He had asked that his valet and her maid be sent up and that wine and sweet biscuits be brought to the sitting room.
“Shall we make ourselves comfortable before we sit down?” he suggested. They were still wearing their wedding finery.
“Yes.” She smiled at him before entering the bedchamber to the left and closing the door. She was the poised, serene Elizabeth, he had noticed, and had somehow taken any awkwardness there might have been out of the situation.
It felt strange being married.
He retired to the dressing room of the other bedchamber and undressed before sitting for his valet to shave him. He donned a brocaded silk dressing gown over his nightshirt before dismissing his man for the night and stepping back into the sitting room.
Elizabeth was already there, pouring the wine into two glasses. She was wearing a long dressing gown of blue velvet that had a lived-in look about it, as though it had been a favorite for a long time. Her fair hair was loose over her shoulders and down her back.
She looked lovely.
He picked up the two glasses and handed her one after she had seated herself on the sofa. He offered her the biscuits too but she shook her head. He sat down beside her and extended his glass toward hers.
“There have been so many toasts today,” he said. “But let us have a private one, shall we? Just for us. To a long and happy future together. And a mutual trust.”
“To mutual trust and happiness,” she said, clinking her glass against his before raising it to her lips.
And it struck him that the words were easy to say but would take a lifetime to honor. A lifetime of constant effort and awareness. It was hard enough to live up to one’s ideals and dreams for oneself. But when one had to consider another person too? Was it even possible?
It would take a lifetime to find out. Well, the rest of a lifetime was exactly what he had.
“What a perfect day it has been,” he said.
“It has,” she agreed. “And one of the best parts of it was that your mother came to the wedding. You must have been terribly pleased.”
“Yes,” he said. “Even though she left the church before we did I was pleased.”
“Blanche and Sir Nelson came to the breakfast too,” she said. “You talked with her for a while.”
“I did,” he said, and told her some of what they had talked about. “I believe she will come to Roxingley for the big family house party we are planning. She will come because she believes Mother intends to be there and she sees it as her duty to go where Mother goes. Whether she will allow any sort of relationship with Ruby or Wren or me remains to be seen. Or you. We can but try. I believe she is bitter because the rest of us escaped in one way or another and she, as the eldest, was left with the responsibility of giving our mother the support and audience she needs. She told me Nelson stays because he loves her.”
“I hope she is right,” she said. “I hope I can get to know them both better over the summer. I have much to thank them for. They came to warn you about that announcement. They came to the Ormsbridge ball but did not make any great effort to do what they had been sent there to do. They came to our wedding today but did not leave immediately after.”
They smiled at each other.
“Tell me about your father,” she said.
He stared at her.
“You never talk of him,” she said.
He swallowed. “There is not much to tell.”
She sipped from her glass and tipped her head to one side. She was waiting for him to say more, he realized. But she spoke again before he did. “If you would rather not,” she said, “that is all right. We are not entitled to tear each other’s souls apart just because we are married.”
It was a strange thing to say. Was it true? He frowned.
“He provided for us,” he said, “but he took no real interest in us. He rarely came upstairs to see us. I suppose he regretted his marriage. My mother was, by all accounts, extraordinarily beautiful as a girl, and she was much sought after. I daresay he fell headlong in love with her and married her without knowing her at all. By the time he did it was too late. He spent a lot of time outdoors. When he was at home, he more or less lived in the library.”
She set her glass down on the table before sitting back and picking up the cushion she had plumped earlier and holding it against her bosom, both arms clasped about it.
“He seemed to have held the worst of her excesses in check,” he said. “Beyond that he allowed her to do as she wished. I do not suppose he could do much else. I have sometimes thought of him as a weak man. Perhaps he was—as I have been weak since his death. He avoided confrontation, as I have. But I do believe my mother to be unique in the sense that she is almost impossible to control.”
“Did you love him?” she asked after he had been quiet for a while.
“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “Sometimes, especially after Wren went away and apparently died, I used to escape from the nursery and go down to the library and sit either under the desk or on the window seat with the curtain pulled far enough across to hide me. Occasionally I would read, but at other times I would just sit and breathe in the scent of leather-bound books and of his presence. He must have known I was there, but he never either acknowledged my presence or sent me away. Sometimes I would follow him about outdoors. I remember watching the sheep shearing with him once. I never asked his permission, and he almost never spoke to me, but again he did not send me away. I imagined he loved me in his own way.”
