“Wherein our happy honeymooners get a rude awakening.”

 

Aubrey had been slumbering in that peaceful place, somewhere between sleeping and waking, aware that his wife was toying with the hair on his chest. It was a ticklish, faintly provocative sensation and the first stirrings of desire were beginning to make him feel rather more awake than asleep. The idea was rather startling, as they’d barely slept since arriving at the cottage. By rights he ought to be exhausted, but, somehow, sleeping when his delicious wife was so close seemed like a frightful waste of time.

She moved her elegant fingers to trace a delicate circle around his nipple and everything south of his navel decided she had his undivided attention. As those elegant fingers next began to trace a slow and tortuous path down his chest and across his belly, he was moved to give a decadent sigh, and then started in shock as a sharp rap was to be heard on the front door.

“What on earth!” he exclaimed in fury. He had given instructions that a maid was to come each morning to see to the fires downstairs and bring food, but, other than that, they were not to be disturbed for three full days unless there was a dire emergency. At that point, the carriage would come to take them on to Harrogate. Surely he hadn’t lost a day, he pondered, suddenly believing that it was entirely possible. The irritating knocking sound came again and he was on the point of yelling at whoever it was to go to the devil when he heard a familiar voice.

“Aubrey?” bellowed the voice from the front garden. “It’s Alex.”

“Alex?” Aubrey repeated in outrage. If ever there was a man who ought to respect the sanctity of the marriage bed, it was Alex. What the bloody hell was the man playing at?

“What is he doing here?” Violette asked, clutching at his arm and looking so worried that he leaned over and gave her nose a kiss.

“Don’t worry, love, I’ll see to it ... whatever it is,” he added with a frustrated mutter of annoyance. Pulling the shirt that he had discarded two days earlier - it was two days, surely - over his head, he stalked to the window and threw back the curtains, feeling rather like a mole pushing through the earth as the bright light of a winter’s afternoon seared his eyes for the first time since they’d arrived.

Throwing open the tiny lead lined window, he leaned out and glowered down at Alex.

“Go to the devil!” he shouted down at his unwelcome cousin who was stamping his feet against the cold on the doorstep.

Alex grinned up at him and shook his head. “Sorry, young Romeo, can’t do it. I need to talk to you.”

“Now?” Aubrey demanded in outrage. “Devil a bit! I’m on my honeymoon,” he threw down with impatience.

Alex gave a soft laugh and shook his head. “I know it, Aubrey, and I’m most desperately sorry, truly. But I must speak with you.”

Aubrey uttered an oath towards his beloved cousin that he hoped was just loud enough to reach the fellow without sullying the ears of his wife. “Be down in a moment, blast you,” he added before slamming the window shut and pulling the curtains.

“What on earth is going on?” Violette demanded, sitting up and looking very much like Botticelli’s Venus had just woken in his bed. Aubrey swallowed down the desire to leave Alex standing on the freezing doorstep with very bad grace, and stalked about the bedroom in search of his trousers.

“My blasted cousin is going on,” he muttered, almost tripping himself over in his haste to pull on his trousers and get rid of Alex with as much speed as was possible.

“But why?” Violette exclaimed, and then her face blanched. “Oh no. It must be my brother!” she exclaimed, scrambling over the mountainous edges of the mattress. “He knows where we are, oh, Aubrey!”

“Hush, love,” Aubrey replied, moving to the bed and putting his hands on her shoulders to stop her getting out. “If that’s what it is, then I will deal with it. We knew we must face him sooner or later, after all.”

“Oh yes, but not now!” she cried, looking appalled. “Not when everything is so ... so ...”

He grinned at her despite the circumstances and tenderly pushed an unruly curl from her forehead. “So perfectly, gloriously splendid?” he supplied for her, his voice soft before pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.

“Yes,” she said on a sigh that he felt all the way to his toes. “Oh yes, all of that and more.”

Aubrey sighed and then stood upright. “Don’t fret, love,” he advised with a smile, and then ran down the stairs with his shirt untucked and his feet bare. If Alex was unwise enough to disturb a man’s honeymoon, he couldn’t reasonably expect him to be turned out like the Beau.

Cursing a little as his feet hit the cold stone floor of the cottage, Aubrey hurried to the front door, slid the bolt, and pulled back the latch, stepping back to allow Alex to duck under the low lintel.

“I am sorry,” Alex said, his face looking uncharacteristically regretful as he closed the door, and the two men gravitated to the fire.

“Never mind that,” Aubrey muttered, waving an impatient hand at him. “What’s got you all of a twitter?”

Alex raised his eyebrows at the description and Aubrey snorted.

“You’ve just disturbed my honeymoon, Alex, if I say you’re all of a twitter, you’ll damn well swallow it,” he said, sounding really rather terse. In some dim part of his brain, Aubrey wondered when he’d stopped finding the head of his family so damned terrifying.

Obviously deciding that Aubrey should be allowed a little leeway in the circumstances, Alex ignored the remark with dignity. “Winterbourne is likely to be on the doorstep anytime soon,” he said, his tone grave as Aubrey cursed and stirred the fire back to life with a poker.

“Well, I guessed he’d track us down sooner or later,” Aubrey said, staring at the fire and heartily wishing Violette’s blasted brother back at the Seven Dials.

“I’m afraid your friend Tommy might have given him more than a clue to your whereabouts. He’s here now with Lancaster and Mr Tatum.”

“Well, of all the ... the blasted lobcock,” Aubrey muttered with a frustrated shake of his head as he gave the fire the benefit of his irritation by rattling the poker some more as flames leapt up the chimney.

“I can assure you he is suffering for his actions,” Alex replied with a twisted smile. “A more mortified countenance I’ve yet to see.”

Aubrey shook his head. “Oh, well, there’s no harm in the fellow,” he said, adding only, “just not much in the way of a brain, either.”

“The thing is, Aubrey,” Alex continued, moving to sit on the arm of a rather overstuffed armchair. “There’s a lot of talk about ... about his temper. He’s not been the same since he came back from the war, and ...”

“And you think he might be tempted to run me through?” Aubrey finished for him, looking up from his crouched position by the fire.

“I hope not,” Alex replied, running a hand through his black hair. “But forewarned is forearmed, and I just didn’t want you getting a nasty surprise, that’s all.”

Aubrey snorted, rocking back on his heels. “What, like you turning up on my doorstep and interrupting my honeymoon?” he demanded, his tone dry.

“Yes,” Alex said with a rueful laugh. “Just like that.”

Getting to his feet, Aubrey laid a hand on Alex’s arm. “I’m only funning, coz,” he said, his tone more serious now. “I appreciate that you’re looking out for me. I always have appreciated it.”

Alex nodded as he stood, his grey eyes fixed on Aubrey in a manner that had always made him squirm in the past. It was a measuring, weighing up of worth kind of glance that had put a great many men on their guard in its time. Strangely, Aubrey felt quite able to meet it now and Alex smiled at him.

“Yes, you’ll do,” he said, his tone warm. “I doubt you’ll need much looking out for from now on, but you know I’ll always have your back should you need it.”

“That is good to know,” Aubrey replied, meaning it.

Alex nodded and moved back to the front door. “I’ll leave you in peace, then, but Seymour expects you to dine with us all tonight.”

“Tonight?” Aubrey replied in outrage. “Not seriously?”

“Don’t be late,” Alex advised with an evil grin as he closed the door behind him.

***

As it happened, although he regretted the fact that he was losing several hours when he could just as happily have been alone with his wife, Aubrey passed a rather wonderful evening.

After the inevitable ragging that he was forced to endure that made both he and Violette flush and cling to each other’s hands like lovesick fools, everything was rather perfect.

It was a delicious meal (his grandmother always had known how to entertain in style), and Aubrey found that he was ravenously hungry. The rueful thought occurred to him that they had barely bothered to leave the bed in search of sustenance, and he caught a glance on his wife’s face as she, too, piled her plate high. Their gazes met and he knew without saying a word that she knew just what he was thinking. She bit her lip, her lovely green eyes twinkling with mischief as she helped herself to yet another slice of beef. Aubrey chuckled and tucked in.

To his great satisfaction, his grandmother seemed perfectly delighted by Violette and the two of them seemed to be getting along famously, despite Violette’s initial qualms at meeting her. Dear old Dotty seemed enchanted too, though his maiden Aunt would have loved anyone that he loved, simply because that was in her nature.

Celeste was overjoyed to be reunited with both of her dearest friends. After the dinner had been cleared away and as the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, she told them, for at least the twentieth time, how happy she was. She then went off into floods of tears at the fact that the two people she liked most outside of her husband had married each other. Seymour threw her a suspicious look as Alex guided her to a chair and summoned a footman to bring her a glass of water.

“Oh, don’t fuss, Alex,” she chided, though with such affection in her eyes that Aubrey doubted Alex would take a blind bit of notice. “I’m just being silly. The slightest thing seems to make me cry these days. How foolish I am becoming in my old age,” she said, waving a pretty lace handkerchief in distress.

Alex snorted and slid an arm around his wife. “Good Lord, are you in your dotage?” he exclaimed in mock alarm. “You’d best summon the undertaker for this fusty old fellow, then. I’m likely to turn up my toes at any moment.”

Celeste scolded him roundly for that, fighting a smile as he pulled her closer, but there was such a wonderfully happy accord between the two of them, more, even, than usual. He turned to say as much to Violette, only to find her regarding the couple with a knowing look.

She leaned in to whisper to Aubrey. “I was once told that when my mother was expecting me, she cried at the drop of a hat. Apparently, everyone believed I’d be a watering pot because of it,” she said with a smirk.

Aubrey glanced back at Celeste and realised his beautiful friend was glowing even more than usual. She seemed to radiate good health. But the clincher was the way that Alex hovered around her like a ... well, mother bear seemed more likely than a hen, but nonetheless, he was certainly fussing.

“My mother could only eat dry toast, too, so I’m told. Though Celeste seems to consume vast quantities of cake. I wonder if that’s normal?” she mused, sounding intrigued.

Aubrey was suddenly struck by the idea of Violette carrying his child; she might even be now, at this very moment. The thought caught at his heart and his mind and wouldn’t let go, and the wave of panic that had assailed him earlier struck hard, but this time followed by the realisation that whatever came ... he would deal with it.

He was not a fool, as he had once believed - as his father had always implied. He was neither a fool, nor a wastrel, and he would provide for his family, no matter if Lord Winterbourne disinherited Violette. Perhaps things would be tight for a little while, but not for long. He would see to it.

He knew, now, that he could.

Violette looked back at him, and he felt sure everything he was feeling was evident in his eyes as she closed her mouth on the words she had been about to speak. Instead, she reached for his hand and held it tight, leaning close to whisper in his ear once more.

“I’m so terribly glad I married you, Mr Russell.”

Aubrey wanted very much to say something back, something witty and clever to express this swelling of emotion in his chest, but no words were forthcoming. Instead, he simply held her gaze and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the fingers with reverence, and knowing as he saw her eyes become a little too bright, that she understood.

“Oh, good Lord, you’ve been married for a whole two days!” exclaimed Ben from behind them, his voice one of disgust, though his eyes were alight with humour. “Put the poor girl down, man.”

Aubrey chuckled and slid a defiant arm around his wife’s waist. “Isn’t it time you were thinking about getting leg-shackled yourself, Ben?” he demanded, as his friend’s face paled with alarm.

“Aubrey,” the man replied, his voice one of deep reproach. “How could you?”

Violette giggled as Ben moved swiftly away to find a safer topic of conversation elsewhere, when the butler came in and leaned down to whisper something into his grandmother’s ear.

Her face fell and her grey eyes filled with concern as she looked up at Aubrey.

The words when she spoke were not exactly a surprise.

“Lord Winterbourne is here.”