“This is not the way to the dining room,” she pointed out.
“I’m quite familiar with the layout of the residence.”
“Then why would you take a wrong turn?”
“Not a wrong turn. I have something in mind before dinner.”
He approached a set of double doors guarded by two liveried footmen. It led into the largest salon in the residence, where grand balls had once been held.
“Sebastian—”
“Shh.”
The footman opened the doors. When Mary and Sebastian stepped through, music began to play. Her eyes widened at the sight. A small orchestra sat in the balcony. A half dozen chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Every candle in every one was flickering. There had to have been over a hundred. The room was alight as no other in the residence had ever been. A mirrored wall reflected the polished floor and the flowers arranged around the outer edges. Nothing else was in the room. No furniture.
“Will you honor me with a dance, Mary Easton, Duchess of Keswick?”
Tears stung her eyes, but before she could answer he was sweeping her over the dance floor.
“However did you manage this?”
“With a good deal of help from my brothers and your father. The orchestra traveled from London and stayed with him until I was ready for them.”
“I love waltzing with you,” she told him. He was a marvelous dancer when he had the room in which to move.
“I thought if we practiced, by next Season I might not make such a mess of it.”
“We don’t have to go to London. We can stay here if you prefer.”
“I will have a seat in the House of Lords. I cannot shirk my responsibilities. Besides, my wife once told me that she loves the glitz and glitter that is London.”
He swirled her from one side of the room to the other. She caught their reflection and thought she’d never seen a happier couple.
“And the timing will work out well,” he continued. “I’m having this residence razed come spring.”
He had mentioned doing so before but she’d thought it was only the emotion of the moment. “I told you it’s not necessary.”
The final strains of the melody faded and another began before they could even take a breath.
“I think it is. This house is . . . cold. You were right about that.”
“But it’s your legacy. You were correct about that.”
He smiled, and she thought she’d never tire of seeing his mouth curve up. When they were aged and glancing at each other across a room, still he would have the ability to cause her heart to soar. “I want something here that is not tarnished by hatred or jealousy or murder. We’ll hire an architect and he’ll design whatever you wish: small or large. I care not. The land holds the history of Pembrook, not the brick and stone. We’ll build a new legacy for my heir.”
She released a quiet breath. “He may be here sooner than you think.”
He stopped as though he’d rammed into a wall. His gaze dropped to her stomach. “Are you?”
With tears in her eyes she nodded. “Yes.”
He knelt before her and pressed a kiss to her waist. “It will be a boy.”
“I feel that way as well, but if it’s not—”
“No matter. She will ride across the dales as though she was born to them. And a brother will someday follow in her wake.”
He brought himself to his feet and lifted her into his arms. The orchestra continued to play as he strode from the room.
“Are you carrying me to dinner?” she asked.
“To bed. Tonight, Mary, I’m going to make love to you.”
“You always did. I don’t need the words.”
“But I want you to have them. Every day, for as long as we breathe.”
Epilogue
He waited for the dark of the moon. Call him superstitious, but it seemed important that what he wanted to do should take place on an eve when there was no moon. Just as there had been no moon on that fateful night so many years before.
Mary rode beside him, as she had so long ago. Only he held the lantern. What an unchivalrous cad he was to have not thought to take it from her before.
He had hired architects to design the new manor house. It would be built on top of a rise and look out over all the land where the Dukes of Keswick had once ridden. Where the present duke now rode beside the lady he loved. The one he had always loved. The one he would always love.
“Are you lost?” she asked.
He laughed. God, but it felt good to laugh. “Not anymore. Not with you at my side.”
With the light from the lantern, he could see her smile. She knew what he was saying. She gave him purpose. She was his lodestar, his compass, his true north.
“Be that as it may, we have been traveling in circles for almost an hour now.”
“I can’t find it,” he admitted, disappointed with the truth. He’d thought he’d never forget a single moment of that night. Perhaps it was a good thing that some of the memories were fading away, to make room for better ones.
“Find what?” she asked.
“Do you remember that night when I asked you to stop, and I gathered up the soil?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. It was a rhetorical question. Of course she remembered. “I was looking for that spot.”
“I think we’ve gone too far south.”
“I was thinking we hadn’t gone far enough.”
“Is it important?”