Valor Under Siege (The Honorables) (24 page)

• • •

Elsa clapped a hand to her mouth to cover an inelegant snort. Sheri
had
been remarkably chatty, even by his own loquacious standard. After dragging her from shop to shop—not to make any purchases, because all the merchants had closed for the by-election, but only to gawk through the windows—and declaiming over every architectural feature he found interesting, Elsa had finally had enough.

“What’s gotten into you?” The village streets were abandoned, as everyone in Fleck had crammed onto the green. Her question bounced off the close-set stone houses.

Sheri’s fingers went to his waistcoat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Elsa slapped his wrist. “Don’t you dare pull that quizzing glass out on me, Sheridan Zouche, and quit playing coy. You’re chattering like a magpie. Something’s amiss.” A dreadful thought occurred to her. “Is it Arcadia?”

“Arcadia is in perfect health. She sends her compliments.”

“Then what?”

Sheri released a sigh of long suffering. He led her to a bench in someone’s front garden and gestured for her to sit beside him. “Do you remember when I proposed to you?”

She drew back and regarded him, bemused. “I do. But it’s too late to do anything about that, my darling Chère. Though your wife grew up in a harem, she would take exception to any attempt you make at establishing one of your own.”

Sheri’s lips quirked at her reference to Arcadia’s childhood in India. “Flattered though I am that you would consent to be my second wife—”

“I refused you, if you’ll recall.”

“—that was not the object of my inquiry. I was thinking about what you told me that day, that you would only marry again for love.”

His brown eyes settled on hers. “Is there to be a wedding, Elsa?”

She ducked her face and examined her hands folded demurely in her lap. “There’s ... no, Sheri, there’s no wedding.”

“Might there be?” He nudged her with his shoulder.

Lately, Elsa had wondered that very thing. After her unhappy union with Harvey, Elsa had embraced her status of financial and social independence and vowed she’d never again marry for anything less than love. After several years of enjoying the company of lovers in her bed but experiencing no deeper sentiment, she’d begun to think Elsa Fay was not meant to love, or to be loved. But now she rather suspected that had been Guilt and Shame talking, for in recent weeks, her heart had blossomed with love for her quietly dignified and mildly stuffy Norman. It still thrilled her to know that no other woman shared her knowledge of the sensual, erotic, not-at-all-stuffy side to him. If she had her way, no other woman ever would. She slanted a look at Sheri and gave him an enigmatic little smile. “Perhaps. We shall see.”

“Be happy, my dear,” Sheri said, pressing a brotherly kiss to her cheek. “That’s all I ask.”

“I will. But certainly,” she said, rising to her feet, “the only announcement you can expect today is the one that shall be coming down from the hustings. Let’s return to the green.”

And so she was taken entirely by surprise when Norman dropped to one knee right there on the muddy green with most of the borough looking on.

“Elsa, I love you,” he began, and just like that, her eyes began to fill. “I don’t know what’s going to happen here”—he jerked his chin toward the hustings—“or what I’ll do if I don’t win. The only thing I know for certain about my future is that I need you in it.” A chorus of
awwww
rose up around them. “You’re utterly marvelous in every way. Your intelligence astounds me. Your wit brings laughter to my days. Your strength inspires me to be better, to try harder, because no one has to try as hard as you, but you do it, every day, without complaint.” Elsa brought her hand to his cheek. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm. “You are so beautiful, Elsa. I’ve thought so for years, but you’ve become even more so to me since I’ve come to know your keen mind and loving heart. When I look at you, you’re radiant. An angel.”

Somewhere nearby, a woman sobbed, “
I just love weddings!”

“I’ve little to offer but my heart and my promise to spend the rest of my life as your friend, your lover, your helper, your partner in all things.” In the absolute silence that had fallen over the green, she heard the racing of her own heart as it galloped toward joy. “Is that enough, Elsa? Will you marry me?”

She nodded. “Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

A thundering cheer erupted. Norman’s face split in a wide grin, and he jumped to his feet. “
Yes? Really?
” she read on his lips, for she could not hear his voice over the deafening approval of Whigs and Tories alike. “
Yes
,”
she mouthed in return.

Then his arms were around her, and he dipped her back. Elsa squealed and threw her arms around his shoulders. “I LOVE YOU,” she yelled, determined to be heard.

His fingers tightened on her back in acknowledgment; then his mouth swooped down on hers. Elsa brought a hand to his jaw, loving the feel of the muscles working there as he opened his mouth and delivered a hot, passionate kiss that made her head whirl and her body ache. She clung to him all the harder, feeding the kiss back to him and arching against his chest.

The crowd once more grew silent, and only then did Elsa fear they may have become a mite bit indecent in their embrace. Norman must have had a similar thought, for he lifted his head and rolled his lips inward, looking rather abashed.

“The votes have been tallied,” called the clerk. Elsa startled. She’d forgotten all about the blasted polling. “With a final count of 172 to 143, the vacant seat in the House of Commons for the Borough of Fleck goes to Mr. Norman Wynford-Scott!”

The crowd went wild again, and Norman crushed Elsa to his chest with renewed intensity. Laughing, he spun her in a circle. The hustings, the green, and hundreds of faces all became a blur, a whirlwind of color and sound and a bellowed cry of “
Nooooooorm!
”

In the center of it all was her one fixed point, this giant among men, her heart, her hope, her love.

When Elsa’s monthly courses did not arrive, the plan for having the banns read were tossed out the window and Norman rode hell-for-leather for London and a special license, then turned right around and returned to Fleck, accompanied by The Honorables and their wives, as well as his father, stepmother, and litter of half siblings. Poor Apple still had not quite recovered from his brief, glorious career as a proper horse, but Norman had upped his ration of sugar lumps to aid the beast’s convalescence, and Elsa rather suspected the animal of malingering.

The wedding ceremony was small, attended only by those companions from London and a few of Elsa’s closest friends in Fleck. Sheri escorted the bride down the aisle and gave her away. Norman’s father stood up with him, and Elsa was curious to see that while there was an unmistakable resemblance between father and son, the elder Wynford-Scott did not share his offspring’s prodigious height. But he had Norman’s kind eyes, and when her new father-in-law smiled at her so sweetly and hugged her and thanked her for making his son happy, tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Of course, everything made her cry these days.

On the upside of marrying in haste, her request that the hustings be left intact for the time being had been humored. So after the ceremony, the church bells pealed and the doors were thrown open onto a glorious spring morning. On her husband’s arm, Elsa crossed the green. Everyone in the borough who cared to attend showered them with rice and flower petals. The hustings had been transformed one last time into a bower dripping with flowers, greenery, and swags of airy tulle.

Norman clasped her hand tightly as they mounted the stairs. “Careful, darling,” he couldn’t help saying. “Mind your step.”

She slanted an indulgent smile at her husband, and her heart melted at his look of anxious concern. The coming months might be as difficult for him as for her.

On the hustings platform, their waves were met with cheers and shouted wishes for health and happiness. Norman pulled a purse from his pocket, and they tossed pennies to the children gathered at the front of the crowd.

There was music and dancing and an abundance of food—but no alcohol. Even Mr. Denny had shuttered the Rabbit’s Glen for the day out of respect for the newlyweds’ wishes for sober festivities. As it happened, there were no complaints, as all felt they were well done by with Mrs. Wynford-Scott’s creative concoctions to sample.

Elsa danced with Norman, then Sheri, and then she lost count of the villagers she’d spun circles with, until Norman claimed her once more—only to make her sit down and rest a few moments. While they shared their little respite, the local tanner hurried over and tugged his forelock.

“Congratulations and felicitations on the day, missus. You’re the prettiest bride since my own Sal, and that’s the truth,” the man said, his slouched hat clutched to his chest. “I wondered if I might have a word, sir. You said to let you know if ever there was anything you might be of help with.”

“Of course,” Norman said with a nod. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, you see, sir, I’m a Roman Catholic, so I didn’t get to vote for you in the by-election, even though I wanted to and would have done. I’m an inhabitant of the borough and head of my household, but I’m denied the franchise on account of my faith. And well, Mr. Wynford-Scott, sir, that’s wrong.” The fellow screwed up his mouth and nodded. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

Norman glanced at Elsa. She nodded.
Go on
, she silently said with a tilt of her head. Norman clapped the man’s shoulder. “What do you know about petitioning Parliament?”

Hours later, Elsa was gasping in her husband’s arms, her body singing from the exquisite orgasm that had her seeing stars. “God!” she exclaimed, turning her head to the sweaty and rather pleased-with-himself man who’d rolled off her and lay at her side. “I still can’t credit that you were a virgin until I had my wicked way with you. You’re awfully good at it, you know.”

He grinned impishly. “I had an excellent tutor.”

“And you always were quite the scholar. I should have noticed your latent potential sooner. I’m fortunate no other lady scooped you up.”

“
Damned
fortunate.” He grabbed her around the waist and rolled onto his back, pulling her onto his chest.

Laughing, naked, and utterly replete, Elsa took her husband by the face and kissed him soundly. “I love you,” she said when she lifted her head to catch her breath. “I love you.”

Later still, she sat on the edge of her bed, opened the drawer in her little nightstand, and withdrew her journal. The book naturally fell open to the pages where she kept count of her days without liquor. She turned to a fresh page, smoothed her hand down the crease, then took up her pen and made a single mark.

Norman’s whisker-roughened chin came to her shoulder blade, his hand rested lightly on her belly. He kissed her neck. “What’s this, love? Why are you starting your count again?”

“This,” Elsa explained, tapping the tally mark and feeling the wonder and love of all it represented, “is the first day of the best of my life.”

THE END

Dear Reader,

If you're like myself and other historical romance lovers, there's a fair chance you've learned a lot about our favorite time period just through reading wonderful stories set in the Regency era. You know what a reticule is, what it means for a young lady to make her bow, and how a man who's been to Gentleman Jackson's has passed his time. However, when we start venturing too far beyond ballrooms and estates, our understanding may get a little murkier.
Valor Under Siege
required a fair bit of research and learning on my part, so I thought I'd pass along some information regarding the British legal professions and the electoral process during the Regency era that may be new to you.

Just give me a moment to swap out my writer's cap for my history nerd chapeau…

For Americans and other non-British readers, you may know that a barrister and a solicitor are both practitioners of the law, but you may not understand the difference in their scopes of practice (as they existed during the Regency. If you want details on current British legal practice, look elsewhere!). In exceedingly brief terms,
lawyer
applied to anyone who practiced the law. A
solicitor
or
attorney
was a lawyer who specialized in British civil law. If you needed to draft a will, sign a contract, or find loopholes in that pesky entail, you'd hire a solicitor. Men who wished to become solicitors were educated in civil law at universities. Because they charged fees for their work, solicitors were (gasp!) in trade. While they could be respectable, upstanding members of the community, they were not considered gentlemen.

Barristers
were lawyers who argued cases in court—trial lawyers, if you will. Criminal defense or prosecution, lawsuits, etc., were matters handled by barristers. Their specialty was British common law, which was learned at the Inns of Court, a system of law schools in London that still exists today. Gray's Inn, where Norman studies and resides at the beginning of this novel, has been an institution of legal scholarship since at least the late 1300s, and possibly earlier. Students at the Inns of Court had already completed a university education (or passed an examination demonstrating their proficiency in classical learning). A minimum of four years at an Inn was usually required before one could be called to the bar, but my research shows that eight to ten years was a typical length of time for young men to spend in their studies before finally becoming barristers. Clients did not directly engage the services of a barrister. If you needed an advocate to plead for you in court, you would first hire a solicitor, and the solicitor would then engage the barrister on your behalf. Barristers did not receive direct payment. Their fee was passed through the intermediary of the solicitor as a “gift” or “consideration.” In this way, they were not technically (gasp!) in trade, and could retain their status as gentlemen.

On the election front, the process I describe in
Valor Under Siege
may seem strange to you. Elections during the Regency were carried out under what we now call the Unreformed system, which was basically a hodgepodge of local traditions. The rules regarding who could and couldn't vote varied from borough to borough (though in all cases, only men had the franchise). My fictional borough of Fleck is what was called an
inhabitant borough
, meaning all adult male householders residing within the borough and not receiving poor relief were eligible to vote.