“They will let us disembark at Carstairs, won’t they? To stretch and get some air.”
“Yes,” he said. “If they don’t, we’ll do so anyway and take a coach the rest of the way.”
She shook her head. “That’s even smaller and far more uncomfortable, not to mention slower.”
“You are correct. We’ll stay in this blasted carriage all the way to John O’Groats if we have to.”
“Absolutely not! A minute longer than Edinburgh and I vow I shall scream. The infernal racquet is getting to me, and I do not mean Diana.”
“Our ears shall rattle for hours afterward,” he agreed.
She decided to change the subject since he’d become ever quieter the closer they got to Edinburgh.
“Are you excited to see your family?”
“Youare my family,” he said. “And that annoying little person over there, too.”
“Yes, and you are mine, but I also love my parents and sisters and brother, too. And now I shall get to meet yours and see how much they look like you. It’s most exciting.”
“They will all love you, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know many Scots,” she continued. “But I hear they can be a little rougher than us. I vow I shall not point out anything lacking in their manners. I only hope I can understand their accents.”
“Be yourself, and if you get into any trouble, I shall translate.”
A few hours later,Purity was dozing when she heard Matthew softly say, “I didn’t expect that.”
Rousing herself, she looked around to get her bearings. Diana and Mrs. Caldwell slumbered together, but her husband wasn’t looking at them. He was gazing out the window beside him.
She saw a family —hisfamily — gathered in the lamplight upon the single platform at Lothian Road Station as the train pulled in.
“I honestly didn’t think they would be so interested. And at this ungodly hour, I imagined they would merely send a wagon.”
“You are the prodigal son returning,” Purity reminded him.
His gaze shot to hers. “That makes me a little queasy. When I left, I didn’t just amble, I ran, so eager was I to get away. With a stepfather I didn’t want and my mother having her new children.” He shrugged and added, “I didn’t belong.”
“They are your kin,” she reminded him, touching his knee.
He captured it under his gloved hand.
“I was lonely until I met you, kitten, and I must confess I didn’t behave particularly well.” He paused as the steam engine pulling their carriage came to a halt.
“What I’m trying to say, wife, is thank you. I would not have come back here without you, not yet, maybe never. Because it was your gentle tutelage that turned ‘the Fox’ into the respectable Lord Foxford. I’m proud to see my family again and to let them know the man I have become. Even more so to introduce you and Diana. I simply could not be happier.”
He leaned over and kissed her as Mrs. Caldwell and Diana stirred and stretched.
“Nor I, my lord,” Purity vowed. Then she sighed and teased him. “After all, your name has not been mentioned even once in an entire month in any of the newspapers.”
He grinned.
“Are we there yet?” Diana asked.
Purity looked at her husband before answering. “Yes, dear one, we have arrived.”
London, December 1848
Vast crowds were gatheredon The Mall. Matthew had insistedPurity brave the evening chill to join them and see a spectacle that promised to change the world. Unlike the rabble, however, standing on the cold gas-lit streets of St. James’s, looking up with anticipation, they were seated in his cozy curricle.
