Chapter Fifteen

It had been a day of strange marvels. When Rose and Steven finally found themselves alone in the train heading back to London, the broken settee safely stowed in the baggage car, Steven sank down into the cushioned seat beside her and burst out laughing.

“Good Lord.” Steven had stripped off his gloves, ruined beyond redemption, at the cottage, and now he held Rose’s soft hand between his bare ones. “We went to look for a settee and came up with a house.”

“It’s very odd,” Rose said, even as she warmed at his touch. “How did Charles suppose I’d find the place? The Winterses had been waiting for me for a year and a half, she said.”

“Maybe Charles wrote you a letter and hid it in the Bullock cabinet,” Steven said, caressing the backs of her fingers. “Or the deeds to the property—which if it is entailed with the main house, Albert gets anyway.”

“But nothing was in the cabinet, except the drawings of other furniture,” Rose said, frowning. “And if anything was inside the cushion of the settee, mice will have eaten it. There was certainly nothing left of that cushion by the time we got it onto the train.”

“True.” Steven deflated slightly, but then shrugged. “We’ll find it, Rosie. I promise you. Now, there’s something I decided to do when I thought I’d lost you, and I need to think on it a bit.”

So saying, he leaned back on the seat and closed his eyes.

He opened them again when Rose leaned over him and kissed him. She’d been cold all day, until he’d come to her and held her, and now she wanted to imbibe all of Steven’s warmth.

Steven’s strong hands closed on her wrists, and he pushed her back a little, his gray eyes steady. Before Rose could be surprised that he was rejecting her advances, he gently eased her down to her seat, rose, and pulled down all the shades to their compartment.

Rose’s breath caught as Steven returned to her, his eyes dark in the half light and full of promise. Her heart beat even faster as Steven resumed his seat and lifted her onto his lap. Then he proceeded to show her that what he’d had in mind for the journey went beyond more than a few simple kisses.

***

Rose and Steven entered the parlor of Steven’s hotel suite upon their arrival in London, and Rose halted in surprise. She’d supposed Steven had led her there, instead of parting for her to go to her own room, because he’d wanted to continue the seduction he’d begun on the train. Rose still wasn’t certain her bodice was buttoned right, in spite of his reassurance, and she was sure her bustle had gone back on crookedly. She reflected that Steven was a proving master at what a man and a woman could do together in tight spaces.

She stopped on the threshold now, flushing, because the parlor was full of people.

One was Mr. Collins, his flame-red hair mussed from the continued inclement weather. Near him stood Lord Ian Mackenzie and his wife, Beth, and Steven’s brother Sinclair. A woman with the same blond hair as Steven’s greeted them with a wide smile, and another Mackenzie, a bit older than Ian, towered behind her.

“Thank you all for coming,” Steven said, in no way surprised, confound the man. He led Rose inside, out of the way of the porters arriving with the broken settee. “Ainsley, Cam, this is Rose. Rose, my sister Ainsley and her husband, Cameron Mackenzie.”

Ainsley, the blond woman with eyes the same shade as Steven’s and Sinclair’s, came forward. “How do you do, Your Grace? I hope you don’t mind—Beth has already told me all about you.” She winked at Rose and took her hands. “Don’t be cryptic, Steven. Why did you summon us?”

And when had he? Rose realized now why Steven had been such a long time in the cloakroom at the train station—he must have slipped to the office to wire his friends.

Ian Mackenzie was staring at the settee which now rested in the center of the carpet. As well he might—it was a mess. Albert had finished wrecking what the weather and animals already had done.

“Redecorating, are you?” Sinclair asked in a dry voice.

“Let the man speak,” Cameron said in a voice that filled the room. “We’ll never have the answer if we keep interrupting.”

“I brought you here to make it official,” Steven said. He took Rose’s hands in his scratched ones, which he’d battered in effort to rescue her. “My sweetest Rose,” he said in a quiet voice. “Will you marry me?”

Rose’s stared at him. She could have sworn he’d just asked her to marry him, but the world was tilting, and she wasn’t quite sure. “Wha—?”

Steven’s hands anchored her, and she clung to them, the floor still unsteady. His eyes, clear and gray as the stormy November skies, held no teasing, no joking, only sincerity, and hope.

“Steven,” she whispered.

“You’ll have to be plain with me, Rosie,” Steven said, his grip tightening. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“Steven,” was all Rose could say. If she let go of him, she’d fall. If she held on to him, she was still in danger of falling, because hope and happiness were bearing down on her, threatening to sweep her away.

Beth Mackenzie broke in through the silence. “I believe that is a yes, Steven. I can tell by the way she’d looking at you.”

“Is it?” Steven asked Rose.

Rose’s throat closed up, and tears flooded her eyes. She nodded, unable to speak.

Steven let out a long breath of relief. “Thank God.” He pulled Rose into his embrace, his own body shaking. “Thank you, God.”