Page 107

It couldn’t have been. It was a joke—a jest. A trick.

Surely not.

Phrases flickered across his mind as his eyes tried to take in the words from the clearly hastily scrawled page in his hands.

…wanted to support… a secret until you were wed… hope this will assist…

It couldn’t have been from—it just couldn’t.

Ernest’s fingers tightened around the paper. It was precious, far more precious than he could have imagined. That such a thing had existed, and for so long, and without his knowledge—

“Ernest?”

He blinked, looking up dazedly from where he sat on the sofa in the Pernrith Chances’ drawing room…and smiled.

Gwen.

She was attired in stripes, as she seemed to be more and more these days, and she was looking at him with such delight, it was difficult not to beam in return.

“What have you got there?” she asked curiously, stepping into the room.

“Now, don’t hound the man. You’re not even married yet,” quipped her brother from the other side of the room.

“Be quiet, Michael,” Gwen snapped.

Ernest grinned as he watched the two siblings bicker. They cared for each other more than they could ever know. Certainly more than either of them would ever admit.

“—and keep out of business that doesn’t concern you,” Gwen finished smartly before turning her attention back to Ernest. “You look a little surprised.”

“Perhaps he’s dreading a future in which he’s constantly berated—ouch!” Michael rubbed his arm with a frown. “That hurt!”

“It was meant to,” said his wife nonchalantly, a little smile on her face as she winked at Ernest. “You’ve got to keep these Chances in line, you know.”

“I quite agree,” said the dowager viscountess with a laugh as she embroidered by the fire.

Her husband, and Ernest’s future father-in-law, gave a snort of mock outrage. “I have absolutely no idea what you—”

“Yes, you do,” said his wife firmly.

Laughter rang out around the room as the couple’s children demanded to be told precisely what their mother meant by such a thing, and the volume in the room only increased as their father just as vehemently demanded that she hold her tongue.

There were chuckles, and screams of delight, and voices speaking over each other and Ernest adored it.

So different from his childhood: an absent brother, a distant father, and a mother who had died to give him life. It had been no family at all.

No, this was what a family truly was. Noise and laughter and arguments. It was the sort of family he wanted to create with his beautiful bride—once they were married.

And that day simply could not come soon enough.

“I demand to know,” Gwen said cheerfully, dropping down on the sofa beside Ernest. “Don’t you?”

“I will be incomplete without the information,” Ernest said solemnly, causing even further giggles from the woman beside him as she rested her head on his shoulder.

The casual proximity was enough to stir his bones. This woman, this wonderful woman. How could it only be eighteen odd days until he made her his?

Though in reality, she had been his for a long time. Ever since he had taken her to bed. Ever since he had kissed her in that churchyard. Ever since he had first laid eyes on her.

Miss Gwendoline Chance had been his.