out a long, slow sigh. Then she grabbed
Tom by his lapels. “That, Tom Harper, you great looby,
is the cleverest thing you ever said.”
She kissed him. That lasted for all of half a second
before Tom took the lead in the embrace. As he
wrapped his arms tighter around the woman he loved,
he found himself quite taken with his earlier notion.
A love letter to his wife, wouldn’t that be a fine thing
for a man to do with his new lettering skills?
MARCUS PUSHED OPEN the door of the front parlor,
whose situation suggested it was the best in the house.
“Constance—” He stopped. None of the three people
staring at him was his wife. A mother and daughter,
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both weeping, and a father who looked as if he, too,
might be shedding tears.
“Excuse me.” Marcus closed the door quickly and
went in search of the innkeeper. Who informed him that
Lady Spenford had insisted on sharing a smaller parlor
with two other travelers, in order to allow a recently
bereaved family some privacy as they mourned their
son.
Marcus thought of those stricken faces. Thought of
how it would feel to lose a child—his and Constance’s
child—and wanted to howl. Constance had done the
best thing; of course she had.
“Could you please conduct me to my wife?” he
asked.
The back parlor was still pleasant, but considerably
smaller. A maid was setting a table for dinner. The
space was almost crowded by its four occupants. An
older lady with her companion, a young man in
foppishly high shirt collars. And Constance.
She sat in a rustic-style rush-back chair, her head bent
over her needlework. The candlelight lent a coppery
sheen to her hair, and as he watched her profile, the
straight nose, pointed chin, the pale column of her
throat, all in harmony in this moment of concentration,
he was captivated by her beauty—the beauty of her
nature. It shone like a beacon, drawing him to her.
“The Earl of Spenford,” the innkeeper announced.
Constance’s head snapped up, her sewing slid to the
floor.
“Marcus?” she breathed. Wholly inappropriate to use
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THE EARL’S MISTAKEN BRIDE
his Christian name in a roomful of strangers, but what
would she care about that?
What did he care about that? Nothing!
“My lady.” His own sense of propriety was far harder
to shake off, but he put all the warmth he could muster
into his voice and his eyes as he walked toward her.
She rose. “Is something wrong?”
“Very wrong.” He took both her hands in his. Behind
him, the old lady sucked air between her teeth in a way
intended to convey disapproval. The young man had his
eyes on Marcus’s cravat, tied in the complicated
Oriental style, and didn’t look away as a gentleman
should.
Ah, well, so be it.
Marcus went down on bended knee.
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Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Marcus!” Constance squawked. “What are you
doing?”
“Come back to London with me, Constance. Come
back and be my wife.”
She was struggling to make sense of the fact he was
here in the first place, let alone begging her to go back
with him.
“Why?” she asked. “Marcus, what’s going on?”
“I’ve missed you horribly.”
Embarrassed, she glanced around the room. Shouldn’t
these people at least be pretending not to listen? “I’ve
been gone eight hours,” she hissed.
“It feels like eight years. If you won’t come for my
sake, come for my tenants’. I plan to expand the school
and I need your help.”
He was raving like a lunatic.
Constance turned to the innkeeper, still standing in
the doorway, agog at the earl’s misconduct. “It seems I
will require a private space, after all, landlord. Is there
somewhere my husband and I can talk?”
He offered them the last empty bedchamber. As
Constance gathered her things, in her fluster taking
twice as long as she should have, Marcus picked up the
embroidery frame she’d dropped when he walked in.
“You finished it?” he asked.
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THE EARL’S MISTAKEN BRIDE
“Almost,” she said, distracted. “I’m on the last letter.”
He read it aloud: “‘He will beautify the humble with
salvation.’” He smiled. “You are the most beautiful
woman I know, Constance. In every sense of the word.”
She gasped.
He took her elbow. As he steered her from the parlor,
the old lady said, “Vulgarity!”
The landlord seemed to think much the same, going
by his curt manner as he showed them to their room.
“You realize you’re ruining your reputation,”
Constance told Marcus as the man left, still trying to
comprehend that he thought her beautiful.
He laughed, almost giddily. “Too late, my darling,
my reputation is already in tatters.”
His darling?
He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed her knuckles.
A thrill coursed through her.
With difficulty she recalled herself to the reality of
their history, their situation.
“Marcus—” she extricated her fingers “—you sent
me away. We agreed this was the end. Whatever the
reason you want me back, it’s not enough. There’s
nothing left to say.” Please,