“You’re a beautiful pair. You’ll be blessed with such lovely babies. I’m sure your mother will keep me abreast. Unless, are you finally going to take up the estate? You know, young man, there’s nothing like country air for raising babies. And it would be so wonderful to have you closer. Just like when you and my boys were young.”
“We haven’t made any definite plans yet, Mrs. Lanaham. I’m sorry, but we need to be off. It was lovely to see you. Travel safely.”
“Oh, you as well, dear. I’ll give your mother your warm wishes. Stop and see her soon, will you?”
“Of course, Mrs. Lanaham.”
“Let’s go,darling,” Kit growled, as he dragged me along with him. My heart threatened to pound out of my chest.
He found our carriage quickly in the drizzle and shoved us behind it and out of sight. Alfie lay sprawled across the seat, boots hanging out of it.
Kit banged on the wall, jolting the sleeping boy awake. “For the love of all that is holy, tell me the weather is fine enough to travel?” he demanded.
“Aye, what’s got a bee in yer bonnet?” Alfie asked as he climbed out.
“Mywifeand I ran into a neighbor.”
“Yer wife?”
“Yes, Lady Davina and I are husband and wife now. Was that news to you as well?”
“Er… yes,” Alfie tried tentatively, unsure of how to manage the fuming man beside me.
“I couldn’t think of anything else,” I added unhelpfully. Alfie’s gaze bounced between the two of us with interest.
“Let’s see, you could have chosen not to abduct me in the first place. You could have brought a proper chaperone along with us. Hell, you could have not done whatever ridiculous thing you’ve done that required my assistance in the first place. Literally anything other than proclaiming me your husband did not occur to you?”
“It’s for Xan?—”
“Xander, I know,” he finished, rolling his eyes. “That woman is the biggest gossip in the county. It will be all over Lincolnshire that I’ve wed. And Mr. Kit Summers didn’t wed. No, it was Lord Leighton.”
“I didn’t?—”
“My mother! She will tell my mother that I’ve wed. Without informing her. Do you know what this will do to my mother? If your brother doesn’t see me hanged, she will.”
“If we just explain?—”
“There is no explaining. How do you not understand that?”
“Christopher Summers, you will stop interrupting me right this instant!”
He blinked slowly, stupidly for a moment before making a hand gesture that I generously chose to interpret as permission to continue without interruption.
“I am sorry this did not go as planned. I am sorry for what I told her. But you weren’t offering her any answers either, and don’t deny it. And I am sorry that I abducted you, but to be quite frank, you didn’t put up much of a fight.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the carriage, silent.
From behind me, I heard the crunch of boots on worn cobblestones. “Are ye ready to set off?” Rory asked.
Kit said nothing and Alfie was stuck, staring wide-eyed at the two of us, so it was left to me to nod.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked me when Kit slid into the carriage before me in a huff.
“I may have accidentally implied that he was my husband.”
“Ye would think a man would be happy about a thing like that. What with the way he looks at ye and all.”
“I beg your pardon?”
