He was starting to worry she didn’t feel the same way about him. In the next moment, he would find out.
“My goal has changed,” he said. “Quite simply, I want you.”
Her eyes were glistening, but infuriatingly, she was shaking her head.
“No?” he asked, feeling a shard of fear slice through him.Did this beautiful, smart, saucy, ornery, funny, wonderful woman really not want him?
“Scotland,” she protested feebly.
“What?” he demanded.
“If I am truly your friend, then I must counsel you,” she paused, gulped a lungful of air, then continued, “to stay the course and claim your land. Everyone wants to own land. Even my parents have a small country house. It would be patently selfish on my part not to remind you of this, and I can’t be selfish where you are concerned, you who have given me and my family so much.”
“Selfish? Beatrice, dammit, for once be like an American and speak plainly. Do you want to be my wife? Yes or no. No more nonsense about my ridiculous goal or counseling me.” He stepped closer and took her by the upper arms. “I no longer give a damn about being a Scottish landowner, and I don’t need you to guide my future. But I do want you to be in it.”
Silence. Only those large blue eyes staring into his. And then he saw it, the moment her thoughts went from doubtful and even fearful to accepting and agreeable. The moment Beatrice decided to say...
“Yes. I want to be your wife.” And she slid her arms up and around his neck, drew his head down, and kissed him. He would swear the air around them sizzled when their lips touched. It was a long and satisfying kiss.
When he pulled back, he realized he’d slid his hands behind her and was holding onto her tightly. “I take it you aren’t interested in any of the snout-noses you’ve met.”
She smiled. “They all lacked a certain humor I’ve found with you.”
“You like me for my ability to amuse you?”
“No, Mr. Carson. Iloveyou for the way you make me feel when we’re together. With you, I have seen the elephant!”
He lowered his mouth to hers again, breathing in her vanilla scent and teasing her with his lips.
***
“OH, NO,” CAME A FAMILIARwailing voice. Beatrice wasn’t overly concerned, but turned her head at the same time as Greer to see Delia standing in the hallway, the Chestertons’ estate agent beside her.
However, she didn’t step back with guilt at being caught kissing. Instead, Beatrice slowly lowered her arms, and then her American —the man who had asked her to marry him!— took her hand in his as they faced their onlookers.
“I was shirking my duties,” Delia moaned. “I never should have left you alone. But the servants’ quarters were very nice,” she added, glancing at the man beside her. “And the plumbing is all new.” Then she frowned. “That’s beside the point, though, isn’t it? Miss Beatrice, you have behaved very badly.”
“It’s all right, Delia. Mr. Carson has asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”
With an incoherent sound, the Rare-Foure maid rushed forward to hug her. “Your mother said it would turn out this way all along.”
“Did she?” Beatrice asked. Then she recalled how Felicity had predicted they would marry the first time she’d found her and Greer alone together in the back room of the confectionery.
“She did, didn’t she?” he remarked, clearly recalling that day, too. “Your mother is a perceptive woman.”
“I can’t wait for her to return so I can tell her she was right,” Beatrice said. “That will make her day. On the other hand, I suppose it will be like every other day, for I don’t think anyone’s ever told my mother she was wrong.”
“What about this property, Mr. Carson?”
The three of them had completely forgotten the estate agent. Greer looked at her, a questioning expression on his handsome face. She nodded.
“We’ll buy it,” he said.
***
GREER DROPPED OFF HISEnglish bride-to-be at Rare Confectionery where undoubtedly Charlotte would shortly hear the good news. Beatrice had assured him her father would not be angry at not having been asked for permission regarding his middle daughter’s hand.
“He’s not old fashioned,” she’d said during the carriage ride.
