Page 24 of The Baron Without Blame
Clearing his throat, he responded to her comments. “Yes, of course. I instructed Mrs. Smollett to let Mrs. Chow rest today to recover from her journey, in any case.” To Mrs. Chow, he added, “You must not let them bully you.”
“What did you do at home, before you came to England?” Lolly asked. “Silk weaving, perhaps?”
Mrs. Chow laughed as if Lolly had suggested something as ridiculous as growing tobacco. In broken English, she said, “No, my lady. My father was the village butcher.”
She had been raised to run her own home, then. Better suited as a housekeeper or nurse than a common servant, but Martin was in need of neither.
“A parlor maid, perhaps,” Lolly said. She looked down, shaking her skirts of azalea blossoms and twigs. “No fear, Mrs. Chow, Lord Preston will sort it out. I am only sorry I won’t be able to get to know you better as my maid.”
Mrs. Chow looked from Lolly to Martin and back again, a frown slowly creasing her brow. “I do not understand. Are my lord and lady no longer getting married?”
Martin couldn’t help but run his eyes over Lolly. Beautiful and proud, just like the first morning he had proposed to her. And now he knew how she felt in his arms, the heat of her skin and the complexity of her scent and the tremor in her breath when he kissed her. The way her thighs molded to him like ivy to a tree.
He jerked his gaze upward and found her watching him just as intently.
She had never been his. He understood that now. The engagement had been misguided all along. She was meant for something more than being the delight of his life.
And he couldn’t do the wrong thing. Not even for her.
“No, we are not,” he answered Mrs. Chow.
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t until Martin rejected her that Lolly knew what she wanted. And when she knew, she knew – from the deepest marrow of her bones to the screaming tears behind her eyes.
She wanted to marry him.
She wanted to spend the rest of her days kissing him and debating with him. She wanted to be in his arms; she wanted to watch him eat his favorite meals; she wanted to pick her way through her life with him in search of the best way to do right. At Frances’s orphanage, Lolly may have been able to help forgotten children and instill them with a sense of goodness, but with Martin, she could forge her own way. They could turn Northfield Hall into an orphanage, or move to London to crusade for better poor relief, or give up all their worldly belongings and join a lecture circuit around the countryside.
He was a good man. A handsome man. A kind man. And she wanted him to be hers.
“Actually, we are,” Lolly declared. Martin stared at her, his cheeks going pale. Pale because of shock, or because he didn’t want to marry her anymore? “I’m sorry for how I behaved last night. I shouldn’t have been so forceful, and I shouldn’t have left. We still need to argue it out. I want to fix it. I want to be your wife.”
Martin’s gaze flicked towards Mrs. Chow. “Perhaps you did not hear Lord Turner…”
“My father can say whatever he wants. I am of age. I may do what I please. And it pleases me to marry you.”
Now Martin’s face transformed again. His eyes shimmered. His mouth softened. His whole body lilted, as if on the breeze, towards her.
Mrs. Chow beamed at them. “Give him a kiss, my lady!”
They were in full view of anyone who looked out the window, but Lolly didn’t care. She stepped into Martin’s embrace, wrapping his hands about her waist and nestling her face to his. His lips met hers chastely at first, and then the taste of his tongue raced into her bloodstream.
“I’m not going to be an easy wife,” she said between kisses. “I will say no to things, sometimes without knowing why.” She bit at his lower lip. “I will insist our daughters have the same education as our sons.” She got distracted by his tongue again. “I will be headstrong and obstinate and all the other things a lady is not supposed to be.”
“Don’t forget your sneezing,” Martin said, drifting his lips to her earlobe. “You will sneeze like a blacksmith whenever you want, no matter how importune. Even during our relations.”
“Especially during relations.” Lolly pressed her palms to his shoulders to hold herself away. He was so handsome, this man who had helped her on the balcony without even showing her his face. She didn’t know how she had gotten so lucky. “Will you still have me, even despite all that?”
“No.” Martin’s gaze was so somber, so earnest, that rejection stung Lolly, and she drew back. But his hands held her in place against him. “I will marry you because of all that.”
This time, they didn’t kiss. They wrapped their arms around each other and clung. Lolly tried to think what it felt like, to be held so tight and fast, but she didn’t know of anything at all similar. She was safe. She was cherished. She was his.
“Now, how would you like to handle this?” Martin asked into her ear. “Shall I ride to Lambeth Palace to purchase a special license?”
That would be the easiest way. He could steal her away from the London townhouse at the break of dawn for a quiet wedding, so that her parents couldn’t stop them.
But Lolly knew the difference between easy and right.
