Page 39 of Always the Lyon Tamer
John saw the pleasure glow in her cheeks when addressed by her new married name, but he could not allow such pronouncements to go by unchecked.
“Always knew? How?”
His older brother shrugged. “You are so different when with Miss Darby—my apologies, it will take me a little while to acclimatize myself to your new title. Lady Lennox.”
Becca glowed. “I, too, am finding it a challenge.”
“I noticed it when we first went to the opera—nay, at Axwick’s wedding,” William corrected himself.
John grinned. “I am surprised you even noticed we were there, considering how obsessed you became with Lady Charlotte.”
The gentle teasing prompted a nudge from William. “Well, can you blame me? Look at her!”
The newlyweds tilted their heads to look over at the Duchess of Mercia, who was seated on a sofa on the other side of the room, her young boy in her arms.
William sighed. “But I am serious, John. If you had just told me that you were thinking of Miss Darby, I could have helped you. Charlotte could have—”
“Don’t you be thinking of offering your wife out as a chaperone, you brute!”
John laughed. The interloper to their conversation who had spoken so boldly to the Duke of Mercia was their youngest sister, Prudence.
“She has you bang to rings, William,” he said easily as Becca giggled at the mock outrage on her new sister-in-law’s face. “I know Charlotte has said goodbye to the chaperone life.”
“Well, perhaps,” admitted William. “But still, I stand by what I said. Your wife brings you alive. Any fool should have seen it.”
“What you mean to say, though you are too polite to say it,” said Becca teasingly, “is that I have tamed him!”
The siblings and Becca laughed, and John wondered whether any other day would top this. Here he was, surrounded by the people who mattered the most to him in the world, laughing and jesting together.
His shyness had not mattered, not in the end.
Prudence had snorted in a most unladylike way at Becca’s words. “Tamed him? John? My word, Rebecca, I do not envy you that task, and I would say Honora would agree. Have you seen her, John?”
Something twisted at his heart. Prudence may be the youngest of the four Lennoxes, but it was always Honora he worried about.Especially after…
“No,” he said quietly. “Though I would not pay much attention to my memory at the moment—I can barely remember the church service, and that was only an hour ago!”
Becca squeezed his hand. “As long as you do not use that as an excuse to wiggle out of our marriage!”
Ignoring the crowd around him and the proximity of his sisters, John did what came naturally in that moment; he swept his beautiful wife into his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips.
“Oh, John!”
“I have no wish to see that!”
“Put that poor woman down!”
John was grinning as he broke the kiss, and so was Becca—though admittedly, her cheeks were hot.
“I will never forget about you, don’t you worry,” he said quietly, so only she could hear. “You tamed me a long time ago. I just did not know it.”
“No, I am sure she is around here somewhere,” said Prudence. “I will continue to search. Honora?”
In a swish of skirts, she was gone.
“I don’t know, worrying about Honora,” said William with a shake of his head. “We cannot simply continue to treat her like a—careful!”
The head of the Lennox family rushed away, arms outstretched, and as John looked over, he saw little Elizabeth, the youngest member of the family and William’s toddling babe, had tipped over, bumped her little head, and was now screaming fit to burst.
