Slightly Scandalous

He grinned at her and winked. The little boy laughed as the horse snorted and tossed its head.

"I suppose," he said, "you have been the patron of the school ever since. The anonymous patron."

"Miss Martin hates me," she said. "If she knew, she would refuse all help and starve and I would have to live with my guilt. It would be grossly unfair."

He chuckled again, infuriating her. David was calling out to some villagers and waving importantly to them.

"And I suppose every now and then," he continued, "you see someone who could be helped by that school-a prospective teacher, for example, or a deserving pupil who cannot afford the school fees-and give in to a terrible urge-a shameful urge-to be kind and charitable."

"Josh," she said severely, "if you do not wipe that laughter from your face before I count to three, I shall wipe it off for you. One."

"You are nothing but a softie," he said, grinning.

"Two."

"I love you, sweetheart," he said, the laughter suddenly gone. "Body, mind, and soul."

She looked at him in exasperation.

"And kind, soft heart," he added.

She chuckled.

"I suppose," she said, "you will hold it against me for the rest of my life."

"To the very last minute," he said, taking her hand in his free one and lacing his fingers with hers.

She laughed out loud.

"I do hate you," she said.

She turned her head to look at him, all blond and handsome and loose-limbed and smiling and gorgeous. Her man. Her love.

"Oh, Josh," she said, "I do love you. And you may hold that against me for the rest of my life too."

"I intend to, sweetheart," he said, grinning at her.

CHAPTER XXIV

I believe I may well cry," Morgan announced.

"You had better not do it in public, then," Freyja said. "It would reflect badly on all of us Bedwyns, and people might think us soft. They might imagine that we have hearts."

Alice actually was crying, though she sniffed back her tears as she placed her mistress's white, fur-trimmed bonnet carefully over her elaborate coiffure and tied the wide white ribbons in a large bow to one side of her chin.

"White fur on white velvet," Judith said. "With a muff! I am beginning to think that perhaps I should have married in the winter rather than the summer."

But she was smiling and not really serious. And she was, of course, looking quite gorgeous herself in a dark sage green gown and pelisse that complemented her bright red hair. The skirt of her dress flowed loose from its fashionable high waist to accommodate the slight swelling of her abdomen.

Morgan was wearing a dress of deep rose pink velvet and looked more beautiful than any woman had a right to do.

"Well, I am certainly going to shed a few tears," Eve said, "and in public too. People may say what they wish about the Bedwyn wives." She was looking delicately pretty in pale blue.

Alice finally finished her ministrations and stood back with a hiccup of a sob. Freyja stood up and turned to look at herself in the pier glass across one corner of her dressing room.

Oh, gracious goodness, she thought, is that me?

Dressed from head to toe in white velvet and fur, she looked almost beautiful. She had scoffed at first when white had been suggested as a color for her wedding dress. Lady Freyja Bedwyn was not a white-wearing person. She would have preferred some bright color.

"You see?" Aunt Rochester said now in her usual strident, no-nonsense voice-their dragon aunt whose veins and arteries ran with pure Bedwyn blood. "Was I not right to insist upon white, Freyja?"

She had not insisted exactly. Bedwyns did not insist upon anything with other Bedwyns, who all had iron wills and stubborn ones to boot. But she had pressed her opinion rather forcefully, and she was widely known for her impeccable taste in fashion. Freyja had desperately wanted to look as lovely as it was possible for her to look on her own wedding day.

"I was right to choose it, Aunt," she said.

"Oh, I say, Free," Alleyne said from the doorway. "You look good enough to eat. But it is a good thing it is almost Christmas already and almost the end of the year. Three Bedwyn weddings in one year has been quite a shock to the system, especially for those of us who are left. I vote for its being Morgan's turn next."

"But we will let you have your day first, Freyja," Aidan said from behind his shoulder. "The dress is lovely. The glow in your eyes is lovelier."

Then they both had to step right into the room to make way for Rannulf, who had their grandmother on his arm. Back in the summer, when Judith and Ralf were married, it had seemed that she was close to death, though her dearest wish was to see her first grandchild before she died. Their marriage and Judith's pregnancy and the fact that they lived with her at Grandmaison had given her a new lease on life, at least for the present. She had insisted upon coming all the way to Lindsey Hall from Leicestershire for Freyja's wedding.

"Alleyne," Ralf said, "present me to that very feminine beauty in white, if you will be so good. Ah!" He recoiled theatrically. "Never mind. It is Freyja, is it?"

"You look beautiful and distinguished and happy, Freyja, my dear," their grandmother said. "But I do not believe your dressing room was built to accommodate so many persons. And I do not believe the rector will appreciate our all being late to church. We must leave you with Morgan and your maid."

Morgan was Freyja's bridesmaid.

It was then, when, after a great deal of noise and fuss everyone withdrew, that Freyja began to feel nervous-again. She had been nervous after leaving Penhallow one week after the ball and nervous every day of the weeks that had followed even though Joshua had written to her daily. She had not quite believed in her own happily ever after-or in her own chance for a happy future, anyway. She had opened every letter with trepidation. It had not helped that winter was coming on.

She had hated it-the feeling of vulnerability, the aching love that had not quite been able to trust in a future.

What if he went out boating again and fell in and drowned? What if he climbed those cliffs again-stupid, stupid man-and slipped and fell? What if . . . ?

He had stayed for Prue's wedding and for Constance's. He had seen his aunt on her way to her chosen future-managing the large household of her recently widowed brother in Northamptonshire. Chastity had chosen to come to Lindsey Hall for the wedding with Constance and Mr. Saunders before joining her mother. But she was going to be in London during the spring and was to be presented to the queen and have a come-out Season-with Freyja as her sponsor. Anne Jewell and her son had left for Bath a month ago to take up her position as geography teacher at Miss Martin's school.

The weeks while Joshua had remained in Penhallow had seemed endless. But finally he had come.

And today was their wedding day.

She was still nervous-and still hating it.

She lifted her chin. "Wedding days are such a bore," she said to Morgan, "with everyone snivelling and being sentimental. I wish we had simply gone to London, purchased a special license, and married without anyone knowing, as Aidan and Eve did."

"No, you do not," Morgan said smiling. "Come, Freyja. Wulf will be waiting for us."

He was. He was standing in the great hall, surrounded by all the pomp and splendor of medieval banners and weaponry, looking positively satanic. He looked them over from head to foot with his cold silver eyes, Morgan first, and then Freyja. Then he surprised Freyja utterly by holding out both his hands to her. She set her own white-gloved ones in them and looked at him with haughtily raised eyebrows as his hands closed tightly about hers.

"You look very lovely, Freyja," he said.

Wulf paying compliments?

"Promise me you will be happy?" he said.

That was when tears sprang to her eyes. She could cheerfully have punched him in the nose. But he did not wait for her answer. He bent his head over her hands and kissed them one at a time.

Well.

Well.

"What are we waiting for?" she asked haughtily. "I would really rather not be late."

They were all in the carriage-the best ducal traveling coach-before she answered his question.

"I promise, Wulf," she said, gazing at him on the opposite seat.

Sometimes she tried to categorize her brothers in order, from her favorite to her least favorite. Aidan was usually on top of her list-perhaps because he had been away at war for so many years that he had had least opportunity to provoke her. But it was all nonsense anyway. She loved them all in different ways, but quite equally. She would have died for any one of them-and for Morgan too. But this morning-just at this precise moment-Wulf was her very favorite brother in all the world. She would do anything in the world, she thought, to see him happy too.

After that everything was a blur of events and sensations. The carriage drew up at the end of the churchyard path, hordes of smiling villagers-or so it seemed-bent to catch their first glimpse of her, she was hurrying up the path beneath the bare old yew tree, the wind blowing the last few crisp, dry leaves across the path in front of her, Morgan was arranging the train of her gown, Wulf was looking austere and emotionless-and as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar-the church organ was playing, and she was walking along the nave of the church on Wulf's arm, people in the pews to either side of her, and . . .

Ah. The blur dissipated and all her scattered, nervous emotions with it.

Joshua was waiting at the end of the nave, looking breathtakingly handsome in black and white. Not that it was his handsome looks that she noticed. It was him.

Her love. Her dearest love.

She did not even pause to chide herself for thinking such foolishly sentimental thoughts.

She felt herself smile. She felt happiness bubbling up inside her and threatening to spill over into laughter.

He smiled back, and she saw all the familiar laughter in his eyes. Except that it was not the usual reckless roguery she saw there this morning. It was joy. Simply joy.

She blinked furiously. Foolish sentimentality she would allow herself-this was her wedding day, after all. But tears? No, she must draw the line at tears. He would never let her forget.

"Dearly beloved," the rector began.

It was a cold, crisp December morning. A chill wind was blowing. Nevertheless, it was an open carriage that awaited the bride and groom at the end of the church path, and it had been lavishly decorated-by unknown persons, though several of them undoubtedly bore the name of Bedwyn-with ribbons and bows of all colors of the rainbow, and old boots to trail behind.

The church bells were pealing merrily.

Every house in the village must have emptied out its inhabitants, who were gathered in the street in their Sunday best and in festive spirits because they were all to be treated to their own wedding breakfast at the village inn in one hour's time, courtesy of the Duke of Bewcastle.

It was the scene that greeted Freyja and Joshua as they emerged from the church. Someone set up a cheer, and everyone joined in, a little self-consciously at first, but with growing enthusiasm as the congregation began to spill out onto the church steps after the bride and groom and the best man-the Reverend Calvin Moore-and the bridesmaid.

"Shall we wait to be swamped by grinning guests?" Joshua asked. "Or shall we make a dash for it?"

"Let's make a dash for it," she said, and he took her hand in his and ran along the path with her, beneath the great old tree, past applauding, smiling villagers, to the carriage.

It took a while to get her in-her velvet gown came complete with a train. She was laughing and breathless and flushed by the time he climbed in and took his seat beside her.

Everyone was out of the church by then-all her family, the Earl and Countess of Redfield, Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg-both smiling fondly at Freyja-his grandmother and his aunt and uncle, Lord and Lady Potford, with their children, Constance and Jim Saunders, Chastity, Lord and Lady Holt-Barron with their daughter and her betrothed, a few of his closest friends.

"Drive on," Joshua said to the coachman. It would be time enough to greet everyone back at Lindsey Hall before the wedding breakfast. Right now he had a new bride to gaze upon in some wonder.

Was he really a married man? He had found it hard to believe in the reality of it all after she had left Penhallow with her family. Every day he had half expected that one of her daily letters would be the one breaking off their betrothal.

They were married!

He found her hand inside her large white fur muff and laced his fingers with hers as the carriage rocked on its springs and moved away from the church.

"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asked.

"What nonsense!" she said. "What utter nonsense, Josh. It is the dress and the hat and all the fur. And the color. Aunt Rochester advised me to wear white, and she was quite correct in her judgment. It is just the clothes."

He laughed. "I'll have to take them off you later tonight, then," he said. "All of them. Every stitch of them. Just to see if you are still beautiful without them. I'll wager you are."

"If you ever tell me lies," she said, looking at him severely, "I will knock your teeth down your throat, Josh. I swear I will."

"You can't," he said, grinning at her. "You are my wife now, my marchioness. You have to do as you are told. It has to be 'Yes, my lord,' and 'No, my lord,' and 'How may I serve you, my lord.' No more fisticuffs, my charmer."

For one moment he thought he was going to have to parry blows right there in full sight of their guests and all the villagers behind them. Her nostrils flared and her eyebrows arched upward and her green eyes glared. But then she threw back her head and laughed.

"You would tire of me in a month," she told him.

"Make that a week," he said.

If she were ever to look at herself in a mirror when she was laughing like this, he thought, she would see for herself how incredibly lovely she was, dark brows and Bedwyn nose notwithstanding. But he would not provoke her again by telling her that. Not now.

"No more complaints about winter?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "It is my favorite season."

"I love you, sweetheart," he told her. "My wife."

Her laughing expression softened into a smile, and she looked even lovelier.

"I am, aren't I?" she said. "And you are my husband. I do love you, Josh. I do."

He winked slowly at her and lowered his head and kissed her.

They both ignored the cheers that rose behind them. They were half drowned by the church bells anyway.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Best-selling, multi-award-winning author Mary Balogh grew up in Wales, land of sea and mountains, song and legend. She brought music and a vivid imagination with her when she came to Canada to teach. Here she began a second career as a writer of books that always end happily and always celebrate the power of love. There are over three million copies of her Regency romances and historical romances in print. She is also the author of the Regency-era romantic novels No Man's Mistress, More than a Mistress, A Summer to Remember, Slightly Married, and Slightly Wicked, all available in paperback from Dell. Visit her website at www.marybalogh.com