by Mary Balogh
Miss Fry had been borne off, as planned, Hugo reported, to be outfitted from head to toe for her wedding and her new life. His wife had gone with her, and so had the Countess of Kilbourne, her sister-in-law.
Vincent hoped Sophia would not feel overwhelmed.
“They will look after her, lad,” Hugo assured him as though he had read Vincent’s thoughts. “Woman power or something hideous like that. It is better to stay far away from it and let them do what they must do.”
“Goodness me,” Flavian murmured on a sigh. “Is this you, Hugo? The hero of Badajoz? The ferociously scowling giant? Is this what three days of marriage have done to you? One can only shudder at the p-prospect of what one week will do.”
“It is called the acquiring of wisdom, Flave,” Hugo said.
“Heaven defend me,” Flavian said faintly.
“You would deny women all power, Flavian?” Imogen asked sweetly.
“Oh, not you, Imogen,” he said hastily. “No, no, not you. I have no wish to be fixed with your steely look every time I glance at you. Your steely look is nasty and is inclined to interfere with my digestion. Let us change the subject. Tell us about your b-bride, Vince, my boy. And tell us why you are marrying in such indecent haste. Imogen has refused to divulge a single detail. It is not her story to tell, she assured us before you came back with George. A hopeless gossip she makes.”
Vincent told them everything, with the omission of the maddest of the details, of course. By the time he had finished, he was surprised to find that one of his hands was in both of Imogen’s. She was not normally the demonstrative sort.
“Marrying Miss Fry is what I want to do,” he said as if there had been a chorus of protests from his friends. “It may sound as if I was coerced into offering for her, and I admit that if circumstances had not been what they were, I would not be doing what I am about to do. But I am not sorry it has happened. And I want to make it perfectly clear—to all of you.” He moved his head about the room as though he could see them all. “I want to make it clear that she did not in any way whatsoever maneuver matters so that I would be obliged to marry her. She is utterly blameless. I had the devil’s own job getting her to accept my offer even though she faced a bleak future if she said no.”
“You look, Vince,” Ralph said, “as if you are about to challenge us collectively to pistols at dawn.”
Vincent relaxed a bit and laughed.
“Is she a b-beauty?” Flavian asked. “Or have you heard she is? Hugo? You have seen her.”
Significantly, Hugo said nothing.
“It may surprise you to know, Flave,” Vincent said, “that I do not care the snap of two fingers what she looks like except how her looks may affect her happiness. She describes herself self-deprecatingly. She is small and slender. That I do know. She has short curly hair, which is auburn, and eyes she cannot identify as definitely either brown or hazel but a bit of both. She has smooth-skinned cheeks and a wide mouth. She has an attractive voice. I like it and I like her. Hugo, anything to add?”
“Not when you ask me in that tone, lad,” Hugo said hastily. “Gwen and Lily will see to her, you may depend upon it. I believe a hairdresser was first on the agenda this morning. And then lots of dressmakers. The aunt with whom she has been living deserves to be horsewhipped. Her dresses look like half-threadbare sacks and she looks as if she has not been eating all that she could. But those things can be put right.”
“Yes,” Vincent said. “Can and will.”
Imogen was patting the back of his hand.
“Vince,” Ralph said, “you are too good for the rest of us. You are too good for this world. Were you this bad when your eyes worked?”
“I intend to be happy, you know,” Vincent told him, grinning. “Marriage does sometimes bring happiness, it seems. Look at Hugo. I can’t do that literally, of course, but I can hear him.”
“Nauseating, is it not?” Ralph said.
Vincent continued to grin. “And soon there will be two of us. The Survivors’ Club may not survive the shock.”
“We survived the wars,” George said. “I daresay we will survive a couple of decent marriages too. Since your family will not be in attendance at your wedding tomorrow, Vincent, and Miss Fry has none worth speaking of, may we all come? Or would you rather we did not?”
A wedding with no guests seemed like a bleak thing—though a necessary one, he had thought when he planned it.
“I would indeed like you all to be there,” he said. “But I will have to ask Sophia if she minds. The whole point of coming here rather than returning to Middlebury Park for our wedding was that the balance of guests would not be all on my side.”
There was a tap on the drawing room door at that very moment and George’s butler murmured to him that a letter had just been delivered by private messenger—for Viscount Darleigh.
“My wife’s handwriting,” Hugo said.
Vincent got abruptly to his feet. Had something happened to Sophia?
“Will someone read it to me?” he asked. “George?”
He heard the rustle of paper. There was a brief pause, presumably while George scanned the contents.
“Ah,” he said. “Lady Trentham asks, Vincent, if you have any great objection to her organizing a wedding breakfast for thirteen persons at her home and Hugo’s tomorrow. Thirteen? Goodness me. Ah, she has listed names here, and we are all included. So are Mrs. and Miss Emes, Mr. Philip Germane—your uncle, I believe, Hugo—and the Earl and Countess of Kilbourne. Apparently Miss Fry has already approved both the breakfast and the guest list.”
Vincent smiled and sat down again.
“Then it seems you are all invited to a wedding tomorrow,” he said. “St. George’s at eleven o’clock. I could not get here in time for your wedding, Hugo, so I shall compensate by having one of my own.”
“The devil,” Flavian said. “Another wedding? I may not survive the ordeal. But for you, Vince, I shall take the risk. I will be there.”
“You complain, Flavian,” the duke said. “There is yet another wedding in a little less than one month’s time, and I will of necessity have to remain in town for it. So will Imogen, since it concerns family. My nephew.”
“The heir, George?” Ralph asked.
“None other,” the duke said. “Julian was a bit of a scamp as a boy, but he has found someone of whom he seems genuinely fond. He brought her here the day before yesterday for my inspection, I suppose. Not for my approval, I am happy to say. He did not ask. The poor girl was clearly awed.”
“Of course she was,” Imogen said. “You always tend to poker up on such occasions, George, and you are formidable enough even when you are not pokered up. Poor Miss Dean. I felt for her.”
“Miss Dean?” Vincent asked, arrested.
“Miss Philippa Dean, yes,” George said. “You do not know her, do you, Vincent?”
“Ah, I believe her family is from Bath,” Vincent said. “My grandmother lived there for years before moving to Middlebury Park to keep my mother company. The Deans were her close friends.”
“Shall I write to Lady Trentham for you, Vincent?” Imogen asked. “I daresay she would like a quick answer to her question. A wedding breakfast to organize in less than twenty-four hours is not an easy thing.”
…someone of whom he seems genuinely fond.
Oh, Vincent hoped so and that the fondness worked in both directions. Guilt concerning Miss Dean had been niggling at him ever since he fled from home. And she was marrying a duke’s heir? Her family would be pleased.
“No need, Imogen,” Hugo said. “I’ll go home and tell Gwendoline myself. I have the feeling I have married a woman who will take this sort of thing in her stride.”
“If your chest was puffed out any farther, Hugo,” Flavian said, “you might discover you cannot see your feet. I’ll be on my way too, George. All this talk of matrimony has given me a c-craving for space and fresh air.”
“I’ll come with you if I may, Hugo,” Vincent said. �
�I want to hear from Sophia’s own lips that all this is not overwhelming her.”
“I promise not to poker up tomorrow when I meet her at your wedding, Vincent,” George said. “Apparently I look formidable enough anyway.”
“You are not going to let me forget that, are you?” Imogen commented.
Good Lord, Vincent thought as Hugo took his arm, tomorrow was his wedding day.
Tomorrow!
10
Three of Sophia’s dresses had been delivered early in the evening, her wedding dress among them.
She was wearing it now, the following morning, and she was peering timidly into the full-length mirror that had been squeezed into her dressing room, where Lady Trentham’s maid had just finished with her. She looked—different. She did not look like a boy. Or a waif. Or a scarecrow.
The dress was a pale sage green, almost silver. It was a shade that brought out the red in her hair. It was simply styled, its high waist caught beneath her bosom with a matching sash, the skirt falling in soft folds almost to her ankles, where it ended in two small flounces. The neckline was low but modestly so, the puffed sleeves trimmed with miniature versions of the hemline flounces. She wore dull gold slippers and gloves. A small-brimmed straw bonnet trimmed with tiny white rosebuds lay on the dressing table, ready to don.
Perhaps the most remarkable item of her wedding outfit was something that could not be seen—her stays. She had never worn them before. They were not uncomfortable, as she had expected they would be. Not yet, anyway. Lady Trentham and Lady Kilbourne had together persuaded her into trying them, and when she had them laced beneath the dress and the dressmaker had pinned it to fit her, she had known why they had done so. She knew it now. Somehow, despite her basic shapelessness and despite the straight lines of the skirt, the stays gave her a waist and hips. Most of all, though, they gave her something of a bosom, pushing her breasts upward as they did. It was not a very impressive bosom. But at least it was a bosom, and for once in her life she thought she looked like a woman.
These stays might, of course, prove to be uncomfortably warm. It was going to be a hot day, Lord Trentham had reported at breakfast, frowning fiercely at Sophia and then surprising her with a grin.
“It is a good thing you never thought of earning your living as a hairdresser, lass,” he had said. “Your hair looked like an uncultivated bush that had passed through a hurricane this time yesterday.”
“Oh, my dear Hugo!”
“Hu-go!”
Mrs. and Miss Emes had spoken simultaneously.
“Which is merely Hugo’s way of saying, Miss Fry,” Lady Trentham had said, “that your hair looks very fetching today.”
“That is exactly what I said,” he had agreed, beaming down at his wife.
She would do, Sophia decided now, gazing wistfully at her image. Indeed, if she abandoned all modesty for a moment in the privacy of her own mind, she thought she would do very nicely indeed. She smiled.
And reality swept over her. This was her wedding day. To Viscount Darleigh. Vincent. She had seen him briefly at dinner the evening before last, before Lord Trentham took him to Stanbrook House. And she had seen him briefly for tea yesterday afternoon. Neither time had she been alone with him. Neither time had they had any sort of private conversation with each other. It felt a long time since they had talked.
He felt like a stranger.
He was a stranger.
For a moment panic threatened. She should never have agreed to this. Just think of his friends—Lord and Lady Trentham, the Duke of Stanbrook, Lady Barclay, Viscount Ponsonby, the Earl of Somewhere she could not remember. All of them titled and from a world far different from her own. Later today she would be expected to meet them. She had agreed to a wedding breakfast here.
She ought not to do it. It was not fair to him.
But he had once been just Vincent Hunt, she reminded herself, who had been educated at a village school by his father, the schoolmaster, and whose playmates had been the other children of the village. She was the granddaughter and the niece of a baronet. She was a lady.
And then she wished she had not thought of who she was. She had family. There was Sir Terrence Fry, whom she had never met, and there were Aunt Martha and Sir Clarence and Henrietta. None of whom were here for her—just as none of Lord Darleigh’s family were here. But in their case it was simply because they did not know about the wedding. But her uncle did not know either. If he did know, would he come? He was probably not even in England.
She gave her head a shake. Almost at the same moment, she was distracted by a knock on the door. It opened to reveal Lady Trentham, Miss Emes behind her, peering over her shoulder.
“Oh, Miss Fry,” the latter cried, “how pretty you look. Do turn and let us see you properly.”
Sophia turned obediently and looked anxiously at them.
“Will I do?” she asked.
Lady Trentham smiled slowly.
“I keep remembering Mr. Welland’s saying that if you keep your hair short you will look like a cherub,” she said. “He was right. You look like a small, dainty fairy creature, Miss Fry. You will do very well indeed.”
“Shall I assist you with your bonnet?” Miss Emes asked, coming inside the dressing room. “You do not want to squash your curls entirely, do you? Oh, how pretty and dainty it is. There. It suits you perfectly. Have I tied the bow at the right angle, Gwen?”
“Poor Hugo will be wearing a path in the tiles of the hallway if we do not go down soon,” Lady Trentham said. “Apparently he was very nervous on our wedding day just four days ago, and now he is nervous all over again because he has the responsibility of giving you over into the care of that rogue and rascal Lord Darleigh—his words, not mine. And spoken purely in fun, of course. But he does feel his responsibility since you have no family to stand with you. Shall we go down?”
Her words, unconsciously spoken, brought back that pang of loneliness and abandonment again. But it was easy enough to brush off. Sophia had not expected a normal wedding—not that she knew a great deal about normal weddings. She had expected a brief ceremony with only her and Viscount Darleigh and the clergyman present. Oh, and one or two witnesses, perhaps Mr. Fisk and Mr. Handry. But suddenly it was to be a real wedding after all. There were to be guests and a best man—the Duke of Stanbrook—and someone to give her away. Lord Trentham had offered last evening and she had accepted. He terrified her—and did not. She had not quite figured him out yet. He looked like a fierce, dour warrior, yet he could catch Lord Darleigh up in a bear hug and gaze at his new wife sometimes as though the sun rose and set upon her. She suspected he was a man who felt most comfortable hidden behind the mask of fierceness so that his tender side would not be on public display and open to ridicule or hurt.
She might have sketched a caricature of him if she had disliked him. But she did not. She was only a little afraid of him.
He was indeed pacing the hall at the bottom of the staircase. He came to a halt when he saw them descending, his booted feet slightly apart, his hands clasped at his back, his posture ramrod straight, like a soldier on parade, not quite at ease. His eyes passed over his wife and his sister with obvious approval and then came to rest upon her.
“Well, lass,” he said, “you are looking very fetching indeed. It is a pity Vince will not be able to see you.”
She paused two steps from the bottom. The other two ladies were down already. Lord Trentham took two strides toward her, and his eyes were only just above the level of hers as he gazed into them with a look that surely must once have had his soldiers quaking with terror.
“He is very precious to me,” he said softly.
He continued to look at her, and she almost retreated to the third stair. But she held her ground and lifted her chin.
“He is going to be even more precious to me,” she said. “He is going to be my husband.”
There was a beat more of eye-searching on his part, and then he smiled and really looked quite unexpectedly hand
some.
“Yes, he is,” he said. “And again I say it is a pity he can’t see you this morning. You look like a little elf.”
At least she did not look like a mouse on her wedding day.
“The carriage is outside waiting, Hugo,” Lady Trentham said.
She and Miss Emes were to accompany them to the church. Mrs. Emes had left earlier with Mr. Philip Germane, Lord Trentham’s uncle, who, Sophia suspected, was courting Mrs. Emes.
Lord Trentham handed Sophia into the carriage and insisted that she take the seat facing the horses beside his wife.
This was it, she thought. Her wedding day. A hot summer day. The sky was deep blue with not a cloud visible. No bride could ask for anything better.
Sophia turned her head to the side as the carriage rocked on its springs and moved forward. She did not want to engage in conversation. She wanted to … to feel like a bride, to put aside all her misgivings, to be excited and only a little anxious, but in a good way.
Lady Trentham had come to her last evening and explained about tonight. Humiliatingly, considering the fact that she was twenty, Sophia had had little idea. Lady Trentham had assured her that it sounded a great deal worse—more embarrassing, more painful, more utterly terrifying—than it was.
“Indeed,” she had said, her cheeks a rosy red, “I will be going to Hugo for the fourth night of our marriage when I leave you, Miss Fry, and really I can hardly wait. It must be … No, it is, beyond any doubt at all, the most glorious thing in the whole wide world. You will see. You will soon come to welcome it.”
Sophia thought she might be right. For her very deepest, most secret dream … Well, she had not shared that at the Barton Coombs assembly. How could she? She had been talking to a man.
The man she was about to marry.
Lady Trentham took her hand and squeezed it.
They were turning into Hanover Square.
