She tingled with ecstasy. And flung her arms around him. “Tell me!”
“Before you arrived on this doorstep, I considered living somewhere new and interesting.”
“Hmm. Ireland?”
“Ireland is not new, my pet. And filled with disgruntled Fenians.”
“Where then? Half the world is disgruntled, Octavian.”
“Would you go? Leave England? All of this? Your friends, your home?”
“‘Wither thou goest, I will go. Wither thou lodgest, I will lodge. And your people—’”
It must be past two in the middle of the night, but on his handsome face, the sun dawned and shone like a beacon of hope. “Would you, my only love, come with me?”
He sounded hesitant, questioning if she could leave all this and go somewhere else…anywhere else in the world with him? How could he not see how she loved him above all others? “Anywhere you are is where I must be.”
“Then you’ll marry me?”
“Tomorrow if the vicar will do it!”
He looked relieved, but still skeptical of her choice. “Tomorrow is Christmas, my sweet girl. We’ll see to a date soon.”
She ran her hands through his hair. She had to keep him, not allow him to leave without assurances that whatever plagued him, she would have him. “I have my mother’s fortune to fund us.”
He balked at that. “No. You’ll keep that for yourself.”
She cast him an evil eye. “I would share with my husband who, by the by, believes a woman is equal to a man.”
He demurred, but only for a fraction of a second. “Ah. I am corrected.”
“You are, sir.”
He nodded. “We’ll make a new life and find new ways, better ways to live. Where no one will hurt you.”
She nodded. “Where no one will judge us by our rank.”
“Yes.” He narrowed his gaze on her in a look of cool regret as if…as if he could not accept that. “Not by rank or income. Or the past.”
“Because I love you,” she said.
“And because I love you.”
* * *
He left her minutes later, arguing that he had much work to do. He did, of course, but what consumed him was the totality of what he faced.
Marriage to her was not the problem. He adored her and would have her to wife, to have and to hold forever. But how would that marriage work? Be viable? Happy for both of them?
He had grave doubts.
As he exited her rooms, who should appear emerging from the opposite room, but the Marquess of Tain. And he came, not from his own assigned rooms, but from those of Lady Penelope Goddard. Simms would know. He had assigned the rooms to guests. But seeing Tain leave that widowed lady’s rooms was not a fact the house butler should note. He did not greet the man, nor even blink. He simply passed onward this time taking the main stairs.
Downstairs in the servants quarters, he strode to his own rooms. He needed a quick bath, cold as it would be. A shave, if he had time. And then he was off to the kitchens to begin supervision with the housekeeper of the morning routines. The maids had to light the fires, empty the wastes from each room, being quiet as mice. The footmen had to be up and about to help serve visiting men servants their morning cups and all had to present themselves, well attired, to dress the dining room for Christmas breakfast.
Through it all, Simms fought with himself about the real challenges to his coming marriage to the daughter of the Earl of Leith. For her, the announcement that she would marry a man of no title, no wealth, no name recognition among thetonwould cause an uproar of disapproval. Indeed, they would shun her. Her family and friends would wish to call upon her and express their dismay as well as attempt to dissuade her from the union. He doubted she’d tolerate more than a polite suggestion that she terminate their engagement. No, he knew she loved him and would not give him up to anyone’s appeals.
But the questions they would raise were viable ones. Issues that were ingrained in Eliza’s own background and his own. And there was the rub.
