Chapter 32
“What will happen to him?” Mary whispered to Cecily a few nights later as Lilian began playing her third piece on the pianoforte, this time a song, which Miss Osborne sang with her. “To Uncle Preston, I mean.”
Cecily sighed, hoping that Mary was not feeling soft-hearted after everything their uncle had put them through and the revelation of his role in their parents’ deaths.
“Well, the solicitors advised that there wasn’t enough evidence to try him in court for causing Father and Mother’s deaths after all these years,” she replied.
“Still, there’s enough to ruin him, and we’re prepared to do that.
If he signs over your guardianship without a fuss, maybe Nathaniel will let him leave England. ”
She glanced inquiringly at her husband beside her, perched on the arm of her chair. He had been out for much of the day, and there had been little chance for private conversation since he returned to Greyhaven Park, keeping his promise to be here for dinner and then for Lilian’s pianoforte recital.
“It is already done,” Nathaniel confirmed, meeting her eyes with a nod, and leaving it in her hands how much to tell Mary beyond the basic facts. “I have the paperwork in my pocket, and I watched Lord Holt’s ship leave for South America on this morning’s tide.”
“Thank God,” Cecily breathed, closing her eyes. “What of our grandmother? Was she there?”
“Lady Holt came to see him off and then went back to Kent,” he told them.
“Kent?” Mary frowned.
“Grandmother will live in the small Kent dower house our father originally assigned to her,” Cecily explained. “She has accepted that Holt House must be sold, even if she accepts little else.”
While shocked by her son’s revelation about his elder brother’s death, Lady Holt’s capacity for self-deception seemed unlimited and her devotion unbroken.
She had left Greyhaven Park still maintaining that Lord Holt could not be blamed for anything and that the Duke and Duchess of Greyhaven had been plotting against her darling boy.
Cecily had not been surprised. Lady Holt had favored her youngest son over her elder son in life, and only continued this after her elder son’s death.
It was easier for her to blame Charles for not paying off his younger brother’s gambling debts than to blame Preston for drunkenly hounding his brother and his wife to their deaths.
“I hope you ruin them both!” Mary hissed, proving that Cecily’s earlier concerns over her soft-heartedness were unfounded. “Uncle is a murderer, and he stole everything from us.”
“Not everything,” Cecily demurred, taking her hand and squeezing it. “We always had each other.”
“Thank you for looking after me, Cecily,” Mary sighed, laying her head on her sister’s knee. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Stroking her sister’s hair, Cecily smiled and looked again at Nathaniel, finding him watching his daughter with sharp attention. Basking in her father’s approval, Lilian played and sang with joy tonight.
Cecily understood how both Mary and Lilian felt. After so many years, she also knew how it felt to be cared for, and she enjoyed it. Without Nathaniel, her life and Mary’s would have fallen apart, but now their entire future stretched out before them.
On the other side of the room, Patrick stood watching Mary with an affection that Cecily appreciated. She wondered when the two of them would finally announce their engagement. Patrick could soon be posted with his regiment. What were they waiting for?
As the music came to an end, all the adults applauded loudly, and Lilian bobbed numerous happy curtsies to her audience before Miss Osborne managed to take her away to bed. For the first time in her life, she went without a fuss, only stopping to hug and kiss her father and then Cecily.
“Will you play again for us next week?” Cecily asked the little girl, who responded with enthusiastic agreement and a hug before she skipped away, chattering to her governess about the new pieces she might learn next.
“Well, don’t the two of you have some news for us?” Nathaniel prompted once the door closed, his amused eyes fixed on Mary and Patrick. “If you’re trying to hide it, you’re not doing it very well.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything!” Patrick protested, flushing. “We are engaged, I think, aren’t we?”
Mary nodded, blushing a similar shade. “We are engaged,” she confirmed, lifting her hand to show Cecily the ring she had already seen.
“But Mary won’t set a date,” Patrick blurted, his handsome face confused. “I wanted to tell you, and there is no reason not to, but Mary—”
“Oh, it’s not that simple, Patrick. Don’t you see?”
“Well, no,” Patrick admitted, looking entirely nonplussed. “I’ve joined the army, I’ve bought a house, I haven’t been drunk or gambled since the night we ran away together. I love you, and you love me. We could get married next week. Why don’t we just do that? Your uncle can’t object anymore.”
“It’s just…” Mary bit her lip and shook her head. “Oh, I thought you’d see because you’re due to be posted soon and there isn’t much time.”
“That’s all the more reason to find a church and do it now, surely?” Patrick pointed out, sounding baffled.
Cecily felt rather the same way.
“Come on, young lady, out with it,” Nathaniel said with a laugh. “What are you waiting for? You’re clearly waiting for something.”
“I did want us to elope,” Mary admitted, glancing shyly at Patrick. “I thought if there wasn’t much time, you might suggest it again.”
“But we don’t need to elope,” he responded, still confused.
“But it’s so romantic, and I want to see Scotland,” Mary sighed longingly.
“How can we elope if our families know about it and agree to our union?” Patrick asked, foolishly still trying to reconcile the irrational with reason.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Nathaniel laughed, regarding them with great amusement. “Let’s all go to Scotland for a holiday. Patrick and Mary can ride ahead and pretend they’re eloping. I’ll even pretend to chase them across the border if it helps.”
It was utterly ridiculous yet perfectly sensible, and Cecily could not think of any reason to object.
“Let’s do that,” she said, matching his enthusiasm. “Mary and Patrick can sneak around the house as if they’d been planning it for a week or two, then head off in one of the smaller carriages. We’ll give them a head start and pursue them in one of the larger carriages with Lilian and Miss Osborne.”
Mary giggled and looked at Patrick. “You must steal me away again,” she told him with mock solemnity.
His lips curled into a smile. “Name the day,” he replied, finally getting into the spirit of the game. “Let’s go and conspire in the drawing room. We can’t do it in front of our families.”
Hand in hand, they ran away together like naughty children, leaving Cecily and Nathaniel alone in the music room.
“Thank God that’s finally arranged.” Nathaniel pulled Cecily into his arms. “I thought I would never get you alone today.”
Cecily laughed and nodded. “If you hadn’t sorted Mary and Patrick out, they would have sat in here mooning about and casting meaningful glances at one another all night.”
Nathaniel bent and kissed her lips softly, sending little shivers through her body.
“We’ve sorted out almost everything, I believe,” he said. “Or at least begun to.”
“Almost everything,” Cecily agreed, her hands coming around his waist, feeling perfectly secure in his embrace. “There are still some things I would like to hear you say.”
“Ah, I should likely apologize to you, shouldn’t I?
” Nathaniel said ruefully. “I was an utter fool at the start of our marriage. I didn’t really understand what a marriage was or what it could be.
I did not know how to feel love. I did not know how to feel anything intensely, as though part of me was dead or made of stone. ”
“Now you can feel,” Cecily observed with a smile. “I know you do.”
“Yes, a peculiar young woman came into my life and broke my heart open again. Meeting you was the only real thing that had happened to me in years. Every part of me is alive.”
Cupping his face in her hands with tears in her eyes, Cecily peppered it with little kisses.
“I wasn’t even looking for an apology,” she admitted softly. “Although that was very beautiful. You are a good man. You deserve to feel alive, and I love you.”
“What did you want if not an apology? You surely aren’t as contrary as your sister, and it is far too late for us to elope in any case.”
Cecily laughed and shook her head. “No, I am very, very simple. Do you love me, Nathaniel?”
“Of course, I love you,” he told her without hesitation, his lips seeking and finding hers again between his words. “You must know that I love you.”
“I needed to hear you say it,” she explained. “You never did before.”
“I couldn’t,” he admitted with a self-deprecating smile.
“The word terrified me, until you. Still, you must have felt how I loved you before now, surely? Every time I kissed you, it was love. Every time I caressed your body. Every time I slid inside you… That is how I most easily express my love for you.”
Cecily moaned and nodded at his words, interspersed with kisses and a gentle exploration of her curves. It had been a long and emotionally demanding day, and now all she wanted was her husband’s touch. She felt his love in each brush of skin and lips.
Hands, lips, and tongues explored and caressed, clothing was loosened, and gasps of desire filled the air. Nathaniel cupped her breasts in his hands, and her hands slid under his shirt, caressing the bulge at the front of his trousers.
Once, she would have thought such behavior improper, even between a husband and wife. She would never have imagined herself losing control in someone’s embrace, and certainly not outside of a bedroom.
Now, she was learning to appreciate Nathaniel’s lack of scruples over such conventions.
He would have no qualms whatsoever about claiming her here, or in any other room of the house, and the thought thrilled her.
Would he bend her over the sofa, or pull her astride him on his lap, or lift her against the wall?
“Oh God, Nathaniel, I want you so much,” she moaned.
“Then lie down on the rug by the fireplace and spread your legs for me, sweet Cecily,” he ordered with a grin. “I want to show you how much I love you.”