‘Neither have I.’
‘Then you do love me? After what I’ve done to you? Embarrassed you in the street, pried into your life, disapproved of your friends, kissed you in the most improper way, compromised you …’
‘… looked after me, saved my reputation, fought for me, made me laugh, made me want to behave in the most abandoned and outrageous manner?’
‘Then why would you not marry me when I asked you, you little wretch?’
Tallie regarded him in loving exasperation. ‘What, agree to marry a man who was lecturing me on how I was ruined and had to marry him? Marry a man whom I had just overheard telling his aunt all about his now useless plans to marry a well-connected nice young Society miss?’
‘Ah, I can see that would be a consideration.’ Nick regarded her steadily, all the amusement gone from his eyes. ‘It would have been a terrible mistake, that nice young Society miss. I would have been bored in a month. What I want—what I need—is a beautiful, scandalous, argumentative milliner.’
‘Is that a proposal, my lord?’
‘That is a proposal, Miss Grey. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ Nick stepped back, leaving her free, as though he did not want to constrain her answer any more than her person.
Tallie dropped a neat curtsy. ‘Thank you, my lord. I accept with all my heart.’
The sensation that this must be a dream—an impossible, wonderful dream—was swept away as Nick swooped and caught her up in his arms, carried her through into the attic and, setting her on her feet, proceeded to kiss her with a thoroughness that even the most torrid dream could not conjure up. This was indeed real.
Tallie finally managed to free herself and hold him off with both hands hard on his chest. ‘Nick, tell me truly, will your family be very shocked at such a misalliance? Because if they will be I could not bear to be the cause of any coldness between you.’
‘My aunt loves you already, William adores you like a sister, my assorted great-aunts and great-uncles who have yet to meet you will congratulate me upon securing such a charming bride and my dear mama, who is nursing a collection of completely imaginary ailments in Bath, will dote upon you. And, besides, I have a clinching argument.’
Tallie regarded the twinkle in his eyes with some suspicion. ‘And what might that be?’
‘The economy of having a wife who can make her own hats. Why, I need give you but a fraction of the dress allowance I would otherwise have to.’
‘You beast!’ Tallie seized a cushion off the moth-eaten sofa, which comprised the furnishings of the attic room, and swung wildly at Nick with it. He retaliated with its companion and the space was instantly a snowstorm of dust and feathers. Almost unable to breath with giggles and sneezes Tallie landed a telling blow just as the door swung open to reveal Zenna, a look of horror on her face.
‘Oh, no!’ she wailed and promptly burst into tears. Tallie had never seen her with so much as a dampness in her eye; appalled, she dropped her cushion and ran to put her arms around her friend.
‘Zenna dearest, what is wrong?’
‘I thought … I thought I was doing the right thing letting Lord Arndale in,’ Zenna hiccupped miserably. ‘I thought he really loved you, and all the time he just wanted to ravish you and you had to beat him off …’
‘Ravish her …!’
‘Do be quiet, Nick, can you not see that Zenna is upset? We were having a pillow fight, Zenna darling, that is all. He does love me, we are going to get married.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’ Tallie regarded her friend’s pink-faced embarrassment severely as she scrabbled in her pocket for her handkerchief. ‘But what were you about letting Nick in? You promised me that you would not.’
‘I asked him if he would send his daughters to my school,’ Zenna stated, blowing her nose defiantly. ‘And he said of course he would—so that makes him a prospective parent. And you agreed I might let those in.’
‘We would, would we not, my darling?’ Nick enquired.
‘Would what?’ Tallie was too amazed at Zenna’s duplicity to follow his question.
‘Send our daughters here.’
‘Our daughters? Oh!’ Tallie gazed at Nick, the blush spreading up her face. ‘You would like daughters?’
‘Two daughters and two sons seems a reasonable sort of number to me, but naturally it is something I feel we should discuss at considerable length.’
‘Excuse me,’ Zenna said with some firmness, her schoolmistress expression back on her face, the effect only marred by a very pink nose. ‘I should point out that this is a most improper conversation and that we should go downstairs, Talitha. I am sure his lordship will have many things to arrange and will be calling upon you on your return to London tomorrow. I will accompany you.’
Nick gave way with grace in the face of such a formidable front. His bow on the dusty threshold was a model of deportment and his face serious as he said, ‘You are entirely correct, Miss Scott. Miss Grey, I will call tomorrow afternoon if you will permit.’
He then spoiled the effect, much to Tallie’s delight, by seizing her by the shoulders and kissing her lingeringly on the lips. ‘Darling Tallie, I adore you.’ And he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The new Lady Arndale sat up nervously against the pile of lace-trimmed pillows in her big bed. Her bed, her suite of rooms, her house. Heronsholt, hazy in the evening light, a mass of grey stone and warm red tiles, the impression of a classical frontage and a hint of more chaotic wings behind.
But Nick had given her little opportunity to study the house nestling in its woods overlooking a sweeping Hertfordshire valley. He had ushered her past a confusing number of bowing and curtsying servants, delivered her into the hands of the beaming housekeeper and announced that dinner was required within the hour.
When she had joined him in the dining room there was a full contingent of footmen and an impressive butler to face. Tallie sent a look of pure panic down the length of polished mahogany to where Nick was getting to his feet and met his eyes. They were steady, confident, approving. Her chin went up and she returned the look with a smile that was suddenly calm. Her footmen, her butler—and she was not going to be intimidated by any of them.
Nick was at her side, holding her chair and she smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘Thank you, my lady,’ he whispered back. ‘Tomorrow we will have three leaves taken out of the table and will dine in comfort.’
But tonight he wanted her to impress the servants, she could tell. He had told her all their names on the journey from London, a dreamlike journey after the equally dreamlike wedding ceremony and the wedding breakfast organised on a lavish scale by Lady Parry. Flashes of memory came back to her: Millie looking radiant as she sang at her first private engagement, Mrs Blackstock in earnest discussion with Mr Dover as she explained the problems of finding reliable servants for three lodging-houses and Zenna shamelessly cornering Society ladies and lecturing them on the advantages of an education for girls at her select new seminary.
Nick had dealt with her obvious inexperience