An Uncommon Courtship

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  They left the room, but Trent pulled her to the side after they left the room, tilting his head to listen. Angry whispers lashed from the room, too indistinct to hear clearly, but it was easy enough to grasp that they were arguing.

  Trent patted Adelaide’s hand and led her away. She kept glancing at the drawing room door as they started up the stairs. “Aren’t you worried they’ll destroy something? They sound very angry.”

  “Aren’t we gutting the room tomorrow?” Trent looked at the door and then glanced around the hall. “Fenton!”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “When our guests decide to take their leave, make sure they go straight to the door without any detours. Have Oswyn help you, if need be.”

  “Of course, sir.” The bald butler bowed before pulling the bellpull to summon Oswyn. Then he stood in the hall like a sentinel.

  Trent sent Adelaide a questioning glance. “Satisfied?”

  Traces of dried sweat were still visible at his temples, proof that he cared more than he’d put into words. “Yes, I believe I am.”

  “Good.” They continued up the stairs to the parlor. Before they parted ways to dress for the evening, he took her hands. “It’s possible that honoring your mother is sometimes accomplished simply by not telling the world what a heartless person she can be.”

  Adelaide thought about how broken she felt after every encounter with her mother and how long it took to put herself back together afterward. She hadn’t noticed the pattern when she lived at home, but now that the instances were farther apart, it was obvious. “I think you might be right. Are we really dining with Spindlewood tonight?”

  Trent squinted and tilted his head. “Well, I did hear he was dining at Vauxhall Gardens tonight, and we’re meeting Georgina and Colin there, so in a very broad sense of the word, yes. Yes, we are.”

  Delight bubbled up and burst forth as laughter from her lips. “Oh, Trent Hawthorne, I love you.”

  He looked like she’d hit him with a fire screen. She didn’t want to wait to hear him spout gentle platitudes. “Vauxhall Gardens, you said? I’d best go see what Rebecca has laid out for me to wear.”

  Then she fled into her room, her pounding heart leading the way.

  Chapter 37

  Sleep was a blissful escape where questions and confusion took a holiday, allowing a person momentary peace, even if they weren’t awake to enjoy it. It was an escape denied to Trent that evening. He sat in his chair, watching the light from his candle flicker to the corners of the room. Shadows played over the figure huddled beneath the covers in the center of his bed. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had to do something. They couldn’t avoid it forever. He just had to find the courage to ask her about what she’d said, the same way she’d mustered up the courage to ask him about the pineapples.

  He didn’t know how long he’d stood in the parlor after she left. Finch found him there, staring at a wooden door as if it could answer all the deepest questions in life. But it couldn’t. She probably couldn’t even answer them. Not that he would ask. How could he ask the questions that had swirled through his mind without hurting her with his lack of ability to say the words back?

  What did “I love you” mean anyway?

  They’d certainly sorted out the physical issues of their marriage relationship, but that couldn’t have been more than a small part of loving his wife as God had called him to do. Caring for her, putting her needs above his. He was trying to do all these things, committing himself to her well-being.

  Did that mean he loved her?

  He slid the Bible from the drum he used as a table next to his father’s old chair, flipping to the verses in First Corinthians that Anthony had mentioned all those weeks ago. A lifetime seemed to have passed since then, leaving him feeling older and wiser and befuddled all at the same time.

  When he’d looked at them before, the verses had seemed like a condemning mass of things he lacked. They also hadn’t said anything specific about husbands and wives so he’d used that as an excuse to ignore them. Now they looked more like a checklist, a map to what it took to love a person.

  Suffereth long.

  Kind.

  Envieth not.

  Is not puffed up.

  He wasn’t perfect—no man was—but he could see all those things when he looked at his life with Adelaide. It had never occurred to him that she was flattered by Givendale’s attentions or encouraged them in any way. What was that but kindness and lack of envy? Not to mention trust.

  Doth not behave itself unseemly.

  Well, he had punched a man in the middle of a ballroom, but he didn’t think that was what God meant.

  Rejoiceth in the truth.

  Like confrontations over pineapple plans and interfering mothers?

  Beareth all things.

  Believeth all things.

  Hopeth all things.

  Endureth all things.

  That was a lot to ask of someone. The candle sent licks of light across the page, highlighting the truth of God. If this was love, this was what he needed to do. Because God had commanded him to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Which meant he had to love her above himself, with everything in him, even unto death. Beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth. What did that look like in a marriage?

  He considered her problems his own. To the extent that he’d told Fenton to send word if Lady Crampton ever came calling. Then he’d run the entire way from Anthony’s house. A short distance to be sure, but he’d still run.

  He had every confidence that she would rise above her upbringing. That the glimmers of strength he saw would only grow if he nurtured them properly.

  And above all else he knew that she was the only woman for him. Not because of some fanciful poetic look but because God had given her to him and he trusted the Lord’s judgment.

  But did all of that mean he’d learned to love his wife? If there was one thing the passage in front of him made clear, it was that love was considerably more than the emotion that drove men to write poetry and subject themselves to societal events they would otherwise avoid. In fact nowhere in the passage did it say anything about knowing what the other person was thinking or feeling as if you couldn’t live without them. Love seemed to be more about what you did and gave for the other person than about what they brought to you.

  He slid the Bible back onto the large Army drum and blew out the candle before making his way across the room. It might shock Finch, but tonight Trent was going to hold his wife. And tomorrow he was going to start examining his life, looking for anything that was keeping him from fulfilling this most sacred of jobs: loving his wife.

  Adelaide stood in the corridor outside the parlor, trying to decide if she really wanted to go in. Trent had asked her to have tea with him this afternoon. She’d accepted before thinking it through, but now she wondered if it would be best to limit their interaction until they’d both had a chance to move past her instinctive statement the night before.

  Breakfast had been more strained than it had been since the first morning after they’d married. Every time he took a breath she expected him to say something about what she’d said. To either ask her about it or give her some watered-down platitudes in return.

  He did neither. Instead he acted just as he’d been doing for the past several days. He asked after her plans, shared funny stories about something that had happened at the club the day before. And then invited her to take tea with him.

  They’d gone their separate ways after she’d agreed, but now the time was here and she wished she’d been able to come up with an excuse.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady.” Fenton appeared behind her with the laden tea tray, effectively forcing her to walk into the room.

  Fenton set the tray on the low tea table and then sent a significant look toward Trent. He nodded, and Fenton left the room quietly.

  What had that been about?

  “Would you pour?” Trent asked.

  “Of course.” Adelaid
e sat, trying to remember how he took his tea.

  “Cream and five lumps of sugar.”

  “Oh, yes.” Adelaide poured a bit of cream into his cup and then dropped sugar in it before giving hers the same treatment. She lifted it to her lips and sipped, hating the taste as it hit her tongue but ignoring it as she’d trained herself to do.

  “How do you take your tea, Adelaide?”

  She blinked. “Same as you.”

  “Hmm. And the same as Miranda? The same as your mother?”

  She opened her mouth to answer but snapped it shut with a click of teeth. With a calm she didn’t really feel, she slid her cup onto the table.

  Trent’s cup joined hers as he leaned forward to look her in the face. “How do you like your tea?”

  “I don’t.”

  He jerked back with a stunned expression on his face. “I beg your pardon.”

  Adelaide swallowed and rubbed her hands over her legs. “I don’t like tea.”

  Fenton entered again with another tray. This one filled with teacups. He set in on the table and left.

  “You don’t like it at all?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. It’s just simpler to fix it the same way I fix someone else’s. I’ve yet to find a combination I like.”

  Trent plucked a cup from the tray. “Then let’s find out, shall we?”

  An hour and two more pots of tea later, Adelaide sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “I think we could put an official seal on this declaration now. I don’t care for tea. Although it is more palatable with a significant amount of milk and the slightest bit of sugar.”

  Trent leaned back in his chair, enjoying his own cup of tea. “We’ll have to keep it our secret. They might kick you out of England if it becomes public knowledge. What do you like, then?”

  “Coffee. Mrs. Harris brews wonderful coffee. I always have two or three cups at breakfast.”

  His face showed surprise. “That’s coffee? I thought it was chocolate. My sisters insist the day can’t begin without a hot mug of chocolate.”

  She shook her head. “Chocolate is good but coffee is wonderful.”

  He settled back in his chair and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. “Tell me something else about you that no one else knows.”

  Adelaide looked over the scattered cups, the dregs of tea long forgotten in a quest to discover what she liked. She didn’t need the words. This was proof enough for any woman.

  She leaned back in her chair and copied his pose. “I’ve been stuffing a strip of linen into my dancing slippers in case I have to partner your uncle Charles again. He steps on my toes.”

  Trent roared with laughter and drank another sip of tea.

  Neither left the room for another hour.

  Trent paced the study wondering why on earth he thought this would be a good idea. It was a terrible idea, he was going to bungle it horribly, and he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to Adelaide.

  “Your brother has arrived, my lord.”

  Trent nodded at Fenton. “Thank you.”

  It was time to go downstairs. He should have already been downstairs. This was Adelaide’s first time as hostess, and he should be there to support her. Instead he was upstairs fretting like a girl before her first ball. Why had he done this to himself? Two weeks ago Adelaide had told him she loved him. She’d said it again four days later as she drifted off to sleep. Each day he saw it in the way she spoke to him, looked at him.

  After examining himself for a week he’d come to one conclusion. Somewhere along the way he’d learned to love his wife. And he’d learned to embrace her belief in him. He’d sent copies of the pineapple plans to Mr. Lowick two days ago. He’d thought of telling Adelaide everything last night, but then he’d had this idea. At the time he’d thought it brilliant. Now he knew he was insane.

  He ran down the stairs and into the newly decorated drawing room. She’d insisted it be done in time for her dinner, scouring London to find the appropriate furniture. She’d done a fabulous job. Upholstered in red and gold, the sofa reminded him a bit of the wingback chair in his room, with elaborate curves along the top of the back. It still had the thin curving legs that were so popular, but it had eight of them, joined together with a grid of wooden bars underneath, providing a strong appearance, so he wasn’t afraid to sit on it.

  Griffith was taking in the room, kicking lightly at the legs on the sofa. He looked up at Trent. “You’ll have to tell me where she found this. I’m going to get one for the white drawing room.”

  Trent walked to the new walnut cabinet and poured Griffith a glass of water from the decanter he’d had Mrs. Harris prepare in preparation for this evening. He poured himself a sherry before taking the water to his brother. “Are you going to get one in white?”

  “Not a chance. I’m leaning toward a peacock-colored cut velvet.”

  Trent nearly choked on his sherry while Griffith calmly drank his water.

  The rest of the family arrived, and Adelaide bustled about, eyes wide with nerves and excitement as she greeted everyone, making sure they had drinks and running out of the room every ten minutes to check on Mrs. Harris.

  It was a relief when Fenton finally called them to dinner.

  As was always the case when the family got together, everyone stood for a moment looking around and doing mental calculations of rank to see who was supposed to go first. Two dukes, a marquis, and an earl tended to have that effect on a social situation.

  “Would everyone simply go to the dining room,” Trent grumbled. “And sit wherever you please? It’s family.”

  Adelaide gasped next to him and paled a bit. “But the place cards,” she whispered. “I’ve been studying days on the proper position of the place cards.”

  “Wait!” Trent sighed and gestured the group back into the drawing room. “Mother, if you please?”

  In short order, Mother had everyone properly lined up for the short walk to the dining room, where she beamed at Adelaide after a glance at the place cards.

  It felt strange to sit at the head of the table when every man in the room save one outranked him. But it filled him with happiness to look down the table and see Adelaide beaming in success as everyone began to eat. Especially since she’d had a part in creating several of the dishes on the table, including the platter of bacon set directly in front of him.

  Before the dessert could be brought out, Trent rose to his feet. “If I may have your attention. As you all know, this year did not start out as expected for me. I had no plans to marry and certainly no plans to marry so quickly. Yet our God is a God who knows more than we do, though we frequently act otherwise. And in His infinite wisdom, He brought me a wife who suits me more than anyone else ever could.”

  He walked around the table and knelt beside Adelaide’s chair. He thought he heard Georgina sigh but didn’t look her way. His eyes were only for Adelaide, locked to the light blue eyes that brought her face to life, even though it was a trifle pale at that moment.

  “Adelaide, you read some of the strangest things I’ve ever heard of, your taste in food is somewhat questionable, and you can’t keep an ensemble together for more than half an hour.”

  Griffith coughed. “Ahem, brother, I know I’m the only unmarried man in the room, but I don’t think this is the kind of thing a woman wants you to tell her in front of other people.”

  Trent ignored Griffith, pushing on. He was trusting that he knew Adelaide, that this public declaration would give her confidence in his love. Dear God, he prayed he was right.

  “But, Adelaide, all of those things only make you, you. And I wouldn’t change one single thing about you. If I had it to do all over again, I’d happily crash through that floor and sit in the ruins with you all night. And I’d ask you to marry me all over again, but this time it wouldn’t be because I had no choice.”

  Trent swallowed, hoping he could get through the next part without having his tense throat steal his voice. “Adelaide, I know it’s not norma
l, but we threw normal out the window a long time ago. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to marry me all over again, because I love you. And I can’t wait to grow pineapples with you.”

  More than one person sniffled behind him as the sentimentality of the moment washed over everyone. But he also heard a few murmurs about pineapples, letting him know a bit of confusion had leaked into the moment as well. And he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Adelaide, looking not at all confused, sniffed and let the tears course down her cheeks to get lost in her wide smile. “I love you too,” she whispered, “and I’d love to marry you again and grow lots of pineapples.”

  Epilogue

  Suffolk, England, 1816

  “You could have warned me that it took two years to grow these things,” Adelaide grumbled as she waddled into her husband’s specially constructed greenhouse. Layers of carefully made shelves filled with dirt and whatever else it took to grow the tropical fruit lined the room, and at the far end, where the first plants had been planted two years ago, were lovely green-and-brown spike-covered lumps.

  Adelaide poked at them, having to fully extend her arm since her belly kept her from getting too close to the shelf. “They’re rather ugly, aren’t they?”

  Trent laughed, as she’d intended him to. He’d been beside himself for months, as it became apparent that it was a toss-up which would come first—the harvesting of his first pineapple or the birth of his first child. Adelaide was rather glad it was the pineapple so she could be here for the moment. She would have hated to be confined to her room, recovering from childbirth when he pulled the first plant.

  “Shall we?” He held a wicked-looking long knife in one hand, and a gleam of anticipation lit his face. His cheeks were going to hurt later from all the smiling he was doing, but it would be worth it.

  “Yes, please.” As much as she wanted to be here for this moment, she also really wanted to sit down. Her back was aching like never before, and her feet were so swollen she’d had to wear her dancing slippers with the extra padding removed.