Lucius remained in the background and was in no hurry to come forward, it seemed. But Frances, glancing at him, felt as if her knees might buckle under her. His eyes were positively devouring her.

“Frances,” he said at last, reaching for her hand and carrying it to his lips when she offered it, “I have said good-bye to you for the last time. I positively refuse to say it ever again. If you try to insist, I shall go off on my own without a word to sulk.”

She could feel the color rising in her cheeks. Her great-aunts were listening. So were his grandfather and sisters and brother-in-law. So were Anne and David, who had come up behind her.

“Lucius!” she said softly.

He would not let her hand go. His eyes were definitely smiling now.

“The final impediment has been removed,” he said as Susanna approached from behind him. “We have the blessing of every member of my family. I have not asked your great-aunts, but I would wager we have their blessing too.”

“Lucius!”

She was beginning to feel horribly embarrassed. People were beginning to look. A number of the girls were beginning to nudge one another and titter. There was their teacher, Miss Allard, in the middle of the hall, her hand held close to the heart of a handsome, fashionable gentleman who was laughing down into her face, the expression on his own suggesting that it was more than just amusement he was feeling.

Claudia had noticed and was coming their way.

Frances looked at him in mute appeal.

And then her daring, impulsive, annoying, wonderful Lucius did surely the most reckless thing he had ever done in his life. He risked everything.

“Frances,” he said without even trying to lower his voice or make the moment in any way private, “my dearest love, will you do me the great honor of marrying me?”

There were gasps and squeals and shushing noises and sighs. Someone sniveled—either Amy or one of the aunts.

It was the sort of marriage proposal, a distant part of Frances’s brain thought, that no woman would ever even dream of receiving. It was the sort of marriage proposal every woman deserved.

She bit her lip.

And then smiled radiantly.

“Oh, yes, Lucius,” she said. “Yes, of course I will.”

She had been wrong. The last applause of the evening had not yet died away. Her cheeks flamed as everyone within hearing distance clapped again.

Viscount Sinclair, lowering his head as if to kiss the back of Miss Allard’s hand, kissed her briefly and hard on the lips instead.

And then they were claimed by family and friends and squealing girls.

“And now,” Claudia said at last with a sigh that was belied by warmly smiling eyes, “I suppose I am going to have to accept your resignation after all, Frances. But I always did say I would be prepared to do so in a good cause, did I not?”

The wedding of Miss Frances Allard and Viscount Sinclair was solemnized at Bath Abbey one month after the very public marriage proposal and acceptance.

The viscountess—soon to become the dowager viscountess—had wanted the nuptials to take place in London at St. George’s on Hanover Square. Mrs. Melford had wanted them to be held in the village church at Mickledean in Somersetshire.

But much as her great-aunts were Frances’s family, her friends at the school were at least as dear to her. And though Anne was planning to spend part of the summer in Cornwall, neither Susanna nor Claudia could leave Bath, as there were nine charity girls to care for at the school.

It was inconceivable to Frances that all three of her closest friends should not attend her wedding.

And Lucius put up no argument.

“Provided you are there, my love,” he said, “I would be quite happy to marry in a barn on the farthest Hebridean island.”

And so Frances was able to dress for her wedding in her own familiar room at the school—the very last day it would be hers—and say her own private farewells to her fellow teachers before they left for the church and she descended to the visitors’ sitting room where Baron Clifton, her cousin of some remove, was waiting to escort her to the church and give her away.

“Frances,” Susanna said, looking at her smart new pale blue dress and flower-trimmed bonnet, “you look so very beautiful. And you are going to be a viscountess today. All I can say is that it is a good thing Lord Sinclair is not a duke. I would fight you for him.”

She laughed merrily at her own joke, but there were tears in her eyes too.

“I will leave your duke for you,” Frances said, hugging her. “He will come along one of these days, Susanna, and sweep you off your feet.”

“But how will he ever find me,” the girl asked, “when I live and teach within the walls of a school?”

The question was lightly asked, but Frances could guess that Susanna, young and lovely though she was, probably despaired of ever making a marriage of her own or even of having a beau.

“He will find you,” Frances assured her. “Lucius found me, did he not?”

“And kept finding you and finding you.” Susanna laughed again and made way for Anne.

“Ah, you do look lovely, Frances,” she said. “The dress and bonnet are handsome, but it is your glow of happiness that makes you beautiful. Be happy! But I know you will. It is a love match, and you are marrying an extraordinary man, who is going to allow you a career in singing—who is encouraging you to pursue it, in fact.”

“You will be happy too, Anne,” Frances said as they hugged. “I know you will.”

“Oh,” Anne said, “I am happy. I have David and I have this life. It is far preferable to what I had before, Frances. Here I belong.”

She was smiling and very obviously delighted for her friend. But Frances always sensed a touch of sadness behind Anne’s warm smiles.

But Claudia had appeared in the doorway of her room.

“Oh, Frances,” she said, “how we are going to miss you, my dear. But it is not a day for self-pity. I am truly, truly happy for you.”

Claudia Martin was not the type to do a great deal of hugging. Neither was she the type to weep for any reason. She did both now—or if she did not actually weep, two tears definitely trickled down her cheeks.

“Thank you,” Frances said while Claudia’s arms were still about her. “Thank you for taking a chance on me when I was desperate. Thank you for making me feel like a professional teacher and a friend—and even a sister. Claudia, I want you to be this happy one day too. I do want it.”

But then it was time for them to leave.

And soon after that it was time for Frances to go to her own wedding at the Abbey.

The congregation was not very large. Even so, a surprising number of people had come down from London for the occasion, including Baron Heath and his wife and stepchildren.

Most important, Lucius saw as he waited at the front of the Abbey for his bride to appear, all her family and friends, including the charity girls from the school, wearing their Sunday best, and all his family were in attendance.

Just a year ago he would have cringed at the thought of wanting all his family about him.

Just a year ago he would have cringed at the thought of marrying.

He certainly would not have believed that today—or any day—he would be marrying for love.

Ah, but love was not nearly a powerful enough word.

He adored Frances. He liked her and admired her in addition to all the romantic and lustful feelings he had for her.

And then there she was, stepping into the nave and approaching on Clifton’s arm, slender and elegant and darkly beautiful.

He remembered his first sight of her—a fleeting glimpse as his carriage passed hers in the middle of a snowstorm. And he remembered his second sight of her as he hauled her out of her submerged carriage—a bedraggled virago, breathing fire and brimstone.

He remembered her making beef pie and bread.

He remembered her carving a smiling mouth on her snowman and stepping back to regard it with pleased satisfaction, her head tipped slightly to one side.

He remembered her waltzing with him and humming the tune.

He remembered stepping into the doorway of the Reynolds drawing room and discovering that the singer who had so captivated his soul was Frances Allard.

He remembered . . .

But today he did not have to rely upon memory from which to draw pleasure. Today they were here before their family and friends to pledge themselves to a lifetime together.

She was here at his side, her very dark eyes luminous with the wonder of the moment.

It was a moment he would live to the full now while it was happening—and a moment he would hold in memory for the rest of his life.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.