Angel's Touch (33 page)

Verity did not know
where to go, where to look. She paused uncertainly, her anguished
gaze fluttering to the corridor ahead, and then up the next flight
of stairs above her as she heard someone clattering down them.

‘
Wystan!’ she cried out, as she recognised Braxted flying
towards her.

‘
Was
that you shouting, Verity?’

She
did not answer, only seized his shoulders and shook him. ‘Take me
to your papa!’

The
boy gazed up at her in perplexity. ‘He’s in his room.’

The
grip left his shoulders, and she dashed a hand over her heated
brow. ‘Take me there!’

‘
But, Verity—’

‘
No
questions,’ she begged hoarsely. ‘Take me, Wystan, for the love of
God!’

‘
Come on, then,’ he shouted, catching a little of her
excitement, and sped off down the corridor that led from the long
gallery.

Verity was in no mood
to take in the labyrinthine route, nor to realise that her frantic
calling would not have been audible on this side of the house. She
only urged Wystan to hurry, every time he tried to ask her what was
the matter.

It did not occur to
her that the calm of the household argued against the tale she had
heard, so urgent had become her need to reach Henry. Only when
Wystan stopped at a door to knock, and she impatiently thrust him
aside and flung it open for herself, did she pause to think.

For there, standing in
his shirtsleeves before a dressing table, with his valet in
attendance, miraculously unharmed, stood Henry Haverigg, his
startled eyes turned towards the door.

‘
Henry!’ she cried out, and the wrapper
dropped from about her shoulders as she ran across the room, her
arms stretched out. ‘You are alive! Oh,
Henry!
”

Henry received her in
a comprehensive embrace that almost knocked him off his legs.
Incredibly he kept his balance, holding tightly to the body that
had unexpectedly descended upon him.

‘
Verity, my angel!’ he uttered in tones of astonishment and
delight. ‘What in the world brings you? My God, my God, have you
changed your mind?’

‘
They s-said you were dead!’ Verity sobbed, raising her head
from his shoulder and gazing adoringly into his face. ‘Oh, Henry,
it was all my fault. I should never have been so utterly, utterly
foolish. But I was so confused. Oh, Henry, Henry, say you forgive
me?’

Henry’s black eyes searched her face. ‘My darling, I am all
too ready to forgive you anything at all, but I don’t know what you
are talking of.’

Verity drew a little away so she could the more easily stare
at him. ‘But the accident! They said you had fallen from your
phaeton and been taken up for dead.’

‘
Oh,
that.’ He laughed in relief. ‘Is that all? Good God, that was
nothing. I took a fall, yes. Into some very muddy ground, let me
tell you. I have just taken a bath and changed my clothes, as it
happens.’

‘
But
they said—’

Henry smiled. ‘Come, now, Verity. You know how pale I am. No
doubt the country folk who saw Hoff heave me into the phaeton
thought I was at my last prayers. My doctor, Claughton, was not at
all pleased with me, but I am very much alive, as you can see. A
little bruised perhaps, but nothing serious.’

‘
Oh,
thank God,’ Verity uttered, collapsing on to his chest and crying
weakly.

She
was obliged to stop, however, because the marquis chose this moment
to kiss her, having first signalled to his open-mouthed son and his
disapproving valet that they would do better to leave the
room.

‘
Come, lend me your arm, and we will sit down,’ he said
presently, indicating a sofa that was placed before the window,
from which an extensive view of the gardens was
obtained.

‘
But
where is your cane?’ Verity enquired, slipping her arm about his
back so that he might lean on her shoulders.

‘
You
are my cane,’ he told her caressingly, as he unselfconsciously gave
her his weight.

She thrilled to the
words, and to the feel of his hip as it thrust against her in its
forward pull, the intimacy more dear even than the tender kiss with
which he thanked her.

When they were settled
in comfort, Henry removed her bonnet and gave her his
handkerchief.

‘
I
can only say thank God for the exaggeration of country folk,’ he
told her happily, ‘since it had the effect of bringing you here to
rescue me.’

Verity dried her eyes. ‘It is very well for you to make a
joke of it, but I know you were driving carelessly, for you were in
one of your black moods.’

Henry grinned. ‘Miss Lambourn, if you wish to be an arbiter
of my conduct, there is a penalty to be paid, you know.’

She
bit her lip, but the smile crept out. ‘I dare say I may guess
what
that
is.’

‘
I
dare say you may, since you are far from stupid. And,’ he added,
the black eyes wickedly quizzing her, ‘although you may not have
noticed in your agitation, you are now hopelessly compromised by
your presence in my bedchamber.’

Startled, Verity
looked about her, becoming aware for the first time of the opulence
of her surroundings, the huge four-poster bed that dominated one
side of the room. She made an instinctive move to rise and was
firmly restrained.

‘
No,
you don’t. We will remain here until I have your promise to marry
me.’

Verity turned to him, her eyes moist. ‘Oh, Henry, of course I
will marry you. I can’t think why I was making such a fuss. When I
thought you were. . .’ Her voice failing, she could only seize his
hand and hold it tightly.

‘
My
darling, I think I must have a very ignoble soul,’ Henry told her
ruefully. ‘To have you restored to me is like—like being released
from an iron cage. Yet I can find in myself a perverse satisfaction
that you felt something of the devastation I experienced this
morning, when I believed I had lost you.’

‘
Devastation?’ echoed Verity in staring
disbelief. ‘Dear Lord, I thought they had
torn out my heart
!
Henry, Henry, I love you so
desperately!’

Henry’s eyes blazed with passion, and he seized her in his
arms again in a kiss so forceful that the thought flitted through
her dizzying brain that she would swoon again. Flame seemed to
erupt inside her and she clung to him, responding to the violence
of his lips with a longing deep within her for that which she now
knew would soon be fulfilled.

When at last he let
her go, he was smiling at her with so much tenderness in those
black eyes that Verity wondered how she could ever have supposed he
did not care enough. His next words confirmed that he did.

‘
Verity, do you know that you are the most wonderful thing
that has ever happened to me in my whole life?’

‘
No,’ she said baldly.

Henry blinked. ‘What? Don’t you know how I love
you?’

Verity shook her head. ‘No. You never said so.’

He
looked blank. ‘Did I not?’ A little laugh was surprised out of him.
‘Perhaps you are right. To me it was so obvious.’

‘
Not to me,’ Verity said firmly. She lifted
a finger to trace a line down that pale cheek, no longer afraid to
speak of the thing that had driven her into such deep despair. ‘You
see, I had
Margaret
to think of.’

He
frowned as if the name meant nothing to him. ‘Margaret?’

‘
Yes, Meg. Your
wife.’

Recognition flashed in his eyes, but he drew her closer
within his embrace and put up a hand to caress her cheek. ‘Yes, I
see.’

‘
I
could not believe you might love me as intensely as you had loved
her. It seemed as though the manner of her loss would always keep
you from me.’

Now
he stared at her in amazement. ‘Good God, now I don’t see at all.
Are you telling me that is why you refused me?’

Verity nodded, a little shame-faced. ‘I was silly, I know,
but—’

‘
No, you were not silly,’ Henry interrupted.
‘It was a natural conclusion for you to make. It is I who was the
fool, not to see how it must appear.’ He seized her hands, holding
them tightly between his own, his black eyes locked on to hers. ‘My
darling, you don’t understand. Meg and I were never
in love.
I cared for
her, yes, of course I did. But not like
this
.
’

‘
What do you mean? You were
married
.’

‘
My innocent, Meg and I were destined for
one another almost before we were out of our cradles. It was
all
arranged
,
long before either of us knew
anything of the matter.’

‘
What?’ uttered Verity faintly, as ignorant of this aspect of
aristocratic affairs as she was of the rest of his public
life.

‘
Yes,’
he insisted.
‘She was the daughter of the Earl of Templand and Lady Margaret in
her own right. Rank and birth are of the first consequence in these
matters, and we both had wealth, too. It was an admirable match and
we were very dutiful. Fortunately, our respective parents saw the
wisdom of allowing us to become acquainted and we saw much of each
other as children. They took no chances, nevertheless, for our
engagement was announced at Meg’s debut and we were married soon
after. She was only just seventeen. I was little more than a year
older.’

‘
I
think that is terrible,’ Verity said, appalled.

He
shrugged, faintly smiling. ‘Perhaps. It is quite usual for persons
of our order, however, and we saw nothing amiss. We had no choice,
but we made no objections either. It was duty.’ He grinned
suddenly, and kissed the hands he still held. ‘But I already have
an heir, and I am now at liberty to please myself.’

Verity was too much
caught up in this revelation to be diverted by the pleasantry. She
released her hands only so that she could grasp his arms.

‘
Then, Henry, when she died—’

The
pale face shadowed a little. ‘When she died, I was responsible. I
grieved for her, more perhaps for her loss to the children than to
myself. But it was for the
waste
that I suffered most. It was I who cut her off in
the flower of her youth, and I must ever live with that knowledge.
If I had not found you, I cannot think I would long have survived
it.’

‘
Don’t speak that way,’ Verity scolded, but she softened the
words with a kiss, raising her hands from his arms to cup his face
between them.

‘
I
love you,’ he said softly, putting his lips to hers and with them
gently caressing her mouth.

But in a moment Verity
pulled a little away. Still she was not entirely satisfied, not
entirely convinced.

‘
But
Henry, had Meg lived, what then?’

An
expression of faint distress flickered over his face. ‘There, my
sweet, you have perhaps one of the unkindest twists of fate. Or
perhaps the kindest, who knows? For if Meg had lived, we would have
gone on in quiet content, accepting each other’s vagaries,
sometimes with impatience perhaps, even growing a little apart as
we grew older.’

He
slid his arm about Verity’s back and with his other hand cupped her
chin, tipping back her head so that her dark curls rioted about her
while his eyes roved her features.

‘
And
then I should never have known what it is to love a woman to the
point of screaming madness, to love her to the depths of my soul,
and to know that in all the world there is nothing I could desire
more than to walk with her beside me through the remainder of my
life.’

‘
Oh,
Henry,’ Verity whispered, and closed her eyes as she leaned forward
to receive his kiss.

Behind them the door
burst open. They came apart as if sprung, turning their heads to
see who had caught them so indecorously entwined.

‘
You’re going to be married!’ yelled Braxted from the doorway,
hitting the air with a triumphant fist. ‘Inskip told me, and anyone
can see it’s true!’

Held in his other hand
was his little sister. Tugging her along, he skipped towards the
sofa.

‘
I
brunged Peggy to see for herself. See, Peggy, they’re going to be
married, and I knowed it.’ He began to chant. ‘I knowed it, I
knowed it.’

‘
No-dit, no-dit,’ sang Peggy, her little face beaming as she
reached the couple on the sofa, putting up her arms in mute
invitation.

‘
I
hope you will like it, Peggy,’ Verity said, lifting the infant on
to her lap, her countenance wreathed in smiles.

Wystan looked from one to the other of them. ‘It is true,
isn’t it, Papa?’

Henry could not keep the happiness from his face. ‘Yes, it’s
true. Verity has consented to be my wife—and your new
mama.’

‘
Hurrah!’ Then the boy put his arms akimbo, staring at his
father with an air of great seriousness, and added, ‘She’ll keep
you happy, sir. No more brooding.’