Page 81 of A Duchess Worth Ruining
He grinned, relief washing through him like sunlight breaking through a storm. “You know, that is exactly what Mason told me.”
“Clever man,” Evelyn laughed and then pulled him into a fierce embrace, burying her face into his shoulder. He held her close, never wanting to let go.
From the other room, faint gasps and giggles could be heard. Cordelia’s voice carried, not very quietly, “Well, it’s about time.”
Hazel added dryly, “Indeed. I was beginning to wonder if I should lock them in a room together.”
Evelyn gave a muffled laugh into Robert’s cravat. He smiled, kissed the top of her head, and whispered against her hair, “Shall we go tell them I’ve ruined your elegant townhouse with declarations of love?”
She looked up at him, eyes gleaming. “Yes. But I think they already know.”
That was when the girl trio erupted back into the drawing room.
“There they are!” Cordelia squealed, clapping her hands and nearly bouncing on her heels. “Took you long enough!”
“I was starting to think we’d have to draw up another contract for you two,” Hazel said dryly though her eyes were warm with amusement.
Matilda pressed her hands to her chest, eyes misty. “Oh, thank heavens. I was so afraid…”
Robert barely had time to register the explosion of movement before Cordelia rushed forward and threw her arms around both him and Evelyn in an enthusiastic, if slightly chaotic, embrace.
“Careful,” Evelyn laughed, half-laughing, half-sputtering against Cordelia’s shoulder.
“Careful, my foot,” Cordelia said, pulling back just enough to grin up at Robert. “Do you know how unbearable she’s been since yesterday? Brooding and noble and packing all her things like a tragic heroine. We were about a minute away from writing to the theater to get her cast in a drama.”
“She’s exaggerating,” Evelyn objected, her cheeks taking on a pink hue.
“Only slightly,” Hazel added with a smirk, setting down a tray of newly poured tea she had somehow wrangled back into the room. “Though I must say, Your Grace, if you had any intention of showing up heroically, you chose the perfect moment to end this story with a happily ever after.”
“I try,” he said, smiling softly at Evelyn. Then, glancing back at the women with mock gravity, he added, “Though I must make a correction to your assumption.”
The room fell briefly still. They looked at him expectantly.
“This,” he said, gesturing gently between himself and Evelyn, “is not our happily ever after. Not yet.”
Cordelia gasped theatrically. “What?!”
Robert chuckled. “It’s only the beginning.”
There was a beat of silence before Matilda let out a small, delighted laugh, and Cordelia groaned, “Oh, now you’re going to be one of those romantic husbands. This is unbearable.”
“Let them be romantic,” Hazel said firmly though her mouth twitched. “They’ve earned it.”
Evelyn leaned into Robert’s side, her fingers threading through his. He glanced down at her and found her already looking up at him.
“Besides,” Evelyn said, “I quite like being at the beginning of something.”
Robert bent and kissed her forehead, murmuring, “So do I.”
Cordelia made a gagging sound, Hazel rolled her eyes fondly, and Matilda just beamed.
Robert looked around the little drawing room with the soft afternoon light warming the edges of the rugs and drapes, the scent of tea and rain still clinging faintly to the air, the company of the women who had become, in their own way, part of his life too. That was when he thought, for the first time in years, that perhaps he had come home, not to a place but toher.
Matilda’s voice, gentle but edged with urgency, broke through the swell of laughter.
“Your Grace,” she said, stepping forward slightly, her smile faltering into something more solemn. “What happened with Laurence?”
The room quieted. Evelyn stiffened slightly beside him, her hand tightening in his. Cordelia and Hazel exchanged glances but said nothing, sensing the shift.
