“You mean to tell me that you ran off and nearly got yourself killed because you were trying to protect me?” he said, astonished, amused and infuriated at the same time. “You darling idiot! I’m a Rohan. We thrive on scandal. We wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She backed away from him, coming up against a cupboard. “But I’m . . . I’m barren. I know I can’t have children.”
He felt only the tiniest hint of pain and dismissed it. “I’m sorry for that, but more for you than for me. My sister is busy populating the Lake District and Benedick is trying to catch up. We’ll have enough little Rohans around to destroy the world, should they take it in their minds to do so.”
“Brandon, think about what you’re suggesting,” she pleaded but he was done, crossing the last few inches between them and pulling her into his arms.
“I’ve had five endless weeks to think about it, you cruel woman, and if you ever run away like that again I’m going to beat you severely.”
She looked up into his eyes, his beautiful wounded bird, no longer broken, no longer lost, and the wry quirk of her mouth told him just how seriously she took his ridiculous threat.
“And I’m not suggesting anything,” he continued. “I’m telling you. You’re marrying me and I’ll build you a hospital wherever you damned well please. I’ll go where you want to go, I’ll do. . .”
“Um . . .” she said, breaking into his declaration of adoration with her usual practicality. “I’ve already made arrangements in Inverness. I’ll go there twice a week for surgery and look after the local people the rest of the time. That is, if . . .”
He kissed her then, long and deep, cradling her head with his hands to keep her still, tasting, sucking, biting as she sank against him, and he felt the fight leave her body, leaving nothing but welcome.
Tammas had no sense of propriety and began leaping around them, making encouraging noises, but Brandon didn’t let it distract him. He had no intention of stopping until he . . . he had no intention of stopping, ever. He’d kiss her in the kitchen, reach beneath her skirts and lift her up onto the work surface behind her, unfasten his breeches. . .
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Rohan,” came Ellis’s precise voice, and Brandon lifted his head to growl at the man, while Tammas did the same in an act of solidarity with his oddly-behaving master, but Emma reached up, grabbed his long hair in her fist, and yanked him back to her mouth, and he wondered what Ellis might do if his new employer came in his breeches.
“Go away, Ellis,” he muttered when they both took a breath. “Or I’ll fire you.”
But Ellis wasn’t going anywhere, curse the man. “I’m afraid I have a confession to make, Mr. Rohan. I have been working here under false pretenses. I am still attached to your sister’s household—Lady Rochdale simply sent me here to ensure that everything was ready, but I do have the perfect candidate in mind for your permanent majordomo.”
Brandon dropped his head down to claim Emma’s mouth once more, but she put a hand against his lips, forestalling him. He ran his tongue over her fingers and began to suck one, well out of Ellis’s sight, and her eyelids half closed in reaction.
“What do you mean, ‘everything was ready’? Ready for what?” Her breathless voice held deep suspicion.
“Lady Rochdale and her family should be arriving in the next day or two, the Viscount and his wife a few days later, accompanied by his lordship’s parents. I believe your father will be bringing a special license with him.”
Emma appeared dumbfounded, a rare occurrence for his beautiful bride. “No,” she said. “That is . . . I didn’t say yes . . . I still think we should. . .”
Brandon took care of her protests in the most efficient way possible, and when she was too breathless to speak he glanced at Ellis. “Well, for the time being you’re my butler, and you will leave and see that no one disturbs us for the next hour.”
“Hour?” Emma said, sounding alarmed.
“Make that two.” He focused all his attention on Emma. “And take the damned dog.”
When they were finally alone he turned back to her, and she was wiping tears from her cheeks. “Damn these things,” she muttered. “I only started crying five weeks ago and now I can’t seem to stop.”
“That’s all right, Harpy,” he murmured. “I’ll always be here to dry them. Accept it—there’s no way you can win against the assembled might of the Wicked Rohans. You’ll marry me and live happily ever after.”
“No one ever does,” she said.
“You will,” he said firmly. “I promise you.”
Epilogue
The marriage ceremony was a wild affair, given that it was the Wild and Wicked Rohans. The special license proved entirely unnecessary with Scotland’s appropriately random marriage laws, and Emma Rose Magdalene Cadbury and Brandon George Rohan were joined in holy matrimony by no other than a lapsed Catholic by the name of Noonan.
The bride continued her medical calling, despite her faulty diagnosis of her own fertility, and over time she presented her doting husband with four pledges of her affection.
And then, true to her husband’s words, they lived happily ever after.