“Indeed,” he agreed fervently.
And then they were together on the platform, and he was announcing to his friends and relatives and neighbors that the Countess of Wanstead had done him the great honor of consenting to be his wife and the new—Countess of Wanstead.
There was laughter, applause, exclamations of surprise, whistles, a lone cheer. And his betrothed, her teeth biting into her lower lip, her dark eyes large in her face, her cheeks glowing with color, gazed back into his eyes as he raised her hand to his lips and bowed to her.
“I would suggest,” he said, “that the gentlemen take their partners for the next set. It is the supper dance. Her ladyship and I will go and see that all is ready in the dining room.”
But if all was not ready there, then his guests would have to go hungry for all the checking either of them did. They proceeded in silence until they reached the library, which was in darkness, there being no fire and no candles lit. It did not matter. He closed the door firmly behind them and backed her against it. He did not need eyes to feel her or smell her—or to hear her laughing.
He leaned against her and laughed with her—idiotic, helpless laughter that neither of them could control for several minutes.
“Oh, theminx!” she said at last. “She had you backed into a corner, Gerard. You should just have seen the frozen smile on your lips and the hunted look in your eyes. In another minute she would have had you proposing in public.”
“Instead of which,” he said, “you had me announcing my betrothal in public.”
The exchange merited another prolonged bout of shared laughter.
“Arewe betrothed?” he asked her—a light, teasing question that nevertheless had his stomach performing strange contortions. Her answer, he realized, could change the whole course of both their lives.
“No, of course we are not.” The laughter had gone out of her voice. “You needed rescuing. You set me free last evening. I have returned the favor this evening. We are even. You need not fear scandal when we break it off or when we just let it lapse. You will be far away where gossip does not matter. I will be with my father or here at Thornwood.”
“We will talk tomorrow about how it is to be done,” he said, his heart suddenly in his dancing shoes. “There is no time now. We had better be in the dining room when everyone comes there after the set is finished.”
“Yes,” she said.
“There is going to be a deluge of congratulations and other remarks,” he warned her.
“Yes. I shall merely smile graciously,” she said.
“Let’s go, then.”
But instead of pushing away from her and opening the door, he leaned more heavily against her and found her mouth with his own in the darkness. And slid his arms behind her and about her when he felt hers twining about his shoulders. He could feel the fingers of one of her hands pushing up through his hair as she opened her mouth against his and moaned.
He was not sure how many minutes passed while they held each other and kissed each other as if they could never be close enough to satisfy the craving of their hearts. The depth of their very obviously mutual passion left him shaken and disoriented. But he was aware as he finally lifted his head away from hers that the music in the ballroom had not yet ended.
“There is still the chance that you are with child,” he said, his lips light against hers again.
“Yes.” She whispered the word and pressed her lips softly against his again.
He stepped away from her then and opened the door. Light from the candles in the wall sconces outside beamed in on them and brought a strange assurance of reality to the last few minutes. He smiled at her. She smiled back. They walked to the dining room without exchanging another word.
“I have never been more happy or more surprised in my life,” Lady Hannah said hyperbolically, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “You and dear Gerard, Christina.”
“But I had the impression you disliked each other,” Margaret protested.
“We did,” Christina said. “But we don’t.”
“I am so happy I could scream,” Margaret told her.
“Please don’t.” Christina felt a strong urge to laugh. This whole episode was strangely hilarious to her. She was bubbling over with happiness—which was peculiar under the circumstances. She would not be able to take the children to London in the spring after all. She would have to remain quietly in the country, either at her father’s or here. Unless . . .
She did not know if she dared.
But of course she dared. She was free. She could do anything she liked.
She turned to greet other well-wishers.
“A leg shackle, old chap,” Viscount Luttrell said, clapping a hand on the earl’s shoulder. “My commiserations. Why am I feeling envious?”
