She shrugged slightly, but he could tell she was bubbling to tell him.
“As a new bride should, I wrote to my mother-in-law after the wedding.”
“I didn’t know you had made contact,” he said with a frown. “But I think I should have been the one to do that.”
She shook her head. “For new circumstances, I consult an etiquette book, such asA Guide to the Usages of Society, or sometimes an earlier work. I’ve readIl Libro del Cortegianofor amusement only, of course. Many customs have changed since 1528.”
“Have they?” he asked, thinking his wife a most remarkable woman. “I suppose you read it in its original Italian.”
“Naturally,” she said without the least pretension. “In all the modern guides, authors agree that a daughter-in-law should show respect to her new family by introducing herself, so I did. Your mother was welcoming in her letters and happy for both of us. She has invited us to go there and stay. I know you’ve put it off, but I hope you will consider it soon.”
He spoke from his heart. “I cannot wait to show you off. But you didn’t explain about the painting. Last I saw it, it was in our country home in Surrey, but my mother cleared it out and sold off everything she could to bring money to her new husband.”
“After her first warm letter to me,” Purity continued, “when you mentioned not having anything of your father’s, I recalled the painting and wrote to her again. She had it stored in their attic in Edinburgh, and I asked her to send it at once.”
Matthew shook his head and glanced at it again. “It is as though you have returned him to me.”
“I wish I could. Your mother has other things put aside for you. A signet ring, a snuff box, some handkerchiefs, and more. We shall bring it all back here. Maybe we’ll have a son one day to whom you shall pass your father’s things.”
He took her face in his palms. “If we do, I shall be grateful. Yet if we never have anything more than we have right now, I shall consider myself bountifully blessed. In a pragmatic way, I thought it was time to get a wife.” He brushed his hand over her beautiful hair, still a little mussed from their tempestuous afternoon.
“I never knew in doing so, I would get back the decent part of me who is my father’s son. You have done a monstrous good job of civilizing me, kitten.”
Her cheeks pinkened.
Suddenly, Matthew startled. “We met in front of a painting.”
“We first kissed in front of a painting, too,” she agreed.
He grinned.
“Kiss me,” she said.
And he did.
Epilogue
Scotland, 1848
“Are we there yet?” Diana asked for the hundredth time. Or it felt that way at any rate, ever since they’d passed under the grand columns of the Euston Arch nine hours earlier and strolled toward the train that would take them all the way to Edinburgh.
Inside London’s Euston Station, Diana had held tightly to Purity’s hand while looking up at the massive wrought-iron roof arching overhead. The little girl had been eager for the adventure.
As a family, with Nanny Caldwell, the four of them wandered along one of the two 420-foot-long platforms until a porter directed them to their first-class carriage compartment, which comfortably held six.
Purity couldn’t have imagined how the thickly padded seats, clean carpet, and real glass windows with curtains would become a wretchedly detested jail cell after riding within the paneled interior for so long.
On top of the tedium, noise, and jerking motion of the train, it seemed no sooner had they left the city behind than Diana had started to ask that dreadful question, throughCamden, Boxmoor, Aylesbury Junction, Rugby, Coventry, and Birmingham, where they got out and stretched their legs. At that point, they weren’t even halfway there.
“Darling,” Purity said, gritting her teeth because the incessant enquiry was driving her mad, “Papa told you it was 390 miles or thereabouts when we started. That’s a very long way, isn’t it?”
The little girl nodded. “Yes, Mama.”
Purity still felt that word like a gentle squeeze to her heart every time Diana said it. It had been only a couple weeks ago that the little girl had come up to her and taken her hand while wearing a serious expression.
She had tugged Purity down so they could speak face-to-face.
“Pretty lady,” as she had called her since they met, “Miss Soft and Miss Wriggles wonder if they can call you ‘Mama.’” Her brown eyes had stared unblinkingly.
