“No.” Julian rose and pulled out a chair for her. “I am not in the habit of moving my staff from one location to another. It seems unkind. It does not allow them to build a life of their own after all. I have my London staff and then the staff that is here, Iemploy locally. I pay them a little more, so they can have their own accommodations, and when I am in residence, they come live here—if they are footmen or maids or such.”
“I see,” she replied. He returned to his seat and placed his napkin down on his lap again. Before her was a spread of porridge, breads, and jams similar to what they had had at the London house.
She reached for a roll, and he looked up. “Shall I cut it for you, or do you think you can manage? I would not want another accident with the butter knife.”
She sneered at him. “I daresay, I can usually manage the cutlery.”
“Can you? Previous occurrences do not support that statement.”
She blinked, shaking her head. “Is that the marriage I have to look forward to? Endless teasing?”
“Yes, I am afraid so. I can be more surly if you wish. Sit quietly and glare at you once and again while barking commands at you.”
“I should like to see you try,” she said with a small laugh as she cut through her roll without incident. “I daresay, you will not achieve a thing by bellowing at me.”
“I assumed as much, so you shall have to put up with my questionable humor, then. Pray, are you ready for the wedding?”
He looked at her with some intensity. She’d selected an evening primrose-colored gown this morning and done up her own hair. It was the nicest dress she’d brought. Frankly, she hadn’t thought to bring a wedding gown, even though she’d known she’d be getting married.
How bizarre it was that she was to get married in a few hours. She’d imagined her wedding day as a child, walking toward the man she loved. She glanced up, and here he was now. The man. Though not the one she loved.
That one was somewhere. Somewhere out in the world, and now she would never meet?—
“What is it you are thinking about? You seem… not yourself.”
She shrugged. “Nothing. Just that I can’t believe this is my wedding day; that is all.”
“I know you likely had other plans,” he said quietly.
She nodded. “That is what I was thinking about. But it can’t be helped. We are doing what is right by Arabella. And David.”
He nodded, placing the paper down. “What was your wedding going to be like? The one you’d planned with… the Baronet.”
She appreciated him not saying Benjamin’s name. “It was going to be at his family’s chapel. We were going to invite everyone we knew. Over three hundred people.” She shuddered. “That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted a much smaller wedding. At my home church. But regardless, it was what was planned between his parents and mine. The wedding breakfast was going to be pheasant and peas and carrots with mince pies and mashed potatoes—a hearty meal.”
He looked up again. “You do not like mince pies. And you despise peas. I recall you’ve been picking them out of every meal since you were a little child.”
Her stomach leaped at this observation, for she’d never had any idea he’d even noticed things like this.
“I know it, but his father adored them, and mine did not oppose. The cake was a standard wedding cake with pastries which I had to convince his mother to let me have.”
She looked at her plate. “Suddenly, I realize that almost nothing at my wedding would have been for me.”
He reached out and patted her forearm with his hand.
“Perhaps what happened was not the worst thing that could have been? If he did not stand up for you over your own wedding, I do not know that he would have been a very good husband.” A pause lingered between them, thick and heavy. “Was there anything at all that was going to be yours? Other than pastries?”
She looked up. “My bouquet. I selected a bouquet of wildflowers. I always loved wildflowers. His mother thought themfrightfully common,but I got my way. My mother insisted on them.”
“Well,” he said and set his napkin down, “at least our wedding will be small. That is one of the things you had on your list.”
“Indeed,” she replied. “Albeit a bit smaller than I had thought.”
“We can always host a ball when we get back to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our wedding. As for everyone else, it will be just that. We might be getting married on the twenty-third of March 1819, but everyone else will think it was the twenty-third of March 1818. So, we could have a ball to celebrate, and also to mark our introduction to society. Then, you could have whatever food, music, or flowers you want. What do you think?”
She smiled at him. “I think I would like that.”
“Good,” he replied. “Now, I shall get dressed, and then we shall have to go to the chapel, so the vicar can make us legitimate.”
