Toasts were exchanged, and she soon began to understand that if she were not to end up under the table she must only take a sip of her wine at each tribute which was offered to her. The noise in the room grew—and that, too, was a new experience for her.
Marcus saw that she was becoming not so much weary as bewildered by all that was going on around her. When the syllabub at the end of the meal was served, he whispered to her, ‘After we have eaten our dessert, we must rise and tour the room making our formal farewells to our guests. Then the musicians will enter once the remains of our meal are cleared away and you and I, Sharnbrook and Sophia will lead the first dance before leaving. The celebrations will go on long after our departure.’
Secretly Louise was relieved to hear this. She was enjoying herself, but she wanted to be alone with Marcus as soon as possible—and she knew that Sophia felt the same about being with Sharnbrook. They were not leaving Jaffrey House, but would retire to a suite of rooms there, while she and Marcus would drive to the land agent’s house near the Abbey. It had been made ready for them to live in until the Abbey had been repaired, redecorated and provided with new furniture, all fit for the heir to an Earldom to enjoy.
Touring the room was a happy event, though. Everyone was smiling, everyone seemed to be as happy as they were. Athene said to her, her voice low, ‘I can only wish you as fortunate as I am with Nick. I like your Marcus. He seems a sterling fellow and everything which you deserve in life.’
‘Oh, he is,’ said Louise fervently. ‘And I am so happy for you, too.’
The last persons to whom they said farewell were the Earl and Marissa. If the Earl looked even more frail than usual, his pleasure at seeing his son happily married was so evident that it overshadowed their fears for him. Marissa, of course, wished them all the best, and the Two Neds were as irrepressibly naughty as usual.
After that the newly-weds visited the kitchens where the servants were busy laying out their own banquet, and the butler led the toasting to their future happiness.
Once they were in the entrance hall with the doors open while they waited for their chaise to be brought round, Louise, her bouquet in her hand, was astonished to see that it was still daylight, and said so.
‘Which,’ returned Marcus, ‘is not surprising, seeing that it is only two thirty on a fine, if cold, December afternoon. I must say,’ he added, ‘that I am glad to be alone with you at last. My face has grown quite stiff from smiling at people and making small talk. Not my thing at all.’
‘Nor mine, either,’ agreed Louise, ‘which is ungrateful of me, I know, since everyone seemed genuinely happy to see us married.’
‘Particularly my father,’ said Marcus. ‘He thought that I would remain a bachelor, turning in due time into one of those old men who sit in London clubs grumbling that everything is going to the dogs!’
Their chaise finally arrived on the gravel sweep, and before they were helped into it, Louise turned to Marcus and said, ‘I trust that you have not forgotten to inform the coachman of our first destination.’
‘No, I made quite sure that he will not take us straight home. I see that you still have your bouquet with you.’
‘Yes. Sophia threw hers into the room before we left, and it was caught by one of Dungarran’s sisters.’
Marcus laughed and kissed her before they set off, saying, ‘I assume that she’s yet another mathematician in that family, since Ned One was so taken by her that he could not stop talking to her. By the by, when we stop will you be warm enough in what you are wearing, or shall I help you into your pelisse before we leave the chaise?’
‘Please,’ said Louise, and then lay back, silent, watching Marcus, still scarcely able to believe that she was actually married to him.
‘The only thing which I ask of you,’ he said, leaning forward to take her hand in his, and looking deep into her eyes, ‘is that we do not take too long over your mission, since I have been in a truly wretched state ever since the Parson pronounced us man and wife. If I don’t get you into bed with me soon I’m fearful that I shall need a doctor to minister to me before we get there.’
‘Oh, I think that I can provide you with all the necessary ministrations when we do arrive there,’ said Louise naughtily.
‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,’ quoted Marcus mournfully.
‘On the contrary,’ returned Louise, ‘the old adage has it that “Desires are nourished by delays.”’
They both laughed together, and Marcus remarked, ‘It is fortunate that most proverbs and old sayings contradict one another, thus providing us with a contest which neither of us can win.’
‘And, seeing that it is our wedding day, that is a most excellent thing,’ was Louise’s answer to that.
They were still laughing when the coach stopped at the edge of the wood in which the Sacred Grove stood. Louise took off her pretty white kid slippers and exchanged them for a pair of stout shoes which they had brought with them. The shoes which Marcus had worn to be married in were stout enough for him to walk on the path through the wood. The day was moving towards its close, the sun was riding behind a cloud and the dark wood lay before them.
‘Fortunate it is,’ she said to Marcus, after the footman helped them down, ‘that it is a fine day, even if a little gloomy now.’
‘Our first walk as a married pair,’ said Marcus. ‘Take my arm, Lady Angmering.’
‘Willingly, Lord Angmering,’ she replied, and they strolled along the path towards the heart of the wood, passing from light into dark as the trees clustered nearer and nearer together. They fell silent, for there seemed something almost mystic about their journey which compelled a holy quiet. Finally they reached the Grove and the rune stone which stood in its centre.
‘There,’ said Louise, as she had done in Marcus’s dream. ‘I wish to go there,’ and she pointed to the stone.
Facing it was an iron bench, placed there by some long-gone Earl of Yardley. Marcus had brought a blanket with him, which he spread on its seat before they sat down.
After they had remained silent for a short time, he asked her, ‘Now, Lady Angmering, tell me why you wished to come here and why you have brought your bouquet with you.’
‘Because…because Athene and I often visited the Grove and tried to imagine what the people were like who carved the runes on the stone and called it Sacred. We both knew of the legend: that the pagans who built it cursed all those who might come after and who would not worship the stone as they ought. The curse said that the new owners of it would not prosper—and who is to say that the curse was not effective? Think only of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the ruin of the Abbey, and after that the unhappy lives of the Cleeves, Earls of Yardley, who took over Steepwood, until they lost the Abbey to Sywell—and then remember how horrible his end was. Now we shall inherit them both: the land and the curse.
‘The gypsy fortune teller told us that she had lifted the curse on us, so perhaps we shall be safe, but I wish to see it lifted for everyone who comes after us. I don’t like to think of our descendants inheriting unhappiness and ruin, and so I want the curse to end once and for all. That is why I asked you to bring me here today, and why I brought my bouquet. I want to lay it before the rune stone, and tell it, and its attendant spirit, that we honour the men who erected it, and the women who lived with them. That being so, we beg them of their mercy to lift the curse, so that the Cleeves, and those who might come after them, may live and die as ordinary people, not as those doomed. Do you think me foolish, Marcus?’ she ended.
‘No, my dear,’ he said, ‘never foolish. Besides, it cannot hurt to try to exorcise the curse. Lay your flowers before it, and say your prayer.’
Louise rose. She knelt before the stone, regardless of what it might do to her finery, and placed the bouquet between herself and the side of the stone with the runes carved on it.
‘Accept this offering of my wedding bouquet,’ she said. ‘We honour those who made you, and beg most humbly that since we
also honour the spirit of the stone, you lift the curse not only from us, but from our children. We beg you to send us a sign that you have accepted my offering so that we may not see them, or their children’s children doomed to unhappiness.’
She put her hands together as if in prayer, and knelt there for a little time before beginning to rise.
Even as she did so, the sun broke through and a ray of the purest light, the first of the day, streamed out to illuminate the stone and the bouquet which lay before it.
‘A sign,’ Louise breathed. ‘A very sign.’
She turned towards Marcus, holding out her hands to him. He took them, then swept her into his arms to kiss her on the lips, not with the passion which he was later to display, but with reverence.
‘Sign or not,’ he said, ‘I commend you for what you have done. And now, Lady Angmering, let us go home and bless our marriage in the time-honoured way.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and they walked towards their waiting coach, and to the happy future which lay before them, their children, and their children’s children.
ISBN: 978 1 472 04078 7
THE MISSING MARCHIONESS
© 2013 Paula Marshall
First Published in Great Britain in 2013
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The Missing Marchioness (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 18
