The Golden Redepennings

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Spotlight on The Flavour of Our Deeds

When Luke finally admits to loving Kitty, she thinks their troubles are over. They are just beginning.

“It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavour of our good or evil deeds.”
Henry Ward Beecher

Kitty Stocke has loved her brother-in-law’s gamekeeper for six years, ever since he saved her and her sisters from murderous villains. Luke keeps her at arms length. Social class, wealth, an age gap, and the secrets he hides stand between them.

But when those secrets come to light and set him running with Paul, the boy everyone believes to be his son, Kitty follows. Luke is arrested on a false charge of murder, but Kitty marshals powerful allies who help him to prove his innocence. With the real villain behind bars, Luke at last declares his love, and he and Kitty marry.

However, far to the north in Northumberland, at Paul’s estate, the new family are in more danger than ever before, and can only trust one another.

Published 29 March: Order now

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Tea with the Duchess of Haverford

In this excerpt post from The Flavour of Our Deeds, Kitty has been invited not just to tea, but to stay for a few nights until her sister returns to town.

Halfway through the afternoon, the butler announced that the Marquis of Aldridge wondered if Lady Catherine was at home. The gentleman in question was standing at the butler’s shoulder, one sardonic eyebrow raised.

Kitty leapt to her feet, but remembered her manners and greeted him politely. So did Pierrot, with a sniff to his boots and a sharp yap as he sat and offered his paw. Aldridge bent and gravely shook it.

“May I offer you refreshments, my lord?”

“If it pleases you,” he said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, “you may fetch your pelisse and bonnet, and have your maid pack what you might need for several nights’ stay and bring it over to Haverford House. My mother has sent me to invite you for a short stay, for the sake of appearances. She also has another young guest whom I believe you shall be pleased to see.”

Young. So not Luke, who had been at pains on several occasions to point out the decade and a bit that separated their ages. “Paul has been released?” she asked.

“Into my custody,” he confirmed. “And before you ask, Ogilvy has been moved to a private room, where he shall have every comfort and a private guard to see to his safety.”

Kitty felt as if she could breathe freely for the first time since she woke to Thomson’s invasion. “I shall be five minutes,” she said, and hurried up to her room, giving the footman in the hall a message for Millie to meet her there.

Soon, she and Aldridge were on their way in the marquis’s exquisite high-perch phaeton, behind one of the sweetest-going teams she’d ever seen. Millie would follow with her bags.

With her anxiety lifted just a little, Kitty was able to enjoy her journey, especially when the crowds of London dropped behind them, leaving farmland and estates on either side of the road. Haverford House was on the Thames, several miles upriver from the capital.

The great house was in the shape of an H, with an ornate fence barring those without business from the huge front courtyard. Not them, though. The gatekeeper heard the toot of Aldridge’s groom’s horn, and had the gates open before the team swept through without breaking pace.

Whenever Kitty came here to visit her godmother, she felt like a princess called to attend a queen.

They swung in a large arc and pulled to a stop before the flight of steps that led up to a pair of doors that Kitty, as a child, had believed to be created for and by giants. The butler was already opening one of them, and standing before it to await the entry of the marquis and his guest.

Another servant stood ready to conduct Kitty to the duchess, but Aldridge waved him off.

He picked up Pierrot, who made no objection. “I shall escort Lady Kitty myself,” he said, and, with the dog in his arms, took her up four flights of stairs to the third level of the building, through the main wing of the house to the family wing, and then along a passage to the rooms that housed the nursery and schoolroom.

“We’ve made young Paul comfortable up here, with my sisters,” he told Kitty. Sure enough, they entered a large comfortable sitting room, where Paul sat on the hearth rug with the duchess’s youngest ward, Frances Grenford. Her Grace of Haverford and her other two wards, Jessica and Matilda, watched as Paul and Frances toasted bread and cheese over the fire.

“Again?” Aldridge asked him. “Good afternoon, Mama, ladies.”

Paul returned Aldridge’s grin. “You hauled me away from the bagwig’s office before I could eat the last lot,” he complained.

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Whisky stills, smugglers, and caves

My March release, Flavour of Our Deeds, is partially set in Northumbria.

I wanted my hero and heroine far away from their natural allies, faced on all sides by enemies and uncertain who to trust. Learning a bit about Northumbria introduced all sorts of new plot elements.

For example, did you know that the Coquetdale area of Northumbria was a whisky distilling area (whisky is the Irish, Scots and, as it happens, English borderlands spelling of what the US call whiskey). Coquetdale, in what as now the Northumberland National Park, was full of illegal stills that exported their product not just south into the rest of Northumbria, west into Cumbria, and further afield in the United Kingdom, but also by ship to the Lowlands. The distillers were supported and protected by the locals.

The smugglers carried whisky and wool overseas and brought back genever (Dutch gin) and luxury goods from the continent. They had havens in fishing villages like Boulmer, on which I have based my own fictional village, close to the shore. I’ve removed a few aristocratic families–in my story, the Earls of Grey and their home, Howick Hall, is not mentioned, and nor is Alnwick, Alnwick Castle, or the Duke of Northumberland whose residence the castle was. The sea caves are real, and were used by the smugglers. The excise men did, indeed, have a base at Berwick Upon Tweed, and another at Newcastle, and were too few in number to make much of a dent in the trade.

I would have loved to set the story closer to the Roman wall, but I needed limestone for a good caving system that could be improved by enthusiastic tunnelers. A vast maze of caves was once discovered under Alnwick Moor, and has now been lost again, but caving experts believe there may be many more tunnels and caves than those shallow hollows known to our modern cavers. I’ve invented some, putting it in limestone country to make it plausible.

I’d also have loved to include the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Maybe another time.

 

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Tea with a second-time bride

Susan glowed. Her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, had never found it to be generally true that a bride responded to marriage with a joy so palpable that it lit up a room. In Eleanor’s experience, marriage crushed the light out of more brides than not.

Susan was one of the rare exceptions, and about time, too. Her first marriage had been disappointing. Captain Cunnngham was not a terrible husband. He was an absent one. In physical fact, most of the time, and emotionally the rest. He had also been serially and frequently unfaithful.

Indeed, Susan had been so disappointed in her first marriage that Eleanor was surprised she had taken the risk of a second. Of course, her second marriage was to a man she had known since she was a child. Eleanor’s friend Henry had told her all about it.

“We all thought Rutledge was courting Susan during her first season, but then he disappeared and a few months later, she accepted young Cunningham. After that, she had nothing good to say about Rutledge. When we heard he had accompanied her north to help her rescue her kidnapped daughter… Well! I certainly didn’t expect them to fall in love and marry!”

Susan had been at least half in love with Rutledge all those years before, of course. Which was the reason she was so upset with him when he abandoned his courtship. And anyone who had seen the poor man yearning after her on the rare occasions they were in the same room knew that he had never ceased to be in love with her.

Eleanor was unsurprised to find that Rutledge’s nasty elder brother had come between the pair when Susan was young, unattached, and naive. He undoubtedly wanted her for himself, the horrid man.

“I need your help, Aunt Eleanor,” Susan said, once she and Eleanor were established with a cup of tea. “I want to reestablish Gil in Society. It is part done, of course, because my friends will accept him for my sake, but so many people still judge him by his brother and his father. He is nothing like them, I can assure you, but those two reprobates brought such dishonour to his name and title that he almost refused to marry me for fear he would never live it down!”

“People need to meet him and see for themselves that he is a good man,” Eleanor observed.

“Precisely.” Susan took a sip of her tea, watching Eleanor over the rim.

“Yes, Susan,” the duchess told her. “I will help you to change the minds of those who tar your husband with his family’s brush.”

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Danger and adventure on WIP Wednesday

In The Flavour of Our Deeds, I decided I was tired of the hero rescuing the heroine. Here’s Kitty, hunting for her husband, who has been kidnapped.

“You two stay here with the prisoner,” she told Dixon and Henry. “Millie and I will scout the area.” She adjusted her quiver so she could reach it quickly, took half a dozen arrows, and set one into her small hunting bow.

“I should do that, my lady,” Dixon protested. “You are a lady! I can be trusted. I promise.”

Kitty thought she probably could trust the man not to betray them, but she wasn’t going to risk it. “Stay here,” she repeated. “My husband trained me and Millie in woodcraft. We will not be in danger, and will return when we know whether there are guards.”

There were. Two men, sitting on a ledge part way up the rock outside of a cave that was awash with each wave. They were passing a bottle between them as they took it in turns to toss a pair of dice. 

With all their focus on their game, they didn’t see Millie and Kitty creep towards them. Not until Kitty stood, her arrow nocked and her bow drawn. “Hands up,” she said.

Both men reached for the guns that lay beside them. Two arrows flew, and both flinched back, dropping the guns into the wave. One gun had an arrow in the stock. The other arrow had glanced off the other gun and struck its holder in the face.

“Millie, collect their guns,” Kitty commanded.

Her maid put her own gun down and crept forward, taking care not to get between Kitty and the two smugglers. 

“You won’t shoot,” one of the smugglers ventured. “You’re a girl.”

“She did shoot, you fool,” hissed the other.

“And hit exactly what I aimed at,” Kitty told them. “The next two arrows will go into your black hearts. That will leave me two spare and another six that I can reach and fire in seconds. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t think. Millie, fetch the others.”

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Tea with Ella and Alex from A Raging Madness

Her new set of carriage horses were everything the Duchess of Haverford could wish. A perfectly matched set of handsome bay geldings, gentle of nature and trained not only as a team of four, but to work in pairs or even alone.

Aldridge had brought them for her for a birthday present, and the breeder and his wife had delivered them in person, bringing them down from their estate in Suffolk by gentle stages. Lord and Lady Renshaw specialised in providing riding and carriage horses, and were gaining a stirling reputation among the ton. Lord Renshaw, or Alex, was an ex cavalry officer whose courage had been rewarded with the title of viscount and a rundown estate, which they were rapidly building into a prosperous going concern.

Aldridge knew them personally, of course. Alex was a Redepenning, a cousin of Stephen, Lord Chirbury, who was Eleanor’s nephew and therefore also Aldridge’s cousin. His wife was a less well known quantity. Ella had followed the drum as a child, had been married to a baronet, and there had been accusations of insanity around the time of her second marriage. All nonsense, as it turned out. A ghastly plot by her cousins in league with a villain whom Alex had killed in self defence.

As she poured tea for them all, Eleanor questioned them about the bloodlines of the horses and their training. “They will also take a saddle, Your Grace,” Ella said. “A gentleman’s saddle or a sidesaddle. We like our  horses to be ready for any eventuality.

So it was true. Ella was as involved in the stud farm as her husband. Indeed, one of their two most successful studs had been her dowry. “Do you drive, Lady Renshaw?” Eleanor asked, on a sudden whim. At Ella’s nod, she suggested, “Let us have two of my fine new fellows harnessed to the tilbury. We will leave your husband and my son to the brandy they would much prefer to have to their tea, and you shall drive me around the grounds and tell me all about your children.”

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Spotlight on The Golden Redepennings: Books 1 to 4

Published on 24 March: The box set of the first four Golden Redepenning novels. It’s only $4.99 until the end of the month. In February, it will revert to $9.99, which is still a great price for four long novels.

Order your copy today: https://books2read.com/GRbox-set

Here’s more about the series: The Golden Redepennings

And here are the covers of the four books included in the set:

And, finally, one of the early reviews.

I had read books 1 and 2 several years ago. It’s especially good to binge read such a series. I had forgotten how obnoxious and cynical Alex was at times in book 1 – Farewell to Kindness. In book 2 – A Raging Madness – he takes on the role of knight errant and is less bitter than in book 1. (Well, of course. He has admired Ella for years.)

In all 4 stories there are secrets to be revealed (including surprises for the reader) and many obstacles to overcome, including the reluctance of the main characters to voice their feelings for the other. I felt transported in time and place by these well-paced and carefully crafted stories.

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Tea with Anne and her sons

“No, Stephen,” the Countess of Chirbury said, moving a delicate vase away from the questing hands of her eldest son.

“But Mama,” the little boy protested, “I need a place to hide my soldier. He is an exploring officer, like Papa’s friend, Mr Bear. And if John’s soldiers see him, they will shoot him.”

“Yes, they will,” his twin shouted. Then bit his lip at his mother’s frown. He stood and bowed to the Duchess of Haverford, his hostess. “I am sorry for shouting, Aunt Eleanor.”

“We do not shout in a lady’s parlour,” Anne reminded her son, who sent his impish grin her way and plopped back down on the carpet to turn some of the row of lead soldiers around, presumably so they could better hunt Stephen’s little exploring officer.

“Hide your man behind the cushion, Stephen,” Eleanor suggested. Cushions were much more robust than vases. When she had invited her niece-in-law and sons to tea, she had expected the children would come with attendants to keep them entertained. But apparently Hannah, their nurse, was on her afternoon off, and the nursemaid was a substitute, the usual nursery maid having eaten something that disagreed with her.

The inexperienced girl was out of her depth with the twins. She was sitting in a chair by the window showing a picture book to little Joseph, who at eight months old was regarding the illustrations with dark intense eyes. His father already called the boy ‘the Professor’, and he certainly showed no sign of becoming like his older brothers. At four years of age, they had more mischief apiece than a barrel of monkeys, though Anne would insist, and Eleanor agreed, that they had not an ounce of malice between them. Just boundless energy, creative imaginations, dauntless courage, an inborn need to each outdo the other, and a restless curiosity that led them from near catastrophe to close disaster, so that their father swore he was growing grey before his time.

A voice spoke from her doorway. “Good day, Mama, Cousin Anne, boys. We have a freshly waxed floor in the picture gallery, Cousin Anne. If I promise to keep them away from stairs and anything breakable, may I take my little cousins to test how well it works?”

Anne smiled beatifically at the Marquis of Aldridge, Eleanor’s son. “Would you?”

Aldridge winked at her and addressed her twins. “Boys, put your armies away in their boxes. Your Mama says you may come and play with me.”

“Can we go for a ride in your phaeton, Lord Aldridge?” John asked, as he obeyed the command with more haste than delicacy, throwing the toys into the little leather box they had arrived in.

“I have another plan,” Aldridge said. “You will like it.”

“Is it going to the kitchen to eat plums?” Stephen wondered, his own soldiers–even the precious exploring officer–being tossed carelessly into his own box.

“Something different,” Aldridge told them, holding out his hands. “Something fun.”

With a boy attached to each hand, he nodded to the ladies. “Send a footman when you want to retrieve your savages, Cousin,” he said, and led them away.

“He is very good with them,” Anne told Aldridge’s mother. “He will make a good father one day.”

 

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Making her an offer in WIP Wednesday

The Proposal. John Pettie, R.A. (1839-1893). Oil On Canvas, 1869.

Proposal scenes can be fun to read and to write. Especially when the hero gets it wrong! I’ve written three in the past month. Here’s the one from The Flavour of Our Deeds (out in March). My heroine demands an accounting:

“What can I do for you, Kitty,” he asked.

She took a sip of her brandy without taking her eyes off him. There was that chin again, lifted in the air as a signal that her calm tone of voice hid a wealth of feeling: trepidation and irritation mixed, if he knew Kitty. And he did. “You said you loved me, and that you couldn’t live without me. You said we would make it work. What did you mean?”

A fair question. The first part was easy. “I love you. I want you to be my wife, Kitty, to have and to hold for the rest of our lives.” His voice had dropped to a low rumble as his love for Kitty and, yes, his desire threatened to overwhelm him. “I thought to wait to propose until I could make a home for you, but if you wish, I will ask this very minute.” He set the brandy aside and fell to his knees at her feet to take her own glass from her unresisting fingers and possess himself of her hands.

She leaned towards him, moistening her lips so that a spear of lust shot straight to his groin, her eyes glowing in the candle-light.

“Will you promise to marry me, Kitty,” he begged. “If I could, I would be a younger man for you, one with greater wealth and a noble heritage. But no one could love you more than I. No one will cherish you more than I. Will you be my future, Catherine Mary Stocke? My wife, my life partner, my reason for my work and my comfort in my leisure, the mother of my children, should God bless us?” He leaned to meet her, and if he was confident of her answer, it was not arrogance. She had given him good reason.

She did not disappoint. “My answer, of course, is yes.” Then, being Kitty, she had more to say, leaning away from his kiss to say. “However, I have some questions.” Her tone hinted that she had better like the answers. He should have expected her to challenge him. He suppressed a smile. How he loved this woman!

He sat back on his heels. “Ask,” he invited.

This one is from The Talons of  Lyon, which will be published in April by Dragonblade Publishing. This is the first proposal, made in front of a courtroom full of people. He has two more go’s to get it right:

The third magistrate took a turn. “One matter remains to be discussed. The guardian appointed in the will is dead. The guardian appointed as a replacement by the court in Norwich has proven unsuitable. The children will be in the custody of their mother, but they need a male guardian. If Lady Frogmore were to marry, the choice would be simple.”

The chief magistrate looked across the room directly at Lance. “Lord Lancelot Versey, you have been dedicated in your support for the lady and assiduous in your attentions. May we expect an announcement?”

Lance threw caution to the wind. “I wish for nothing more, Your Honours, but I thought it wrong to court the lady while she was in such trouble. We have not discussed the matter. My affections are fixed, but I have no notion whether the lady returns my esteem.”

Serafina, who was half fainting on Mrs Worthington’s shoulder looked up at that., her eyes widening. A tentative smile trembled on her lips.

“Well, Lady Frogmore?” asked the second magistrate.

Lance opened his mouth to object to the question, but the chief magistrate did it for him.

“Now, now, Wallace, we must not put pressure on the lady. The question of guardian can wait for another day, though until it is settled, the children and their mother will need to live in the household of a responsible and reliable gentleman approved by the court. Lady Frogmore, you are living with the Barkers, are you not? If Lord Barker is willing, you may have the children with you there.”

There wasn’t a lot more to be said. The magistrates discussed another hearing on the guardianship issue, and agreed with Mr Forsythe that they could make a decision on timing over the next days…

[The scene goes on to talk about closing of the case, but ends with this paragraph.]

Lance had to admit he was disappointed as the lady who held his heart walked off on Barker’s arm. Seraphina had not commented on his proposal? Was it a proposal? He had made his intentions clear, and she didn’t react at all. What did you expect, you idiot? She is desperate to see her children.

And in Perchance to Dream, the last novel in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, also being published by Dragonblade, the hero asks for the heroine’s hand in his daughter’s sickroom. They’ve been nursing her through diptheria. It’s scheduled for publication nearly a whole year away.

“I think you are right,” John replied. “But I didn’t want to talk about Tenby and Augusta, Pauline. I wanted to talk about us.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean,” she asked.

The words John had been rehearsing all afternoon had gone completely out of his head. “Pauline.” That was as good a place as any to start. “I wondered… that is to say, would you consider…” She was looking at him attentively, her brow slightly furrowed in question.

“I mean,” he explained, “you and I get on very well together, and I would count myself the happiest of men if you would consent to be my wife.” There. It was done. He waited anxiously for her reply.”

If he had to categorise her expression, he’d call it more bewildered than delighted.

“Because we have been alone together,” she said.

“No,” he replied adamantly. “That’s not it at all. I know we have been alone together and Tenby tells me there is talk…” From the way her eyes widened, he should have kept that to himself. “I already intended to ask you, Pauline. I have been unable to stop thinking about you since our kiss.”

“Marrying me?” Pauline’s eyes expressed doubt, but also, if John was not mistaken, longing.

“Yes, you and I,” he said. The silence stretched, until he added, “We deal very well together, you and I.”

***

Pauline’s heart yearned to say yes, but she did not want him looking back and regretting this day. How dreadful to be tied for life to yet another woman whom he did not set out to marry.

“John,” Pauline pointed out, “you were forced into marriage once, because a girl was compromised. I am not a girl, and my life will change very little if my reputation is damaged in some quarters. My family will still love me. You don’t have to do this.”

“This is what I want,” he insisted.

Pauline saw almost everything she had dreamt of within her reach. She could stay with John and Pauline and have the right to call them family. She could enjoy John’s kisses and more, perhaps have babies of her own. But would he come to resent her in time?

“If you are ready to marry, John, wouldn’t it be better to choose someone younger, who could give you half a dozen children? I am thirty, John.”

John rejected the suggestion with a fierce frown and a wave of his hand, as if throwing it away. “I want you. I want my friend, the lady I trust, the lady I can see as a partner for the remainder of my life.” His voice turned coaxing and he possessed himself of her hands.

“I know Cumberland has long winters but we grow good roses. I can build you as many succession houses as you want, and the garden will be yours to do with as you please. As for children, if I have Jane and you, I have enough, but you are still young enough to give me more, if we are so blessed. I will certainly try to fill you with my babies, and enjoy doing so, if you are willing.”

Was the room suddenly warm? Or was it John’s words, and the heat in his eyes, melting Pauline’s core. She would do it, she decided. Perhaps he did not love her, but he wanted her, and she loved him. It would be enough. And perhaps they would be happy after all, for had not Arial once said that it was marrying a friend that led to love between her and Peter?

John was still trying to persuade her. “We can move from Cumberland closer to your brother, if you prefer. Or I could take a house in London so we could spend part of each year there, with Jane and any other children we have, so they can grow up knowing their cousins.”

“Cumberland will do just fine, but I like the idea of visiting London from time to time,” Pauline told him. “Wherever we live, I would be proud to be your wife.”

John whooped, and grabbed her off her feet to swing her around in a circle, so that she laughed out loud. As he bent his head to kiss her, a voice from the bed asked, “What are you doing?” They had awoken Jane.

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The virgin hero on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from The Flavour of Our Deeds (Book 5 in The Golden Redepennings). My hero has been resisting the heroine for six years. She is a lady born, daughter and sister of an earl, wealthy and beautiful, with the world at her feet. He is base born, a commoner, a working man, too old for her, and in danger. She has finally got him to concede that he loves her, and wants to marry her. Some time. When the danger is over. In this scene, she demands that he thinks again.

In the next moment she was in his arms, and he was kissing her. “You will be the death of me, stubborn female,” he muttered against her lips, before covering her mouth again, one hand on her lower back pressing her against him, the other gently cradling the back of her head as he ravaged her with his lips and his tongue. This time, he was the one to draw back. “We have to stop.” His body belied his words. He was flushed and trembling, and the thin layers of their robes had not in the least disguised his arousal.

“Must we?” Kitty wondered, “If we are to marry within the week?” She had a theoretical knowledge of what came next. His kisses left her eager to put theory into practice.

She thought he would deny them both because she was young and innocent, and he would be taking advantage of her. What he said instead was unexpected.

“I am a bastard, Kitty. Got by my father on the pretty daughter of his gamekeeper. My only memory of my mother—or memories, because I think it happened many times—is of her crying after one of his visits.”

Kitty didn’t see the relevance. “You are not your father, Luke. And I am not your mother.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I made a promise to my grandfather, Kitty. When he lay dying, he begged me not to be like my father—careless with women and ruled by my pri— my lust.”

Still not relevant, Kitty thought, but Luke hadn’t finished.

“I promised that I would wait until marriage to experience physical intimacy with a woman, and would be faithful to my wedding vows once I’d made them. I swore it on the family bible.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Wait. Did that mean he had never...?

Luke was looking into some mental landscape—the past perhaps? “I’ve never found it hard to keep that promise, because I have seen so much misery arising from the behaviour my grandfather decried. My mother, and so many other woman. Even the ones who were eager risked being left broken hearted. Or they gave themselves to a man who died before he could put a ring on their finger, and his good intentions didn’t protect them or their baby from the consequences.”

He was right, of course. Kitty had seen it herself. Indeed, if not for Anne’s masquerade as a widow, she would have lived it, at least by association.

“Then along came you, Kitty. I have always struggled to resist you, and with each kiss it becomes harder and harder.” He chuckled suddenly, and his voice dropped to a low growl that vibrated in the places that ached for him most. “In more ways than one.” She caught the salacious reference, and her face heated. She licked her lips, which had gone suddenly dry.

Luke gulped and looked away. “Help me keep my promise, Kitty,” he begged.

Botheration. An appeal to her honour. “Yes, of course.” She turned her back on him to straighten the robe he had brushed aside during their kiss, drawing it closed high up her chest and belting it firmly. “Thank you for explaining.”

Luke had tidied himself while she was rearranging her robe. He offered her another brandy, but she refused. “If I must be good, another would be a bad idea,” she said. She returned to her chair, more determined than ever. “Luke, will you marry me and take me to Cumberland with you?” A special license was sounding more and more appealing.

Luke sat, too, smiling at her. “Are you going to argue with me for the rest of our lives together, heart of my heart?” His tone was one of enquiry rather than criticism.

“Only when you are wrong,” she retorted, then amended the statement. “No, for sometimes I might be wrong, but believe myself to be right, as when I saw no reason why you should not bed me, tonight. When you explained, I changed my mind. I would hope, Luke, that we can disagree in a civilized manner, discuss things, and reach agreement.”

“I beg you not to speak of bedding, my love,” he groaned.

“A special license?” she suggested, hopefully.

“A common license. In the morning, I shall speak with Rede, and with Uncle Baldwin about waiting a few days longer. Now go to bed, Kitty. You have won.”

Kitty widened her eyes. “I have won? That is not reaching agreement, Luke.”

“I misspoke. We have both won. You are correct that it is not my right to decide to keep you from my life in order to protect you from a threat that might not even exist. But Kitty, if you are in immediate peril and we do not have time for a discussion, I want your promise that you will obey me in that moment. We can talk it over when we are safe.”

That was fair, and quite a large concession. “I promise, Luke, unless you are the one in danger and I can do something to save you.”

Luke heaved a sigh. “I imagine that we will have many more vigorous discussions in our future, my love.”

Kitty blew him a kiss as she made her way to the door. “But imagine the fun we will have making up!” she told him, then slipped out the door, closing it behind her, delighted with her exit line.