‘You look beautiful,’ Cal said as they went back down the aisle, his hand firm over hers on his arm.
‘Mama sent for my wedding dress.’ She looked down at the shimmering pale blue silk, the fluttering silver ribbons that she had chosen because they matched Cal’s eyes, the bouquet of Love-in-the Mist, the flowers Cal said matched hers.
‘That is exquisite, of course. But you would have been beautiful in a sheet, walking towards me, your veil back, your eyes telling me how much you loved me.’
The wedding breakfast lasted all afternoon until finally all the usual toasts had been exhausted.
Cal stood up. ‘Before my bride and I depart on our wedding trip, I wanted to say a few words,’ he began. Sophie shut her mouth with a snap and tried to look as though she knew what he was talking about. Wedding trip? What wedding trip? She thought there would be dancing tonight and a buffet and eventually they would be able to escape up to their suite. Which would all have been lovely, although she had wanted so much to be alone with him now, immediately.
‘Toasts have been drunk and good wishes given, but I want to end with thanks to some people without whom I would not be standing here today with my lovely Duchess at my side. In the years before my majority my aunt and uncle and my cousin Ralph were the parents I had lost and the brother I never had. They worked selflessly for the good of my estate without thought for themselves and I owe them a debt I cannot repay.’
Sophie looked across the long table to where Lord Peter was unashamedly mopping his eyes, his wife had her face buried in her napkin and Ralph was white with emotion.
‘The Thornes!’ Cal raised his glass and the toast echoed around the room. ‘And then there are Jared Hunt and Michael Flynn and George Prescott who stood at my back throughout my sometimes perilous voyage of self-discovery around the globe. I give you, Good friends!’
Sophie found that she was in tears by this point. Cal sat down and handed her a spotless pocket handkerchief. ‘What wedding trip?’ she whispered under cover of drying her eyes.
‘Trust me.’
The guests followed them down the steps to the waiting carriage, another behind it loaded with trunks.
‘Don’t stay away for seven years this time,’ Lord Peter said, shaking Cal’s hand before he bent to kiss her cheek. Cal scooped up Isobel, kissed her and handed her to his uncle to hold, a gesture of total trust.
Sophie waved until the bend in the driveway took the house out of sight. ‘Cal, where are we going? I haven’t made any preparations – who packed all those trunks?’
‘Wait and see,’ he said. ‘And let me kiss you in the meantime, Your Grace.’
She was somewhat rumpled and her bonnet was off when the carriage came to a halt. Time flew when she was in Cal’s arms, but not, surely, this fast? And how had Flynn got here to be letting down the steps and helping her out? And… surely this was the back of Calderbrook House?
‘Quickly.’ Cal took her arm and hurried her into a small door she had never noticed before. They went up a bare little service stairway and halted on the threshold of another door where Cal, ignoring his wounded shoulder, swept her into his arms and carried her thorough.
‘Cal, this is your bedchamber,’ Sophie said as he set her on her feet.
‘I know.’ His grin was infectious, wicked and triumphant. ‘The outer door to this wing is locked, no-one but Flynn and Chef know we are here. Flynn will bring us food and then vanish again. I thought we ought to be able to maintain the deception for at least four days while the carriage and the luggage coach full of empty trunks go off to one of the distant farms on the estate. If you pine for fresh air the stairs out there go right up to the leads. What do you think?’
‘I think that you are a genius,’ she said and meant it.
‘I believe that, having carried my bride over the threshold, the next part of the matrimonial tradition is that I take her to bed. Does that please Your Grace?’
‘It does.’ She had missed him so much, even though it had only been a few days. Sophie restrained her desire to rip off her clothes and then his clothes and let Cal set the pace, undressing her slowly, as if she was a fragile gift-wrapped present, his fingers and lips caressing each inch of skin as he uncovered it.
When all she had on were her stockings and garters and pearls she turned to him, stripping away his elegant wedding clothes with as much tender care, easing away his coat and shirt from his tightly-strapped wounded shoulder. He was healing well, motivated he had told her, by the desire to make love to her day and night. Now he was naked his aroused body was clearly ready to oblige.