She understood at last and a great weight slid from her shoulders.
“Robert!” she called. She could hear the roll of the coach wheels.
She ran faster than she had ever run in her life. She flew down the stairs on feet swifter than even Mercury’s. She flew down the second set of stairs, her bare feet padding softly across the tiled entrance hall. From the corner of her eye she saw that the family, the entire family including the children, as well as Lord Valmaston, were waiting nearby but she ignored them. She opened the door. The coach was already moving, if slowly down the drive.
“Robert!” she called out loudly. “Wait! Please wait!”
The coach did not stop. She began to run after him, only the gravel bit at her feet. She ran to the bordering grass and picked up speed, her robe flapping behind her.
“Robert!” she cried again and again.
Finally she heard his voice, a single sharp command to the coachman, and the equipage drew to a halt. She was breathing hard as she slowed to a walk some twenty feet from the vehicle. He descended, a broad smile on his face and so much love in his eyes that she decided she needed to run a little more. She raced to him and threw herself into his arms. He held her tightly. “Do not leave me!” she cried. “Please, Robert, I do not know how I would go on without you. I love you so.”
He promptly devoured her in a kiss from which she did not emerge until shouting and cheering reached her ears. Only then did she draw back and note that the family party assembled on the front drive was waving, whistling, and cheering a little more.
Lucy drew back and looked up at Robert. She then peered into the coach and, removing herself from his arms completely, scrutinized the outside of the coach as well. “Where are your trunks, your portmanteaux?”
Robert merely smiled upon her.
She gasped and planted her hands on her hips. “You had no intention of going? This was merely a ruse!”
He shook his head. “You are very right. I had no such purpose.”
She gasped. “I have been tricked,” she cried, “quite vilely so I must say.” She turned on her heel and began walking toward the house.
After giving orders to the coachman to return to the stables, he followed after her. “Now, Lucy, do not take a pet. You know you love me. You know it is inevitable that we marry.”
“I know no such thing,” she said, lifting her chin. But there was so much joy in her heart that she felt as though she would break out singing and shouting at any moment.
“I only showed you your heart. How can that be a bad thing?” He caught her suddenly about the waist and turned her into him. “Besides, if you do not agree at once, I shall tell everyone that you once slept in my bed, all night, and I would like to see you deny it.”
She gasped loudly again but she could not keep her countenance. She leaned into him. “I should be angry with you for such a trick but Robert I cannot. How happy I am! How much I have always loved you.”
He sighed happily, and though he rather shocked the youngest of the Sandifort children, he kissed her again quite thoroughly.
A fortnight later, Lucy sat with Robert on the terrace. He held her hand gently. “We must think of some way of keeping him here,” she said.
“He has stayed long enough.”
She watched Valmaston pick up Violet and plant her carefully on his shoulder. Violet wrapped her arm about his head. Hetty looked up at them both and laughed. They were walking in the direction of the maze, Hyacinth and William before them.
“Another sennight and the trick will be done,” she said. “Besides, I wish him to stay for our wedding.”
“Then he shall stay, though I know very well it is not because of our wedding.”
Lucy giggled. “Of course it is not, but will not Hetty be delighted?”
“Yes, I believe she will. She grows more in love with him every day.”
Once the small party disappeared into the maze, he reached over and stole a kiss from her. He often stole kisses as soon as the family absented themselves, which seemed to be quite frequently of late. “I should have gotten a special license,” he whispered.
“So you have said every day since we became betrothed.” She touched his face lovingly. “And to confess the truth, though I shiver at telling you as much, I wished we had as well.”
“Darling!” he cried, kissing her again.