He nodded. “I know you do, but when you become a wife, it’s normal to pull away from your birth family and cleave to your husband. Besides, the fruits of your labor must no longer go to Rare Confectionery, but to our Cole assets, however they develop.”
“I receive an allowance,” she began.
“You would need to be properly paid if you remained at Rare Confectionery since that would be a drain on the time and energy you have for our union.”
Amity could not imagine asking her parents to pay her to work in the shop, and she told him so.
“If you have determined being a chocolate-maker is the only way to be happy, when we have saved enough, you could open your own confectionery. Cole’s Confectionery sounds good or Cole’s Chocolates.”
She smiled. He was trying to be helpful and accommodating, while wanting to be certain her loyalty would lie more with him and being a Cole than with being a Rare-Foure.
“I understand,” she said. Jeremy liked her family, and in the end, he would come around to letting her remain the chocolatier of Rare Confectionery, and as the duties of wife and mother took more of her time, she would grow accustomed to her new life and make any necessary adjustments.
“It hardly seems real to even be discussing our future,” she said, trying to keep at bay any unreasonable feelings of disappointment at her life being mapped out, with no surprises left except the actual living of it.
Or was she experiencing disappointment over something else?
“Unreal but exciting,” Jeremy offered.
Amity nodded even though that was not the case precisely. At least not for her. A degree of anticipation, undeniably, but not excitement.
“I suppose that leaves one thing to say. Will you marry me?” he asked.
These were the words, which, fortunately, she had not dreaded hearing from him. Looking into his kind and understanding brown eyes, she felt peaceful.
“Yes, I will.”
Jeremy lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
HENRY WAS HAUNTED BY the chocolatier’s distraught face as she’d left his ballroom, knowing he was to blame for not having corrected her use of “my lord.” It had simply not mattered to him what she called him. If they’d had more time together, they might have progressed to Amity and Henry.
He still hoped they would get that chance. Meanwhile, he had to get himself out of a sticky situation. His friends had known of his intent to propose to Madeleine, as had his mother, and from what he learned at his ill-fated party, so had Lord and Lady Brayson, and even the lady, herself. He’d thought it was all such a carefully planned surprise, one which would allow him to change his plans with no one the wiser. Instead, he was in the limelight, like an actor on the stage.
The first surprise of the evening had been the wrong chocolate, causing mayhem. The second had been when no proposal had been forthcoming. He hadn’t been able to do it, not even when facing the bewildered expressions of his guests. When all he desired was to run after Amity — and cared more for her hurt feelings than for Madeleine’s insistence the chocolate was poisoned — he knew he had to reevaluate his priorities.
“Never mind,” he’d told the earl’s daughter as she fumed and made a face of displeasure. All the while, he was savoring the delicious chocolate Madeleine had found so abhorrent, knowing as soon as it melted on his tongue that Amity had made it for him. “Drink some more champagne, and you’ll feel better.”
When they had discovered there were two types of chocolate on the trays, and Madeleine had been persuaded by her mother to try the real Brayson, she’d adored it.
“It was so clever,” she praised him, “for you to incorporate my favorite scent into a confection.”
He had reminded her it was Miss Rare-Foure’s cleverness, but she’d turned away to eat another.
His guests valiantly tried to recover from the drama, and most ate the chocolates with pleasure. At least, they ate the Braysons. Before any more errors could occur, he had confiscated eleven chocolates he knew without question were his and his alone. Chocolates flavored with coffee and the slightest hint of orange — they had been positively divine.
Then Madeleine had turned her blue eyes upon him and waited. He hadn’t even felt like wiping the crumb of chocolate from her lower lip. Instead, he’d turned to his guests.
“It was good of you all to come and enjoy the new confection invented for Lady Madeleine by the talented chocolatier Miss Rare-Foure of Rare Confectionery.”
And after that lame statement, as subtle as a newspaper advertisement for men’s garters — with everyone awaiting the grand event he’d mentioned — he had simply nodded, smiled, drunk another glass of champagne, and tried to avoid Waverly’s all-too amused stare.
“You had a question, Your Grace,” Madeleine insisted.
Henry had sighed. He was not going to be allowed to drop the matter so easily. Very well, a question. He had to come up with one on the spot.
“Naturally, I need to know whether you prefer the confection to be called the Madeleine or the Brayson?”
Madeleine’s pleasant expression became one of disbelief and then displeasure, and with both a scowl and a thinning out of her lips, she looked less than beautiful for the second time that night. Her father’s face mirrored his daughter’s, and her mother looked beyond nonplussed.
What a mess!
The following day, after finding Rare Confectionery closed, Henry had returned home to a scathing letter from Lord Brayson, asking to know what he meant by playing with his daughter’s affections. In fact, he’d demanded the Duke of Pelham appear at their home the following day and declare his intentions once and for all.
Rightly so, too. Normally, no one demanded a duke do anything, and Henry could have refused. However, if anyone else had treated a young lady in such a shoddy fashion, he would have been firmly on the side of the lady and her family.
On the other hand, he had gone into his pursuit of Lady Madeleine with the best of intentions and had never played with her affections, since neither he nor she had exchanged a single affectionate word that he could recall.
Finally, he went to the one person whose wisdom he trusted most in the world, who always had his best interest at heart — his mother. When he confessed to the dowager duchess his heart’s greatest desire, she was helpful and brutally honest, as expected.
“You know the choice you’ve made will not be the smoothest, not for either one of you, but I can see on your face it will make you happy. I assume you believe it will make your young woman happy, too. If so, then nothing in this world should stand between you.”
With his mother’s support, Henry believed it was possible to make Amity his duchess. Still, he owed it to the Braysons to speak with them in person. He showed up at their home as requested and a curt encounter ensued in which Lady Madeleine finally showed more passion than during previous meetings. Henry knew it was due more to the loss of a future title than to the loss of him as her husband.
“I am mortified,” Madeleine proclaimed.
“My daughter is not to be your duchess?” Lord Brayson fumed.
“Not a duchess,” Lady Brayson murmured sadly.
“I offer my sincere apology,” he said, speaking solely to Madeleine, “if our few encounters and discussions led you to believe otherwise.”