Philippa drank in the scene around her, so unexpected before her hasty agreement last evening to marry the Marquess of Roath because she wanted to grant an old man his dying wish. Though that was not quite the truth, was it? Surely she would not have agreed to marry a man she was quite adamantly opposed tomarrying. Was it that she had just needed an excuse to change her mind, then?
But she really had not anticipatedthis.She had expected something quiet and subdued, something almost dreary. She breathed in the heady scent of all the flowers and noticed how the light from the window was winking off the dozens of sequins on the skirt of her gown.
“It is time to cut the cake and serve it to our guests.” The marquess had come up behind her when she was for the moment standing alone. He must have just returned from seeing the clergyman on his way. He set one hand lightly behind her waist. “Lady Stephanie will carry the platter, and young Roger Quick will distribute napkins. Gerald and Sylvester will carry around trays of champagne. Everything has been organized down to the last detail by my female relatives.”
Sir Gerald Emmett was standing by the large table, waiting for them. He silenced the room with a piercing whistle, which caused Lady Catherine to look quite horrified for a moment. And he delivered a short speech fully intended to embarrass his cousin. He soon had everyone laughing—and then applauding as Philippa took up the big cake knife, her husband covered the back of her hand with his own, and together they cut through icing and marzipan and fruit cake. How the duke’s cook had managed to produce it on such very short notice, Philippa could not imagine.
Lady Catherine took over then and cut generous slices of cake while Philippa’s mother arranged them on a platter. Stephanie carried it and Philippa placed individual pieces onto the small plates her husband handed to the wedding guests. Roger gave everyone a linen napkin. Sir Gerald and Viscount Mayberry made sure each adult—as well as Steph and Roger—had a glass of champagne.
Before anyone drank, however, the Marquess of Roath gave a brief speech, thanking everyone for coming at such short notice to make this a very special day for his bride and him, and thankingherfor doing him the great honor of marrying him. He raised his glass and asked everyone to join him in a toast to the bride. He did not smile. He had not done so all afternoon. But, oh, surely there was something in his eyes, Philippa thought as he looked directly at her. Something suggesting that perhaps this marriage had not been entirely forced upon him.
It felt like a wedding, even though there had been no formal wedding breakfast, and the dozens of guests she might have expected at a grandtonwedding at St. George’s had been reduced to those members of their immediate families who happened to be in town. The smallness of the gathering did not matter. These were the people who were really important to them, after all.
Devlin made a speech after everyone had drunk to her. He proposed a toast to both of them.
The little girls and Matthew continued to play in a corner of the room, oblivious to all the boring things that kept the adults occupied. Everyone else continued to mingle and talk and laugh. There was a bit of a stir when the Duke of Wilby, finally persuaded to retire to his own apartments with the duchess, insisted upon walking across the room to the door without the help of anyone’s arm. He even stopped in the doorway in order to have a word with his grandson and to bow over the hand of his new granddaughter and raise it to his lips. Then he caused renewed consternation when he refused to allow anyone to follow them from the room and insisted that someone close the door behind him.
“There is no cause to worry,” the marquess said to all those who were obviously doing just that, including Philippa. “His pride willnot allow him to let any of us see two of his footmen carry him up the stairs.”
The small reception continued for a while longer. No one was in any hurry to leave. Philippa sat chatting with Jenny and Charlotte and Gwyneth for a while and then joined her brothers and Sir Gerald Emmett. Soon after, she was drawn into a group with her uncles and aunts and the duchess’s niece and her husband.
And suddenly it was no longer afternoon but early evening. The heart-wrenching moment had come when Philippa’s family must go home—but leave her behind. For Stratton House was no longer where she lived. Her maid had packed her belongings as soon as she left for her wedding and had then accompanied them to Arden House, where she had unpacked them and put everything away in her mistress’s new dressing room, next to that of her new husband.
Arden House was now Philippa’s home when in London. She was no longer a Ware of Ravenswood. She was an Arden of Amberwell in Leicestershire. She was the Marchioness of Roath. This was her wedding day. Her wedding evening.
She clung to her mother in the hall and then to Stephanie and Gwyneth and each of her brothers, holding back tears as she did so. She hugged them as though she expected never to see them again. She would, of course, and no doubt very soon, even tomorrow. But nothing would be the same, for she would never again belong with them. She belonged here. With her husband, who was shaking her brothers by the hand and kissing Mama and Gwyneth and Stephanie on the cheek. Joy roared by him, bright-cheeked and very obviously overtired. She stopped briefly in order to point at him.
“Uncle Luc,” she said.
Ben scooped her up when she came within arm’s length of him.
Philippa’s husband stayed just behind her, giving her space asshe stood in the doorway, watching the carriages drive away with her family, one hand raised in farewell.
And they were gone.
He set a hand against the back of her neck.
“It is time we went up to change for dinner, Phil,” he said.
Phil.He had called her that before. No one else ever had. She shivered slightly, though not with revulsion.
“Dinner,” she said, and remembered that, apart from a few bites of cake, she had not eaten since the meal back at Stratton House that had been too late for breakfast, too early for luncheon. Though actually... had she eaten even then?
“Yes,” he said. “Aunt Kitty is going to dine with Jenny in her sitting room. You and I will dine alone. It will be good to be quiet together.”
Would it? She turned to look into his face. But it was as essentially unreadable as it had been all day. He was offering her his arm. She slid her own through it and they ascended the stairs together.
—
Lucas took the chair at the head of the dining room table and seated his wife to his right. Her gown this evening was blue, a few shades darker than her eyes. He was beginning to recognize her clothing style—excellently fitted, perfectly fashionable, but simple and virtually unadorned. He doubted he would ever see her in frills and flounces and bows. He wondered if she did it deliberately because she knew that her own beauty needed no enhancement. He doubted it, though. He had seen no sign of vanity in her.
“I hope your grandfather did not overtax his strength by leaving his bed this afternoon and insisting upon remaining in the drawing room even after the service was over,” she said.
“My grandfather’s strength has always been as much a mentalas a physical thing,” he said. “He was determined to see me married and he did so. I believe he might have done himself more harm than good if he had remained in his room.”
She did not comment immediately. She waited until the footman who was serving their soup had moved back to take his place beside the butler at the sideboard.
“Will he slip away, then, now that he has seen you safely married?” she asked, frowning as she picked up her spoon.
