“Youcaught me?”
“Who did you think caught you?” Thomas said with a humorless laugh. “The Bishop of New York? He’s over seventy years old and quite portly; he would never have gotten to you before you hit the stone floor.”
Cordelia rubbed her arms with her hands. “I didn’t realize… I suppose I should have thought of it before… What happened after I fainted?”
Thomas exhaled. “I carried you out of the chapel to the carriage.”
“Youcarried me?” she asked in an incredulous voice, as if she didn’t think he had sufficient strength.
“Yes,” he said between clenched teeth. “It wasn’t that difficult, except the blasted long train of your dress kept getting underfoot.”
“Did you ride with me in the carriage?”
“No. Your mother did, and she was crying.”
“My mother was crying?” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. “I don’t believe it. She’s not the sentimental sort.”
Thomas ought to have kept his mouth shut, but he wanted all truth between them. “When I asked your mother if she was all right, she said that they were tears of relief.”
“Of course they were,” she said. “I suppose she wasn’t sure until the last moment whether or not I would go through with it.”
Her face was even paler than before. Thomas felt ashamed. “Then I rode to your house in a carriage with your little sister.”
“Edith?” she said, her face brightening momentarily before flickering out.
“Yes,” Thomas said. “She gave me quite the talking-to. She told me that I’d better take good care of her sister or that she would come after me with her baseball bat.”
“I miss playing baseball with her... I miss my sister.”
“Perhaps you could invite her to come for a visit to Ashdown,” Thomas suggested. “I’ve never played baseball, but I could show her how to play cricket.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“I mean it, Cordelia. You are my wife. My partner. Ashdown Abbey is just as much your home as mine now.”
“That’s not it.” Her expression of misery was more marked than before.
“What’s the problem?”
“I would have to invite my mother as well and I can’t. I will never forgive her, and I’m not sure that I can forgive my father either. I begged him to stop the wedding and he wouldn’t. So, no. I can’t invite any member of my family to Ashdown.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What about one of your friends? Your three attendants were all terribly worried about you.”
She nodded. “Thank you. That is kind of you. I will write and ask Lucy if she is able to visit. She has also had a difficult time of late.”
Thomas smiled at her. “I’m sure a visitor from home will brighten your spirits, and if she comes, it will be just in time for the start of the London Season next month. It will be nice for us to stay in our new home in the city. And I am sure you will enjoy making friends and going to parties… I know that city life is much more to your taste than the country.”
Cordelia bit her lip. “It is. But I am sorry for being so prickly today. Sometimes it is hard to pretend that everything is well and that I am happy. But I am trying to make the best of it. Truly.”
Thomas was speechless. He too was tired of pretending, but what else could they do? It was too late. They were married. He’d saved his family home and now he had to deal with the aftermath. He knew he should remain quiet, but he couldn’t. “Do you think this is the life thatIwanted? To be shackled to an estate when I’m only one and twenty? To have the responsibility of providing livelihoods for over a hundred people? To be married to a woman who can’t bear to let me touch her?”
“There’s always Penelope,” she said coldly.
“This isn’t about Penelope,” Thomas said. “This is about you and me. We can’t run away from our marriage. You can’t leave for London for weeks on end, without so much as a word to me, and then come home and avoid me for over a month. We have to communicate. We have to be partners. We have to try to make our marriage work, for both of our sakes.”
The one side of Cordelia’s mouth quirked all the way up to a half smile and she held out her hand.
“All right, partner,” she said with a thick Southern accent. “I won’t avoid you anymore nor will I runaway again—at least not without you.”
