by Mary Balogh
“Marcel.” She had come a few steps closer, and her eyes were bright. She blinked them. “I had not tired of you.”
He frowned at her in incomprehension. “Then why did you say you had?” he asked.
“I did not.” She came one step closer. “I told you I needed to go home. I felt disconnected from my family and my life. I was afraid because my life had become so vivid and so happy and I was so in love with you and I knew it was not in the rules of the game to become too emotionally involved. I sensed the end coming, and out of a sense of sheer self-preservation I wanted some control over how it ended. I thought perhaps I could keep my heart from breaking if I ended it.”
“You did not say you had tired of me?” he asked, frowning more deeply and trying to remember her exact words.
“No,” she said.
He closed his eyes and tried hard to remember, but all he could recall was the terrible hurt and the inevitable anger.
“I lashed back at you, did I not?” he said.
“You told me you were glad I had said it first,” she said, “because you never liked to hurt your women.”
“Oh yes. I did.” He closed his eyes as if to shut out the horrible, embarrassing memory of his pettiness. “Why did you not shoot me between the eyes at that very moment?”
“I had no pistol with me,” she told him.
“You must hate me by now,” he said.
“Why must I?” she asked. “What have you been doing for the past two months, Marcel? Punishing yourself with riotous living in London?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I have been lashing out at Redcliffe, setting everyone and everything to rights, sending Jane and Charles and Ellen home, attending Margaret’s wedding and seeing her on her way. Sending my aunt and Isabelle and Ortt to live at the dower house. Sending my steward into retirement and putting Oliver in his place. Getting to know my children, being tyrannized by them.”
“You stayed home?” She frowned. “But now you have left your children alone for Christmas?”
“They are here, at the village inn,” he said. “We went to London first. It occurred to me that I would need to bring a special license with me if we are to be married over Christmas as originally planned. And then we came here, hoping we would beat the snow, which we did. I spoke with the vicar here, and tomorrow will be fine with him. I had a talk with your son, who gave his blessing to the extent that he threatened to throw me out if I tried to bully you and to do dire and painful things to my person if I should ever cause you pain.”
“Marcel,” she said, “I am a tainted woman.”
“Good God,” he said. “I suppose you are referring to what that scoundrel did to you and your children. The taint is not yours, and I will be interested in having a word with anyone who says it is. Don’t be ridiculous, Viola. The only thing that matters to me is you. Do you recall telling me that what you wanted most in life was to have someone who cared for you? You. Not a tainted woman or a former countess or a mother or grandmother or a woman two years older than myself. Well, you have what you wanted if you choose it. You have me. I do not only love you. I care for you.”
He watched her swallow and sighed. “I almost forgot to explain that,” he said. “I believe it was to have had a prominent role in my speech. In my imagination this was going to be a fearful but wondrous scene, Viola. It was to be romantic. It was to be touching. It was to proceed in an orderly fashion. It was to culminate in a proposal upon bended knee and then the affecting revelation that I had brought my children and a special license with me. And it was to end up with us locked in an embrace.”
“And?” she said.
“And?” He raised his eyebrows and looked blankly at her.
“I have not seen the bended knee yet,” she said.
“Viola.” He frowned. “Do you love me?”
Her eyes, gazing at him, grew luminous. “Yes,” she said.
He drew a deep breath, held it, and let it out on a silent sigh. “And will you marry me?”
“I will have to think about it,” she said.
“Have mercy,” he said. “Knees become rheumatic, you know, when one passes the age of forty.”
“Do they?” She smiled. And, God help him, he was a slave to that smile. It got him every time.
And so he did it. And did not even feel too much of an idiot. He went down upon one knee and took her hand in his.
“Viola,” he said, looking up into her face, “will you marry me and make me the happiest of men? And that is not even a cliché in this case. Or, if it is, then it is a true one.”
Somehow this time her eyes and her face smiled before her lips caught up to them. She had never looked more dazzlingly beautiful.
“Oh, I will, Marcel,” she said.
And he remembered to fumble in his pocket for the box with the diamond ring he had bought in London, using Estelle’s finger and both her and Bertrand’s opinions to estimate the size. He slid it onto her finger, and it neither got stuck on her knuckle nor fell off again.
“The diamond is not as big as the other one I bought you,” he said, “but this was all I could afford after that extravagance. Now, would you like to tell me how I am to get up again?”
“Oh, silly,” she said. “You just turned forty, not eighty.”
And she came down on both knees before him and wrapped both arms about him and smiled into his eyes. And he wrapped his arms about her and kissed her.
And everything was perfect after all. Just as it was. He was home. At last. And safe at last. And at peace at last.
Except that—
“I suppose,” he said, drawing back his head with the greatest reluctance, “we had better go up and make the announcement and face the music.”
“You should not find it difficult,” she said as he got to his feet and helped her to hers. “After all, Marcel, you had some practice in Devonshire.”
Twenty-three
“You are quite, quite sure, Mama?” Harry asked. He was standing in the doorway of her bedchamber, looking achingly handsome and smart in his green regimentals, which someone had brushed and cleaned so that they looked almost new. “I know almost everyone was delighted to see Dorchester last night and greeted him and his announcement as though Chr— Well, as though Christmas had come. It was extraordinary. Even Cam and Abby were delighted. Even Uncle Michael shook his hand with great heartiness. But—”
“Harry,” she said, “I am quite sure.”
He relaxed visibly. “Well, then, I am happy too,” he said. “We had better be on our way. You do not want to be late for your own wedding, I am sure.”
“I think,” she said, smiling at him, “it may be the fashionable thing for a bride to do. But you are right. I do not want to be late.”
They were the last two members of the family to be still at the house. Her mother had left with Michael and Mary a few minutes ago, and Alexander and Wren had gone with them. Harry was to give her away.
“I must say,” he said, looking her over from head to foot, “you look as fine as fivepence, Mama.”
She was wearing a cream-colored dress of fine wool, plain, high waisted, high necked, and long sleeved. She had thought it was perhaps not quite festive enough for the occasion. But she was no blushing young bride to be decked out in frills and flounces, and the dress was new, purchased in Bath when she was there a few months ago. She had fallen in love with it on sight and had intended to wear it for the first time on Christmas Day. She was wearing it one day early instead, for her wedding.
“Thank you,” she said, and he strode forward to help her on with the heavy wool cloak that matched the dress in color.
“Those are not the pearls you usually wear, are they?” he asked.
“No.” She smiled quietly to herself. “They were a recent gift. And the earrings.”
“Well.” He eyed them a b
it dubiously. “They are very fine.”
And they were on their way to the church in the village under skies heavy with snow clouds that had stubbornly held on to their load for several days now. But even as she thought it, one flake and then another floated down beyond the carriage window.
“Oh look,” Harry said. “Snow. Many more flakes and we may be able to use those old sleds after all.”
But Viola would think of the possibility of a white Christmas later.
Harry handed her down at the church gates and she walked along the churchyard path and into the church porch on his arm. There she removed her cloak and hung it up on a hook while she ran her hands over her dress to smooth out any wrinkles. Someone must have been on watch. The old organ began to play within moments of their arrival, and they proceeded into the church itself and along the nave toward the altar, where the vicar waited.
“Gamamama,” Sarah said, and was immediately hushed.
They walked among family and soon-to-be family. Estelle was sitting in the front pew on the left-hand side beside Abigail and Camille and Joel. Bertrand was on the right-hand side, handsome and dignified in his role as his father’s best man. And . . . Marcel, halfway into the aisle himself so that he could watch her come with intense dark eyes and austere expression. He was wearing a brown coat with a dull gold waistcoat and fawn pantaloons and white linen.
All was right with the world, Viola thought. Sometimes one did feel that way, as though one’s heart expanded to fill with all the love and well-being in the universe. As though nothing could ever happen to shake that inner tranquility no matter what troubles lay ahead. And how fitting it was that she should have that feeling now on her wedding day.
Her only real wedding day.
With Marcel.
Who had come for her and told her he loved her and asked her on bended knee to marry him.
He had even remembered to bring a special license with him.
She smiled inwardly and his eyes grew more intense and his face more austere. She was not deceived for a moment.
And then she was beside him, and his eyes were still focused upon her and her own remained on him even while she allowed her awareness to expand to feel the presence of all who were nearest and dearest to her and of his children, for whose sake he had eventually returned home.
Oh yes, all was right with the world.
The organ had stopped playing.
“Gamamama,” Sarah said again into the silence. Someone shushed her again.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar said.
* * *
• • •
Marcel had not stayed long in the drawing room at Brambledean the evening before, just long enough to make his announcement and endure numerous congratulatory handshakes and more than enough hugs and several backslaps and to wish there were a big black hole into which he could step. What had startled him most, however, was the ecstatic pronouncement by young Winifred, who had apparently been allowed to spend the evening in the drawing room with the adults, that he was going to be her new grandpapa. As soon as he decently could, he had slunk off back to the village inn after a quickly exchanged kiss with Viola in the hall, in full view of an impassive footman. At the inn he had been met by a visibly anxious Estelle and a determinedly unanxious Bertrand and hugs and kisses from the former after he had announced the success of his mission. And another bone-crunching handshake from his son.
“You see, Papa?” Bertrand had said. “We were right.”
And indeed they had been.
And then it was morning, his wedding day, and he would have bolted for the farthest horizon if he could have taken Viola with him again, as he had done on another memorable occasion a few months ago. Oh, and the twins too. And, to be fair, her daughters and son-in-law and the three children, including the one who clearly had every intention of calling him Grandpapa. Good God, he was only forty. He did not even have rheumatic knees yet. Oh, and her son could come too if he wanted to desert from his regiment.
On the whole it had seemed wiser to stay and endure all the tedious pomp of a wedding and a wedding breakfast and more hugs and kisses and whatnot despite the fact that he had brought a special license and so avoided the horror of a meticulously planned wedding of the ilk of Margaret’s at Redcliffe recently. Isabelle had even wanted him to repaint the dining room to match the color of the flowers she and her daughter had planned. He had suggested they change the color of the flowers instead, an idea that had been greeted with faint shrieks and upflung hands and an exclamation of “Men!”
And now here he was at the church, intensely aware of Bertrand at his right and Estelle across the aisle to his left. And of the strange transformation his life had undergone in the few months since he had looked beyond a taproom door to the newly arrived guest who was bent over the register the innkeeper had turned for her signature.
And then he was intensely aware of the vicar coming from the vestry and of the organ beginning to wheeze and produce music, and of the arrival as he got to his feet and turned to look back of the fierce young puppy, who looked really quite formidable today in his full regimentals. And . . . Ah . . .
Viola.
Understated in an unadorned cream dress, allowing all her elegance and beauty to speak for themselves. And they spoke loudly and clearly to the deepest chambers of his heart. Or rather they shone and warmed his whole being. He gazed at her as she approached on her son’s arm, no longer aware of anyone or anything else. He gazed as though only by doing so could he keep her here and prevent her from disappearing while he awoke from a dream.
She was not smiling. At least her lips were not. But she had that ability he had noticed before of smiling with her eyes and her whole face and rendering the curving of lips redundant.
Viola, the love of his heart—which sugary language he did not stop to analyze.
It was only as she took her place beside him that he noticed the only adornments she wore—the large, cheap pearls about her neck and at her ears.
And she smiled, a full-on smile that everyone would see. And he became aware of everyone again—of his son on his other side, of Viola’s son on her other side, of Estelle beyond him, of all Viola’s family members, soon to be his, half filling the church behind them. He was aware of the silence as the organ stopped playing. He heard the infant granddaughter—soon to be his—identify her grandmother aloud before being shushed.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar said.
And then it began—the rest of his life.
* * *
• • •
It was snowing when they stepped out of the church. Thick white flakes were descending and melting as they landed, but the heat of the ground was fighting a losing battle against the onslaught the clouds were unleashing upon it. Already the grass was turning white, as were the roofs of the carriages. But despite the weather, a number of curious villagers had gathered beyond the church gates and cheered, some of them self-consciously, when it became obvious to them that a wedding had taken place—that of the former countess, in fact. Who was now, the innkeeper’s wife was not shy about explaining, the Marchioness of Dorchester, since that was the marquess with her. He was the grand gentleman who had stayed at the inn last night.
Mildred’s boys and Winifred were out on the church path armed with colorful flower petals they had wheedled out of a reluctant gardener proud of his hothouses. They threw them over the bridal couple as they hurried along the path toward Marcel’s carriage, cackling and whooping as they did so.
“Young jackanapes,” Marcel said, brushing at his greatcoat and shaking off his hat before joining Viola inside the carriage. He was too late, as it happened. Young Ivan had kept back one fistful of petals for just this moment.
And then they were in the carriage alone, and it was moving off from the gates so that the next carriage could draw in behind it, and a grating, banging, clanging,
dragging sound assailed their ears.
“We began with carriage trouble,” Marcel said, raising his voice above the din. “We might as well continue with it. I suppose there are boots attached back there and other paraphernalia. There is at least one pot. Anyone would think we had just got married.”
He turned toward her and smiled, and she smiled back.
“I think that is exactly what has just happened,” he said.
“Yes.”
He gazed at her. “And there is a wedding celebration to come,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “And carolers this evening and the Yule log and the wassail bowl. And Christmas tomorrow. And probably sledding and snowball fights and snow angels and goose and plum pudding.”
“And there is the time between this evening and tomorrow,” he said. “Just for you and me.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Could we practice just a little bit now?” he suggested.
She laughed and so did he.
“Just a little bit,” she said.
But he gazed at her for a few moments longer.
“I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that you have not made a mistake, Viola,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “And I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that you do not have to prove anything at all.”
He blinked. “I will have to think about that one,” he said. “But in the meanwhile . . .”
“Yes,” she agreed. “In the meanwhile . . .”
He slid an arm about her shoulders and she turned into his arms.
“Lovely pearls, by the way,” he murmured against her lips.
“Yes,” she said. “My favorites.”
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN MARY BALOGH’S WESTCOTT SERIES,
Someone to Trust
AVAILABLE FROM THE BERKLEY GROUP IN DECEMBER 2018.
There was nothing like a family Christmas to make a person feel warm about the heart—oh, and a little wistful too. And perhaps just a bit melancholy.