Page 70 of To Woo and to Wed
West spurred the horses into motion and spared her a brief sideways glance. “I thought you suspected your sister of fabricating all of these mad wedding details in an attempt to force you to admit that we weren’t really engaged.”
“I did—Ido—but that’s no help to me, now that we actuallyareengaged.” Sophie felt the blood drain from her face as she fully contemplated the horror that awaited her. “West, I donotwant to wear that dress.”
“Then wear a different dress,” West said practically, and Sophie was sorely tempted to fling her reticule at his head. Men!
“It’s not about thedress,” she said, and was mildly satisfied to see a look of puzzlement cross his handsome face. His brow crinkled very charmingly when he was confused, and he was so rarely confusedthat it was not often that she was able to appreciate the sight. “It’s about the entire wedding—adouble wedding,for heaven’s sake. What on earth was I thinking? Why did I agree to this?”
“Because you never had any intention of going through with it,” West said reasonably.
“But now I want to!” Sophie said. “Oh, God, what am I going to do?”
West cleared his throat. “As it happens, I may have considered the likelihood of such a possibility.”
Sophie, preoccupied by thoughts of herself wafting down the aisle of St. George’s looking like some sort of iced, tiered cake, took a moment to register his words. Then she cast him a suspicious glance. “What do you mean?”
“Well. If you will recall, I had cause to leave town overnight briefly this week.”
“Yes,” Sophie said slowly.
“I had to visit the ducal seat in Kent, which is, you know, very close to Canterbury.”
“Canterbury,” Sophie repeated slowly, and then cottoned. “You obtained a special license!”
“Apparently the archbishop has some sort of long-standing quarrel with my father.” West sounded smug. “I appealed to his better nature and sense of romance—and may have mentioned that my father would not be pleased by this marriage.”
“I could kiss you,” she informed him.
“Best not to shock Lady Wheezle,” he said, nodding politely at the lady, who was just now being driven past in her barouche, a dog in her lap, eyeing them with naked curiosity beneath a towering hat.
Sophie, meanwhile, was considering the implications of this news.“But… you had no notion that I’d agree to marry you—I’d told you multiple times that I wouldn’t, in fact!”
“But,” West said, “as I for some reason still need to remind you—I hadn’t yet asked you. And I had a suspicion that if I ever had cause to ask you, it would be because I was confident you’d say yes.”
“Youstillhaven’t asked me,” Sophie pointed out, which was true; they’d been so caught up in—well, primarily in kissing, and then another round of hasty, perhaps overly athletic lovemaking on the settee—but eventually in discussing Sophie’s plan, and their suddenly urgent need to visit her solicitor, that they’d not actually got around to the proposing part of the afternoon’s schedule.
“You know, I’ve envisioned asking you to marry me countless times over the years,” West said. They’d reached the edge of Hyde Park, and he pulled the phaeton over into a shady copse not far from the gates, where they were not immediately in the line of sight of anyone who might be passing. “It usually involved me down on one knee, making grandiose statements of undying love and affection, and then sweeping you into a waltz whilst a string quartet serenaded us by moonlight.”
This was, more or less, akin to what Sophie’s own youthful fancies had involved. She’d never been the type to envision her own betrothal as a girl, but once she’d met West, she’d found that she was not immune to such daydreams after all. She’d spent the past seven years trying her best to forget them. And now—
Now she realized that she didn’t care if he asked her on one knee, or both, or by moonlight or in a thunderstorm or before the entiretonor before no one at all. She just cared that he asked her.
“I’ve imagined it a dozen different ways,” he continued, carefully looping the reins and then reaching out to take her hands in his, “but in every single one of these fantasies, the only thing that really matteredwas that you said yes.” His green gaze on her was steady, unwavering, and so full of love that she felt a lump rising in her throat. “Sophie, will you marry me?”
And, after all that time—after all the years of words left unsaid between them, all the thousand things she’d wished to say to him during that time—in the end, she kept it simple.
“Yes.”
And before the word was entirely out of her mouth, he was kissing her, and her arms were looping around his neck, and there was no need for any other words at all.
Violet and James were the only ones they took into their confidence.
“A wedding! By special license!” Violet said, for at least the fourth time that morning. It was two days later, and they were in Violet and James’s drawing room, awaiting the arrival of the rector.
“This is quite thrilling, you know,” Violet continued eagerly; she was wearing a gown of blue-and-white stripes and a matching bonnet, and appeared close to bouncing on her toes. “First Emily and Belfry, now you two… it’s so much more romantic than a traditional church wedding, don’t you think?” She tilted her head up toward her husband, who looked down at her with some bemusement.
“I thought our wedding was perfectly romantic, thank you,” James informed her mildly.
“I’d hope so, considering the haste with which it took place,” West said, and his brother grinned at him.
