“I’m becoming my… my brother!” She glanced down at the paper. “Oh, my. Listen to this:The Duke of R was spotted in town with his new wife on his arm. What are the chances for their splash in society?”
The lid on the medieval hole clanked shut.
Gabby’s expression took on a calculating glint. “You know what? I think I should like to visit Scotland.”
The nerves in Rebecca’s stomach fluttered. “What?”
“Why not?” Gabby said through a clenched jaw. She dropped the paper. “It’s a splendid idea.”
Rebecca snorted. “Your brother is coming for me this afternoon. He wants to go riding in Hyde Park.”
“So what? We’ll leave him a note and tell him we’ve decided to… postpone your wedding. It will be like old times. And if you are out of London? So much the better.”
Rebecca considered her friend. Her very good friend. There was no doubt Sebastian would come after her. But perhaps that was not a horrible thing. It would give him the opportunityto decide if she was what he wanted as well.He should know exactly what he was getting into if he married her, as she was not likely to change any more than he. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Scotland is a brilliant idea.”
~~~
Since Parliament was not in session, Sebastian’s first stop, Doctors’ Commons on Queen Street, was only to learn the archbishop was currently not in house. It was one thing to provide his and Rebecca’s tenuous circumstances to the archbishop, quite another to an underling of the archbishop. Thanking the gentleman, Sebastian mounted his horse and headed for Lambeth Palace to be informed the man was at Addington for a family matter and would return by weeks’ end.
This was disastrous news. If Sebastian gave Rebecca a week, he would never be able to get her to the altar.
His honor would be in tatters, she would be ruined, and she would never believe that he truly wished to marry her.
He pushed a hand through his hair then pulled out his watch fob. Addington was not that great a distance. He could be back by early evening, though he’d miss his arrangement with driving Rebecca through the park.
Sebastian weighed his options, concluding the wiser course was to have the special license on his person should she take a sudden urge to balk or bolt, certainly a feasible assumption where Rebecca Thatcher was concerned. His soon-to-be wife did not appreciate being cornered. Not that he could blame her.
“Is there someone who can deliver a missive for me?” he inquired of the Lambeth Palace butler.
“Certainly, Your Grace.”
Sebastian dashed off three notes. One to the Huntley house, one to Rivers, and one to his own. Rebecca would spend the entire day with Gabriella. There was a niggling sense of doom hanging over him. One that had nothing to do with his impending nuptials.
An hour later, he trotted his horse up to Addington. The residence was nothing like Kensington or Windsor: a mansion built some fifty years past with magnificent Palladian-style pillars. The residence with its two main stories incorporated single-story wings and pavilions. While its white façade was showing its age, the portico was framed by the Surrey Hills. One couldn’t ask for a more picturesque setting.
Sebastian handed the butler his card and was shown into an elaborately furnished drawing room to wait. The Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Manners-Sutton, came from wealthy stock, and it showed in every nook and cranny. From the hand-woven tapestries and damask covered walls flocked in deep red.
Too many hours in the saddle and too restless to sit, Sebastian stretched his legs, studying some of the titles of leather-bound tomes in ornately decorated, floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The door opened and a maid brought in a tray laden with tea. He welcomed the respite, but also recognized the archbishop’s message: He’d arrived without an appointment. He would be waiting, for how long, no one could say. There was a French ormolu clock on the mantel that read mid-afternoon.
He poured himself a cup of tea and sat down to wait. Thirty minutes ticked by before the archbishop entered.
“The situation must be dire indeed, Your Grace,” Charles Manners-Sutton said, striding in.
Sebastian rose and smiled slightly. “It is… delicate,” he allowed.
“I see. I heard tale you’d married. I cannot imagine how I might assist.” The archbishop settled in a chair before a large hearth and indicated its mate.
Sebastian took the chair. “As I said, it’s delicate.” He went on to explain the situation in how Gabriella had taken his own carriage and that Lady Rebecca had been traveling to London; he took the archbishop through the torrential rains; the maid contracting her illness, then Rebecca’s; and, finally, Oxford’s duchess storming the chamber. “When we arrived at Rivers Hall last night, we learned the earl had received a note from Oxford’s wife. Rivers immediately posted the announcement in theTimes.”
“I read the notice myself in theCourier.”
Sebastian swallowed his groan, hoping Rebecca hadn’t learned that tidbit.
“I take it Lady Rebecca is not opposed to this union? I cannot, in good conscience, write out a special license otherwise.”
She hadn’t when I left her bedchamber this morning. “Certainly.”
“Lady Rebecca is of an age as I recall. I have your word of her eligibility to marry?”
