Tabitha stared into his face, and still couldn’t take it in—couldn’t accept that what her dazed and rattled mind was screeching at her was indeed the true interpretation of his words. In her life, in her experience, things she’d longed for had never fallen into her lap. So, her fingers clinging to his every bit as tightly as his were to hers, she forced herself to ask, “What exactly are you saying?”
She was distantly aware that the strollers by the Avenue were watching; none were near enough to hear, but they all could see—enough to know some discussion of great moment was occurring. She didn’t need to look to know they were waiting with bated breath to observe the outcome.
She cared not a jot. For her, in that moment, only Sebastian mattered.
He was frowning—she thought with self-disgust—as he stared down at her. “Damn!” Pulling one hand free, he ran it through his hair, thoroughly disarranging it. “I’ve done this wrongly.”
Before she could react, he went down on one knee, both hands once again clasped about hers as he gazed up at her, his gray eyes locked on hers. “Tabitha Makepeace, will you do me the honor of being my wife, to have and to hold for the rest of my life?”
She blinked. “You want to marry me?” She had to be sure. “You really want to marry me of your own volition—this isn’t some form of duty that you feel you must honor, is it? Your duty to your family, or because of our . . . closeness at the inn, and at your house?”
She couldn’t bear it if it were.
“No.” His lips twisted. “I realize that the notion might seem strange, but I really, truly, in all honesty, and with absolute sincerity, want to marry you. Just you—no one else. No one else will do. And I rather think that my trials and tribulations in searching for a suitable wife proved beyond question that I am not that much of a self-sacrificing saint that I would marry out of duty. I tried, but I couldn’t. The simple truth is that I couldn’t imagine marrying any young lady.” He held her gaze. “Not until I met you.”
Tabitha believed him. She trusted him; she always had. She’d somehow recognized from the first that his heart was true . . . and now it was hers. Truly hers.
She looked down at him, felt her features soften, felt her expression slowly transform as her heart filled and filled, then overflowed with joy. . .
He saw; he searched her eyes, her face, and read her answer there. His own expression lit—he waited, waited . . . then abruptly winced. Muttered, “For pity’s sake, say yes and put me out of my misery. This grass is damp, and my knees will cramp, and—”
“Yes.” The word was weak, her voice faint, but she repeated it. “Yes.” Slipping her hands free of his, she grasped his shoulders and tugged. As he rose, she laughed joyously, then caught his hands in hers, held them as she looked into his eyes. “Yes, Sebastian Trantor, I’ll marry you.”
Releasing his hands, she reached up and framed his face. He, his eyes, were all she could see. “I’ll marry you and we’ll make our marriage, our future life, our next mission.”
He smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
She smiled back. “And that I can do.”
She stretched up and kissed him—kissed him and was kissed as no other young lady in living memory had been kissed in the park, in full view of the goggling matrons and grandes dames all but hanging out of their carriages along the Avenue.
They adjourned to her parents’ house to convey the good news, both that the blackmailer had been caught and removed without fuss, and that, contrary to their earlier intention, they would not be dissolving their engagement.
His hand locked around hers, Sebastian smiled proudly at Tabitha. “We’ve decided we’ll make a good team in the wider sphere of life, too.”
She arched her brows at him. “There’ll be challenges, of course.”
Mrs. Makepeace smiled contentedly. “We always knew you were well matched. And challenges, my dear, are what adds spice to a marriage.”
Mr. Makepeace smiled at Sebastian. “So my dear lady keeps telling me.”
Sebastian grinned, and looked at Tabitha again, drank in the sight of her—the joy and sheer happiness shining in her bright eyes and radiating from her. “You may be sure, sir, that I’ll appreciate those challenges as I ought.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Mr. Makepeace said. “You’re no fool.”
They remained in Bedford Square for a private celebratory luncheon, over which they discussed and agreed that their change of heart necessitated no further public confirmation.
At the end of the meal, Sebastian caught Tabitha’s eye. “We should call on my aunts—before they hear of our scene in the park and start speculating as to what it might mean.”
“Goodness, yes.” She laid aside her napkin, exchanged a glance with her mother. “We’d better go and reassure them straightaway.”
Her mother nodded benign approval. Her father waved them on their way.
They called at Fothergill house to discover that his aunts had already heard the news.
“Great heavens, Sebastian! What was that all about?” Lady Fothergill raised her quizzing glass and observed the pair of them through it. “You haven’t been giving dear Tabitha any reason to doubt your affections, have you?”
Standing beside Tabitha, her hand in his, Sebastian heard her choke. “No—of course not. We were . . . discussing our wedding.”
“Oh?” Pamela Trantor’s eyes lit. “Weddings are such wonderful affairs—yours, I predict, will be the highlight of the Season.”
“Indeed.” Lady Fothergill nodded sagely. “The ton always enjoys a good wedding, especially one they weren’t expecting. Takes something extraordinary to stir us out of our ennui these days, but I predict your wedding will do it. Bound to raise all sorts of interest. Daresay even the scribblers will be there—they love to report on all the details these days. Rather unrestrained, of course, but at least you’ll know you’ve made your mark.”
“Ah . . . yes.” Tabitha took in Sebastian’s blank expression—had no difficulty reading the horror behind it. She plastered on a wide smile and beamed it at his aunts. “I’ve just remembered—we have to rush around and tell Lydia and Ro. They’ll be cross if we don’t involve them in the planning.”
Lady Fothergill indulgently waved them away. “Go, go! We’ll call on your mama in the next few days and start the ball rolling. The date—that’s the first thing to decide on. We’ll have to look into when St. Georges can be had—you’ll want it held there, of course.”
Tabitha just smiled and waved over her shoulder as Sebastian—who had waited for no further encouragement beyond his aunt’s wave—towed her out.
“What possessed you to mention our wedding?” Tabitha asked the instant they were back in the town carriage.
“It was the only thing that sprang to mind. Did you really want to call on Lydia and Gerrard?”
“No—that was just an excuse to allow us to leave.” She stared at him, felt his horror infect her. She slumped back against the seat. “They’ve got the bit between their teeth and God only knows how we can rein them in. What are we going to do?”
“I’m thinking. Bear with me for a moment.”
His moment lengthened to include the time it took for Gifford to drive them to the townhouse in Sussex Place. He dismissed Gifford, saying they were going for a drive in his curricle. Somewhat to Tabitha’s surprise, that proved to be true.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s someone I know who can help us with this. We’re going to see him.”
He didn’t volunteer anything more, but concentrated on guiding his pair of highbred blacks steadily north through the traffic.
When they joined the Great North Road, she glanced at him. “You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure you’ll like it, but it was all I could come up with. And before you ask, the reason I haven’t told you is that if you don’t know, then when we next see our dear families you can claim complete innocence.”
 
; She smiled, slid her arm in his. “We’re in this together, remember. This is our new mission, and we’ll face it together.”
He drew in a deep breath, let it out as he said, “I thought that, as we’d made your family, and mine, and everyone else involved—even your friends and their families, and their husbands-to-be, too—so happy and relieved and pleased, that it was time we attended to our own happiness and relief, and pleased ourselves.” He glanced at her, met her eyes. “You don’t want a big wedding and neither do I. Underneath our glib exteriors, we’re both rather private people, and enduring such an event would place a strain on both of us—one we don’t deserve. So . . . I thought we should elope.”
When he looked back at the road, Tabitha gathered her giddy wits enough to ask, “To Scotland?”
“No—just to Lincoln. My maternal uncle is bishop there, and he doesn’t get on with my aunt Fothergill. He’ll be thrilled to grant us a special license and officiate, too. Then I thought we might take refuge at my home—Grimoldby Abbey. You haven’t seen it yet and you should.” He glanced at her briefly. “I hope you’ll like it.”
Expectation and exhilaration returned in a rush. Tabitha felt as if she were glowing. She hugged his arm. “I’m sure I will.”
Sebastian nodded. “So that’s my plan, but if you don’t like it, you only have to say, and I’ll turn the horses around and we can book St. Georges and have a big ton wedding . . . if that’s what you’d rather have.” Again he met her eyes. “Your choice, my love.”
She held his gaze, then slowly smiled. Radiantly. For one instant he thought she might be pleased because he’d given her the option—that she would take him up on it because of some misguided notion that they should please others rather than themselves even in the matter of their wedding—but then her eyes—those bright eyes that had drawn him from the first—lit, too, and he knew she’d never disappoint him. That regardless of whatever challenges came their way, she’d always be with him, by his side.
“Lincoln,” she declared, and her expression conveyed her rapturous happiness.
He swallowed, felt humbled.
Knowing she was desired for herself had transformed her; knowing he’d achieved that transformation had transformed him—he literally felt like a different man, the sort of man he’d been waiting to become.
Then she hugged his arm, leaned against his shoulder as he looked ahead once more.
Stated, in her usual determined and impatient way but he could hear the delight bubbling through her voice, “I want more than anything to get started on our new mission. Drive on, my love—and don’t spare the horses.”
Keep reading for an excerpt from
Stephanie Laurens’s upcoming novel
The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae
on sale February 2012.
And be sure to check out
Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue
and
In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster
available now wherever e-books are sold.
An Excerpt from The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae
Chapter One
June 1, 1829
Cavendish House, London
“Oh. My. God.” Angelica Rosalind Cynster, standing to one side of Lady Cavendish’s salon with the bulk of her ladyship’s chattering guests at her back, stared at the long windows giving onto the unlit terrace and the dark gardens beyond, at the reflection of the gentleman who was staring at her from the opposite side of the room.
She’d first felt his disconcerting gaze some thirty minutes before; he’d watched her waltz, watched her laugh and chat with others, but no matter how discreetly she’d looked for him, he’d refused to show himself. Irritated, with the musicians resting she’d worked her way around the room, moving from group to group, exchanging greetings and comments, smoothly shifting until she’d got him in her sights.
Eyes wide, barely daring to believe, she whispered, “It’s him!”
Her ill-suppressed excitement drew a glance from her cousin, Henrietta, presently standing beside her. Angelica shook her head, and someone in the group to the side of which she stood reclaimed Henrietta’s attention, leaving Angelica with her gaze locked on the most riveting man she’d ever beheld.
She considered herself an expert in the art of assessing gentlemen. From her earliest years she’d been aware of them as “other,” and years of observation had left her with a sound understanding of their features and foibles. When it came to gentlemen, she had very high standards.
Visually, the gentleman across the room trumped every one.
He was standing with six others, all of whom she could name, but she didn’t know him. She’d never met him, had never even set eyes on him before. If she had, she’d have known, as she now did, that he was her one, the gentleman she had been waiting to meet.
She’d always been unshakably convinced that she would know her hero, the gentleman fated to be her husband, the instant she saw him. She hadn’t expected that first sighting to be via a reflection across a crowded room, but the result was the same—she knew it was him.
The talisman that The Lady, a Scottish deity, had gifted to the Cynster girls to assist them in finding their true loves had passed from Angelica’s eldest sister, Heather, to her middle sister, Eliza, who on her recent return to London with her new fiancé had handed the necklace to Angelica, the next in line. Composed of old gold links and amethyst beads from which a rose-quartz pendant hung, ancient and mysterious the talisman now lay beneath Angelica’s fichu, the links and beads against her skin, the crystal pendant nestling in her décolletage.
Three nights ago, deeming her time, her turn, had come, armed with the necklace, her instincts, and her innate determination, she had embarked on an intensive campaign to find her hero. She’d come to the Cavendish soiree, at which a select slice of the upper echelon of the ton had gathered to mingle and converse, intent on examining any and all prospective males Lady Cavendish, a lady with an extensive circle of acquaintance, had inveigled to attend.
The talisman had worked for Heather, now engaged to Breckenridge, and had brought Eliza and Jeremy Carling together; Angelica had hoped that it would help her, too, but hadn’t expected such a rapid result.
Regardless, now she had her hero in sight, she wasn’t inclined to waste another minute.
He hadn’t noticed, from his position on the opposite side of the room possibly couldn’t see, that she was studying him. Her gaze locked on his reflection, she visually devoured him.
He was stunningly impressive, towering half a head taller than the men around him, none of whom were short. Elegantly attired in a black evening coat, pristine white shirt and cravat, and black trousers, everything about him from the breadth of his shoulders to the length of his long legs seemed in perfect proportion to his height.
His hair appeared solidly black, straight, rather long, but fashionably styled with windblown, slightly ruffled locks. She tried to study his features, but the reflection defeated her; she couldn’t make out any details beyond the sharply defined, austere planes of his face. Nevertheless, his broad forehead, bladelike nose, and squared chin stamped him as the scion of some aristocratic house; only they possessed such hard, chiseled, coldly beautiful faces.
Her heart was thumping distinctly faster. In anticipation.
Now she’d found him, what next?
If it had been in any way acceptable, she would have swung on her heel, marched across the room, and introduced herself, but that would be too forward, even for her. Yet if after thirty and more minutes of watching her he hadn’t made any move to approach her, then he wasn’t going to, at least not there, not that night.
Which didn’t suit her at all.
Shifting her gaze, she scanned the gentlemen in the loose circle in which he stood. He’d been listening to the conversations but rarely contributing, merely using the interaction to cloak his interest in her.
Even as she looked, one of the other men saluted the group and moved aw
ay.
Angelica smiled. Without a word, she quit Henrietta’s side and glided into the crowd thronging the salon’s center.
She caught the Honorable Theodore Curtis’s sleeve just before he joined a group of young ladies and gentlemen. He looked around and smiled. “Angelica! Where have you been hiding?”
She waved to the windows. “Over there. Theo, who is that gentleman in the group you just left? The very tall man I’ve never met.”
Theo, a friend of her family who knew her far too well to entertain thoughts of her himself, chuckled. “I told him it wouldn’t be long before the young ladies noticed him and came swanning around.”
Angelica played the game and pouted. “Don’t tease. Him who?”
Theo grinned. “Debenham. He’s Viscount Debenham.”
“Who is?” She gestured for more.
“A capital fellow. I’ve known him for years—same age as me, came on the town at the same time, similar interests, you know how it goes. His estate’s somewhere near Peterborough, but he’s been away from the ton for . . . must be four years. Left because of family and estate business, and has only just returned to the drawing rooms and ballrooms.”
“Hmm. So there’s no reason you shouldn’t introduce him to me.”
Still grinning, Theo shrugged. “If you like.”
“I would.” Angelica took his arm and turned him to where her hero, Debenham, still stood. “I promise to return the favor next time you want to steal a march with some new sweet young thing.”
Theo laughed. “I’ll hold you to that.” Anchoring her hand on his arm, he led her through the crowd.
While they tacked past various groups, nodding and smiling, pausing only when they couldn’t avoid it, Angelica conducted a rapid inventory of her appearance, checking that her pale teal silk gown was hanging straight, that the lacy fichu that partially filled in the scooped neckline was sitting properly and adequately concealing the necklace. At one point, she paused to redrape her teal-and-silver silk shawl more elegantly over her elbows; she’d elected to make do without a reticule or fan, so she didn’t have those to fuss over.