“So, my courageous darling, what next?” he asked. “Shall you be employing highwaymen to pursue us on our wedding trip?”
“What an idea,” she said, giggling. “I still think we ought to set off for Gretna Green and then we can find some cozy cottage somewhere in the highlands. My father will not mind it.”
“Your father has been pushed to the brink of incredulity, let us not push him any further.”
“I suppose you are right,” Rosalind admitted. “But perhaps you can get a special license? Else I do not know how we are to keep our hands to ourselves.”
Balthazar laughed, rich and deep. “That will indeed be a challenge that will require all of our combined courage. I will certainly obtain a special license. However, my lovely Rosalind, I am a duke. The queen herself will wish to attend the church. The thing must be done right.”
“How soon, do you think?”
“I will consult with Lady Hightower, she will know how to arrange it speedily.”
“Lady Hightower,” Rosalind said thoughtfully. “Do you suppose she will approve the match?”
“After discovering you employed her name in this shocking series of events by claiming it would be her carriage to collect you? Probably.”
Rosalind kissed his lips gently. “She is a dear, then.”
Balthazar undid the pins in her hair and pulled her down to him.
As it happened, Miss Mayton had terribly misplaced her book and was gone from the room for nearly an hour.
Balthazar had told no tales—it would take their combined courage to avoid compromising his dear Rosalind. Or perhaps whatever could be scraped together ofhiscourage alone, as she did not seem very steadfast in the effort.
*
On the nextmorning, Rosalind’s sisters had of course been told of the terrible circumstance of Rosalind being kidnapped. At least, they were told the version their father understood. They were further informed that Rosalind had engaged herself to the duke and they did a remarkable job of seeming as if they’d not seen it coming.
They of course knew there were a heap of facts missing from this recital and waited until the earl and Darden had departed the breakfast room. The earl was to meet his friend Lord Cannerly for coffee at Whites. Conbatten was to join him there later for a private audience on the marriage settlement.
Darden was, quite naturally, on his way to the YBC. He was bursting to tell the news of the engagement to his friends at his club, and Rosalind thought he very much seemed as if it werehewho had become engaged to Conbatten.
He’d left muttering, “This must tip the scales. Certainly, we must ask him to join our club, as he is now to be my brother-in-law.”
Tattleton and the footmen had since been sent out of the breakfast room. Though, as always seemed to be the case these days, their butler appeared very nervous about leaving them alone there.
The door closed behind him.
“Well?” Juliet said.
“It was both terrifying and marvelous,” Rosalind said. “The people Shrimps got in touch with, well, it seemed they decided that if I wished to be kidnapped, they might as well get a ransom. The carriage got to the end of the street and just kept going. Then, it turns out they were after Shrimps too, because he is the son of James Conroy and Lady Edna Edenborough.”
“Goodness, I remember the news reports of them running off together,” Miss Mayton said. “It was very romantic.”
“What a night!” Cordelia said. “We tried and tried to stay awake, but we could not do it.”
“It was just as well,” Rosalind said. “By the time Conbatten left, it was near three and my head was all dreamy—I could barely speak.”
“Does he make you dreamy?” Cordelia asked.
“Very dreamy.”
“But tell us,” Viola said. “Tell us of the moment Conbatten finally confessed his love.”
Rosalind sighed. It really had been the most romantic moment in the history of romantic moments. There he’d been, lying on the floor with a head injury, telling her he’d been besotted from the moment he saw her.
“It was for him just as it was for me,” Rosalind said. “He was in love with me from the very first. He thinks I am an adorable minx and he could not imagine living without me.”
