Cay pushed at him to get him off of her. “If you’re going to lie to me and act like you didn’t know the true story, you can just go back to wherever you were and stay there! You said, ‘They were the most ill-matched couple in all of Christendom,’ so I know that you know the whole story.”
“How in the world do you remember every word of a sentence that was spoken over a year ago?”
She ignored his question. “I’m not going to be treated like a little girl anymore. Not by you or anyone else!”
Alex began to kiss her neck. “You mean your mother told you about your father being dirt poor and your mother wallowing in gold? That truth?”
“By all that’s holy, but I think you’re already laughing at me. I’d think that you’d at least put that ring you bought on my finger before you began making fun of me.”
“I couldn’t wait.” He put his leg over her thighs.
She turned to look at him, taking in the sweet familiarity of his face and thinking how very much she loved him—and always would. On the ship home, her mother had told her in detail all that she and Cay’s father had been through before they married. All her life, Cay had been told sweet, perfect stories—lies, actually—about their courtship. But the truth had been very different, and Cay had been shocked to hear about the many similarities between what her mother and she had been through. When her mother told her about shaving Angus and seeing that he was handsome under all that hair, Cay told about throwing shaving water in Alex’s face.
“Just dirty water?” her mother asked. “I shot at your father and nearly killed him.”
Wide-eyed, Cay had listened to every word of her mother’s story.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Alex asked.
She started to tell him what she’d been told, but now was not the time. Instead, she glared at him. “If you think you’re going to use me before marriage, you have another think coming.”
“Use you? I remember a time when—”
With a hard shove, she rolled out from under him and held out her left hand. Her expression told him what she wanted.
With a sigh of defeat, Alex sat up. “What makes you think I have a ring? Ah, yes, Nate. He’d see no reason to keep the fact that I bought you a ring a secret.”
“Of course my brother told me what you were up to, even to your trips to London jewelry stores. And he told me about that woman’s husband giving you horses, and that you purchased the farm from my father. Nate said you wanted to rename it McDowell’s, but it’s going to be called Merlin’s Farm or I’m not going to live there. Did my brother tell you that Uncle T.C. took my paintings from the Florida trip to London to present to the African Association, but they said a female couldn’t have painted
such pictures, much less have traveled into the inner reaches of Florida, so they want nothing to do with my drawings?”
“I know, love,” Alex said softly. “He did tell me. But don’t worry, we’ll figure out something. And you can call the farm anything you want. I brought a dozen horses from England with me, and I got Tarka back.” For all that Nate had seemed to tell “everything,” Alex was well aware that his friend had told no one that in England Nate had met a woman very much like himself. But then, Alex had seen that Nate had no idea how affected he was by her.
“And I hear that your father came to America with you,” Cay said, bringing Alex back to the present.
“Aye, he did, and my prize money from Charleston was returned to me, and I added to it with a few races while I was in England.”
“So now you’re rich,” Cay said, sitting on the grass a few feet from him, her eyes looking as though she meant to devour him.
“Not by the standards of your father, but I can support a wife.” He smiled. “And a child or two.”
“I’m going to have nothing but girls.”
“A wise choice. I’ve met your brothers.”
“What’s wrong with my brothers?” she shot back, but when she realized he was teasing her, she glared at him. “I’m going to get you for that.”
“Please do,” he said, and when he opened his arms to her, just as he’d once imagined, she fell into them.
Enjoy a preview of Jude Deveraux’s
newest novel in the Edilean Series
Scarlet Nights
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA
I THINK WE’VE FOUND her,” Captain Erickson said. His voice was forced, showing that he was working hard to control his jubilation.