Page 58 of A Lady’s Rules for Seaside Romance (The Harp & Thistle #3)

“And you are totally sure that Victor wanted to be married to you? He said this out loud?”

Anne’s eyebrows followed her frown. What was Mary trying to say?

“Yes, he said it a few times, in fact. At least, until he got that letter about his grandfather’s passing and told me to go away, basically.

You saw his reaction.” Anne had worried about how Victor would react to the duke’s future death and now that she had witnessed it, she’d been right to worry.

He had gone mad from it. But what did surprise her was how much she wanted to be with Victor now.

She wanted to help him and comfort him, not stay away in fear, like she had expected she would.

Mary pressed her nose to the window. “Do you happen to know where this solicitor is located?”

“I believe the envelope said King Street. Why?”

Mary began to rapidly knock on the ceiling of the carriage, as if there were an emergency. The carriage immediately pulled off to the side and the driver flung the door open, revealing the tall, skinny man with gray eyes. “Is everything all right?”

“We need to go to King Street. Immediately,” Mary said.

The driver looked at Anne. “What’s this about? I thought you were going to the train station?”

Anne stammered as it washed over her what Mary was trying to do. The solicitor said if in the letter. If. That meant…

“She’s right.” Anne gripped her seat as her nerves screamed with impatience. “We need to go to King Street instead.”

Mary squealed and bounced in her seat as the driver mumbled to himself and shut the door.

It felt like forever before the carriage rounded St. James Square to finally turn down King Street. King Street was a small street of three blocks—they should have no problem finding their destination.

Anne and Mary peered out either side of the window, studying the signs that flew by. “I don’t remember the exact address. All I remember was his name was quite strange and Peabody was part of it.” Anne’s breathing fogged up part of the window and she wiped it off with the side of a fist.

“‘Odd name with Peabody in it,’” Mary repeated as she searched out her own window.

The first block resulted in nothing. Anne hoped they hadn’t accidentally missed it and would have to round back. The second block was the same, no luck.

Then, just as they started passing by the third block, Anne spotted it. Hanging above a door and over the sidewalk was a wooden sign hand painted with “Peabody Hickinbottom, Solicitor at Your Service.”

Anne knocked on the ceiling to let the driver know they had found their destination. Within seconds, he was helping them disembark, informing them he would wait for them around the corner on St. James’s Street.

“There it is.” Anne pointed to the sign above. “Let’s go.”

Mary giggled at the name and followed her mother inside the old, Georgian-style building.

The room was small, with two wooden chairs against the wall near the window—a little waiting area.

There was also a small desk beside a closed door, a young man with a loosened bowtie and collar seated at it with his nose deep in some kind of tome.

The office was nearly boiling from the summer heat.

The young man looked up upon their entrance. “Do you have an appointment?” he asked.

“No.” Anne introduced herself and briefly explained her purpose in being there. “I really just need a minute of Mr. Hickenbottom’s time, nothing more.”

The man gave a tight-lipped nod. “One moment,” he said as he stood up and went to the door by his desk. He knocked lightly on it and poked his head in the room. Anne could hear the murmuring of voices, but not what they said.

After a moment, the young man pulled his head out of the door and opened it fully in invitation.

Anne hurried forward, Mary trailing behind.

The back room was a much larger office than the front room, with floor-to-ceiling windows on the left side and dark, oak-wood paneling around the walls. Behind the solicitor’s desk were bookshelves filled with what Anne assumed were law-related books and papers.

The solicitor was a small man with gray hair and a gray mustache. He flew to his feet and hurried over to Anne. “Lady Litchfield.” A bit too exuberant, he shook her hand harder than necessary. “This is, quite honestly, a great surprise. Would you like to sit?” He indicated to a chair.

“No, thank you. I really wish to make this brief. Mr. McNab received your letter this morning and in it, you said if I was not a willing party in the marriage in Gretna Green, then the marriage didn’t happen.”

“That’s correct.”

Her heart raced with anticipation. “What if I came here to tell you I do consent to it?”

The man’s mouth opened with surprise. “Oh, well, then that makes it quite simple. If you are telling me that you did, in fact, consent to the marriage, then congratulations are in order, I believe.”

Anne’s racing heart turned into a gallop.

She still had a chance to back out. She also had the chance to move forward.

Anne had one chance to make a decision that would forever alter the rest of her life.

The decision she wanted. She could choose what would happen next.

Not her parents, not Bernard, not Victor, not society, not the solicitor, nor the man at the anvil hurrying through a ceremony to get to the next couple and their coin.

“Mama,” Mary whispered at her side. “What do you say? Are you willing to be married to Un—I mean, Mr. McNab?”

Anne opened her mouth to respond. But before she could, Mr. Hickenbottom’s door opened again.

And in walked Victor himself.