“No, I do not envy me either,” she said, leaning back to notice in some surprise that she had just embroidered a large, cheerful daisy and that it was perfect as the centerpiece for the silken garden she was creating with her needle. “But will it work anyway, Harry? Will he get his child back once he can produce me as his wife? I am not necessarily the best choice, am I? I would expect General Sir Edward Pascoe and his wifeandtheir lawyer to pounce with eager triumph upon the irregularity of my birth.”
“You will just have to find a way of arguing back,” he said. “You are, after all, Abby, the daughter of anaristocratic marriage everyone thought was regular for more than twenty years. Who was—or is—Gil’s father?”
“Viscount Dirkson,” she said. “Do you know him?”
“Oh hell,” he said. “Pardon me for the language. Dirkson was one of Papa’s set. He is notorious for every excess and debauchery you could name—or at least he used to be. I am six years out of date withtongoings-on. What do—”
But his next few words were drowned out and the rest of his sentence abandoned as Beauty scrambled to her feet, barking loudly. The dog dashed first to the window and then to the drawing room door, at which she pawed frantically as she continued to bark.
Above the noise she was making, Abigail could hear the unmistakable approach of horses and a carriage. At half past ten o’clock at night.
Beauty made another dash to the window and her head briefly disappeared beneath the curtains. They came billowing out into the room as she pulled her head free and galloped back to the door.
Abigail’s stomach performed a great flip-flop as she threaded her needle through the cloth stretched over the embroidery frame, moved it aside, and got to her feet.
“Is he back home?” she asked as the dog turned to her, prancing excitedly and still barking her head off. “Let us go and meet him, then.”
The dog bounded out as soon as she had opened the door. Almost before Abigail had got through it herself, she could hear Beauty in the hall below, barking at the front door. The butler was drawing back the bolts and opening the door as she came downstairs.
And there he was, looking large and commanding in a greatcoat and tall beaver hat, striding into the hall. Beauty,barking and whining and panting, planted her great front paws against his chest just below his shoulders and, instead of reprimanding her or pushing her down, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.
“Missed me, did you, girl?” he said. “I suppose you have been locked up the whole time in a small kennel in a dark room with one bare bone and half a bowl of water?”
Beauty woofed in ecstasy.
“It was one piece of dry bread actually,” Abigail said, and his eyes came to her. “I was not expecting you until tomorrow.”
He set Beauty’s paws back on the floor and closed the distance between them, his right hand outstretched. He shook hands with her quite formally, his grip firm.
“But I want to get married tomorrow,” he said. “Unless you have changed your mind, that is. If you have, please say so without apology. You are under no obligation to me.”
“I have not changed my mind,” she said. And the realization struck her rather like a thunderbolt that this time tomorrow she would be his wife. They would be embarking upon their wedding night. For the first time she felt a touch of panic. He was so very large anddour.She did not believe she had ever seen him smile.
“Very well,” he said, and he looked beyond her toward the staircase, her hand still enclosed in his. “Are you up, Harry? Is it not long past your bedtime?”
“It is just as well I was not asleep,” Harry said. “I would have had a rude awakening. Can you not train your dog to bark quietly, Gil?”
“I will leave that to Abby,” Gil said, and released her hand as he returned his gaze to her. He patted his greatcoat close to his heart. “I have them here. The license and the ring. And I spoke to the Reverend Jenkins just after I lefthere yesterday. He is free tomorrow morning and the day after. But I prefer tomorrow. Can you be ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
She remembered Camille and Joel’s wedding in Bath Abbey and her mother and Marcel’s in the church at Brambledean on Christmas Eve just as the first snow started to fall, the whole family in attendance. She remembered Alexander and Wren’s wedding at St. George’s on Hanover Square in London and Elizabeth and Colin’s at the same venue. But she also remembered that when the family was busy planning a grand wedding for Anna and Avery, Avery had called upon Anna one morning and borne her off to a quiet church on a quiet street in London and married her with only his secretary and Cousin Elizabeth for witnesses. Elizabeth was fond of saying that it was one of the most romantic weddings she had ever attended. And there was probably no happier marriage than Anna and Avery’s. At least it appeared happy to Abigail.
Anyway, it did not matter what sort of wedding anyone else had had.
Tomorrow washerwedding day. Hers and Gil’s.
Thirteen
Harry, looking almost too exhausted to stand on his feet, had nevertheless turned into the authoritative head of the household and brother of the bride before he went to bed.
“It might not be a family wedding with a full complement of guests the two of you are having tomorrow,” he had pronounced from the bottom stair, “but by thunder it is going to be done properly. It is going to be an occasion to remember.”
One thingbeing done properlyentailed for two military men, apparently, was wearing full regimentals. Gil hauled out his uniform, which he had not worn since leaving St. Helena, and discovered that his green coat was sadly soiled and badly creased—not to mention the rest of his gear. He took the coat downstairs before going to bed and stood outside the kitchen door in the darkness brushing it vigorously before sponging off those stubborn stains that refused to yield to the brush. He was caught in the act by the cook,who had not been in bed, she was quick to explain to him, but rather in conference with Mrs. Sullivan and the butler in the housekeeper’s room.
“There are to be only two outside guests for luncheon tomorrow, according to Mr. Harry—MajorHarry, that is,” she said, “those two being the Reverend and Mrs. Jenkins. But the meal is to be a wedding breakfast, we have been informed, since Miss Abigail is to marry you in the morning and who am I to call it a havey-cavey business when her ladyship, Miss Abigail’s mama, has not long returned to London with his lordship, the marquess, her husband, and all the rest of the family except Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, who returned to Bath withtheirfamily and Mrs. Kingsley?”
Fortunately her monologue did not turn into an all-out scold, for she had spotted the coat Gil held in one hand and the brush in the other. What she noticed, with sharpened eyes and thinned lips, was the creases.
