Felix and Miles! They had woken, disturbed by the strange happenings in the night. Her heart contracted. Poor, frightened little things. Instinctively she held out her arms, and they ran to her, nuzzling into her and bursting into sobs.
“Hush, now, hush,” she crooned, all thought of her own confusions swept away. “There is nothing to be afraid of. Listen to me, both of you. Your papa will come presently, but he is with your mama just at this moment. And he has the most wonderful news. Do you wish to know what it is?”
Two small faces, the tears smudged away by knuckling hands, looked up at her expectantly. Verena smiled.
“God has brought you a little sister.”
That was enough for Felix. Questions rained on Verena, and Miles climbed into her lap, sticking a thumb in his mouth andpreparing to sleep again, satisfied with an explanation, even though its significance was beyond him.
A few moments later, when Osmond appeared in the doorway, the two boys leaped up and ran to their father, who lifted them bodily from the floor, both together, and hugged them, laughing in an excess of joy, repeating the momentous news.
Verena discovered that tears were pouring down her face. Osmond saw it, and put the boys down, coming towards her, his children at his heels.
“Miss Chaceley! Why, what is the matter?”
But Verena was smiling, even while she hunted in the hidden pocket of her gown for a handkerchief. “Pay no heed to me, Mr Ruishton. It is — it is merely an expression of — of joy. I am so happy for you!”
Osmond reached out and, leaning over her, took both her hands in his. “I cannot thank you enough, Miss Chaceley.”
“Oh, don’t,” begged Verena. “It may seem an odd thing to say, but I have — I have had so muchpleasuretonight.” She returned the pressure of his hands, and then let them go, using the handkerchief to dry her eyes. Smiling, she added, “I think we may dispense with formality after this, don’t you, Osmond?”
Osmond laughed. “You are a remarkable woman — Verena.”
Felix and Miles were clinging to his legs. Detaching the younger boy, he lifted him up into his arms again, and took the other by the hand. It was obvious that his joy in his family was unbounded.
“I can only say, Verena, that I wish you might one day know the happiness I am experiencing tonight. Marriage is bliss, you know. I can thoroughly recommend it.”
From a few feet away, Denzell watched his sister’s face as she turned to whisper to her new husband. Lord, but Teresa was radiant. He had thought her determined pursuit of poor Freddyto have been for the advantage of position, but he was clearly wrong. And Freddy himself. One only had to look at him.
Lord Rowner, receiving the murmurs of his bride into his ear, responded with a glowing look that told its own tale. An unexpected pang smote Denzell. This was a love match. Though why it should affect him in such a way he was at a loss to imagine. He should be happy for them. He was happy for them — for Teresa. At least one Hawkeridge could look forward to a rosy future.
He turned away on the thought, conscious that for some little time now he had himself been something less than happy. He was hanged if he knew why. Life had somehow become empty, meaningless. Deuce take it, but it was a ridiculous state of affairs. He had everything he could want, did he not? What more could there be? Trying to shrug off the mood, he threw himself into the business of the day.
The wedding breakfast celebrating the nuptials of the new Lady Rowner was held, as was proper, at Tuttingham, in the home of the lady’s parents. Hawkeridge Hall, the baron’s seat, was an old-fashioned edifice, erected in the days of Queen Anne before the Palladian craze had swept the country. It was solid, but not imposing, of good proportions, and much more comfortable to inhabit than the windswept baronial hall that had preceded it.
The gardens, tending rather to the natural than the formal, were admirably suited to occasions of this kind, and the guests, having eaten and drunk of their host’s plenty, had been invited on this warm summer day to amble the lawns, studded for the purpose with pockets of chairs and tables for the comfort of the less energetic.
Denzell’s duties as son of the house — attired for the occasion in a suit that was, for him, unusually bright in colours of russet brown over apricot and cream — had kept him sufficientlyoccupied to set uncomfortable thoughts at bay for the moment. Later, as he was taking a respite, enjoying the idle jocularity of his particular friends — including Osmond who had travelled up for the occasion — he was hailed by another young man.
“Hawk, old fellow! I have not seen you this age. I suppose you have been gallivanting in London all winter.”
Turning, Denzell beheld a lad some years his junior, smart in the blue coat with buttoned-back revers and white breeches of a naval lieutenant. He grinned and came forward to shake hands.
“And I must suppose that you, Kenrick, have been sailing the high seas.”
“Alas, yes. Nothing but the sea for us Chaceleys, you know.”
Denzell stared at him, stricken to silence. A hollow seemed to have opened up inside him. Deuce take it, why had he not thought of it before? VerenaChaceley. And here he had a whole swarm of that name on his very doorstep.
Pittlesthorp Place was but a mile or two away, near to Ivingho, but so close that all the Chaceley boys had been the neighbouring companions of his youth. So much a part of his background were they that their Christian names — Kenrick, Fulbert and Walter, to call but three to mind — were perhaps too familiar for him to be recalling their family name.
Kenrick Chaceley was blinking at him. “What in thunder ails you, Hawk? Look as if you had seen a ghost.”
Denzell felt almost as if he had. A need, urgent and compelling, forced him out of his abstraction. He grasped the young lad’s arm. “Kenrick, bring me to your grandfather. I have the greatest desire to renew my acquaintance with him.”
“You must be mad,” returned the young gentleman, standing firm. “My whole desire is to keep as far away from the old tartar as possible. If you want him, you go and find him for yourself.”
“Oh, come, he’s not as bad as all that.”
