“I second that,” put in Richard, squeezing Amy’s shoulders possessively.

Support came from an entirely unexpected source. From the edge of the group came a rich chuckle. “Who are we to stand in the way of young love, Honoria?” the marquess said good-humoredly. “After all, if you remember . . .”

The marchioness turned bright pink.

The marquess patted his wife’s hand, smiling broadly. “I thought so, my dear.”

Richard looked in horror from one parent to the other. “I don’t want to know. I just don’t want to know,” he muttered.

“You shall use your consequence to protect Miss Balcourt’s reputation, and no one will dare to say anything against her.”

Amy liked Lord Uppington more by the moment. She beamed at the marquess, and nearly dropped Richard’s hand with shock when Richard’s dignified father dipped an eyelid at her in a small but undeniable wink. “Welcome to the family, my dear. Now don’t you think you ought to be going?”

Chapter Forty

“You do know that I didn’t consider you an infatuation, a light-skirt, or a bit of fluff?” Richard said for at least the tenth time since they had left Paris.

Amy snuggled into the curve of his arm, feeling more perfectly happy than she had since . . . well, than ever. On the desperate ride from Paris to Calais, she and Richard had been hidden, rather uncomfortably, in large wine barrels. But Amy hadn’t felt any of the pins and needles in her legs or cramps in her arms, because every so often Richard would whisper through the bunghole in his barrel to the bunghole in her barrel to reassure her of his deep and sincere sentiments for her. Amy finally understood what Hamlet meant when he said he could be banded in a nutshell and count himself king of infinite space; it perfectly described how she felt about Richard. She might be squinched into a shape resembling a giant walnut, but every time Richard said something like, “I couldn’t sleep all last week for thinking of you,” her spirit soared to heights beyond the infinite.

Of course, she was rather glad to be out of that barrel, infinite space and all. Trying to kiss Richard through the barrels’ bungholes had resulted in a splinter in her lip.

Amy took advantage of being uncasked to press a kiss to the hand that was stroking her hair. “You can keep trying to convince me of it for, oh, the next sixty or so years.”

Richard considered. It sounded to him like a very good bargain, especially once he factored in the different ways he could persuade Amy of the extent and durability of his affections. Most of them involved removing a great deal of clothing.

“That sounds fair,” Richard assented.

They were standing on the deck of Marston’s boat, watching the widening strip of water that separated them from Calais, France, and the infuriated minions of the Ministry of Police. Marston’s crew, at the sight of a few gold pieces, had happily defected to the nearby taverns and been replaced by Richard’s staff. Richard only hoped that at least one or two of his men knew something about sailing, or it might be a very wet swim home. On the other hand, Richard reflected, Amy would look rather nice wet. He considered the subject more deeply, and decided the same pleasing effect could be obtained with rather less risk to their lives in the privacy of their own room with the help of a bathtub and some nice fluffy towels. And maybe some oils . . .

Richard groaned.

“Are you all right?” Amy asked drowsily, her sleepless night in a barrel beginning to catch up with her. She turned languidly in Richard’s embrace to glance up at his face, which had the unfortunate corollary of bringing her breasts into contact with his side.

Richard gritted his teeth. After all, it would only be a week or so until they were married. So close! He was so close! He could wait that long, couldn’t he?

Certain parts of his anatomy strongly disagreed.

“Mother’ll probably insist on getting the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he muttered. “And how long does it take to prepare a wedding breakfast for five hundred people?”

“Five hundred people? Hmmm?” Amy yawned.

Richard seized Amy by the shoulders. Her eyelashes flew up. “Ships’ captains can perform wedding ceremonies, can’t they? It’s legal, isn’t it?”

“Did I miss something?” Amy scrubbed her eyes with her fists. “I’m sorry. I must have been dozing off. Five hundred ships’ captains . . . ?”

“Let’s get married!”

“Wasn’t that the plan already?”

“No, I mean right now. Here. We can have the captain marry us. Whoever the captain is.”

“But why?” Amy began bemusedly. Richard tipped her back over the rail of the ship for a long, searing kiss. Fortunately, Marston’s boat was in far better repair than the packet they had taken over, or they would have both been thrashing about in the waters of the Channel.

Amy’s face looked considerably less sleepy as comprehension dawned. “What a splendid idea.”

“Excellent!” Richard grabbed Amy’s hand and tugged her away from the rail. “Who’s acting captain?” he hollered across the deck.

“I am!”

It was Stiles, striding across the deck, only . . . Richard blinked. He couldn’t tell whether his hair was still dyed gray, because it was covered by a bandanna of blinding red. One silver hoop swung from Richard’s butler’s ear. A white shirt billowed over breeches that had to have been deliberately frayed along the hems. And to top it all off, a stuffed parrot perched upon Stiles’s shoulder.

“Awk!” screeched the parrot.

Make that a live parrot, Richard revised.

“Arrr, I be the captain,” Stiles growled.

“Amy, you do remember my butler, Stiles, don’t you?”

“There’ll be no time for butlering on the high seas, me laddie,” Stiles grumbled darkly. “I’ll be busy fightin’ off the sea serpents and battlin’ the raging waves, waves that can bury a ship and none the wiser.”

“Ah, but can you perform a wedding service?”

With a great many arrs and expressions of nautical incomprehensibility, Stiles averred that he could, and went off in search of a Book of Common Prayer. As Marston’s crew hadn’t been much given to spontaneous religious ceremonies, the search proved fruitless. So Stiles improvised.

It wasn’t like any wedding Amy had ever imagined. The midmorning sun shone down on them like a benediction. The air smelled of fish and brine; music was provided by the waves lapping against the keel; the wedding guests, Richard’s footmen, staggered from side to side with the rocking of the boat. Amy’s veil was a scrap of sailcloth, and the parson was an actor turned butler turned pirate, whose interpretation of the wedding service would have made the Archbishop of Canterbury take to his bed. Amy loved every moment. After all, if they were standing in the apse of Westminster Abbey, she rather doubted Richard would be allowed to stand with his arm around her waist and his head resting on hers. Nor would Richard have been permitted to kiss the bride for a full five minutes, which, the bride decided, would have been a sad loss.

“I do! Awk! I do!” croaked the parrot, who seemed to feel he had deserved a more central role in the ceremony.

Amy’s eyelids fluttered open as the long kiss ended. “I’m not sure this is entirely legal, but I don’t really care.”

Richard grinned, and swept his new, if perhaps not entirely legal, wife up in his arms, and kissed the tip of her upturned nose. “I adore you, Amy. I really do.”

Amy blew a kiss back up at him. “Despite my dubious morals, letting you compromise me like this?”

Richard squeezed her a little tighter as he carried her down the narrow stairs to Marston’s cabin. “I promise you,” he said with an exaggerated leer, “I really don’t consider that a drawback.” Turning to the side, he shouldered open the door of Marston’s cabin.

Amy took in a brief glimpse of sunlight slanting across scarred wooden boards, a heavy table and chair, and a substantial bed. It was just like Marston to deck his bed out with red velvet draperies.

“Your threshold, my lady,” Richard announced, carrying Amy over it.

Amy rubbed her head against his shoulder and started laughing. “Isn’t it just like us?” she gasped between giggles. “We can’t do anything properly! We don’t even have a wedding night; we have a wedding afternoon.” The statement sent her into further paroxysms.

Richard maneuvered Amy through the door, kicking it shut behind them. “Look at it this way,” he suggested, lowering her gently onto Marston’s gaudy red silk coverlet, “we get a wedding afternoon and a wedding night.”

“Lucky us,” agreed Amy breathlessly, as Richard’s lips brushed across hers in an achingly tender kiss.

“It’s so glorious to be able to kiss you and know it’s you,” said Amy several long kisses later, twining her arms tighter around Richard’s neck.

“Do you miss the Purple Gentian at all?” asked Richard, twirling one of her dark strands of hair around his finger.

Amy considered for a moment, leaning her head back on the pillow in a way that bared the white arch of her neck. Unable to resist, Richard ran a finger down the line of her throat, following it with his lips.

“Oooh. You know, it’s not at all easy to think when you do that. No. No, I don’t miss the Purple Gentian. He was a lovely romantic dream, but I much prefer—oof!” The force of Richard’s arms around her rendered finishing the thought impossible.

“Right answer.”

“True answer. Besides,” Amy added breathlessly, grinning up at him, “the mask chafed.”

If he had ever taken the time to envision his wedding night—or, in this case, wedding afternoon—shouting with laughter wouldn’t have been on the agenda. But that’s just what he was doing. It was as if all the joy welling up within him needed an outlet. There were also other things demanding an outlet, but Richard wanted to keep those in check as long as possible, since Amy deserved the best wedding afternoon anyone had ever had.

He smoothed her hair away from her face. “I love you.”

“Say it again,” Amy begged, her blue eyes sparkling. “I can’t ever hear you say it enough.”

“I love you.” Richard kissed the tip of Amy’s nose and she giggled.

“I love you.” Amy’s giggle turned into a gasp as his lips touched the sensitive hollow above her collarbone.

“I love you.” His lips descended into the deep cavity of her bodice. “All of you,” he amended, sitting back on his heels, his gaze raking down Amy’s body from the loose neck of her blouse to the way the coarse wool of her skirt molded against her legs. “And I would love you”—he yanked on the laces of her bodice—“even better without all these clothes in the way.”

“Wait,” Amy said huskily, stilling his hand on the laces of her bodice. “Don’t I get to see you?”

Although reluctant to leave off unlacing Amy, whose bodice had already dipped to show a tantalizing amount of nicely curved flesh, Richard didn’t need too much encouragement to comply. Amy lifted herself up on one elbow to watch as he dragged his shirt up over his head. How could she have ever thought he looked like an illustration of Horatius? Apollo the Sun God was closer to the mark. Richard glowed. Sunlight reflected off the wiry gold hairs dusting his chest, and turned him into an object of worship. And he was hers. Utterly, entirely hers. Amy thrilled to the thought.

Never one to allow new toys to sit and gather dust, Amy reached out and tentatively touched her palms to the smooth skin of Richard’s stomach, loving the way his muscles tensed under her fingers. She slid her hands upward, fascinated by the heat that radiated from his skin, the unfamiliar brush of hair against her fingers.

Richard’s hands clamped down on Amy’s wrists, placing her hands firmly on the gaudy silk coverlet. “Your turn,” he announced unevenly.

“But you’re still wearing—” Amy’s words were abruptly cut off as Richard whisked her shirt and chemise over her head in one hearty tug.

“Much better,” he decreed, flinging them aside. “Much, much better. You do not know how much I’ve been looking forward to this,” he muttered, as he gently cupped a breast in each hand.

“I thought”—Amy paused with a gasp as Richard brushed his palm against the puckered nub of her nipple—“that you would never touch me like this again.”

Looking genuinely horrified, Richard’s hands closed possessively over her breasts. “Perish the thought! I intend to touch you like this again . . .”—his mouth gently brushed one nipple—“and again”—he visited the other—“and again.” His mouth fastened on the first nipple and Amy lost all interest in conversation. She whimpered as he withdrew his mouth, flicking her hardened nipple teasingly with the tip of his tongue. She arched up against him, pulling at his hair.