“You have not grown one ounce the lighter since the summer, lad,” Joshua said. “And so your mama has got herself married, has she?”
“Yes,” David cried as if he were addressing someone half a mile away. “To my stepfather. He can ride. He can even jump hedges, though I haven’t seen him do it and Uncle Kit says that he will tie him to the nearest post and leave him there ifheever sees him try it. And he is teaching me to paint with oils. He was going to get me a teacher when we go home to Ty Gwyn, but he decided to teach me himself. He is thebestteacher—much better than Mr. Upton,” he added disloyally. “I havelotsof cousins where my mama used to live. Charles is nine too, but he is younger than I am and only comes up to here.” He smote himself just above the right ear. “Are Daniel and Emily here?”
“They are,” Joshua said, chuckling. “You had better put Daniel out of his misery and dash up to the nursery without pausing for another breath, if you will, lad.”
And he turned to grin at Sydnam and to catch Anne up in a bear hug that was quite undignified considering the fact that the front door was still wide open.
Lady Hallmere and the children had come to Bath too, then, Anne realized. Lady Potford’s letter had not mentioned that fact.
“Freyja and all the other Bedwyns and assorted spouses had decided that their matchmaking skills must have eluded them this past summer,” Joshua said. “But it would seem they were wrong. One can only imagine on what poor unwed mortal their collective eye will alight next. Marriage must agree with you both. I do not see a single gray hair between the two of you.”
Anne laughed. The Bedwyns really had noticed her relationship with Sydnam during the summer, then, and had even tried to promote it? How mortified she would have been if she had realized that at the time.
“It agrees,” Sydnam said. “Very well indeed, in fact.”
“Come up and report to Freyja and my grandmother,” Joshua said. “Neither one of them was best pleased to learn that you had slunk off and got wed with great secrecy. They would have liked nothing better than to have given you a royal send-off.”
Anne felt a little wistful despite herself. Most people, she supposed, dreamed of a large wedding surrounded by family and friends—and she was no different from the norm. But she must not complain. She had had Claudia and Susanna with her, as well as David, and her marriage since that day had brought her far more happiness than she had expected when she sent off her letter to summon Sydnam.
Of coursehehad had no one of his own at their wedding.
It was only as she proceeded up the stairs on Joshua’s arm, Sydnam coming up behind them, that it occurred to her to wonder how Lady Potford had learned of their marriage—and, even more puzzling, how she had known to send her letter to Gloucestershire.
But it was something she did not feel she could ask.
If Lady Potford had intended to host her small reception at home, it appeared that she had changed her mind. Indeed, there was no further mention of an actual reception. Instead, she announced that she had booked a table at the Upper Assembly Rooms for tea the following afternoon. It would be a nice treat for all of them, she said, now that the weather had turned wintry and prevented much outdoor exercise. They must all get dressed up in their finest attire as if they were attending a wedding.
The children must come too, she added—she would arrange for Daniel and Emily’s nurse to look after them there.
“I hope you do not mind this too terribly much,” Anne said to Sydnam the next day, meeting his eye in the mirror of the dressing table after the maid Lady Potford had insisted upon sending up to her had left and he had come out of the adjoining dressing room, all ready to go. “Oh.” She swiveled about on the stool. “You look exceedingly handsome.”
He was wearing a black-tailed coat with ivory silk breeches and embroidered waistcoat and very white linen.
He looked nothing short of gorgeous, in fact.
“And you,” he said, “are looking quite exquisite.”
She was wearing her rose pink muslin dress, the prettiest of all her new ones, with its flounced, scalloped hem and soft folds falling from the high waistline, its short, puffed sleeves and modestly scooped neck. Lady Potford’s maid had done something very elaborate but very becoming with her hair. She was wearing her diamond pendant and earrings.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling and getting to her feet. “But we are merely going to the Upper Assembly Rooms fortea,Sydnam. Whatever will the other people there think of us? We look far too grand for afternoon.”
Of course, she had always dreamed of taking tea and even dancing at the Upper Rooms and could remember how envious she had been more than two years ago when Frances had been invited to an assembly there.
“Well,” he said, “they will probably take one look at me and scream and run long before they can notice how grand we look.”
“Oh, Sydnam!” she exclaimed, but he was grinning at her in his lopsided way, and she ended up laughing with him.
“There is just this afternoon to live through,” she said as they were leaving the room together, “and a brief visit to the school tomorrow if you do not mind—I did send off a note to Claudia this morning to tell her we were here—and then we may go home. You will be so glad.”
“And you?” he said, offering his arm.
“Oh, yes,” she said, taking his arm and squeezing it. “I can hardly wait.”
But first there was to be tea in the Upper Rooms, and Anne looked forward to it. She and Sydnam traveled in Lady Potford’s carriage while Joshua and Lady Hallmere came behind and the children came behindthemin a carriage with the nurse.
“You look very lovely, my dear,” Lady Potford said to Anne as they descended to the small courtyard outside the Upper Rooms.
“You also look half frightened to death. Let me set your mind at rest. I have reserved the whole of the tearoom for our use and so you will not be confronted by curious strangers. I have reserved the ballroom too. I thought a little music might be pleasant while we eat, and the extra space will give the children somewhere to run about without disturbing us.”
