“What if there was another way for you to have an income?”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“This business”—he waved his hand through the air as though to encompass all the space between the walls—“this club for ladies was never a dream of mine. I had the notion of it because I thought it might bring you into my world where I could wreak my revenge on you.”
She arched a brow. “I see. You wished me ill.”
“I did.” He didn’t appear the least bit contrite. “Although I suspect not as much as you wished ill upon me.”
“I cursed your name every night before I went to bed.”
“Perhaps you’ll curse it tonight as well, but as more of a benediction, in gratitude rather than disappointment, as I pleasure you. But I digress. As I was saying, this was not what I dreamed of before I went to prison, it wasn’t what brought me excitement, what spurred me on to work so hard.”
“I remember you wanted to have a horse farm. You wanted a place that looked out over London.”
He grinned, no doubt pleased she remembered that long ago outing. “I’ve been thinking about your dream of providing a good home for children. Yes, the success of this place could, in time, make that happen. But there is a more expedient way to bring about your dream and mine.”
“What would that be?”
“I’ve been considering what your brother said before we left him. If you marry, your husband gains land.” He wrinkled his brow. “What was it?”
“Wood’s End.”
“Right. Thornley will purchase it from you at a good price, from what I’m given to understand. You could buy some land outside of London, build a residence with a hundred bedchambers. I’m sure I could talk Mick into giving you a bargain on building it. When it’s full, you’ll build another. And another. You let women know that their children, born out of wedlock, do not need to be handed over to a baby farmer. You’ll have all the children you can love, and you’ll be there with them.”
“Where will you be?”
“Well, I was hoping you’d be amenable to my raising horses there. You would share in the profits, of course, and with them, you will have funds for the foundling home.”
“How are we going to manage this club and a foundling home and breed horses?”
“I have another idea for the club—and it won’t require that we be here at all. We’ll live in the country.”
As though pondering his words, finding it difficult to comprehend, she rubbed her chin. “There’s only one little problem with this plan of yours. I would have to find a gent to marry, one who wanted to marry me, a fallen woman.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did as he bade.
“Open them.”
When she did, all she could see was his beloved face, his eyes searching hers.
“You need look no further than this, Vivi. I have loved you from the moment you punched my arm in the stables. I thought I could love you no more than I did, until today when you sacrificed your heart for our little girl.” Taking her hand, he lowered himself to one knee. “I don’t know if the Fates will be kind enough to let me give you another, but I’ll certainly try. Marry me, Vivi.”
With her free hand, she brushed the hair back from his brow. “I promised to marry you long ago, Finn. I’m still bound to that vow. You’ve held my heart since you promised to sing a sweet lullaby to my horse. All you have to do is take me to the church.”
Chapter 26
Three weeks later, they married on a Tuesday in a small church with far less pomp and circumstance than she was accustomed, but one far better suited to her new station in life, with only those they considered family gathered around them. Mick and Lady Aslyn, Gillie and Thornley, Aiden, Beast, Fancy, and their mum, Ettie Trewlove. Her brother and his wife joined them. She didn’t send word to her mother. She planned to never contact the hateful woman again.
Although Neville did report to her that when her article ran in theLondon Gazettethe previous week, their mother had a near apoplectic fit because the piece had reflected Lady Lavinia Kent, sister to the Earl of Collinsworth, as the author. That thetonnow knew her daughter was intimate with the worst areas of London brought her shame. Neville, however, had applauded her efforts and had assured her that he would be representing her cause in Parliament. In addition, she’d been paid a modest sum for the article and the editor had indicated he’d be receptive to receiving more of her work.
After the wedding ceremony, once she and Finn signed the wedding registry, they traveled in a caravan of fine coaches to Coventry House—the London home to the Duke and Duchess of Thornley—where the solicitor, Mr. Beckwith, awaited them in the duke’s library, with a small stack of papers before him.
“The papers for the trust that holds Wood’s End to serve as a dowry,” he announced, separating them from the others and turning to a page at the back. “Lord Collinsworth, if you will sign here that the terms have been met...”
Neville did so with a great deal of flourish.
