Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (42 page)

“His eyes did.”

Her father was fantasizing, she thought. “Then you saw more clearly than I.” She refused to delude herself
any longer. The love that beat in her breast had no twin.
“No, I looked for signs, Father. He was glad to see me leave.” She blinked, refusing to cry over the likes of Duncan. He didn’t deserve any more of her tears.

“Men like Duncan Fitzhugh are not tied to a single woman. Not when there are so many to choose from.” She lifted her head, suddenly realizing how sharply she had spoken. “I am sorry if I have offended you.”

Philippe laced his hand over hers. “You could never offend me, Beth. But it makes my heart heavy to see you so sad.”

Beth lifted her chin. “Then I shall strive to be happier.” She rose to her feet. “Come, join me in a walk, Father, and I shall school myself to be more even tempered for everyone’s sake.”

“No, Beth, for your own sake, never anyone else’s. Remember—“

“To thine own self be true,” she said, her voice blending with his. She laughed, though the sound echoed with sadness. “I shall try, Father. I shall truly try.”

Chapter Forty-two

When she saw him standing there, amid the roses, broad-shouldered and larger than life, Beth thought her heart would stop.

Her hand tightened on her father’s.

“Father, I think I need to lie down,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes fastened to Duncan’s form. He was dressed like one of the gentlemen who frequented her mother’s salon and was as far in appearance from the Duncan she knew as the sun was from the earth. “I am seeing things.”

The sight of Duncan made Philippe Beaulieu’s heart glad. From the corner of his eyes he saw his wife and daughters hanging back. They had obviously shown him in and directed Duncan to the gardens.

“If that is the case, I am as ill as you, Beth, for I see the same apparition.”

Taking her hand from his arm, Philippe strode forward until he was before the uncertain-looking man.
Oh, to be that young again, he thought fondly. And that
much in love. He shook his hand warmly.

“Mr. Fitzhugh, is it really you?”

Duncan felt like a fool in these stiff clothes, standing
here with people gawking at him. He had left Jacob at
Sin-Jin’s and made the journey here at Sin-Jin’s and Rachel’s urgings.

And at the intense urgings of his own heart.

But now that he was here, he wished it was in his own clothing, as his own man. These were Sin-Jin’s, pressed upon him in the belief that clothes made the man.

It was the other way around, Duncan thought.

He felt as nervous as a bridegroom just looking at
her. God, but she was even more beautiful than he re
membered.

“Yes, Doctor Beaulieu, it is I.” He licked his lips and fumbled. “I have come to see Sin-Jin.” Perhaps he ought not to call Sin-Jin by name in formal society. “The earl, I mean, I brought his reports to him. I—damn it, sir, excuse me.”

Duncan gave up all attempt at pretense. He strode past the man toward the woman he had spent a month and a half at sea for. No words were necessary as he enfolded Beth in his arms.

She felt as if she had died. Died and walked through the gates of heaven.

There would be no other way that this could be happening, no other reason to see him, to feel his arms
around her once more. Like a frozen waif warming her
self by the fire at long last, Beth rose up on her toes and lost herself in his embrace.

And when he lowered his mouth to hers, she gave up a small cry of joy as rapture filled her, pushing through and lighting every desolate corner of her soul.

She had no notion that her sisters and mother had fol
lowed the handsome young stranger to the garden after
admitting him in, or that they were watching now, along
with her father, as she kissed Duncan.

The whole world could have watched and she would
not have cared. All that mattered to her at this very mo
ment was Duncan.

“Scandalous,” Mary murmured reprovingly, her eyes
nearly falling from her head.

But there was a longing sigh in her voice. She had
never seen anyone kiss that way before, and it made her
very soul burn with secret yearning.

Dorothy blushed deeply and looked away. Such be
havior belonged between a husband and wife, and perhaps not even then. But it was not in her to deny her daughter this, not while her father looked on this way with approval.

“Under the circumstances,” Dorothy announced quietly to her shoes, unable to raise her eyes, “I think perhaps it is forgivable.”

Anne sniffed haughtily and raised her chin. “You’d never catch me kissing anyone so shamelessly.”

Kate merely laughed, knowing the way of her sister’s envy. “Then it would be your loss, Sister. I sincerely hope someone kisses me that way someday.”

Kate sighed as she watched and vicariously felt the
warmth of the stranger’s mouth and the eagerness of his ardor. She cast a covert look toward Andre, who was in the house, and dreamed.

The murmur of voices in the not too distant background penetrated some layer of Beth’s mind. She pulled back, thoroughly shaken. She stared at Duncan,
still not completely convinced that she hadn’t fallen into
some fever or was dreaming.

She remembered with sudden clarity the sullen way
he had looked as she had taken her leave. Obviously, he
had changed his mind on the subject.

The bastard!

Did he think her some puppet on a string to be yanked back and forth at will? “Why are you here?”

It was past the time for lies and for excuses. Past the time for trying to save his pride. If he had wanted that
preserved, he would have remained on Shalott. Duncan
placed his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes darkened. God, but he did love her eyes.

“Because I cannot function properly when my heart has been ripped out of my very chest.”

Oh, no, he was not going to blame that on her. “It was not ripped,” she retorted, fisting her hands at her waist. “You let it fall out.”

He knew that light which came into her eyes and
would not let himself be trapped in a senseless debate.
“Beth, I did not travel over a month and a half with only Jacob as my companion to argue with you now.”

“Jacob is here?” She looked around.

He cupped her chin and brought her attention back to
him. “Jacob is with Sin-Jin. I am here.”

Beth balanced her weight on her toes as she looked up at him, unafraid of the stern note in his voice. She
would not be shouted at or bullied in her own home. Or
anywhere else. “All right, why did you travel all this way?”

“Because I—“

Duncan looked toward Philippe, wondering if the man was going to be offended by what he proposed.
And then, the next moment, he damned himself for his
vacillation and for even the very existence of the ques
tion that echoed in the chambers of his mind. This very
feeling was what had caused him to lose Beth in the
first place
—
this feeling that he was not good enough for
her. His heart was, and that was all that mattered.

“Because I love you, headstrong, stubborn, and annoying though you are.” One of the girls in the background uttered a cry at his words, but he knew not
which and cared less. It was Beth’s reaction he was in
terested in.

Did he think he could just walk in and kiss her, after all the agony he had caused her, and then fling insults
at her? Did he think the single word “love” would com
pletely blot out the rest?

“I will not stand here and be insulted.”

She turned to go, but he grasped her hand.

Dorothy looked questioningly at her husband, but he
merely shook his head. This was between the young people, and he would give them their privacy.

Beth looked accusingly at Duncan.

“Then we shall go somewhere else, and I shall do it in private,” he told her.

Beth swallowed, knowing that if they were alone to
gether, it would not be insults that they were trading,
but something far more heated. And intimate. She could
not resist him for long if they were alone.

Still holding Beth, Duncan turned to face Philippe.
“Doctor Beaulieu, I am a simple man, and I have noth
ing to offer Beth that can compare with what she will be
leaving behind. But I request your permission to take her hand in marriage.”

Beth stared at Duncan, stunned and completely speechless.
 
.

Philippe heard his wife gasp behind him and attempted to keep a straight face as he looked upon Duncan. But his gratitude and admiration for the man
overpowered any whimsical momentary wish to appear
stern. He was too glad of the event.

“Not only her hand, but the rest of her as well.” Philippe’s eyes twinkled whimsically. “And I would say that what you have to offer her far exceeds what I have.” He laid a paternal hand upon Duncan’s shoulder. “You give her a strong, loving heart within the chest of a man who is fearless and compassionate. I could not have wished for a better man to ask for my daughter’s hand than if I had asked God to create you upon request.”

Withdrawing his hand from Duncan’s shoulder, he clasped Duncan’s hand between his own. “You gave me back my life, I give you my daughter. I do not have to ask if she goes willing. It is there, in her eyes.”

Philippe looked from one to the other and was pleased with what he saw. “I have but one request.”

“Name it,” Duncan said eagerly.

He had always wanted a son, Philippe thought. And now, in his later years, God had granted him not one, but two. “That the wedding take place here, so I might see the fulfillment of Beth’s joy. And that you return to visit me once in a while.” He looked at Beth and smiled, though a bittersweetness tugged at his heart. “For I shall miss her dearly.”

Beth bit her lower lip, which had begun to tremble.
“Father—“

But he would not allow her to interrupt him. “It is a father’s greatest wish to see his daughter on the arm of a man who would treat her in the same fashion as he had.” He took a deep breath, then, placing a hand on either of them, he urged them toward one another. “You have my blessings and my permission. And my heartfelt wish for your lasting joy. May the love I see here now exist for the rest of your days.”

He turned on his heel and saw the other women in his life still clustered in the doorway. Philippe stepped forward and herded them back.

“Let them have a few moments alone,” he instructed his daughters gently. “Before you swallow the man up completely.”

“Father!” Mary cried, shocked.

“You only wish that someone looked at you that
way,” Anne snipped, and she flounced through the door
way ahead of the others.

Kate smiled prettily into her older sister’s face as she followed Anne. “Or kissed you that way.”

Philippe merely shook his head as he hurried them on
their way. His wife took his arm, though there was a hesitant look upon her face as she looked back.

“Philippe, do you think it wise to leave them alone like this?”

He laughed softly at her question. “I assure you, dear wife, that nothing will happen now between them that has not happened before.” Walking into the house, he did not look back.

Whether or not he was finally here, he still had a debt
he owed her. Beth glared at him, remembering the many
nights she had suffered because of him, the tears she
had shed, the sorrow she had felt. He could easily have
spared her everything.

She wheeled on her heel as soon as the others had left. “So, you think you can come here and just take me? That I would be sitting here like some pining, lovesick idiot, waiting for you?”

He liked the light that entered her eyes when she took on this way. He leaned down, his face an inch away from hers, his mouth curved sensuously.

“Yes.”

Her mouth fell open. How dared he? Beth’s hand flew back, ready to strike the smirk from his face. “You arrogant son of a—“

He caught her wrist and held it captive. The smile never wavered, though there was a slight edge to it. Very quietly, he slipped her grandmother’s ring upon her hand. “Careful, woman, you are talking about the father of your future children.”

The smile that rose to her lips came slowly and flowered like a sunrise reaching its zenith. Love radiated from it, as well as from her eyes. She looked down upon the ring and watched it catch the sun. It was time to accept it, she thought. The ring and her love.

“Yes, I suppose I am, aren’t I?”

It was then that he saw it. His salvation. She was his salvation, redeeming him from the depths of the hell where life had cast him. And he would never take that for granted.

He took both her hands in his. “Beth, the last two and a half months were the worst I have ever spent, even worse than the two weeks I languished in the Tower, waiting to be hanged.”

“You never did tell me how you came to be there,” she reminded him.

He kissed the top of her head. “Another time, when we are lying in one another’s arms and the night that stretches out before us is long. The point is, my own men were about to hang me if I didn’t come here to you.”

So it hadn’t been his idea, but someone else’s? No, she thought, no one could make Duncan do what he chose not to do. Still, she could not resist teasing a little. “So they are to blame for your being here?”

He shook his head and said solemnly, “No, Beth, that
blame lies with you.”

“With me?” She laid her hand on his chest and felt
his heart beat beneath her fingers. Warmth began to curl
through her. “How am I the cause of your long travels?”

He took her once more into his arms and swore he would never let her free as long as he lived.