It could have been her imagination, but Mr Edgerton, whoever he was, muttered, ‘I cannot say I blame her,’ as he gave a stiff bow and stalked out.
Verity looked around, but she and Will were alone in the room, its heavy red-velvet hangings muffling all sound from outside. She should say something, but she had no idea what and, besides, how could words escape? She felt as though she had inhaled a great cloud of happiness and her lungs could not cope with anything as prosaic as words.
‘Did you mean it?’ Will asked, his gaze dark and intent over the few feet that separated them.
‘Of course. Did you?’ she said.
‘I would never lie to you, Verity.’ Then somehow they closed the gap between them and she was in his arms, hers tight around him, the hooped skirt tilting up and the metallic embroidery edging his formal coat scratching her cheek. The chapeau bras dropped to the floor unheeded from beneath his elbow. ‘These damned feathers,’ he growled, batting at them. ‘How is a man supposed to kiss you?’
‘I have no idea.’ She took a step back, her skirts swinging like a bell. ‘Will, that was the most—’
‘Embarrassing? Ridiculous? Shocking?’ he suggested, the side of his mouth tilting into that faint smile she found so irresistible.
‘The most romantic thing I ever heard of. Will, do you think we will be banished from Court?’
‘It would be a saving in ostrich plumes,’ he said. ‘Come here, my darling, turn around.’ When she did, he flipped up her skirts, caught hold of the strings that fastened the ludicrous cage of hoops, gave them a tug and they fell to her feet.
‘Will!’ But her shriek was muffled by her three feathers as they were tweaked from her hair, slid down her nose and fell to the floor.
‘Now that’s better,’ he said as he pulled her tight against him. ‘Verity Wingate, I love you. I have been in love with you ever since I fell into your excavation and you set your Druid on me. I just did not realise it until that day in the park.’
‘The day I fell out of the phaeton? But that is when I realised I loved you, too.’ She stood on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to the corner of his lips. ‘Why didn’t you say so, you provoking man?’
‘Would you have believed me? I decided I would woo you patiently over all the months of my mourning, hoping that eventually you would realise that I wanted to marry you.’
‘And I was supposed to just guess that you loved me?’ she demanded, indignant now. ‘We have wasted days.’
‘My only excuse is that I am new to being in love. We could make up for it now,’ he offered.
‘We are in St James’s Palace,’ Verity said with a faint shriek, making a despairing grab at some kind of restraint.
‘My darling, are you going to prove to be a boringly conventional duchess?’ Will enquired, looking up from his determined assault on her neckline.
‘No. No, I promise to be an absolute disgrace—but may I work up to it? Oh, that is...not start by being discovered in flagrante by the Chamberlain? Oh, Will, kiss me like that again. Don’t stop.’
Eventually he did and they clung together, laughing, shaking, trembling with frustrated desire.
‘If you can forgive me for stopping, how soon can we be married??
?? Will asked as they struggled to return their clothing to some kind of order. Verity stepped into her hoops and he tied them, smoothed out her yards of skirt and train like the most competent of lady’s maids. ‘You must forgive me, I have bent a feather.’
‘Never mind.’ She took them, threw the damaged one aside and pushed the remaining two into her coiffure. ‘I can only hope you know a way out of the Palace, Will. And I would like to be married just as soon as possible, because I do not think I can stand stopping and behaving respectably much longer.’
‘I do know a way out. And I have an idea for a wedding that will be exactly right, considering that we are both in disgrace and I am in mourning. I will take you back to Bruton Street and then call on my godfather again and hope I have not exhausted his good will.’
‘The Archbishop?’ she asked as Will opened a door, looked out and gestured for her to follow out into a deserted corridor. ‘For a special licence?’
‘For a very special licence,’ he agreed. ‘For a very special wedding.’
* * *
The dozen musicians were managing remarkably well, Will thought, considering that one of the violinists had fallen in the lake getting into the rowing boat and they were all crammed into a hastily made clearing behind the tiny cottage. He had been tempted to try moving the piano across, but Verity had explained that Miss Lambert would not have been able to play because she wanted her to be a bridesmaid.
He only hoped that none of the bridesmaids had fallen in. They must be on their way now.
‘Stop looking at your watch,’ his best man said.
Will looked down and grinned. Most people would have said that he should have asked one of his adult friends to stand as groomsman, but he had wanted Basil, the little wretch who had started this. Basil had risen to the occasion. He was neat as a new pin, scrubbed painfully pink and swore faithfully that not a single live creature was about his person. ‘Is the ring safe?’