Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

H arman was deeply confused when Alara bundled him back into the cab they'd hired, then climbed in after. He hadn't understood everything that had just transpired, clearly.

"What are you doing? "

"We're married," she said simply, arranging her black lace skirts over her lap.

That made him feel dizzy. He didn't even remember her exactly telling him yes. "You don't mean it."

"I do. It's agreed. I am entitled to accept on my own behalf, at my age. I should have waited to find out the amount of the mahr, but..." She looked up at him with her bright eyes, leaned into his good side. He felt instantly warmer. "I trust you."

"But... why would you do that?"

"You said it yourself," she said with the perfect calm he so adored. He simply wasn't like that, and he loved it in her. "Too much time wasted. And I feel safest with you. I'd still like a nikah, and a nikahnama. But after all, the Crown would not recognize them."

"So why claim marriage?"

"Because I am going home with you," said Alara, filling him with a peaceful joy despite his aches and bruises. "I wanted her to understand. I would drag her all the way back to the Sublime State on a boat and take the case before a court if necessary. The contract is made. I have agreed. We are married. And I want to see that you sleep comfortably." She reached over him, gently probing his bruised side. He grunted.

Then held her tightly against him so she couldn't move.

"You know the English side of things won't be so simple," he told her.

"That's because we are in England," she said with her ineluctable logic, settling in to the spot where she most wanted to be.

"Harman, you haven't considered your future."

Oddly, both Harman and Alara had imagined Zehra Chaush to be their most unpleasant hurdle ahead.

But as it turned out, Lord Ayles was the most difficult to sway.

When Harman announced their betrothal, his mother ran to him and hugged him, and he saw tears in her eyes. She must want grandchildren, the thought came to him out of nowhere, and it made him glad to hope that she'd get many.

He had younger brothers, as Alara did; they'd played together at the house in the country, babies when he and Alara were half-grown. His parents loved each other, and they loved their children. Now Harman and Alara had a chance to make their family even larger.

He imagined how he would talk it over with Alara later, and what kinds of questions they would ask each other, and he smiled secretly to himself. Then at his betrothed. Who smiled back, her sweet, gentle smile.

"The banns will take two weeks," his father said obstinately. With Alara next to him, and a great deal more clarity in his head about what was truly important, Harman wasn't interested in fighting his father. He wondered what dreams Lord Ayles had once had and lost. He couldn't make this easier for his father, but he could at least understand. Many dreams died, and Harman knew how painful that could be.

He offered an olive branch. "You could get us a special license if you wished."

"I'm not asking the Archbishop for a favor."

"Then let them post the banns." Harman shrugged. His worse shoulder was stiffening quickly. He'd waited for Alara for years; two more weeks meant nothing.

Though it was a little tricky, since Alara clearly considered them already married, and had no intention of budging from his side.

A point his father brought up now. "You can't fulfill the obligations of her faith," he said solemnly. "Or her family."

Harman had recovered his habit of asking questions. It was as though it had stayed with Alara, waiting for him all these years, along with her heart. "Why is that, sir? Have you asked yourself why the Crown allows legal marriage following their own traditions for Jews and Quakers, but not followers of Islam? At some point, if Britain is to be the worldwide beacon of justice you would like it to be, oughtn't they recognize marriage among the people who live in its borders, no matter the faith?"

"This is what we get from sending you to school with Catholics," Lord Ayles bristled, and Lady Ayles waved him down with her hands, shushing him.

They always formed a pair, Harman thought to himself, but it might be his mother who was the actual diplomat.

"What the country should or shouldn't do isn't at issue," his father said, shooting a resentful glance his mother's way.

"Are you sure?" Alara's quiet voice filled the silence with meaning, and seized everyone's attention. "What is more important than an experiment that tests the question? Here we are. What the country does matters to us, therefore it matters."

"With more Turks living in London every day," Harman pointed out. "Wasn't that why the Sultan sent Britain an ambassador in the first place? Or so he claimed?"

"I can't tell if you know too much or too little," his father groused, dropping down into a wooden chair, making it clatter.

"In any event. Sir, the main matter is one from which we won't be distracted. We will perform a ceremony—all ceremonies—and be wed. I'd like your blessing, and at a later time we can even discuss forgiveness."

"Forgiveness?" That made the older man's back straighten. "For you?"

"For you." And Harman gave him a look to indicate he meant every word.

Proving his parents' separate roles, his father admitted nothing, while his mother broached the topic more delicately. "If you are angry that we did not encourage you to pursue Alara?—"

"Didn't encourage me?" Harman's tone made clear he wasn't interested in the diplomatic version.

His mother went on, seasoned negotiator that she was. "—we weren't sure what was best for you. You deserved a chance to make your own decisions, and that's just what we gave you. Just what you've done."

"He hasn't." His father was quick to interject. "He hasn't even tried to stand for a place in Parliament. If he tried?—"

"Lord Ayles," his son said firmly, "I don't want a seat in Parliament, and never have."

His father fell back as if someone had struck him in the chest.

Harman wanted to laugh. Not because he'd disappointed his father—that hurt, though the hurt would fade, and wasn't half as important as making Alara happy—but because he'd regained his own tendency, his right to ask questions.

Alara was going to love Sir Humphrey too, and his electrical decomposition of elements, and his versions of the Thousand and One Nights.

All at once an idea struck him that was so good, he wanted to think it over much more before bringing it up. He wanted to talk it over with Alara, slowly, looking at it from all points of view. It was an excellent idea, and perfect for a world in which the wars were ending, and in which soon, perhaps, Britain would finally be at peace.

A perfect idea for him and his beloved.

In the meantime, Alara seemed possessed by the stubborn streak he knew she had. It was rather taking his parents aback. "So you will post the banns, and that will take two weeks."

"Yes," said Harman's father, with a stony look.

"Very well. Loan us your traveling coach, and fill it with as many cushions and coverlets as you can spare. Lady Ayles, perhaps you would help me pack for my husband."

My husband. Those words ran through him like lighting, grounding him to the floor.

Lady Ayles didn't look as put out as his lordship. "Happily," she said softly, "but where will you go? Not all the way to Scotland." She accepted the possibility of an elopement with sad grace.

"Not at all." Alara stood, about to begin a journey in her black lace dress. "If you'll lend us your country house, we'll gladly take use of it for the two weeks; or we may stay at my father's hunting lodge."

It was beyond shocking; it was unbelievable. Lord Ayles went red, sputtering a bit as if he couldn't find words. "I'll talk to the archbishop."

"Please do," Alara curtsied to him. "But we shan't wait. We need a quieter place for Lord Harman to recuperate."

"You two can't travel alone together!"

"Yes, we can," said Harman. He'd do whatever Alara wanted. Whatever made her happy. "There, and back."

But Lady Ayles just nodded. "Of course, dear," she said, and Harman wondered how long she had been waiting for him to find her daughter-in-law.

He'd never before been able to imagine quiet Alara sailing away around the globe.

It was his own failure of imagination, he now saw, as she calmly loaded the carriage in the early dawn light with cold provisions for the trip and built a soft bed on the bench seat.

"You should sleep," she told him, lifting his feet and putting them under a rug. The daylight had come, but it was still bitterly cold.

"I'll sleep when you do," he told her, closing her little hand in his. Something about it all felt wrong, off. He should be protecting her, not letting her nursemaid him into a carriage on the first day of the rest of their life together.

But he finally could read some of her thoughts in her face. She wanted their married life to begin this second, and not in her parents' house, or his either.

Also, she was right. He could use a little peace and quiet.

"I will sleep," she said serenely, lounging on cushions at his feet while the carriage rocked on its way down the road. "I will sleep when we are together, cocooned in warm coverlets, perhaps with coals at your feet, and I have rubbed the soreness out of your muscles with rose oil and perfumed the air with rare wood."

"Good God," muttered Harman. That sounded delicious; anything about sleep and together sounded delicious to him. "But you're taking an awful chance. A decent gentleman should leave you with your parents till the banns are read. What if I compromise you and leave you?"

"You wouldn't do that," said his confident little questioner, pulling another wool cloak over her own shoulders. "But if you did, I would drag you to court in the Sublime State to prove we were legally wed." She gave him a sharp look. "What, did you think I would let you wander around being drawn into intrigue by dangerous redheads?"

"You're taking advantage of me," he murmured, the slow gentle rocking already urging him off to much-needed sleep.

"How so?" She was not too tired to ask a question. Never that.

"I'm not strong enough to refuse your advances. Help. Ruffian. Cad."

"I'm terribly sorry," she said, laying her head next to his arm on the cushioned bench. "I promise, as soon as possible, I'll marry you as many times as you like."

"That's what I was waiting to hear," said Lord Harman, raising her hand to his lips to kiss. "I promise to love you and cherish you always, forever."

"And I'll do the same for you, my sweet man," she said as he drifted away to sleep.

It took two days of slow, cold traveling to reach the little valley where the Ayles country home still stood.

Alara had managed his comfort wonderfully, leaving Harman to think of details such as sending a rider ahead to warn the servants. Its pantry might not be full, but there would be firewood, and a cook.

By dark on the twenty-seventh, wisps of fog drew close around the carriage as they rolled down the drive.

But there were cheerful candles in some of the lower windows, and when they went inside, they were, finally, blissfully warm.

"I'll send up a coal pan, Lord Harman, Lady Harman," said the cook, grinning at them. She'd known them both since they were children.

"What did you tell her?" Alara whispered as she helped Harman up the stairs, grateful they'd sleep in a bed that stayed still. She looked a little shy now.

"Just what my wife told me," he said in all seriousness. "That we are married."

It might be a poor excuse for a honeymoon, but both of them slept wrapped in warmth all that long dark night.

And when they woke in the morning, it was very easy to turn it into an excellent honeymoon indeed.

The fog closed in around the house for the third day. The delicious smells of Mrs. Jacobs' stew floated up the stairs, and there was no reason to regret how impossible it was to go anywhere or do anything but stay bundled in bed.

The green grounds, the distant hills, even the trees nearby were all swallowed up with fog; yet the new Lord and Lady Harman were grateful for every quiet second, as it gave them more time to investigate each other, and some truly gripping questions.

It was quiet under the velvet bed-curtains, quiet enough for serious contemplation, for touches and dreams. Even the lick of the fire was a soft, distant crackle.

"Can we do it?" Alara whispered it into Harman's shoulder as he rolled her back into his arms. She'd been gone all of five minutes, and that was too much.

"Go down for breakfast? I don't see the point." He pulled her softness back against him. His bruises were spectacular, black and blue against the crisp white linens; but they were already healing, and there was no touch more restorative, more gentle, than his wife's.

"I'm talking about your plan," she giggled. "Can we do it?"

He'd given it to her as a question. A present, for their honeymoon. And here she was giving it right back. It was a splendid idea, but could they do it?

"I think we can," said Harman. "Not right away; it will take tremendous planning. And then as much diplomacy as my father ever dreamed of."

They'd made plans for a townhouse of their own, and investments in Alara's name. She'd confided in him her fears of British marriage, and Harman was not just grateful to do anything that would make her feel safer; he was dying to do it.

But this dream, this was bigger than a house, or money. It was a dream for centuries, and it was theirs.

"Won't the old schools petition against it? Won't there be a fight?" Shy Alara seemed quite excited by the prospect, tilting her head so he could kiss her neck. The sleek black fall of her hair shone against her skin and his.

So odd that he'd never suspected how far her determination could go. Perhaps he'd get her a sword of her own.

Harman shrugged against his pillow. "If Britain is to lead the world into a peaceful age, it should have a college that espouses no religious creed at all. Only investigation into the truth of things. Measurable, confirmable truth. To such an extent it exists."

"A whole college!" Alara seemed dazzled by the possibility. "Chemistry! Mathematics! Philosophy! Literature!"

"You name them like presents to put in your pockets," he teased, sliding his hands around her hips as if to steady her against the marvelous wave of dreams.

"They are! Just imagine! Lord and Lady Harman's College!"

"Lord and Lady Ayles, perhaps, by the time we finish it," Harman said with practical realism, "or Lord Ayles and Alara Lala, founders. Do you like the ring of it?"

"Oh, John. I can't consider myself a tutor of princes."

"Why not?" He stroked his cheek against her hair while reveling in the feel of her next to him, against him, with him. In a week or two they'd wander back to London and be married in a church; it wouldn't change a thing. He was completely married right now. Perhaps he had been so for a long, long time. "That's exactly what you are."

Visit judithlynne.com for a bonus scene with a bit more of Lord Harman and his long-lost love's ongoing wedding!

Lord Harman appears (briefly) in The Caped Countess , and more extensively in The Clandestine Countess , so it is a delight to give him a love story, even a short one, all his own.