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“Oh, Alfred,” Felicity murmured, and once again, faster than thought, she was off the dance floor…spirited down the back of yet another high society garden, out through a mews, and into the ducal conveyance.
“Apparently you threw yourself into my coach and ruined yourself.” He rapped on the roof and found himself with an armful of incipient duchess. “Felicity?”
She shook her head even as she nestled it against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him as she buried her nose beneath his jaw and inhaled, once, twice, thrice. His arms lifted her into better position on his lap, and he returned the favor, running his nose along the curve of her shoulder, up her neck, behind her ear, taking a breath of his own, once, twice, thrice.
She wiggled closer and ran her fingers through his hair, down around his ears, and tugged at this evening’s Cravat of Perfection. She tore out the pin holding it all in place, an emerald the equal of the one in her ring, and he took it from her, sticking it into the wall of the coach. She laughed but said nothing, unwound the stock, undid his collar, and set her cheek against the base of his throat and breathed.
She reached up to touch his face, to run a finger down the side of his neck, all the time breathing him in, until that hand strayed under his shirt and over his chest, and her lips lightly, lightly touched his collarbone—
“Felicity. Love.” He set her away from him. “We are very near the Lowell town house, and I do not wish to be hasty.”
“I want to know what would have happened did I not stop you at Templeton House. Or even in my new premises.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and yet she looked him straight in the eye, her provocative gaze set to undo his conviction. “I want to touch you; I want you to touch me. ”
“You want your wedding night, which is tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, tonight, this minute, what matter?” Felicity tried to open his waistcoat, but Alfred’s tailor favored the tiniest buttons to be found in Europe. She stopped and looked at him, aghast. “You have done this before, have you not? O’Mara said as much, but she may have only been placating me.”
“Yes, I have done this.” Alfred gripped her arms and then shook his head. “Which is not a conversation I wish to have with my mate, if you don’t mind.”
“When you asked me to marry you, in front of all those mean-spirited, small-minded people…” Her face was a mixture of awe and incredulity. “When you asked me and you meant it, when you said I was your one and only, I…I knew it to be true, unlike anything else I’ve known my whole life. When you spoke those words, I thought, yes, now, now we can live. Now we can love. We can love right now. Alfred,” she breathed, leaning against him, her lush breasts doing their best to undo his good intentions. “You have given me both my dreams, the one I lost, and the one I sought. Neither would be anything without you.”
“I have given you nothing that you did not create, or inspire, yourself.”
Her eyes glistened, but still she did not weep. She nipped him on his earlobe, and he gurgled in an undignified manner, his hands sliding down to her glorious bottom and—
“No, no, no,” he said, setting her on the opposite bench. “This is not how I will make you my mate, in truth and bond. Not in a carriage rattling around London where anyone could see.”
“The curtains are drawn.”
“No.” Alfred filled the coach with thedominatum, to the degree that his coachman started singing the horses down to walk as they fought against their traces. He expanded it as much as he dared, and yet Felicity was as ever unaffected; she crossed her arms and leaned back, annoyed.
“Are you certain you have done this before?” She scowled at him and then burst into laughter. “Your expression. It is the image of Alfie’s when I complained about your first proposal.” She roared with laughter, and the tears came, happy tears, yes, but tears nonetheless.
He pulled her back to sit beside him. “No, not on my lap, minx.” He put his arm around her, allowed her to set her head on his shoulder. “I shall see you to St. James Square and go on to my lonely club—no.” He set her hands off his falls. “And tomorrow, bright and early, we shall wed.”
“Tomorrow, we shall wed,” she repeated. “Tomorrow it will all begin.”
They sat in silent accord as the coach drew to a halt in St. James Square. Alfred opened the door and leapt out, holding out a hand to his almost-mated mate. “O’Mara said I’d never done it before?”
Had any denizens of the fashionable square been at home at such an unfashionably early hour, they would have enjoyed the sound of a lady’s laugh ring out, a laugh full of joy and life and love…and it would have done them well to hear it.
Twenty-one
For a ducal residence, the Lowell town house was small but perfectly formed. The duchess’s suite was one delightfully appointed little room after the other, and the dressing room, while intimate, was airy and light. The morning following the Montague ball, the bottle of birthday champagne she had promised to share with Jemima was open and had been poured out, and Lady Coleman took personal charge of her toilette—and what a toilette it was. Felicity’s wedding clothes, which had been executed with breathtaking speed, would be the envy of an empress.
“Hold still…Your Grace,” Jemima said.
“I will have well and truly gained the title in a matter of hours.” Felicity played with the long, fat curl that lay on her shoulder. Her hair was as down as it could be without looking debauched and was showing to its best advantage, lush and thick and in all its auburn glory. Half was piled up on the top of her head, swirling in curls around her crown and the other half had been coaxed into that lush, sensuous curl. Jemima had firm notions as to how she was going to be presented on this day.
“And it’s grateful we are for having that sorted.” O’Mara lounged in a chair near one of the floor to ceiling windows. With her new ease in Felicity’s presence, her Irish accent had become more pronounced.
“It’s grateful I would be did I get you out of those trousers,” Jemima huffed.
“You wouldn’t be the first to try.” O’Mara shot her cuffs.
“Do you prefer women as bedmates?” Jemima twirled the last curl around Felicity’s head, as she herself gaped.
“I do not,” O’Mara said, throwing an arm over the top of her chair. “Aren’t you sophisticated.”
