“Do you mean that?”
“I do. No matter what you say, I don’t want you to go anywhere. Offering a marriage is the right thing to do, given my feelings,” Robin told Tessa. Then he shrugged. “I’m utterly mad for you.”
At his confession, Mother shrieked and dashed off in a frenzy of activity. Robin kept his attention on Tessa’s dear face as it slowly transformed from uncertainty to wonder.
“Bates, send away the hack and return these trunks upstairs,” Robin ordered, eyes fixed on the rarest and loveliest smile he’d ever seen grace Tessa’s face.
“Bates, I want you to find that nice rector,” Mother said. “He seemed very sympathetic to my need to see the world. We want these two married as soon as possible. The banns must be read, of course, but then…”
Robin steadily backed Tessa into the nearby drawing room. As he closed and locked the door behind them, shutting out Mother and her wedding plans, Tessa sighed. “She’ll be impossible now.”
“I assume so.” Robin gripped her soft hands tightly and raised them to his lips. He kissed every one of her dainty knuckles.
“You didn’t have to offer marriage to save me from living with your grandmother.”
“Nobody deserves that fate, least of all you.” He gently stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “You’re too important to be hidden away. I intend to spoil you and keep you very, very close.”
“Oh, Robin,” she whispered. “I never thought you cared about me this way. I had begun to think you didn’t care about me at all.”
“I’m sorry about Mother, but I swear I noticed you from the start. But with my sister and Mother watching us all the time, I didn’t want to embarrass you if you didn’t return my regard.” He grinned. “You do care about me, too, don’t you?”
She nodded quickly. “Very much.”
Grinning, Robin lowered his head and kissed Tessa’s lips for the first time, wondering how he’d managed to put off the moment for so long.
Tessa was shy at first, but as she learned his kiss, he discovered that Tessa fitted very comfortably in his arms. Hers lifted to wrap around his shoulders, and she held on to him tightly.
“Ah,” he whispered when they paused to catch their breath. “I have dreamed of holding you like this for so long.”
Behind his back, his mother tapped frantically on the door. “Robin. Tessa. Don’t you dare create a scandal! Open this door at once, or I’ll have Bates break the door down. We have a wedding to plan, and she doesn’t have a chaperone!”
Bates was too old for that. Stifling a giggle, Tessa whispered, “Do you realize I’ve never once been scandalous?”
“Would you like to be so with me? We could run away together. Elope and spare ourselves the pain of Mother’s wedding plans.”
“It would be less fuss, and we do both dislike being the center of attention.”
He glanced over his shoulder as the door really rattled. “Mother, we might have decided to elope,” he called out.
“Your mother would probably follow us.” She hugged him tightly. “She’s not the sort to miss the wedding of her only son. She will want us to be wed here, and there will be a lot of fuss, for both of us, I’m afraid.”
He clutched her waist and bent his head to hers to whisper, “We’ll just have to suffer through it together.”
Tessa nodded, and he kissed her quickly because, at last, he could.
Tessa wrenched her lips from his suddenly, caught his hand, and tugged him toward a doorway that was never used. “Let’s escape.”
Bemused, he laughed out loud, “Wait. Are we eloping to Gretna Green, after all?”
“No, of course not.” She started up the stairs, urging him to follow and be quiet about it. “I wouldn’t feel right not having your mother at our wedding,” she whispered. “I had another, closer destination in mind for this afternoon, if you don’t have any objections.”
There were only bedrooms in this direction—Robin’s and Tessa’s. He grinned at the unexpectedly bold plan of Tessa’s. “I’d be mad if I refused you.”
They reached the upper hall hand in hand and tiptoed to his bedchamber door.
“Almost safe,” he whispered, as something substantial crashed against wood downstairs.
“Robin and Tessa, don’t you dare do this to me!” Mother cried out loudly from somewhere below them. A few minutes later, a door banged and then, “Where are you!”
Tessa stifled another laugh as they entered Robin’s bedchamber. “Not a moment too soon. She’ll be sending the servants to look for us. Or she’ll think us really on our way to Gretna Green, but only for a little while.”
“Unfortunately, you might be right.” Robin slipped an arm around her waist. “Now, at last, I have you completely to myself.”
Robin would still court Tessa while waiting for the banns to be read. But for today, he was determined to share a few more very private kisses and discuss their future without Mother getting in his way.
He framed her face with his hands. “I love you,” he whispered.
“You really do, don’t you?”
Tessa’s face filled with such surprise that he nearly cried. He’d kept his feeling far too private. He meant to change that now. “I’ll never forget the day you crossed my threshold. So scared. So reluctant to believe you could belong with us. I would do anything to make you happy.”
“You already do in so many ways.” Tessa blinked back tears. “For me, it was the first morning after I arrived. You had a breakfast tray sent to my room that day, and every day since. There were flowers on the tray and a note from you.”
“It said welcome home,” he whispered. “I meant that.”
Tessa touched his face. “And I had felt I belonged, until the day your mother hatched her grand plan to travel, and you said nothing against me going away.”
“Forgive me. I must have been half asleep to have missed that discussion. I swear I would never have forced you to you leave, even if you hadn’t returned my affection.” He kissed her cheek, her jaw, and nibbled at her slender throat. “You matter very much to me.”
“Tell me again.”
“I love you, Tessa Abbott. I’m going to marry you as soon as I can. And until that day comes, I want to spend every moment with you—thwarting Mother’s attempts to keep us apart.”
“Good.”
Her fingers landed on his chest and began to slide downward, over his waistcoat. Robin smiled at how good her fingers felt brushing over his chest, expecting her to draw back at any moment. When she didn’t, he caught her gaze. “What are you about, my dear Tessa?”
Her hands continued downward, stopping at his waistline. “Merely confirming something I heard recently.”
“From whom?”
“Your sister. She had the talk from your mother, and then she shared certain facts with me.” He bit his lip as her touch inflamed him enough to bring about an erection. Tessa gulped. “I must say, her words failed to convey the reality of the male anatomy.”
Her fingers traced the length of him and back up again. The caress was more than he expected. “Touch me like that and you’ll see the whole of me—sooner than you really should.”