She saw the slight hint of anxiety in his expression. Even now, after all that had been said between them, he was still not sure of her, still needed reassurance.
Reaching one hand to press a finger to his lips, she said, “Hush, my love. Till death us do part, and that is a promise. No false chaplain will separate us this time.” Then, reaching for his hand, she twisted off her wedding ring and pressed it into his palm. “You will need this.”
There was a flurry of activity behind them, then the thunder of booted feet running up the aisle. “Aye, here I am, Will. Ye can start, now.”
The clergyman opened his prayer book. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation…”
And so Izzy became Lady Farramont once more, and a great peace descended on her. She had made her choice and she was content.
22: The Lakes
Ian and Izzy spent the night after their wedding at the parsonage, being treated to a dinner to which every house in the village seemed to have contributed something. It was a fairly random collection of dishes, but the Hydes were so eager to please that even Izzy ate reasonably well. Ian himself worked his way stolidly through whatever was offered. Food was food, to him, and he needed plenty of it, so he never refused anything.
Having spent the night in the parsonage’s guest bedroom, they helped each other to dress the next morning, and Ian for once was not in a rush to take his habitual walk. There was an exquisite pleasure in lacing Izzy into her stays and then buttoning up her gown, stealing a few kisses as he worked.
He had been travelling for more than a month, however, and never in one place long enough to receive mail. He was now desperate to hear news from Henry about Stonywell matters. He found that Izzy was no less keen to hear that the children were well and not suffering too badly from their parents’ absence.
“We both left so abruptly,” she said. “Well… I often do so, but you do not, and we have been gone for so long, and it is all my fault. Should we go straight home, do you think?”
Ian paused in his buttoning to ponder the point. “We are two hundred miles north of Nottingham, and I have been constantly on the move for a month now. Much as I want to get home, I do not relish the prospect of another four or five days of travelling. I have a better idea. We are close to the Lakes, where we might make a very comfortable stay for a week or two — long enough to receive letters, anyway. I need to write to all who know of our situation to advise them of its happy outcome.”
“Indeed, for they will be anxious about us, and wondering what has happened. You may say that even though I am a new bride, I waive my right to gifts and dinners and balls in my honour, for I need none of that. I have a husband who loves me and what more could I wish for?”
“Oh, Izzy!” Ian said, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her very tight. “I am the happiest man alive.”
“Then I must be the happiest woman,” she murmured.
“Are you happy? Truly?” All his uncertainty came roaring back.
She spun round to face him. “Ian, you must not doubt me.”
“It is myself I doubt,” he said quietly. “Who am I to make a woman like you happy? You are everything that is vibrant and golden and wonderful, and I am so… soordinary.”
“But you are not ordinary at all. You have been all that is good and kind and generous, and you have never complained about thestupidthings I do, not once. I never appreciated you properly until recently, when I saw what Godfrey and Sydney and even Robert have become, but you have only improved with time.”
“That is because, unlike them, I have an amazing wife.”
“Your wife has been amazingly selfish,” Izzy said, lowering her eyes. “I thought only of my own wishes, and never of yours.”
He lifted her chin with a finger, so that she could not avoid his eyes. “You have always been restless. It is in your nature, Izzy, and you must allow it full rein. I shall never try to confine you, or to change you.”
“Then I must do my best to change myself — to be a wife worthy of such a man as you. No, no! Do not protest that you are ordinary. Your humility is commendable, but you are by far a better person than I am. For five years now we have been circling tentatively around each other, I because I was oblivious to all but myself and you because you were giving me my freedom. And I enjoyed my freedom, but increasingly I felt there was something missing. I did not quite know what it was, until I discovered it in you.”
“What was it?” he said wonderingly, awed at such open talking.
“Passion, Ian. Devotion. Love. The kind of love that allows me to make mistake after mistake, to wander without hindrance, yet is always there when needed. Love is more important than money or rank or a position in society. Your love is precisely what I need to calm me down. You see, I never thought you cared what I did… whether I were there with you or gadding about. Now that I know that you do, that I matter to you, I want more than anything to be the wife you deserve.”
“You are not going to turn into a timid little mouse, are you?” he said, alarmed. “That I should not like at all.”
She giggled. “Not that, I hope. I cannot change my whole nature, but I can change what I do. All my racing around stems, I think, from feeling that I was unloved and perhaps even unwanted, beyond my ability to breed. Now that I know how wrong I was, I no longer feel the urge to race anywhere.”
“We will not always be so… oh, in my case, ecstatic,” he said. “Delirious with joy. In a year or two, or five, when we have settled back into dreary domesticity, you will rediscover how dull I am, with my account books and the soul of a grocer.”
“No, because I shall always remember that you followed me all over the north of England, despite all the obstacles I threw in your way, and then abducted me in desperation. You are not in the least dull, husband dear. Are you ever going to finish those buttons?”
She turned her back on him, and obediently he bent to his task. “I shall be glad when you have Brandon again to take over this task,” he muttered. “My fingers are too large for such delicate buttons. It takes such a long time.” He paused to kiss her neck.
She chuckled. “Oh, but Brandon is not nearly so much fun. So shall we have a honeymoon in the Lakes? That sounds most agreeable. I have never been there, but I hear that everyone goes to Keswick.”
