“Thank you,” Gil said when there was quiet again. “I give you all my word of honor as an officer in the Ninety-fifth Foot Regiment that I will care for your Miss Abigail, now Mrs. Bennington, every day of my life.”
Abigail turned her head to look up at him in some astonishment and realized that he was addressinghis own people.These were not aristocrats or even gentry folk. They were his own sort and he respected and honored them. He would even, on occasion, chop wood for them and hang curtains for them and mend roofs for them. Orwiththem. It was an insight into his character that she would not forget.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at each of the servants in turn. “You have all helped make this day very special.”
“It won’t be so special if my breakfast gets ruined,” thecook said, and the butler dismissed the servants even as she was rounding up her helpers and shooing them in the direction of the kitchen.
“I say,” Harry said, “that was a surprise. I did not think of suggesting it, but clearly I did not need to. It is a wonderful thing to be at home, Abby, is it not?”
“It is,” she agreed, turning to him. But it was not to be her home any longer, was it? Her home was to be wherever Gil took her. He had a house called Rose Cottage in Gloucestershire. For a moment she felt panic claw at her stomach. During the past hour her life had changed in every way possible and forever. But it was too late to panic. Hinsford had been her childhood home, and it had been a good place to grow up, thanks to her mother. She was going to have to make Rose Cottage a good place for her own children to grow up.
Foolishly, she was thinking for the first time of her own children as well as Gil’s daughter.Theirchildren.
“Sherry in the drawing room?” Harry suggested. “The vicar and Mrs. Jenkins ought to be here soon.”
“I need to go and remove my bonnet and comb my hair,” Abigail said, and was glad when Gil did not offer to escort her upstairs. She needed to be alone—just for a few minutes to catch her breath. She took the stairs at a run and stood with her back against the door of her bedchamber, her eyes closed.
And she wondered what her mother was doing at this precise moment, and what Camille was doing, and Anna and Jessica. And Grandmama Westcott and Grandmama Kingsley and... Oh, andallof them. Going about their business and their pleasure, quite unaware that this was her wedding day, that she had just married Lieutenant Colonel Bennington.
She swallowed a lump in her throat and willed herself not to cry. It would not do to go back downstairs with red eyes and blotchy cheeks. For she was not unhappy. She was very far from being that. It was just that she...
Oh, shemissedher family.
She drew a few steadying breaths and took a step into the room, her hands going to the ribbons of her bonnet just as there was a light tap on the door. She considered not opening it. She was not ready to meet the world yet.
“Abby?” It was Gil’s voice, and she opened the door.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind his back—and it struck her that he now had a perfect right to be in her room behind a closed door when she was unchaperoned. He was frowning. His eyes were searching her face.
“What is it?” he asked her. “Regrets?”
She shook her head and swallowed. The swallow sounded horribly audible. “No,” she said. “No regrets.”
“What, then?” he asked. “Your mother? And your sisters?”
“I cannot help thinking,” she said, “that they will be disappointed.”
His expression turned even more stony. “That you married in such haste?” he asked. “Without their being here?”
She nodded.
“And that you marriedme?” he asked more softly.
She shook her head and bit her lip for a moment. “I cannot predict how they will feel about that, Gil,” she said. “I do not know howanyof my family will feel. Except Harry. But if they are disappointed in whom I have married, then that is something they must deal with—or not.Iam not disappointed.”
“We will leave for London tomorrow,” he told her.
She nodded. They had not made plans beyond today, butit was the obvious next step, for more than one reason. And there was no point in delay. Indeed there was every point innotdelaying.
“We will call first upon your mother,” he said, “and upon other members of your family if you wish. I will take you to meet my lawyer. And I will set in motion what needs to be done to effect my retirement from the military.”
“So much to do,” she said. It seemed almost overwhelming.
“There is nothing to do today,” he told her, “except enjoy what is apparently being billed as a wedding breakfast. And then the rest of our wedding day. And our wedding night. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”
She nodded.
“We had better get that bonnet off your head before it wilts and get your hair combed without further delay,” he said. “I have a strong conviction that your cook would not take kindly to our being late for our wedding feast.”
