Читать книгу The Regency Season Collection: Part Two - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 28

Chapter Nineteen

‘What happened when I was born?’ Verity demanded and there was a wobble of uncertainty in her voice that made Chloe drag Luke in her wake as she rushed to Verity’s side to cup her chin in her other hand, then smooth her hair and force her to meet her eyes.

‘It doesn’t matter, my love, you survived and I loved you from the moment you dropped into my arms screaming at the top of your voice. You were so perfect and so very much your own person, how could I help but love you?’

‘I love you too, Mama, but I killed my real mother, didn’t I?’

‘No, darling, never think that. Your grandfather and uncles did that by abandoning us with not enough to eat and no money to pay for firewood or a doctor when her time came, but she never complained as I did while she waited for you to be born and we scratched a living from the vegetable patch and even resorted to poaching now and again, as well as foraging on the moor for whatever we could catch. She loved you so much she would have endured far worse to see you safe and healthy. Daphne loved you before you were born and I took over when she had to leave you, love. I’m a far better person than I would be if I’d gone on my merry way without you.’

‘And when Lady Chloe Thessaly decides to love someone, they stay loved—like it or not,’ Luke added with a wry smile.

‘Even after ten years of stony silence and gruff discouragement to do anything of the sort from certain viscounts I could mention,’ Chloe sniped.

‘Even then,’ he confirmed.

‘You’re a lucky man, Farenze,’ Captain Revereux told him wistfully.

‘Luckier than I deserve.’

‘That’s what Aunt Virginia said the last time I saw her, Papa. She said you were a lot luckier in love than you would admit of your own accord. I told her I wished you would find a viscountess before I came out, to distract you from growling at any man who looked at me like a bear who hadn’t had enough for dinner,’ Eve said.

‘Did she now? And did you?’

‘We did, and at least now I know that Lady Chloe will stop you making a laughing-stock of me when I make my début.’

‘Oh, the joys of fatherhood,’ Revereux said with a set look that told Luke and Chloe he was feeling low and wistful about all he’d lost.

‘Just you wait until this young lady makes her come out before you dare to be smug about my coming ordeal then, Revereux,’ Luke warned him.

‘I believe I should like to have a father as well, if you don’t mind me staying with Mama and Uncle Luke most of the time,’ Verity said earnestly and Chloe looked as if she was about to cry as she watched them assess the sore spots in this new world of theirs and find a way forward, even if it did feel strange and new.

‘I don’t think I would mind that at all,’ Revereux replied huskily.

‘Well, that’s settled then,’ Eve pronounced and nobody argued.

* * *

‘Can you bear to part with Verity when Revereux is ashore, love?’ Luke asked Chloe when the girls and the invalid were escorted to bed by their mentors and the two of them sat by the fire in the library before parting reluctantly for the night.

‘Somehow I shall make myself do so,’ she replied, staring into the fire to revel in the love, excitement and security of being held in Luke’s mighty arms and dreaming about sharing all she was with him so soon now it was almost in reach.

‘Verity will always need you, Chloe,’ his deep voice rumbled and she felt the resonance of it as her heartbeat raced at such heady proximity.

‘Maybe by the time he is home again she will have a cousin to keep me from fretting myself to flinders about their big sister,’ she added, smiling at the thought of a solemn little boy or girl with Luke’s complicated grey eyes wondering at the world in her arms. ‘It really is hard work trying to sort out all these relationships, isn’t it?’

‘All that matters is that we love them, but do you think the world is quite ready for another violet-eyed temptress or some mule-headed boy in our image?’

‘I do, if you agree to take equal blame, but what if I can’t give you children, Luke?’ she asked him with the thought of Virginia and Virgil’s great love affair, without children to make it complete, heavy on her mind.

‘Then we will have to trust James weds a bride with more sense than him, then gives him a tribe of brats. Don’t look like that, love, it didn’t matter to Virgil and Virginia that they couldn’t have a family, as they made one anyway. Mantaigne lived here as a boy and James and I spent our summers with them by rote, since my stepmama couldn’t refuse to let Virginia and Virgil have my brother when she wished so badly he was the heir. She wouldn’t allow us to come here together though; we might have learnt to like each other and she hoped I’d cock up my toes so he could inherit, so that would never do.’

‘She has a cold and calculating heart,’ Chloe said and turned to stare up at the wonderful man who’d taken to hiding his vulnerability behind apparent coldness and self-control far too young.

‘I was better off on the wrong side of her than James was on the right one,’ he said with a bittersweet smile.

‘Promise me you won’t wed a harridan if anything happens to me,’ she said as she had to suppress a shiver, despite the warmth and temptation of him at her back and the glowing blaze in the fireplace to fend off the chill of an early March evening.

‘Promise me nothing will, then,’ he replied with a full-blown shudder she had to find flattering as he pulled her closer and dared the devil to take her away from him.

‘You know I can’t do that, but I will promise to love you with everything I am and will be for the rest of my life, Luke,’ she said, all the love and delight she had in him in her eyes and the hope he could believe he was finally loved as he’d always deserved to be in her heart.

He kissed her deeply and passionately to prove it was mutual and her inner rebel hoped she’d finally broken his silly, gallant notion of waiting another two more interminable nights to make love to her. Unlucky for her that his will-power was as formidable now as it had been for the last decade then; he put a little distance between them and rasped a few deep, shaky breaths as he imposed that dratted iron control of his once more.

‘Spoilsport,’ she muttered darkly.

‘Serpent,’ he retaliated.

‘Charming,’ she sniped back, but the euphoria of finding her viscount had a wild, tender passion for her under all that aloofness of his made her constantly feel about to dance on air. ‘I do love you, Luke,’ she told him, unable to help herself, despite the drag of wanting and curiosity he’d roused in her once again, and left gnawing at her innards like some bittersweet wild fire.

‘A shame it took you ten years to work that out,’ he said with his unique Luke smile that sparked her to argue, mainly because he liked arguing with her almost as much as he did making love with her and just now he wasn’t allowing them that alternative.

‘You’re the slow-top, not me,’ she accused him.

‘I am indeed—how else could I have thought of Pamela when I looked at you and wanted you so much it hurt all this time?’ he admitted with a sad shake of his dark head that made tears pool at the back of her eyes, despite her euphoria that they were almost man and wife. This endless waiting really was playing havoc with her emotions, she decided, frowning at the flash of jealousy that streaked through her before she told herself not to be ridiculous

‘You have truly forgotten her now though, haven’t you?’ she asked and held her breath for the answer, full of hope, but doubting any man could put such a betrayal behind him and truly trust again.

‘She was a young man’s nightmare, Chloe. Hearing about the one Revereux lived through tonight, mine seems a far lesser one. I got my lovely Eve and he endured tragedy and disappointment, then missed the first ten years of his daughter’s life into the bargain. I’m a very lucky man, my darling. In two days’ time I’ll be far luckier than I ever deserved to be.’

‘Now there, my Lord Farenze, I beg to differ,’ Chloe breathed as she moved so she was kneeling on the chaise and could look down into his wonderfully complex gaze. ‘You, my lord, deserve to wed a wife who will adore you, want you and live with you in glorious disharmony for the rest of your days. That’s just as well, since that’s exactly what you’re going to get when I finally get you up the aisle.’

‘Before God, I truly am a lucky man then,’ he said and, if there was suspicious hint of moisture in his beloved grey eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to tease him about it when tears threatened to flood her own and this was definitely not a time for crying.

* * *

‘Virginia worked a happy ending to your tale then, despite your best efforts to be miserable, Lucius, old friend,’ Lord Mantaigne drawled, as if the last months were a play that had been put on by his late godmother to keep him amused and stop him missing her quite so badly.

‘No need for you to be so smug about it, you could be her next victim for all we know,’ Luke said equably.

‘Or me,’ James said gloomily.

‘Well, it certainly won’t be me,’ Captain Revereux put in with a grin at the younger of Chloe’s two bridesmaids. Verity returned his smile with a confidence Chloe told herself she had to be pleased about.

‘I wish Virginia could have been here to see us marry though, Luke,’ Chloe whispered as they toasted each other again and all she tasted was his quick, hard kiss on her delighted mouth. ‘She would have been so happy today.’

‘I’m sure she would.’

‘Virginia knew we couldn’t stay master and housekeeper for long if she managed to trap us under the same roof for more than the day or so you had allowed us up until then,’ Chloe said confidently, sure now that was what her late mistress and best friend had intended all along.

‘I like being your husband even better than I did being your impatient master, my lady,’ he murmured wickedly for her ear only.

‘And being your wife promises to better being your impatient servant, my lord.’

Luke groaned and whispered something very incendiary indeed that brought a rosy blush to the new Viscountess Farenze’s cheeks and set her plotting to escape the company of their innocent daughters, before all restraint between them was finally cindered into ashes at long last.