“I would,” he said. “The marchioness destroyed more than just her own life. She permanently scarred the life of her fourteen-year-old son. It was really no excuse that she did not know he was aware of the truth. Our father, who perhaps assumed that what he did during the spring months here in London while he was away from Mama and all of us would do us no harm, was actually wreaking future havoc upon all of us. It is no excuse that we might never have known had he not grown reckless that one year and brought a woman to Boscombe and right into our home. It is hard to forgive either our father or Lucas’s mother. I am not sure I ought to do it.”
“I loved Papa,” she said. “I love him. But I cannot deny hisfaults. I can only leave them with him and recognize that they are ultimately nothing to do with me.”
“You can be happy with Lucas, then?” he asked her, frowning.
“I believe I can,” she said.
“I think after all,” he said, “he is a decent sort, Pippa. I think he is genuinely fond of you.”
“And I am fond of him, Dev,” she said.
“Are you?”
She nodded and he hugged her tightly again.
“This being head of the family can be pretty daunting,” he said. “I want to make the world and life perfect for all of you. Including Mama. But that is not within my power, is it?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It is enough that you love us all, Dev.”
“One thing I can tell you,” he said. “No matter how many sons Gwyneth and I are blessed with, I willneverdesignate any of them for a military career.”
“Ah, but I think Nick might have chosen it anyway,” she said.
He set an arm loosely about her shoulders and sighed as he opened the door and led her back out into the hall. “We had better go up and spend as much time with him as we can,” he said. “I believe you are right, though. He is very different from me. Which is just as well. Who would want two of me in one family?”
Philippa laughed and rested her cheek against his shoulder for a moment.
It was late in the afternoon when Lucas and Philippa took their leave of her family and walked back home to Arden House. It was not an easy parting, for Philippa did not know when she would see three of her brothers again. Owen would be at Oxford until he returned home to Ravenswood at the end of term. Ben would soon be moving permanently to Penallen. And Nicholas...
She hugged him, and he rocked her in his arms and kissed her forehead beneath the brim of her bonnet.
“It will take more than Napoleon Bonaparte and his ragtag army to put me down, Pippa,” he murmured to her. “But whatever happens, remember that I will be doing what I want to do. And that I want you to be happy. You and Steph. My favorite sisters.”
She smiled at him, a bit watery-eyed. “The usual answer,” she said.
“You are myonlysisters?” he said, grinning at her. “I must think of a new one by the next time I see you.”
...his ragtag army.
Napoleon Bonaparte had never had ragtag armies. They had always been the most efficient and fearsome fighting forces the world had known.
Then she was walking home with her husband, leaning a little more heavily on his arm than she had when they came. And he was setting his hand over hers and drawing her a little closer to his side. And it did seem lovely, she thought, not to feel all alone in the world, to have someone to whom she belonged exclusively.Notthat she intended ever to be a clinging sort of wife. But his arm felt very steady and reassuring, and his hand over hers was warm.
She was very glad she had said yes the night before last, when if she had had an ounce of sense she would have said no.
One word could make all the difference to one’s life.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Duke of Wilby suffered no deterioration of his health during the three weeks following his grandson’s wedding. According to him, though, eager as he was to get his life back to normal, there was no real improvement either. It irked him that he felt obliged to take to his bed several times each day and had to be carried up and down the stairs when he insisted upon establishing himself in the drawing room.
He was improving, nevertheless. His complexion lost its chalky quality. His speech became firmer, and his appetite more robust. He talked of returning home to Greystone. He also talked of attending the Earl and Countess of Stratton’s ball. His family frowned upon both ideas as utter madness, but none of them were foolish enough to argue with him. It would have been pointless. They merely hoped that when the time came he would realize he was not strong enough either to attend a ball or to take to the king’s highway for what would have to be several days of travel before he reached the comfort of Greystone.
Major Nicholas Ware had returned to his regiment, now stationed near Brussels in Belgium, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The news coming across the channel, usually in unofficial word-of-mouth reports and therefore of dubious accuracy, was grim indeed. Yet every single piece of it pointed to a grand battle being both inevitable and imminent. Members of the British upper classes, both men and women, went in droves to Brussels to see for themselves, to offer support to sons and husbands and brothers enlisted in various regiments, and to attend parties as though there were no tomorrow—as soon there would not be for large numbers of those who would be involved in the fight. George Greenfield, younger brother of the Dowager Countess of Stratton, was one of their number. He would send daily word of the situation and of Nicholas, he had promised his sister and his nieces and nephews before he left.
Owen Ware and Ben Ellis had left London, the one to return to Oxford, the other to return to Penallen, despite the anxiety they felt for their brother. Stephanie resumed her studies with Miss Field as well as their educational excursions. She also consented to the tedium of being measured for a new evening gown since her mother and Gwyneth had both deemed it unexceptionable for her to attend at least the first few hours of Philippa’s wedding ball. She would not dance, of course—she protested quite firmly that she would not wish to do so even if she could—and she would remain by her mother’s side or her sister-in-law’s or perhaps Jenny Arden’s throughout. But she would bethereto hear the music, to watch the dancing, to see Devlin waltz with Gwyneth and Pippa with Lucas. She would be happy.
The friendship between Clarissa and Kitty held firm. They attended the theater and the opera, garden parties and soirees and private concerts, together. And on the rare occasion when there wasnothing else to do, they went shopping. They were both agreed that they must not go so long without seeing each other in the future. Kitty must come to Ravenswood to stay, Clarissa said. She must bring Jenny with her to enjoy the spaciousness of the house and park—perhaps to coincide with the summer fete Devlin and Gwyneth intended to resume and make an annual event again.
