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Though her features were indistinct in the gloom, he could not doubt her sincerity. “My cousins told me your first wife was a…cold woman and that you needed to be persuaded of my genuine affection for you. I never would have behaved so improperly without their pushing me to be alone with you. I know they did it because they thought that what happened to them could happen to me.” She gulped in a breath and straightened. “Mr Grayling, I’m truly sorry I’m not dying for then you’d have pursued your plans of showing me everything a woman in love would want to know before she breathed her last.”
“You are in love with me?” He’d been about to explosively deny the allegation of him having ever been married but now it was more important to seize the moment and hear those sweet words repeated.
“Of course I’m in love with you!” She sounded indignant as she rested her chin in her hand, leaning into the squabs. The carriage had stopped some minutes ago but they’d given no signal to the coachman who remained obediently in his position on the box above. Perhaps he’d tried to get direction. Perhaps he’d been given instructions to wait quietly until told otherwise. Sylvester didn’t care. Miss Brightwell’s declaration meant more to him than anything right now.
“I love you more than I can tell you, Mr Grayling, and that’s the truth! When you were kissing me, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. And then I remembered what we did before.” She wriggled, as if her body were reliving the experience and he had to exercise every restraint not to move forward and take this as an invitation to slide his hand beneath her skirts in a prelude to the next stage of intimacy. Dear Lord, it was what he wanted more than anything!
Just in time she remembered himself; while she, it seemed was inconveniently remembering just what he was trying to put out of his mind. “Oh, but that was so delicious!” she uttered in tones of rapture, closing her eyes as she moved forward to rest her head on his shoulder. She opened one eye and asked anxiously, “We can have just these few moments together, can’t we? I mean, now that you’re assured I won’t wrongly think it’ll lead to offers you’re not in a position to make.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “Just being with you now is the nicest feeling I can remember.” She snuggled closer and murmured, “Until you showed me in the Oriental Pavilion, I didn’t know such feelings existed. Now I have something truly memorable to think of when I’m someone else’s wife.”
The idea of her becoming someone else’s wife took on suddenly horrific proportions. To think of someone else being in a position to coax such delightful responses from such an adorable, innocent creature was a painful blow to Sylvester’s honour, and a sharp dose of reality.
“Someone else’s wife?” He straightened and looked down at her while she gazed back, smiling.
“Of course. More than anything I want to
be a mother. You’ve shown me what it’s possible to feel here.” She touched her heart, adding as she dropped her eyes, which is why I’ve decided not to accept Dr Horne when once I might have done—”
“Good Lord! What are you saying, Miss Brightwell!” he exclaimed. “Dr Horne?”
She looked surprised as she wriggled upright. “Didn’t you know? Yes, he’s made me an offer which Aunt Minerva is strongly encouraging me to accept since she believes some secret admirer is about to declare for her.”
“Your aunt Minerva is about to be married?”
“She believes she is, and that’s why she says I need to find somewhere else to live. But however much I try to reconcile myself to what I must do to have any kind of marriage, and knowing that at least marriage to Dr Horne will give me babies that will make my life worthwhile, you’ve shown me that a whole other side to…feelings I never knew existed, and after this evening I don’t think I could ever marry Dr Horne since that’ll entail doing with him what I only want to do with you.”
“Good Lord!” There! He’d said it again but the idea was preposterous. First that she could even talk about wedding another when she was in his embrace, not to mention making reference to the marriage act, but that she’d actually been considering Dr Horne.
She looked so dismayed he held her tightly as he reassured her, “My dearest girl, I had the greatest pleasure showing you how a man and a woman who love one another proceed to show it in the most intimate manner.”
“You love me! Oh, I do like to hear it!”
She looked so happy about this Sylvester nearly blurted out the idea that had taken root just a moment before and which refused to be dislodged. Yes, tomorrow he would see his uncle’s Man of Business. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was some way matters and economies could be arranged to accommodate a marriage that brought in nothing from the bride.
Impulsively he held her tightly, his tone more impassioned than before as he spoke the truth. “I perfectly adore you, Miss Brightwell! And, like you, I cannot stop thinking about how well suited we are and wishing we could take this further in the Oriental Pavilion where we had such fun the other day—”
“Before you realized my cousin Bertram’s wicked lie had led you up the garden path.” She drew back, her look crestfallen as she forestalled the words he would say to indicate his altered intentions. “Do you know,” she went on, “I would have taken any risk for you to have shown me all the pleasure to be had between a man and a woman.” With a tentative glance at his bulging breeches she added, “Cousin Antoinette described what happened to married woman in the most appalling way. I thought I’d never want to marry except that it’s the only way to beget children and I do want a great many children, which is of course another reason why you can’t possibly afford to marry me. One’s offspring are very expensive, so Aunt Minerva says.”
Her sigh was followed by an immediate brightening. “I shall always have wonderful memories of you, though, Mr Grayling. You shall be the benchmark by which I measure all others.”
“Good god, how can you say that when I’m about to pass you over for the most mercurial of reasons.” Except that perhaps this would not have to come to pass. Perhaps, when he had a proper consultation with his man, Hookes, over his financial affairs, he could find a way forward. He shook his head vehemently, realizing their time together was nearly at an end. At least for tonight. Gripping her hands, he said urgently, “I shall send you a note, Miss Brightwell. Give me a couple of days but if I can effect the means of offering you what you deserve, I shall send you a note requesting that you meet me at the Oriental Pavilion. If I do that, you can be assured that not only do you have my heart—which you know already you have—but my assurance that I can follow it up with a marriage that indeed can offer—and our children—the comfort and security we would want.”
“Really, Mr Grayling?” She gasped, biting her lip while her eyes danced with excitement. Then she sobered, saying resigned tones, “And if it cannot be, you will not send me a note and will instead offer for Miss Huntingdon.”
But already Sylvester had discounted that option. By the time he’d seen her safely whisked indoors by her Cousin Fanny who was clearly keeping a sharp lookout and was waiting near the front door, he knew that by hook or by crook, he intended to find a means of offering Miss Brightwell not just his love but his hand in marriage.
Chapter 20
SEVEN hundred pounds simply to persuade Miss Brightwell into a hot air balloon? Another seven hundred to have his proposal accepted? Oh, he could manage that when the girl realised she had little choice in the matter.
And a further seven hundred pounds for the birth of a bonny bairn nine months later.
The more George Bramley pondered such a scenario the more he felt satisfied. Of course, a man like himself ought to be able to snare a debutante with a dowry that was handsomer than this trio of wagers, should he win them, but there was a certain satisfaction to the whole idea of marrying a Brightwell and being paid handsomely to do so. Oh, the Misses Fanny and Antoinette had led him a merry dance but their brother was a fool. Which begged the question of why George had not sought earlier to capitalize on what was common knowledge: that Bertram Brightwell could be made to fall for any trick in the book with a little massaging of the ego.
As he walked the path that led into the woods, he touched his left cheek where the enchanting termagant had struck him the other night, and grinned. There was more spirit to Miss Brightwell than he’d expected. The thought gave him a little thrill. He’d enjoy taming her. So many of his daydreams involved taming her eldest cousin, the haughty, alluring, irresistible Lady Fenton, as she now was, but it seemed whatever he did, the common Brightwell sisters had always been just out of reach. Having witnessed their fondness for their quiet, pliable cousin, Bramley could easily imagine their dismay at his snatching Miss Thea Brightwell from under their noses and whisking her down the aisle.
The pine needles crunched softly underfoot as he anticipated what lay ahead. He was under no illusions she’d go willingly, but this afternoon’s visit to a woodsman, the nephew of a man who once owed George a favour and who had since proved his worth, was to shore up what he saw as only a minor difficulty. At least George had the reassurance that someone would be on hand to use a little force if George failed to gently persuade Miss Brightwell into the hot-air balloon that would be waiting to take to the skies as part of the celebrations surrounding the birth of Quamby’s heir. He nearly choked on his bile as he thought of the infant—his own son—who had usurped his position as the next Earl of Quamby. But short of murdering baby George, his hands were tied.
Marrying Miss Thea Brightwell was the next best thing. Aside from the fact that the last few days he’d nearly split his breeches in anticipation of possessing such a delectable personification of beauty and innocence and being paid for an outcome whereby she’d find herself in no position to refuse him, he could not wait to see the expressions on the faces of those wretched Brightwells when they had to acknowledge that George Bramley was not only cleverer than they’d given him credit, but in fact cleverer than all three of them put together.
