it. I still do not. I am a dull fellow, Jessie. But I fell in love and have not fallen out since. Indeed, I have fallen so far in that I am quite certain I am a hopeless case.”
She snatched her hand away, turned sharply on the seat so that her knee was pressing against the side of his leg, and crossed her hands over her bosom.
“Gabriel!” she exclaimed. “You idiot!”
“Yes, I know,” he said, grimacing ruefully. “But it need not matter. We will still do a good job as earl and countess. We will still make a happy home, for ourselves and, if we are so blessed, for our children. We will—”
“Gabriel!” she said. “You are a double idiot.”
He stopped talking. He looked warily at her. Had he gone and ruined everything? He had hoped she might be cautiously pleased.
She pointed a finger at his chest and waggled it as she talked.
“If you do not tell me and show me every single day for the rest of our lives that you love me,” she said, “I will leave you and go home to my mother. Or else I will go about performing my duties with a permanent pout. And if I do not tell you and show you the same thing every day, then, then—Oh, stop!”
Because he was laughing, at first quietly and then helplessly.
“Stop it!” she said when he set one arm about her shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her across him to set her on his lap. “Stop it this minute, Gabriel.”
But she was laughing too, and they were still laughing when he kissed her.
“Stop it,” she said against his mouth.
He kissed her more deeply, and laughter subsided as she wriggled one arm from beneath his and wrapped the other about his neck.
“No, never, Jessie,” he told her when he came up for air. “Never, ever. I plan to keep on kissing you for the rest of our lives.”
“Well, there go all our other plans,” she said. “There is to be only kissing all day, every day, for the rest of our lives?”
“Don’t forget the nights,” he said.
“You are absurd,” she told him.
“I know,” he said. “I love you. Kiss me.”
She laughed. “You are still absurd, Gabriel. I love you too. I do. I really do.”
And she kissed him.
Laughter and absurdity were both forgotten long before they stopped.
Only love remained.
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK
IN MARY BALOGH’S WESTCOTT SERIES,
Someone to Cherish
COMING IN 2021
Lydia Tavernor was seated in one corner of Hannah and Tom Corning’s parlor, listening to the conversation of the people around her but not, at the moment, at least, participating in it. She was conscious of an inner welling of contentment as she looked about at the familiar faces of her fellow villagers and of a few people from somewhat farther afield. It was not exactly a party and was not a particularly large gathering, so Lydia was even more pleased, therefore, to have been included on the guest list for what Hannah had described as “an evening of cards and conversation with tea and cake.” The card games were over, and the guests were enjoying cake and pastries and tea while exchanging news and opinions and even a bit of good-natured gossip.
Sometimes Lydia felt a little guilty about her contentment, even when it did not well up quite as abundantly as it did this evening, for she had been widowed only fifteen months ago and perhaps ought to be still prostrate with grief. It was what some of her neighbors might expect.
Her husband, the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor, had been the vicar here for only three years before his sudden death, but he had made a lasting impression upon the community, both by his life and by the manner of his dying. He had been a young man—only thirty-three years old when he died—and handsome, vigorous, and charismatic. His eyes had burned with zeal in the service of his Lord and in his duty to the sheep of his flock. Apparently he had been a great contrast to the quiet, elderly vicar who had preceded him, though Lydia had never known Reverend Jenkins. Many people had considered Isaiah a welcome change. Some, it had seemed to Lydia, had even come close to worshiping him, almost as though they had put him in place of the very God he preached about. He had worked indefatigably for his church and his people. He had died by drowning while rescuing young