So it's short and I might combine it with the next chapter, but have a hectic social calendar for the next three days so I hope I can upload again tomorrow, If I can't, I'll put up either the first few parts of Em and Seb's story, or Imogen's... :) hugs xxx
Chapter 21
By law it was imperative that forty days should at least pass between the contract and the marriage; during which dreary interval the couple, leashed together like two young greyhounds, would have time to think of the future.
~ The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (The Last London Editor; 1860)
“Look! Look!” Sophie Weatherly commanded excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she pointed frantically out the windows of Henry’s study. “Look! Here they come now!”
Henry and Delores joined Sophie by the window where she had been acting sentinel since Gabriel and Victoria had disappeared into the trees. With some surprise, Henry bore witness to his ornery, arrogant grandson holding hands with his obnoxiously belligerent ward. Not that he didn’t want this to occur, but he had had serious doubts that it would occur as suddenly as it had. Looking at them now, strolling amiably towards Hawthorne, fingers laced together, one would never had thought that a couple of weeks ago they could not stand the sight of each other.
“Oooooh,” Sophie cooed, squinting hard through the glass, “they’ve had a good romp, they have!”
Henry rumbled with laughter while Delores frowned disapprovingly at the mad old bat who had uttered those offensive words. “I hope,” she told Sophie, “that you are incorrect.”
As she spoke, Henry watched as Gabriel ceased his easy lope and leaned in close to Vicky, plucking what looked like leaves and twigs from her decidedly tousled mop of hair. Henry thought that Sophie was quite right in her observations. It confirmed them in his mind when Vicky suddenly threw her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his lips that was definitely not acceptable for societal standards.
“Oh, God,” Delores bemoaned also witnessing the unchaste embrace. “This was a terrible idea, Henry! We should have known Victoria’s scruples were as loose as-”
Sophie cackled delightedly. “They,” she declared, one gnarled and pointy finger thrust into the air for enunciation, “seem to me like a couple in love. Fear not, I am confident they will marry!”
“Sophie is right,” Henry told Delores with a grin. “I am quite sure they are engaged, so we must not add to Victoria’s embarrassment by letting on we are aware of what went on this morning. They will marry, I am sure of it now.”
The two people on the lawns began ambling slowly towards the house again, hand in hand, when something Victoria said to Gabriel made him suddenly haul her over his shoulder and carry her to a nearby bush, her laughing screams carried up to them.
Henry and Delores politely turned their backs to what thereby ensued. Sophie, she of little shame, stared on blatantly.
“Perhaps we should go down to breakfast,” Henry suggested, clearing his throat, “and wait for them there.”
“I concur,” Delores agreed hastily.
Sophie, on the other hand, had to be physically manhandled away from the window.
***
Vicky was quite sure she was in love.
This feeling of lightheaded giddiness, of utter contentment in Gabriel’s company, could only mean one thing.
Surely?
She certainly believed she was.
Her world was brighter, if that was possible. She noticed the clarity of the blueness of the sky and the stark contrast of the green grass. Birds sung with unsurpassed loveliness and even the flowers bloomed brighter and wilder just for her. It was a wondrous feeling, a fulfilling feeling, that filled her heart and her soul, making her happy, content.
Gabriel had, kind of, asked her to marry him.
She had, after some deliberation, accepted.
He had then proceeded to make earth-shattering love to her that made her entire body quake with sensation. Just the memory of the feeling of him inside her sent waves of fiery liquid heat to pool at that now tender point in her belly. He had then proceeded to make her feel even more senselessly pleasured a second time in the forest, this time making sure he was leisurely about it and stripping her down so that she was naked under him and he had fulfilled a promise then- he had devoured her, her whole body, for what seemed like hours. And then he had made love to her for the third time amid the roses on the way back towards Hawthorne.
Her heart was going to burst.
She couldn’t stop smiling.
“You look,” Gabriel noted with an indulgent smirk, “like a woman who has just been satisfied three times. Best you stop smiling.”
They stood poised to enter Hawthorne and all Vicky could do was grin at him. She was a fool. “I can’t help it,” she told him honestly.
“Understandably.”
“Conceited man. Are we going to enter?”
He considered the door for a moment. “I can think of other things I’d rather do,” he murmured suggestively with a blazing look in her direction.
God, she loved that look.
“Again?”
He waggled his brows teasingly. “We can always say we got lost,” Gabriel taunted.
Vicky rolled her eyes although there was still a smile on her lips. “We are going to have to say that anyway. Breakfast is almost over.”
He grinned and drew her to him in one last breath-taking kiss that left her quaking down to her very toes. It was amazing how he could instil within her that powerful yearning for his body with just one look or touch. To her flustered and dazed expression, he grinned unrepentantly and said, “We should really go in now and break the news to everybody.”
Without waiting for a response, Gabriel took her arm and ushered her inside.
Only Henry, Delores and Sophie were still at the breakfast table. It was drawing late in the morning for breakfast in the country so it came as no surprise that the other guest at Hawthorne had already partaken and left.
“Did you enjoy your hike?” Sophie asked with a note of eagerness as Gabriel and Victoria took their respective seats at the table.
“Very much so,” Gabriel said slyly. “In fact, Victoria and I have an announcement-”
“You’re engaged!” Sophie trilled, happily clapping her hands together.
“Er…” Gabriel looked over towards his grandfather who merely raised his brows at him as if to say well, are you? “It’s true.” Gabriel shrugged.
“Oh, thank God,” breathed Delores.
“I can safely say for everyone present,” Henry amended with a quelling look in Delores’s direction, “that we are greatly pleased with this announcement and your sudden fondness with each other. It is a great relief, indeed.”
“I did not realise our matrimonial bliss was of such import to you,” Gabriel drawled.
“You were made aware from the outside that it was our preference that you two wed each other,” Delores informed them. “We are exceptionally pleased that you managed to come to the understanding on your own.”
Realisation dawned pure and sudden within Vicky. She turned to Delores with accusatory eyes. “You deliberately sent us on that hike, didn’t you?” she blamed. “Nobody else was made aware.”
“Well,” Sophie interjected smoothly. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Remarkably well.” Gabriel’s comment was directed at Victoria and it caused her to blush furiously. Drat the man.
“As long as Victoria is content in firmly putting aside that ridiculous desire for Africa-”
Oh, God. Africa.
She had completely forgotten about it this morning after Gabriel proposed. Lord, everything could go to pot if she didn’t rectify that terribly mistake on her part. She would have to get upstairs and write a note to Dani informing her to either not send the missive to Captain Doyle, or cancel it completely. Either way, it was imperative that she did so immediately.
“Victoria? Are you even listening to me?” Delores demanded impatiently.
Startled, Vicky looked at her questioningly, wondering just how much of the conversation she had actually missed. All she desired, however, was to dart upstairs and send the letter to Dani. She practically quivered with the urge.
“I beg your pardon. What was that?”
Delores pursed her lips, irked. “I said we can be assured that you will no longer desire to hightail off to Africa. Is this correct?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.”
How she managed to get through the rest of the interview without another hiccup, Vicky didn’t know. Throughout the ceaseless ebb and flow of conversation about the forthcoming wedding, in which a date was set a month from now and guest of importance were discussed, Vicky only contributed minimally, her mind set on what she would write to Dani and the urgency with which she would do so. She must have sat in terse anticipation for well over an hour before she was allowed to dismiss herself and retire to her room, whereby she hastily scribbled a note to Dani and bid a footman deliver it to her London address with all due haste.
Once that was done, she allowed relief to consume her as she lay on her bed. It followed her when she unwittingly fell asleep, shrouding her in contented bliss as she allowed her mind to linger on the atrociously handsome man she suddenly found herself in love with.