Chapter Twenty-Three
The breeze was a perfect benevolence, the air scented with scythed clover and sea salt, and the only sound was the St. David pennant luffing gently a dozen yards away.
Elizabeth tied the string of the kite around one of the cannon at the corner of the parapets and took the bench where Haverford had embraced her so tenderly days ago.
“Are you saying good-bye?” Haverford stood by the carved door below her, holding two books.
“I am revisiting lovely memories. How did your meeting with Sherbourne go?”
Haverford came up the steps. “Sherbourne isn’t an ogre, and he’s developed a passion for lending libraries.”
Great upheaval could unhinge even the stoutest minds. “Sit with me, and tell me what happened.”
Haverford didn’t sit. He stood beside the bench, gaze on the verdure stretching out from the castle in all directions. He set the books on the dip in the crenellations, one thin volume, one very thick.
“May I show you something, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth had seen the coachmen and grooms readying the vehicles by the carriage house, despite it being the Sabbath. Flocks grazed in their pastures, the occasional sea gull wheeled overhead.
“You could not show me anything lovelier than this view, Haverford. You really are quite right to defend your heritage.”
“Stop that. Next you’ll be regretting that you knocked sense into Sherbourne. He’s building a mine.”
The kite swooped by, a red dragon on a green and white field, reminiscent of the flag that had flown over the king’s victory at Bosworth.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, rising and slipping her arms around the duke. “You fought long and well, and I’m sorry.”
He held her, his chin propped on her crown. “Sherbourne will be sorry soon. I made him agree to a list of conditions as long as my pedigree. No children working below the mine’s surface, no women, half days on Saturday and Sundays free. I could have asked him to return the dower house and he would have agreed, he was so surprised to find a reasonable human being where an intransigent title had always stood.”
“You’re not intransigent.” Though Julian was stubborn. Witness, his devotion to a lot of damned books nobody would ever read.
“Look there,” he said, turning Elizabeth and pointing toward the sea. “Sherbourne thinks to develop a colliery over the lip of that hill. We won’t even be able to see it, and he’s assured me no ironworks will be built. I honestly think he’s happy.”
Elizabeth turned back into Julian’s embrace. “Good for him, I suppose, but what of you? What of the debts and loans?”
The dragon swooped by again, then darted up into the sky and hung suspended at the end of its twine.
“Have I told you that I love you, Elizabeth?”
How would she ever, ever leave him? “Julian, you needn’t—”
“I love you,” he said, “and I respect my family’s legacy, but I do not love those books, at least not most of them. I’m speaking to Andover about having an auction, and selling the curiosities, duplicates, and more fragile antiques. You are absolutely correct that books that just sit on the shelf are like unloved children. Glenys and Griffin are both well situated. It’s time I found new homes for some of those books.”
Julian spoke calmly, and yet, Elizabeth could feel the tension in him, the worry. His heart beat steadily beneath her cheek, and he hadn’t asked her permission to sell the books, but her reply would matter to him.
“Of all your many virtues,” she said, “your kindness, conscientiousness, graciousness, loyalty to your siblings and staff, your passion”—she kissed him—“I most admire your courage. Courage to hold fast against terrible odds, courage to let go. Courage to protect good traditions, courage to change the ones that no longer serve a purpose. Sell all of the books, Julian, and I will only love you more.”
He sighed and the embrace became closer. They stood thus, wrapped in each other’s arms, the sun beaming down, the dragon sailing above, until Julian stepped back and took Elizabeth’s hand.
“Sherbourne has promised to purchase from me an inventory sufficient to stock a group of lending libraries. He’ll be grateful for your direction regarding how those institutions should be established and maintained.”
Elizabeth sank to the bench. “Sherbourne is funding lending libraries? Lucas Sherbourne?”
“A dozen or so, though you’ll have to guide him in the particulars.”
A penniless duke had somehow arranged for the creation of a dozen lending libraries, which would be abundantly stocked from the shelves of one of the finest collections in the realm.
“This is a very devious plan, Haverford. I like it.”
He came down beside her. “Thought you might. You never did choose a book from my library, Elizabeth, so I also took the liberty of choosing a pair of books for you.”
A parting gift? Elizabeth’s emotions were a muddle—she didn’t want any blasted lending libraries if she couldn’t have the duke who’d made them possible—but truly, Julian had managed the impossible.
“You need not give me anything more,” she said. “I have memories, a beloved friend in you, and I’m hopeful that in time, given your rapprochement with Mr. Sherbourne, that our friendship might grow into something—”
He kissed her. “I love you, without limit or condition, but this polite balderdash doesn’t become you half so much as hurling thunderbolts and righting the wrongs of the shire. This is my general ledger.” He passed her the slim volume.
“I’ve seen it before.”
“I usually keep it hidden under lock and key, but I want you to understand my situation, Elizabeth. I’m not wealthy, though I’ll manage well enough. These debts are a large part of who I am.”
“I don’t care an acorn’s worth about your debts, Julian.” She cared very much that forty-two coaches were lined up on the drive, that the Windham coaches were near the head of the queue.
“This is my family Bible—in Welsh, of course,” he said, passing over the more substantial volume. “I would like to add your name to the succession of duchesses gracing the front pages. Will you marry me, Elizabeth? Will you live with me and put my castle to rights? Climb the occasional oak with me, and wander up Tudor Hill? Read to our children, call on Biddy and Griffin, drop in on Radnor, and possibly even tolerate Sherbourne at our table on occasion?”
He slid to one knee before her. “I want the good times and the difficult, the challenges and the triumphs. I have no plan for the rest of my life other than to love you, to be loved by you, and to face life together, come what may.”
The Bible was a comforting weight in Elizabeth’s lap, anchoring her to the bench when her spirits were flying aloft to cavort with the dragon. She put her arms around her duke, and drew him very close.
“Yes,” she whispered in his ear. “Yes, I will be your wife, your duchess, your dragoness, and your love. Yes.”
They remained on the parapets for much of the afternoon, laughing, loving, and hatching an occasional plan—Charlotte and Sherbourne had seemed to notice one another, after all—while above them, the dragon danced in the sunshine.