For the "honest woman" he made out of her... ;)

Chapter 32

During the recital, it is certainly a matter of feeling how the parties concerned should behave; but if tears can be restrained, and a quiet modesty in the lady displayed, and her emotions subdued, it adds much to the gratification of others, and saves a few pangs to the parents from whom she is to part.

~ The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (The Last London Editor; 1860)

They sprawling city of Paris was gradually dispersing as the carriage steered them into the countryside. Through the shadows of the evening, the rural landscape became increasingly evident by the sheer lack of buildings, replaced with small and few village structures and settlements. Inside the carriage, the horses’ hooves against the gravel road were loud and Vicky narrowed her eyes at the man cradling her in his lap. “Well,” she demanded, “where are you taking me? I was under the impression you were taking me home.”

“I am taking you home.” That damn, languid grin crept up his cheeks, dimpling them sensually. Her belly fluttered excitedly but she squelched the feeling heroically and focused rather on the unknown possibility of her predicament.

“You are being deliberately vague. Do you mean you are taking me to England?”

“Eventually.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What about Adrienne and Étienne? All my belongings are still there and it is terribly rude-”

“Everything has been taken care of, Victoria,” he told her meaningfully. “Stop worrying- the Girard’s will understand. I have left them instructions.”

His arrogance was astounding. He must have been very assured of his success with her to have prearranged every minor detail to perfection, leaving no stone unturned. “And if I refused to come with you?” she asked petulantly.

“I would have sent you home with Mrs Girard,” he explained. “But I would not have been happy about it.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “You still haven’t told me where you are taking me now, though.”

He didn’t say anything and after several more moments, he didn’t need to. The carriage pulled to a stop and Vicky scrambled off his lap to peer out the window. Immersed in darkness, the building they had stopped outside was only distinctive by one apparent feature: the pointed spire at the front. They were outside a chapel- a small, rural one at that, but a chapel nonetheless. “What are you planning?” she murmured speculatively, more to herself than to the man sharing the carriage with her.

His hands were on her waist, coaxing her back into his lap where she went voluntarily, entwining her arms over his broad shoulders and finding contentment in the strength of his body pressed intimately against hers. It didn’t matter where he took her or what he did with her, Vicky knew that she could trust him with her entire being, her entire soul, and as long as he loved her, she knew she was safe. It was a feeling that made her giddy and strangely lethargic, a silly grin threatening to tug the corners of her lips up. His mouth swooped down and claimed hers in a searing embrace of yearning, of need, of implacable desire, plundering her senses and making her eloquently aware of the longing she had craved for over a month. God, his kisses were drugging, addictive, and she was reluctant to part, perfectly happy to remain joined to his lips until the day she died. But part he did and bestowed upon her that lazy, Cheshire grin, dimples and all, his eyes luminous in the darkness, and said, “I, my dear, am going to finally make an honest woman of you. Shall we?”

Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You lout!” she spluttered as he deposited her on the seat beside him and swung the carriage door open. “Honest woman, indeed!”

He threw her a grin and offered her his hand. “Come now, darling. Let’s get this over with. We still have much distance to cover and I’m quite fond of the idea of enjoying our wedding night on some sort of soft surface, although the idea of a carriage is somewhat enticing.”

There was a blush on her cheeks as she could well envision the things he was talking about. “Gabriel, this will seem like we’ve eloped. Surely we can wait until we’re back in England?”

“I have a special license, Victoria. I want you mine and I want you mine tonight.”

“Oh.” Absurdly pleased by his words, she tentatively took his proffered hand and allowed him to assist her down the steps of the carriage. “Everybody I am sure would have been looking forward to the grand wedding the Duke of Hawthorne would have been sure to have.”

“If that is what is worrying your pretty little head, then we will have a festive celebration on our return. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t imagine a better setting for our wedding.”

“Hmm.” She glanced sceptically at the dark silhouette of the chapel. “I doubt the rector is awake.”

“He will be in about five minutes.”

“Oh dear. This is terribly rude.”

With an impertinent leer, Gabriel raked his eyes from top to bottom over her form, making her potently aware of her state of undress. His dark coat swallowed her figure and stopped just over her knees and she had to tug it closed over her breasts which were startlingly bare under the garment. It was hardly something decent to be married in although it did smell quite nicely of Gabriel and several times she had to stop herself from burying her nose down the front and simply revelling in the musky scent of him. “I’m sure the rector will agree that an immediate marriage is for the best,” he murmured seductively. “Especially considering you’ve just exposed yourself to the larger half of Paris’s upper class.”

“You are going to bring that up for the rest of my life, aren’t you?” she muttered testily. “I’ll never be allowed to forget it.”

“I find it quite uplifting,” he remarked idly, guiding her towards the front of the small church. “Most of France will know by morning what a lucky man I am to have married you.”

The man was oozing charm this evening. Not that she was complaining and she happily allowed him to guide her to the vicarage whereby he pummelled on the door with enough force to awaken the deaf. There were several moments of long silence, followed by a muffled grumbling from the other side of the door before a weak thread of light plumed from under the slit. Suddenly, it swung open to reveal a small man of indiscriminate years and an expression on his face that could fell an ox. His French flew from his lips and what unsavoury things he said to Gabriel at that moment should not have been ever emitted from the lips of a man of God. Simply put, he told them to bugger off and return in the morning.

After eloquently pointing out the dilemma in a smooth, patient voice, Gabriel indicated to Vicky’s state of undress and procured the license which clearly stated that they were to be married at any time of the day. Gabriel then enunciated quite significantly and with an arrogantly raised brow that it was imperative they be wed immediately.

After this fluent pontificating, the begrudging rector nodded stiffly, cast them one last glare of disapproving hostility, and ushered them inside before scurrying off to wake his wife to act as witness, a woman who was even more foul-mouthed than her husband, and within the hour, Victoria was Lady Sinclair.

Gabriel wasted no time pushing her back inside the carriage and setting forth again, presumably back to England, and Victoria reclined on the cushions next to him, admiring the gold band on her finger that announced her commitment to him. Despite the month that had separated them, Victoria didn’t think she could feel any closer to him than she was at this moment, nor could she want for more. She felt wonderful, a woman who loved and was loved in return, perfectly content in knowing that for the rest of her life she would be in the arms of an astonishingly handsome man with a dimpled smile that could slay dragons.

Due to the lateness of the hour (they had, after all, been married after midnight) and the emotional seesawing of the day’s events, a numb exhaustion swept through Victoria that not even Gabriel’s heated kisses and embraces could ward off, and soon she was fast asleep against his shoulder, comfortably cradled in the circle of his arms.

***

Something was swaying.

Or maybe she was dizzy.

Hmmm.

Groggily, she pried open an eye and silently absorbed the unfamiliar room she found herself in. It was shockingly bright, sunlight streaming through the windows somewhere, and the bed was slightly lumpy. She was lying diagonally across it and she was, strangely, alone.

Positive that she was indeed a married woman, she quickly checked the golden ring on her finger just to make sure before turning her head the other way and flinching with the sting of fierce light that greeted her eyes. Ah, so there the windows were. And there, it seemed, was her husband, too, standing naked as the day he was born in the scalding beams of sunlight pouring through the panes. His back was turned to her presenting her the opportunity to openly admire the ridges of his sculpted back, lovingly studying the definition of his muscles and then- dimples.

She purred and flopped her head against her arms with a delirious sigh of satisfaction. Lovely, lovely man. She remembered now the poignancy with which he had made love to her early that morning, rousing her gently from her slumbers with adoration and caresses that simply scoured her skin, set her aflame. He had given her everything, lingering over her body while she sleepily came to life beneath him, writhing and clawing and moaning, until he had joined his body with hers and she found her exquisite release, over and over again. If she had thought she couldn’t be any happier, then he had proven her wrong by pulling her against his chest and falling asleep. God, it was nice not having to sneak back to one’s room with the fear of being caught, without fear of scandal or malicious gossip. Yes, she was certainly beginning to enjoy the benefits being married, especially to Gabriel Sinclair.

Her sigh of pleasure drew his attention and he turned, now providing her a frontal view of his well-defined torso and those hard, defined thighs. If it wasn’t such a wanton gesture, she would roll her eyes with pleasure, but as such she was only slightly embarrassed by her sigh and the thought of ardently expressing her delight as such was too loose an action. Even for her.

His smile sent her belly aflutter, as usual. “Come here,” was all he said in a husky timbre that indicated he, too, had just arisen.

Of course she was naked and only partly covered by the sheet, causing to hesitate imperceptibly. It took only a moment for her to conclude that she did not care about her state of undress before him and threw the sheets aside, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and sashaying towards him. The manner in which his gaze warmed as he took in her form mirrored an answering reaction from her as she stepped welcomingly into his arms and pressed against him. Glancing out the window, she smiled at the view presented her- the stretch of blue-green ocean curving the horizon. They were on a ship, which would explain the swaying. Despite being unaware as to actually how she had ended up on said vessel, Vicky was quite sure that after she had fallen asleep in the carriage, Gabriel had carried her aboard, waking her only later when she was ensconced in what appeared to be a private cabin. It looked and felt as if they were sailing towards that particular stretch of curve on the horizon with no land to either side of them, which was decidedly odd. England was not all that far from France, considering, and one only need cross the Channel. They must have been sailing for a good few hours, judging by the lateness of the hour.

She turned her eyes up to his, a question in them. “Gabriel?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Where are we?”

He kissed the top of her head. “Aboard the Chastity Belt. One of the Earl of Falmouth’s merchant fleet vessels, I believe. Calling in a favour, you see.”

“I see.” No, she didn’t. Raising an eyebrow at him imperatively, she remarked, “We’re not going back to England, are we?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you kidnapping me?”

He chuckled at that. “If I were, would you protest and fight me?” he asked, amused.

“No.”

“Then I’m not kidnapping you.”

She harrumphed, casting him an impatient look which informed him of her ire. “Will you tell me where we are going?”

He thought about it for a moment and his smile took her breath away. “Well, I think this ship is headed for India. We can stay there for a while, if you like. I know a consulate who’d be willing to have us as his houseguests for a duration. Then, only if you are up to it, the Chastity Belt has a shipment to deliver in the Americas. I hear the Caribbean is lovely this time of year-”

What he had been about to say was muffled as Vicky threw her arms around his neck and ground her lips against his. He was hard and demanding almost instantly and, effortlessly, he swept her into his arms and carried her back to the bed, following her into the mattress. She did not resist the fluency with which he parted her thighs and gasped when he slid deep inside her. He didn’t start moving immediately though. Instead, he cradled her face tenderly and kissed her lips, her nose, her cheeks, savouring the feel of her, before murmuring against her lips, “I love you. I would do anything to make you happy.”

A tear squeezed out the corner of her eye and he kissed it away. Her heart swelling with the love she had for him and the irresistible desire to seek both his and her release, she wrapped her thighs around him and grinned tauntingly up at him.

“I know.”

And she then allowed him to make her quite possibly the happiest woman in the world.