A smile quirked his lips, but his blue eyes were serious when they met hers. “You told me once you never wanted to marry. Is that still true? I’d never try to take your freedom away from you, Lucy. I only want to give you things—to make you happy. I want to give you everything.”
Lucy laid a tender hand on his cheek. “Give me yourself, then. You’re all I need to make me happy. I love you, Ciaran. I never wanted anything but you.”
His eyes drifted closed, as if he needed a moment to gather her words into himself, to lock them inside his heart. “You love me enough to marry me, then?”
Lucy rested her forehead against his. “Will you come swimming with me, and take me to bare-knuckle bouts, and teach me the quadrille?”
His warm mouth covered hers, and he kissed her until they both were breathless. “I’ll do anything you ask me to,” he murmured, when they finally drew apart. “Though you won’t mind if I keep my nose out of the way of your foot, will you?”
She laughed softly, and leaned forward to kiss his perfectly imperfect nose. “Not as long as I have your heart.”
Epilogue
Three months later.
Le Pantalon, L’été, La Poule…
They were the same steps Lucy had despaired of mastering during her brief, eventful season, but this wasn’t like any quadrille she’d ever danced before.
There was no music, no Monsieur Guilland, and no fan with incoherent instructions written in cramped letters on the sticks.
There was only Lucy and Ciaran. They’d long since abandoned the proper steps, and were simply swaying together in the middle of the empty ballroom at Bellamy House, their arms wrapped around each other.
“Ciaran?” Lucy’s fingers curled into the broad shoulder under her hand. “Are you certain you’re teaching me to dance the quadrille? Because I don’t remember Monsieur Guilland holding me quite so tightly when he partnered me.”
“No?” Ciaran dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. “How strange.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I also don’t recall him nuzzling my neck, or nipping at my ear. If I didn’t know you to be the Wallflower’s Gallant and an honorable gentleman, I might suspect this wasn’t a proper quadrille at all.”
Ciaran pulled back slightly to look down at her, his lips quirking in a slow, seductive smile. “Not proper for a dancing master, no, but perfectly proper for a husband.”
“Hmmm.” Lucy let her head fall to his shoulder with a contented sigh. There was nothing in the world she loved more than being held in her husband’s arms, and she might have drifted along in this dreamy state for hours if Ciaran’s hands hadn’t started to wander.
When he paused in a very improper place to give her a gentle squeeze, Lucy squealed. “Ciaran! I’m certain Monsieur Guilland never didthat!”
“Damn good thing for him he didn’t.” Ciaran’s other hand slid from between her shoulder blades down to the arch of her back to urge her more closely against him. “He seems like a decent enough fellow. It would have been a pity if I’d had to challenge him to a duel for laying his hands on the lady I love.”
“You didn’t love me at the time.” Lucy attempted an indignant look, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the teasing glint in her eyes.
“Yes, I did,” he murmured, drawing back again to look into her eyes. “From the first day I met you, there has never been a moment when I didn’t love you, Lucy.”
He’d said as much to her many times since that memorable night at Huntington House, but Lucy never got tired of hearing those words. She was tempted to sink back into his arms, but she held back and offered him a sly grin instead. “Yes, but you didn’t know it. Perhaps I should have encouraged Monsieur Guilland to flirt with me. It might have brought you to your senses sooner.”
He smiled and swept her into a graceful turn. “It worked for Markham.”
It had, indeed. So well Lady Felicia had become the Countess of Markham a few months after Lucy and Ciaran had married at Huntington House. Lady Felicia had never been happier, and Lord Markham’s sternness had given way to an enraptured expression Ciaran and Lord Vale found endlessly amusing.
“Odd, how Vale was the only one of us who had any sense. He even guessed the truth about Lord Nash and Miss Fisher.” Ciaran chuckled. “I never would have thought he’d turn out to be so wise in the ways of love.”
“Wise enough to choose Eloisa as his bride.” Lucy nestled her head into the hollow of Ciaran’s shoulder. Whenever she thought about Eloisa and Lord Vale, the same contented smile rose to her lips. Just as Lucy had predicted, Eloisa made a lovely countess.
Ciaran and Lucy had traveled from Huntington House to Lord Vale’s estate in Lewes for the wedding. Afterward, they’d gone off to Brighton, where they’d spent every morning on the beach together, watching the sun rise over the ocean. The gouty old gentlemen and phlegmatic old ladies had been scandalized, but neither Lucy nor Ciaran cared a bit what anyone thought.
Indeed, they might have stayed in Brighton longer, but Lucy had been anxious to return to Devon. She had grand plans to update Bellamy House, but since their arrival three weeks earlier she and Ciaran had spent most of their time in their bedchamber.
Ah, well. They had all the time in the world to make Bellamy House their home.
A lifetime, in fact.
