Memory's Bride

by Decca Price

  “You do me a great honor, Mr. Latimer,” she said when he stood before her. “I didn’t understand until recently how I was regarded in the parish—”

  “Stop. If that is your only reason for rejecting my offer, I reject it!”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, that is your only reason? It’s not that you’re still loyal to Joss or—you don’t care for me?”

  “No, I mean yes. Yes, I accept your offer. Here is my hand—Edward.”

  He noticed then that Carter’s heavy ring no longer encircled her finger. As he clasped her hand in his, she stepped closer, raised her face to his and closed her eyes. After a long moment, she felt his warm lips press against hers long enough for his whiskers to tickle her ears and then he released her.

  “You make me the happiest of men,” was all he said.

  They stood awkwardly, looking at each other. “Would you like to sit down? Perhaps I should ring for some refreshment?”

  “Don’t ring. Let’s be just we two for a while, may we?”

  Claire found his evident discomfort endearing—so different from the exuberant Josiah, who never stopped talking even when he was kissing, and definitely not like Montfort. Montfort bullied people to get what he wanted. If that didn’t work, he gulled them into believing they wanted the same things.

  Latimer seated himself beside her on the sofa, close but not too close, and took her hand lightly in his. She let her breath out with a sigh.

  “I’m so happy, Edward,” she said. “Your letter was a shock, but the more I thought about it, thought about how well we work together and the way I’ve been living—well, it just seemed right.”

  “That is how I see it, too,” he said. “When a man and a woman are attracted to one another, they should be joined in matrimony. I’m sure you’re familiar with St. Paul’s admonition—“Better to marry than burn...”

  Claire blinked.

  He continued. “I admit, when you first came into the neighborhood, I concerned myself more with how wrong it was for a young woman like yourself to be on her own, and where my duty might lie in saving you from a life of waste and loneliness.”

  He moved closer and slipped his arm lightly around her waist. “You are headstrong, my dear, but I gradually found that I loved you. And suddenly the path of duty became sweet!”

  Claire squirmed in his light embrace so she could face him, and a wave of astonished delight swept over her. Edward’s face shone as he gazed down on hers, his green eyes wide. Her eyes widened in response as he bent his head to kiss her again.

  This time, the contact stirred her and she dismissed her disappointment at his odd way of speaking his love. This she understood, as the kiss, soft and leisurely, ended with their breath mingling in a long sigh.

  “I love you, too,” she said as he held her closer. She relaxed in his arms, soothed by the steady pounding of his heart against her ear, and let her mind drift to their wedding night—and all the nights to come

  Now here she was, joining her life to his permanently. Streaks of sun broke through the clouds on what promised to be a sweltering day, mottling the white walls and the pale stone floor of the church. The breeze through the trees in the churchyard splashed wavering pools onto every surface as light and shadow melded and flickered. Despite the rising heat outdoors, a damp chill seeped from the ancient walls.

  The gathering to witness them solemnize their union was small, since neither of them wanted a show—on the bride’s side, Mrs. Hanniman, the Gilberts, Simmie. Supporting the groom were Mr. Talwell and, as his best man, an old schoolfellow clergyman whose name Claire had forgotten already.

  The best man should have been Josiah, she thought with a start, then recollected that if Josiah were alive, she wouldn’t be standing here now next to Edward Latimer. Montfort, then. But Carey had let slip the morning of the day she decided to accept Edward that his lordship had left the county unexpectedly, giving no date of return. Finding out so casually, without a word from him, stung.

  A bird in the churchyard sang madly, recalling Claire to the business at hand. Once committed to marrying Edward, her road ahead in life seemed as straight and clear as life could be in England’s green, wet climate. But the first cloud on the horizon appeared almost immediately.

  “Forsaking all others,” the bishop intoned. Alas, Simmie was forsaking her.

  The two of them were driving home from church the Sunday of the banns’ first reading when Simmie broached her plans.

  “Mrs. Gilbert and Evangelina have invited me to make my home with them,” Simmie said in the same offhand tone she used to remark on the weather on an average day.

  Claire pulled back on the reins and brought the curricle to a halt in the middle of the lane.

  “Simmie, no! You mustn’t leave me. Who will I talk to?”

  “You’ll have a new husband to look after and get used to. I don’t want to be in the way.”

  “But you’d never be in the way,” Claire felt a lump form in her throat and nearly choked. “I need you! You’re my best friend.”

  “I’ll always be your friend, Claire, but once you and Mr. Latimer are settled in at Oak Grove, you won’t really want me around all the time. You’ll see. And I don’t want to tiptoe around the house fearful of surprising you in an intimate moment.” To Clair’s astonishment, her friend almost simpered.

  “But how will you live?”

  “I’ve some money put by, and Lina and I are thinking of starting a small boarding school for girls. It’s a new idea we have, to prepare girls for university. There are two colleges at Cambridge now, and it’s only a matter of time until Oxford comes up to the times.”

  “You feel qualified?”

  “Lina learned so much from her father in the classics, and she is teaching me. We think parents will feel more comfortable with their daughters being tutored by women.”

  “It sounds so exciting!” Claire paused. “I thought we’d spend all our days in pretty much the same way we had, except for the turn of the seasons. And now everything is changing.”

  “For the better, Claire, for the better. Nothing can stay the same forever. I’ll be helping others in addition to myself, and you—you’ll be an excellent wife and mother, I’m sure!”

  “But where will I find a governess as good as you?”

  “You’ll always know where to find me.”

  “Edward,” Claire ventured the next evening, when Latimer had ridden out to Oak Grove to discuss their wedding trip.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Let’s go for a stroll in the garden. There’s something I want to discuss.”

  “Is this always the way with the ladies?” he jested. “What do they do when there’s no lovely walk to soften the blow when they want to raise a difficult subject with their spouses? Claire, I hope you will never be afraid to open your mind to he whose dearest wish is to guide and advise you.”

  “Very well, then. Simmie told me yesterday she intends to move into the village with the Gilberts.”

  “I approve. Where is the difficulty?”

  “Well, I don’t approve, but her mind is made up. The difficulty is that she’s always had to work for her living, so you can see that her life will be harder than it’s been when she’s responsible for everything.”

  “Can’t she just go back into service?”

  “Of course,” Claire said impatiently, “but that’s not the point. She’s my dearest friend, and it’s my fault she’s here at all instead of safe at home with my mother and sisters. It’s a great relief, though, that if she must leave Oak Grove, she’ll be nearby in Abbot Pyon. She and Evangelina Gilbert plan to start a school.’

  Latimer arched an eyebrow. “Another one. Bless us, we’ll be a veritable Alexandria on the Wye at this rate.”

  “It’s a boarding school for young ladies intending to go to university. I want to help them with it.”

  “That’s commendable, my dear, but once we’re married, you won’t have time for schools, stude
nts, preparing lessons and the like. I will need you here by me, at home.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Edward. I’m going to invest in the school.” She held up a hand in his direction. “I know the settlement papers are signed. I’ll do it out of my pin money. You know I’m careful about dress and my personal needs are modest. I’ll have more than enough and they won’t need much. Maybe fifty pounds or so a year. I just didn’t want my contributions to look underhanded by not telling you.”

  “That’s nearly a tenth of your annual allowance, as I’m sure you’re aware, dearest. But your money will be to do with as you please,” Latimer said blandly. “This proposed school will permit your friends to put a good face on accepting your charity. Just don’t come to me asking for more money if you find you’ve run short.”

  “Yes, Edward.” There was too much truth in his words. She did intend to help Simmie, school or no, and the new school was the perfect excuse. The discussion pained her, though, because of their heated dispute only a few days before. He was so tight-fisted it made her ache to admonish him about his own need to be more charitable.

  “... with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow,” Edward intoned in his rich baritone as the ceremony progressed, his eyes locked on hers. Their green fire burned through the fine lace that veiled her face and trailed to the floor behind her.

  The Anglican marriage service didn’t require the same pledge from brides, since, even if they were rich in worldly goods, their wealth by law automatically became their husband’s, apart from anything set aside beforehand in the marriage settlements.

  Those legal documents occasioned their first serious argument.

  “But Edward,” she exclaimed two days into their engagement. “I promised Oak Grove to my brother. I told him it would be his after me and that he could draw on it any time he needed funds. I said I’d pay his boys’ school fees.”

  “Your circumstances are different now,” Latimer said, slowly setting his coffee cup into his saucer. They were breakfasting on the terrace at Oak Grove, free to speak since it was just the two of them until she rang for the maid. Already, Edward looked quite at home, she observed.

  “Write to your brother,” he said. “He’ll understand. Marriage changes everything.”

  “I refuse. I gave my word. Besides, it’s in my will.”

  “Offer him a cash sum he can invest. Our marriage will cancel out any dispositions you’ve made as a spinster, and the smallest gift from you would be more than he should expect. I can’t believe you’d selfishly put a brother and his children ahead of our own.”

  At that, Claire gave in, of course. He was thinking of their future family. Mr. Chamberlain made another hurried trip to Oak Grove, and when the paperwork was complete, Cameron Burton came into possession of £2,000 with which to educate his three sons and launch them in life when the time came.

  “Tell him,” Claire whispered to the dapper lawyer as he climbed into his gig to return to the Hereford rail station, “tell him that if he’s ever in need, I’ll do whatever I can to help. Mr. Latimer is a good man. He won’t want to see anyone, especially family, suffer.”

  Cameron accepted Claire’s present with good grace and it was he who gave Claire away when they reached that point in the ceremony. No one else from Thurn Hall attended and even Aunt Manwaring sent her regrets, along with a dozen silver fish forks.

  “Father is angry as the devil,” Cameron explained to Claire when he arrived the night before. “No, not about the marriage—as far as he’s concerned, you’ve done a smart thing, catching a clergyman, all things considered. But you’ve put him in the wrong.”

  “I? I put Papa in the wrong how?”

  “He expected you to be begging his forgiveness by now, Claire, didn’t you know? Now it is he who must be forgiven.”

  “I see,” Claire said sharply. “I was afraid it was about losing my fortune.”

  “There was that as well,” Cameron conceded. “But his pride matters to him more.”

  Fathers, Claire thought. Were all fathers like hers? How would Edward treat their daughters, should they be so blessed?

  “... In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  Edward gripped her left hand in his as though he half-expected Claire to snatch it away. He slipped the heavy gold band on her third finger. The heat from his palm radiated up onto hers and it was a relief when he released it and they turned back to the bishop to kneel for his blessing.

  Edward’s physicality, so near, simultaneously reassured and agitated her. The time for turning back had passed. This man was part of her now, soon to be one flesh, and Claire struggled to push out of her mind the images that distracted her.

  Could God read her thoughts? Could Edward? The blood rushed to her center and she felt faint.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t thought to wonder about Edward’s state of mind. Men, of course, even decent men like Edward, surely brought more knowledge, even if theoretical, to the marriage bed than women. Would he know?

  Claire closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on the bishop’s prayer, and Montfort appeared unbidden in the darkness, the way he looked that last day, passionate and disheveled, before he grabbed up his things and left her in cold fury.

  Cold rose from the stone floor, reaching under the fine silk of her wedding dress to touch her skin. Montfort stroked her naked body and she shivered—then snapped her eyes open. The colors and sounds of here and now blotted out the image.

  In that blink of an eye, the bishop had pronounced them man and wife.

  Yet nearly an hour remained to the ceremony before they could leave the sacred space and re-enter the world as that new being, a couple. There were prayers, admonitions, the sharing of the Lord’s table—an act so intimate, and so declarative of their new state, that Claire thought she spied a tear in Edward’s eye.

  Once again, he and she both were admonished to love one another. A final time, she was reminded of her promise to submit. Feeling queasy, Claire swore a silent vow in her heart to be a good wife to Edward, rather than a disappointment. For that was her real fear, that he expected too much of her and she would fail.

  Much had been said that morning about mystery, comfort and honor, but the word “happiness” never entered into it, she considered as she took the pen and carefully to wrote her name in the church registry.

  But how could they help being happy, she reminded herself, blessed as they were with health, wealth, mutual sympathies and attraction?

  She wrote her old name—Claire Elizabeth Burton—for the last time, handed the pen to the verger and slipped her hand into the crook of Edward’s welcoming arm. As they stepped into the sunlight, he smiled at last and warmed her heart. She drew closer to him and hoped for a private moment soon in which they could steal a kiss.

  And so it was, the moment she became Mrs. Edward Latimer, that Oak Grove, its furniture, farms and livestock, its orchards and trout stream, even Josiah’s prudent investments and bank account, passed into the hands of Mr. Edward Latimer. He received all that in return for a ring worth a few pounds at best. No wonder neither the church nor the world expected her to place a ring on his finger as well.

  Claire felt this change keenly, for she had secretly enjoyed her short season as a woman of means. But she trusted to a generosity and fairness she assumed were intrinsic to her husband’s character and let the feeling pass. Since they were one now, she reasoned, which of them held legal title to their property was insignificant. Money and what to do with it were never issues in her father’s home.

  As for Edward, she had wanted to read his mind. Given that double-edged ability, she would have learned that he was totally focused on his wife.

  In the church, he drank in the breathy way she hesitantly spoke her vows, the way she pursed her lips as she signed her name in the vestry, the way she clutched his arm as she walked at his side. He watched avidly as his wife gazed shyly up at him as they left
the churchyard, her head turned resolutely way from the grave under the willow tree. He noted the sunlight flashing on his wife’s strawberry-tinged hair and her cheeks freshening pinkly in the hot breeze. He reveled as his wife’s ruby lips spoke his name, her voice low with love and promise. His wife. His.

  The new Mr. and Mrs. Latimer tarried long enough at the rectory to take tea and cakes with the wedding party and a few more prominent parishioners. Then in late afternoon, the groom whisked his bride away in an Oak Grove carriage to Hereford for the night.

  Annie, deemed ready to execute all the duties of a lady’s maid at last, could barely suppress her excitement as the footman loaded her small trunk onto the carriage. When she caught Edward Latimer’s eye, however, she stopped bouncing from foot to foot and stood aside to let him hand Claire into the conveyance.

  Pressed into a corner, she broke into a wide grin when Claire caught her eye. “Did you see, miss—I mean ma’am, Mrs. Latimer—“the girl stammered, holding a book out to Claire. “Miss Simms gave me a volume of Mr. Wordsworth’s poems.”

  “Yes, Annie, and Mr. Latimer and I have his ‘Guide to the Lake District.’ Our journey will be not just pleasure but education, don’t you agree, Edward?”

  Latimer held out his hand and Annie yielded the book with reluctance. After examining the tooled leather binding and gold leaf stamped on the spine, he returned it to her eager hands. “Miss Simms gilded the lily. A plain volume would have done as well. See that you take care of it, Parsons. And see that you take even better care of Mrs. Latimer. No neglecting your duties.”

  “Yes, sir,” Annie said meekly.

  “Since you intend some rather strenuous hikes during our stay at Windermere,” Claire remarked, “Annie and I intend to make good use of our days. Annie is proving to have a fine taste for poetry.”