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With a shout of laughter, Max leapt up and snatched the counterpane from her grasp, whisked her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
“What can’t we achieve together, and in five minutes?” he growled, dropping her onto the mattress and caging her body with his. “Do say yes, my darling.”
“Yes, yes, and yes!” she cried, her heated body so ready for his frenzied kisses. “I think I’d say yes to anything you asked of me—but I think you also know that.”
“All I know is that you’re the most delightful morsel I’ve ever tasted,” he responded, coming up from between her legs and kissing her roundly on the mouth. “Now, let round two begin! I honestly don’t think I can get enough of you! Yet, alas, this will be our last time engaging in such sport if I’ve an ounce of chivalry in my bones.”
Chapter 6
In her cosy sitting room, Aunt Euphemia gazed misty-eyed at Max as, with a great deal of throat clearing, he said the words he knew she’d been wanting to hear.
He knew she wanted to hear them because she’d said only several nights earlier, “Darling Max, nothing could make me happier than for me to receive the news that you had in fact asked the girl of your heart to become your wife.”
Clapping her hands together now, she rose and swept across the room to enfold him in her violet-scented embrace.
The cool of her cheek was a well-remembered comfort, but the violet scent sparked a new emotion to life. He must remember to buy Violet both flowers and scent to honour her name. She’d like that.
“Your cousin Emma will be overjoyed for she has just as soft a heart as I do.” Then, more gravely, “Your grandfather will come around when he realises how much further a man can go with a good woman by his side. Regardless of her origins. And that’s what a match of the heart will promote. Harmony which leads to success. A marriage should not be restricted by pecuniary considerations.”
“Did you not agree that grandfather should be kept in the dark until the deed is done, Aunt?” Max patted her hand and led her back to her seat. Lowering himself into a wingback chair opposite, he said over steepled fingers, “Truly, I would beg you to keep this in the strictest confidence.”
“Oh Max, you’re going to elope? No, please don’t say it?” Aunt Euphemia’s face dropped. “Why, the poor young woman will suffer terribly from the shame of it. She’ll miss all the joy of planning the most joyous occasion of her life. Believe me, I know this from my heart.”
“I think my Violet is somewhat different to you, Aunt, but I will bear it in mind. The young lady is an orphan…” he had to think quickly about this “…and earns her living through her own means—”
Aunt Euphemia cut him off, clicking her tongue as she sympathised. “An orphan? How tragic! And she works in a haberdashery. What hard work that must be, but I would have done it rather than lived my life alone as a spinster. Still, I can provide what others cannot, and it would be a pleasure.” The enthusiasm returned to her tone. “I want to take her shopping, Max. I’ll buy her a wedding gown and her trousseau. If she’s the girl who has stolen your heart, then she’s as dear to me as my own daughter would have been.”
Her lip trembled as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She looked small and frail seated on the cream chintz sofa of the femininely decorated private sitting room in Lord Granville’s townhouse that Max always thought so crowded during his grandfather’s rare visits to the city.
Squaring her shoulders, a crafty light stole into her expression, and she clapped her hands. “Indeed, let’s tell her this very minute! Come, Max. We’ll go to her place of employ and surprise her!”
“Dear Aunt, she’s…working. Or resting,” Max added beneath his breath. “We cannot disturb her now. I think she would be embarrassed.”
“Then we shall go immediately to her place of ab
ode so I might leave a note, myself. I want to know this young lady, Max. I don’t have long; you remember. What do I care for proprieties?”
A little more than you might think if the truth were revealed, thought Max, who only said, unconvincingly, “We will send a note round, shall we?”
“We shall get into the carriage this moment, Max, and find her. She’s not a slave to these people she works for, surely? No, I can’t wait a moment longer.”
Max, who thought this could only go badly, was astonished by the results of the hastily scrawled note he’d sent ahead with his manservant, Baines.
While he was delaying his aunt as best he could, he had thrust his note into Baines’s hand and hissed that he must discreetly forward the letter to its recipient and Max would explain everything at the first opportunity.
But here was Miss Lilywhite smiling serenely at them from a table at the Lyons Teahouse, presenting herself as she no doubt had presented herself to his aunt, in a modest skirt and blouse which made her look every inch the smart shop girl Aunt Euphemia imagined her to be.
“Why, I told Max you’d come rushing to meet us at the first opportunity,” his aunt said as if she could take all the credit. With a satisfied look at Max, then Violet, she said majestically, “The perfect pair. Handsome. Made for each other.”
And then she proceeded to tell Violet her plans for the next two weeks, leading up to the secret wedding Max had proposed, embellishing it with all the details Max knew would occupy her with the greatest pleasure.
“What do you think of all this, Max darling?”
Max reacted to Violet’s question with a guilty jolt. What he’d really been thinking was how deliciously desirable Violet looked in her neat black suit. A siren dressed up as a lady of demure disposition, and only he knew it. It made him feel supremely fortunate.
Instead, he murmured, “I was thinking how beautiful you looked,” as he reached across the table for her hand.
Amused, he saw the colour creep into her cheeks as she bent her head.
