Smiling, she cast a glance in his direction. “I am so grateful you corresponded with them. I simply cannot wait to show you every corner of the abbey. I hope little has changed. It hasn’t been that long, after all.”
“Nothing has changed,” he reassured her, because he had demanded it be so, in return for the veritable king’s ransom he had paid to bring Greycote Abbey back to Virtue.
He had also arranged for the return of her belongings, previously stored in Hunt Hall. The servants at Greycote Abbey had been happy to restore Virtue’s possessions.
“I hope you are right,” she said, nibbling on the fullness of her lush lower lip and almost eliciting a groan from him.
They’d been trapped inside the confines of this carriage, swaying over pitted roads and making their beds at travel inns, for far too long. He was looking forward to making love to his wife here, in a proper bed, along with revealing his surprise to her.
“I am right,” he said gently. “I know it.”
Out the window, Greycote Abbey’s centuries’ old walls were growing larger as they neared it.
“But how can you know?” she wondered. “Have you asked them?”
Time to tell her now, he reasoned. He’d kept the secret long enough—coincidentally, theonlysecret he kept from his beloved wife.
“I know because I arranged for it to be so,” he revealed. “And for your belongings to be removed from storage at Ridgely Hall and returned here.”
She cocked her head, her honey-brown gaze searching. “Why should you do that?”
He smiled. “Because I arranged for my man of business to secure Greycote Abbey for you. The new owner was willing to resell the estate to us for the correct price. It is ours now. Yours, truly. Just as it always should have been.”
Virtue pressed a hand to her lips, smothering a shocked gasp as tears shimmered in her eyes. “You bought Greycote Abbey?”
Trevor nodded. “We bought it, love.”
“Oh, my darling man,” she said, her hand lowering to her lap, disbelief and awe warring on her lovely countenance. “What of Mrs. Williams, Mr. Smith, Miss Jones, and all the rest? Have they stayed on?”
“They have,” he confirmed, drinking in the sight of her, so thrilled, the love for the domestics who had been the only family she’d once known so beautiful and readily apparent.
She was laughing, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks, as she threw herself into his lap. He caught her with a grunt, holding her tightly to keep her from injuring herself with her antics.
“I cannot fathom you did this for me.” She rained kisses on his face. “I love you so much.”
“It is the least I can do, to pay penance for my many sins,” he drawled. “And I love you too, V.”
He’d never grow tired of saying those words. Could never possibly say them enough. He would never quite forgive Pemberton for abandoning Virtue for all her life, but he was damned thankful his old friend had left her in his care. There she would remain, forever.
“Do you think I might have my confinement here?” she asked excitedly, in between kisses sprinkled over his cheeks, jaw, and nose.
He froze, his head jolting back against the silk tabberett squabs to study his wife’s face more thoroughly. “Your confinement?”
Had she just said what he thought she’d said? Hope, foolish and pure and uncontrollable, rose within him.
“Yes.” Her smile grew. “I didn’t want to tell you before our journey began, because I so desperately wanted to see Greycote Abbey, and I was afraid you would not want me to travel if you knew.”
“Damned right I wouldn’t have,” he growled, feeling instantly protective of the new life beginning within her womb. “Traveling to Nottinghamshire from London is not fit for a lady in a delicate condition.”
She kissed him again. “But we are here now.”
“Yes, we are.” He couldn’t keep himself from smiling back at her. His heart was full enough he was reasonably certain it might burst and go flitting about the wilds of Nottinghamshire.
“And you are happy?”
A question this time, her look turning shy.
“Happier than I ever dreamed possible,” he told her honestly, his voice breaking beneath the weight of his emotion. “No more secrets between us, however, V.”
