Page 108 of Inconvenient Honor
Richard lowered Lily and let her slide until her feet touched the sand. Before he could help her into the yawl, she raised her chin and suggested, “Hortense.” As she started to laugh, Richard’s kiss silenced any opposition.
“We will call her Zambak,” he said. He lifted Lily into the boat and handed her their daughter.
Epilogue
Gibraltar, three weeks later, November 1819
Lily stared down at the date in the registry, clear and easily read in the chaplain’s elegant hand: June 15, 1819, her wedding date. Or so Richard had declared. It was, of course, five months from the actual date, but who would gainsay the Marquess of Glenaire? Certainly not the bride herself. No one would ever call their daughter a bastard.
Richard urged her to a chair while the army chaplain calmly covered the date with one hand and invited the witnesses, two local clerks in the army headquarters, over to sign. Obscure witnesses, they were unlikely to speak about it to anyone in London.
Lily glanced back at Andrew and Will sitting patiently in the rear of the garrison chapel. They would carry back to London the vaguely worded fiction that Lily and Richard met in Gibraltar in June, implying they married before embarking on their great “adventure.” Richard insisted it was almost true—a common law marriage at least—if only to spare his friends the burden of lying.
The two friends would leave in the morning, but Richard and Lily would stay for a few months to give Zambak time to flourish—and to make her age less likely to be questioned. As always, he had arranged life neatly to his own satisfaction. No one would dare question him.
A brief flame of resentment, quickly snuffed, flared through her.He is, of course, quite correct, as always—damn it.Still,Lily couldn’t fault her new husband for his determination to protect their daughter, and, she admitted, Lily herself.
She glanced down at the dress Richard had conjured for thewedding, beautiful for all it was locally woven in bright colors with Spanish, or perhaps Portuguese, motifs. He even located a nosegay of flowers somewhere on this barren rock, a thoughtful touch she never expected. She’d come to appreciate his drive to protect, even if it was heavy handed.
On that thought, she let out a yelp when her husband lifted her up into his arms without a by-your-leave. “I can walk! I’m not ill,” she protested.
With a nod at the smug (and probably richer) chaplain, he carried her out the door, their friends following. “I’m sorry,” he murmured in her ear. He didn’t even choke on the words he so rarely said.
“For carrying me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Whatever for, then?”
“I know it wasn’t the wedding of a woman’s dreams,” he said.
Will hurried past to chase a pair of monkeys off the donkey cart that had carried her out of town to the garrison.
“I didn’t even give you the King’s Chapel at the governor’s house,” Richard went on, lifting her into the cart, wrapping the soft red cloak he’d bought around her, and pulling her into his arms. Andrew hauled himself into the driver’s seat with his formidable upper body strength. Will climbed up after him.
“You’ve done well by our daughter. I’m content,” Lily said, her eyes only for Richard.
He paused, and the relief in his glance startled her. He dropped his head for a brief kiss as they clattered down the hill toward The Convent, as the governor of Gibraltar’s residence was called.
“I’ll make sure you are celebrated with a grand ball once we return to London,” he said. “We’ll place an announcement in the papers: ‘The Marquess of Glenaire has returned, having married Miss Lilias Thornton while abroad during the previous year.’”
“Do we have to?” she moaned.
“The ball or the announcement? It is true enough.”
“The ballroom will be full of inquisitive eyes and cutting conversation.” she shuddered.
“Nonsense. We’ll give them the Hayden family glare. It will stop them in their tracks.” He swallowed. “Even my parents won’t dare.”
“We’ll invite them?”
“Of course. Short of illness, they have no way to refuse, even when we invite Georgiana and Andrew.”
Will turned from his seat in front of them and cut in. “You’re a brave man, Glenaire.”
Richard gave him a haughty glare down his aristocratic nose.
“That doesn’t work with me, remember?” Will chuckled. “I suppose there is no arrangement for a wedding breakfast, either.” They hadn’t even told the governor the purpose of their errand. The less, Richard dictated, that the governor knew, the better.
