by Mary Balogh
“Am I allowed a say?” Mrs. Westcott asked. “I can see it was downright foolish of me to dream immediately of a grand ton wedding at St. George’s on Hanover Square. Poor Wren. We might as well cast you into the lions’ den and be done with it. And Lizzie is quite right. Alex would hate the fuss too.”
“I would,” he said. “I am sorry, Mama. You would love to plan a grand wedding, I know.”
“There is always Lizzie,” she said. She was frowning, apparently in thought. “I suppose over time you will inevitably meet our family, Wren, as you did us on Easter Sunday and Jessica yesterday. There are the Westcotts on the one side and the Radleys on the other. Almost everyone is here in town this spring. Would you be prepared to meet everyone at once—on your wedding day? It would still be a small wedding, just not quite as small as you intend. Or there is another possibility. You could have your private wedding and meet the family here afterward for a wedding breakfast. What do you think?”
What Wren thought as she felt pins and needles in her hands and flexed her fingers was that her life could easily spiral out of control if she was not very careful.
“Mama,” the earl said, “I have assured Miss Heyden that I will never pressure her to meet anyone she does not choose to meet or do anything she does not choose to do. She is afraid that marrying me will force her into an unwanted social role as Countess of Riverdale. I have assured her that I will have no such expectations.”
But Mrs. Westcott was right. It was absurd to think of marrying the Earl of Riverdale and never meeting any of his family apart from his mother and sister and one cousin. Wren closed her eyes briefly.
“The letter you wrote last evening has already been sent to Hinsford Manor, I suppose?” she said to Mrs. Westcott in an apparent non sequitur that had them all looking rather blankly at her.
“Yes,” Mrs. Westcott said. “It went out at noon.”
“Will you write again?” Wren asked. “You told me you doubted they would come without some specific family event with which to entice them. Will a wedding suffice? Will you invite them to come for our wedding—next week instead of the day after tomorrow? A family wedding, which will not be threatening to them but for which their presence will be much appreciated by the whole family—and by the bride? Yes, I will meet the two sides of the family on my wedding day. And after that, I may well shut myself away at Brambledean and never meet anyone else for the rest of my life.”
Elizabeth, she was aware, had tears in her eyes and looked as though she were biting her upper lip. Mrs. Westcott was still frowning. The earl was gazing very intently at Wren.
“It may just work,” Mrs. Westcott said. “We can but try. Wren, my dear, I am going to love you to pieces. Be warned.”
“Wren,” Elizabeth said, “will you write to Cousin Viola and Abigail too and send the letter with Mama’s?”
“I will,” Wren said. But what had she started? It was too late to unstart it, however. At the very least she had committed herself to a family wedding one week hence. She had never felt more terrified in her life.
The butler appeared in the doorway at that moment to announce that dinner was served.
The Earl of Riverdale offered Wren his hand, his eyes intent upon hers. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Do not think I am unaware of the magnitude of what you have agreed to and what you have suggested. I honor you. I only hope I can be worthy of you.”
And here she went, tearing up again. This was becoming a nasty habit. She set her hand in his. “But I may well flee before our wedding day,” she said just as softly.
“Please don’t.” He chuckled.
• • •
And so the chance of getting married quietly within two days of the Earl of Riverdale’s proposal, almost before she had time to think about it in order to have second and twenty-second thoughts, had disappeared, entirely through her own fault. She was going to have to wait a whole week. Worse, she had agreed that the Westcott and Radley families would be invited to both the wedding and the breakfast afterward at Westcott House. She had even agreed to St. George’s on Hanover Square as the venue, the church attended by the fashionable world during the spring, though the congregation would be small. There was no point, after all, in seeking out an obscure little church on some equally obscure back street, as the Duke and Duchess of Netherby had done last year, since there was to be nothing secret about their wedding.
Their betrothal was announced in the morning papers two days after their walk in Hyde Park—Miss Wren Heyden to Alexander Louis Westcott, Earl of Riverdale. On the society pages, no less, where the whole fashionable world would see it and half that world, no doubt, would mourn the loss of the earl from the ranks of eligible bachelors.
The afternoon brought a steady stream of visitors, all of whom Mrs. Westcott and Elizabeth entertained in the drawing room while Wren cowered in her room, writing to Philip Croft to tell him how gratifying it had been to see for herself the displays of their glassware in fashionable London shops. Elizabeth tapped on her door, however, just when she thought everyone must have left.
“Cousin Louise and Jessica and Anna are still here,” she said. “They know how reclusive you are and will understand if you do not come down, but Jessica begged me to come and ask you anyway. It is entirely up to you, Wren.” Her smile held a hint of a twinkle. “I know that such a lead-in is usually followed with a but . . . In this case it is not, however.”
Wren sighed and set down her pen. “Do they know?” she asked. “Has Lady Jessica told them? Or you or your mother?”
“About your face?” Elizabeth asked, coming right into the room. “No. Why would we?”
Why indeed? Wren thought as she got to her feet. She was beginning to be a bore even to herself. So she had a very unsightly birthmark covering most of one side of her face. So what? Anyway, she was curious to meet the famous Anna—full name Anastasia—who had grown up in an orphanage only to end up a duchess with a fabulous fortune of her own. The famous Anna, who all unwittingly had caused havoc within the Westcott family.
“Lead the way,” she said with a huge sigh that only made Lizzie smile more.
Within minutes there were two more people to add to the growing list of those who had seen her without her veil. And though Wren suspected that Lady Jessica had indeed told them about her birthmark, neither her mother nor her sister-in-law paid any attention to it or—perhaps more significant—studiously avoided looking into her face. The Dowager Duchess of Netherby, Cousin Louise, was a handsome lady, somewhat on the stout side, probably in her early to mid-forties. The duchess—Anna—was slight of build and pretty and exuded a sort of smiling serenity that intrigued Wren when she considered all the woman had gone through in the last year and a half. They were polite and amiable and kind. Anna thanked her particularly for suggesting that the former countess and her daughter be invited to the wedding and for writing in person to add her persuasions to Mrs. Westcott’s.
“Perhaps they will come for such an occasion,” she said. “I live in hope. Abigail is my half sister, Miss Heyden, and I long to see her again almost as much as Jessica does. And Aunt Viola is as much a part of this family as anyone else and ought to be here for Alex’s wedding.” She paused then for a moment before saying, “I am so sorry you have no one of your own to be with you. You must be missing your aunt and uncle more than ever this week. However, this is a welcoming family. I know that from personal experience. We will all be your cousins. Lizzie has the advantage of us, of course. She will be your sister.”
“Thomas—my brother-in-law, Lord Molenor—believes he remembers Mr. Reginald Heyden, your uncle, as a venerable elder when he was just a young sprig about town, Miss Heyden,” the dowager duchess said. “He will no doubt have questions for you when he meets you. And about your aunt too, though Mr. Heyden was still a widower after his first marriage at the time.”
“He married my aunt twenty years ago
,” Wren explained, “and sold his London house and never came back here.”
The conversation flowed pleasantly after that, but the ladies stayed for only twenty minutes more. But now she had met five members of the family, including Mrs. Westcott and Elizabeth. She could meet the rest too. It was not going to be easy, but she could do it. She would do it. It was her newest project, and she would not fail any more than she failed at any of her business endeavors.
And then—oh, then, she would settle into the marriage of her dreams and never meet anyone else ever again.
She almost believed herself.
Twelve
Wren was looking forward to an afternoon drive to Kew Gardens with her betrothed. There were three days still to go to her wedding, and it seemed to her that some invisible force must have slowed time to a fraction of its usual speed. Yet there was pleasure too in going shopping with her future mother- and sister-in-law and simply being at home, getting to know them better and learning to relax in their company.
Her future family had gone visiting on this particular afternoon, however, and Wren stayed behind in her room in her favorite place by the window, reading one of the books she had borrowed from Hookham’s Library. The earl was not due to arrive for another hour yet. He had assured her she would find Kew Gardens lovely. She particularly wanted to see the famous pagoda.
When she heard the distant sounds of closing doors and male voices, she glanced at the clock on the mantel. He must have mistaken the time—or she had. He was an hour early. It did not matter, however. She was ready and eager to go. She got to her feet, took up her bonnet and gloves and shawl and parasol and hurried light-footed down to the drawing room.
The door was open. Wren could see that Mr. Lifford, the butler, was bent over another man, who was seated in a chair close to the door. Her first thought was that her betrothed must be unwell. Too late she realized that the man was a stranger—she was already inside the room and had been noticed. Both men looked up at her, the butler in some consternation, the other man with a frown and a blank look in his eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked, jumping to his feet.
He was a very young man, tall and thin, almost to the point of emaciation. He might once have been very good-looking, but his complexion now was pasty apart from two spots of hectic color high on his cheeks. His fair hair was untidy and matted in places. He was wearing a green military coat, which looked both dusty and shabby, breeches and linen that must once have been white but were no longer so, and scuffed dusty boots. Even from a slight distance away, Wren could detect an unpleasant odor. She knew even before the butler spoke who he must be.
“Lieutenant Westcott has come home, miss,” Mr. Lifford said. “Miss Heyden is staying here as a guest, sir.”
“Captain Westcott,” the young man said almost absently, still frowning, and Wren could see now that his eyes were bright and feverish and rather wild. “Dash it all, Mama is not here, is she? Or Cam. Or Abby. They left. It slipped my mind. I remembered yesterday. At least, I think it was yesterday. Who is here, Lifford? Anastasia? But she married Avery. Devil take it, I ought not to have come to this house, ought I? I knew that. Forgot.” He was noticeably swaying on his feet.
Wren set her things down on a table beside the door and hurried forward. “You are Harry Westcott,” she said, taking his arm. “Have you just come from the Peninsula? Do please sit down again. Mrs. Althea Westcott is staying here for the Season with Lady Overfield, but they are out this afternoon. The Earl of Riverdale will be here soon. Mr. Lifford, perhaps you would bring the captain a glass of water?” She could tell as soon as she touched him that he was burning up with fever.
The butler hurried away and the young man sank back down onto his seat. “Riverdale.” He rested one elbow on the arm of the chair and set three fingertips against his forehead. He laughed weakly. “That used to be me, by Jove, and my father before me. No longer, though. All the time I was on the ship and then in the carriage I remembered. How could I have forgotten as soon as I saw London? If I could only get here and through the door, I thought, I would be home. I even argued with the driver of the hired coach when he told me this was not the address I had given him. I called him a fool.” He grinned and then looked stricken.
“You are home,” Wren told him, setting the backs of her fingers lightly to his cheek to confirm that indeed he was very hot. “You are with your family.”
“Home.” He closed his eyes. “The very place where that damned Alex is living. It was not his fault, though, was it?”
“It was not,” she said.
“I expected that they would all be here,” he said. “Mama and the girls. They are not, though, are they? How the devil could I have forgotten? I remembered when we were at sea before I forgot again. Cam married a dashed schoolteacher because she thought she could do no better. Mama is afraid to show her face anywhere she may be recognized. She is not here, is she?”
The butler had returned and Wren took the glass of water from his tray and held it to the young man’s lips as he sipped from it. His hand closed about hers and he drank more greedily. She doubted he had had a chance either to wash or to change his linen since he left the Peninsula, even though he was an officer and one would have expected him to have received preferential treatment among all the other military wounded with whom she supposed he had been shipped home.
“Who are you? I have forgotten,” he said, taking his hand from the glass. “What did you do to your face? A musket ball glanced past, did it? It looks as if you had a narrow escape.”
“I am Wren Heyden,” she said. “It is a birthmark.”
“Of course,” he said. “There are no musket balls whistling around here, are there? I am in England, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Wren said as he sat back in his chair, and she saw that his eyes were suddenly swimming with tears.
“It is one devil of a lark being out there, you know,” he said, grinning at her. “Mama and the girls are out, are they? I should have sent notice from Dover that I was on my way. But I had a spot of fever again.”
Wren exchanged glances with the butler. “Mr. Lifford,” she said, “is Captain Westcott’s old room unoccupied?”
“It is, miss,” he said.
“Then will you lead the way there?” she said. “After we get him settled, perhaps you could have a bowl of cold water with some cloths sent up? And will you perhaps send for the family physician? Come, Captain Westcott. Take my arm and we will go up to your room. You may lie down there and be comfortable while I bathe your face and see if I can relieve your fever.”
“Oh, Mama will do that,” he said. “You need not concern yourself.” But he got to his feet and allowed Wren to take his arm and steer him out of the room and up the stairs. The housekeeper had appeared and come around to the young man’s other side to steady him.
“Mr. Harry,” she said in a voice thick with emotion, “you have come home. All in one piece, your mama will be happy to know.”
“She is so happy,” the young man said, “that she has gone out just when I was expected home and taken the girls with her.”
She clucked her tongue. “She is at Hinsford, worrying herself silly about you, Mr. Harry,” she said. “And Lady— And Miss Abigail too. They sent you home from that nasty heathen place, then, did they?”
“Kicking and screaming,” he said cheerfully. “I got a sword cut on my arm again. A mere scratch is all it was, but then it turned putrid and I got the damned fever and dashed near died. When I didn’t, they packed me up and sent me home. Colonel’s orders until I am better. He doesn’t want to see my ugly face for at least two months, he told me. And here I am, fit as a fiddle and half a world away from my men, where I ought to be. It’s a lark out there, you know.”
By the time he had finished babbling they had him in his room, had stripped him of his coat and hauled off his boots, and had him lying on his
bed. The butler had gone off to send someone running for the physician, the housekeeper had opened a window to let in some fresh air, and two maids had come hurrying in, one with a bowl of water, the other with cloths in her hand and towels over her arm.
Half an hour later Wren was alone with the young man, the door of the bedchamber open behind her. Mr. Lifford had gone downstairs to await the arrival of the physician, the maids had gone about their duties, and the housekeeper was in the kitchens supervising the making of nourishing broths and jellies for Captain Westcott. Wren was bathing his face with cool, wet cloths and listening to his increasingly delirious ramblings. His right arm, she had seen through the sleeve of his shirt as soon as his coat came off, was heavily bandaged from shoulder to wrist. If the physician did not come soon, she would have to change those dressings herself. She very much doubted it had been done recently.
She turned with some relief when she heard a light tap on the door, expecting to see either the physician or—please, please—her betrothed. The man standing in the doorway, however, was decidedly not the latter and could not possibly be the former. He was not a tall man. Indeed, he was several inches shorter than she. But he was a man who somehow filled the room with his presence even though he had not stepped quite into it yet. He was blond haired, handsome, exquisitely tailored, and decorated with rings on several fingers, a jewel that winked in his intricately tied neckcloth, and chains and fobs at his waist. He looked gorgeous and powerful and somehow dangerous. He was holding a silver quizzing glass halfway to his eye but beheld the scene before him through lazy, heavy-lidded eyes without its aid. She knew instantly who he must be, just as she had known who Harry Westcott was, and felt more exposed than she had for days and weeks. Her veil might have been a hundred miles away for the amount of good it could do her now. Her hand—the one that was not holding the wet cloth—came up to cover the left side of her face.