Page 65 of Whiskers and Wiles

Lord Lawrence’s expression brightened like the midday sun. “Lady Minerva, you have such an eloquent way with words.”

Waldorf snorted by Kat’s side, then slapped a hand over his mouth to keep his mirth from showing. “I would not want to be the coachman for that particular journey,” he said once their small party had broken up and everyone went their separate ways.

Kat and Waldorf remained in the park. Kat was happy to have a moment alone with her beloved before what she knew would be several days of celebration and planning as she and Waldorf began their new life together.

“I only hope that whatever journey your brother and my friend are on, it does not take as long as ours,” she said.

Waldorf looked around to see if they were being observed, then plucked Napoleon’s basket out of her arms and set it gently on the ground. When that was done, he swept Kat into his embrace and planted a daring kiss on her lips.

“I am sorry for the delays in our journey,” he said. “If I could go back and erase the misunderstandings, I would.”

“I know,” Kat told him with a sly, fond, teasing look. “You’ve already told me.”

“I feel as though it needs to be said frequently and passionately,” Waldorf said with a smile. “I have a lot to make up for.”

“As do I,” Kat said, sighing and leaning into him. “But at this moment, I am filled with a great deal of hope. We have made astounding progress today, as a nation and as a man and a woman who love each other.”

“That we have,” Waldorf said, resting a hand on the side of her face and leaning down to kiss her. “And I feel we have much more progress still to come.”

Kat agreed heartily and kissed him in return. As far as she was concerned, the entire world was just opening up for her and Waldorf, and she intended to make the rest of their lives together wonderful.

Epilogue

ONE MONTH LATER…

As silly asit was to travel away from London during the height of the autumn season, Waldorf was highly aware that he had a certain new family tradition to uphold.

“Did we truly need to come all the way to the Isle of Portland in late November so that your name could be struck from a parchment?” Kat asked as they stepped down from the carriage that had brought them from the dock, then pulled Napoleon’s basket into her arms.

“You do not understand the way my father’s mind works,” Waldorf said with a grin, helping Kat with the basket until she was able to loop it over her arm. “He would be as likely as not to saddle me with the castle and the curse, despite our nuptials, just to spite me because I did not follow protocol.”

Kat sighed and rolled her eyes, but her expression was delighted and her eyes sparkled with expectation as she took his arm with her free one and allowed him to escort her into the castle.

Waldorf was proud to say that he’d seen the same lively expression of happiness and enthusiasm about life in his new wife’s eyes ever since they’d come to their new understanding with each other. He liked to think it was because he had sufficiently made his case as to why Kat should forgive him and allow him to make her the happiest woman on earth.

More likely, it was because the Mercian Plan was already under debate in Joint Parliament and things were going well. The plan had a long way to go before it would be voted on, and even if such a vote should be successful, it would likely be years still before Britannia was unified. But at least things had begun.

Kat’s general cheer and delight with life was also most probably because the two of them had begun their married life as equal partners. Although he would once have demanded to have his own way in dictating the terms of their marriage, Waldorf liked to think he had grown into his maturity and sense. Not only had he and Kat drawn up a contract that specified that they would be equal partners in the investigative business they hoped to launch in the spring, they had agreed that all decisions and matters of their married life would be shared equally between them as well.

That was very likely the true reason for Kat’s happiness. Another that could not be discounted in any way, however, was the scene they witnessed on the docks in London, as they had boarded the modest vessel that would take them around to the Isle of Portland, thus saving the trouble of a land journey, like Lawrence and Lady Minerva had embarked upon a month ago.

As they had been waiting to board their ship, Waldorf had noticed none other than that bastard, Lord Headland, waiting in a queue of passengers about to board a ship bound for the American colonies.

“He had an awful falling out with his brother-in-law, Lord Walsingham, for some reason,” a friend of Waldorf’s thathappened to be in the area that day had mentioned as they had all shared a pint in a riverfront pub. “No one is precisely certain what it’s all about, only that Walsingham threatened the man with complete financial ruin if he did not leave Britannia at once.”

“And you say nothing has been said about the reasons why Headland has been banished?” Waldorf asked, feeling far too smug because he knew, or at least suspected, the answer.

“None at all,” his friend had said with a shrug. “What’s more puzzling is that even Lady Walsingham, Headland’s sister, who we all thought adored him and thought he could do no wrong, has insisted that he shove off for foreign shores as well.”

“How very puzzling,” Kat had said, lifting her pint glass to drink as half the patrons of the pub, including Waldorf’s friend, watched in horror.

Waldorf had been desperately proud of Kat for holding her own in the pub. He had been equally proud of her for catching Headland’s eye, waving to him, and making certain the man witnessed her kissing Waldorf before the two of them had boarded their own ship.

“What a magnificently atmospheric castle,” Kat commented as the housekeeper, Mrs. Weatherby, let them in.

“Thank you, my lady,” Mrs. Weatherby said with a somewhat cheeky smile. “It has been a part of my family’s legacy for years.”

Kat raised her eyes and seemed interested as Mrs. Weatherby gestured for them to follow her up a flight of stairs and down the drafty corridor to the Great Hall. “Has it really?” she asked, then turned to Waldorf to say, “I thought Godwin Castle had been in your family since its founding.”

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