by Brooke, Meg
Clarissa nodded.
“When I married Lord Landridge, it was in my best Sunday dress. My mother went out and picked a bouquet from our garden. I was embarrassed for Lord Landridge to see my gown—he had seen it a dozen times before, after all! But he smiled and said I looked lovely.”
The thought of a simple country wedding made Clarissa smile.
“But then he took me back to Ramsay, and the whole house flew into uproar. He had not told them he had married me, you see, before we appeared on their doorstep. And by then I was already expecting Anders. It was a terrible time. I want to spare you that, my dear. I do not want you to ever feel that you are less than we expected or hoped for my son.”
Clarissa felt tears spring to her eyes. She felt rather foolish. “Forgive me,” she said.
Mrs. Coleridge took her hand. “Don’t apologize, dear. You’re allowed some tears now.”
“I know, but my father...” Clarissa realized that she would have been ashamed for her father to see her crying. Why should that be?
“He would be proud of you, Clarissa.”
Clarissa smiled at her, but she knew in her heart that her father would not be proud. Wasn’t this exactly what he had always taught her to eschew? He had always said that romantic ideals were an illusion—that after they had fallen away, her mind would always be her best quality.
Still, she was determined. He had been wrong when he had said that romantic love was a trap. She was making this choice freely.
She squeezed Mrs. Coleridge’s hand. “Thank you,” she said.
“Of course, dear,” she said. “Now, let’s talk about flowers.”
As his mother finally led Clarissa back into the sitting room, Anders leaped up from the sofa.
“Don’t worry,” his mother said airily, “still in one piece.”
He looked past her to meet Clarissa’s eyes. She smiled at him, but there was something in her level gaze that made him glance nervously back at his mother. “We’ve planned everything, dear,” his mother said, grinning, “including the name of my first grandchild.”
Now Clarissa’s smile widened, and she laughed. Anders breathed a sigh of relief. While Clarissa had been closeted with his mother, his stepfather had attempted to assuage his fears.
“Astrid means well,” he said. “She wants Miss Martin to be accepted by society as she wasn’t when she married your father. I think it hurt her deeply to be treated so cruelly by his family.”
Anders nodded in agreement. “I will make sure she is spared that,” he said, determined.
But as he led Clarissa in to dinner, he couldn’t help but worry a little at the guarded expression on her face. What had his mother said to her?
Anders handed Clarissa into his carriage, still feeling rather agitated. When the door had been shut and they were driving towards Knightsbridge, seated next to each other, she said, “Your mother was perfectly lovely, Anders. Don’t be worried.”
Anders gave her a penetrating stare. “Are you sure?”
Clarissa nodded firmly. “She only wants to ensure that what happened to her doesn’t happen to me.” She put one gloved hand on his lapel. “I know you will make sure of that.” Then her voice changed slightly, becoming a little flatter. “You will take care of me.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Anders asked before he could stop himself. When she stared at him, he asked, “Are you afraid I’ll try to take care of you?”
She started to shake her head, but then the movement became a nod. “My father always taught me that I was more than just a...just a girl waiting to become a wife. It is hard not to feel that I am betraying him a little,” she admitted as they rolled to a stop on Trevor Street. Anders felt his heart sink into his shoes. “But I am quite determined, Anders,” she said, her fingers curling around his coat. “This is what I want.”
He kissed her then, even though there was a footman standing on the other side of the door. She came into his arms willingly, kissing him back. When at last he released her, she whispered, “Monday.”
He smiled and got out to hand her down. “Monday.”
The next morning, Clarissa went out into the street and found a hackney to take her back to Cheapside. Mrs. Simms seemed overjoyed to see her.
“Back again!” she cried. “I knew you would be. I said to Mr. Simms, ‘that young lady will come back again, you mark my words.’ And here you are.”
“I need another dress, Mrs. Simms,” Clarissa said, beaming despite herself. “For my wedding.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Simms cried, flipping up the counter and rushing out to wrap Clarissa in a warm, soft embrace. “Oh, how lovely! Come with me, dearie, we’ll find something splendid.”
But when they were in the back room and Mrs. Simms was listing off the gowns she had in boxes on the shelves, Clarissa stopped her. “I want a very specific dress, Mrs. Simms. I would like the gown I saw on the dummy the first time I was here.”
Mrs. Simms frowned. “Oh, no, dearie. You don’t want that one. It’s a bad-luck gown, sure it is.”
“Nonsense,” Clarissa said. She didn’t believe in bad luck. Her father had taught her that there was no such thing, only coincidence and chance. “Please, I’d like to try it on.”
Mrs. Simms’s expression made it clear that she didn’t like it, but she brought out the box containing the beautiful gown. It fit perfectly. Clarissa stared at herself in the mirror. “I have to admit it looks lovely on you,” Mrs. Simms said. Clarissa had to fight not to cry. She bit her lip. Mrs. Simms put a comforting hand on her sleeve. “You look like a bride.”
Clarissa smiled at her in the mirror. “Mrs. Simms,” she said, “how would you like to see me wearing this dress on Monday?”
TWENTY-TWO
February 25, 1833
“There,” Nora, Clarissa’s new maid said, putting one last pin in her hair. They were in one of the guest rooms of the Coleridge townhouse, and Mrs. Coleridge was sitting in an armchair near the window, watching as Clarissa was made ready for her wedding.
“That dress becomes you, dear,” she said, taking a sip of tea. “But there is still one thing missing.” She nodded to Nora, who produced a small wooden box. She put it on the dressing table before Clarissa, and Mrs. Coleridge came over and lifted the lid. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a silver circlet, ornately carved in a pattern that almost looked like... “Spoons,” Mrs. Coleridge said. “It’s a Norwegian tradition. This belonged to my mother, and her mother before her. Every woman in my family has worn it on their wedding day, and now I’d like you to wear it.”
“Oh,” Clarissa said as Nora placed the circlet on her head. “It’s perfect.”
Mrs. Coleridge leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you like it. And I am glad, Clarissa, that you are marrying my son. I am proud of you.” Clarissa heard the tone in Mrs. Coleridge’s voice that added, even if your father would not have been.
They went down the stairs into the hall, where Lord Brougham was waiting. When he had heard that Jonah Martin’s daughter was to be married, he had insisted on coming to give her away. He and Clarissa had met over tea the day before, in the drawing room of the Coleridge’s townhouse.
“Stowe came to see me this morning, Miss Martin, to tell me of his impending nuptials. Well, actually, he claimed that it was about this foolish Irish business, but you and I both know that wasn’t the real reason,” he said, smiling and tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially. Clarissa had tried not to stare at him. Was this the same man who blustered about the corridors of Westminster, terrifying peers and commoners alike? “I cannot tell you,” Lord Brougham had gone on, “how much I regret not having made your acquaintance until now.” Clarissa had smiled at that. What would he say if he knew they had met before? “Stowe says that you were the real reason your father had such success in the Commons.”
Clarissa had blushed and looked down at her hands. “He was my teacher, My Lord. He made me what I am, and so I cannot agree with Lord Stowe that I was
the driving force behind his career.”
Lord Brougham had looked indulgently at her. “And they say every father needs a son to mold in his image. You, Miss Martin, are a truly liberated woman.”
“Tell me that again when I am able to cast my vote, My Lord,” Clarissa had laughed.
“I am afraid we have a long road there, Miss Martin,” Lord Brougham had said gravely. “It is not likely to happen in my lifetime, or even yours.”
Clarissa had had to agree. But when Lord Brougham asked to stand in her father’s stead, she had been truly shocked, and had almost refused. But he had sounded so earnest that she had assented, sensing that she had found a kindred spirit. Here was a man who lived for the law, for its just and fitting fulfillment. Clarissa had always thought she would never love anything more than the law, that she would never be able to choose a husband and family over the hallowed principles she held dear. With Anders, she did not have to make that choice.
As Lord Brougham handed her into the phaeton, he said, “I hope that after your marriage you will not be a stranger to the halls of Westminster.”
“I have every intention of being closely involved in my husband’s career,” Clarissa said, and she could not resist flashing him a secretive smile as they set out for the church.
Anders stood with Leo before the altar, his gaze fixed impatiently on the other end of the nave. It was a pretty little church, he thought, and much more fitting for his wedding than St. George’s would have been. When they arrived, Leo had looked disdainfully at the unprepossessing exterior of the newly built church, but when they had entered and seen how Anders’s mother had had new spring flowers placed, he had smiled. “This looks like Miss Martin,” he had said, and Anders had agreed. She was not ostentatious and showy, and that was one of the many reasons he was glad it was she he awaited now.
There were very few guests assembled, which he knew Clarissa would appreciate. All the Chesneys had come, including Lady Sidney, and Bain sat just beyond, ignoring the intrigued stares of Georgina and Maris. Lady Brougham sat with Mr. Coleridge, and the young lady Clarissa had introduced him to at the theatre, who he thought was her friend Cynthia, sat just behind them. Beyond her, a large woman in a rather silly-looking hat sat with a little man with a shiny bald pate. Anders had no idea who they were.
Then the door opened at the south end of the church, and Clarissa came in with his mother and Lord Brougham. She wore a white gown with old-fashioned yet fetching embroidery on the sleeves and a silver circlet pressed into her hair. Anders recognized the circlet as the one his mother had worn when she married Mr. Coleridge. He smiled to see it, though his heart had suddenly leaped into his throat.
“Steady on,” Leo whispered to him. “If you tip over, I make no promises of catching you.”
Then the organ began to play and Lord Brougham began to walk down the aisle with Clarissa on his arm.
Clarissa had always thought of marriage as a mercenary thing, a necessity of genteel life. So when she felt her hands begin to tremble as she spoke her vows, she was a little surprised. As they knelt before the altar, Anders whispered, “Are you all right?”
She smiled. “Magic,” she said. He returned her smile.
Then the rector was beseeching the Lord to make them fruitful in the procreation of children and loving and amiable in their wedded life.
Then it was over, and they were leaving the church. She saw Mrs. Simms applauding loudly and Cynthia gazing sedately at her. When they were outside and Anders was handing her into the carriage, she took a few deep breaths and looked down at the ring he had pressed on to her finger.
They were married.
The breakfast over and the last of their guests seen to the door, Anders turned and gave Phelps a curt nod. The butler disappeared. He and the rest of the staff had been given the remainder of the day off. “As a token of my marriage,” Anders had said to them, though in truth his motivations had been rather more selfish than that.
Beside him, Clarissa said, “Well, husband, how are we to spend the rest of the afternoon?” There was a playful glint in her eye.
“First,” Anders said, “I am going to take you upstairs and get you out of that fetching gown. Then we are going for a swim.”
She stared up at him. “A swim?”
He nodded, taking her hand to lead her up the stairs. “What better way to celebrate our marriage than in the very spot where I first fell in love with you?”
She slowed as they went along the landing past his study. “That is when you fell in love with me?”
“Yes, it is. When I saw your body through your wet suit and realized it was you, I...well, I suddenly understood that all the things I had always wanted in a woman were all the things I admired in Clarence Ford.”
“How extraordinary,” she said as he threw open the doors to his chambers. He shut the doors behind them and took the circlet from her hair, setting it on a nearby table. “So you really fell in love with him and not me?” she asked in an impish tone.
“Don’t be silly,” he said, pulling the pins from her hair and then turning her so that he could unlace her gown. “I fell in love with you because you are all the things other women are not.”
“Oh,” she said. He had finished with the laces and was pulling the gown down off her shoulders, taking her chemise with it. He knelt down so that she could step out of the gown and then wrapped his arms around her waist, his tongue flicking out to stroke the underside of one breast.
“I like that you don’t wear a corset,” he said, kissing a line down her stomach.
“You forget that I am a liberated woman,” she said as he hooked one leg over his shoulder and dipped his head between her legs. “I—oh, Anders!” She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. He laughed, his warm breath teasing her. Then they fell silent, the only sound her rapid breaths. When she gasped and shuddered against him, he put his hands on her waist to steady her, lowering her gently down onto her knees. She kissed him, and the thought of her tasting herself on his lips nearly made him lose control. She reached up and pushed his coat off his shoulders and then untied his cravat. But he pulled away and stood, taking her with him.
“Come on,” he said, taking his dressing-gown from the bed and wrapping her in it. “I want to have you in the pool.”
He hauled her after him into the hall. “Is that even—”
“I assure you it is,” he said, and then they were going down the stairs into the cellar. When the door to the pool room had closed behind him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He undid the ties of the dressing-gown and threw it aside, and then her hands were working the buttons of his waistcoat and tugging it off his body. He kicked off his shoes as she opened his trousers and pulled them down. When he was naked, he took her hand and led her into the pool.
“I haven’t been swimming since I was nine,” she said.
“Yes you have,” he argued, and she laughed to think of the day she had fallen into the pool.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said.
Built into one side of the pool was an ingenious little bench, and Anders pulled her towards it. He seated himself on the smooth tile and pulled her onto his lap. Then he reached down and rubbed himself between her legs. She moaned and ground against him. He grasped her hips and pulled her down, entering her in one smooth motion. She rode him, the water splashing around them, until they were both gasping for air. Then he slid his hands up her back and held her tight against him as they both came.
When his head had stopped spinning, Anders brushed his lips along her jaw. “And you thought it wasn’t possible,” he said.
TWENTY-THREE
February 28, 1833
“Welcome back, Lord Stowe,” Earl Grey said when Anders passed him in the corridor that afternoon. “My felicitations on your marriage.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister,” Anders said. “Will we see you this evening?” This was the date his mother had chosen for the ball
celebrating her son’s wedding. Though she would be the hostess, the ball was to be held at Stowe House.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Earl Grey said. Anders knew that he meant that his wife and daughter, who had just returned to town after her first confinement, would not forgive him if he allowed them to miss such an exciting social event.
“For I have it on good authority,” Leo had said earlier that day when he and Anders had met in the tea room, “and by ‘good authority’ I mean mother’s gossip-mongering friends, that it will be the social event of the season. That is, until another comes along. Who knows? Perhaps I will marry before the season is out and steal all your thunder.”
“I wouldn’t mind in the slightest,” said Anders, who had been asked by numerous shame-faced peers when his new wife would be receiving. It seemed that everyone wanted a look at the new Countess of Stowe.
“My sisters wish me to thank you for setting the date of the ball early enough so that it will have been mostly forgotten by their come-out,” Leo added, grinning roguishly.
“I confess that was my chief object,” Anders replied smoothly.
Indeed, he felt as though he had heard about nothing but this silly ball since yesterday, when their private idyll had been shattered by the appearance of his mother on their doorstep. He had only been glad that he and Clarissa had not been enjoying a...private moment when she had arrived, for they had done little else since the afternoon of their wedding. His mother had dropped some very delicate hints about the chances of a new grandchild before Michaelmas.
