“More time,” he repeated with greater urgency.
The two words echoed through the stillness of the gentle slopes of the country around them. Such tremendous quiet after the violence of the earlier storm. But many good things had come from that virulence. He had clarity now.
As clearly as the sun peering from the clouds, illuminating the hill upon which the temple had sat upon their emergence, a halo of golden rays surrounding it. The rainbow should have been his sign that something good would come.
Rainbows inevitably made him think of his mother.Look to the sky, Adrian, she would say.Find the promise of hope, of good after bad. It shall always be there, waiting.
He had never believed it true. After the rains had come mud and puddles, cold and misery.
“Yes, that is what we need,” Tilly agreed. “But how shall we have it?”
“We deny him what he wants,” he said, everything falling into place in his mind, like a key neatly fitting into a lock. “He is the reason for this arrangement, with the goal of securing an heir who shares his blood, one who is not from the part of the family tree which is most loathsome to him.”
And what a thought that was. Longleigh must have hated his brother with a passion to accept the bastard son—the son he still refused to publicly acknowledge—bedding his own wife for an heir. Just to spite the brother who was next in line to inherit.
“I suppose we must be thankful your father was not the hated brother,” Tilly said solemnly, in an eerie echo of his thoughts. “But was third in line instead.”
The truth, ever-present, prodded at Adrian, and he should tell her. Hewouldtell her. But first, the more immediate problem facing them needed to be solved.
“Yes. For the first time in my life, I find myself grateful for the circumstances of my birth,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
But they were pedaling, his expression hidden from her, and he knew she would only hear what was on the surface of those words—what she knew. Regardless, it was the truth. If the only good thing to come from the pain of being the Duke of Longleigh’s bastard son was that he had found Tilly, she made it worth every bloody trial.
“As am I,” she said, disrupting his tumultuous thoughts. “But I still do not understand how denying him an heir will give us more time together.”
“Send word to him in London.” Adrian held tight to his bars as they navigated over a series of bumps which had been caused by the rushing rainwater creating tracks in the well-worn gravel, leaving deep divots in its wake. “Tell him nature has proven the last few weeks unsuccessful, but that you wish to achieve his objective. To do so, you are requesting more time in the country.”
She cast him a look over her shoulder, grinning, her vibrant eyes luminous. “Oh, Robin! I think it could work, this idea of yours. Why did I not think of it?”
Likely for the same reason he had not; they had both been too consumed in each other to realize how much time had passed. To think clearly until it was almost too late. But they had time enough yet. And he had an inkling the duke, desperate for his heir, would agree.
Belatedly, Adrian took note of a massive puddle they were about to ride straight through. “If you do not turn round, we shall hit—”
Ballocks.
“—the puddle.”
She turned her attention to the road too late. They rattled through the water—thankfully not upending the cycle, but the damage was done. Great globs of muck and rainwater went everywhere, coating them. Mud splattered on his chin, his nose.
Christ, he was already wet from their earlier mishap, so what was some more water with a bit of mud thrown in for good measure? There was a feeling of victory soaring through him as they neared Coddington Hall.
“Do forgive me.” She tossed him another look, grinning.
And she had mud on her face. A big, brown splotch marring her cheek.
She was beautiful.
He wanted to leap from the bloody cycle and take her in his arms.
Adrian attempted to reposition himself in the saddle. His damned cock was getting hard. Of all the inconvenient times for such a thing to occur. Nothing to do about that particular ailment whilst he was clinging to a tandem tricycle.
“You are already forgiven,” he said wryly, thinking of the pair they made.
Bedraggled and muddied. Hopelessly in love. He was soaked to the bone, his cycling costume—which Tilly had insisted he wear—starting to grow deuced itchy. Covered in mud. His jaws had been rattled by bumps and puddles.
And yet, he was the happiest and most at peace he had been since…
Since Amelia.
