by Brooke, Meg
She laced her fingers through his. “I love you, Charles,” she said.
“Mmm,” he murmured, pulling her closer. “I love you, my philosopher queen.”
TWENTY-TWO
January 19, 1834
They departed for Starling Court early the following morning. Charles’s mother kissed Cynthia goodbye tearfully. Charles smiled as he looked on, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He had been terrified that his mother would disapprove of Cynthia. Indeed, he had been certain she would, and had almost relished that fact. But instead, his mother seemed to be embracing her new daughter-in-law with open arms.
Imogen kissed them both and wished them happy, but Gillian said, “Come back again soon, Cynthia, so that you can make your curtsey to the king and queen alongside me. Won’t that be a laugh!”
They stopped for the night at a coaching inn where Charles was known. The innkeeper greeted him congenially, but when Charles mentioned that he and his new bride would be staying the night, everyone fell over backwards trying to get a glimpse of Cynthia as they made their way up the stairs to the bridal suite that the innkeeper had insisted they take.
“Oh, for goodness sake, don’t they know it’s just me?” Cynthia cried when they had at last managed to shut the door.
Charles laughed and said, “‘Just you’ is rather something to behold, my love.”
The next day they reached Southwold, the town that lay on the edge of Starling Court and all the property owned by the duchy. Cynthia gazed out the window at all the people who stopped to bow or wave their hats as they rattled through the streets.
Charles delighted in showing her his childhood home. They arrived just ahead of a snowstorm, and spent the days they were snowed in exploring corners of the house he hadn’t even known existed. They found his baby clothes in a trunk in one of the attics, along with a very poorly embroidered cushion of Imogen’s. Laughing at herself, Cynthia told Charles about the Machiavellian phrases she had used to stitch into her samplers, doing a very humorous mimicry of her governess’s face when she had seen the first one.
“You were a philosopher even as a child,” Charles said.
Cynthia had become rather grave. “I promised myself I would not speak of him,” she said, “but, Charles, do you think I was too harsh on Endersby? Perhaps the poor man couldn’t help being as he was.”
Charles took her hand. “Your compunction does you credit,” he said. “I do not think you will ever truly forget those experiences, but perhaps someday you will be able to forgive him.”
She looked down at the gown in her lap. He wondered if there were any such mementos of her childhood. “Perhaps,” she said.
To cheer her, he took her down to the library and read Childe Harold to her, doing all the voices and acting out many of the scenes. But when he had finished and Cynthia had favored him with only slightly mocking applause, she stood and went over to the shelves. “I suppose you have the Hansards here, too,” she said. When he glowered at her she defended herself. “Would you be unprepared for the session merely because you were married?” she demanded.
He had acquiesced and listened to her as she read a few of the previous year’s speeches aloud to him. “I do the voices better,” he said, and she reluctantly agreed.
“You see,” he said when he had taken her over every inch of the house, and they were finishing their dinner one night, “I have more than enough wealth to support us both without your dowry.”
“I never doubted it,” she said. “But, Charles, I’ve been thinking about that money. I know you will always provide for me and our…our children,” she said, blushing as she looked down at her abdomen. They had both been counting the days carefully. “So I thought that perhaps that money might be used to benefit children who are less fortunate. In many ways my childhood was terrible, but there are so many children who endure far worse.”
He nodded his agreement. Neither of them had to say they were both thinking of Annabeth. He had not spent much time going over the Poor Laws Commission’s report, but what little he had read told him that there were many more children like her whose lives were utter misery.
“A school,” she said. “I’d like to endow a school for the children who need a place to escape to.”
He smiled. “I think it’s a splendid idea.”
“Clarissa will help me, I think, and Imogen and Eleanor Chesney.”
“Of course. When we return to town we will look about for a suitable house.”
She took his hand. “Thank you, Charles. If I had known I would be so fortunate in my husband I would have married far sooner.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. It would mean you wouldn’t have married me.”
They made love every night and every morning and many times in between. Charles took her out riding, though he found the gentlest, pokiest palfrey he could. “If you are with child,” he said, “I would not wish to risk the babe.” Once, Cynthia might have bristled at such a remark, but she only smiled indulgently. It was her hope, too.
Those days at Starling Court were idyllic and blissful. Cynthia had not thought it was possible to love Charles more than she had the day they married, but she fell even more deeply as she observed how much he loved his home and the land and the people who lived there. On Sunday, after they had attended the village church, he took her to the graveyard to show her his father’s grave.
“John Maxwell Bainbridge,” she read. “I wish I could have known him. Do you think he would have liked me?”
“No,” Charles said. “But then, he rarely approved of anything I did. I’m sure dying was a great disappointment to him, because he always hoped to outlive me and spare the dukedom my influence.”
She took his hand. “He would be proud of you now, Charles, I’m sure of it.” Charles scoffed. “Truly,” she insisted. But when he looked askance at her, she said, “All right, I don’t know for certain what he would have thought. But I am proud of you. I am proud to be your wife.”
He kissed her temple. “Not nearly as proud as I am to be your husband,” he said. Then he led her out of the churchyard and back to their carriage.
They returned to town the Saturday before the Opening. That night they attended a ball at Sidney house, where everyone at least seemed thrilled to see Cynthia, though more than one young woman appeared rather put out when Imogen introduced her around as the Duchess of Danforth. Every time she heard the title Cynthia wondered how long it would take her to get used to it. About as long, she imagined, as it would take to get used to the opulence of Danforth House and the sprawling elegance of Starling Court and the strange but comfortable feeling of waking up with Charles beside her.
Sherry put in an appearance, though he spent most of the evening in the card room. He joined them during supper, flirting shamelessly with Lady Sidney, Leo’s mother. Cynthia was so pleased to have him there that she wouldn’t have cared if he had flirted with Imogen. As he was preparing to take his leave for the evening he kissed her cheek and said, “Any news?”
Cynthia winked at him.
The next morning she drove by the house in Cavendish Square to find that it was empty. Through Ellen she managed to track down Mallory, who had found another position with a respectable family. But there was no sign of Roger Endersby—he had left no forwarding address and had resigned from all his clubs and societies. In many ways Cynthia regretted the way things had ended for him, but in her heart of hearts she could not convince herself that the man hadn’t gotten what he deserved. Every day she thought of him less and less, and soon he would be no more than a faint memory. There were many more beautiful things to look forward to.
Charles had managed to make it through the whole Opening of Parliament without falling asleep once. He couldn’t say the same for Beresford, whom he had had to pinch once to get him to wake up. He sat with Stowe and Leo and listened with interest to the king’s speech, though his eyes were fixed on Lord Brougham’s face. The Lord Chancellor was eagerly awaiting the k
ing’s approval of his plan for the Poor Laws. When at last it came, there was a perceptible easing of tension on the Whig side, though more than a few Tories harrumphed disapprovingly.
At last the interminable ceremony was over, and the peers filed out of the House chamber and into the observer’s gallery, where wives and families and onlookers waited. He saw Stowe standing with his wife and Leo with his oldest sister, and beyond them his own sisters waited.
“You did brilliantly, Charles!” Imogen cried, kissing his cheek.
“I didn’t fall asleep,” he said.
“Well, you stayed awake brilliantly,” Gillian put in.
Charles looked around. “Where’s Cynthia?”
Imogen and Gillian exchanged knowing looks as the Countess of Stowe pointed through the crowd and said, ‘There she is!”
Cynthia emerged from the throng, still wearing her mantle. “I missed it, didn’t I?” she said, taking his arm. “Oh, Charles, I am sorry.”
She had been so eager for this day. Why had she missed it? “Where were you?” he asked, suddenly alarmed.
“I had an important appointment,” she said, and then, lowering her voice, added, “with your physician.”
“Cynthia,” Charles whispered. Suddenly they were the only people in the room. “You’re not—”
“It’s early yet,” she said. “But yes.”
And then, right there in the middle of the observer’s gallery, surrounded by hundreds of people who smiled indulgently, the Duke of Danforth lifted his wife in his arms and kissed her, the new life they had created cradled between them.
EPILOGUE
October 12, 1834
“Sit down, Charles, and have some sherry,” the Earl of Sheridan said. “I say, that was rather witty, wasn’t it?”
Charles glanced at his father-in-law, who had had more than his share from the decanter on the sideboard already. He shook his head. He wanted to be sober when he held his child for the first time. Instead, he turned back to the window and looked out over the park.
Cynthia’s labor pains had begun just after breakfast. Night was falling now, the thick shadows of dusk descending around Starling Court. Charles had been sitting in the parlor, being comforted and congratulated alternately by Sherry and his sisters, while his mother stayed above with his wife.
More than once he had been determined to charge upstairs and see what was going on, but Sherry had held him back. “It’s her first, man,” he said. “Give it time. The midwife will take good care of her.”
Charles certainly hoped so. He had interviewed what had seemed like every midwife in the county over the last two months until finally deciding to bring the woman who had delivered the Earl of Stowe’s twins up from Somerset. She had come at an exorbitant price, but Charles would gladly have paid double what she had demanded if it would guarantee the safe delivery of his little son or daughter. But the woman had also had her work cut out for her. It had been all she could do to force Cynthia to rest each afternoon for the month before the birth.
“There’s too much to be done,” Cynthia had insisted when Charles begged her to be careful. “Clarissa has hired three more teachers and I must look over their course plans before they can be approved, and then there’s the dormitory matrons to find.”
They had purchased a large house on the edge of Knightsbridge in July and were busily outfitting it as a school for indigent children. The four largest bedrooms had been converted into dormitories and a capable headmistress had been found. Currently the Countess of Stowe and Imogen were overseeing all the preparations, but letters arrived almost daily for Cynthia with updates on the process. They hoped to take on the first pupils after Christmas. They would save as many as they could from the workhouses that, under the Poor Law Amendment Act, had still not been abolished. Leo and Lord Willing had nearly come to blows during the debate, and even now it seemed that cooler heads had not prevailed, for Leo’s sister had written that Lord Willing’s daughter had withdrawn the invitation that had been extended to the Chesneys for her house party at the end of September.
Still, Charles planned to continue fighting and so, it seemed, did many other peers. Already he had received letters from Lord Brougham detailing his plans to push forward reforms.
Right now, however, Charles was not particularly worried about the welfare of the poor, though he would never have allowed Cynthia to hear him say so.
It had grown dark outside, and stars were beginning to appear in the clear sky. Charles turned away from the window and began to pace before the fire. Sherry looked into his glass and said nothing.
Suddenly there were footsteps in the corridor, and a maid burst into the room. “You Grace!” she cried, beaming, “They say you should come now.”
Charles rushed past her, taking the stairs three at a time. Upstairs in the massive ducal bedchamber, Cynthia lay in the great carved bed, her coppery hair spread across the pillows. There was a sheen of perspiration on her face. She had never been more beautiful. As Charles hurried to her side, the midwife turned and he saw the little bundle cradled in her arms.
Cynthia held out her hands and took the baby. “We have a daughter, Charles,” she said softly.
He looked down into the loveliest face he had ever seen. “You are both well?” he asked, one finger reaching out to stroke his daughter’s soft cheek.
“Very well,” the midwife announced.
As if letting the room know just how healthy she was, the baby let out a lusty cry. Cynthia cradled her against her breast. “What shall we name her?” Charles asked.
Cynthia had staunchly refused to discuss names before the baby’s arrival, but now she smiled up at him. “What do you say to Penelope?”
Read the entire House of Lords series by Meg Brooke:
The Secretary
Clarissa Martin is determined to continue her father’s work, but the only way to do so is to return to the back halls of Parliament—disguised as a man. Anders Rennick, Earl of Stowe, is in desperate need of a secretary, and he’ll take the first man who applies for the job. Sparks fly when he discovers that his new secretary isn’t quite what he thought!
Behind the Mask
Lord Colin Pierce has never been a very good agent, and his failures have gotten him relegated to a diplomatic post far from the action. Now he has one week to stop the assassination of Princess Victoria.
But his plan is derailed by his unexpected attraction to Eleanor Chesney. Struggling to escape the consequences of her own past, Eleanor still cannot deny the passion she feels. Can Colin and Eleanor abandon their carefully laid plans to save the princess...and their love?