“I don’t want to sleep without you.” Daisy stared into the shadowed face just above her own. “And I don’t want to wake without you.”
“Someday.” He bent to press a firm kiss on her mouth. “Someday I’ll be able to come to you any time, night or day, and hold you as long as you want.” His voice deepened with emotion as he added, “You can depend on that.”
Downstairs, the exhausted earl of Westcliff lay on a sofa, his head pillowed in his wife’s lap. After two days of relentless searching and precious little sleep, Marcus was weary down to his bones. However, he was grateful that tragedy had been avoided and that Daisy’s fiance had been safely returned.
Marcus was a bit surprised by the way his wife had fussed over him. As soon as he had arrived at the manor, Lillian had plied him with sandwiches and hot brandy, wiped the dirt smudges from his face with a damp towel, applied salve on his scrapes and bandages to a few cut fingers, and even pulled his muddy boots off.
“You look far worse than Mr. Swift,” Lillian had retorted when he had protested that he was fine. “From what I understand he’s been lying abed in a cottage for the past two days, whereas you’ve been foraging through the woods in the mud and rain.”
“He wasn’t exactly lounging about,” Marcus had pointed out. “He was wounded.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve had no rest and practically nothing to eat while you were looking for him.”
Marcus had submitted to her attentions, secretly enjoying the way she hovered over him. When she was satisfied that he was fed and bandaged properly, she cradled his head in her lap. Marcus sighed in contentment, staring into the blazing hearth-fire.
Lillian’s slender fingers played absently in his hair as she commented, “It’s been a long time since Mr. Swift went to find Daisy. And it’s too quiet. Aren’t you going to go up there and check on them?”
“Not for all the hemp in China,” Marcus said, repeating one of Daisy’s new favorite phrases. “God knows what I might be interrupting.”
“Good God.” Lillian sounded appalled. “You don’t think they’re…”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Marcus paused deliberately before adding, “Remember how we used to be.”
As he had intended, the remark diverted her instantly.
“We’re still that way,” Lillian protested.
“We haven’t made love since before the baby was born.” Marcus sat up, filling his gaze with the sight of his dark-haired young wife in the firelight. She was, and would always be, the most tempting woman he had ever known. Unspent passion roughened his voice as he asked, “How much longer must I wait?”
Propping her elbow on the back of the sofa, Lillian leaned her head on her hand and smiled apologetically. “The doctor said at least another fortnight. I’m sorry.” She laughed as she saw his expression. “Very sorry. Let’s go upstairs.”
“If we’re not going to bed together, I fail to see the point,” Marcus grumbled.
“I’ll help you with your bath. I’ll even scrub your back.”
He was sufficiently intrigued by the offer to ask, “Only my back?”
“I’m open to negotiation,” Lillian said provocatively. “As always.”
Marcus reached out to gather her against his chest and sighed. “At this point I’ll take whatever I can get.”
“You poor man.” Still smiling, Lillian turned her face to kiss him. “Just remember…some things are worth waiting for.”
Epilogue
As it turned out, Matthew and Daisy were not wed until late autumn. Hampshire was dressed in scarlet and brilliant orange, the hounds were out four mornings a week, and the last baskets of fruit had been harvested from heavy-laden trees. Now that the hay had been cut, the raucous corn-crakes had left the fields, their clamor replaced by the liquid notes of song-thrushes and the chatter of yellow buntings.
For the entire summer and a good part of autumn, Daisy had endured many separations from Matthew, including the frequent trips to London to manage his legal affairs. With Westcliff’s help the extradition requests from the American government were firmly blocked, allowing Matthew to remain in England. After settling on a pair of skillful barristers and acquainting them with the particulars of his case, Matthew had dispatched them to Boston to file with the appeals court.
In the meantime Matthew traveled and worked ceaselessly, overseeing the construction of the Bristol manufactory, hiring employees and setting up distribution channels throughout the country. It seemed to Daisy that Matthew had changed somewhat since the secrets of his past had been revealed…he was freer somehow, even more self-assured and charismatic.
Witnessing Matthew’s limitless energy and his growing list of accomplishments, Simon Hunt had informed him decisively that any time he tired of working for Bowman’s, he was welcome to come to Consolidated Locomotive. That had prompted Thomas Bowman to offer Matthew a higher percentage of the soap company’s future profits.
“I’ll be a millionaire by the time I’m thirty,” Matthew had told Daisy dryly, “if I can just manage to stay out of jail.”
It had surprised and touched Daisy that everyone in her family, even her mother, had rallied to Matthew’s defense. Whether this was for Daisy’s sake or her father’s was unclear. Thomas Bowman, who had always been so severe on people, had immediately forgiven Matthew for deceiving him. In fact, Bowman seemed to regard him more than ever before as a de facto son.
“One suspects,” Lillian had told Daisy, “that if Matthew Swift were to commit cold-blooded murder, Father would say on the spot, ‘Well, the boy must have had an excellent reason.’”
Discovering that keeping busy helped the time to pass more quickly, Daisy occupied herself with finding a home in Bristol. She decided on a large gabled seaside house that had once belonged to a shipyard owner and his family. Accompanied by her mother and sister, who both liked shopping far more than she did, Daisy purchased large, comfortable pieces of furniture and richly colored window hangings and fabrics. And of course she made certain there were tables and shelves for books in as many rooms as possible.
It helped that Matthew sped to Daisy whenever he could steal away for a few days. There were no constraints between them now, no secrets or fears. As they shared long conversations and walked through the sleepy summer landscape, they found endless delight in each other’s company. And on the nights when Matthew came to Daisy in the darkness and made love to her, he filled her senses with infinite pleasure and her heart with joy.
“I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you,” he whispered one night, cuddling her while the moonlight made stripes across the shadowed hills of the bedclothes.
“Why?” Daisy whispered back, crawling over him until she was draped over the muscled surface of his chest.
He played with the dark cascade of her hair. “Because I shouldn’t come to you like this until we’re married. There’s a risk—”
Daisy silenced him with her mouth, not stopping until his breath had hastened and his bare skin was as hot as a stove-plate beneath her. She lifted her head to smile down into his gleaming eyes. “All or nothing,” she murmured. “That’s how I want you.”
Finally word came from Matthew’s lawyers that a panel of three Boston judges had examined the trial court records, overturned the conviction, and dismissed the case. They had also ruled that it could not be refiled, thereby defeating any hopes of the Waring family prolonging the ordeal.
Matthew had received the news with a remarkably calm demeanor, accepting everyone’s congratulations and earnestly thanking the Bowmans and Westcliffs for their support. It was only in private with Daisy that Matthew’s composure had broken, his relief too great to endure stoically. She had given him all the comfort she could, in an exchange so raw and intimate that it would forever remain just between the two of them.
And now it was their wedding day.
The ceremony in the Stony Cross chapel had been unmercifully long, with the vicar determined to impress the crowd of wealthy and important visitors, many of them from London and some from New York. The service included an interminable sermon, an unheard-of number of hymns and three seat-numbing scripture readings.
Daisy waited patiently in her heavy champagne satin dress, her feet tingling uncomfortably in her beaded heeled slippers. She was half-blinded by the elaborate Valenciennes lace veil sewn with pearls. The wedding had become an exercise in endurance. She did her best to look solemn, but she sneaked a glance at Matthew, tall and handsome in a crisp black morning-coat and a starched white cravat…and she felt her heart skip with sudden happiness.
At the conclusion of the vows, despite Mercedes’s previous stern admonitions that the groom was not to kiss the bride, as the custom was never followed by people in the best society…Matthew tugged Daisy up to him and crushed a hard kiss on her lips in full view of everyone. There was a gasp or two, and a ripple of friendly laughter through the crowd.
Daisy glanced up into her husband’s sparkling eyes. “You’re being scandalous, Mr. Swift,” she whispered.
“This is nothing,” Matthew replied in an undertone, his expression soft with love. “I’m saving my worst behavior for tonight.”
The guests proceeded into the manor. After receiving what seemed like thousands of people, and smiling until her cheeks were sore, Daisy let out a long sigh. Next would come a wedding breakfast that could feed half of England, and then hours of toasts and lingering farewells. And all she wanted was to be alone with her husband.
“Oh, don’t complain,” came her sister’s amused voice from nearby. “One of us had to have a proper wedding. It might as well be you.”
Daisy turned to see Lillian and Annabelle and Evie standing behind her. “I wasn’t going to complain,” she said. “I was only thinking how much easier it would have been to elope to Gretna Green.”
“That would have been quite unimaginative, dear, considering that Evie and I both did it before you.”
“It was a lovely ceremony,” Annabelle said warmly.
“And a long one,” came Daisy’s rueful rejoinder. “I feel as if I’ve been standing and talking for hours.”
“You have been,” Evie told her. “Come with us—we’re going to have a wallflower meeting.”
“Now?” Daisy asked bemusedly, glancing at her friends’ animated countenances. “We can’t. They’ll be waiting for us at breakfast.”
“Oh, let them wait,” Lillian said cheerfully. She took Daisy’s arm and pulled her out of the main entrance hall.
As the four young women proceeded to a hallway leading toward the morning room, they encountered Lord St. Vincent, who was strolling in the opposite direction. Elegant and dazzling in his formal clothes, he paused and regarded Evie with a caressing smile.
“You appear to be escaping from something,” he remarked.
“We are,” Evie told her husband.
St. Vincent slid his arm around Evie’s waist and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “Where are you going?”
Evie thought for a moment. “Somewhere to powder Daisy’s nose.”
The viscount gave Daisy a dubious glance. “It takes all four of you? But it’s such a little nose.”
“We’ll only be a few minutes, my lord,” Evie said. “Will you make excuses for us?”
St. Vincent laughed gently. “I have an endless supply, my love,” he assured her. Before he let go of his wife, he turned her to face him and kissed her forehead. For the briefest of moments, his graceful hand touched low on her midriff. The subtle gesture went unnoticed by the others.
But Daisy saw, and she knew at once what it meant. Evie has a secret, she thought, and smiled.
They took Daisy to the orangery, where warm autumn light glittered through the windows, and the scents of citrus and bay hung thick in the air. Removing Daisy’s heavy orange-blossom wreath and veil, Lillian set them aside on a chair.
There was a silver tray on a nearby table, laden with a bottle of chilled champagne and four tall crystal glasses.
“This is a special toast for you, dear,” Lillian said, while Annabelle poured the sparkling liquid and handed the glasses out. “To your happy ending. Since you’ve had to wait for it longer than the rest of us, I’d say you deserve the entire bottle.” She grinned. “But we’re going to share it with you anyway.”
Daisy curved her fingers around the crystal stem. “It should be a toast for all of us,” she said. “After all, three years ago we had the worst marriage prospects imaginable. We couldn’t even get an invitation to dance. And look how well things turned out.”
“All it t-took was some devious behavior and a few scandals here and there,” Evie said with a smile.
“And friendship,” Annabelle added.
“To friendship,” Lillian said, her voice suddenly husky.
And their four glasses clicked in one perfect moment.
END