Twelfth Night Secrets
Page 16
He wrapped the towel around his loins and took another off the screen, holding it open for her. “Come, then.”
Harriet stepped out of the bath, and he wrapped the towel around her. “Agnes will come knocking in a moment,” she said, moving the fire screen aside. “What are we going to do?” Her eyes were alight with laughter, although there was nothing really amusing about their predicament.
Julius shrugged into his dressing robe as he went to the window. He opened it and looked down. “Not much to hold on to there.”
“No. Anyway, you couldn’t possibly climb down the wisteria in a dressing gown!” she exclaimed.
“Then we must do this the boring way,” he said with a mock sigh. “Ring for your maid. I’ll stand behind the door, and when she comes in, I will slip out.”
“You sound as if you’ve done this before.” Harriet pulled the bell rope vigorously. “Do you make a habit of escaping from ladies’ bedchambers?”
“Not exactly a habit of it,” he responded with a judicious nod that sent her into a peal of laughter again. “When I’m dressed, I shall go to the Duke. The sooner we make this legitimate, the sooner we can stop all this creeping around.”
Harriet nodded, and he slipped behind the door to await Agnes.
An hour later, Harriet was dressed for the evening, fastening a pair of diamond studs in her ears, when there was a knock at her door. Agnes went to answer it.
“His grace would like to see Lady Harriet in the library as soon as she is ready,” the footman announced.
“Thank you, Collins.” Harriet fastened the second stud and rose from the dresser stool. “I’ll be down right away.” She hurried after the footman, her heart beating fast with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. There seemed to be a surfeit of both in her life since Julius Forsythe had appeared in it, she reflected. Will it always be so?
She went into the library without ceremony. The Duke and the Earl were standing in front of the fire, glasses in hand, and they both turned, smiling, to greet her. Julius came forward quickly and took her hand, raising it to his lips with uncharacteristic formality, before leading her to the fire.
“So, Harriet, I understand you and Julius have come to an understanding,” the Duke said without preamble, handing her a glass of wine.
“Yes, sir.” She met his eyes, unflinching, as she took the glass.
He nodded. “Are you sure you understand what life you’re entering, my dear? It will not be an easy one.”
“My grandmother lived it, as did my mother,” she responded.
A slight smile touched his mouth. “True, but they did not know they were living it. You will. You are marrying a man who is devoted to serving his country. That is not a commitment to take lightly.”
“I know that,” she said, and there was a touch of acerbity in her tone. “I am no fool, Grandfather, and I have no wish to be kept in the dark about anything. This is what I want, and I understand what that means.”
He gave her a little bow of acknowledgment. “Then I can only say I wish you every happiness, my dear.” He kissed her cheek. “Julius has requested a quick and simple wedding, but I think the family are owed a formal announcement first. I suggest you announce your betrothal at the Feast of the Epiphany. It seems like an appropriate date for many reasons.”
Harriet glanced at Julius, who said with a smile, “May I claim the right to make the announcement in my own way, Duke?”
“Certainly,” the Duke said. “Are you in agreement, Harriet?”
She nodded. “The Epiphany does seem appropriate.”
“So let us drink to that.” He raised his glass in a toast. “And to you both. May you have many epiphanies. Oh, and just one other thing.” His shrewd green eyes held a twinkle of mischief. “Twelfth Night is ten nights hence, a wait that you both might find rather taxing. Whatever you choose to do and wherever you choose to do it in the meantime, I ask only for the utmost discretion, until all of the guests have departed. The great-aunts, you understand . . . ?” The twinkle grew as he sipped his wine, watching them over the lip of his glass.
“Grandfather!” Harriet exclaimed in feigned shock, aware of Julius shaking with laughter beside her. “Is that a carte blanche?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, my dear,” he said with a dry smile. “And neither were you. And after the wedding, you will take an extended honeymoon and leave those brats with me and Maddox. We shall manage very well without you. It’s past time you thought of yourself first for a change.”
“Hear, hear,” murmured Julius, raising his glass to the Duke. “We are in your debt, your grace.”
Epilogue
TWELFTH NIGHT
“What d’you think’ll be in the Twelfth Night cake this year, Tom?” Grace pranced from foot to foot. “It was one of the three kings last year.”
“And the baby the year before,” Tom said, grimacing as a nursemaid tugged a comb through his tangled hair.
“The best is when it’s a gold coin,” Grace said. “If it is, and I get it, I’ll share it with you, Tom.”
“There’ll be no coins and no cake if you don’t stand still, Lady Grace,” Nurse Maddox said through a mouthful of pins as she struggled to fasten up the child’s strawberry-blond plait into a becoming circlet around her head.
“Well, at least it won’t be a bean,” Tom stated with some satisfaction. “Even though they still call it that. That must have been awful, when all they put in the cake was a bean.”
“It did make you king for the night, though,” his sister said. “You’d have liked that, telling everyone what to do.”
Nurse Maddox clucked her tongue in exasperation. “I don’t know what your sister is thinking, letting you stay up until midnight.”
“But we always do, Maddox,” they chorused. “For years and years we do,” Tom added.
“And you’re always miserable as sin in the morning,” Maddox said. “You’ll be staying in bed tomorrow until ten o’clock.”
They stared at her, jaws dropping at such an impossibility. “We couldn’t. No one can sleep until then,” Tom said.
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Maddox stood back to examine her charges. “You’ll do. Now, go quietly downstairs, and Mallow will take you into the dining salon.”
They set off, trying but failing to keep to a sedate pace. The sounds of music came from the dining salon, a group of local musicians playing from a dais set at the rear of the dining salon for the occasion. The guests were all seated around the table as the twins entered under Mallow’s escort.
Harriet, in a gown of deep crimson velvet opening over a half-slip of silver lace, her grandmother’s locket nestling in the hollow of her throat, beckoned to them. She was seated beside Julius at the center of the right side of the table, and the twins scrambled onto empty seats beside her. “We had a nap, Harry,” Grace informed her sister righteously. “So you needn’t worry about how late it is.”
“I wasn’t about to,” Harriet returned with a smile. “There’s lemonade for you.”
“When’s the cake coming?” Tom looked expectantly to the door.
“Any minute now,” his sister reassured. Her mind was not really on the twins for once. Julius had asked to choose his own moment for announcing their betrothal, but the night was almost done, and nothing had been said. He’d been his usual urbane, charming self throughout the evening’s festivities, attentive to his fellow guests and in no particular way singling out his about-to-be betrothed. Once or twice, it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him when he intended to make his announcement, but pride kept her quiet. It was ludicrous, she knew, to appear overeager for something he wanted as much as she did, but some stubborn female instinct kept her mouth shut.
The double doors from the hall opened, and a trumpet blew from the dais as two footmen carried in the enormous circular cake. A gold crown was embedded in the white icing that covered the top.
The twins clapped vigorously, bouncing in their seats as the cake was
placed ceremoniously in front of the Duke. It had already been cut into one slice for each guest, and his grace slid each slice onto a plate, where it was covered with a thin piece of parchment and carried by a footman to the recipient. The parchment was to hide any false cuts that would have been made in the kitchen if the knife had encountered the little treasure the cake held in its center and had to move across the obstacle. The revelation of the treasure, still referred to as the bean, was the high point of the evening. Harriet glanced at Julius, who was watching the proceedings rather idly, his fingers playing with a walnut shell on his plate.
The cake was finally distributed, and the twins held their breath, their fingers hovering over the parchment on their plates, their eyes on their grandfather, who would give the signal. Slowly, the Duke lifted his parchment clear, crumpling it in his hand beside his plate. Then he took up his fork and plunged it into the slice of cake.
Everyone followed suit. Harriet glanced at the children, watching with a smile as they threw aside the cake covering and drove their forks into the centers of their slices. “Oh!” Grace exclaimed first. “Look, Tom.” She held up a cake-covered silver sovereign. “I found the bean.”
“But so did I.” Tom, sounding puzzled, lifted the sovereign’s twin from his plate. “There are two beans in this cake. How did that happen?”
“How, indeed,” murmured Harriet, glancing at her grandfather, who slowly dropped an eyelid in a conspiratorial wink. His indulgences were always surprises and all the more significant for that fact. It was unlikely the twins would both find favors in next year’s Twelfth Night cake.
She turned to her own plate, carefully removing the parchment and taking a delicate forkful. “It’s as delicious as ever,” she said. “Mistress Hubbard has outdone herself again.” She forked another piece.
“Harry, Harry, don’t eat it!” Grace cried urgently. “You’ll choke. There’s something in it.”
Harriet held up the fork and caught a glint of something among the raisins and candied fruit. She used her free hand to pry it loose. So this was how Julius had intended to make his announcement.
She wiped the ring on her napkin and held it up to the candlelight. It was exquisite. A thin gold circlet embedded with emeralds and seed pearls. As perfect and delicate as anything she could have imagined.
Julius took it from her and took her left hand. He held it for a moment, his dark eyes asking the question for the last time. Harriet nodded, and he slipped the ring onto her finger. Only then did she realize, as the table seemed to draw a collective breath, that forty pairs of eyes had been glued to this little play.
Julius stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that Lady Harriet has done me the great honor of agreeing to become my wife.”
The table erupted in applause and clinking glasses, and above the din, the twins tugged at Harriet’s arm. “Are you marrying the Earl, Harry?”
She looked into their solemn faces. “Yes, my dears, I am.”
“But what will happen to us?”
“Only really good things,” she said, drawing them tightly against her. “I promise you, only really good things will happen.”
Grace took her face out of Harriet’s bosom and looked at Julius. “You’ll be like a brother, won’t you? Like Nick.”
“Perhaps not just like Nick,” he said gently. “But I will try to be what you need. I will look after you, love you, and care for you as Nick would have done. That much I can promise.”
The Duke rose from his seat, lifting his glass. “A toast to a lifetime of happiness, my dears.”
A lifetime of turbulence and excitement, Harriet thought, and she found the prospect utterly enticing. She sipped her wine, then raised her face for Julius’s kiss. A kiss that embodied the promise of all that life could hold for them both.
Fantasy.
Temptation.
Adventure.
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Born in Cairo, Egypt, and raised in the south of England, JANE FEATHER began her writing career when she moved to Washington, D.C., with her family in 1981. She has written several New York Times bestselling romantic series, including her recent Georgian series, the Blackwater Brides. She is also the author of the Regency-set Wicked series—A Wicked Gentleman, To Wed a Wicked Prince, and A Husband’s Wicked Ways—and a romantic holiday novella that appeared in the collection Snowy Night with a Stranger. In all, she has written nearly fifty bestselling novels and there are more than ten million copies of her books in print.
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COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY BARRY DAVID MARCUS
Also by Jane Feather
Rushed to the Altar
A Wedding Wager
An Unsuitable Bride
All the Queen’s Players
A Husband’s Wicked Ways
To Wed a Wicked Prince
A Wicked Gentleman
Almost a Lady
Almost a Bride
The Wedding Game
The Bride Hunt
The Bachelor List
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jane Feather
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First Pocket Books paperback edition November 2012
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