Until You

Epilogue

Seated in the drawing room at Montclair amidst exquisite furnishings that had once occupied European palaces, surrounded by all the trappings of his wealth and position, Stephen Westmoreland looked up at the gilt-framed portraits of his ancestors that lined the silk-panelled walls, and he wondered if they'd had as much trouble as he was having trying to be alone with his bride of two days.

Above the fireplace mantel, the first Earl of Langford looked down at him from atop a mighty black warhorse, a visored helmet under his arm, his cloak swirling behind him. He looked like the sort of man who would have tossed his knights into the moat to get rid of them if they didn't have sense enough to leave him alone in his castle with his new bride.

On the wall across from Stephen, the second Earl of Langford reclined in front of his fire with two of his knights. His wife was seated nearby, surrounded by women working on a tapestry. The second earl had a more civilized look than his father, Stephen decided. That ancestor would have been more likely to send his knights on a trumped-up errand and then order his drawbridge pulled up.

Bored with studying his ancestors, Stephen turned his head slightly and indulged in the more pleasurable occupation of studying his wife who was seated across from him, surrounded by his mother, his brother, Whitney, and Nicholas DuVille. Mentally, he tipped her chin up and kissed her while, with his free hand, he teased the shoulder of her lemon gown off, slipping it down her arm, then cupped her full breast and deepened the kiss. He was trailing a kiss down the side of her neck, working slowly to the nipple he wanted to kiss, when he realized Nicholas DuVille was watching him with a look that was both amused and knowing. Stephen was spared the embarrassment of blushing like an errant schoolboy by the arrival of Hodgkin, whom he'd retrieved from exile yesterday, and who walked to his side. "Excuse me, my lord," Hodgkin said, "but you have guests."

"Who are they?" Stephen said irritably, swallowing the impulse to tell the old man to pitch the new arrivals into the lake-since he had no nice, deep moat with which to dispose of them-and then to bar the gates at the entrance to the estate.

Hodgkin lowered his voice and whispered. As he explained the situation, Stephen's annoyance gave way to resignation that he would have to see Matthew Bennett, who'd evidently just returned from America-and then to puzzlement that Bennett had evidently brought people with him. "Excuse me," he said to his guests, who were too absorbed in a discussion of Sherry's housekeeping decisions to notice he was leaving. His wife noticed, however. She stopped listening to advice on the running of a large household and looked up at him with a smile that said she, too, wished they were alone.

Matthew Bennett launched into his explanation before Stephen was clear into his study. "I apologize for my untimely arrival, my lord," the solicitor said. "Your butler explained that you were newly wed and not receiving visitors, but your instructions when I left for America were that I was to locate Miss Lancaster's relatives and escort them back to England at once. Unfortunately, Miss Lancaster's only living relative-her father-died before I reached the Colonies."

"I know," Stephen said. "I received a letter that was intended for Burleton and it contained that information. Since she had no other relatives, who did you bring back with you?"

The solicitor looked defensive and a little harassed. "You see, Miss Lancaster was travelling with a paid companion, a young woman by the name of Sheridan Bromleigh, who was expected to return at once to America. No word has been heard from Miss Bromleigh, and her aunt-a Miss Cornelia Faraday-was most insistent that a search be instituted all over England to discover her whereabouts. Unfortunately, Miss Faraday did not feel she could rely upon either you or myself to handle that search. She was most insistent about accompanying me back to England in order to supervise it herself."

During one of their two nights alone together, Sheridan had told him about the aunt who had partially raised her and about the father who had disappeared without a word several years ago. Now, it looked as if he would be able to give Sherry an unexpected "wedding gift." The fact that he was obviously acquiring another houseguest rankled, but it was compensation enough to know how happy she was going to be. "Excellent!" Stephen said with a smile.

"I hope you feel that way when you meet the lady," Bennett said wearily. "She is quite-determined-to locate her niece."

"I think I can handle that with surprising speed," Stephen said with a smile of anticipation over the scene which was sure to unfold in the drawing room in a few minutes. "I know exactly where Miss Bromleigh is."

"Thank God!" Bennett said wearily. "Because Miss Bromleigh's father, who'd been missing for four years, returned while I was in America. He and his friends were every bit as worried about her-and every bit as determined to see that you did what needed to be done to ensure she was safely returned to them."

"Miss Bromleigh is very safe," Stephen assured him with a grin. "She is not, however, going to be 'returned' to them."

"Why not?"

Ten minutes ago, Stephen wanted nothing more than to be alone with Sherry. Now he wanted nothing more than to see her face when she realized who was waiting to see her, and he rather relished seeing Matthew Bennett's face when events unfolded as well. In high spirits, he invited the solicitor into the drawing room, sent Hodgkin after the visitors, and then walked over to the fireplace where he could have the best view while Matthew Bennett found a chair that suited him. "Sherry," he said mildly, interrupting DuVille's laughing recitation of the antics he had had to go through in order to get her to agree to go to the chapel where Stephen was waiting. "You have visitors."

"Who?" she said, sending him a look that said she wished she didn't. While she was looking from Stephen to Hodgkin, a handsome, middle-aged man who was bridling with impatience walked into the drawing room. Behind him, hovering in the doorway, Stephen saw a gray-haired woman in a simple high-collared gown pause just inside the doorway. "We regret intruding on your privacy," the man said bluntly to Stephen, "but my daughter is missing."

Stephen shifted his gaze to Sherry, who had whirled around on her chair at the sound of his voice and was slowly standing up. "Papa?" she whispered, and her father's head jerked toward her. She stood frozen in place, her eyes roving lovingly over the man as if he were an apparition she was afraid would vanish if she moved. "Papa… ?"

In answer he opened his arms and she ran flying into them.

Stephen looked away from the outpouring of emotion, giving them time, and as he did so, he noticed the rest of his family and DuVille had done likewise. "Where have you been?" she said, weeping and cradling his face in her hands. "Why didn't you write to us? We thought you were dead!"

"I was in prison," he said with more disgust than embarrassment as he glanced apologetically at the silent occupants of the room. "Your friend Rafe and I had the bad judgment to believe a horse we won in a card game was the legitimate property of the thief we won him from. We were lucky not to be hanged when they caught us with him. Your aunt Cornelia always warned me that gambling at cards was going to get me into trouble."

"And I was right," the woman said from the doorway.

"Fortunately, she doesn't object to marrying a reformed gambler, who still knows how to farm, and who's even willin' to make peace with Squire Faraday, for her sake," he added, but no one heard him. Sherry had already turned toward the voice in the doorway and she was laughing and hugging the woman who'd spoken.

Remembering her manners, Sherry took her aunt and her father over to Stephen to introduce them, but before she could begin, her father said, "There's someone else who would like to see you, Sherry. Although I doubt he's going to recognize you," he added with a proud smile as his gaze moved slowly over her.

Rafe's smiling voice spoke from the doorway as he sauntered into the room, looking more handsome than she remembered, and as at ease in an English drawing room as he'd been beside a campfire with a guitar in his hands. "Hello, querida," he said in that deep, caressing voice of his. At the fireplace, Stephen stiffened, and that was before his new wife hurtled herself into the arms of another man, who lifted her off the ground and whirled her around and around, holding her outrageously close to his lean body. "I have come to make good on my promise to marry you," Rafe teased.

"Goodness!" said Miss Charity, stealing an alarmed look at Stephen's forbidding expression.

"Dear God," said the dowager duchess, glancing at her son's ominously narrowed eyes.

"What does he mean by that?" Whitney said in a choked whisper.

"I'm afraid to think about it," her husband replied.

Nicholas DuVille leaned back in his chair, looking amused and wary, and said nothing at all.

"How soon can we be wed, querida?" Rafe joked, putting her down and inspecting her from head to toe. "I spent the long days in prison, thinking of my little carrot-"

To everyone's amazement, the object of his frankly admiring regard ignored what sounded like a serious discussion of honorable intentions, put her hands on her hips, and took issue with his use of a nickname. "I will thank you not to address me by such an undignified name in the presence of my husband. Furthermore," she confided with a soft smile at Stephen as she took the other man's arm and led him forward, "my husband thinks my hair is quite special."

That remark caused her father, her aunt, and Rafe to turn abruptly to the man at the fireplace while Sheridan quickly handled the introductions.

When she was finished, Stephen found himself the object of a thorough inspection being conducted by three people who seemed not to care in the least that he owned the mansion in which they stood, or that he was the Earl of Langford, or even that he was tentatively deciding whether it was necessary, or advisable, to do physical harm to Rafael Benavente, who struck him as too free with his attentions to Sherry, too virile to be left in the same room with any female under the age of seventy, and too damned handsome to be trusted by anyone.

Postponing that decision, he slid his hand around Sherry's waist, drawing her possessively close, and let them look him over. "Are you happy, darlin'?" her father asked after a moment. "I promised Dog Lies Sleeping I'd find you and bring you back. He'll want to know you're happy."

"I'm very happy," she said softly.

"You're quite certain?" her aunt asked.

"Very certain," Sherry assured her.

Rafael Benavente withheld judgment for another moment, and then held out his hand to Stephen. "You must be a fine man, and an exceptional one, for Sherry to love you as much as she obviously does."

Stephen decided to offer the man a glass of his best brandy, instead of his choice of weapons. Rafael Benavente was very clearly a man of exceptional judgment and refinement. It was actually quite a pleasure to have him as a guest beneath his roof, for one night.

He mentioned that to Sheridan much later that night, as he held her in his arms, his body sated, his spirit quietly joyous.

His wife tipped her face up to his and splayed her fingers over his bare chest in a sleepy exploration that was beginning to have a dramatic effect on the rest of his body. "I love you," she whispered. "I love your strength and your gentleness. I love you for being so kind to my family and so nice to Rafe."

Stephen decided they could stay as long as they liked. He told her that with a laughing groan as her hand drifted lower.