“Well, I already am,” she said, and would have snatched away her hand if he had not curled his fingers about it.
“I do not know what your plans are for the summer,” he said. “I suppose you usually live with our mother at Roxingley when she is there. Perhaps you fear you will not be welcome this year when Elizabeth and I take up residence. But we both want you to come. Ruby and Sean and the children are coming from Ireland, and we are going to invite all the Westcotts and Radleys. It is as important to Elizabeth as it is to me that my family be there as well as hers. Not justbethere but…I want us to be afamily, Blanche. I honor your devotion to our mother and I beg your pardon for forcing you to do it all yourself. That will change. Forgive me. Let me be your brother. Let Elizabeth be your sister-in-law.”
She was silent for a while. “I am here, am I not?” she said coldly.
He squeezed her hand and released it. “I am realizing now there is so much I have not understood,” he said. “I hope you will help me. Why do you say Father was cruel? I asked him to send me to school and he sent me. Did he do it because he loved me? Or because he hated me? And why did he send for Aunt Megan to come and take Wren away? I did not even know that fact until Mother mentioned it yesterday. Did he do it because he loved Wren? Or because he hated her?”
She looked at him warily. “I do not know,” she said. “How would I?”
He felt a bit foolish for asking aloud. He had not meant to.
“Why would he hate you?” she asked. “Just because Mother loved you?”
“I do not know. I am only realizing there is much about us that I do not understand.” He shook his head. “It is time I joined Elizabeth and our wedding guests in the drawing room,” he said. “Will you stay for a while?”
“No,” she said. “We must leave. Mother will be expecting us.”
“And will you come to Roxingley during the summer?” he asked.
“I will talk to Nelson about it,” she said. “But I expect we will. Mother will surely be there and she will have need of me.”
Her answer would have to do. He wanted her to tell him she would come because of him and Elizabeth and because Ruby and Sean were coming—and Wren too, he hoped. But…Whatwas it the Dowager Countess of Riverdale had said at Christmas time about the renovations to Brambledean?Rome was not built in a day.Yes, that was it.
He was going to have to be patient. Blanche clearly saw herself as a woman with a grievance. And perhaps in a sense she was right. She was the one who had stayed.
Perhaps he had more to learn about his own family than he had realized.
•••
It was early evening before the last of the guests left the house. By that time they were mostly family members and took their leave with a great deal of noise and much hugging and kissing and hand shaking and back slapping and laughter. The house seemed very silent when the door closed upon them and Colin felt quite exhausted. Elizabeth, standing in the hall beside him, looked at him with twinkling eyes.
“Welcome to our family,” she said.
He laughed. “And what a welcome it was,” he said. “Are you ready to leave?”
There had been a spirited argument a few days ago about where they would spend their wedding night. They would, of course, spend it at this house, both Alexander and Wren had insisted, just astheyhad last year, when everyone else had stayed elsewhere so that the newlyweds could be left to themselves. Elizabeth’s various relatives on both sides had added their voices to assure to Colin that they actually looked forward to entertaining Mrs. Westcott and Alexander and Wren and the baby for the night. Indeed, they were vying over who would have the pleasure.
Colin had remained firm, and all arguments had ceased when Elizabeth had assured everyone that it was what she wished too. They would go to Mivart’s Hotel, where Colin had reserved a suite of rooms. He had done it so they could be alone together on their wedding night. Completely alone in a place that was unfamiliar to both of them, waited upon by servants neither of them knew.
Fifteen minutes after everyone else had left, Colin’s carriage—the closed one this time—drew up outside the door, and five minutes after that it was in motion, being waved on its way by a tearful Wren and Mrs. Westcott and a more stoic Alexander.
And they were alone together at last.
He took Elizabeth’s hand in his and leaned back against the cushions while he allowed the reality of what had happened today to wash over him. He would no longer live in the bachelor rooms that had been home to him—with the exception of last summer and winter—since he came down from Oxford at the age of twenty-one. He would never live alone again. He was now part of a couple. It was a sobering thought.
He was a married man.
Elizabeth washis wife.
“It is a strange feeling, is it not?” she said as though she had read his thoughts, and he turned his head to smile at her.
“Yes,” he said, and squeezed her hand. Very strange. He had always valued the privacy his rooms allowed him. He had loved it too at Withington. There would be no more of that. Elizabeth would always be with him from this day on.
He kissed her briefly and they traveled the rest of the way in silence.
Their suite at the hotel consisted of two large, square bedchambers, both luxuriously furnished, each with a spacious dressing room, and a sitting room between. A fire crackled in the hearth there to combat the chill of the evening after a warm day, and candles had been lit in the wall sconces.
“What a cozy, welcoming place,” she said after looking into each room and picking up a cushion from the couch to plump it unnecessarily. “I am glad we came here, Colin.”
