Rob blinked twice and glanced back down the path. “You can’t want this place. Wouldn’t you rather have Willowbrook?”
There it is. He’s going to offer to hire me as steward. I can’t. He’ll come back now that he’s reconciled with the Bensons. Someday he’ll bring a wife. I would not be able to bear it.
“Lucy, I’m serious. Would you prefer to have Willowbrook?”
The man is talking in circles. “Of course, I love Willowbrook, but I won’t be your employee, Rob. I can’t. And what is this nonsense about London? Why would David suddenly take a notion to drag me there?”
“So that I can court you properly.” As if blinders had been removed, the intense heat of his eyes returned to bore into her, creating a fire in the center of her chest that spread outward.
“In London,” she sighed, taking in shallow breaths, trying to make sense of it.
“My life is there, Lucy. I can’t live at Willowbrook, not full time.” Words flowed out of him now, as cider might pour from a jug when a cork had been removed. He described a townhouse. His house. In a neighborhood called Chelsea. “It isn’t Mayfair, but it’s pleasant and new. A good place for families. I think you would like it there if you would but come and see it. I’m only asking you to see London. To try it—with Maddy, of course. We could drive out, go to the theatre, have dinner like civilized folk now the threats are gone. We could—”
Hope sprouted, spiraling upward like a vine in bud. Still, he confused her. “But Willowbrook? Aren’t you going to sell it? How can I stay there?”
“Of course, I won’t sell it. I don’t need an employee—not housekeeper, not steward, not accountant—That is, we will, and I have some ideas how we might make use of your skills… Oh, damn it, Lucy. I’m going at this all wrong.” He ran his fingers through his glorious thick auburn hair. “Just try London. We can—”
The buds of hope opened into full flower. “Are you proposing to me, Robert Benson? Because if you are, you’re making a muddle of it.” She stepped toward him and played with the buttons of his waistcoat.
He caught her hands in his, raising first one and then the other to his lips. “I am if you’re ready to hear it. Willowbrook is yours. I’ll have Eli make it so for you and your children.”
She stood on tiptoe until their mouths almost touched. She could feel his breath on hers. “My children? Will they beourchildren?”
His arms came around her, tenderly holding her in place, and a slow smile blossomed on his face. “Yes, oh, yes,” he murmured, taking her mouth in a gentle exploration. When his kisses moved across her check and down her neck, he murmured. “So, will you come to London?”
“No,” she breathed, distracted by the sensation he created.
He set her on her feet, one hand on each shoulder, and gazed down, hurt and confusion pouring off him. “No?”
Lucy smiled up at that daft man. “No. I won’t trundle off to London with Maddy and David. When I go to London, I’ll go as your wife.”
A wolfish grin chased his shadows away, and he bent to kiss her again, but she stayed him with a hand. “But I’ll need to tend to Willowbrook regularly.”
“We’ll spend summers in Ashmead,” he agreed, pulling her into his arms again.
“And visit once a month,” she murmured, as he began to do interesting things with his tongue and her ear.
“Quarterly,” he whispered, with a chuckle, blowing on the wet trail he left from ear to neck.
“We’ll—” Lucy had no idea what she meant to say because Rob took her mouth with possession so fierce, she lost all coherent thought. She only knew she wanted more. She gave herself up to the feel of his mouth on hers, and the ministrations of his hands, lost in sensual bliss.
Much later, she leaned against his shoulder as the pony trap, Khalija tied behind it, made its way back toward The Willow and the Rose. People there would, he assured her, be delirious over their news.
When they turned onto the main road, Lucy sighed. “I know one person who’ll be disappointed.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Green.”
Laughter deep and rich rumbled up from inside him and reverberated through Lucy, calling for an answering joy. She knew she’d never tire of that sound.
Epilogue
The good folksof Ashmead flowed onto the lawn at Willowbrook to celebrate the wedding of their returning hero, Major Sir Robert Benson—whom all and sundry claimed to know as Robbie, the innkeeper’s son—and their own Miss Lucy. They joined the party from Caulfield Hall and the tenants of Willowbrook in a celebration that paid no mind to seating and little to rank and precedence.
The celebration had disintegrated to that point where clusters of people formed and reformed, some still at the tables, some gathered on benches placed under the trees, some strolling together, laughter and conversation spilling over everywhere.
David had insisted on giving the bride away at Saint Morwenna, but The Willow and the Rose claimed the right to provide the wedding breakfast, the remnants of which now lay scattered across the tables that had been placed about Willowbrook’s front lawn. Annie Morris and Agnes Spears had already begun clearing up the leftovers.
