Page 25 of The Cutthroat Countess

“I take it she cannot be in London in two days?” Jo had asked, without much hope.

“I’m afraid not. I feel I should also mention that I have a rather large family, love.”

After a great deal more discussion, Jo was slowly brought to agree that they could not possibly marry any sooner than ten days later. Nor could they marry in London, due to the Dowager Countess of Norriton’s inability to travel.

And so they married almost exactly two weeks to the day at the church in the village of Spire, which was the town nearest his grandmother’s house, Foxglove.

After all those concessions, Jo had hoped for one of her own.

But, despite her begging and pleading, Elliot refused to give in.

“I’m sorry, darling, we can’t spend the entire two weeks before the wedding at the ‘Torture Cottage,’ he’d argued, using the name they’d affectionately dubbed their brief hideaway.

Jo had managed to keep him to herself at the Torture Cottage for three days before Elliot had brought in heavy artillery in the form of Marianne, Helen, and yes—even Cecile, who’d returned home early, along with Guy, thanks to a message Elliot had sent to the couple.

“How is it that you always manage to get your way?” Jo had asked at one point.

Elliot had prudently left that question unanswered.

In addition to the dowager Countess of Norriton, all Elliot’s brothers and their wives and children, a dozen other relations, Helen, a handful of Fayre employees, Sin, Marianne, Sin’s Aunt Julia, Cecile, Guy, and their adopted daughter Cat, and—yes, even Richard and Edi—had attended the wedding.

And, of course, Angus—no matter how much her cousin Edi had tried to persuade her otherwise—had joined the festivities, if not as an actual attendant, because that honor had gone to Helen, then as an honored participant.

The raven wasn’t yet flying, and so he’d stood on the shoulder of Elliot’s best man—Guy—and had provided a moment of comic relief when he’d nipped Guy’s ear while he fumbled for the ring.

“It was a good day, wasn’t it?” Elliot asked his wife of barely seven hours as they relaxed in the master suite at Foxglove, which Elliot’s grandmother had insisted on vacating for Elliot and Jo, no matter how much they’d tried to talk her out of it.

Jo yawned and sprawled on the settee—which probably hadn’t been reupholstered since the reign of the first Hanoverian king—looking strangely at home in the old-fashioned chamber.

“It was a wonderful day,” she agreed. “And Sir Stanley’s confession was the perfect wedding gift.”

They’d received word from the Home Office only the day before that the old traitor had agreed to the charges against him to avoid a protracted and very public treason trial.

“He did the wise thing. No doubt he knew the way the wind was blowing from the stories already circulating in the newspapers,” Elliot said, handing Jo a glass of wine before settling down beside her. “Will you want to be there for his punishment?”

Jo pulled a face of disgust. “No, watching a public execution holds no allure for me. It is enough that my father and Mungo will be cleared.”

Elliot thought there would be a great deal more than that—perhaps even an elevation of her rank, and certainly some monetary compensation—but that was a matter for some other day.

“I couldn’t help noticing that Helen and Mr. Morrison have been enjoying each other’s company these past few days,” Jo said, cutting Elliot a sly smirk.

He chuckled. “Now that you are married, you are going to join the matchmakers?”

“Helen is a lovely person, and while I think she is content as she is, I don’t believe she is happy.”

“But if she were to marry Morrison, she’d break the tradition.”

“What tradition?”

“That of the owners of Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre discovering that they are peeresses.”

Jo laughed. “I’ve already had this talk with Helen. She is adamant that is the last thing she wants. I told her a person doesn’t always get a choice.”

“Is being a countess really so awful?”

She pursed her lips and then sighed. “It is better with you beside me.”

Elliot wondered if he’d ever stop feeling the sudden rush of emotion that struck him when Jo said something like that—something so . . . affectionate. He hoped he never became accustomed to it.

Jo set down her glass and took his free hand in hers. “Your grandmother told me something interesting today at our wedding breakfast.”

“Oh?” Elliot was delighted that the two women seemed to get along so well for all that they were so different—or at least, they valued things that were very different.

“She said that she’d given you a list of potential wives—women she’d approved—earlier in the year.”

Elliot groaned, that horrid period in his life the last thing he wanted to think about or talk about on his wedding night.

“No—wait,” Jo said, squeezing his hand. “I’m only bringing this up because my name wasn’t on that list, at least not at the time,” she chuckled. “Your grandmother said it would be on there now. But what I’m trying to say is that you asked me to marry you knowing that our marriage would be a bar to inheriting Foxglove.”

Elliot shrugged. “So?”

“So? So you would have given up this delightful estate and would have disappointed your beloved grandmother to marry me! And I didn’t even appreciate how much of a sacrifice you were making.”

Elliot made an exasperated noise, set his own glass down, and grabbed his brand-new wife by the shoulders. “You don’t understand, do you? Not even now. Giving up Foxglove if I could have you wouldn’t have been any sort of sacrifice, Jo. If you had married me, we could have gone to live on the Continent and earned our way doing what you and Mungo did, or we could have bought a caravan and started our own circus with just one spectacular knife-throwing act. There are many places to live, and many ways to earn one’s crust, darling, but there is only one woman in my three and a half decades whom I’ve fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with.”

“Oh, Elliot.” And then his even-keeled, self-possessed lover threw her arms around him and choked back a sob. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Elliot chuckled, touched by her uncharacteristically emotional reaction. “Well, darling, I hope you like that sort of thing, because I’m going to be saying some variation of it every day for the rest of our—hopefully very long—lives.”