Page 76 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

Chapter 25

For just the second time in his life, Alistair awoke in the morning to the pleasure of finding Constantia in his arms. And for the second time, he held her close a moment longer than he should before hoisting himself from bed. Oh, he wanted to stay—just as he had wanted to once before. But he’d kept her up half the night making love and talking and making love while talking. She had earned her rest.

By rights, he ought to have been exhausted too. But an unusual energy, an unfamiliar excitement buzzed in his veins.

He was in love. He was loved in return.

Of course, a man schooled in practicality and self-restraint did not easily shake off his skepticism. A princess? A fortune? Those were fairy tales on which it wouldn’t pay to rely. But love? Love was real.

He and Constantia made one another happy. And whole. They were going to marry, no matter what.

Of that, he had no doubt at all.

So while she slept, he rose and dressed. The storm had passed, and if he knew his guests, some of them would be ready to depart at dawn.

As he had expected, he found the rector and his wife with Forster in the entry hall awaiting their carriage, which had already been ordered.

“Just the man I hoped to see,” Alistair said, approaching the rector with hand outstretched. “I wish to marry Miss, er—the, uh—well, Constantia.” Lord, it would be easier when she was Lady Ryland. “As soon as possible.”

The rector’s wife smiled with her merry, twinkling eyes. “Of course you do. Every man should find a woman who sees in him nothing but the best.”

“Very well, very well,” said the rector, shaking Alistair’s hand as he nodded to his curate. “Samuel here will read the banns this Sunday.”

Four weeks would be an eternity. He might have pleaded for a special license, but that would have meant going to the bishop and more time spent away from his bride-to-be. And there were plans to make, shopping to be done, Christmas to celebrate—he must hope that keeping busy would make the time go by fast enough.

Alistair nodded and turned to Forster. “If it suits you—and unless I’m very much mistaken, I believe it will—you might as well read out another set of banns at the same time.”

Forster jerked back his head in surprise. “You don’t mean—?”

“You and Eddie.” He lifted his brows in something he hoped would pass for sternness, though there was too much joy in his heart to manage the real thing. “Or did I mistake your intentions toward my sister?”

“God, no,” the other man exclaimed, which prompted a little cough of disapprobation from the rector. “Thank you, Ryland.” Forster now gripped his hand and was shaking it vigorously. “Thank you very much.”

Someone summoned Eddie, who appeared, still in her wrapper, to hear the good news. After the three guests had been successfully dispatched, she turned to Alistair, her eyes shining with tears of happiness and gratitude, and sniffled, “I’ll just order breakfast, shall I?”

“A big one, if you don’t mind,” he called over his shoulder to her as he headed toward the library.

He’d worked up quite an appetite last night.

In the library, which he’d assumed would be empty at this early hour, he found Harry already hard at work. “You know,” he said, bending to plant a kiss on her head as she leaned over the table, “I actually doubted you when you said you were keeping up with your German studies. I’ve never been so glad to be proved wrong.”

“Well . . .” She sent him a sidelong glance. “I never believed you when you said you’d let me have drawing lessons someday. So, I suppose we’re even.”

He laughed, then twisted a piece of heavily-inked paper toward himself, though he couldn’t read it. “Harry? Do you think this business might be a ruse?”

To his surprise, she laid down her pen and looked up, giving the question serious consideration. “I don’t,” she concluded after a few moments of thought. “Who would bother? All this time and effort”—she waved a hand over the paper-covered table—“and to what end? I think, in spite of how unbelievable it sounds, Herr Schenk is who he claims to be.”

“Which means Constantia is who he says.”

“A princess.” Her voice was breathy and full of wonder, an unexpectedly sweet reminder of the little girl she had once been. When had his sisters all grown up?

He squeezed her hand, nodded, and intended to retreat to his desk, but another question niggled at him. “I understand that sometime after I left last evening, Schenk said something about money?”

Harry shuffled through two stacks of paper, finally found whatever it was she sought, and slid a page toward him, using the nail of her first finger to underscore a number. A low whistle escaped between his teeth. “But that won’t be British pounds,” he reasoned aloud.

“He told her last night that her father did everything he could to protect the family fortune from his brother, whom he’d always suspected of treachery. Unless my German’s truly terrible, the money has been sitting in a British bank for years. So, yes.” She tucked the paper back into its stack with a decisive motion, as if she considered the matter settled. “That’s in pounds sterling, brother dear.”

Good God.