She laughed, and he hugged her and rocked her with his good arm.
“Ah, Emmy,” he said, releasing her sufficiently that she could see his lips. “You have the most infectious laugh I have ever heard. My love, marry me. Will you? Not because you have lain with me and may be with child by me. But because ’tis the only thing in the world we can do to be complete and happy. Will you marry me?” His eyes were anxious once more.
“Yes,” she said. “Ahshley.”
They simply smiled at each other for a long while. She could see no clouds behind his eyes, no troubles, not even any remaining doubts. Only a happiness and a peace that matched her own. His face was lit up by the sunlight.
“Will we stay at Penshurst?” he asked her. “I will sell it if you wish, Emmy. We can live elsewhere. It does not matter where as long as we are together.”
But she had set her fingertips over his lips before using her hands to speak.No,she told him.We will live here. This is home.
And after he had searched her eyes and had seen that she meant it, he looked happy again. Bad things had happened at Penshurst, Emily mused. They had culminated in the death of a man yesterday. But they were over and done with. Penshurst was merely a place, a beautiful house in natural surroundings with congenial neighbors, a few of whom would become close friends—Sir Henry Verney and his sister, Katherine Smith, Mr. Binchley. It was a place she and Ashley would make home, a place in which their children would be born and raised, a place where they would grow old together. They would make of it a good place with good memories.
“Yes,” he said, using his free hand to sign to her as well, “it is home. Because you are here with me, Emmy. But I am going to send you to Bowden tomorrow.”
Her smile faded and her eyes widened.
“We should marry at Bowden, not here,” he said. “And we should marry soon, Emmy. Because we wish to and because we must. We will send for your family and mine today, and tomorrow when you go to Bowden with Anna and Luke, I will go to London for a special license. We should be able to marry within two weeks.”
She bit her lip. She would be two weeks without him?
“An eternity,” he agreed, smiling ruefully. “This arm sling is mere decoration, you know, worn to arouse sympathy and to invite people to wait on me hand and foot. It does not incapacitate me for any of the important activities of life.”
She watched him remove it and drop it to the grass before flexing his shoulder and grimacing only slightly.
“Making love, for example,” he said, looking at her with a curious mixture of playful smile and smoldering eyes.
“Yes.” She touched one hand to his cheek again. “Yes.” It seemed important that they make love this morning. Not because of any fear or need for comfort, motives that had clouded their past lovemakings. But purely for the sake of love and sharing and joy.
He took her by the hand and led her into the summerhouse. It was flooded with the bright light of early morning. He turned and drew her against him. They smiled at each other before his mouth found hers.
•••
“Faith,child,” Lady Quinn said, kissing Anna warmly on both cheeks, “you will think us mad. Lud, wearemad.”
“This is a grand place, I warrant you, lad,” Lord Quinn said, rubbing his hands together and looking about the hall of Penshurst. He was addressing Luke. “I told Marj ’twould look magnificent by the light of the morning sun.”
“But he has never seen the place before,” Lady Quinn said, tossing her glance upward. “The moon and the stars were bright last night, Anna, my love. We were watching them.” Lord Quinn chuckled. “And Theo concocted the notion that we should leave town almost as soon as we had returned there and come here for breakfast. We have traveled half the night.”
“And are hungry, by my life,” Lord Quinn said. “I could devour an ox. Now, where is that youngest nephy of mine? Not up yet to welcome his aunt and uncle to his own home? Pox on it, but I have a good mind to go up and turn him out of bed with a pitcher of water over his head. If I but knew which direction to take.” He gave vent to a short bark of laughter.
“Ashley is outside, Theo,” Luke said, “taking the air.”
“At this hour? A lad after my own heart,” Lord Quinn said.
“And how is my dear Emily?” Lady Quinn asked. “I can scarce wait to bring her back to town with me, I vow. Unless—” She looked hopefully, first at Anna and then at Luke. “Unless she has something more important to do with her time, that is.”
Luke looked at his wife, who was smiling back at him, and raised his eyebrows. He pursed his lips. “By some coincidence, Aunt,” he said, “Emily is out taking the air too.”
Lord Quinn slapped his thigh with the three-cornered hat he had removed from his head. “Egad,” he said, “it worked, Marj, m’dear. You did not marry me in vain.” He roared with laughter.
“Theo,” his wife said, “you will be putting strange notions into dear Anna’s and Luke’s heads, I do declare. We merely thought thatifwe married and went away on a wedding journey, andifEmily came here with Anna for a fortnight, andifAshley was not a dreadful slowtop...”
“They did not go outtogetherthis morning,” Anna said. “Luke saw them both, but separately,” she added, flushing. “Still, we are hoping...”
“I have been set to spying on my own brother and sister-in-law as an occupation suited to my dotage,” Luke said in his haughtiest, most bored voice. “My duchess has encouraged me.”
Lord Quinn slapped his thigh again. “And has there been much to spy upon, lad?” he asked.
