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“Mama?” Daphne turned to her mother.
“We’ll take your mother to Markham,” Pierce answered. “Until I can make other arrangements, she’ll be safest there.”
“Oh, no.” Elizabeth shook her head, still dabbing at her eyes. “I won’t impose. Not tonight. It’s your wedding night.”
Pierce grinned. “You won’t be imposing. I’ll leave you in my staff’s capable hands, giving them strict instructions to advise all visitors that no one is home and no guests are permitted. Then, Daphne and I will travel on to my house in Wellingborough.”
“In that case, I accept.”
“Excellent. Then let’s be on our way before the marquis begins tearing up Northamptonshire looking for you.” Pierce frowned. “I hesitate to travel the main road, lest we run into him.”
“I was quite a good rider in my youth,” Elizabeth put in. “And, though my practice over the years has been limited, I’m certain I can still take the woods at a breakneck pace—astride, incidentally, not sidesaddle.” She gave Pierce a mischievous grin. “Does that ease our dilemma?”
“I begin to see whom Daphne takes after,” Pierce chuckled. “Indeed, I ask only that you don’t leave Daphne and me behind in the dust.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Elizabeth turned to the vicar and her smile faded. “Thank you, Alfred,” she said softly. “I think you know what your love and protection of Daphne mean to me.”
“Perhaps Daphne isn’t the only one who can now begin anew,” he replied. “Perhaps your time has arrived, as well.”
“Perhaps.” She squeezed his hands. “God bless you,” she whispered.
“Thank you, Vicar,” Pierce repeated solemnly. “The doors at Markham and at Wellingborough are always open to you.”
“Visit us,” Daphne urged the vicar with a final hug. “Please.”
“You couldn’t keep me away.” Glancing at the clock, he urged them toward the door. “Now go.”
Two hours later, Pierce and Daphne rode up to the door of Pierce’s Wellingborough residence. Dismounting, Pierce lifted Daphne from the saddle and lowered her feet to the ground.
“We’re home,” he said simply.
Daphne smiled, surveying the modest structure with a contented glow. “I’m glad. ‘Home’ is something new to me. I’ve never truly lived in one. Only a house.”
Pierce’s eyes darkened with emotion. “Let’s go in.”
Strolling about the sitting room, Daphne drank in the understated furnishings with infinite pleasure. “Lovely. Also very much you: solid, unpretentious, and overwhelmingly masculine.”
“And that’s only the sitting room,” Pierce teased huskily, coming up behind her.
Daphne closed her eyes, leaned back against his reassuring strength. “I’m nervous. Isn’t that ridiculous? I’ve withstood years with a violent and unpredictable father, taken stupid risks that yielded painful results, and married a man I’ve known but a fortnight all without succumbing to nerves. And now, when I’m on the verge of a night I’ve dreamed of, yearned for, my heart is pounding frantically and my stomach is churning. Absurd, wouldn’t you say?”
“No.” Pierce wrapped his arms about her waist, kissed the side of her neck. “Understandable, I would say. Understandable, and beautiful, and honest.” He turned her into his arms. “I won’t hurt you, Snow flame,” he murmured, feathering his lips over hers.
“I know.” She sighed blissfully. “I just keep wondering if I’m going to wake up and find this is all a dream, that the last few hours never occurred.”
“You’re not dreaming,” he assured her, lifting her arms about his neck. “I promise you. This is very real and very right.”
She gazed up at him, the trust in her eyes so absolute it made his chest tighten. “I know it’s right,” she whispered. “Somehow I always have. I just don’t want to disappoint you.”
“You never could.” Pierce met her honesty with his own. “Would it help if you knew I was equally apprehensive?”
Startled, Daphne blinked. “You? Why?”
“Because it’s never mattered so much. Because a woman has never mattered so much.” He paused, forcing out the next words as if they were a death sentence. “Because there are things I need to tell you before I take you to bed. Things that could change your feelings about tonight.”
Thoughtfully, Daphne searched his face. “You’re going to fill in the missing pieces, tell me the real reasons for our hasty wedding.”
“No,” he amended, shaking his head vehemently. “I’m going to fill in the missing piece. But it has nothing to do with my wanting you for my wife, or with our hasty ceremony. I didn’t intend to dash you down the aisle. That was strictly your father’s doing. As for my wanting you,” he caressed the delicate curve of her waist, “I think you know how much I want you under my roof, under my protection,” his eyes darkened, “under me.”
