He eyed her a moment, glanced at Lucy again, then said to Gerald, “I’ll walk home. See you tomorrow.”
The carriage drove off. Lucy eyed them with speculative excitement. “I’m sure you two won’t want to be disturbed. You have so much to talk about.” And with a mischievous wink, she skipped up the stairs to bed.
* * *
* * *
Alice had told the servants not to wait up. They entered the sitting room, and James lit the fire, which had been laid. He rose, dusting off his hands, and Alice came straight to the point. “Why did you announce our betrothal tonight?”
“Because I was angry at all the whispers. Because I wanted to slay dragons for you, but the only dragons I could see were wearing ball gowns. So I made the announcement to change the focus of the evening, and it did. You didn’t mind, did you—my assumption of your assent?”
“I was just surprised, that’s all. I thought you’d changed your mind about wanting to marry me.”
“Changed my mind? Why ever would I do that?”
“Because, well, you hadn’t asked me again, and once I became your mistress . . .”
“You thought I wouldn’t want you?” He stared at her and rumpled his hair, perplexed. “I thought our time at the cottage would have convinced you how passionately I do want you. I must be losing my touch.”
“No, of course you haven’t. But mistresses don’t get proposals of marriage, do they? Not that I know what your touch was before—” She broke off, embarrassed.
A slow smile grew on his face. “Before we anticipated our wedding vows with a spot of ‘um’? Several spots, in fact. And now that I come to think of it, spot is not at all accurate. A lavishness of ‘um,’ a feast of ‘um,’ a—”
“I mean, even though I’d proved to you that I could enjoy the marriage bed—”
He held up a hand. “Hold it right there, my sweet. It wasn’t I who needed anything to be proved—I was already wholly and completely committed. You were the one with the doubts. Now, stop all this shilly-shallying. Will you marry me or not?”
Her heart filled and she threw herself into his arms. “Oh, James, of course I’ll marry you. You won’t regret it. I promise I’ll make you a good wife.”
She thought he’d kiss her then, but he held her back with a quizzical expression. “A good wife? Like you pick out a good apple at the market, or a good pair of shoes?”
“Of course I’ll do my best to be a good mother to your daughters as well,” she added hastily. “I know I could never compare with Selina, but—”
“But nothing.” He cut her off gently. “Selina was the love of my youth. Yes, I loved her, and I will always love her memory. But you, my dearest Alice, are the love of my maturity, my beloved companion in this life.”
He drew her toward him. His voice deepened. “My darling Alice, I didn’t ask you to marry me because I thought you’d make a good wife and be a good mother to my daughters—though it goes without saying that you will. I want to marry you for only one reason—I’m madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with you. More than I ever knew was possible.”
Her hand flew to her mouth and she took a shaky inward breath. “Truly, James?”
He cupped her face in his hand. “Truly, Alice. I want to live the rest of my life with you in my life, in my bed and in my heart.” Her eyes sheened with tears, and he added, “Is it so hard for you to believe?”
It was, a little. In thirty-eight years, no one had ever told Alice they loved her. And now, here was this big, beautiful man, the embodiment of all her dreams, telling her he loved her. And oh, how she’d ached to hear it.
“Oh, James, I love you, too, so very, very much.”
They kissed then, and for a while, time disappeared. A coal fell out of the fireplace, startling them, and they separated. James scooped it back into the fireplace, and set a screen across it. Then, to Alice’s surprise, he locked the door.
“James?” He surely didn’t mean to . . .
He winked. “We don’t want the servants coming to investigate any strange sounds, do we?”
Strange sounds? Oh my. “No. Or Lucy.”
“I have a feeling that nothing much will ever shock that young minx,” he said as he swept her into his arms, laid her on the settee and followed her down.
“Well, in that case . . .” Alice pulled James’s head down to hers and proceeded to show him how much she loved him.
* * *
* * *
The fire was burning low. James and Alice lay on the settee, twined together in the dreamy aftermath of making love. She stirred sleepily and woke. James smoothed the hair back from her face. Lord, she had the softest skin. He didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want to have to get dressed and go home.
She was a miracle. His very precious miracle.
He gazed into the glowing coals. “I came back to England in something of a gray fog. I thought that the special love a man has for a woman was all in my past. I felt lucky enough just to have my daughters to love and care for. I never expected anything more.
“And then I went to a party, and I was bored and about to leave when I saw this gorgeous woman arriving. You smiled—not even at me. In fact, you were quite cruelly cold toward me.” She started to explain, but he pressed his finger over her lips and went on, “But it was such a sweet smile, and my closed-off, battered heart opened up and whispered, This one.”
She sighed.
“And in the following days and weeks in which I came to know you, my heart kept insisting, This one.
“And all the wild, tumultuous feelings I thought were dead and in the past boiled up again, stronger than ever.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, and she leaned into it. “It’s not the same as my first love, but it’s just as strong, and it’s only going to get stronger. So, my dearest love, you are already in my heart. I just need you in my life.” He leaned back so he could see her face properly. “Really, the only question left is, when are you going to make an honest man of me?”
Chapter Eighteen
Alice and James decided to marry at Towers, James’s house in Warwickshire. They traveled down in a cavalcade of carriages. The three little girls—and cat—theoretically traveled with Nanny McCubbin, but hopped from one carriage to another every time they stopped to change horses. Gerald and Lucy followed in a separate carriage—without a chaperone—and Mary and James’s valet and a pile of luggage traveled last.