Page 36 of Miss Hawthorne’s Unlikely Husband (The Troublemakers Trilogy #3)

Thornfield House, Mayfair, London

E lodia wanted to be mature and dignified.

She wanted to show Richard that she was grown enough to handle all of this without losing her composure, but more than that, she needed to know what Richard was thinking.

She’d torn down the street on foot, determined to speak to him before her father did.

She hadn’t considered what she would do if Richard was, in fact, not home.

Which was how she ended up in his house accompanying Ada and Basil while she played with her children. She made no mention of Richard, and chose to ignore the sly looks passing between Ada and Basil.

“I’m so glad to see you in better spirits, Ellie,” Ada commented.

“Ada, leave her alone.”

“I’m curious as to how long she’ll wait before saying anything.”

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, looking up at them and batting her eyes.

“Any recent events you’d like to put on the record?” Basil asked, handing his son a wooden block.

“You mean like the fact that I’m going to become your sister-in-law?”

“Or that fact that you kissed my brother in full view of half of London, based on reports,” Ada asked.

That was unexpected. “What reports?”

A throw pillow sailed through the air and bounced on her head. “How could you keep that from me?”

“Well, you know it now.” Elodia giggled and dodged another pillow, before picking up Young Ellie and holding her to her front to dissuade Ada from sending any more projectiles.

“Yes, because I had to claw it out of you, and don’t you think for a moment you are safe from Regina. She nearly shot my brother because she didn’t know the two of you were already engaged. Aunt Theo came here ready to tear off a piece of poor Richard’s hide.”

Elodia stared in shock. That was a good deal more than she had expected. She couldn’t imagine anything Ada had just described. Regina pulling a pistol on Richard? Aunt Theo being cross with him? It boggled the mind.

Just then, she heard a familiar low voice.

Was it him? She placed Ada’s daughter on the floor and sprang to her feet, running out the door.

She wanted to be mature. She knew she should wait for him to come to her instead of showing so blatantly how much she had missed him.

But then she saw him standing there in the foyer, still wearing his dark green frock coat, his thick dark hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes.

He was handing his gloves to the footman, but looked up as she arrived. His head tilted and his smile, the smile she associated with him the most, spread across his face.

“Hello you,” he said, and she ran across the foyer into his open arms. She buried her face into his broad shoulder and allowed herself to revel in the relief he brought. He chuckled against her, his hand smoothing over her back.

“I missed you.”

“So I see,” he teased, but his arms tightened around her.

“Did you miss me?” she asked, tilting her head back to meet his fond gaze.

“Always.” He slid his arm around her shoulders and walked with her up the stairs towards his office. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you, but what are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to see my fiancé. Since I can call you that now.”

His smile was almost bashful as he pulled her closer. “Have you spoken to your father since my last visit?”

“Yes, no luck so far. But I’ve made my position clear.”

“Good, so have I.”

“When did you speak to him?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded nonchalant.

“Today. He summoned me to Brooks for a conference. It didn’t go the way he intended.”

So she had been right in her suspicions.

Her father had tried to get around her by scaring Richard off.

It hadn’t worked this time, but there would be others and eventually Richard would run out of patience.

She’d only just gotten him, what if he decided that she wasn’t worth the trouble?

“He won’t give up. We’ll never get his blessing; we should just marry. ”

“We shall.” He replied, pushing open the door to his office with one hand as they entered.

“No, I mean now. Let’s go to Gretna Green,”

That stopped him in his tracks and earned her a puzzled look. “Whatever for?”

Was he joking again? “To marry, of course.”

He frowned and his arm slid away from her shoulders. He sat on his desk and turned her to face him, taking her hands in his. “There is no point in going to Gretna Green.”

“I disagree, there is no point in waiting for his blessing when he will never give it.”

“àirén, even if he will not give his blessing, there is no need to go to Gretna Green.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because we can marry in England without his blessing. Legally.”

“But—”

“Gretna Green is for those seeking to circumvent the law in some way or another. We have no reason to escape it. You are of age, I am of significant means, your Aunt Theo is on our side. Between her and Regina, we have a place to host the engagement and the wedding breakfast if needed. Let us post the banns and move forward with planning the wedding.”

“That will take a long time.”

“No longer than if he were to agree to the marriage. In fact, it may take less time this way.”

“So much can happen. You think he will just stand by and allow us to do what we wish?”

“He still can’t stop it.”

“He can delay us. He could do all kinds of nonsense.”

“He can try, of course, but I don’t think—”

“We do not need all of that, do we? I just want to be your wife, it doesn’t matter how.” Didn’t it bother him? Why wasn’t he concerned about this as she was? Did he not care?

“We need it if we wish to avoid the appearance of impropriety. We are breaking enough rules as it is.”

“Oh.” Somehow she’d never seen him as someone who would care about that sort of thing.

He had been happy enough to see her here waiting for him, but perhaps his patience had a limit.

It was her nature to push but she didn’t want him to grow annoyed with her so quickly.

If she insisted, he’d see her as childish and na?ve.

He hadn’t said he loved her yet, but he never would if she was a brat. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Ellie.” Suddenly, he was there, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly. “Where are you going?”

“You probably have work to see to.” And she apparently had a whole wedding to plan when they could have been man and wife within three days at the most.

“Did I say that?”

“No, but you brought us into your office. It’s a fair assumption.”

“I brought you into my office because I didn’t want an audience and my room is not an option at the moment.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t busy.”

He frowned again. “You didn’t care about my work five minutes ago.”

She looked down at her hands where they lay trapped against his torso. “I hadn’t seen it piled on your desk five minutes ago.”

His grip on her loosened and then his fingers were at her chin, lifting her face so he could see it. “Don’t do that. If there is something bothering you then say it. I won’t want you hiding from me.”

“Well… I want to marry you as soon as possible but you don’t.”

“That is not true.”

“It feels true. You want to do all that nonsense and risk my father derailing the entire thing instead of taking the easiest, simplest path to getting what we both want. It makes me feel as though you don’t want it as much as I do.

” She met his eyes tentatively to see him watching her with a thoughtful frown.

“You said you wanted to marry me. Do you really?”

“Yes, I do.”

“It’s so easy for you to be calm and reasonable. I cannot tell if I am impatient or if perhaps I was the easiest option for you instead of the only one as you were for me.”

“You think I’m marrying you because it’s more convenient?”

“Not exactly. More that it makes sense to marry me because I’m obviously willing and we suit. I am obviously happy that you’ve agreed to marry me, but agreeing doesn’t always mean that it is a priority. Men are different, aren’t they?”

He stared in silence, his expression unreadable. Was he upset with her? Or was he simply dismayed by her words?

“It would be alright even if it was. You don’t have to feel obligated to love me.

I know that—” His mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, cutting off her words.

She gasped against him and his hand gripped the back of her neck, holding her in place.

Emboldened by the memory of what they’d done in the garden that first afternoon, she tilted her head and parted her lips in invitation, hoping he’d take the initiative. He did.

Within moments, his arm was around her, hauling her against him and his other hand spanned from the back of her neck to the base of her head.

His sigh brushed against her mouth while his kiss became hungrier than ever before, and his hands firmer as they swept over her body from her back down to her bottom, molding her to him.

She wanted to focus on everything she was feeling, everything he was doing so she could learn more.

But just like in the garden, she kept losing her breath and capitulating to the sensations evoked by his hungry mouth and daring hands.

Those butterflies in her stomach kept swooping and sliding all over, leaving her giddy and weak as she clutched his shoulders greedily, arching into him, hoping for more.

He picked her up and spun her around, pressing her into a hard surface so she could feel everything from the corded muscles of his thighs to the firm ridge of flesh between them pressing into her stomach insistently.

Had she thought he was uninterested? Unwilling?

Had he simply been holding back for her sake?

Perhaps she should have stopped him or pushed back.

But her limbs felt like water and it felt too perfect to be held and kissed by him like this after days of being apart.

She wanted him to keep going, to show her that she wasn’t alone in craving him, or counting the days until she never had to let him go again.