“I did not say that either.”
“Oh!” She wrung her hands in the air in frustration. “Will you please just tell me? You might think this is funny, but I assure you that it is not.”
“Are you certain about that?” he said as his smirk grew.
She levelled a flat gaze at him. “Laugh it up now, but when we are home…” Her eyes narrowed. “We will see just how funny you think this is.”
“I am not trying to be funny,” Christopher sighed as he stepped into Rose and took her hand. She tried to snatch it away, but he refused to let go. “Your father and I had what amounted to a business meeting, and he made me promise that I would not divulge the particulars to you.”
“Typical,” she snapped. “He is happy for my help when it suits, but as soon as –”
“What I can tell you…” Christopher spoke over her, and as he did, he took her other hand so that he was facing her directly. “We will need to go shopping in the next week or two.”
She leaned back. “What for?”
“A new dress for you to wear at your sister’s wedding, of course…” He pumped his eyebrows. “One that I am quite certain your sister will be rather pleased to attend herself. She did insist on the matter, after all.”
“Does that mean…” Rose felt her heart flutter, but she tried to contain it. “Julian…”
Christopher winked.
“Oh!” Rose threw herself at Christopher and smothered him in kisses. He pretended to try to push her away, but he did not try too hard. “Thank you! Thank you!” Rose beamed as she continued to kiss him.
“I told you I would see it done,” he said.
‘I never doubted you.”
Christopher snorted.
“I did not!” She pulled back and looked at him warningly. “I am many things, and supportive is one of them.” She dared him to argue.
He just laughed. “And that, more than anything, is why I never doubted myself. Also…” He winced. “The idea of returning home with you if I had failed…” A shudder next. “I would not wish it upon my worst enemy.”
“Stop it!” she slapped him playfully on the chest.
He snatched her hand and widened his eyes at her. She pretended to narrow her own. They stared in warning… only to both break into joyous smiles, which soon devolved into a passionate kiss.
“Rose!” Mariannes hurried from the room. “Rose!”
Rose pulled herself from her husband’s embrace just in time to see Marianne rush toward her. She was crying tears of joy, and Rose struggled to remember a time that she had ever seen her sister so happy.
They hugged. They cried. They laughed.
Through it all, Rose caught her husband watching them. His smile was generous, his eyes glimmered, and she knew that he was almost as happy for this moment as she was. As he should well be, because Marianne was more than his wife’s sister; she was family.
We are all family, and it is one that’s about to get that little bit bigger. If not for this marriage, then for the children we will bring into this world. How things got to here, I cannot say. But that they did, and that we get to enjoy them, for that I could not be happier.
Rose had never wanted to marry; she had never wanted to fall in love, and now that she had done both, she couldn’t imagine her life any other way. Nor could she imagine spending it with anyone other than Lord Christopher Kingswell, the Duke of Thornwall.
EPILOGUE
“Are you certain you don’t want my handkerchief?” Christopher asked Rose for what must have been the hundredth time that day.
“I am fine…” Rose sniffed and wiped her nose. “Or I will be fine.”
“And this is from someone who told me that they don’t usually cry at weddings,” Christopher scoffed.
Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “My only point of reference to that claim was our own wedding. And if I was going to cry that day, it certainly wouldn’t have been from happiness.”
