Seventeen
The carriage Gabriel had purchased for his wedding day and the journey to Brierley Hall had indeed been denuded of its floral decorations and metallic noisemakers before it left Archer House. Even the remaining traces of the flower petals with which he and Jessica had been showered outside the church had been thoroughly removed. Those facts saved them from attracting undue attention on their way to his hotel. They did not, however, save them from a grand reception at the hotel itself, where Gabriel had been putting up since his arrival in London.
He had informed the manager that Mrs. Thorne would be joining him to spend the night here. Perhaps that bare announcement had raised an alarm, for during the weeks of his stay he had given no indication that he was a married man. Perhaps the manager, who had bowed to him with the utmost respect this morning, had feared that the hotel was about to fall into disrepute. Whatever the reason, he or his minions had done some swift research and had come up with the astonishing news that Mr. Thorne, a wealthy gentleman late of Boston, America, had that very day married the sister of no less a personage than His Grace, the Duke of Netherby.
The red carpet was out. Literally. It had been rolled down over the wide, shallow steps outside the main doors and across the pavement. It was in such pristine condition when Gabriel’s carriage rocked to a halt at the curb beside it that it seemed probable no other guest had been allowed to set foot on it but had been put to the inconvenience of using a side door.
The ornate brass handles on the outer doors had been polished until they rivaled gold in brightness. The manager and footmen, whose jobs respectively were to register newly arrived guests and carry in their baggage, were suddenly resplendent in uniforms so stiff and spotless that they must be reserved for the most special and rare of occasions. The owner of the hotel, who looked as if he had dressed for an audience at court, stepped out through the doors and executed a bow that would not have shamed him had he been making it to the Prince of Wales himself. As soon as the newly arrived guests had stepped down from their carriage, he delivered a brief, pompous speech, which had been either written inaccurately or memorized poorly. He welcomed to his humble hotel Lady Jessica Archer and Mr. Archer. With one practiced sweep of his arm he invited them to step inside.
And there in the gleaming foyer waited two straight lines of hotel employees, also clad in their special-occasion best, smiling and, at a cue from the manager, applauding. At another cue, the clapping stopped abruptly, the men bowed, and the women curtsied.
They must have spent all day rehearsing, Gabriel thought. They would have done a military parade proud—except for the smiles. He ought to have taken a suite at the Pulteney instead of at this perfectly comfortable but obviously second-tier hotel. At the Pulteney they must be accustomed to the aristocracy and foreign dignitaries flitting in and out. There would have been no fuss or fanfare at all there but, if anything, an even greater discretion than usual to preserve the privacy of their guests.
For the first time Gabriel saw the results of his careful reasoning about the choice of a bride. He had thought to choose someone who would fit into the role of Countess of Lyndale at Brierley as a hand would fit into a glove. He had chosen Jessica within half an hour of his first encounter with her. At the time it had not occurred to him that she would also ease his way back into his London hotel on his wedding day.
She had sat beside him in the carriage on the short journey from Archer House, her hand in his, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright as the two of them looked back over the past few hours and commented upon several details they had found particularly memorable or touching. She had been Jessica.
But the moment the carriage door was opened outside the hotel and she summed up the situation at a glance, she became a different person—the one he had met at that inn on the road to London. She became the haughty yet gracious daughter of a duke that she was. She became Lady Jessica Thorne, Countess of Lyndale.
She waited for Gabriel to alight first and then set her hand in his and descended to the red carpet with regal grace. She ignored the two footmen who stood on either side of the carpet—it was, Gabriel realized, a serious faux pas to acknowledge their existence, as he did with a brisk nod for each—and ascended the steps as the owner delivered his speech. She afforded him a gracious inclination of the head and a murmured thank-you—similar to the one she had given Gabriel on their first encounter—while she offered her hand at the end of a fully extended arm to discourage the man from moving any closer. Then she swept inside while Gabriel was giving the owner a more conventional—and less aristocratic—handshake.
The applauding lines of servants did not throw her off stride for a single moment. She stopped walking, waited for the performance to come to an end, and smiled down the length of her nose while she looked unhurriedly along the women’s line and back along the men’s before nodding to both lines and speaking.
“Thank you,” she said. “What a lovely welcome.”
And to a man—and woman—they almost melted with pleasure at her words, all six of them. They could not have looked more gratified had she presented each of them with a gift.
And she looked unerringly toward the manager, who jumped forward, bowed, indicated the wide staircase with a sweeping arm gesture, and then led the way up to Gabriel’s suite as though he would not be able to find it unassisted. Gabriel meanwhile nodded and smiled at the employees, most of whom looked familiar to him by now, and followed his wife.
She was extraordinary.
“Thank you,” she said again as the manager, his chest puffed out with importance, paused outside the suite and opened the door—somehow it was unlocked.
And she swept inside, turned toward Gabriel as the door closed behind him, and . . . became Jessica again. And the thing was, he thought, she seemed unaware of the two roles she had played in the last ten minutes. Being Lady Jessica Archer—or, rather, Lady Jessica Thorne—was so much second nature to her when she was in a public setting that she did not even have to think about it.
“I am sorry about that,” he said. “I didnotannounce this morning that I was off to marry the daughter of a duke. And I do not believe Horbath would have announced it either—my valet, that is.”
“Gabriel.” She laughed. “You must have been in America too long. Servants, employees, often know things about their employers or paying guests before those people know those things for themselves. There is no keeping anything secret from one’s servants, you know. That is why it is important to engage their loyalty and even affection. It is why it is important to treat them well.”
He was not sure it was quite the statement of equality for all that was so touted in the New World, even if it was not a perfect reality there. But he was in England now, where the class system was still alive and well and perhaps always would be, and where it would work comfortably for all, provided there was mutual respect along the spectrum. It was not perfect. But what was? And these were not thoughts he needed to be having at this precise moment.
“Horbath?” he called. He was not sure whether his valet was in the suite or not.
“Sir?” Horbath stepped out of his bedchamber.
“You may take the rest of the day off,” Gabriel told him. “Until after dinner anyway. Let us say half past nine?”
“Yes, sir,” Horbath said. He bowed to Jessica. “Does my lady wish me to take my lady’s maid with me?”
“Ruth is here?” she asked. “Yes, by all means, Mr. Horbath. Thank you.”
Horbath disappeared. There was the murmur of his voice and a female’s before another door to the suite that was outside the sitting room opened and closed, and there was silence.
“Perhaps,” Gabriel said, his eyes moving over Jessica’s wedding dress and straw bonnet, “I ought to have consulted you before sending your maid away. Perhaps you will need her sooner than half past nine tonight.”
“I can manage without,” she told him.
“And,” he said, “I can be an excellent lady’s maid. Not that I have had any experience, I hasten to add. But I can brush hair and I can undo buttons on a dress that are inaccessible to the wearer.”
