6. A Courtship

At the top of the stairs

“I do hope you’re not regretting anything,” David murmured as they approached Marian’s room.

She glanced over at him. “I am not. But I cannot help but think you will have second thoughts given my uncle’s ridiculous conditions,” she replied as she unlocked the door. David reached over and opened it for her.

“Other than the requirement to live in the city until you reach your majority, his conditions are to be expected,” he said, his gaze taking in the room’s decor. When he was in her bedchamber before, he hadn’t even noticed it. All he remembered was Marian.

Kissing Marian.

“A special license is to be expected?” she queried before she noticed his attention wasn’t on her. She sighed. “It’s quite ridiculous, isn’t it? All these shades of pink?” She waved a hand to indicate the cheval mirror standing in one corner. “The gold gilt?” she added with a scoff.

David merely shrugged before he turned his attention to his betrothed. “I believe the special license is meant to give your mother bragging rights.” He paused, furrowing a brow. “Is... is your mother alive?”

Marian shook her head. “She died of influenza a few years ago. Not long after my father succumbed to it,” she explained. “Which is why Uncle Richard is my guardian.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” David replied. “My father died of the flu ten years ago. A bit of a shock, really. I certainly wasn’t expecting to inherit the barony before I was twenty-three years of age.”

From the way her brows briefly crinkled, he knew she was sorting his age. “My condolences,” she said in a quiet voice. “You were explaining the importance of a special license?” she prompted after a moment.

“Ah, yes. Well, it gives you bragging rights, I suppose,” he replied. “And us the ability for us to choose when and where we wish to exchange vows without having to wait for the banns to be read,” he added as he helped her into her coat. As a result, his fingers touched her shoulders, and for that briefest of moments, warmth and a fizzy sensation coursed through him. At first, he didn’t think she noticed, but then he heard her slight inhalation of breath and wondered if she had felt the same. When her eyes darted to his and a knowing smile lifted the corners of her lips, he was sure.

“Will it shock people, do you suppose?” she asked as she reached for a bonnet resting on top of a dresser.

His mind still on the pleasant frissons he had experienced, David was caught off-guard by the query. “What do you mean?”

Marian inhaled softly. “Isn’t it scandalous for two people to wed so quickly? Especially since... well, since we’ve only just met?” She rolled her eyes. “We haven’t even been formally introduced.”

David dipped his head. “Miss Marian Copper, may I have the honor of introducing myself?”

She grinned. “You have it, sir.”

“I am David Morgan Engleston, the sixth Baron Engleston,” he said as he bowed.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Lord Engleston,” she said as she curtsied. David took her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. When he straightened, he said, “You can call me David when we’re in private like this,” he whispered. “If you tire of calling me ‘my dearest’.”

“You can call me Marian if you tire of calling me ‘my sweet’,” she countered.

“I’ll never tire of it,” he whispered. He hesitated a moment, his gaze lowering to her lips. “May I kiss you?”

About to place the bonnet on her head, Marian lowered it and nodded. “I would like that very much. Whenever you are of a mind to do so.”

Hesitating, David finally leaned down and touched his lips to hers. When he pulled away, he inhaled deeply. “I love the scent of you,” he whispered.

Marian swallowed before she dipped her head. “Thank you. I thought it a bit of an extravagance, but my mother insisted,” she said. “She had it created for me at Floris,” she added, when David gave her a questioning glance. “When she thought I was going to have my come-out that year.”

From the way she made the comment, David realized she referred to the year her mother had died. The requirements of mourning had obviously kept Marian from having a come-out.

“Ah, then they’ll have the formula for when I buy more for you,” he said as he offered his arm. “Shall we?”

Placing her hand on his arm, Marian allowed him to lead her down the stairs. David donned his greatcoat and hat and retrieved his umbrella on the way out of the building. As Marian was climbing into his coach, he said to Carver, “The archbishop’s office in Doctors’ Commons, and do try to hurry.”

His driver blinked. “Yes, my lord.”

“Might I sit next to you?” David asked as he stepped into the coach. He practically scoffed at hearing himself. His shyness wasn’t in evidence when he was in the presence of Marian.

“I hoped you would,” Marian replied as she settled into the velvet squabs in the direction of travel, pressing her body against the opposite wall from the door to give him more room. “This is quite nice. I’ve only ever seen leather interiors,” she remarked.

David took the seat next to her, noticing how much space there was betwixt them. “You needn’t feel as if you must sit so far away.”

Giving him a tentative grin, Marian scootched a bit closer to him as the coach lurched into motion.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before David asked, “Are you having second thoughts?”

Marian’s eyes rounded. “No. No, I am not. But I cannot help but think we’ve been... set up,” she said in a faraway voice.

“Set up?” he repeated. He turned to regard her. “What do you mean?”

“I promise. I didn’t know anything about the wager. About my uncle winning money if you were to wed by a certain age,” she explained.

“How could you?” David asked.

“But... when my uncle invited me to the Soho Club with him, he said I would be meeting my betrothed,” she continued. “I thought he had arranged a marriage on my behalf, you see.”

David gave a start. “Did he give you the name of this man to whom you were supposed to be betrothed?”

She shook her head. “That’s why I...” She lifted a gloved hand and waved it from her lips to the reticule she clutched in the other. “Why I blurted out what I did when I first saw you,” she explained. “And then, when you said you were, I was so...” She clamped her mouth shut as her face reddened.

A grin split David’s lips before he suddenly sobered. “You were so... what?”

“Relieved,” Marian said in a whisper. She swallowed. “I feared you would be an old fart...” She paused and inhaled sharply when she realized what she’d said, lifting a hand to cover her mouth.

A chuckle erupted from him. “That you don’t think me an old fart is high praise, indeed,” he replied before he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. He would have kissed her on the lips, too, but the coach came to a stuttering halt. “We’re already here,” he murmured. “Would you like to come in with me?”

“Of course,” she said at the same moment Carver opened the door, his dry hat an indication the rain had stopped falling.

David helped her down from the coach, and they proceeded into the four-story building.

A half-hour later

“Well, that wasn’t difficult,” David remarked, opening the coach door and helping Marian up the step. She gripped the license in her gloved hand as if it were a prized possession. “This is only the third one that has been issued this year,” he added proudly.

“Would you tell me if I asked how much you had to pay for this?” Marian asked as she read the particulars.

Deciding it couldn’t hurt to tell her, he said, “It was twenty-one pounds.” Ignoring her gasp of shock, he added, “The real question is, do you wish to marry me today or wait until tomorrow?”

Although he hadn’t given their wedding date much thought when applying for the license, David certainly was now. If they married this afternoon—he had been given a card with the name and address of someone who would perform the ceremony before six o’clock—they would be spending this very night together as husband and wife. A wave of nervousness had him wondering if he had made a mistake in asking.

Marian’s eyes rounded. “I suppose now is not the time to tell you I’m extremely shy and have no idea what I am supposed to do in the marriage bed,” she blurted.

David blinked. He blinked again. Although he supposed he should have felt even more nervous by her claim, he instead felt relief. Profound relief. “Well, that makes two of us,” he replied, chuckling softly. He turned to the driver, who had stepped down from the bench to help with the coach door.

“Where to, sir?” Carver asked.

“We’re off to get married.” He handed the driver the card he’d been given.

“Best wishes, sir,” Carver said in awe, his gaze finally going to the pasteboard card. “But the... the address on this card is the same as the Soho Club, sir,” he remarked, an expression of confusion crossing his face.

Thinking he might have mixed up the calling cards, David reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out the other card he possessed—the calling card he had used to enter the club. He glanced at the one his driver held, now sure he had given him the correct card. “Well, so it is. Let’s stop at the townhouse, first, though. Miss Copper would like to see where she’ll be living when we’re in town for Parliament.”

“Very good, sir.” Carver held the door while David stepped into the coach.

Settling himself next to Marian, he glanced over at her to discover she was staring at him in disbelief. “What is it, my sweet?”

“I would never have guessed you were shy,” she murmured.

He angled his head first one way and then the other. “I would not have guessed you were shy,” he countered.

“It’s why I never had a come-out. Well, besides the fact that I was in mourning when I was eighteen and then again when I was nineteen. Uncle offered to arrange a sponsor when I was twenty, but... I couldn’t abide the thought of spending hours standing next to potted palms waiting for someone to ask me to dance,” she explained.

“I admit I have been one of those gentlemen seeking refuge in the card room as a means of avoiding the dancing,” David said. “So I suppose that explains why we’ve never met before today.” He took one of her hands in his his. “Despite your shyness, why do you suppose you spoke to me first?”

“You weren’t the old fart I was expecting, remember?” she teased. “Yet you didn’t pause even one second to answer when I asked you if you were my betrothed.”

He grinned as he nodded. “You... you emboldened me at that moment,” he said. “You still had that effect on me when I was in the viscount’s company a few minutes later. On the way to the card parlor, I admitted I was betrothed knowing he would react in shock, and he did,” David claimed as he grinned at the memory. “I don’t recall feeling so satisfied in all my life as I did at that moment he landed on his bum in the middle of a step and tore his breeches.”

Marian gasped as a hand covered her mouth, her mirth evident in her eyes. “I felt the same way when I saw Uncle’s expression the moment you kissed me on the cheek,” she said as a brilliant smile lit her face. “He was so shocked.” She slowly sobered as her gaze went to her mind’s eye. “You don’t really wish to live in town for the next two years,” she murmured.

David hummed as he regarded her with an expression filled with mischief. “Oh, I won’t mind if you’re with me,” he replied. “However, I think I might have an idea of how we can get ’round that particular requirement.”

Marian’s eyes rounded. “Oh? Do tell,” she said, her good humor returning.

He held up a finger. “First, let’s have you take a look at the place. Meet my mother. You might decide you like it enough that you’ll wish to live there,” he said.

“And if you don’t wish to live there?” she prompted.

Dipping his head, David said, “Well, I intend to take you on a wedding trip, of course.” He delighted in hearing her inhalation of surprise. “There’s no reason why it can’t be a two-year trip. To my country house in Kent... or somewhere else,” he added mischievously.

“You are a genius,” she whispered happily.

An unfamiliar sensation of something filled his chest at hearing her comment. It wasn’t pride, exactly. Or even satisfaction. But it did convince him he was making the right decision with regard to marrying Miss Marian Copper. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said softly.

She squeezed his hand. “Well, that’s a relief,” she countered playfully. “I shouldn’t wish to marry a man who wasn’t falling in love with me.”

The coach stopped, and from the jerk at the front, David knew Carver had stepped down from the bench. He glanced out the window, prepared to see Westminster at its winter worst.

Instead, he was pleasantly surprised.

The incessant rains seemed to have washed clean the rows of townhouses in his neighborhood. The pavement, still wet from the earlier rain, reflected the ray of sunshine that had split the clouds and was doing its best to warm the air.

“We’re here,” he said when he spotted the four-story Engleston townhouse beyond the window.

A wave of nervousness had him wishing they had simply returned to the Soho Club, but David was determined his betrothed see what she would be living in when she married him.

If she married him.