The Perfect Stranger (41 page)

He saw her and put down the pipes; they squawked dolefully as the air sagged from them. Then he straightened and folded his arms.

He would not come to her, she realized. This time it was she who must go to him. She took a deep breath and padded toward him. She got close enough to see his face and stopped dead.

It was a stranger.

“Who you?” she demanded. “What you do with my Tavish?”

“It’s me, ye daft little witch.”

She peered suspiciously at him through the dim light. “You not look like my Tavish.”

The stranger rubbed his chin self-consciously. “Aye, well, since ye seem to despise it so much, I shaved my beard off. I wouldna do that for any other woman, Estrellita, lass.”

“You take beard off—for me?” Her eyes ran over him, assessing the new look, and she gave a small, satisfied nod. “Is pretty, Tavish.” Then her face clouded. “Faith tell me you not understand why I no talk to you before.”

“Aye. I was only tryin’ to help ye.” He was hurt; she could hear it in his voice.

She nodded. “Tavish, with my people, after close relative die, woman must not talk with man, not for nine days. Is for show respect for dead one.”

His breath came out audibly. “So that was it.”

“Aye,” she said seriously. “So is all right now, Tavish?”

“Aye, is all right.”

“Good. Now can talk. Can do…anything.”

“Is that so? Then come here to me, lass, and we’ll see what ‘anything’ might be.”

She closed the gap between them with a joyful bounce, reached up, and rubbed the clean-shaven jawline. “Mmm, nice. You have good chin, Tavish. Strong. Look and feel good.”

He reached for her, and she skittered back teasingly. She gave him a smile filled with shy female promise. “I shave my beard off for you, too, Tavish.”

Her beard? For a moment Mac thought she’d got the word wrong, or that she didn’t understand what she’d said, but then he saw she was lifting her skirt, slowly, enticingly, and all coherent thought flew from his head. His throat thickened as the crimson skirt with the black lace edging rose higher and higher, exposing the prettiest legs he’d ever seen.

“Oh lord, lassie, you’re killin’ me.”

The black lace crept higher and higher. Mac was locked on it, unable to tear his glance away. She stopped just short of showing her privates. He held his breath, hoping for more. And then she smiled and lifted the skirt all the way.

And his jaw dropped. He stared, unable for a moment to comprehend. And then he saw. She had indeed shaved off her “beard.” He nearly choked.

“In my family, this how bride come to her husband.” She said it almost as a question.

Mac couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He was filled with lust, love, gratitude, and elation.

Estrellita explained, a little impatiently, “I choose you, Tavish. But I not virgin. You still want marry me?” Her voice was thready with anxiety.

“Och, aye, lassie, I want marry you. God, how I want!”

She still hesitated, wanting him to be sure. “The women in my family, once we choose, we choose until death. We take no other man.”

“That’s grand,” said Mac with enormous satisfaction, “I wouldna have it any other way. I’m a one-woman man meself. Now come here, my bonny bride, and kiss me.”

She gave a triumphant shriek and, bunching her skirts above her waist, she ran to him and leapt into his arms, locking her legs around his waist. She kissed him fiercely, planting rapid kisses all over his clean-shaven face. And Mac knew he would never grow a beard again.

Faith and Nick lay on the cool earth, gazing up at the myriad twinkling stars. They’d made love and now lay wrapped in a blanket, enjoying the tranquil beauty of the night.

Nicholas’s arms tightened around her. “Do you know what I’m thinking about?”

“What?”

“I’m thinking about the future. Making plans!” He kissed her. “I’ve never done it before—I’ve never had a future to plan for. You don’t when you’re a soldier—it’s tempting fate. And since I stopped being a soldier…well, I never had a future then, either.” He pulled her close. “It’s all thanks to you, my dearest love. You gave me a future. You
are
my future.”

“Oh, Nicholas. And you did the same for me.”

After a time he asked, “And what are you thinking about?”

“Darkness,” Faith answered with a happy sigh.

“Are the moon and stars too bright for you?”

She laughed. “Of course not. No, I was just remembering my dream—you know, the special one I told you about—the one that made me think Felix was my destiny. I had forgotten about the darkness. In my dream, the music came out of darkness, played by a man in darkness.”

“Oh?”

She sat up on her elbow and looked at him. “Don’t you see? Felix was
never
in darkness. He was always on a brightly lit stage.
You
were the man in darkness.”

“I certainly was. And you brought the light to me.”

She kissed him. “No, what I meant was—”

“What
I
meant was, you’re very beautiful bathed in starlight and moonbeams, my love, and if you think I’m planning to lie here and discuss old dreams when we can make new ones, you’re very much mistaken.” And he rolled over, bringing her with him, and began to make love to her with tender deliberation.

“I thought you’d ordered me not to spin castles in the air,” she murmured.

“Yes, but that was before I realized we had a future and would need somewhere to live,” he murmured. “I love you, Mrs. Blacklock. Now, do you want to talk or make love?”

She locked her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers. “Guess.”

Epilogue

Love is love’s reward.

J
OHN
D
RYDEN

CARRADICE ABBEY. NOVEMBER 1818

“A
ND AS WE SAILED AWAY ON THE EVENING TIDE, PORPOISES
followed the boat, leaping and diving in the most playful way and leaving trails of magical gold and green glowing fire behind them, like comets in the water. It was a truly marvelous sight to behold,” Faith finished telling her sisters.

She sat curled on a sofa with her twin, Hope. Prudence and Charity sat in squashy, comfortable chairs on either side of the fire, baby Aurora gurgling on a rug on the floor, her toes being tickled by her youthful aunts, Grace and Cassie. The last of the small aunts, Dorie, was showing baby Alexander to the dowager Lady Blacklock.

Faith watched them poring over the babies and smiled to herself. She squeezed her twin’s hand and whispered, “I’m not completely sure yet, but I hope to be making that lady a grandmother sometime next summer.”

Hope looked at her in surprise. “Me, too,” she whispered, and they hugged each other, laughing and wiping away the odd tear.

“It’s a secret,” Faith said, when the others wanted to know. “Twin stuff.” She wanted to tell Nicholas first, and she wanted to be sure when she told him. But her twin was different. They’d done everything together all their lives.

“Oh it’s so good to be home,” she exclaimed, hugging Hope for the hundredth time.

All the Merridew girls had come together again at Carradice Abbey, not to greet Faith—for her homecoming was a huge surprise all around—but to welcome to the family its newest little member, Alexander Gideon Oswald Carradice, nearly three weeks old. The christening was set for the following week.

Faith and Nicholas had arrived in London to find nobody home at Great Uncle Oswald’s. His butler had informed them that everyone was gone to Carradice Abbey for the new baby.

They’d gone next to see Nicholas’s mother, who broke down in tears when she beheld the son she thought never to see again, alive and well and with a beautiful, warmhearted wife. They’d brought her with them to Carradice Abbey to meet the rest of the family.

“I remember the fire in the water in Italy, too,” said Prudence suddenly. “You know, I’d forgotten all about it until you described it just now. It truly does look magical.”

“Prudence says you can swim, Faith,” added Charity.

“Oh yes, it’s the most wonderful feeling.” She glanced at the younger members of the family and added with a discreet twinkle, “But it must be a husband who teaches you.” She winked. Her sisters blushed and smiled secret smiles.

“I shall insist on it,” murmured Prudence.

“I wish you had brought Estrellita with you,” Grace said, oblivious of adult concerns. “I’m longing to meet her. She sounds fun!”

“She is, and you will meet her eventually, but Estrellita and her husband are in Scotland now. She’s meeting the rest of the McTavish clan. But Mac is coming to work at Blacklock, so you will meet Estrellita soon enough.” Faith added, “And if Stevens succeeds in his mission, you might even get to meet the lady who called me ‘
la petite tigresse.
’”

“The French cook lady you wrote to us about?” Charity asked.

“Yes. Stevens said he was inspired by all the romance in the air. He was off to propose to her. He thought she might agree to cook at Blacklock, but Nicholas remembered that the landlord of Blacklock Inn was looking for a buyer, so he bought it. A much better solution, I think, as I suspect that lady would not take at all well to being a servant.”

“Speaking of inns,” Aunt Gussie interjected majestically, “I’ve just recalled some news that would interest you, Faith. It seems that a certain Count Felix Vladimir Rimavska was set upon in Paris by a group of ruffians who bundled him in a sack and ran off with him. Yes, shocking, I know!” She glanced around at her avid audience. “The count seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. Isn’t that extraordinary? It happened around the same time as Sebastian and Oswald made that visit to Paris, but alas, men never pick up gossip.”

Ignoring the immediate outbreak of questions, she selected a sweetmeat from a silver dish and inspected it closely. “Oh, and the other news—much happier—is that a Bulgarian lady called Mrs. Yuri Popov had her missing husband—he’d been missing for years—restored to her. And just as happily, she came into a small fortune.” She bit into the sweetmeat. “Being a woman of enterprise, she purchased a pig farm. Now dear Yuri Popov is up to his knees in pig swill by day, and by night he performs in the inn owned by Mrs. Popov’s four brothers. Four, large, very protective brothers.” She gave Faith a bright smile, “I do so enjoy happy endings, don’t you?”

“Pig swill?” Faith giggled. “Do you know, I haven’t given that man a thought for ages. Nicholas has quite ousted him from my mind.”

Aunt Gussie patted her knee. “Good girl.”

Just then the gentlemen came into the room; Great Uncle Oswald first, followed by Gideon, Edward, Sebastian, and Nicholas, all talking and laughing as if they’d known each other for years.

“Brr, it’s gettin’ demmed chilly.” Great Uncle Oswald declared as he made straight for the fire. “Well, young Faith, you’ve ended up with a fine husband, even if he did beat me at billiards! I must say, I thought you’d jumped from the fryin’ pan into the fire when you wrote to tell me you’d married a feller you just met—and in France of all peculiar places! D’ye know what sort of crazy risk you took, girlie, marryin’ a perfect stranger?”

Faith slipped off the sofa and hurried to slip an arm around Nicholas. “No risk at all, Great Uncle Oswald. You said it yourself.”

Great Uncle Oswald looked up. “Eh? What’s that? What did I say? Gussie, what was it I said?”

“Lord knows, Oswald. But he does have lovely big hands, I noticed.” Aunt Gussie winked at Faith, who blushed, recalling Aunt Gussie’s scandalous theories about the size of men’s hands.

Faith leaned against her husband, marveling yet again that she’d been so lucky. “You just said he was a perfect stranger, Great Uncle Oswald, and he is. The absolutely perfect stranger for me.” She looked at her sisters and added in an increasingly watery voice, “And he’s given me laughter and love and sunshine and happiness, just as Mama promised.”

Nicholas gazed down at the woman who’d given him so much. “Whatever I may have given you,” he said quietly, “You have given me much, much more.” And in front of her entire family he gathered her to him and kissed her hard and long.

“That’s all very well,” said Aunt Gussie testily when the cheering and clapping had died down, “but if you had a grain of sense, young man, you’d have kept her
out
of the sun! Sun is ruinous for a young gel’s complexion, utterly ruinous!” She looked at Faith and shook her head. “You’re brown, my girl—brown as a berry! It’s face packs for you, my gel, face packs of lemon and crushed strawberries for the next few weeks—if not months—though where on earth we’ll find strawberries at this uncivilized time of year—and in the country!—I have no idea!”

About the Author

Award-winning author
Anne Gracie
spent her childhood and youth on the move. The gypsy life taught her that humor and love are universal languages and that favorite books can take you home, wherever you are. In addition to writing, Anne teaches adult literacy, flings balls for her dog, enjoys her tangled garden, and keeps bees.

Visit her website at www.annegracie.com.