Lady Barbara's Dilemma
Page 19
Alec opened his mouth to speak and could not. It was as though all the reasons, all the loving words, had deserted him. He sat down on the bench again, close to Barbara, and opening his music to the andante, started to play the melody with his right hand. Quite naturally, Barbara lowered her head to his shoulder and let the music tell her everything he wished to say.
“I wrote it for you, you know,” he whispered after the last note died away. “Were there reasons enough?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “And a musician’s wooing is more effective than a Scotsman’s or a Sassenach’s.”
Epilogue
It was difficult for Barbara and Alec to get through the rest of the Season, which felt as if it would never end. They were bored by their social obligations and only wanted to spend time in each other’s arms, which they did at every opportunity on the dance floor and on assorted balconies. They did not try to hide their joy, and their friends and acquaintances were delighted and eagerly awaited the wedding, which was to take place at Ashurst on Midsummer Day.
Some members of society, of course, thought it undignified for a woman of Lady Barbara Stanley’s years to be floating around like an eighteen-year-old, especially after jilting someone like Wardour for a Scotsman, no matter that he was a duke’s grandson. Barbara ignored them, and concentrated upon her own happiness.
This happiness was so great, and had come after such loneliness, that at times she could not believe in it and would worry that something dreadful would happen to prevent their marriage. She was in this state the night before the wedding, Midsummer’s Eve, and was restlessly pacing around her bedroom when her glance fell on her prayer book, which was on the night table. She opened it, and there was the sprig of myrtle from last summer.
Should she? It had, after all, accurately predicted the course of the year. She had not married Wardour. No, she was being ridiculous. The myrtle would be there in the morning and then what would she feel? Disappointed? More anxious?
All of a sudden she remembered that morning with Alec in the clearing and the newly born feeling of joy that had filled her, and all her worry fell away. This was meant from the beginning, she thought, and whether the myrtle is there or not, nothing will change that. So here’s to you, Madame Zenobia, and I will risk your charm again! And she slipped the book under her pillow.
In the morning she again became aware of the hard lump beneath her head and laughed at her late-night imaginings. She would not even open the book, for she knew what she would find. So she pulled on her dressing gown and rang for some chocolate. It was only after the maid had left that her curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the book.
The myrtle was gone. It had fallen out, she told herself. She looked under the pillow, under the sheets, under the bed. Nothing. The sprig of myrtle had disappeared as though it had been spirited away. And she most certainly was going to marry Alec MacLeod this morning and spend the rest of her life working to keep their joy in one another alive.
* * * *
It was agreed that the small parish church had never held such a radiant bride. Or such a striking bridegroom. The women of Ashurst agreed that Lady Barbara had married herself a man with a fine pair of legs, and wasn’t she a lucky one, for she would discover that night what was under a Scotsman’s kilt, and wouldn’t they make fine music together on their wedding night.
As indeed they did.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would have been impossible to write without Todd Endelman’s The Jews of Georgian England: 1714-1830. Any errors are mine.
And my thanks to Aly Bain, Alasdair Fraser, Brian McNeill, Daniel Stepner, John Gibbons, and Voice of the Turtle—musicians extraordinaire—for hours of enjoyment and inspiration.
To my good friends, old and new,
who have given me the support
a writer needs, especially Ann and
Fran Grady, Cathy Schwartz,
Bob Schwartz, Nancy Nimmich,
Joan Dolamore, Barbara Vacarr,
and Mary Jo Putney.
Copyright © 1993 by Marjorie Farrell
Originally published by Signet (ISBN 0451173589)
Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House/Regency
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.