could have missed the signs and been poorer for it.”
“Not when I’m skilled in entrapment.” Her mouth brushed his. “All I had to do was stand there and kiss you. And suddenly, I belonged to no one but you.”