Page 100 of My Hellion, My Heart
“As am I,” he said. “I can guarantee the men would all be in terrible moods.”
She glanced up at him. “Why is that?”
“Because there are no fewer than thirty men who lost two thousand pounds this day, the moment you accepted me as husband.”
Irina stopped and tugged him to a halt. “What do you mean? The betting…I thought you said you’d taken care of it?”
Henry had gone to London to post the banns for a few days and had returned saying he’d also “put an end” to the ridiculous wagers.
“And I did,” he replied, a mischievous smile touching his lips. “Wiping the ledgers clean for the marriage pot was out of the question, but raising the stakes was not. Any man could have done it, upping the entrance from two thousand pounds to whatever sum they chose. I simply made certain no one else cared to enter the pot.”
Irina gazed up at her husband, the lamplight slanting down from the globes and gilding his hair.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged lazily. “Put in five thousand pounds. Then I immediately went to my solicitor and had him draw up our contracts and post the banns.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Youenteredinto the pot?”
“The lady had given me every indication that she was interested,” he said, holding up his hands in mock innocence. “I truly thought I had a chance at winning.”
And he had won. The Earl of Langlevit had won the Quest for the Queen. Irina threw her head back and laughed.
“You took their money?”
“All of it,” he said with a firm nod, gathering her in his arms. “Those fools deserved nothing less. And now the Bradburne Trust will have a princely little sum deposited straight into its coffers just as you had envisioned.”
Irina pushed up onto her toes and kissed him soundly on the lips. He clutched her, pressing her breasts and hips into him. Within the hour, she hoped, there would be no clothing between their bodies, and they would be coming together in their marriage bed. She thought of her late menses, and her lips broke from the kiss in a smile. Within a few days, she would be certain. She could not wait to tell him.
“Why, Lord Langlevit, I am shocked. I clearly remember you saying more than once that you had no interest in winning any ridiculous bets.”
He angled his head closer and took her lower lip between his teeth. He applied enough pressure to make her wilt against him then with a flick of his tongue, released it. “A man is allowed to change his mind. Especially when the prize is so very tempting.”
She feigned insult and with a dramatic gasp pulled back. “So I am a prize to you after all?”
Henry’s arms became steel and cinched her back against his chest. His eyes turned languid and serious in the golden lamplight. “You are a gift, Irina. The greatest one I have ever received.”
She reached to touch his cheek. This man. Would she ever stop being stunned that he was finally hers?
“This gift wishes to be unwrapped,” she whispered, and with a spark, his gaze turned from adoring to determined.
“Then let us bid our guests good night,” he said. “To hell with politeness.”
Henry ushered her back toward the French doors, Irina’s laughter floating up into the night sky.
Epilogue
Sweat beaded his forehead and clung to both palms as Henry paced in the upstairs corridor of Marsden Hall, his Cumbria estate. Irina had been in labor for nearly a day and a half. In the last few hours, the only people entering or leaving the inner room of the lying-in chamber were Dr. Hargrove and the birthing attendants exchanging dirty linens for clean ones. Dr. Hargrove’s expression had gone from calm to grim in the space of the last half day, suggesting that all was not proceeding as expected. Terror had gripped Henry then, fear for both his wife and his unborn child.
“The birth is imminent,” Henry had been told a quarter of an hour earlier, and as such, he’d taken to treading a hole in the thick carpet in the hallway, wanting to damage everything in his path. His deranged mood was so obvious that the servants scurrying about had started avoiding this particular hallway, taking the long way around instead.
“My lord,” a gentle voice said as a hand reached out to take hold of his sleeve. “You will make yourself ill if you continue like this.”
Henry turned to see his sister-in-law standing there with a compassionate look on her face. Lana carried linens and a fresh change of clothing in her arms. “How is she?” he asked, anguished desperation clogging his throat.
“She is doing as well as can be expected,” Lana said gently. “She is a fighter, as you know.”
His heart stuttered in his chest. “Why does she have to fight?”
