by Nikki Poppen
In the drawing room, Cate hadn’t known what to make of all of Isabella’s conversation. The countess had asked several questions about the wedding: when would it take place? Where would it be held? Cate felt awk ward. She didn’t know and the countess was carrying on as if this were to be the social event of the year. Surely, Isabella knew better than that. Cate let her talk until Giles and the gentlemen joined them after their port.
Isabella wasted no time turning her questions on Giles. That was when Cate had gleaned that Giles wanted the wedding immediately, the day after next. Isabella was scandalized and argued him into waiting five days. She’d wanted a week or two but Giles insisted the marriage take place quickly. Five days, he said, was more than enough time to procure a marriage license from the village clergyman and to make some minimal arrangements. Nothing more was needed.
Cate felt her cheeks flush at his brusque manner. What he really meant was that no arrangements were needed for a wedding such as this. It was quite a telling comment from a man who was famed for his entertainments and organizational abilities. It might be true that little fuss was needed over such a hasty and arranged marriage, but still Giles might have put a better face on it.
Isabella leapt into the breach left by his comment. “Shame on you, Giles. All haste and reason aside, every bride deserves a bit of fussing. All wedding days are special in their own way” She smiled to soften her scolding. “Cate needs a dress at the very least, and I haven’t anything suitable on hand for a wedding gown. We’ll need time to create something worthy of the occasion. We’ll barely have time to send to the Meadows for Tristan’s roses to decorate the chapel with.”
From that moment forward, Isabella and Cecile dominated her schedule with plans. The next morning, Cate found herself inundated with lists and questions. At mid-morning, Giles saved her with an offer to walk her over to the old Norman chapel at Spelthorne where the ceremony would be held.
The little church had character aplenty and was in good repair since services were regularly held in there on Sunday afternoons for those who didn’t attend the larger, newer church in the village which had been built when Spelthorne’s population exceeded the capacity of the little chapel. Giles stood in the archway of the nave, watching her expectantly while she strolled the length of the aisle. “Will it do, Cate? I should have asked what you would prefer. We can have the ceremony at the abbey or at the village church if you’d like.”
Cate stopped her idle progress to face him. “What do you prefer, Giles? If you’d rather not marry in a church, we can do it quietly in the drawing room at the abbey”
Giles pulled off his gloves and slapped them in the palm of one hand. “A wedding is a proud moment for a woman. I was thoughtless last night in the drawing room. I am sorry. I did not mean to devalue the ceremony or you.”
Cate smiled, suppressing a laugh. “A wedding is a proud moment for a woman? Only the woman? What about the man? Isn’t it a crowning moment for him too? I can see that I shall have to reform you immediately. A man should be proud he’s found a helpmate, a woman who will be loyal and stand beside him.” She paused in her teasing. No doubt, Giles had hoped to find those things in a mate but probably felt she would not live up to those standards.
She bit her lip and moved toward him, taking the liberty of placing her hand on her betrothed’s sleeve. It was a novel experience to think of him as her betrothed, to think she could approach him as she did, at least in private. “This marriage might not be what you’d anticipated for yourself, but I can be all those things. I mean to be loyal to you, Giles. I mean to be your helpmate if you’ll teach me, if you’ll let me”
She looked up into his blue eyes, seeking an affirmation. He gave her a slight nod. “We shall both do our best,” he said with more reserve than Cate would have liked.
“This place is fine for the ceremony, quite charming actually,” Cate said, reverting to the earlier topic of conversation. It would be charming in the spring. In her mind’s eye, she saw the bleak stone chapel decked out for a spring wedding, full of wildflowers and garlands, a pristine cloth on the altar. But at the end of fall, when winter stood on the cusp, it looked cold and gray. She hoped it wasn’t a foreshadowing of her marriage.
“Are you ready to go back? There’s something I want to show you up at the house” Giles offered her his arm, and they began the walk back to the abbey. On the way back, he played the part of the solicitous bridegroom to the hilt, asking after the plans and lists Isabella had concocted.
He laughed out loud as Cate recounted the morning spent with Isabella. “Gracious! You’d think from the way she’s carrying on this was a society ball. Don’t let her overwhelm you. She’s a dear friend and good at her job. She’s one of London’s finest hostesses when she and Tristan endeavor to go up to town. But don’t let her talk you into anything you don’t want.”
His banter and agreement with her was heartening. Cate felt a few moments of kinship with him then. Perhaps they would build a future on conversations like this one, a little bit at a time.
As they neared the abbey, Giles said, “I am glad you liked the little chapel. I always thought I’d be married there. It’s the place where all the earls have been married and buried. The graveyard off to the side is where our ancestors are laid. It’s where I’ll be laid to rest when my time comes and you as well. There’s some comfort and peace in knowing how one fits into the cycle of life.”
“Hmm,” Cate said dreamily, taking in the chance to view Spelthorne through his eyes. Another might have found his comment of death linked with marriage morbidly inappropriate, but she understood the connection. “I think that is why I found the idea of Spelthorne so appealing. It represented peace, rest, security, all of which are absent qualities in the life of the Rom. I’ve discovered I don’t uproot well. Traveling, moving around, is not part of my make-up.”
She peered up at him, thinking of something else he’d said. “You said ‘our.”’
“Yes. It occurred to me last night that although you don’t know your ancestors they are your people, your blood. The Spelthorne earls go back four generations. You are the great-granddaughter of James Moncrief. Although I am not of their blood, I am of their traditions as well. As you said yesterday, there are many ways to be a father. If so, I think there are many ways to be part of the family history.”
“I think you’re right,” Cate said softly, feeling some of the guilt over their marriage lifting from her. Giles was coming to terms with his new understanding of his identity, just as she was coming to grips with hers.
Once they reached the house, the quiet peace they’d shared on the walk back was shattered. Isabella met them in the hall, a sheaf of paper in her hand. “Giles, there you are! There’s been a set back” She brandished the paper.
Giles gave Cate a conspiratorial wink and Cate could see his mouth twitch as he tried to suppress a laugh.
“It’s not funny in the least!” Isabella stormed. “When you pick a wedding day, you usually consult a calendar.”
Cate looked from Giles to Isabella, perplexed.
“Do you know that five days from yesterday is All Hallows’ Eve?” Isabella said, her disbelief over his carelessness evident in her tone.
Giles couldn’t suppress his laughter any longer. “No, I didn’t. But I would like to say that I was badgered into five days by you, Bella. If it had been up to me, I would have been married tomorrow. All Hallows’ Eve it is. We can marry in an evening ceremony.”
“Evening? That’s positively medieval. When have fashionable people wed at night? What about a wedding breakfast?” Isabella protested.
“When they’re me” Giles merely smiled, unbothered by her well-meaning protestations. “Now, I was off to show Cate something upstairs.” He turned back to her and tugged on her hand, leading her upstairs with a playfulness in his step.
Upstairs turned out to be the attics. These rooms were unlike any attic Cate had been in, although admittedly, that was very few. The at
tics were a warren of gabled rooms at the top of the house filled with treasures. She could have spent hours wandering through them. Unlike her perception of an attic, these rooms were well organized, nothing was crammed in haphazardly and items appeared as if they had been stored with great care, in spite of the expected layers of dust which accumulated with lack of use.
Giles proudly announced that one of the things he’d done since becoming the earl was to catalog the contents of the attics. The idea of Giles crawling about the rooms in his impeccable clothing, writing down the items made her giggle.
“If you think that is funny,” Giles shot her a mocking glare, “I am currently beginning to write the history of each item. Its year or origin, which relative it belonged to, and what purpose or history is behind it. You can help me with it. It would be a great project for getting to know your family.” He paused. “By the way, why is cataloging funny? It happens to be a great historical resource”
He looked so self-righteous, Cate couldn’t help herself from blurting out the truth. “I can’t imagine you in your very proper clothing up here in the dust, rummaging through trunks holding who knows what.”
Giles looked serious and vulnerable. Perhaps she had gone too far. She should have realized they didn’t know each other well enough for such disclosures yet. “Is that how you see me? Too proper? Too much a gentleman to dirty his hands with work?”
She had hurt his feelings. “No, of course not. I am sorry.”
“For what? For telling me the truth?”
Cate wrung her hands, searching for a way to make things right. “The truth is, I like the way you dress. It was one of the first things I noticed about you, what made you stand out from other gentlemen. The way you look in your clothes is quite handsome.” She lowered her voice to a coquette’s whisper and dared a little, “The way you look out of your clothing is quite admirable too”
That won her a smile and a chuckle. “Ho! Out of my clothes you say? Have you been spying on me?”
“No, but I have been fishing with you.”
That made them both laugh. Cate was reassured. They were indeed building a history together, one conversation, one experience, one day at a time.
“Here it is,” Giles called out, gesturing to a trunk that was set out from the rest toward the back of the garret. “I couldn’t sleep last night so I came up here to search for some items I recalled from my cataloging. Thanks to my excellent record keeping, I was able to locate the trunk right away,” he added pointedly, winning another laugh from Cate.
She came to stand beside him and stared down at the big, scarred traveling trunk with iron bands. “The trunk looks ancient. What’s in there? Spanish doubloons?”
“Better than Spanish gold” Giles winked and lifted the lid.
The smell of lavender and cedar chips wafted out from the open trunk. Cate felt her curiosity build at the scent. The trunk was exquisitely lined in ruched satin and there was no doubt that this trunk had belonged to a woman of means.
Giles rubbed at an engraved plate embedded in the lid of the trunk. “It’s my great-grandmother’s-our great grandmother’s. There’s her name, Heloise.”
“The one married to James?” Cate asked.
“Yes. You’re learning,” Giles smiled.
He dug down into the layers of tissue and wrapping. “She and great-grandfather were married in the little chapel in 1680” He drew out a bundle. “This is the gown she wore for her wedding.”
The layers of wrapping came off, and Cate gasped. The gown Giles uncovered was of sapphire silk, cut in the fashion of the period with the rounded neckline, exposing the shoulders and the bodice tapering to a vee, not unlike the royal red gown she’d worn to dinner a few nights previous. The gown was trimmed in exquisite lace work at the sleeves and the low neck. “It’s beautiful.” Cate couldn’t resist the urge to finger it.
“I thought of it after seeing your red gown,” Giles said. “The style suited you well. I thought you might like to wear this for our wedding.” He shrugged. “It certainly fits the rhyme about something old, something borrowed, something blue.”
Cate could barely find any words to respond. “Really? I could wear it?”
“If you’d like. There are other gowns up here. Celeste’s is here if you would prefer . . ” Giles’s voice broke off.
“No,” Cate said quickly, “this is the one”
“The women can alter it in anyway you need. I am sorry there’s not more time. I want you to have a suitable dress”
“Thank you,” Cate said reverently. “This dress will more than suffice”
The day of the wedding dawned wet and gray, not exactly the type of weather one imagined when thinking of the ideal wedding. Then again, there was nothing “ideal” about the wedding that would take place later that day. Cate dropped the curtain and sighed, curling up on the window seat in her customary position.
Across the room, the dress hung ready, along with an elegant ermine-lined hooded cloak and matching slippers Giles had dug out of the trunk along with the gown. Eight hours separated her from that gown.
For better or for worse, Cate had no doubts that the day would pass quickly enough. Giles’s friends had filled the wedding day with activities. She would have to hurry and dress in order to be ready to help with the decorating of the chapel, which would take up the morning. Then Isabella had something planned with the village ladies that Cate had no idea about but Giles had seemed to approve so she had not protested, wanting to make him happy in return for the generosity he’d shown her.
True to expectation, the morning flew by in a festive manner as the six of them devoted their efforts to the chapel, along with the household staff at the abbey.
When they were finished, Cate had to recant all her previous thoughts about the chapel appearing dreary. Their efforts had transformed the bleakness into a backdrop from another time.
The season had made it difficult to come up with the flora and fauna that would have been available during the spring and summer. Isabella had improvised with ribbons, and Giles had unearthed a trunk filled with carpets from James and Heloise’s time. One of those carpets served as a runner down the short aisle. Another acted as a tapestry backdrop, skillfully hung behind the altar. Isabella’s ribbons roped off the pews from the center aisle so that guests would enter down the right and left sides of the church. Large, tapers were placed in the niche of each stained-glass window and in profusion around the altar. Two large vases of exquisite red roses graced the front of the chapel. In the candlelight of evening, it would look magical.
Returning home to the abbey, Cate found the village women and wives of the tenant farmers assembled in the drawing room, awaiting her arrival over a lavish tea. Isabella hastily explained it was a chance for the women to celebrate her coming into their ranks as a new addition to the female community of Spelthorne.
Cate realized she knew many of them as Isabella walked about the room with her, making introductions. She had indeed met several of them on her afternoon outings with Giles.
Once the introductions were complete and she was settled in the seat of honor on the settee, the clergyman’s wife spoke up. “Here at Spelthorne, we have a custom of giving advice to new wives. Each of us has brought a gift and some advice to go with it.” There was general laughter and tittering at the implications, and Cate felt her cheeks heat.
By the end of the afternoon, a pile of gifts ranging from handstitched pillowcases to a gauzy, frothy nightgown from Isabella, lay at her feet.
The ladies left and their departure left a stillness hanging over the abbey, anticipation was running high. Isabella and Cecile ushered her upstairs for a bath and some time alone. Her last time alone, she realized. From now on, she’d be sharing a chamber with her husband. Already, looking about her room, it was evident that the household staff had been busy moving her items while the party had been going on downstairs. Only her wedding gown and toilet items remained.
To her surprise, Cate
did find the ability to rest before her bath and eat a little from the tray brought up to her. By the time the maid returned to help her into the gown, she felt like a bride. All of her attention was focused on the impending ceremony, of seeing her husband standing at the front of the church, of saying vows and meaning them. She was scared and excited all at once, all thoughts of how this moment had come to pass were driven from her mind at least temporarily.
Downstairs an open carriage waited to transport her to the chapel. The rain had stopped at midday and the dark sky twinkled overhead with stars. Lanterns posted on the carriage front lit the path for the short journey. Isabella and Cecile rode with her, and Alain rode beside them. Tristan waited at the chapel with Giles. There was a hubbub as they neared the church, and Cate realized suddenly that there would be guests. She had assumed the ceremony would be attended simply by Giles and his friends.
“Where did all these people come from?” Cate whispered to Isabella.
“From the village,” Isabella said, confused at the question. “Did you think there wouldn’t be any guests to see their earl married?”
“Actually, no,” she admitted honestly.
Alain rode on ahead to announce the bride was arriving and the last of the guests made their way inside. From outdoors Cate could see the tapers shining in through the windows and it struck her anew that this was her wedding.
“We’ll see you inside.” Isabella and Cecile squeezed her hand and took up their places. Alain came to help her down from the carriage and keep her out of the mud.
Inside, Cate had to pause a moment to keep herself from crying. The chapel was full, the candles cast a romantic glow on the walls and, best of all, Giles waited for her at the end of the aisle, standing straight, and immaculate in black evening attire, his hair gleaming golden in the candlelight, her own handsome prince. This was a moment for fairy tales. Then Cecile stood up and began to play softly on her violin.