by Emily Larkin
Cecy wondered whether Mattie wanted Mr. Kane to find her or not.
“How would you describe Miss Chapple?” Gareth asked, and she realized that he probably felt as protective of Mr. Kane as she did of Mattie.
“I would have gone mad at Creed Hall without Mattie,” Cecy told him. “She made it bearable.”
Gareth rubbed his thumb across her skin meditatively. “Those stories she was writing . . .”
“Are they very lewd?”
He gave a laugh. “Yes. Very lewd.”
Cecy considered this for a moment, and then said, “I don’t care. She’s still my best friend.”
His thumb moved on her skin, stroking tiny circles, rhythmic and soothing. “I hope Ned finds her.”
“So do I.”
A comfortable silence fell between them. The shutters rattled slightly. Coals shifted in the grate. The bedchamber was cozy. Cecy’s eyelids drooped. She felt sleepy and happy. Deeply happy. Joy hummed quietly in her veins. She pressed her face into Gareth’s shoulder and inhaled his scent. My husband.
“I’m glad you came to Creed Hall,” she told him.
“So am I. Although, my God, the food.”
Cecy stifled a giggle against his shoulder. “The worst food in England.”
“So Toby always said.” He gave a sigh. “I miss him.”
Cecy had only met Tobias Strickland twice, but she’d liked the man. He’d been full of joie de vivre, nothing at all like his aunt, Lady Marchbank. “I’m sorry he died.”
“So am I,” Gareth said quietly.
They didn’t talk after that. Gareth’s thumb stopped whispering over her skin. After a while, she realized that he’d fallen asleep.
Cecy almost slid into sleep herself, but although it was marvelous to lie on Gareth like this, she thought it would become rather uncomfortable for them both if she did it all night.
Regretfully, she eased herself off him. Gareth stirred and muttered, but didn’t wake.
Cecy knelt for a moment alongside him, gazing at him. Her husband, with his long, lean body and that amputated arm. He looked vulnerable lying there with his eyes closed, his muscles relaxed, the tidy white bandage on his arm. Emotion closed her throat for a moment. I love you, Gareth. I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.
Cecy reached to pull the bedclothes over them, and realized that a number of candles were still burning in the room. She climbed carefully off the bed, tiptoed across to the mantelpiece and blew out the candle there, tiptoed to the dressing table . . . and saw her closed journal lying in the candlelight. She didn’t need to open it to remember what she’d written.
We are formed so that men enjoy copulation and women do not.
Dear Lord, how wrong she’d been.
Cecy hesitated, torn between blowing out the candle and returning to the bed, and correcting the mistake she’d made. She glanced at Gareth, glanced at the journal, glanced back at Gareth.
Why did it seem so important to erase those words now?
Because to leave those words written, even overnight, felt like a betrayal of everything that she and Gareth had experienced tonight. Not just the pleasure, but the connection they’d forged.
Cecy opened the journal. She reread what she’d written. Some of it—the parts about shyness and embarrassment and nervousness—were still true. The rest of it wasn’t.
Very, very quietly, she tore out the pages and fed them to the fire. She tiptoed back to the bed and carefully drew the covers up over Gareth, then she pulled on her wrap, returned to the dressing table, and sat down. As she dipped the quill in the inkpot she heard a clock distantly strike the hour. Midnight.
Chapter Eight
Gareth blinked his eyes open. He saw candlelight and shadows and unfamiliar bedhangings. Where was he? He turned his head and found Cecily, seated at the dressing table, writing, and memory returned: this was his wedding night.
A wedding night that had been far, far worse than he’d imagined it could be—and also far, far better.
He watched Cecily for several minutes. Candlelight gilded her tousled hair and played across her cheek. My wife. He felt drowsy, and contented, and more than that, he felt whole. Not in the way he’d been before Waterloo, but in the way he was now. And Cecily had given him that.
The luckiest day of his life, the day that he’d met her.
He watched her write, watched the candlelight and shadows move across her face, watched her frown slightly, purse her lips, dip the quill in ink, write another sentence.
He’d fallen halfway in love with Cecily the afternoon he’d met her, captivated by her slender figure, her blonde hair, her face. And then he’d fallen wholly in love with her the morning they’d talked and he’d realized that beneath the delicate, golden-haired prettiness was a strong and intelligent woman.
It had been an interesting conversation, that one. Perhaps the most interesting conversation of his life. Certainly the most important, because he’d gone into it a bachelor, and come away from it as a man about to be married. Cecily hadn’t simpered or flirted. She’d spoken matter-of-factly, laid out her background, told him of her feelings for him, and he had fallen so hard in love with her that there had been no going back. Not then, not now, not ever.
He’d always liked petite blondes, but he’d realized during that conversation that what his heart most longed for was a petite practical blonde.
Gareth watched his wife write, and thought about words, about how whole had meant one thing to him yesterday and another thing to him today. And then he thought about words like loss and less and never. Words that made him feel unhappy and frustrated. Words he wasn’t going to use about himself anymore. Yes, he’d lost his arm. Yes, he’d never get it back. But right now, in this cozy bedchamber, he was happy. In fact, he was quite certain that he was happier than he’d ever been before.
From now on I won’t think about what I’ve lost; I’ll think about what I have. His life. Cecily. Ned. Higgs, with his whistling and his deft way of fastening bandages. Mulberry Hall. The baronetcy.
He smiled to himself and watched Cecily write. His beautiful, practical wife.
Cecily glanced at him, saw that he was awake, and laid down her quill.
“What are you writing?” Gareth asked.
“A journal for our daughters.”
Gareth lifted his eyebrows. “Our daughters?”
“I’m telling them what to expect on their wedding nights. If I should die while they’re still young, I don’t want them to go into their marriages as ignorant as I was.”
Gareth thought this through. After a moment he said, “Practical,” although what he really wanted to say was, I won’t let you die.
“I’m a practical person,” Cecily said.
“I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.” He smiled at her, and then stifled a sudden yawn. “I’d better get back to my room before I fall asleep.” He groped for his discarded nightshirt.
“You can sleep here,” Cecily said. “If you’d like.”
Gareth stilled. “What would you prefer?” he asked cautiously.
“I’d like you to stay.”
Gareth felt himself blush with pleasure. His wife wanted to sleep with him. “All right.”
Cecily smiled at him and blew out the candle on the dressing table, then she came back to the bed. She slipped off her wrap and stood in the candlelight for a brief moment, naked and beautiful, and then climbed in with him. She rearranged the pillows, tucked the bedcovers around them, and nestled close, her cheek on his chest.
Gareth put his arm around her. His wife, who made him feel whole again. He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Was tonight what you expected?”
“No,” she said. “It was a lot better. Was it what you expected?”
“No.” Only a few hours ago he’d stood in his bedchamber and listed all the things he mustn’t do tonight—and then he’d gone and done them all, plus a few more, and the end result had been . . . miraculous. “It w
as a lot better.”
Afterwards
Cecy learned many things during her first year of marriage—how to run a large household, how to plan a menu, how to host a dinner party. She learned about pregnancy and childbirth and about being a mother, and everything she learned, she wrote down. The journal had a name now—The Book of Wifely Knowledge: For Phoebe—and when their second child was born, Cecy copied its contents into a matching journal—The Book of Wifely Knowledge: For Emma. Everything from wedding nights to managing servants to raising children. She added some recipes, too, things she had learned to make in the still-room: lavender water and essence of rose, bramble wine and elderflower cordial.
When Benjamin was born, Gareth started a journal for him. Cecy saw him working on it from time to time, but she didn’t try to read it, any more than Gareth tried to read the journals she was writing for their daughters. But she knew one thing that was in it, because he’d asked her for it: the recipe for what was arguably the best mulled wine in the county.
They were drinking that mulled wine now. A fire burned in the grate and the shutters were closed against the winter night and the drawing room was cozy. Cecy sipped her wine, sweet and spicy, tasting of cinnamon and cloves, ginger and orange zest. She glanced across at Mattie and Edward Kane. This was one of her favorite times of the year: Christmas, when Mattie and Edward came to stay for a month, and Mulberry Hall filled with adults and children and laughter.
“Shall we stage home theatricals this year?” Mattie said. “I think the older children would enjoy it.”
“They’d love it!” Cecy said.
“One of Perrault’s tales,” Gareth suggested. “Puss in Boots? Sleeping Beauty?”
“Little Red Riding Hood,” Edward said. “I’ll be the wolf.” He bared his teeth, and he did look savage, with those scars across his face—and then he grinned, and he was no longer in the least bit frightening.
Cecy fetched a copy of Perrault’s tales and they listened as Mattie read first Little Red Riding Hood and then Puss in Boots aloud. How familiar this was: a dark winter’s evening, Mattie’s voice rising and falling as she read. If she closed her eyes Cecy could almost imagine herself back at Creed Hall.
Except that Mattie had read sermons at Creed Hall, not children’s tales, and the drawing room had been chilly, not cozy, and Mattie had had to stand while she read, and there had never, ever been mulled wine or laughter.
Cecy looked across at Mattie curled up on the sofa, and at Edward sprawled alongside her. He was smiling as he listened to his wife, his eyes heavy-lidded, almost closed, and that reminded her of Creed Hall, too: Edward falling asleep whenever Mattie read the evening sermon.
Five years ago, almost to the day, that she and Mattie had first met him.
And five years almost to the day that they’d met Gareth.
Cecy took her husband’s hand in both of hers and rested her head on Gareth’s shoulder, and perhaps it wasn’t entirely proper to nestle close to one’s husband if one had guests, but Mattie and Edward were family.
By the time Mattie had finished reading Puss in Boots the longcase clock in the entrance hall was striking half past eleven.
Mattie smothered a yawn and said, “Lord, is it that late already? Time for bed.”
“Definitely.” Edward yawned, too, and climbed to his feet and held out a hand to her. The hand with only three fingers on it.
Mattie took it. Together they headed for the door.
Cecy uncurled and climbed to her feet, too.
Gareth stood, but he didn’t head for the door; he turned to the escritoire, opened it, and rummaged for a sheet of paper.
“What is it?” Cecy asked.
“Something I want to remember to tell Benjamin.”
Benjamin was only six months old, but she understood what Gareth meant: a note to go in Benjamin’s journal.
Gareth flicked open the inkpot, picked up a quill, and scrawled a short sentence. Then he glanced at her and smiled and held the paper out so that she could read it.
Surround yourself with people who make you happy.
His gaze held hers for a long moment, and then he put the paper on the escritoire again and wrote another sentence, even shorter.
Cecy stepped closer to read it.
I love you, Cecy, he’d written.
She picked up the quill and dipped it in ink, and wrote: I love you, too. You make me very happy. Then she smiled at her husband and took his hand and led him up the stairs to bed.
Author’s Note
Thousands of men died at Waterloo and thousands more were wounded, and many hundreds lost their limbs. Gareth endured what was called a primary amputation, when the injured limb was removed immediately, on the battlefield. Horrible as this sounds, he was actually lucky; soldiers who underwent a secondary amputation (in a field hospital, after the event) were almost twice as likely to die. Fever was rife, as was gangrene, so Gareth did very well to survive.
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Thank You
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If you haven’t yet read The Spinster’s Secret, the novel that comes before The Baronet’s Bride and that introduces Gareth and Cecy, please turn the page to read the first chapter.
Alternatively, I invite you to flick ahead a few pages to read the first chapter of The Earl’s Dilemma, a Regency romance novel about an earl who needs to marry in a hurry.
The Spinster’s Secret
His Lordship swiftly divested me of my gown, placing hot kisses on the skin he bared. “You are a goddess,” he breathed, as he untrussed my bosom . . .
Matilda Chapple glanced at the window. Outside the overcast sky was darkening towards dusk. If she hurried, she could mail this installment of Chérie’s Confessions before night fell.
Seizing me in his arms, he carried me to the bed, she wrote hastily. He pushed aside the froth of my petticoats with impatience. In less than a minute he had made his entrance and slaked his lust upon my . . .
Mattie halted, the quill held above the page, and squinted at her draft. What was that word? Feverish? Fevered? Fervent?
. . . upon my fevered body.
Mattie continued swiftly copying. Finally, she finished: We lay sated in the sunlight. For my part, I was as pleased by his lordship’s manly vigor as he was so evidently pleased by my feminine charms. I foresaw many pleasant months ahead as his mistress.
And on that note, dear readers, I shall end this latest confession from my pen.
Chérie.
Mattie laid down the quill. She glanced at the window again, hastily blotted the pages, and folded them. She sealed the letter with a wafer and wrote the address of her publisher clearly. Then she folded another letter around it and sealed that, too, writing the address of her friend Anne on it: Mrs. Thos. Brocklesby, Lombard Street, London.
Done.
Mattie bundled up the draft and hid it with the others in the concealed cupboard in the wainscoting. She crammed a bonnet on her head, threw a thick shawl around her shoulders, and grabbed the letter.
There was still an hour of daylight left, but deep shadows gathered in the corridors of Creed Hall. The stairs creaked as she hurried down them. The entrance hall was cave-like, da
rk and chilly and musty.
“Matilda!”
Mattie swung around, clutching the letter to her breast.
Her uncle stood in the doorway to his study, leaning heavily on a cane. “Where are you going?”
Mattie raised the letter, showing it to him. “A letter to a friend, Uncle Arthur. I’m taking it down to the village.”
Her uncle frowned, his face pleating into sour, disapproving folds. “I sent Durce with the mail an hour ago.”
“Yes, Uncle. I hadn’t quite finished—”
“Durce can take it tomorrow.”
“I should like to send it today, Uncle. If I may.”
Uncle Arthur’s eyebrows pinched together in a scowl. The wispy feathers of white hair ringing his domed skull, the beak-like nose, made him look like a gaunt, bad-tempered bird of prey. “Mr. Kane will be arriving soon.”
“I’ll only be twenty minutes. I promise.” Mattie bowed her head and held her breath. Please, please, please . . .
Her uncle sniffed. “Very well. But don’t be late for our guest. We owe him every courtesy.”
“No, Uncle.” Mattie dipped him a curtsy. “Thank you.”
Outside, the sky was heavy with rain clouds. The air was dank and bracingly cold, scented with the smell of decaying vegetation. Mattie took a deep breath, filling her lungs, feeling her spirits lift, conscious of a delicious sense of freedom. She walked briskly down the long drive, skirting puddles and mud. On either side, trees stretched leafless branches towards the sky. Once she was out of sight of the Hall’s windows, Mattie lengthened her stride into a run. She spread her arms wide, catching the wintry breeze with her shawl. It felt as if she was galloping, as if she was flying, as if she was free.
At the lane, she slowed to a walk and turned right. The village of Soddy Morton was visible in the hollow a mile away.
