Chapter Eight
By the time they reached Sedgewick Hall, word had somehow already spread. How it was possible for gossip to have preceded them, Malcolm did not know. But if there was one thing he had learned in his life, nothing traveled faster than scandal.
The Collinsforths were front and center. Mrs. Collinsforth, acting as housekeeper for decades, knew everything about what had transpired to halt their marriage all those years ago. She’d learned the awful truth of it only after it had all played out.
“Your Grace,” she said, smiling with tears glistening in her eyes, “How good it is to finally have you here… where you belong.”
Malcolm noted how Cecily seemed to finally breathe, how the tension that had claimed her the nearer they came to Sedgewick Hall finally receded.
Once they were ushered inside, baths ordered for them both, food arranged so they might have some refreshment, and finally they were alone in their connected chambers.
It was too much distance. He never wanted that much distance between them again.
So he went in search of her and found her staring out the window.
“Did you think you would not be welcomed here?” he asked her.
“I did wonder,” she admitted. “So many of your servants were involved in the scheme that night.”
“Not the Collinsforths. Father knew better. And all the others have subsequently been dismissed. I refused to keep them on,” he told her. “And for what it’s worth, Elspeth never used this room. She preferred to keep her chambers as far removed from mine as possible.”
She blinked at that, her shock evident. “You allowed that?”
“I preferred it. I wanted nothing more than to forget the fact that I was married to anyone but you,” he said, his voice rich with emotion.
“This is where you belong. It is where you always belonged. And I have never been more thankful to the heavens above than for the deluge of rain they spilled to bring us together once more.”
Cecily smiled softly. “I realize that we are not unfamiliar with one another, Malcolm, but we have not, in fact, consummated our marriage just yet.”
“Oh? I rather thought we did so last night,” he observed wryly.
“Oh, no. It doesn’t count unless we are wed at the time. Otherwise, all of England would be full of bigamists,” she replied with a coy smile. “You’ve made me your lover, and you’ve made me your bride. Now, I would have you make me your wife.”
It was an invitation he would never refuse. Stepping forward, he swept her into his arms and carried her toward the bed. “Make no mistake, Cecily, you are my lover, my bride, my wife… you are my everything.”
And then he laid her upon the bed and showed her precisely how much he meant those words.
After, they were lying together in a tangle of limbs and twisted sheets. The house was quiet around them and the sun was shining through the open window, bathing everything in golden light.
“I think I’d forgotten what it felt like to be happy,” she whispered. “And you’ve helped me rediscover that. How to be happy. How to be hopeful.”
He pulled her closer, tucking her against his side. She’d reminded him of the same, reminded him that not every day had to be bleak and endless, one mind numbing moment of duty and boredom after the next. “Then let us make a pact to never forget either of those things again.”
“Shall we shake hands on it?”
He drew back, recoiling as if offended. “Shake hands, indeed. No, Your Grace, such bargains can only be sealed with a kiss.”