Page 154 of The Summer Country

“It is a benefit,” admitted Emily, looking up at him, devouring his familiar, beloved face with her eyes. She loved all of him, even that ridiculous mustache. “I want to marry you because I believe you’re the only man I could ever bear to live with. And because I love you.”

“High praise, indeed.” Nathaniel choked on a laugh. “When you put it that way, it all sounds so simple.”

“Isn’t it? If it’s not, it ought to be.” He hadn’t let go her hands, which Emily took as rather a good sign. “The people who matter to me won’t shun me. Laura’s door will always be open to me; my uncle and aunt would never turn me away—they haven’t yet, despite considerable provocation. As for the rest, aren’t I better off without them? I like your family. I don’t think they would close their doors on us, would they?”

“One might wish Cousin Bella would.”

“Your cousin Bella was an absolute brick,” said Emily stoutly.

“A very noisy brick,” muttered Nathaniel.

Emily fixed him with a stern look. “I would choose her over the entirety of Miss Blackwell’s Academy for Young Ladies. As for the rest, if we’re not invited to the governor’s next Viennese breakfast, so be it. I wouldn’t want to be received by the sort of people who would stop receiving me for marrying you.” Emily glanced up at him sideways. “You don’t really want to go to West Africa, do you? If you do, I would go with you, but I would far rather stay here. I’m not really the missionary sort.”

Nathaniel gave a shout of amusement. “Aren’t you? You would have half the village rebuilding their huts and the other half organizing a benevolent society within a week.”

“I’ve given up ordering people about,” said Emily.

“No, you haven’t,” said Nathaniel, looking at her so tenderly that Emily wondered if it was medically possible to melt into a puddle on the spot. “I wouldn’t have you any other way. And no. I have no particular interest in going to West Africa. It was purely a means of getting away and leaving you be. I thought that distance might do what time hadn’t. Or if worst came to worst, I could contract a strange and interesting disease and make medical history for the manner of my dying. Braithwaite’s Disease, they would call it, and you would read about it in the illustrated papers and think of me with a pang of loss.”

“Now you’re mocking.”

Nathaniel squeezed her hands. “Myself, not you. There’s your love token, if you like. I was prepared to offer my corpse to you.”

“I would prefer you not die of a strange disease, no matter how interesting,” said Emily. “In fact, I would prefer you not die of anything at all.”

“We all do, eventually,” said her practical lover.

“Yes, but not for some time,” warned Emily. “I intend to torment you and our children for many years to come.”

“Children,” said Nathaniel, looking down at her with an expression composed of equal parts wonder and alarm. “Heaven help us. They’ll be strong-willed, that’s for certain.”

There was a tentative knock on the door.

“Oh dear,” said Emily, trying to wiggle her hands free. “We left all your patients waiting.”

Without letting go, Nathaniel turned his head and said loudly, “We’re engaged. Come back tomorrow.”

“But what if someone needs you?”

“They can wait,” said Nathaniel, and looked at her in a way that made her bodice feel too tight and her clothes altogether too enveloping.

“Unless it’s scarlet fever,” said Emily, resting her hands against the wool of his waistcoat. She could feel the way his breath rasped in his chest, the way his muscles tightened at her touch. It was rather wonderful. “Or cholera.”

“You say the most romantic things,” said Nathaniel huskily.

Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her thoroughly and ruthlessly, kissing her in a way that made her bones turn to liquid and her head spin, and the room feel even hotter than it was.

Emily kissed him back, relying on enthusiasm to make up for lack of experience, her hands sliding beneath his waistcoat, reveling in the warmth of his skin through the thin linen of his shirt, kissing his chin, his neck, the cravat that got in her way until he ruthlessly tore it away, buttons loosening, hairpins tumbling to the floor, lips following hands, hands following lips, bodies and hearts in harmony.

When they could speak again, Emily said breathlessly, “Are we engaged?”

“After that,” said Nathaniel, running his hands up and down her arms as though he couldn’t quite bear to let her go, “I should hope so. I’ll get a ring and do it properly if you like. Unless you’d rather propose to me?”

“The queen did,” said Emily. “Propose to Prince Albert, I mean.”

“If it’s good enough for the queen . . .” said Nathaniel, laughter in his eyes, looking so amused that there was nothing for Emily to do but kiss him again, to kiss him and kiss him until neither of them was laughing in the slightest.

“I hope you don’t want a long engagement,” said Nathaniel seriously, resting his forehead against hers. Somehow, they had come to rest on the examining table, all of his carefully cleaned implements fallen willy-nilly on the floor near a smattering of Emily’s hairpins, Nathaniel’s impossibly wrinkled cravat, and a jacket that was currently missing at least two buttons. “I don’t think I could countenance compromising a vicar’s daughter.”