William laughed. Charlotte climbed into the carriage. William followed. Tommy slept on, oblivious to the goodbyes happening around him.
Mary stood beside Evander and watched the carriage pull away down the lane, the lantern swinging at the back, growing smaller and dimmer until it turned at the road and disappeared into the French evening.
Evander’s arm came around her shoulders. Mary leaned into him and pressed her face against his coat and let the tears fall, because they were not tears of grief. They were the tears of a woman letting go of something precious and trusting that it would be safe.
“He will be happy,” Evander said against her hair.
“I know.”
“And we will see him in the spring.”
“I know that, too.” Mary wiped her eyes and looked up at him. “Take me home. Wherever home is tonight.”
Evander smiled. The real smile, the one she had first seen in the nursery the night of the fox story. “About that.”
“You planned this.”
Mary stood in the entrance hall of a château that Evander had, apparently, rented for the occasion. The foyer was marble. The staircase curved. The chandelier held more candles than the Atherton ballroom, and through the open doors, she could see a garden with a fountain and, beyond it, the rolling hills of the French countryside lit silver by the moon.
“I planned several things.” Evander set his coat on the stand and loosened his cravat. “This is the first.”
“The first?”
“We are going on a honeymoon, Mary. The one we should have had two months ago. I have made the arrangements.” He pulled a folded itinerary from his coat pocket and held it up. “Paris for a week. Then south to Lyon. Then the coast. Italy, if you wish. Florence, perhaps, to see where Richard and Lucrezia will settle. Or Rome. Or both. We have time. I have cleared my calendar, and Godfrey is managing the estate, and Mrs. Cahill has instructions to write if the house catches fire and not before.”
Mary took the itinerary from his hand and opened it. Dates, cities, hotels. Pages of them, written in Evander’s precise hand, organized with the same meticulous attention he gave to estate ledgers and Bow Street reports. Except these columns containedrestaurant recommendations and cathedral visiting hours, and a note beside Florence that readMary will want the galleries. Book the entire afternoon.
She pressed the itinerary against her chest and looked at him, and the expression on her face made Evander’s composure crack in the way she loved best. Not into coldness. Into warmth.
“When did you do this?” she asked.
“Over the past month. In the evenings, while you were with Tommy.” He paused. “I wanted to give you something, Mary. Not a gown or a title or a household. Something that was just for us. Something that had nothing to do with scandal or duty or the circumstances that brought us together.”
“A honeymoon across Europe.”
“A beginning.” He crossed the foyer and took her hands. “The marriage started wrong. I know that. I made it wrong, with my distance and my fear and every wall I put between us. But the walls are down now, and I want to start again. Properly. With you.”
Mary rose on her toes and kissed him. The itinerary crumpled between their chests, and Evander’s arms encircled her, and the marble foyer of a French château held them in the candlelight, and the fountain murmured in the garden, and the moon lit the hills, and everything that had been broken was, at last, mended.
“Take me upstairs,” she whispered against his mouth.
He did.
The bedroom was large and moonlit, the windows open to the warm night air. They undressed each other slowly, no urgency this time, only the steady, luxurious attention of two people who had learned each other’s bodies and wanted to learn them again. Evander’s hands traced the curve of Mary’s waist, and Mary’s fingers mapped the scars on his chest, and they fell into the wide French bed together.
Evander lowered himself over her, his weight braced on his forearms, and the moonlight painted silver lines across his shoulders. Mary traced them with her fingertips, following the light down his chest, across the scar beneath his collarbone, to the place where his heart beat hard and fast against her palm.
“No rush,” he murmured against her throat. “We have all night.”
“We have all summer.”
His laugh vibrated against her skin, low and warm, and his mouth followed the curve of her neck to the hollow of her shoulder, and Mary’s eyes drifted closed. His hands moved over her with a patience that made her arch toward him, seeking more, and he gave it, slowly, thoroughly, as though learning her for the first time despite knowing her by heart.
She whispered his name. He answered with his mouth against her collarbone, pressing a kiss into the hollow there before moving lower. His lips grazed the curve of her shoulder, then the sensitive skin along the inside of her arm, and Mary shivered beneath him.
He kissed her shoulders one at a time, slow and deliberate, his teeth grazing the ridge of bone before his mouth soothed the spot with warmth. Mary’s fingers threaded through his hair. He trailed lower, his lips finding the swell of her chest, and he worshipped her there with a tenderness that made her back arch and her breath leave in a rush. His mouth was warm and unhurried, tasting, savoring, learning what made her gasp and what made her grip his hair tighter, and he paid attention to every response the way he paid attention to everything about her, completely and without reservation.
“Evander.” His name came out broken, half plea, half prayer.