She turned a little to face him, laughing. “Asecretmarriage? How would that work?”
“Well, we would have to get a special licence and be married somewhere we are not known, but we need tell no one about it. No announcement in theGazette.Then when we meet in public, we can pretend not to know each other.‘Miss Nicholson, do you know Lord Tarvin? He is most anxious to dance with you.’And you would say loftily,‘I believe we have met before — a slight acquaintance.’Then we would dance and talk about the weather and the state of the roads and what a crush there is. We would have to leave separately, of course, but we would return to wherever we were staying and retire to bed together, laughing at those credulous people who knew nothing.”
“Bed? What about the marriage of convenience?”
“I told you — I could not hold to that when you kiss me with such fire. You need not worry about that side of marriage, mydarling. When you kiss like that, I know you will enjoy the rest of it.”
“With Tom, I would have.”
He dropped her hand abruptly, a look of such pain on his face that she was shocked. He jumped to his feet and paced across the sunken garden and back again.
“Well! You do have a way of puncturing a man’s vanity, Tess,” he said, his voice shaky. “And I thought we were getting on so well, too.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, contrite. “I did not mean… it was a stupid thing to say.”
“Perhaps I should take up woodwork,” he said, sitting down with a whump on the bench again. “Would that help? I could roll up my sleeves and replace the cravat with a red spotted neckerchief and make chairs. Perhaps then I would be lessstuffy.I cannot imagine why I ever thought I could win you over, Tess. I must have been mad. You have a heart of stone, clearly. Have you any idea how many caps have been thrown my way in town? Daughters of earls and viscounts… wealthy heiresses… all of them accomplished and educated andsuitablefor a man in my position. I could have had my pick, but no, they were all boring. Stuffy, even. I foolishly imagined that a chaplain’s daughter who wants to be a highwayman would be a more interesting wife. What an idiot I have been!”
For answer, she slid along the bench towards him and put an arm around his slumped shoulders. “Hush. I am the foolish one. If you had an ounce of common sense, you would run back to London as fast as you can, and marry one of your heiresses. You are supposed to disapprove of me, you know.”
He raised his head, and she saw the humour shining in his eyes. “But that would be no fun at all.”
She laughed and, because she could not at that moment resist the twinkle in his eyes, she leaned forward and pressedher lips against his. He responded with such fierceness that all the breath left her lungs and her legs turned to jelly. It was as well she was already sitting down for otherwise she would have fallen down. She clung to him in fear that she would simply collapse at his feet, but he held her tight in his arms and after a while, when she realised that she was in no danger of falling, she surrendered utterly to the glory of his embrace. Such a man! Such a kiss! Such joy bubbling up in her heart… but she could not… it was impossible… what on earthwasthis that she was feeling? It was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and it was terrifying.
Pushing him away, she slid away from him, breathing heavily. And then she felt bereft.
“Oh, Tess, Tess!” he groaned. “Marry me, my love,please!”
She took a deep breath, then another. Deep inside, her heart was screaming,‘Yes, yes, yes!’
But her head was still just about in charge. “I cannot possibly marry you, Edward.”
“Why not?Why not?Give me a single reason why we should not be married at once.”
“Because my mother would approve of you.”
He stared at her in astonishment, and then, very slowly, he began to laugh. “We will just have to elope, then. She would certainly not approve of me then.”
Tess laughed, too. Such an infuriating man, in so many ways, but he had the power to surprise her, too. And if he was truly willing to elope with her… that was not stuffy at all, was it?
***
Edward’s mother wrote almost every day, in increasingly strident terms.
‘My dearest son, Where are you? I do not expect you to dance attendance on me, for I am well accustomed to the loneliness of widowhood and the sorrow of having no daughter to console my declining years, and I know you have business that occupies you from time to time, but please assure an anxious mother that you are well. You know how I worry about you. I write to Corland as you directed, but having no response for some time, I now wonder if my letters are reaching you at all. Are you back in town? The Williamsons are there at present for Lady Serena to consult her physician. Or if you should happen to be in York, Lady Anne is visiting her cousins there. This would be a good time to fix your interest with her, too good an opportunity to miss by dallying at Corland. What business keeps you there? I do trust you are keeping well away from Tess Nicholson, who is nothing but trouble. Do write soon, Edward, if only for the reassurance your reply would furnish to your affectionate mother, Alvira Harfield.’
He wrote back as he thought appropriate.
‘My dear mother, I am quite well. I am fixed at Corland for the present, and do not yet know my plans beyond that. I am fully aware of Miss Nicholson’s nature. My regards to Aunt Myrtle and to you from your dutiful son, Edward.’
He smiled as he imagined his mother’s reaction when she read it. Lord, how she badgered a man! But he was not a child any longer, obliged to account for every lesson with his tutors and every boy he befriended. And while it had amused him to pretend to be considering this or that eligible female during the season, he was not about to tell her that he had been climbing trees and chasing about Yorkshire in pursuit of Tess Nicholson. His mother would have an apoplexy if she knew the half of it!
It was true that Tess appeared superficially to be a demure maiden. She had returned to the dinner table each evening instead of skulking in her room, and they always sat together,ignoring Lady Alice’s invitations for Edward to sit next to her. Afterwards, they played chess, and he had to concentrate hard to have any chance of defeating her. Quite often he was able to persuade her to ride with him, with a groom for propriety, and it amused him to think that even his mother could find nothing amiss in Tess’s person or behaviour.
Yet their conversation, had she overheard it, would have given her palpitations. They planned in great detail how they would live as highwaymen. When that had been agreed, they discussed being pirates or running a gaming hell or simply disappearing to America, not telling a soul where they were going. And sometimes Edward raised the issue of elopement, and how they would plan that.
“We would need four horses to our post chaise,” Tess had said. “Just in case Mama sends Captain Edgerton after us.”
“Why a post chaise? I have a perfectly good carriage,” Edward protested.
