Page 114 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
Phillip frowned. “So he never saw you as she?”
Addie shook her head. “We’d never met before. And of course, as from the first he saw me as me, he…dealt with me directly.” She thought, then added, “He didn’t try to step in and control me.” She glanced at Phillip. “And yes, I’m aware that I’m impulsive, but he seems to have a knack for knowing how to rein me in without overstepping the mark.”
Phillip’s lips twitched. “I’d noticed.” He studied her for a moment more, then quietly asked, “So Miss Flibbertigibbet truly is no more?”
She thought about that for some moments, imagining what situations might cause her to resurrect her alter ego, but then she remembered that Nicholas would be there, by her side, and even if he wasn’t, she would be his wife and, in that role, she knew to her soul that she would always have his support.
Slowly, she shook her head, then met Phillip’s eyes. “Yes. Miss Flibbertigibbet is dead.”
* * *
Later, as the afternoon waned into evening and a rosy wash painted the sky, Nicholas walked out with Adriana, seeking privacy in the extensive gardens of Aisby Grange.
Her arm in his, she drew him toward the rose garden. Smiling, he paced beside her.
As they passed under the archway leading into the large rectangular garden, Adriana stated, “We need to decide how we want our wedding to be, or before we know it, all the arrangements will have been settled, and it will be a massive social undertaking commencing in Hanover Square.”
Her tone declared that she wasn’t the least attracted by the prospect, which reassured him. “Perhaps we can manage to limit the size of it.”
“But how?”
“I think our first step should be to write to my parents and give them our news.” A plan was taking shape in his mind. “They’re in Ireland at the moment, waiting for my sister Prudence to have her second child, and I’ll urge Mama and Papa to remain there until after the happy event, as they’d intended.” He met Adriana’s eyes. “That will stall any decision-making and give us a chance to make up our own minds—”
“And marshal the necessary arguments to support our stand.” Adriana nodded decisively. “Yes, let’s do that.”
Nicholas glanced toward a small fountain playing at the path’s end. The heady scents of roses in bloom wreathed about them as they slowly strolled. “Looking further ahead, beyond the wedding and settling at Newmarket, have you had any thoughts about how you would like our marriage to evolve?”
She tipped her head and rested it against his shoulder. “Well, children, of course, if we’re blessed.”
His heart leapt, then settled, even more deeply content.
“As for the rest, I thought…”
He listened as, based on their earlier discussions, she verbally sketched her vision of their married life. He added a touch or two here and there, tweaking her notions, giving them substance.
As the evening enfolded them in its perfumed embrace, they moved on to sharing their hopes and their dreams, and beneath their words, buoying them, ran the confidence that, together, united, they could and would achieve every goal.
* * *
Arm in arm, the earl and countess stood in the bay window of the earl’s apartments and, with fond affection, looked down on their elder daughter and their soon-to-be son-in-law and counted their blessings.
“I never imagined,” the earl confessed, “that not only would Phillip come to his senses and return to us but also that he would have the sound sense to choose a lady like Viola to be his wife.”
“When he walked in with Viola on his arm, you could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather.” The countess went on, “She is exactly the sort of steady lady Phillip needs to anchor him and provide…well, ballast to his character. With her by his side, he’ll make an excellent earl.” She glanced at her spouse lovingly. “When the time comes.”
The earl chuckled. “I haven’t felt so well—so much myself and confident in that—for longer than I care to think. It’s happiness, I believe.” His gaze on the couple ambling through the rose garden, he patted the countess’s hand where it rested on his sleeve. “They’ll be happy, too.” His lips lifted in a gentle smile; turning his head, he directed that smile at his wife. “Just as we’ve been.”
Her smiling gaze on Adriana and Nicholas, the countess nodded. “For all these long years.” After a moment, she added, “Perhaps Phillip returning and bringing Viola with him was our reward for working so diligently to bring Addie and Nicholas together.”
“Even though he wasn’t the brother we’d expected?”
“Indeed. But they’re so very right for each other, which is another thing we couldn’t have foreseen, so I do think we got the correct brother as well.” The countess tipped her head, then amended, “Or Fate did. After all, it wasn’t by our actions that Nicholas came instead of Tobias, but clearly, Fate decided to take a hand, and as ever, she knows best.”
After a moment during which they watched the ambling couple pause beside the fountain, then, laughing, come together in an embrace, the earl murmured, “Despite us gaining Fate’s blessing, my dear, I rather think we should keep our part in fostering Addie and Nicholas’s romance to ourselves.”
“Oh, indeed.” The countess looked surprised that he’d imagined anything else. “Now and forever, our lips should most definitely remain sealed.” With her free hand, she gestured to the couple kissing in the rose garden. “Why create questions about something that is so patently meant to be?”
The earl patted her other hand. “Just so, my dear. Just so.”
