“Don’tsay midwinter,” he interjected, his head dropping back to her shoulder with a disconsolate groan. “I can’t wait so long as that.”
“Anything sooner would be scandalous.”
“Then let’s be scandalous.”
Grace lifted her head so swiftly her forehead nearly connected with his. “What?” she asked on a laugh. “But there’s no need. I have got Charity’s tea—”
Henry braced himself on one elbow, lifted the fingers of his free hand to cup the curve of her cheek. “I want you with me always,” he said. “I want to wake to your face beside mine upon these pillows. I want to end each night with you in my arms in this very bed. And for God’s sake, my love, I want it to besoon.”
Every bit of her softened with pure pleasure. “Sooner than midwinter?”
“God, yes. Next week would not be soon enough for me.”
“Next week! No one could arrange a proper wedding by next week.”
“There’s no need for a proper wedding when one has got a special license, which I will remind you Ihaveobtained,” he said. A groan of frustration left his lungs as he wilted in the face of the severe stare she slanted him. “I’ll give you one month to arrange a proper wedding,” he said begrudgingly. “Any longer, and I will drag you before a clergyman myself and marry you at the earliest opportunity.”
“Done.” She soothed the frown that had pleated itself into his brow with a kiss.
“I don’t know how I am going to bear it,” Henry sighed. “A whole damned month.”
“Oh, come. It won’t be so bad as all that,” she said as she let him ease off of her at last and tuck her within the circle of his arms. “I’m just across the street. And need I remind you”—she pressed a kiss to his chin—“I can let myself into your house any time I please.”
Epilogue
Exactly twenty-nine days later
Henry’s heart beat a harried rhythm in his chest as he listened to the vicar drone on and on. The wait had been interminable, but the ceremony was drawing to a close at last, and then—Grace would be his wife.
At last.
She had never looked more beautiful than she did at this moment, as she recited her vows in a clear, sweet voice, those glorious green eyes shining with joy. In her gown of shimmering gold silk with her lustrous hair pinned in artful curls, she glowed like a star, incandescent and sparkling. Vivid in a way that only she would ever be to him. The whole of his happiness was personified in her, and she held his heart within the cup of her small hands.
As she turned to face him, he was struck dumb anew with the realization that his magnificent, beautiful, compassionate woman would soon be his forevermore. His wife, his countess…his Grace. Justhis.
“The ring,” the vicar hissed beneath his breath, making a gesture of the hand he had extended, open-palmed, to Henry. Henry jolted as he realized abruptly that he had missed his cue by some moments.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes. The ring.” He plucked the ring—anheirloom chosen from amongst the estate jewelry; emerald, to match Grace’s eyes—from the vicar’s palm and held it aloft. “With this ring—”
A familiar whizzing sound. A dried pea struck the back of his head.
Grace’s eyes widened. Her jaw tensed, flexed. Her cheeks hollowed as she strove valiantly to hold back the laughter that shook her shoulders. Silent, for the moment. But that would not last long.
Henry raced through the remainder of his vows and slid the ring onto the fourth finger of Grace’s left hand. “Which one of the little devils was that?” he whispered to her,sotto voce, as the vicar directed them to kneel and began to drone on once more, reciting the prayers over them which would, hopefully, conclude the ceremony.
“Probably you won’t believe this,” she whispered back, “but it wasn’t any of them. It was your sister.”
“Eliza!” Henry said in surprise, and in his shock he’d forgotten to modulate his voice. It soared around the ceiling, breaking over the church, and dragging out a great number of chuckles from the people who had come to see them be wed.
Grace had valiantly attempted to stifle her amusement with the tips of her fingers, but a snort slipped through anyway.
The vicar was unamused. Probably, given the depths of the lines which bracketed his mouth as his lips sagged into a frown, he had never once been amused in the whole of his life. “If you are quite finished,” he intoned, the muscles beneath his right eye twitching.
“Yes, Father. My apologies.” Henry strove to look appropriately chastened. His wedding day had been nearly a whole month in coming, and if the vicar decided they were not treating the occasion with the solemnity it merited, they might well have to wait longer for it still.
Solemn. Henry bowed his head in an effort to disguise the twitch of his lips. He was meant to be solemn and serious and earnest. Hewasearnest—it just wasn’t the sort of earnestness that came with a sober demeanor and a flat expression. It was the sort of earnestness that had his gaze sliding toward Grace’s hand, where she wore his ring upon her finger. The sort of earnestness that had his fingers flexing at his sides in eager anticipation of the moment when he would be permitted to take her hand in his once more.
At last. At last. At last.The words resounded in his head, drowning out everything else as the vicar droned on and on, until—a burst of applause.
