Then her arms wrapped around his neck, and her kiss demanded more. A kiss that ravished and devoured and elicited a few randy whistles from the odd passerby.
Percy didn’t give a fig. Isabel was his.
He wanted everyone to know.
Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, both of them breathless. “Now, go and pack a bag. Five minutes before I follow.”
A shocked, breathless laugh escaped her. “You wish to elope?”
“I’ve always thought the phrase, married by anvil priest, held a certain panache.”
Her smile faltered. “What about my family?”
“On the journey over, your father and I had time to talk about pasts and futures.”
That nervy light entered her eye, the one he loved. “You asked him for my hand. Presumptuous.”
“I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Her head canted to the side, flirtatious. “Is this the Lord Percival Bretagne I’ve heard so many whispers about?”
He tucked another errant tendril of hair behind her ear. Really, she had the most perfect ears. “What Lord Percival Bretagne?” he asked, distracted, yes, by her perfect ears.
“The wild one.”
Now, he was distracted by the low, sultry note in her voice. “I could tell you,” he began, desire threading through his words, “but wouldn’t you rather see for yourself?”
“Very much.” She wove her arm through his. “I don’t need a bag. I only need you.”
Oh, this woman had daring to spare. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her.
“Us against the world?”
“The world doesn’t stand a chance.”
“I love you, Isabel Galante.”
“I love you, Lord Percival Bretagne.”
He took her hand in his, and they walked into their future.
She was his addiction.
She was his cure.
She was his.
And he was hers.
Epilogue
London
24 March 1827
The quartet struck bows across strings into the opening notes of a Diabelli composition, and electricity lit the air alive.
A scandalous waltz was on its way.
And not just any waltz, but the first official waltz of the newly wed couple these elevated members of the ton were gathered to celebrate beneath the sparkling chandeliers of the Duke of Arundel’s resplendent ballroom in the first ball of the Season.
As Lord Percival Bretagne led Lady Percival to the center of the floor, a rapt silence descended. They were the sort of couple who evoked such a response. He, tall and lean and possessed of the specific dark eyes and curly locks that set female hearts aflutter no matter their age, for which the world had Lord Byron—God rest his soul—to thank.
And she, well, she was the sort one wanted to hate on sight with her lovely face and assured green gaze and skin that only glowed to greater advantage the longer it soaked in the sun, unlike her English counterparts whose skin only grew pink.
Yes, it was agreed by all they were an enviable couple who quite belonged to one another. That Fate could have it any other way was inconceivable.
The dual forces of momentum and effervescence carried them along as their feet found the buoyant rhythm of one-two-three . . . one-two-three. She smiled up into his eyes, and he down into hers.
“Husband,” crossed her lips.
“Wife,” responded his.
They weren’t a couple given much to words. It had been remarked upon.
The hot glances they laid upon one another . . . Well, those had been remarked upon, too.
“Oh, dearest dear,” murmured Lady Bertrand Montfort, who had been forced to attend the ball without her husband, who had been tragically injured some months past and therefore unable to accompany his wife.
The Duchess of Arundel paid no mind, by now accustomed to her friend’s prim exclamations. Even so, she couldn’t help but silently agree. It might be indecent the way Percy was holding Isabel, hand pressed into the lowest point at the small of her back, the full length of his body tight against hers as they moved in perfect unison. They appeared to be but one one-two-three away from taking each other, here, in the center of the dancing floor.
Oh, dearest dear, indeed.
Young ladies were present.
She nearly said as much to the Duke at her side, but the expression on his face was so happy and contented as he tapped out the rhythm with his feet that she let the matter pass, unremarked.
Besides, those young ladies, the Misses Bretagne and Radclyffe, hadn’t noticed. They had long since grown accustomed to notorious displays of affection from the adults in their lives. Miss Bretagne was simply counting the number of beats until she could finagle her cousin Hugh, the young Earl of Avendon, into taking her for a spin atop mahogany. Miss Radclyffe was counting the number of beats before she could slip away and avoid that exact same occurrence.
Across the ballroom floor buffed to high mirror shine stood the family of the bride. Don Ariel Galante, the bride’s father, struck a rather dashing and elegant form for a man of advancing years, and his Spanish accent could send a susceptible lady into a swoon, if one wasn’t properly prepared. The look of love in his gaze as he watched his daughter swirl around the dancing floor in the arms of her beloved, well, it rendered him all the more attractive. The Duchess had half a mind to set her dear friend, and spinster, Miss Dunfrey, upon him.
As for the bride’s sister, Mrs. Eva Gardiner, she kept one eye upon the happy couple—one might even detect a wistful sheen in that eye—and the other upon shy Nell, who sat unobtrusively against a back wall and thought she would die if anyone addressed her, and saucy Tilly, who cast her roving gaze across the proceedings and drank deeply from her champagne glass. Champagne was the sole luxury she missed from her past life at Number 9.
It was an unusual arrangement—hosting servants as guests at a duke’s ball—but the bride had requested their presence and one didn’t nay-say a bride. Mrs. Gardiner felt glad of it. Becoming part of the English aristocracy hadn’t, and wouldn’t, change Isabel. Though life would lead them in different directions, they would ever be sisters.