“No, no,” Bertie said. “His father. And his mother too. Come to celebrate being the new earl, I daresay. You will be missing all the fun, Gabe, if you insist upon leaving town tomorrow. Can’t think what your hurry is with the Season in full swing. I don’t know why m’mother was so particular about that message. Perhaps she hopes you will change your mind and stay a while longer.”
“Manley Rochford,” Gabriel said.
“That’s the name,” Bertie said. “Makes one hope he is not small and puny with a name like that, don’t it? He would have been ragged mercilessly at school. Slipped my mind to tell you. M’mother would not have been pleased. She already thinks there is no one on this earth more shatter-brained than I am. Are you going to finish putting that glove on, Gabe? A lot of young women are going to go into mourning after today, you know.”
Gabriel pulled on his gloves and adjusted the lace over them. Horbath had appeared from nowhere to hand him his hat and cane and to hold the door of the suite open for them and bow them on their way.
So, Gabriel thought as they made their way downstairs. This news was going to change a few things.
There had been a dress at the back of Jessica’s wardrobe for two years. It had never been worn, though it had gone back to the country with her each summer and returned here with her each spring. She had always loved it, but she had never been able to decide what occasion was suitable for it. It was not quite an evening gown, but it was a bit too fussy for afternoon visits or even garden parties. It was, she sometimes feared when she looked at it—and she often drew it out to hold it against herself and admire it—too young for her. It was white, a color she had avoided since her first Season, when white had been almost obligatory. But it also had pink rosebuds embroidered all over it, spaced widely over most of the dress, clustered in greater profusion about the scalloped hem and the edges of the short sleeves. A silk sash to tie beneath her bosom added a splash of color. It was pink, one shade deeper than the rosebuds.
This week she had understood why she had never worn it before. She had been unconsciously saving it for her wedding day. Not that it would have been suited to just any wedding day, it was true. But forthisone? It was more perfect than perfect. Oh dear, her former governess would wince if she heardthatlogical impossibility spoken aloud. She had held the dress against herself the night their wedding day had been set, after Ruth had left her dressing room, and she had twirled before the full-length mirror and known that nothing else would do.
She was wearing it now, and she felt like a bride. How was a bride supposed to feel? She did not know about other brides, but she felt—euphoric. Was she being foolish? There was after all nothing truly romantic about her proposed marriage with Gabriel. She must not make the mistake of believing that a daily rose, the touch of his little finger to hers on the keys of a pianoforte, a light kiss in a rose arbor, a deeper kiss at Vauxhall, equated romance. Or, if they did in a way, they did not equatelove. This was not a love match on either side. It would be unwise of her to deceive herself into thinking that perhaps it was.
She felt euphoric anyway. Because shelikedhim and found him knee-weakeningly attractive. She felt quite breathless when she thought about tonight. She was a virgin, of course, but she was not going to be ashrinkingvirgin. She wanted it, whateveritturned out to be. She wanted it very badly. With him. Not with anyone else. There couldbeno one else. Not after Gabriel.
She did not stop to analyze that thought. She wanted to go to Brierley with him and help him sort out whatever mess was awaiting him there. She could do that. It was the sort of thing she had been raised to do with ease. She could beverylady-of-the-manorish when she chose. Goodness, was there such a term? She had learned the effectiveness of a remote sort of haughtiness from Avery and, to a lesser degree, from her mother.
Her mother came into her dressing room now, looking very elegant in deep blue—not quite royal and not quite navy but something of both. Ruth was placing Jessica’s new straw bonnet over the coiffure she had been working on for almost an hour, and then tying the wide pink ribbons to one side of her chin before taking a step back to look critically at her handiwork. She made one adjustment.
“You will do, my lady,” she said—a lengthy speech for Ruth.
“Oh, you will do very nicely indeed,” Jessica’s mother said, a bit teary eyed as she held her arms wide to hug her daughter. “I wish your father could see you now.”
Jessica had often wondered if her mother had loved her father. She rarely spoke of him. Yet she had never shown any interest in remarrying.
“I must not crush you,” she said after a brief, warm hug. “Jessica, youaredoing the right thing, are you, dearest? You are not marrying Mr. Thornejustbecause he is the Earl of Lyndale? You do love him? Love is so important in marriage. I loved your father, you know. Very dearly. Even though he was a duke and I was an earl’s daughter and love ought not to have mattered. And he loved me.” She brushed at a tear that threatened to spill over onto her cheek.
Ah.
“I am doing the right thing, Mama,” Jessica assured her, and she felt that surely, surely she was speaking the truth. Liking could be love too, could it not? A certain kind of love?
“Well,” her mother said. “We must not keep Avery waiting. He is downstairs now. So are Anna and Josephine.”
The younger children were to remain at home. But Josephine had learned to sit still, even for an hour-long Sunday service.
Jessica suddenly felt a pang of regret that Abby would not be at the church. Or Camille. Or Harry. She had written a long letter to Abby, a shorter one to each of the other two. She did not know when she would see them again—a melancholy thought. But such was life, she supposed, when one grew up. Today, however, was not for melancholy. Today was for her and Gabriel. Today was their wedding day.
She pulled on her long white gloves, hesitated a moment, and then drew the single rose from the vase on her dressing table and dried it off with a napkin. It was yellow today, as it had been the morning after the garden party, where he had kissed her for the first time. She had worn primrose yellow on that occasion, and in the rose arbor she had stood for a few moments, cupping though not quite touching a yellow rose between her hands.
He had remembered, she thought. For today, their wedding day.
She took the rose with her, holding it by the long stem, careful not to touch the thorns.
Sixteen
They had chosen a small, insignificant church on a long, quiet London street—the very church, in fact, where Anna and Avery had married eight years ago.
This wedding was better attended than that had been. Indeed, this particular street had perhaps never seen so many grand carriages all at once, not just moving along it but also stopping, one behind another. They waited, all of them, after the passengers had alit, liveried coachmen and footmen polishing off the small stains of travel and tending the horses. Passersby, intent upon their daily business, stopped to gawk and, if they were in pairs or trios, to wonder and speculate. The flower-bedecked carriage that stood directly outside the church was an indisputable clue, however, that a wedding was taking place inside. Several people settled in to wait, any urgency they had felt when they set out on their various errands forgotten. It was not often there was any grand spectacle to behold in this part of London.
All the Westcotts then in town and those with family connections to them were there. So were Sir Trevor and Lady Vickers. And Albert Vickers, their son, of course, was Gabriel’s best man.
The pews, even in so small a church, were not filled, but there was a feeling of warm intimacy, something Gabriel found a bit intimidating as he awaited the arrival of his bride. All the guests must be wondering—except the very few who knew the truth—why Jessica was marrying a mere Mr. Thorne from America, who had been rather vague about the inherited property and fortune that had brought him home to England. Certainly all must wonder why the formidable Duke of Netherby had given his blessing to such a seemingly unequal match. But all had come regardless, to celebrate with one of their own, who was old enough to make her own decisions and had decided to marry him, title or no title, mystery or no mystery.
The Duchess of Netherby with her eldest daughter and the dowager duchess were the last to arrive, a sure sign that Jessica and the duke were not far behind. The two ladies and the child took their places in the front pew, across from Gabriel and Bertie. The duchess smiled, the child looked at him wide eyed, and the dowager nodded graciously. Then the clergyman appeared from the vestry, dressed in simple white vestments, and lit the candles on the altar before turning to look back to the door of the church. There was a rustle of new arrivals and Gabriel got to his feet and turned.
Netherby, like him and unlike anyone else as far as Gabriel could see, was formally clad in knee breeches and evening wear. But Gabriel scarcely noticed him. Jessica was almost simply dressed in contrast with her brother—and him. She was all delicate in white and pink, and the yellow rose he had sent this morning. In the cool semidarkness of the church interior, with its slightly musty old-church smells of stone and prayer books, candle wax and incense, she looked nothing short of gorgeous. Her posture was proudly erect, her chin was raised, and her expression was stern and haughty. She was looking at him seemingly along the length of her nose.
