Page 27 of The Baron Without Blame
“Still, by not doing so, I am making you choose between your family and me.”
Lolly’s eyes fanned open now, and she looked fierce again. “Papa is making us choose, and we are choosing the same thing.”
“So then, the question is: what ifyounever forgivehim?”
Tears welled suddenly in her eyes, and one spilled onto her cheek. Martin watched it fall. Better to hold her steady than to stop her from weeping.
“I love you too, Lolly,” he said again because he wasn’t sure she had heard him the first time. “I will love you for the rest of my life, whether we are together or apart. I can’t wait to marry you, and I will do everything in my power to stop anyone from hurting you like this again. But the more we try to do things differently, the more people will turn us away. It is worth it to me. I love that it is worth it to you, too. When we have children, it will be worth it to them. That is all I can offer you. I hope it is enough.”
She kissed him. It was good she did, because he had begun to talk himself into a reality where she refused him in favor of an easier life. He tasted her tears – there were more of them now – but other than that, the kiss was giving. Comforting. Like they had been kissing for decades already, instead of just the one day.
The corridor exploded with commotion as the Turners burst from their suite. Martin tugged Lolly away from the stairs, but he didn’t let her go. Her family marched in their traveling clothes. Lord Turner glared; Lady Turner didn’t look at them at all. Louisa raised a haughty eyebrow at Lolly before sweeping down the stairs. Only Charlotte broke rank, throwing her arms about both of them. “I wish you every happiness. Write to me,” she whispered.
Then she scampered after the family out to the awaiting carriage.
Lolly leaned against Martin. The servants still had much to do before the family could depart; it would be hours before the commotion was truly over. He had to check on Mr. Chow, too, and sit down with Mr. Maulvi for the regular day’s work.
But Lolly was soft and warm and heavy beside him. They had slain a dragon together, and this was their sunset. “All in all,” he said, a smile on his lips, “I’m glad it was you sneezing on that balcony.”
Lolly laughed. “What luck that Lady Leighster screamed it for everyone to hear.”
“She should try her hand at matchmaking. I am in her debt for the rest of time.”
They grinned at each other. Then, with a last peck to his lips, Lolly pushed away. “No use dawdling. I must see to Mrs. Chow.” She threw him a look over her shoulder. “Fair warning: I mean to try again tonight. I expect you to have finished your philosophizing by the time I arrive.”
Martin’s cock leaped to attention.
He already knew how he would respond.
Epilogue
Northfield Hall, 1802 – Fifteen Years Later
The lilacs bloomed in time for the birthday party. Lolly sat back against the old oak tree to admire them. The first few years after she planted them, they hadn’t blossomed at all, and she thought she must have killed them. But now the trees were perfectly pear-shaped, the purple and white flowers bowing beautifully to the breeze.
Benjamin lunged at her suddenly, thrusting little Caroline into her arms. “Mama, she smells again.”
Indeed she did, stinking of a toddler mess. Lolly took her carefully so that Caro only touched her apron. “Thank you, Benny, I’ll see to it.”
He dashed back to the pond. Martin had decreed that everyone except Caro could swim today, since the afternoon was warm and he was there to save Nate if the seven-year-old faltered in the water. Ellen and Sophia, inseparable as always even in their adolescence, were already racing each other from one edge to the other. Benjamin stripped to his underclothes with the unleashed enthusiasm of a ten-year-old and jumped in. The girls shrieked at the splash; Nate lashed his arms about Benny’s neck as if to drown him; and Martin shook his head from his perch on the grass, his hair and jacket and trousers now splattered with pond water.
He joined her under the oak trees as Lolly turned her attention to changing Caroline’s linens. They had given Nurse a whole week off in the good weather to visit her family, and Lolly didn’t mind getting hands-on with her daughter in the meantime.
“Do you think she is enjoying her party?” Martin asked, pulling a silly face at Caro.
“She hasn’t the faintest idea what is happening except that everyone else is having fun.” After wiping the baby clean, Lolly pressed a kiss onto her stomach. Caro giggled. She was the happiest two-year-old in the world, so long as she had someone smiling at her. As soon as Lolly finished changing her, Caro would take off racing unsteadily around the picnic blanket with pure joy. “Two already. Can you believe it?”
She was their last baby; the doctor had made that clear. Lolly couldn’t complain, not with five children leaping about her, and her body certainly appreciated a rest after over a decade of mothering. Still, Lolly loved having a baby about. She would miss the soft skin and coos and simple demands when Caroline joined her siblings in scampering about the estate.
“I can no more believe it than I can that we have been married for fifteen years.” Martin slid his arm around Lolly. He smelled as he always did: like the center of her universe. She leaned in so that he could dot a kiss or two along her head.
Fifteen years since he had first shown her this pond. Fifteen years since her father had last spoken to her.
“Any regrets?” Martin asked, as if he could hear her thoughts.
“None.” Smiling, Lolly handed him the dirty clout. The linen, just like the rest of their summer clothes, were made from the flax grown right here in the Northfield common fields. Old Man Swann – once a sailor in the King’s navy – raised sheep in the southern pastures for woolen goods. The food they ate, the soap and candles they consumed, the carriages they rode, everything was grown or manufactured within fifty miles of Northfield. Martin had funded the start of any industry they needed, taking particular care to invest in people who needed help the most. Displaced colonialists, like the Chows, and people escaped from slave territories. Unwed mothers who had been turned away from their families. Sailors and soldiers who couldn’t find income after serving the Crown.
Northfield was more than Lolly could have imagined that day when she chose Martin over her family. They had found a way to grow a community out of misfits and orphans. London had not been very kind to them, but Lolly didn’t need the approval of Society matrons. She spent her days teaching at the village school, writing articles for forward-thinking ladies’s magazines, and stealing moments with her children. Every day, she found hope and inspiration and joy in the life she and Martin had created.
