Make Her Wish Come True Collection. Ann Lethbridge
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His voice thickened. ‘I also know how much you value your independence, so I won’t push you into something you do not want. I do insist you and the girls remain here at Thornton until I find you a decent place to live. You will allow me to help you.’
‘Why did you lie about who you are?’ she asked.
He turned back to face her, his expression set, his eyes bleak. ‘I often travel incognito. With the title comes obligations. Doing the pretty. After Marion died—’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t have the heart for it. And later, when I got to know you, I wanted to tell you, but worried I’d cease to be a man to you and become nothing more than my title. I feared we’d lose what we had. The easy companionship. I’m sorry for ever believing such a thing of you.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘And now you will accept my aid.’
Diana was staring at him, her little nose wrinkled up. ‘Are you going to cry, Mr Royston?’
‘No,’ Cassie said. ‘Lord Graystone is simply being manly and honourable and giving us what he thinks we want.’
‘I don’t like Lord Graystone,’ Diana said. ‘I want Mr Royston.’
‘And you shall have him, darling,’ Cassie said. ‘If he still wants us.’
Adam expression changed to careful neutrality, but hope shone in the emerald depths of his eyes. ‘Cassie. Only if it is what you truly want.’
She went to him, put her arms around him. ‘Oh, Adam, how could you even doubt it? I love you, you lovely man.’
‘I love you so much I don’t have the words—’ He hugged her tight with one arm, put his other arm out to the girls and enclosed them within the circle of his embrace.
‘Welcome home,’ he said softly.
Christmas Day
Adam stood beside his mother in Portmaine’s great hall, watching the rest of the family gather around the enormous Christmas tree that was a tradition started by his great-grandmother, who had come as a young bride from Prussia. While his father, still an imposing man despite the way he’d grown portly and lost most of his hair these past few years, chatted with Cassie, the two little girls played at their feet with the dolls his mother had found in the attic when they had arrived tired and overwhelmed on Christmas Eve.
‘I thought never to see you wed again, Adam,’ his diminutive but stately mother said, her green eyes a shade lighter than his own intent upon his face. To anyone else she would have appeared her usual calm self, but he felt her concern.
‘Nor I,’ he said cautiously. He wasn’t exactly sure she approved his choice of a bride or the manner in which he had announced it upon his arrival. His father, though, had seemed more than pleased.
‘She is not the woman I would have chosen for you.’ Her gaze drifted from Cassie’s statuesque blonde lushness to the slender dark beauty making sheep’s eyes at his younger brother, Rad, who was sorting through music at the piano. A young woman very much like his first wife in appearance.
‘My tastes have changed.’
‘Matured,’ his mother agreed. ‘I am so very happy for you.’
He relaxed. ‘Thank you.’ He grimaced. ‘I hope you don’t mind if we don’t do the whole St George’s church thing. Neither of us wants a lot of fuss.’
His mother’s eyes twinkled. ‘Yet another departure from the past.’ Her lips curved in a knowing smile. ‘And I am sure you have no wish to wait for weeks while the banns are called.’
He grinned. ‘You are a wicked woman, Mama. And I love you for it.’ He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze.
‘Really, Adam. Remember my dignity.’ But her eyes glowed with quiet joy. ‘All I want is for my children to be happy.’ She wandered off to stand behind Rad, putting one hand on his shoulder. Rad looked up at her and gave her his devil-may-care grin. Adam’s oldest sister, Mary, joined them. Soon all the family would gather to sing carols as they had done all of Adam’s life.
He strolled over to collect his betrothed and his soon-to-be daughters. ‘Father, it is time for carols.’
‘Then it is time to make sure our glasses are full.’ The earl bustled off.
Diana rose to her feet and slipped a warm little hand inside his palm. ‘May we sing, too?’ she asked, looking up.
‘Of course. You are part of my family now.’ He picked her up and set her on his hip.
Cassie smiled at him and slipped her arm through his, while gesturing to Lucy to join them. ‘You, too, young lady.’
The four of them joined the rest of the family.
‘Happy, my love?’ he asked in a murmur in Cassie’s ear as Rad played the opening notes of ‘Deck the Halls’.
‘More than I ever could have believed,’ she whispered back. ‘But only with you, my dear sweet man.’
He kissed her cheek. ‘Likewise, heart of my heart,’ he murmured.
* * * * *
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