The Wallflower Wager - Tessa Dare Page 0,83
how it got there.”
She tipped her head in reproach.
He exhaled, sounding resigned. “It’s not what you think.”
She turned her hand palm-up between them, letting the coin serve as its own accusation. “I think I know a shilling when I see one.”
“Look again.”
She looked down at the coin in her gloved palm, where its embossed face stood out in sharp relief against white satin. Light glinted off the surface, revealing the color to be not the expected dull silver, but a coppery hue instead.
Oh.
A sharp pang of surprise caught her heart. He’d been telling the truth. It wasn’t a shilling after all.
It was a penny.
A bright, newly minted penny. One he’d been keeping tucked in his breast pocket. Right next to his heart.
She drew a shaky breath. “Gabriel.”
His hands went to her shoulders—but it was his low, husky voice that reached out and drew her close. “You know the squalor I was born to. And you know I promised myself I’d never be that barefoot, starving boy again.”
She nodded.
“I have every luxury a man could desire. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in my accounts. I worked like hell to build a fortune, and yet . . .” His thumb met her cheek with a reverent caress. “Now I’d sell my soul for a Penny.”
She stretched up on her toes and placed a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek, nuzzling as they drifted apart. They stared into each other’s eyes for a time. She couldn’t have guessed whether it lasted seconds or hours, but she knew it was a sliver of always.
He held out his hand. “I’ll take that back, thank you.”
She surrendered the coin gladly, tucking it back into his pocket before straightening his lapels and smoothing his coat flat. “I’m going to walk down the aisle with a reddened nose and watery eyes. I hope you’re happy.”
He replied simply, “I am.”
Epilogue
Several years later
“I love you,” Penny said sweetly, as she did at least once an afternoon. “I love you.”
“Pretty girl.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“MRS. ROBBINS!”
Penny sighed and offered the bird a bit of crumbled biscuit. “Oh, Delilah. I’m not giving up, you know. One of these days, we’re going to get it right.”
Over the past few years, Delilah’s repertoire of phrases had indeed expanded, in many of the same ways that Penny’s life had grown.
In the first year of their marriage, Delilah had learned to mimic Bixby’s barking. She’d also mastered, “No, George! No!” which amused Gabriel no end.
By the following winter, Delilah had learned to imitate a newborn’s wail with such startling accuracy that she’d drawn both of them out of bed on many an early morning, after many a sleepless night. Gabriel found this significantly less amusing.
A few months more, and Delilah could hum the first strains of a lullaby. She’d learned to call out “Mummy!” mere weeks after little Jacob did.
For whatever reason, however, Penny could never coax Delilah into repeating those three little words. She’d dangled every flavor of biscuit in Nicola’s recipe book, to no avail. Surely the parrot was teasing her. She heard the phrase repeated often enough, and not only from Penny. This was a house full of love.
She decided to try one more time. “I love you. I l—”
“You’re still trying to teach that bird?” Gabriel entered the drawing room.
“Of course I am. I never give up.”
“Yes, about that.” He tugged off his gloves and threw them onto a side table. “Mind telling me why there’s a flock of sheep in the mews?”
“There are three sheep in the mews,” she said. “Three sheep are not a ‘flock.’”
“Flock or not, they are three more sheep than we had in the mews this morning.”
“They’re going to the farm, I promise.” Under her breath, she added, “Just as soon as they’re out of quarantine.”
The farm was the first purchase Penny had made with Mr. Lambert’s seized assets. They’d begun with a smallholding in Kent, but when a parcel of adjacent land had come available, she’d enlarged the place. They rebuilt the old farmhouse and added new barns.
The farm wasn’t only a home for unwanted animals. During the summer, it was their home, as well. Emma, Alex, and Nicola brought their families to visit. Last year, they’d even welcomed Bradford and his boys for a few weeks, just before the Michaelmas school term began—and Gabriel was actually civil to her brother, for the most part.
Gabriel sat down on a bench to remove his boots. “Where’s Jacob?”
“At the park, with Emma and Richmond.”
“The baby?”
“Sleeping.”
He dropped his boot to the floor and gave her a slow, wicked grin. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it is.” She walked toward the bench, moving with a coquettish sway in her hips. He caught her by the waist and hauled her into his lap for a slow, deep kiss.
“I love you,” he said. “You may never teach that damned parrot to say it, but you taught me. You’ll never hear the end of it now, pretty girl. I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.”
Penny laced her arms about her husband’s neck. “Fancy a fuck, love?”