“Yes.” She squeezed his arm.
•••
After luncheon at the hotel and a brief walk with Beauty, they went their separate ways. Abigail went to call upon her mother in a hackney carriage the hotel receptionist had summoned at Gil’s bidding. Gil himself was going to the Horse Guards to begin proceedings to end his military career.
“Are you quite sure it is what you wish to do?” she asked with one foot on the step of the carriage, her hand in his.
“Yes,” he said. “It has been a good career, but I do not think I would make a good peacetime officer, Abby. I thought I would go insane with boredom on St. Helena. And I would not want to take you to follow the drum in the event I was posted to another country. I would like even less leaving you behind to wait for my return. Besides, I have a hankering to go home, to settle down at last. Regardless.”
He looked like granite again when he said that final word.
She had a hankering to go home too, Abigail thought as the carriage moved away from the hotel and she raised a hand in farewell. To Rose Cottage, even though she had not yet seen it. She liked the sound of it. It was set in gardens that were alive with color in the summertime, Gil had told her, though he had not seen it for himself. And it would be full of the fragrance of roses and the beauty of their blooms. The house was large but not quite a mansion. A smallish manor, perhaps. And it would be hers by virtue of the fact that she was Mrs. Bennington, a name she hugged to herself. She wanted so badly the sense of belonging that her own home would bring. Even Hinsford had not quite brought it, and Harry had reminded her of the fact when he had asked her what she would do if and when he brought a bride to live there.
Did she love Gil? She was not sure. But it seemed somehow irrelevant. She did not need to be in love, to be walking on air, to have stars in her eyes. For of one thing shewassure: She had married the man of her own choosing—the one and only. Hurried as the whole business had been, she had not felt a moment’s regret since.
Not even, she thought, taking a deep breath as the carriage stopped outside Marcel’s house, over the trouble she had caused with her family. It was something they must grapple with—or not. It was not really her problem.
Nevertheless she was relieved to find that her mother was alone in the private sitting room that adjoined her bedchamber. Marcel was at the House of Lords, and Bertrand had escorted Estelle to a garden party even though Abigail’s aunt Louise had offered to take her with Jessica.
“He is a steady young man,” her mother explained, drawing Abigail down to sit beside her on a couch, “and keeps an eagle eye upon his sister even though she is quickto remind him that she is twenty-one years old and his elder by twenty minutes. He knew I wanted to remain at home this afternoon and that I would prefer to do so alone. You said you might come.”
“I believe I said Iwould,” Abigail said. “I suppose the whole family knows by now.”
“It would be surprising if anyone did not,” her mother said. “Elizabeth was busy organizing a second wedding breakfast for you until she received your note to inform her that Lieutenant Colonel Bennington has business that will keep him occupied for every waking moment during the next week or two—or words to that effect. But she still wants the family to go there for tea tomorrow, and she very much hopes you will go too, Abby. I am sure there is a letter on the way to you at the Pulteney.”
Abigail sighed. “I will go,” she said. “There is no point in hiding, is there? And actually I have no desire to do so. There is nothing to hidefrom. Is everyone very upset?”
“Matilda and Mildred and Louise called here this morning,” her mother said. “Your father’s three sisters. The triumvirate. The eternal fixers. I suppose they spoke for everyone. They areconcerned, Abby, especially when for six years you have shown such marked reluctance to marryanyone. Of course they are concerned. But if you believe anyone is going to cast you off, then you have not been paying much attention since your father died. What their brother did to me and to you and Camille and Harry, and what he did to Anna’s mother and to Anna herself, shook his three sisters to their roots, you know. What he did to us he did tothem.And to your poor grandmother, Humphrey’smother.You would have to do a lot worse than marry a man who is not a gentleman born, Abby, to alienate them.”
“I had never thought of matters quite that way,” Abigailadmitted. “I suppose I have assumed that only the five of us—you, Camille, Harry, Anna, and I—were directly affected by what happened. But of course weallwere—Alexander, Grandmama, the aunts. Everyone.”
“Abby.” Her mother leaned across the space between them and patted her hand. “I have only one real question for you today now that I have recovered from yesterday’s shock, and we are alone. Can you be happy with Lieutenant Colonel Bennington? It is a pointless question, I know, since you have married him and nothing can change that. But...canyou?”
“I can, Mama,” Abigail said. “I’m as sure as I can possibly be that I can.”
Her mother sighed with what might have been relief and closed her eyes briefly. She drew breath, and it seemed for a moment that she was about to say more. But she did not do so. She opened her eyes, smiled, and pulled on the bell rope beside the couch to summon the tea tray.
“Who could possibly have dreamed just a little more than six years ago,” she said, “that life would turn so topsy-turvy for us all?”
“Happily so,” Abigail said.
“Anna, after growing up in an orphanage, married a duke,” her mother said. “Camille married a schoolteacher from the orphanage where he grew up when she was once betrothed to a viscount. Harry barely survived the wars as a military officer when he was once Earl of Riverdale. You have married a man who could not possibly be lower on the social scale than he is, when once upon a time the world of wealth and privilege was about to open to you in all its splendor. And I married a rake.”
She laughed, and they were silent for a while as the tea tray was brought in and she poured them each a cup.
“I believe we are all the happier for the turmoil we havebeen through, Mama,” Abigail said. “Even Harry is safe and recovering well now he is at home. He is even riding again.”
“And you?” Her mother frowned at her, her cup halfway to her mouth.
“I would rather be married to Gil than to any aristocrat you would care to name,” Abigail said.
“But you do notknowany aristocrats outside the family,” her mother pointed out, and they both laughed.
“But...” her mother said. “There is this nasty business looming with Lieutenant Colonel Bennington’s daughter and General Pascoe. Marcel says that both he and his wife are powerful and influential people. And you are going to be drawn into the nastiness. They are in London. Did you know that?”
“I did,” Abigail said. “We spent the morning at the chambers of Gil’s lawyer. He is very thorough. Gil is afraid to trust him fully, but I do. I believe the hearing with a judge will be soon.”
“That poor little girl, being pulled this way and that,” her mother said with a sigh. “Though I suppose she knows nothing about it, does she? I justwishyou were not involved, Abby. But I will say no more on the matter. Youareinvolved. You went into this marriage with your eyes wide open, and you are of age. You would be quite within your rights to tell me to mind my own business. Now. How are we going to persuade this husband of yours to take his place in the family? I do at least partly understand his reluctance, you know. I tried to distance myself from the Westcott family after I learned that I had no claim whatsoever to call myself a Westcott. Will he come to Elizabeth’s for tea tomorrow if I send a personal note? I fear I behaved badly yesterday.”
