If he thought their betrothal would precipitate some new intimacy, he was wrong.
If he thought he would kiss her again, he did not.
Their impending nuptials seemed almost... immaterial to the way they got on. Instead, the week leading up to the wedding was filled with new horses and dancing shoes andno-elbows-on-the-tableat dinner. Her smiles were cautious, not unwarm, but detached. They were alone together almost never.
And why should he expect more? He felt wretched about what had happened. No, he felt wretched that they’dbeen discovered. Servants snickered behind her back—despite his threats of expulsion. Imogene grew even more petulant and difficult. Add to that the awkwardness of their brief meetings alone—short encounters he manufactured to review the paperwork for the special license or to go over trivial details about the ceremony—and was it any wonder? Their time together was taut with prolonged silencesand paper shuffling. He was determined not to frighten or alarm her; not to force her into . . . more than he was already forcing her (which was a lifetime), but he had no idea how to manage it. Especially since he wanted her so bloody much.
Meanwhile, his nights were filled with hot dreams and sheet-thrashing sweat; he woke up hard and ravenous for her. She’d thrown herself into her work with the girls, and he invented reasons to watch her from a distance. When they were riding, he rode. When the dancing instructor called, he made himself an available partner.
She, in turn, positioned herself opposite his sister in dances and walked instead of rode, pulling Ivy’s horse on a lead. Lessons, tutors, faux tea parties wherein social calamities were foreseen and navigated—all of this took center stage. If he was being honest, she seemed to regard Ianlessafter their betrothal than before.
It was fine, he told himself.
He had other work.
He’d learned from Rucker Loring, the estate manager who appeared outside the window at the dressmaker, that some of his tenants had embarked upon the high-risk and penalty-heavy endeavor ofsmuggling. If this was true, he’d have to intervene. He could not tolerate the people of Avenelle descending into criminal activity to get by. The penalty for smugglers was hanging. Not on his watch.
He understood their motives, of course. Their duke had made no progress reducing the export levy on their handcrafted lace and local mills had been allowed to thrive. They were angry and desperate and smuggling was common in coastal Dorset.
Loring had been sent to further investigate, and Ian had devoted no small amount of hours to planning how he might put a stop to the smuggling if it was true.
Considering all this, the wedding was... if not an “afterthought,” well certainly it was just another thing they had to do.
“So she’s simply carried on, instructing the girls?” asked an old army mate, Jason Beckett, the Duke of Northumberland, in the minutes before the wedding.
The two men were packed into the antechamber outside the sanctuary of St. Mark’s awaiting the priest. In a rare fit of optimism, Ian had invited his old friend North to stand as witness.
Miss Trelayne would most assuredly have Princess Cynde at the wedding. There were no guarantees, but the princess had begun to turn up in Pollen Street at regular intervals. In contrast, Ian had no witness except possibly his butler, Greenly. Most of Ian’s friends had fallen away after the riots; the last hangers-on had drifted on during his self-imposed exile. But Northumberland had been a foreign agent before he was a duke and more recently, North had been out of the country with his new wife, traveling Europe.
Now he was back in England for a time, and in London no less, and when Ian learned this, he’d sent North his card. North had written back immediately and assured Ian he would be honored to attend the wedding. At Ian’s gentle suggestion, North had come alone. Ian’s family simply wasn’t yet prepared to entertain a duke and duchess. Ian had intercepted North when he’d arrived and corralled him inside the antechamber until the ceremony began.
“Yes, she’s carried on with the girls,” Ian explained to his old friend. “It’s why she was hired. Honestly, her dedication to the job... a sort of steadfastness, I suppose... was what I admired from the very start. I admire it still. All of us in this house could benefit from more thoughtful, measured behavior.”
“And was it her dedication and steadfastness that caused you to pounce upon her in the portrait gallery?” wondered North. “Or perhaps it was her thoughtfulness and measure?”
Ian let out a noise of exasperation and turned away, tightening his gloves. His old friend wouldn’t be fooled.
“Did I ever mention my fondness for redheads?” Ian asked North.
“I cannot say that you did,” North chuckled.
“Perhaps because I never realized I had one. But I do. She’s lovely, Jason. Ginger hair, legs unlike any I’ve had the privilege of encountering, teal eyes. Freckles.”
“Tealeyes, did you say?” teased North.
Ian frowned. “My point is, her loveliness is my only excuse for that night in the gallery. Why else would I... set upon a girl I barely know, in whose hands rests the future of my nieces? She’s a bloody employee;I should have known better.”
“Devil if I know, mate,” said North. “I fell in love with my interpreter when I was halfway to Iceland on a mission. But answer me this: Do you fancy the idea of kissing her again, should the opportunity strike?”
“All. The. Bloody. Time,” Ian stated slowly, speaking to the wall. He paused, trying to find church-appropriate words for how often he thought of putting his hands on Miss Trelayne. “It’s a voracious sort of... sort of... mindlessness. A little like being drunk, and a little like anticipation, and a little like being plunged under water and needing to draw breath.”
“Well said,” chuckled North. “Poetic too. You always were too clever for your own good. Look, Lachlan, if your... er, regard is as strong as this, and if she reciprocates, then why shouldn’t you marry her? Even if it’s a forced union to a girl you barely know. I hear no regret, no bitterness. My God Lachlan, you seem almost... happy.”
“I’m not happy,” Ian declared.
“I don’t believe you.”
“And what do you know of my happiness?”
