For all that Hettie quite enjoyed losing time with Baxter, the crinkle of paper in her hand demanded she turn her attention to other matters. Nevertheless, she remained locked in his embrace for several long moments before she finally parted from him and turned her thoughts to the marriage certificate Mr. Hansford had given her.
With careful movements, she smoothed the wrinkled edges of the thin page. For something so important, one would expect a finer quality paper, but there was nothing to be done about it. Reaching for the bundle she’d left on the seat before the ceremony, she pulled out the portfolio; it was the sort that artists used to protect their loose drawings, and it served her purpose perfectly.
Laying the paper inside the heavy cover, she gave herself another moment to marvel at the small yet important document. Baxter reached forward, but she batted his hand away.
“Mr. Hansford gave it to me, and it is a wife’s duty to keep it safe,” she said with an arched brow.
“Is that so?”
Hettie gave him a firm nod as she shut the cover and tied the ribbons that held the portfolio shut. Setting it back on the seat opposite, she leaned into the crook of his arm and turned her gaze to the passing landscape. It would be some hours before they arrived at their inn for the night, and though Hettie didn’t usually enjoy long carriage rides, she couldn’t help but think this one would be quite delightful.
The city was readying itself for the grand festivities tonight—the crowning end of the Christmas celebrations. Yet for Baxter and Hettie, this was only the beginning of their happiness. A start to their private festivities. And what a beginning they’d made of it.
Chapter 28
Bristow, Essex
1 Year Later
“Must we be overrun with people? Surely we needn’t invite the whole neighborhood.” Though Baxter had thought his tone light, Hettie looked up from her papers with a furrowed brow. Before she could give voice to whatever concerns were rattling about her thoughts, he winked at her before hiding behind his newspaper once more.
As intended, Hettie huffed. “You are cruel, Baxter.”
But her chastisement missed the mark, for there was far too much brightness in her tone for the stern words to be believed.
“I think I have the guest list sorted out at last,” she said, followed by the plink of a quill being dropped in an inkwell.
Peeking from behind the edge of his newspaper, he watched his wife as she sifted through the papers. Despite having a sitting room to call her own, Hettie had commandeered a desk in the library. Turned toward the window, it gave her a fine view of the gardens behind the house, and she leaned on her elbow, staring out through the glass.
After an unseasonably cold summer, winter was now dragging its feet, refusing to settle in properly for Christmastime. Had it been cold enough, they would’ve been buried in snow for all the rain they’d received; instead, it left the world a brown and gray mess. Enough so that Baxter prayed Hettie’s Christmas plans wouldn’t be foiled by the terrible roads.
At his age, Baxter had thought firsts were a thing of the past. Not that he was pompous enough to think he’d experienced the full breadth of life, but when one was speeding ever more quickly to sixty, firsts were far more unlikely. Yet he felt a flutter of anticipation when he considered that this Christmas Eve party would be the first event they’d hosted together in their home. Clearly, Hettie was equally eager, for she had thrown herself into the task with far more effort than was required for the small gathering.
Hettie dropped her gaze back to her lists and plans, and Baxter’s chest expanded far beyond its capacity, filling him to bursting. For all that he’d previously been married for more than three decades, he’d never known just how pleasing it was to make his wife happy, and Hettie was so inherently content that it took little effort to delight her.
“Are you certain there is no one you wish to invite?” Hettie asked, turning her attention over her shoulder to him.
“No one at all,” replied Baxter, straightening his newspaper.
Rising from her seat, Hettie drifted toward him, sinking into the new armchair that had been placed so close that it was touching Baxter’s. Though she didn’t say a word, he understood the concern in her gaze, and he tossed the newspaper aside and took her hand in his.
“They were never my friends. They were hers,” he said, repeating the words he’d given her before. “It is no great loss.”
And though Hettie’s expression softened, Baxter recognized the shadow of pain that always accompanied such conversations. The joy of their situation far outweighed any regrets, but his heart ached whenever her light dimmed—even in the slightest way. Especially as she always seemed more perturbed for him than herself, though she was the one who shouldered the brunt of the disapproval foisted on them.
Lifting her hand to his, he placed a kiss on her knuckles, and her cheeks pinked just as they had the first time he’d done so.
“Thank you for marrying me,” he said.
With a wry smile, she replied as she always did, “It has been a great sacrifice and such a burden.”
Hettie seemingly did not dwell on that faint shadow, dispelling it as she always did by turning to more pressing matters. “I thought of inviting the Mayers, the Drakes, and the Ingalls. And the Kingsleys and Ashbrooks, of course. Charity is quite right, and they seem like delightful people.”
Baxter nodded and offered little tidbits of opinions, though mostly, he watched as she described all the details of the dinner and entertainments she was planning. It was as though her whole being lit from within, the words flowing forth with such eagerness that it seeped into him, and for the first time in decades, he found himself eager to host a party.
A shout from outside cut Hettie short, and the pair rose from their seats to gaze out the windows opposite her desk, which overlooked the front drive. Charity’s voice carried through the winter air as she sprinted down the length of the gravel drive, her skirts hiked up far more than was seemly, though it was little wonder when the man standing at the entry dropped his canvas bag to the ground and opened his arms wide.
Without pausing, Charity threw herself into her husband’s arms, nearly knocking both of them to the ground, and Hettie drew in a sharp breath. Baxter glanced at her to see her eyes growing misty, her hand to her lips. Drawing his arm around her, he pulled her close, and they watched as Thomas and his wife reunited.
