Only Beloved (The Survivor's Club , #7)

by Mary Balogh

prince.

"PRINCE AND KING" WOULD SOUND BETTER

But she knew in these moments, as they enjoyed their surroundings in a companionable silence, that she had never known true happiness until now.

“You must provide me with a list of the people you do wish to invite,

Miss Debbins, and I will put it into my secretary’s capable hands with my own list the moment I return to London within the next couple of days.”

But having conceived the idea of marrying, and having secured your consent to my offer, I am now all impatience to have the deed done.”

Dora was struck fully with the realization that she would be his second wife. He would be coming

to her encumbered by years and years of memories of a family life with another woman and a child. He would be coming burdened by the memory of the terrible tragedies that had taken them both from him within a few months.

It was comfort and companionship he wanted from her. He had been quite honest about that, and she must not forget it. He wanted someone to help hold the loneliness at bay.

“I do assure you, Miss Debbins,” he said, “that seeing you again yesterday only made me more eager to marry you.”

Happily-ever-after? The term made George a bit uneasy. He certainly did not have that to offer, but then Miss Debbins did not expect it. They were both old

enough and experienced enough at life to understand that no marriage could offer unalloyed happiness. Not that he was a cynic. He was not, and neither, he was quite sure, was she. They were both realists. Of that he felt sure.

The next couple of days could not go fast enough for him. Not just so that he could have her in his bed—though there was that too—but so that he could have her permanently in his life.

And it occurred to him with something

like surprise that he was happy.

He felt happy for Dora Debbins tonight. But . . . when had he ever felt happiness for himself? Try as he would, he could not think of any occasion

since he joined his regiment at the age of seventeen, when he had been happy for all too brief a time. Only recently had he begun to feel anything approaching it—when he went to Gloucestershire and made his offer and was accepted, a few times during the

past month, and now this evening. Now at this moment. He was a happy man, he thought, and this was only the beginning. Soon she would no longer be returning to Arnott House and le...

But the great welling of inner happiness he had felt mere minutes ago had been replaced entirely by the creeping, surely baseless fear.

She was about to marry a kind and wonderful man. She was even—she might as well be honest in

the privacy of her own mind—a little in love with him. Perhaps a lot in love, though she would never admit to such foolishness outside the privacy of her own mind. In any case, she was going to marry him today.

smiled ruefully. It was a bit embarrassing to be thirty-nine years old and a virgin while he, presumably, had years of experience behind him.

“People often are miserable,” Dora said. “They make the best of it. They make a meaningful life despite it. They make happiness despite it. Prolonged misery is often at least partially self-inflicted.”

“There is no greater pleasure, Agnes,” she said, “than making a child feel secure and happy when it is in one’s power to do so. I know I was no substitute for Mama, but I loved you dearly. It was no sacrifice. Believe me it

was not.”

But that is the mystery of love, is it not? The more one gives, the more one has.

I do not believe it is just fondness you feel for each other. I was watching him while you played the pianoforte a couple of evenings ago, you know. He was positively beaming. And it was not just with pride. And I saw the

way you looked at him after you had finished playing, before you were swamped with the attentions of the guests.

George himself was feeling perfectly composed. No, actually he was feeling something more positive than that. He was aware of a boyish sort of eagerness as he awaited his bride.

She was the wife for whom he had unconsciously longed perhaps all his life, and

he dared believe he was the husband she had dreamed of and been denied as a very young lady.

He felt a wave of warm affection for her and an utter certainty that everything was as it ought to be. He was going to be happy at last. So was she—he

would see to that. He smiled, and she smiled back at him with a look of unguarded pleasure.

The day had been irrevocably spoiled.

“It has been a long and busy day. A happy one, though, would you not agree?” “Yes,” she said. “Very happy.”

He had so very much wanted their wedding day to be the happiest day of both their lives.

Come to bed with me, Dora. Let me make love to you.”

“Please don’t,” he said. “Don’t make this a matter of duty. You owe me nothing out of duty. Nothing. I married you because I wanted a companion and a lover. I thought you wanted the same.

If I was mistaken, or if you have changed your mind, then . . . so be it.” There was a short silence. “Was I mistaken? Have you changed your mind?”

Their marriage would be what they made of it.

“You are undoubtedly sore,” he said. “I will restrain myself for a night or two while you heal, but I want you here in this bed with me, Dora, tonight and every night. I hope it is what you wish too?”

George had always felt a little different from the others. For one thing, Penderris was his home. For another, he had suffered no personal injury in the wars.

He was feeling remarkably uncomfortable. For what he had never shared with these closest

of friends could never be shared. There were . . . secrets that were not his to divulge.

We had . . . reasons to dislike and resent each other.

I have a new wife and a new marriage to give me hope and happiness.”

They all had burdens they would carry for the rest of their lives even though they had learned to live with them and even to find happiness again.

He smiled at the realization that he was missing his wife and could hardly wait to see her again.

what a wonderful feeling it had given her to be a wife among wives, a friend among friends—or how lovely it had been to know that she had a husband coming back to her.

She had had no idea that marriage would feel so . . . comfortable, that it would involve light banter and teasing remarks and laughter.

“But there was a child,” she said. “There was Agnes. Surely—oh, I may be very wrong, but surely she ought to have put her child before any personal unhappiness with her marriage. Agnes was five years old.”