“I will think about it,” she told him, and laughed.
24
They considered waiting for a more clement time of year, but neither wanted to put off their wedding until June or July or even May. They considered Kenelston as a venue, but it had not really been Ben’s home since childhood despite the fact that he owned it, and it never would be home now.
They settled upon Wales at the end of January, specifically upon the church in Fisherman’s Bridge, with the Reverend Jenkins officiating. Samantha, after insisting that she would leave for her wedding from her cottage, realized that she had hurt her grandfather though he did not say so, and changed her mind. She would marry from the big house with her grandfather to accompany her and give her away. Ben would move to the village inn on the eve of the wedding. A grand wedding breakfast would be held in the ballroom at Cartref.
It was the very worst time of the year in which to expect guests to travel from any distance, but invitations were sent out anyway.
Beatrice and Gramley were the first to reply. They would come, though Beatrice reported that her husband was now quite sure his brother-in-law had taken leave of his senses. A letter came from Calvin the next day. He and Julia would also be coming. After that, while the banns were already being read at the village church, a steady stream of replies were delivered, all but one of them acceptances. Amazingly, all the Survivors were going to venture into the darkest bowels of Wales—Flavian’s description—to attend Ben’s nuptials. The exception was, of course, Vincent, whose wife was close to her time of confinement.
I will not leave Sophie, he had written,though she has urged me not to miss your wedding, Ben.
It was obvious that his wife had written the letter for him, for there followed a brief message in parentheses: (Vincent is more nervous than I am about the coming event, Sir Benedict. It would be cruel for me to try insisting that he go to Wales when he is so anxious for my sake. You will come here in March, though, for the annual gathering of the Survivors’ Club, will you not, even though you will be so recently married? And you will bring Lady Harper with you? Please? I so very much want to meet all of Vincent’s friends.)
On a separate sheet of paper, enclosed with the letter, was a charcoal drawing—a very fine caricature indeed—of a man who bore a remarkable resemblance to Vince, pacing with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back, droplets of sweat falling from his brow, and generally looking very worried indeed while a little mouse in one corner gazed kindly up at him.
“I am so sorry,” Ben said, taking Samantha’s hand in his as they sat together on the couch in her sitting room at the cottage one afternoon a week before the wedding. “All the outside guests will be mine.”
“Ah,” she said, “but all theinsideguests will be mine, you see. All my friends and neighbors will be about me on what I expect to be the happiest day of my life. And Grandpapa will be there to give me into your keeping.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Besides,” she said, turning her head so that he could see that her eyes were twinkling, “I had a very civil letter from Matilda today.”
“You did?” His eyebrows rose in some surprise.
“Indeed,” she said. “She congratulated me upon having snared a very eligible husband for the second time despite my origins.”
“Your shady Gypsy past?”
“That,” she said, “and the fact that my grandfather isin coal. It does sound very murky and dusty, does it not? She hopes—no, sheferventlyhopes and prays—that I have learned my lesson and will not lead you a merry dance as I did her poor dear Matthew.”
“No!”
“All very civil,” she said. “Though she did sink just a little into spite at the end, Ben. She took leave to give it as her opinion that it would be no less than you deserve if Idolead you a dance, since you appear to be the type of man who believes it quite unexceptionable to ride out with a widow when she is in deepest mourning.”
“We deserve each other, then?” he asked her.
“It would appear so,” she said with a sigh. “Oh, she isnot, by the way, coming to our wedding. Neither are the Earl and Countess of Heathmoor. I was rather surprised by that announcement, since my letter to them was merely to explain that I will be remarrying and was in no way an invitation.”
The next day Samantha was surprised by another letter. The Reverend John Saul, her half brother, was pleased to hear that she had settled well in Wales and was happy there with her mother’s people. He felt it incumbent upon himself to honor his late father by attending the wedding of the daughter of whom his parent had been so obviously fond. His dear wife would not be accompanying him.
Samantha, alone in her book room when she read the letter, unabashedly wept over it, its stiff pomposity notwithstanding.
“Iwillhave an outside guest of my own,” she said, thrusting the letter into Ben’s hand when he drove over from Cartref with her grandfather during the afternoon.
And she turned and wept all over again in her grandfather’s arms while he patted her back and read the letter over Ben’s shoulder.
The preparations for the wedding were all made. All that remained was to await the arrival of those who would be traveling from England during one of the potentially most inclement months of the year. They would all acquire cricked necks, Ben remarked on one occasion, if they gazed skyward much more than they did. It was a cold month, and the wind, which blew almost constantly, was what Mrs. Price called a lazy wind.
“It can’t be bothered to swerve around you,” she explained. “It just blows straight through.”
But the sky remained blue much of the time, and when there were clouds, they were high and unthreatening. There was no snow. There rarely was in this part of Wales, but the key word wasrarely. They would all have relaxed a bit more, perhaps, if it had beennever. Snow was not the only threat, of course. Rain could be just as bad or worse. It did not take a great deal of it to turn the roads to mud and sometimes to quagmires. And rainwascommon in this part of the world, especially at this time of year.
But the weather held.
And the guests began to arrive.
