by Abby Ayles
“I have known for some time, Miss Warrick, that I harbour feelings not entirely appropriate for an employer and his governess. When I thought you betrothed to Christopher I, well, I pushed them away. I tried very hard to be happy for you both, but I could not. I knew then that I was jealous, foolishly and hopelessly jealous, and I could not bear to have you here a moment longer if I could not have you for myself.
“I rode away with those thoughts in my mind, and it is my great shame that I did so. Had I stayed and listened to reason, you need not have suffered so. Nor I, for I might have learned of my mistake earlier. For that, I am truly sorry.”
Joanna’s head was spinning. She could only stare at him in amazement.
Somewhere in his speech she had registered talk of feelings, though they seemed lost almost in his urgency to apologise. Had she truly heard him correctly?
“I forgive you for that,” she said, quietly, staring at him with her eyes as wide as they could manage to go.
“But that is not quite the point I wanted to reach. I have become tangled up in myself,” Edmund said, shaking his head.
He sat down again next to her, turning his whole body towards her to address her directly.
“Miss Warrick, my point is this. Having been faced twice with the prospect of losing you, I do not wish to face it a third time.”
“What are you saying, my lord?” Joanna breathed, hardly daring to believe that she had understood him correctly.
“That I love you, Miss Warrick, I love you most dearly. Furthermore, that I would like nothing more than for you to become my wife,” Edmund said, his eyes searching her face earnestly. “Please, Miss Warrick. Allow me to take your hand in marriage.”
Joanna simply stared back at him for the longest moment, until she felt hot tears falling down her face.
“Have I offended you?” Edmund asked urgently, pulling back with an expression of chagrin.
“No, my lord,” Joanna whispered. “Forgive me. I am just so desperately happy.”
Edmund’s countenance changed, and it seemed as though a light shone from within him to illuminate the smile upon his face. “Does this mean that you will accept?”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, my lord, yes. A thousand times yes.”
If she had had the energy, Joanna would have leapt from her seat and danced a jig. As it was, she was content only to sit while he clapped his hands in delight, and then drew closer, cupping the side of her face in one of his hands.
He met her lips in a tender, soft kiss, a kiss that lit her whole body to the core with the same illumination as his, and they both laughed with joy, until he rested his forehead against hers in happy harmony.
Chapter 39
The summer was almost drawing to a close before the Haverhams made good on their promised visit.
The rooms of Hardwicke Hall swelled with eight extra bodies: the Lord and Lady, their three sons, a maid, a valet, and even their own cook, whom they had brought along much to Cook’s displeasure.
“I think it is going well,” Edmund confided, sitting down on the picnic blanket next to Joanna.
“She is quite taken with him already,” Joanna agreed, smoothing her hands over the blanket on her lap.
She was still not recovered sufficiently for them to wed, though she could at least join them when there was somewhere to sit.
The whole party had decided to take advantage of the late summer weather by enjoying a picnic out by the lake, and the Haverham boys were engaging Christopher and Samuel in a hearty game of cricket.
Patience, for her part, was beginning to find it difficult to remove her eyes from the third son’s every move.
“Perhaps there is a chance that we have found a good match,” Edmund suggested, thinking of how neat and easy it would all be if Patience were to set her heart on the first lad who came courting.
“I should give them a little more time first,” Joanna said, with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “I remember how many courtships and imagined romances it took for my sister to settle on her lord.”
“Have you heard from Lady Castleford of late?” Edmund asked.
“The pregnancy goes well,” Joanna replied. “She is hopeful that I will be well enough to travel when the time comes.”
Edmund reached over and took her gloved hand in his.
He had insisted that her day dress, ruined by the sickness, be replaced. Against her arguments and protestations, he had replaced everything with a wardrobe of new garments, amongst them hats and pretty lace gloves and gowns suitable for balls.
“By then we may go as man and wife,” he said. “I shall look forward greatly to meeting your sister. If you are not much more recovered, I can at least accompany you and see that you are not overtired.”
Joanna smiled again. “That would be a most wonderful arrangement,” she agreed. “I’m sure Esther would be thrilled to meet you. She has heard so much of you, after all.”
“I shall have to get her to dig out those old letters and read them to me,” Edmund teased. “I trust that I won’t find anything too uncomplimentary about myself.”
“I shall instruct her to burn them forthwith,” Joanna laughed.
“Are you playing, Edmund?” Christopher shouted from the vicinity of the game. “We require another batsman for our team.”
“Oh, dear,” Edmund said, shaking his head ruefully. “Will you think less of me if I prove to you now my utter lack of skill at our fair country’s finest sport?”
“No less of you than I would if you refused to join their fun,” Joanna said, tapping the covers of the books she had brought with her out to the lawns. “Go. I shall be kept company by Mr Shelley and Lord Byron.”
Edmund made a face. “Who are these scoundrels? I shall chase them away from my betrothed,” he told her.
“You shall do no such thing,” Joanna replied. “Nor shall you use me any longer as an excuse not to play cricket.”
Edmund groaned, and got to his feet, eliciting a cheer from the members of his team.
They would not, he thought, be cheering for long once they saw him bat.
He joined in with gusto, his heart made light by the fact that he could glance over whenever he wanted and observe his dear Miss Warrick sitting with her head in a book, propped up on soft cushions that they had carried out especially for her use.
His sisters were engaged in making daisy chains, and the whole party was made more fun and more boisterous by the inclusion of the Haverham boys.
Each of them was a fair testament to their father’s good sense and their mother’s loving care, and Edmund confessed to himself that he was enjoying their company.
If their families should end up joined in matrimony further down the line, it should be no great hardship.
And if this was to be no more than the first passing fancy which would see Patience have her head turned by some finer match, then so be it.
In the late afternoon they packed up their games and their picnic materials, and returned to Hardwicke Hall to dine.
“Tell me, Miss Warrick,” Lady Haverham said, nestling next to her at the table. “Have you made plans for your wedding day as yet?”
Joanna looked up at Edmund with a plea for help in her eyes. “Not quite yet, Lady Haverham,” she admitted.
“Why ever not?” Lady Haverham enquired, pushing further as the Lady was always wont to do.
Edmund saw the need to intervene.
He knew that Joanna was embarrassed: it was her weakness, as she still recovered from the sickness, that held them back from finalising their plans. She wanted at least to be able to walk for a longer time, and stand to greet their guests, before they were wed.
Anyone with eyes could have seen that she was tired, but Lady Haverham was not one to stay her questions on the basis of such evidence.
“I have been quite busy in London,” Edmund said, cutting in so that Joanna did not have to make a reply. “The business, sadly, takes much of my time. Soon,
though, I am hoping to hand the reigns to my brother for a short time so that we might enjoy our wedding.”
Christopher fairly beamed with pride. “I’ll be taking my leave from the army for a short time,” he added. “I’ve been granted permission from my superiors. It will be an interesting opportunity to see how things are away from the military.”
“How trusting,” Lord Haverham joked, elbowing Edmund heartily. “I should have imagined that our Lord Kelt would never allow another man at the helm of his company.”
“You may have been right,” Edmund replied good-naturedly. “But Christopher has proven himself to me. I trust that he will do things in my stead with the correct sense.”
“I will endeavour for nothing less,” Christopher put in.
“And if not,” Edmund added with a sly sideways glance and a wink at Joanna, “I can always return early and take over before we are totally ruined.”
The table burst into guffaws of laughter at Christopher’s injured expression.
“Say, Lieutenant,” the eldest Haverham put in. “Weren’t you lately connected to Lady Juliana Reffern?”
“There was never any formal arrangement,” Christopher said, his mood changing abruptly. He looked down at his plate, pushing food around merely rather than eating it. “I believe she went and got betrothed to some other fellow.”
“We were just talking about it,” the red-headed boy went on. “Such an upset. Some say she intended to cause a scandal.”
“What, by agreeing marriage with a mere lord?” Christopher asked, and snorted. “I hardly think it the scandal of the year.”
“No, by what came next,” Edward Haverham cut in with a twinkle in his eye. “You haven’t heard?”
Christopher leaned forward in interest. “There had been a development? I have kept myself quite apart from that set since the happy news. I did not hear of any other occurrence.”
“Well,” the third Haverham son began, clearly delighting in the chance to share a titbit of gossip. “She broke it off with him, last month. There was quite a to-do about it.
“She went to a dance the next week and he turned up to try to convince her to change her mind. Such a scene it was! By the time it was done, her retinue were required to whisk her away to home to avoid any damage to her reputation. The poor lord got drunk and tried to fight with her cousin about it.”
Lady Haverham gasped in disapproval, though Edmund would not be surprised if she had heard the story before.
“Such behaviour, and in public too. He ought to be censured for it. What is decided between families should not be paraded for all the world to see afterwards.”
“He was quite heartbroken,” the elder Haverham put in with a note of sympathy.
“I can imagine so,” Christopher breathed.
He seemed to be fascinated by some spot on the distant wall, and talked to it rather than anyone at the table.
“She is a stunning beauty.”
“Perhaps her family decided the match was not an appropriate one,” Joanna said quietly.
“Quite so!” Lady Haverham agreed. “Well, it was ridiculous really. A girl of such breeding should not be paired off with a mere lord. There are plenty of dukes with second or third sons who would have been better. Mixing the ranks so unevenly is a recipe for unhappiness on both sides.”
Joanna looked up and met Edmund’s eyes. He shook his head at her, forbidding her to listen to such nonsense.
“The rank is not quite so much an arbiter of happiness when the couple have an equal class of heart,” he said sternly.
Lady Haverham looked between Edmund and Joanna, and had at least the good grace to show a small flush on her cheeks.
“O-of course,” she stuttered. “When love is concerned. Though I do not think there was truly love between them.”
“I have heard that her heart belonged truly to another,” the middle Haverham boy, who was hardly ever heard, spoke up.
Christopher looked at him then, piercingly, as if trying to determine whether his words had a ring of truth.
“Well,” Edmund said, hoping to steer the conversation in another direction. “I am sure some other scandal will break to distract everyone from it before long. Lord Haverham, have you made any plans as yet for the winter?”
“We’ll proceed as normal,” Lord Haverham replied, draining his cup of wine. “We shall all gather for the winter celebration and enjoy some feasting, I should imagine. We have no particular plans.”
The conversation moved on in that direction, and Edmund was able to spare some moments to catch Joanna’s eye.
He gave her a reassuring smile, hoping that she would take it as it was intended.
There was no opinion from Earth or heaven that would have him dissuaded from marrying her, and he wanted her to know that.
A trace of worry lingered on her face, but she smiled back at him all the same.
That was enough, for now. He could settle for that.
“Of course, you must come to join us in the winter,” Lady Haverham was saying. “There is always more fun to be had with guests. We do so enjoy having our friends come to stay, don’t we, my lord?”
Lord Haverham grunted in agreement. “Gives the boys something to entertain themselves, too. A bit of sports or a few excursions here or there. Though we shall have lost one of them to the clergy by then.”
The middle son bowed his head bashfully. Edmund gathered that Lord Haverham was not quite approving of his choice, though it was tradition for a family with so many sons to donate at least one of them to the service of God.
“And what of young Edward?” he asked, nodding towards the younger boy. “Has he reached some decision regarding his future as of yet?”
“He is considering the navy,” Lord Haverham replied, with a significant amount more pride. “Of course, the army wants him. But we shall see what prospects they can each offer him. Either way, I expect he will be an officer, and a decorated one at that, before next year is out.”
“That is an interesting prospect,” Edmund said, turning this information over in his mind.
Patience did seem to like a soldier, after all. No doubt this would only raise the young Haverham in her esteem.
Still, he was to be away in battle for long stretches, and Edmund did not know if she would truly enjoy being a soldier or sailor’s wife.
The conversation turned again, and soon they were all finished with their dining; with a sigh of regret, Edmund led his contingent of men away for a glass of whisky, wishing instead that he were able to join his beloved in her drawing room.
“My lady,” Mary said, dipping a curtesy to Joanna as the women gathered to rise.
Edmund watched as Joanna shook her head, her usual disagreement.
“I am not your Lady yet, Mary,” she said. “Nor do I intend to be. We have served together, do remember that.”
“You have it the wrong way around, Miss Warrick,” Mary said with a smile. “You always was a lady to me.”
Edmund hid a smile of his own as he ducked out of the room to join the men, congratulating himself once again at the admirable job he had done of choosing a bride.
Epilogue
Edmund stood fidgeting in his new suit, waiting restlessly for the guests to finish filing in to their seats.
“Why ever does it take so long?” he complained to Christopher, who stood by his side.
“Hush, brother,” Christopher said, with obvious amusement. “You will make a spectacle of yourself. Stand still.”
“I cannot stand still,” Edmund hissed.
“Look at how well Amy and Patience are waiting,” Christopher said calmly, taking every opportunity to tease his brother. “Aren’t they just darling in those bonnets?”
Edmund looked at his sisters, standing in their white dresses. They had been chosen as bridesmaids, of course, and though they had been very excited to prepare for the day, now they indeed stood calmly.
“They are children,” Edmund sniffed. “They
don’t understand the gravity of the situation.”
Christopher chuckled. “I see. It is the gravity which makes you move about as though you were trying to invent a new dance.”
“What kind of devilment is it that leads you to mock your eldest brother on his wedding day?” Edmund complained.
“Only the same devilment that leads me to mock him any day of the week.”
“You are a cruel man,” Edmund said. “Is my watch chain still hanging right?”
