She snapped the pocket watch back in place and reached into her beaded reticule. Her fingers slid across cool metal, and she clasped it, pulling out a key with the figure of a bird in flight twisted into the handle. With a pang of regret at Grayson’s absence, she took a trembling step forward. She’d have to remove the cover over the sign first. Grayson had been going to do that, a dramatic flourish as she opened the door. But now, necessity beat out drama. Tobias would be greatly disappointed.
“Wait! Hen!” A strong hand roped around her upper arm, turned her around, and swung her gently backward against a hard chest.
“Grayson! You’re here!” Henrietta’s arms wound tightly about his neck, and he hugged her so tightly he lifted her off her feet. She felt the hard planes of his chest, his belly, strengthened and tightened through daily work with his tenants, pressed against her own soft center. She wanted to melt into him, to revel in the electricity shooting through her at his touch even after almost four years of marriage. She wanted to drag him home and keep him abed for the exact amount of time he’d been gone.
But there was business to be done first, and Grayson knew it. He set her at arm’s length, his thumbs rubbing soft circles into the delicate skin above her elbows. “Of course, I’m here.” His eyes glowed with desires she knew mirrored her own. “God, I’ve missed you, Hen.” He pulled her close once more, dipped his head, and—
“Papa!” A fury of gold curls and sticky cheeks flung itself at Grayson.
He swooped Adaline up and hugged her tight. “My little bird! How I’ve missed you!”
Henrietta couldn’t feel too frustrated by the interrupted kiss. Seeing her husband and daughter tangled together made up for every evil in the world, every pang, every fear.
“What have you got on your cheeks, little bird?” Grayson asked, poking one sticky side of Adaline’s face.
“Grandfather gave me a peppermint.”
“Ah.” He grinned, set Adaline on the ground, and ruffled her hair. “Stay with Grandfather. Mama and I have business to attend to.” He turned to Henrietta and took her hands, intertwining their fingers. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, unable to speak past the emotion welling deep in her chest and behind her eyes.
He nodded, too, and hand in hand they approached the new shop front. They let go of one another only long enough to accomplish their tasks. Henrietta inserted the key into the lock. Grayson took hold of the thick, brown paper covering the shop’s sign. Henrietta turned the key and the lock clicked. The door swung open while Grayson yanked the cover away. Itwhooshedthrough the air, revealing the sign above the door. And they returned to the circle of one another’s arms.
Henrietta nestled deep into Grayson’s shoulder, unable to drag her gaze away from what he had revealed. Lady Blake’s, the sign read.
“Lady Blake’s?” Tobias’s incredulous question couldn’t wilt her ear-to-ear grin. “What’s it even mean?” he asked. “You’re certainly not Lady Blake. You’re not even a Blake anymore. You’re a Maxwell. More formally, you’re the Viscountess Rigsby. If anything, it should be called Lady Rigsby’s.”
“Shut up, Tobias,” Grayson murmured, his eyes also glued, with pride, to the store front. “How does it feel, Hen?”
“Wonderful.”
“But truly, it makes no sense,” Tobias insisted.
“I must admit to confusion myself,” Ada admitted.
“Who’s Lady Blake?” Adaline asked.
Henrietta spoke without looking away from the sign, the door, the window with extravagantly colored bolts of cloth displayed for passersby. “If you’ve not noticed, dress shops are named for the modistes who run them.”
“Yes,thatI understand.” Tobias gritted his teeth. “But you are not Lady Blake, as we’ve all pointed out.”
“She’s a lady,” Grayson said with a shrug of his shoulder. “And she’s a Blake.”
Henrietta was a future duchess and the daughter of a factory owner. She was no longer afraid of her future, but she would never forget her origins. Nor would she be ashamed of them.
“Lady Blake is who I am,” she said simply, finally turning to her family and friends. “It’s all the different parts of me.”
Her father-in-law sighed. “I’ll never quite understand you two.” But pride glinted in his eyes. He clapped his son on the back. “Glad you made it, son. We’ll talk about the state of the Scottish estate later this week, hm?”
Grayson nodded and his father lightly popped Adaline on the nose with his forefinger. “You and I must work on candy etiquette. Come with your Papa later this week, little one.”
Adaline’s vigorous nod shook her whole body, and she wrapped herself around her father’s leg.
The duke disappeared into the crowd with a final wave of his hand as a goodbye.
“He’s proud of you,” Henrietta said to Grayson.
He turned more intimately toward her, pulling her chest against his own and stretching his fingers through the curls at the nape of her neck. “I’m proud of you.” His lips touched hers in the most delicate of kisses. He tasted of wind and sweat and love, and she pulled his lapels to urge him closer, to deepen their kiss.
