Page 29 of Accidental Courtship with the Earl

‘D o you have the ring?’ his mother asked him for the fourth time.

Mark nodded as he patted the ring that was currently on his little finger underneath his glove. ‘Yes, Mama.’

She looked out of the window. It was raining lightly. ‘Are you sure that you don’t want to pick a better time? A rainy proposal isn’t very romantic.’

He leaned forward and kissed his mother on the cheek. She blushed in surprise, but smiled as if she were pleased. ‘Helen loves the rain and I promise I will make it very romantic.’

‘Very well then. She’ll certainly like Scotland, if she likes rain.’

Mark walked out his own front door and mounted his mare without any assistance. Riding around to the next street, he found a groom holding Helen’s horse by its reins. Mark didn’t have to get off his horse to lift the knocker. Helen burst out of the house wearing her crimson military-like riding habit and a matching hat.

The Duke of Pelford followed behind her with an umbrella over his head. ‘Are you sure that you both wouldn’t rather come inside and out of the rain?’

Mark looked around. ‘And miss this beautiful weather—never!’

Pelford smiled wryly and helped Helen on to her horse. ‘Enjoy the rain.’

‘Oh, we will.’

Helen urged her horse until it was right next to his. Leaning over, she patted his mare’s mane. ‘What a beautiful creature. Is she new?’

Mark nodded and a bit of rain poured out of his hat. ‘I hadn’t realised how much I’ve missed the freedom of riding.’

‘Then when we reach the park, we shall have a race.’

‘Done!’

They rode together through the streets. There weren’t many carriages out. It was raining and rather too early in the morning for fashionable people to be up and about yet. When they reached the gates of the park, Helen called out to race to a lone tree, a hundred yards ahead. Mark hadn’t galloped yet, but his instincts kicked in and he held on for dear life. Helen and her horse led for the first half of the race, but Mark was not about to let her win. He urged his mare onwards and they won by a length.

Helen laughed and she pulled up on the reins. ‘What is the forfeit?’

‘Your heart.’

‘It’s already yours, but I still do not wish to leave my home. I know that it is silly and selfish. Wick compared me to a flightless baby bird that eats regurgitated worms.’

Mark looked over his shoulder at the dark waters of the Serpentine. The raindrops on the surface made hundreds of little circles that bumped into each other. He couldn’t help but think that he and Helen were but two of those ripples. Destined to meet and come together.

‘What do you love about Hampford Castle?’

She breathed in deeply. ‘Walking in the woods, swimming in the river and sitting in the sunshine. There is something mystical and renewing about being in nature. It is the one place that I feel as if I truly belong.’

‘I bet you know the forest near your home like the back of your hand.’

Raindrops tickled her nose as Helen nodded.

‘And I assume that you’ve already explored every den and glen.’

‘Of course.’

‘In Scotland, we have a great many forests, rivers and lochs. It would take you a lifetime to explore them all. The same nature that you love here is also there.’

Her hand tightened on the reins. ‘But my family is not there.’

Mark wanted to be her family. Her everything. ‘We could visit them often at Hampford Castle and invite them to swim in Loch Ness. You might even discover and write a new book about the sea monster that swims in its depths.’

Helen’s eyes sparkled as her lips tilted upwards. ‘I do love swimming and sea monsters and you most of all. And perhaps I will like Scotland, too. But I would make a terrible countess. You know that. I am blunt and badly behaved.’

Mark wiped the rain off his face. ‘And I am a scarred, one-legged man who often acts like a Broody Byron. You’ve never tried to change me and trust that I will never try to change you. I love you exactly how you are and we belong together. The location doesn’t matter. Whether it be in England or Scotland. The city or the countryside.’

He could see the indecision in her eyes. ‘But what if I am miserable and I make you miserable, too?’

Angling his horse closer to her, Mark took her hand in his wet one. ‘All I know is that I feel miserable when I am without you. And if being with you means that we have to buy a house near Hampford Castle, then I will do it. You mean more to me than anything else in this world.’

Helen smiled more radiantly than ever and he knew that he’d finally convinced her. ‘I do belong with you, Mark. And you with me. I think my body knew it from the first day that I climbed into your back garden. I couldn’t stay away from you. I couldn’t stop touching you. And I will try to like Scotland because it is your home and I love you.’

Helen would take a leap into the unknown for him. He needed to do the same for her. It was time to propose. ‘I have it on good authority that rainy days are excellent for wading in lakes and swimming.’

Helen gurgled with laughter. ‘They are.’

‘Shall we?’

Together they rode to the pebble beach. Mark descended from his horse first and then helped Helen down. She kissed his chin in thank you. He laughed and shrugged himself out of his wet coat. Helen watched him wide-eyed as he unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt. Her eyes dropped to the scar across his middle. Touching him lightly, she traced it with her finger. The rain was freezing, but he wasn’t cold. He was liquid heat, even though all he had on were his trousers and one glove. He couldn’t risk losing his family’s heirloom engagement ring.

Sitting down, Mark took off his boot and stocking and detached his wooden leg. Something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing any place but his own chambers. And not even in front of his own valet. He’d always dismissed the man first. Yet they were relatively alone in the park. He didn’t see any other riders who enjoyed the incessant drizzle of rain.

He wanted Helen to see all of him. Even the parts that were scarred and missing. And she didn’t shrink away from him. No, his Helen straddled his legs, touching his bare chest and dropping a kiss on to his wet shoulder. Her palms skimmed over the planes of his arms.

‘I love your muscles,’ she said, dropping another kiss on his opposite shoulder. ‘Is that very naughty of me?’

Mark brought his hands up and cupped her face before slanting his mouth towards hers. Helen’s lips were chilled from the rain, but they warmed up quickly in their hot embrace. Her hands roved his chest and then into his shorn locks. His tongue did battle with her own, but he nearly lost all control when she sucked on the end of his tongue.

He gently pulled back or there would be full on debauchery on this beach. ‘Shall we swim?’

Helen pressed one more hard kiss to his mouth, before standing up. Mark watched her unbutton her red riding habit and take it off. She slipped off her boots and stockings. Watching her undress in the rain was erotic. She even stepped out of her dress, until all she wore was a light shift that skimmed the top of her knees. With the help of the rain, it left very little to his imagination. In her own way, Helen was showing all of herself to him, too.

She stood smiling, letting him look his fill before she said, ‘Meet you in the middle!’

Helen ran into the water, causing a great splash. Once she was waist-deep into the lake, she dived.

Mark would have loved to get on to his feet and follow her in, but he was able to scoot himself down to the water with his hands and one leg. He dived deep underneath the water and stroked with both arms. His body soon forgot the cold. Kicking and splashing, he even forgot that he was missing a leg.

In the water, he was weightless.

In the water, he was fast.

But not fast enough—Helen beat him easily to the centre of the lake. She trod water, waiting for him to swim to her side. He stopped stroking just short of her, but close enough that the waves carried her hair on to his shoulders.

‘Now what forfeit are you going to pay?’ she asked with a smile.

Mark took off his glove. Treading with one leg was rather difficult, but he managed it. Using one arm to keep him afloat, he held the ring with his other. ‘A ring.’

Helen held out her hand to him and slipped it on to her ring finger. It was a little large, but they were in freezing water after all. ‘Do I get to keep the man and the ring?’

Mark smiled. ‘A little greedy, aren’t you?’

She shook her head, bobbing up and down in the water. ‘It’s survival of the fittest out here.’

His heart warmed despite being in the middle of a cold lake. ‘Lady Helen Stringham, when I first saw you, I thought you were a fairy queen. You were too beautiful and ethereal to be real. But I discovered that you were not a figment of my imagination. That you are a brilliant naturalist, an avid gardener and a wonderful friend, who happens to know a great deal about the reproductive habits of spiders, swans, lions and snakes.’

Helen sunk a little in the water, before buoying herself back up. ‘I am terrible at small talk and will make an awful countess. I don’t like people or parties.’

‘Then we won’t have any,’ he said, swimming closer to her. ‘I am not looking for a hostess or someone to talk about the weather. I love speaking with you about any and everything that flits through that brilliant brain of yours. And one detail that you told me has stayed most in my mind—you said that swans mate for life. You said that humans were more fickle, but I don’t think that’s true.

‘I mean to be true to you for all of my life and to love you, long after I have drawn my last breath. You taught me how to dance again. How to live every moment of my life to the fullest. Helen, I love you. I don’t want a countess. I want a wife. Will you marry me?’

In typical Helen fashion, she threw her arms around his neck and caused them both to sink under the dark waters. Mark kissed her gently, before releasing her to swim back to the surface. Helen emerged laughing, throwing her wet hair back with a splash.

Mark caressed her cold cheek with one hand. ‘I think I might have missed your answer?’

‘Yes. A thousand, million, billon times, yes. But we must visit Hampford often.’

‘I promise.’

They swam hand in hand, occasionally dunking each other as they kissed. Helen was a snake after all. When they reached the shore, they pulled on their wet clothes.

Helen’s bonnet was full of water and she had to pour it out before she put it back on, laughing. ‘I suppose Mama will insist on St George’s for the wedding.’

Mark grimaced. He was getting more used to others’ attention, but he didn’t want to stand in front of a crowded cathedral with his cane. ‘Are you sure we can’t just elope?’

‘Have you ever been to Gretna Green? The most famous town in Scotland after Edinburgh.’

He attached his artificial limb, shaking his head. ‘No. But there is always a first time.’

Helen laughed and danced around with an ease that he knew he would never be able to match. ‘There is no need for us to elope. I am already one and twenty. I don’t need my parents’ permission to marry whomever I wish.’

‘Shall I get a special licence, then?’ he asked, the words half joking, half serious. ‘We could slip away one morning and get married in private. Just the two of us.’

She reached out her hand and helped him to his feet. She pulled him in for a wet, rainy kiss. ‘After, do we sail off into the Scottish sunset? To pillage and plunder?’

‘Always.’

‘Then yes.’

Mark lifted Helen into her saddle and mounted his own horse. He was too cold to notice the pain in his leg and too happy to care.