smirk at her. “Does this mean you’re not having a debut and hunting for a better husband after all?”
“Don’t be silly,” she teased. “My days as your mother’s project may be over, but that only means I now have to show off how well I’ve learned my lessons. So I still need a debut, which means we can’t marry for, oh, at least seven months, when the Season begins.”
“The hell we can’t. I am not waiting seven months to marry you, sweetheart.”
“Six, then?” she said, clearly fighting a smile.
“Three, when your period of mourning is up.”
She cast him a mock frown. “So you mean to deny me my debut, do you?”
“Not in the least.” He grinned. “You’ll just have to be presented at court as my new duchess.” He leaned close to whisper, “And the great thing about being a duchess, my love, is you get to say whatever you want—just as your husband does. We’ll be the outrageous Greycourts together.”
She broke into a smile. “Ooh, I do like that idea. Does that mean I don’t have to follow all those rules, either?”
He turned serious. “Except for one: You must keep on loving me.”
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “That one’s easy. Because I always will.”
Epilogue
Of course, Grey got his way concerning their wedding. Three months to the day from the death of Beatrice’s uncle Maurice, they got married.
Not that Beatrice minded. With so many relations around, she and Grey had never had the chance to be alone, so three months had seemed like three years. Especially since he’d been forced to spend time at his properties without her, arranging matters so they could go on an extended wedding trip in the Lake Country. Now all she had to do was endure this interminable wedding breakfast. Then she could have Grey to herself at last.
He and his family had honored her wishes—to be married at Armitage Hall. It was the only way to have her aunt and Gwyn and her cousins attend, since they were all still in mourning. Fortunately, no one considered it odd if a man like Grey married while in mourning, especially since the person who died had been his stepfather, not his father.
Grey came up behind her. “When can we respectably leave?” he murmured.
She laughed. “You’re asking me? I have no idea what rule that is. Your mother was too busy planning this to give me lessons in wedding behavior.”
Sheridan approached them accompanied by a stranger. “Heywood didn’t get here in time for the ceremony, but at least he made it in time for the breakfast.”
“Heywood? I would never have recognized you!” Grey said. “My God, I had no idea you were coming.” He enveloped the fellow in a bear hug as Beatrice stood back enjoying the sight of familial camaraderie.
Heywood looked a bit like Sheridan, but more like his father, with Maurice’s hazel eyes and high brow. And judging from the one portrait they had of a young Maurice, Heywood also had his father’s light brown hair, except that Heywood’s was streaked blond from his time on the Peninsula. He was as tall as Grey, though, which she could tell when the two men broke apart.
This was one important legacy of Grey’s putting his resentment of his parents to rest. His relationship with his family had become easier. Even Sheridan had said only the other night that Grey was more like the adult version of his ten-year-old self than like the scary chap who’d first come to see them at Armitage Hall.
Her reply was that no one had bothered to dig beneath the surface. If they had, they would have found the same little boy cowering in the corner as she had, though it had taken her time to unearth him.
Grey drew back and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Beatrice, may I introduce Colonel Lord Heywood Wolfe of the Tenth Hussars, who is also your cousin and my half brother?”
“And my baby brother,” Sheridan chimed in.
Heywood shook his head. “Sheridan always insists on saying that because he thinks it irks me. What he doesn’t realize is it merely illustrates I’m younger than he is.” He grinned at Sheridan. “Right, old man?”
“By one year,” Sheridan grumbled. “That hardly counts.”
“If you say so.” Heywood bowed to her. “And it’s a pleasure to meet the woman brave enough to marry Grey.”
“I don’t know where you got the impression that I’m some great terror to women,” Grey drawled.
“From Sheridan,” Heywood retorted, sparing a wink for