A hand slipped around her waist, and a muscular male chest warmed Mary Fran’s back. “Then I would have told you, somehow, in some version that skirted all those vows and all that honor. I’d made that decision while I was traveling from here to London and back in less than a week. I could not let you go on thinking I’d play false with a woman’s honor out of something as cavalier as drunkenness or carelessness. Doubt me all you like, Mary Fran, but never again doubt your own judgment. The rest of the world, even my own father, can think what they please, but you deserved the truth.”
A second hand slid around Mary Fran’s waist and tugged her gently back against Matthew’s taller frame. “What am I to do with you, Matthew? The thought of your sacrificing your good name when I know how much it means to you… I’d like to skelp your bum but good, but I love you—heaven help me.”
“You can do both, you know. Love me and skelp my bum.”
His chin came to rest on her temple, and Mary Fran stood in his embrace for long moments, absorbing the calm of him. She turned and wrapped her arms around him when it became apparent he’d said all he felt needed to be said.
“Is there more, Matthew?”
“More I cannot tell you?”
She nodded against his chest, dreading his answer.
“There’s more I have to say to you, but nothing more about my time in the Crimea. I did a lot of translating, a lot of lurking and overhearing, and not much flirting. Russians are a jealous lot, with good aim and loads of determination. War with them will be a difficult undertaking.”
“Marriage with me will be a difficult undertaking.”
“Life without you would be impossible. Then, too, I’m sure as a husband, I will be far from perfect—you might have to skelp my bum regularly.” He sounded so certain, no shadows, no doubts. “I want a family, Mary Fran. Not for the succession—we don’t have to use the title if you don’t care to—but for us, and for Fiona. Your brothers will make sure she has cousins, but she’ll be a marvelous big sister.”
Still Mary Fran remained in his embrace. “Leaving my brothers will be difficult, Matthew. Difficult for me and for Fiona.”
“We won’t go far. His Royal Highness said there’s a fine property a little farther along the river, which has just come up for sale. I’ve plenty of investments and rental properties, so we can bring up the children right here in Aberdeenshire.”
He kissed her cheek, and Mary Fran felt her heart melt. “We need a bed, Matthew. Right now, we need a bed and a door with a stout lock on it.”
“I have something better, Mary Frances.”
He kissed her other cheek, and she rocked into him more tightly. “What could be better than a bedroom with a locked door and you and me on the mischief side of it?”
“Not much, almost nothing, in fact.”
This time he kissed her mouth, a luscious, lingering kiss that had Mary Fran wondering if the two trunks were still stacked along the wall. She eased back, prepared to drag him bodily to her bedchamber.
He resisted long enough to reach into his vest pocket and withdraw a piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
“The only thing better than that locked bedroom, my love. This is a special license, and it has our names on it.”
As it turned out, they made use of the special license fairly quickly, with all of Mary Fran’s family in attendance, including Fiona and one black-and-white cat. Thereafter, they made use of the bedroom with the locked door with great frequency, until Fiona was a big sister many times over, and the MacGregor brothers uncles many times over as well.