Chapter Twenty
M arjorie Match felt greatly daring as she escaped the inn alone. Mama and Gerald were quarreling again. At least, Mama was quarreling. Gerald, white faced and unaccustomedly stiff, would neither rise to her furious arguments nor give in. They were leaving Blackhaven for their country house, where their paternal grandmother was already in residence.
Grandmama, of course, was the one person Mama was afraid of. Marjorie didn’t blame her. Grandmama was terrifying, but at least she would prevent any more schemes such as the pursuit of Lord Linfield.
Shuddering, Marjorie hurried toward the shore, drawn to the sea and the peace of nature. How wonderful to be alone and quiet and—
“Ouch!” said an aggrieved voice as she jumped down onto the sand and grasped something bony to steady herself.
Snatching back her hand with a gasp, she peered with some displeasure at the young man sitting on the sand who’d interrupted her solitude. He was rubbing his shoulder and scowling up at her.
“Miss Match?” he said, belatedly starting to rise. “You’re not alone, are you?”
“Yes,” she said defiantly, recognizing Gerald’s friend Lord Tranmere. “But please, ignore me. Forget you have seen me.”
She walked on hastily, her feet sinking into the soft sand with each step. After a moment, he appeared again beside her.
“Dash it all, I can’t ignore you,” he said. “I’m trying to be a gentleman again.”
“Again?” she said, diverted in spite of herself. “Weren’t you always a gentleman?”
“By birth, not by recent behavior. I’ve been told off.”
“So have I,” Marjorie admitted with some sympathy. “Your mother?”
His smile was twisted. “No. Friend of mine. I don’t suppose you’ve ever had cause to really look at yourself and realize you despise what you see.”
“Oh, yes,” she said fervently.
He looked startled. “Really?”
“I give in to everyone. Do and say things I know in my heart are wrong because I’m too feeble to refuse.”
“Your mother?”
“Mostly. Gerald has suddenly decided to stand up to her, which is good, I think, only the quarrels are hideous, and now I will have Mama on one side and Grandmama on the other and know I will please neither of them.”
“That sounds rough,” Tranmere said with unexpected sympathy.
She cast him another fleeting glance. “Yes… What will you do? Now that you are a gentleman again.”
“Oh, go back to my family, I suppose, learn to be a responsible landowner and stop raking about the country upsetting everyone. Think I might have led Gerald a bit astray. Among other people. Glad he’s finding his feet.”
“You will, too. I hope it makes you happier.”
He frowned. “You think I’m unhappy?”
“Aren’t you?”
He closed his mouth. After a moment, he said, “You know, you’re not just a pretty face, Miss Match.”
“I’m not pretty at all,” she said ruefully. “That is the problem. I will never recover my family’s fortunes.”
“Not pretty?” Tranmere repeated, his frown deepening. “Of course you are! You’re why I took Gerald up in the first place. Mind you, I got distracted. Not a very constant person. Did you like Linfield then?”
Unexpected delight that he thought her pretty warred with shame that he should know about the Linfield machinations. But then, Mama had scarcely kept them secret.
“Of course I like him,” she said in a small voice. “He is so kind and clever and…terrifying.”
“Terrifying?” Tranmere positively scowled. “What the devil did he do to you?”
“Nothing! That’s the trouble. He says things I don’t understand, and then I have no idea how to answer him or interest him. And although he is so handsome, he is really quite old, like one’s father or the vicar, or God …”
Tranmere began to laugh, which for some reason made her feel better “Tell you what, Marjorie Match, why don’t we be allies, you and me? I’ll call on you in the country, and perhaps you and Gerald will call on my grandparents and me? We can teach other backbone, and you can make sure I’m making progress as a gentleman. What do you say? Friends?”
Marjorie had never really had a friend before. She had certainly never imagined one like the rakish Tranmere. But she wasn’t afraid of him. In fact, she felt rather comfortable with him, and she liked the way his eyes smiled. And it seemed they understood each other.
She smiled. “Friends,” she agreed, and took his proffered arm, only to yank him suddenly to a standstill. “Look,” she breathed.
They had walked almost to the harbor, and there, coming down the harbor steps hand in hand, were none other than Lord Linfield and Miss Delilah Vale.
Marjorie found she was smiling. Tranmere turned her gently, and they began to walk back the way they had come.
*
It was a pleasant evening, with no rain in the air, just a little salt spray on the breeze. The tide, on its way out, had left a few pools in the sand to negotiate in the dark, but Delilah didn’t care. The gentle rushing of the waves was booth soothing and exciting, and the man at her side, his ungloved fingers gripping hers, filled her with such intense and sweet emotions that she never wanted these moments to end.
Perhaps everything was heightened by her earlier, frantic anxiety for him, and by the dangers of the evening at the theatre. She didn’t know. She was just sure she needed this time with him, easing the hurt of the last couple of weeks, absorbing her new wonder and happiness.
They spoke at first of the evening’s events and the couple who had absconded with Elise.
“They are a little shadowy,” Denzil explained. “I first came upon them in Vienna, where they supplied me with information vital to the continuance of the congress. Though I admit I didn’t know of her connection to Lord Tamar and Braithwaite… I suspect more than one government employs them, but I have known them to work only toward peace. They have an odd sympathy for the common man, and for women in adversity, which may explain their interest in Elise.”
“I should think adversity would come off worst against that particular woman,” Delilah observed.
“Now, perhaps. But don’t you wonder how she came to be like this? And while her crimes are undeniable, she does have her own code of honor, even if you and I don’t quite recognize it. I suspect Anna and Louis have found her both savable and useful. It may not excuse what she has done, but her contribution to the good of the world might well be greater with them than in prison. Or hanged.”
“You have a very pragmatic view of the world.”
“Not really. I have just learned the value of flexibility. In some cases. In others, I assure you, I am a positively high stickler.”
She smiled at the change in tone. “Name your high stickles.”
“Fidelity in love and marriage. Devotion to you, always.”
His words seemed to flutter in her heart. She rested her head against his arm. “I do love you, Denzil,” she whispered. “I never thought I was capable of this kind of love. I never even imagined it, to be honest. Not for me.”
“I think you were too prickly to let it in. I won’t deny there are better, more charming men than me who would have loved to win you. But on some profound level, I am yours and you are mine.”
“I am…” She lifted her face, and he paused to kiss her.
It began gently, but there was far too much raw emotion between them for it to stay that way for long.
“Take me to the cave,” she said suddenly against his lips. “Where we sheltered from the storm.”
“I wanted you so much that day…”
“As I wanted you.”
Her heart thundered with anticipation, for he knew she had just offered herself to him. It was in the tension of his stride, the sensual caress of his arm at her waist. He could not stop touching her, and she gloried in it.
The few courting couples from the town thinned to none on the empty beach. They carried no lantern, but the stars and the moon seemed to be on their side, shining in a cloudless sky to show them the way. Perhaps it was madness to climb the rocks in the dark, in her evening gown, but when her skirt tore, he made her laugh by promising to buy her another gown just like it.
“We can keep this one for special occasions,” he whispered, lifting her into the cave and arranging her beneath him.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss him at once, and she did, with longing and passion. Somehow, he got his coat off and spread beneath her—along with her cloak, it gave her some protection from the hardness of the cave floor. And then she lost track of their garments, focused only on the pleasure of his caresses and the wonder of his arousal. She rejoiced in his heavy, ragged breath, the voluptuous touch of his open mouth on her skin, utterly lost in the physical delights that had melted inseparably into her love.
She gave herself with eager joy, and he took her in the same overwhelming spirit. Yet he hung by a thread to tenderness and care until the last savage, beautiful moment, when their ecstasy became one.
“Did I hurt you?” he whispered when he could speak again, and when she was capable of hearing more than the thundering of her own heart.
She shook her head, boneless with pleasure and wonder, and hung on to him tighter in case he moved. The rumpled clothes, tangled about their limbs, did not disturb her, but she would not lose the delight of his hot, damp skin beneath her fingers, the beat of his heart against hers, slowing gradually.
“The next time,” he promised, “it will be in comfort, and I will make it last.”
“Last?” she said, uncomprehending, overcome still by the strange, intimate beauty of what they had done.
He smiled, burying his mouth in hers once more. “Oh, yes…”
He turned her so that they could lie together in greater comfort. The locket that had been hidden under the bodice of her gown swung against his hand, and he caught it.
“This is pretty. Why do you hide it?”
“My mother gave me it.” She knew he would understand that, and he did, for he kissed the locket and then her fingers.
After a moment, she took the locket from him and pressed the catch to open it. The folded paper she had put there sprang free. She pushed it into his hands.
“What is it?” he asked, for there was not nearly enough light in the cave to read it.
“Your first love letter. It just says, Please . I had a migraine when Betsy gave me it. I was blind and couldn’t read it. When I did…somehow it changed everything. Like a puzzle falling into place, only I couldn’t work out how to fix what I had done.”
He stroked her hair. “You did. We both did. And there will be no more such misunderstandings.”
“No,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to his. “There won’t.”
They talked a little more then, of love and the future.
“What shall we do?” he asked. “Shall I seek out a post in London, or would you consider traveling with me?”
“I would love to travel with you,” she said honestly, and knew from his smile that this was his preference too. “What of Elaine?”
“I think Elaine craves the stability of a permanent home,” he said. “This last year has been hard on her health. I would see her settled in comfort in whatever place she desires, whether our own lands, London, or even Blackhaven. She will be happy to do so, now that you are my wife.”
“I am not that quite yet.”
“You are, in any way that matters. We have made our vows.”
She liked that so much that she hugged him. After a moment, she repeated, “ Our own lands . How wealthy are you, my lord?”
“Hideously. It’s useful. But I am a landowner by accident, not by nature. I employ excellent stewards and follow my own inclination to serve in the Foreign Office. But we shall never be poor, and you will always have a home, with or without me.”
She didn’t want to think about being without him. “I will try to be a good wife and help you as I did my father. I shall do better without my prickles, as you call them.”
He kissed her again. “You are perfect as you are, my Delly.”
And that was so sweet to hear it was some time before they rose, replacing and straightening each other’s clothes. Then they climbed down from the cave and walked happily on to Black Hill in the moonlight. And to Delilah, the whole world was perfect.
*
They were married four weeks later at what was meant to have been a quiet ceremony, for Delilah’s bags were already packed to travel to London, where Denzil would report to his superiors and receive instructions for his next posting.
But their families and their circle of friends in Blackhaven proved to be too large. The quiet wedding breakfast at Black Hill inevitably expanded into a party, and when Roderick sat down at the pianoforte and began to play a lively waltz, the twins called loudly for the bride and groom.
Delilah and Denzil happened to be at opposite sides of the drawing room at the time, but the crowd between them rapidly moved aside so that they suddenly faced each other over the expanse of empty floor.
Roderick played a louder, more peremptory introduction to his waltz, making everyone laugh.
Denzil, equal to any social occasion, strolled elegantly across the room and bowed to his blushing bride. Smiling, he held out one hand. “Madam, may I have the honor? Will you dance?”
Tears and laughter mingled, trying to choke her. But there was only one thing she could do. And she wanted to with all her heart. She took his hand.
“Yes, sir, I will dance”
And she did.