Don't Tie the Knot Page 21
“I can help—” Georgiana started to say, but Hamish shook his head and headed to the estate house. Georgiana strode beside him.
Music wafted from an open window. The music was jovial and did not resemble the somber gentleness present at Almack’s that had rendered every country music song staid.
They entered the manor house.
“See that these go in the library.” Hamish handed the butler his materials.
“Certainly.” The butler tilted his torso in a downward direction while tightening the cap of the ink. He soon disappeared around the corner.
Hamish took Georgiana’s hand in his, not minding the rough feel of her lace gloves in the slightest. Perhaps people of their class refrained from showing open affection, though Hamish suspected this restraint stemmed more from unhappy marriages than virtue, but Hamish was not most men. Blast it, Georgiana was his wife and the presence of two delightful daughters in the manor house should prepare the servants for the realization that their relationship involved touching.
Hamish and Georgiana strode up the wooden steps to the ballroom. Paintings of the Highlands and Isle of Skye adorned the walls. The sober portraits of past ancestors could remain at Montgomery Castle: Hamish refused to feel driven by duty to solely serve them any longer.
The music was stronger on this floor, and he opened the door of the ballroom.
“Papa!” Footsteps rushed toward him, and first one daughter and then the other appeared. Hamish knelt, and they catapulted toward him, as if in training to be cricket balls in the hands of an expert player.
“I couldn’t keep them from dancing,” their nursemaid said.
“Dancing is good.” He grinned. “Can you show me?”
The girls squealed and clapped their hands.
“You should join them,” Georgiana said.
“As should you, my dear.”
They danced together, leaping to the sounds of a Scottish reel.
In the summer, when the roads were at their smoothest, they would make the journey to Norfolk to visit Georgiana’s relatives. Isolation was no longer something he believed in, and perhaps when Marianne and Lily were older, they might venture across the channel. His daughters would grow up to be curious.
“Don’t forget to admire the banquet table,” Georgiana said.
“I hope admiring involves tasting.” He sauntered toward the long table. Scotch eggs and haggis perched on blue and white china as if they were French delicacies, and he inhaled the rich scent of wild game beside them. Vibrant-colored punch lay in crystal tumblers, and fruit floated inside.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “As are you.”
Georgiana’s cheeks pinkened, but she smiled. “Your valet will want you to change into your evening clothes now.”
“I can be tardy. Let’s ask the musicians to play a waltz.”
“But it’s not Scottish.”
“I don’t care.”
He led Georgiana back to the dance section of the ballroom and murmured instructions to the musicians.
Soon the joyful strains of a waltz played, and he twirled and swirled his wife about the dancefloor as happiness jolted through him.
About the Author
BORN IN TEXAS, BIANCA Blythe spent four years in England. She worked in a fifteenth century castle, though sadly that didn't actually involve spotting dukes and earls strutting about in Hessians.
She credits British weather for forcing her into a library, where she discovered her first Julia Quinn novel. Thank goodness for blustery downpours.
Bianca now lives in Massachusetts with her dashing rogue.
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OTHER REGENCY ROMANCES by Bianca Blythe:
How to Capture a Duke
A Rogue to Avoid
Runaway Wallflower
Mad About the Baron
A Marquess for Convenience
The Wrong Heiress for Christmas
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