by Sandra Heath
“But, you could have any bride in London ...” she began.
“I don’t want any bride, I want you.”
“I’m hardly a great heiress ...”
“What need do I have for more wealth? It’s you that I want, Verity. Just you. Please say yes,” he urged.
“Yes,” she whispered.
As he gave a glad smile and enclosed her with a loving embrace, Anna continued to stare at them both as if she thought she would awaken at any moment. At last she found her tongue. “Are—are you both in earnest?” she inquired a little weakly.
They nodded, still gazing into each other’s eyes.
She drew a long breath, still not entirely convinced that Nicholas was as committed as he appeared. “Nicholas, are you quite sure about this?” she asked, putting a meaningful hand on his arm.
He turned to her. “Never more sure in my life,” he replied.
She searched his eyes for a long moment and believed him. Her hand fell away, and she looked at Verity again. “What of your uncle? I think we can all be certain of his vehement opposition to this match no matter how financially and socially advantageous it may actually be for you.”
Nicholas drew Verity’s fingers to his lips again. “Anna’s right, my love. Will your uncle’s opposition make a difference?” he asked her.
“It should, I know, but—but I cannot ignore the way I feel about you. If I were to refuse you because of his dislike, I wouldn’t be being true to myself, or to you.”
“Oh, my darling,” he whispered, his heart swelling with such overpowering emotion that tears sprang to his eyes. Since May Day, she had become life itself to him, and he would defy the entire world to be with her, let alone one prejudiced old magistrate.
Anna looked from one to the other. “I take it there won’t be a long engagement,” she murmured resignedly.
* * *
Joshua’s eyes darkened with outrage one week later, when at last he was persuaded to receive Nicholas in the Dover Street drawing room. “You what, sir?” he cried, gripping the back of one of Lady Sichester’s prized cream-and-brown striped sofas.
“I wish to ask for Miss Windsor’s hand in marriage,” Nicholas repeated.
“Never!”
“Sir, I—”
“Never!” Joshua shouted, his knuckles white as his fingers dug into her ladyship’s exquisite furniture.
Nicholas remained as calm as he could. “Mr. Windsor, I swear that this is an honorable and sincere proposal. I love your niece, and wish with all my heart to make her my bride.”
“If you were the last man on earth, I’d refuse to countenance a match between you and Verity.” Joshua breathed, his whole body shaking with anger as he stepped across to the bellpull and tugged it so fiercely he almost tore it down.
Nicholas feared he might suffer a seizure. “Please, sir, it isn’t my intention to upset you.”
“But you have, sirrah! Oh, indeed you have!” Joshua cried.
“With all due respect, I’m hardly offering a misalliance,” Nicholas pointed out, finding it very difficult to remain reasonable when what he really wanted to do was shake the old curmudgeon for his unremitting obstinacy.
“To me this is the greatest misalliance imaginable!” Joshua replied, turning as the butler hurried in. “Please show Lord Montacute out,” he ordered.
Nicholas remained where he was. “Mr. Windsor, I ask you again to consider my proposal, for Verity and I are very much in love.”
“Verity will never be your wife, sirrah,” Joshua breathed. “You are a blackguard and a vile womanizer, and I would as soon see my niece in a nunnery than wed to you.”
The butler stared.
Nicholas’s eyes darkened. “No doubt you think you are justified in such insults, Mr. Windsor, but I promise you you aren’t,” he said, and strode out.
Verity had listened wretchedly from the top of the stairs, but although she called Nicholas’s name as he snatched up his things from the hall table, he didn’t hear. The door slammed behind him, and then there was silence. Gathering her skirts, she fled tearfully to her room, where she flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of sobs.
Chapter Nineteen
Over the next two weeks, Nicholas swallowed his pride by calling again and again at Dover Street in an endeavor to make Joshua change his mind, but it was to no avail. The servants were instructed to turn his lordship from the door, and turned from it he was.
The twitching curtains Verity had feared so unnecessarily before, now twitched in earnest as Mayfair observed the frequent fruitless calls made at Lady Sichester’s door by one of London’s most eligible lords. Whispers began to spread, and soon the whole of society was rife with rumor. There was hardly a drawing room that didn’t echo about the intriguing goings-on, and everyone was openmouthed with interest, with the unwelcome result that Verity’s character rapidly became the subject of much debate.
The atmosphere at the Dover Street house was strained, for Joshua wouldn’t even speak to his niece now, let alone forgive her this second monumental sin. He refused to allow her out of the house and snubbed all her efforts to reason with him. She had failed him so greatly now, that he couldn’t find it in his heart to even try to meet her halfway, and seeing the Season through to its end was simply out of the question, so at the beginning of September he issued instructions for a return to Wychavon.
Throughout all this, Verity was unable to see Nicholas, and the only opportunity she had of being in the fresh air was if she sat in the garden. This is what she was doing on the last evening before the journey north, when at last Nicholas managed to speak to her again.
Shadows stretched across the lawns and flowerbeds, and the crimson sunset sparkled through the dancing waters of the raised fountain. There was a wrought-iron bench beneath a cherry tree, and the yellow of her muslin gown was warmed to apricot in the evening light. Her hair was tied simply back with a ribbon, the snakestone was around her throat, and there was a fringed white shawl around her shoulders because the coolness of approaching autumn was definitely detectable in the air now.
There was an open book on her lap, but she gazed blindly at the page because her vision was a blur of tears. She could hear the general sounds of Mayfair beyond the tinkle of the fountain and the flower girl right outside in the street. Horses shifted and whinnied in the stables, and then came the creak of the gate from the mews lane. The gate? She glanced up, and with a start saw Nicholas entering the garden.
Her gaze flew back to the house, but no one was around, so she got up and ran into his arms. He drew her into the shadow of the coachhouse and kissed her achingly on the lips.
“Oh, my darling, my darling ...” he breathed then, resting his cheek against her hair and stroking her throat with fingers that trembled to even touch her.
“We’re leaving for Wychavon tomorrow,” she whispered tearfully, raising her unhappy eyes to look at him.
“I know,” he replied, then smiled. “Servants can be bribed for information. That’s how I knew you sit out here in the evenings,” he explained. His smile faded, and he took her face in his hands. “Don’t go tomorrow,” he urged.
“I—I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“That if you come to me, we can be married whether or not your uncle consents.”
She stared at him.
His thumbs caressed her cheeks. “Come to me tonight, Verity, I’ve already secured a special license, which means you could be my wife before the day is out. You do love me, don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“Then say you’ll come,” he urged softly, twining his fingertips in the chain of the snakestone.
Her heart felt as if it would burst with love for him, and suddenly she knew what decision to make, for there was only one. “Of course I will,” she whispered.
“Oh, my darling ...” he breathed, crushing her to him again.
His hand curled desirousl
y in the hair at the nape of her neck,
and he wanted her so much he could hardly bear it. But tonight
she’d be his at last and he’d make love to her until dawn....
A door banged in the house, and he seized her hands as she looked anxiously toward the sound. “Verity, be ready at midnight tonight. I’ll come here to the mews lane to take you directly to Grosvenor Square, where a clergyman will be waiting to conduct the ceremony. You’ll be Lady Montacute then, and there won’t be anything your uncle can do about it.”
“I wish he weren’t so intransigent, for I still love him so very much.”
“He’ll come around in the end,” he reassured her.
“I hope so, oh, I do hope so.”
He squeezed her fingers. “I’m afraid all this will make us the center of still more gossip, but it can’t be helped. It’s bound to be a nine-days’ wonder, though, for the properness of marriage soon takes the edge off scandal.”
He kissed her again.
* * *
As darkness fell in Wychavon, Judith set out for the grove. She was bitterly angry about the disappearance of the seal, and her inability to even begin to find out where it was. She had endeavored to put the eye on Martha, but the old woman was sufficiently protected by holy wafers to make her almost immune. The worst the nurse had suffered was an incapacitating headache that had confined her to bed for three days, but this wasn’t punishment enough as far as Judith was concerned. Martha had to be made to divulge the whereabouts of the seal, and to this end the witch intended to seek Hecate’s direct aid, but as she passed the lychgate, she came to a sudden halt.
Something drew her attention to the church door, which stood slightly ajar. It was strange that it should be open, because ever since the roof had been damaged by the storm, everything had been kept strictly locked to be certain the workmen’s tools and equipment were safe from thieves.
The door seemed to almost be beckoning her, but as she went cautiously to the lychgate, a warning wind stirred from nowhere to billow her cloak, for the forces of good were ever-vigilant, and the approach of a witch never went unnoticed. Normally she would not have gone a step closer, but something drew her toward the open door, and so she began to walk up the wide gravel path between the yew trees.
The wind increased, tugging at her hair and making the branches sway violently overhead, but she pitted her will against the outraged holiness that swirled all around her. Somehow she managed to reach the porch, where the wind buffeted furiously again as she clung to an iron rung that was sunk into the stonework.
The open door swung on its hinges, and her cloak flapped like a wild thing as she stared into the nave. The whirling draft of air swept through the church, riffling the prayer books and making the lanterns sway on their ceiling chains. She felt invisible hands trying to pull her away, but she held on tightly, her knowing gaze finally drawn to the altar, where moonlight shone thinly on the cross.
Suddenly the truth became dazzlingly clear. The seal was there! The wisewoman had been clever, for this was the one place no witch could enter. Unless ... Determination surged through Judith, but as she tried to enter the church, the wind became a howling gale that flung her backward out of the porch. The church door slammed with a force that echoed through the night like a thunderclap, and Judith could do nothing but stumble helplessly toward the lychgate. Only when she had retreated into the road did the wind die down again, and the night become still.
The witch stood in furious impotence. She was so near to the seal, and yet so very far away! As she stared with loathing toward the church, she heard a door open at the nearby vicarage. The light of a handheld lantern swayed into view, and she drew back out of sight behind the sycamore that had provided her with a walking stick when she had broken her ankle.
The vicar appeared. He wore only his nightshirt and tasseled cap, and his Turkish slippers pattered on the path as he made his grumbling way toward the church. She saw that he was carrying the key and realized the slamming of the door had awoken him. He reached the porch, and she heard the heavy key turning in the lock, then he retraced his steps.
When he had disappeared back into the vicarage, the witch emerged from hiding. Flinging her dark cloak around her shoulders, she hurried on toward the grove. Even though she now knew where the seal was, she still needed Hecate’s aid if she were to retrieve it from the house of God.
* * *
Midnight approached, and as Judith danced in the oak grove, at Dover Street Verity was nearly ready to leave. She had written a loving and apologetic note to her uncle, but knew he would see her action as a final act of betrayal. Joshua hadn’t relented at all, and tonight had even turned his cheek away when she attempted to kiss him good night. There had been tears in her eyes as she hurried up to her room, for she didn’t know when she would see him again, or if he would ever acknowledge her as his niece once she became Lady Montacute.
Stars shone in the cloudless night sky as she sat on the edge of her bed, willing the final moments away. The hall clock began to chime, and she put a pale blue velvet cloak over her yellow gown, picked up the small portmanteau she had packed earlier, and slipped from the room.
The moon cast a silvery light over the gardens as she hurried toward the gate, which creaked as she opened it. Nicholas’s town carriage was waiting in the lane, and he alighted to take the portmanteau and put a protective arm tightly around her for a moment, before assisting her into the vehicle, but suddenly she felt the snakestone slip from her neck because she hadn’t fastened it properly.
The precious amulet slithered to the ground, and she bent swiftly to retrieve it, but he picked it up first. He glanced at the unusual stone in the moonlight, and then handed it back to her. “It’s very beautiful,” he said.
“Martha gave it to me, it’s supposed to be a lucky charm.”
Another carriage returned to a nearby coachhouse, and Nicholas quickly assisted her into his own vehicle. “Don’t let’s waste time,” he murmured, nodding at his coachman.
He climbed in and sat beside her, and the team strained forward, soon coming up to a smart trot over the cobbles to Grosvenor Square. A large dinner party was just breaking up at the house next door to Nicholas’s. There were carriages drawn up at the curb, and a great deal of laughter and chatter as the fashionable quests took their leave. No one glanced at Lord Montacute’s vehicle as it halted, or paid heed as the two occupants alighted and hurried into his house.
The door closed behind them, and in the cool gold-and-white entrance hall, where a magnificent French chandelier shimmered from a coffered ceiling, Nicholas turned her to face him. “I love you, Verity,” he whispered, and an echo took up the words.
“And I love you.”
He smiled and turned as his butler approached. “Ah, Charles, is everything ready?”
“It is, my lord”
“And the maid awaits Miss Windsor?”
“She does, my lord.”
Nicholas looked at her again. “Charles will take you upstairs to prepare. When you’re ready, he’ll bring you to the drawing room. We’ll soon be man and wife, I promise.”
She nodded a little nervously, then the butler took the portmanteau and she followed him up the magnificent pink marble staircase that curved up between Corinthian columns to the upper stories.
The maid was almost as nervous as her new mistress, having suddenly been promoted from the post of parlor maid because she had some experience waiting upon ladies. She wasn’t as nimble-fingered as Jeanne when it came to dressing hair, but she was anxious to please, and Verity liked her.
Her name was Lizzy, and she was a Londoner, with a cockney accent and a friendly nature that soon came to the fore as she realized her new mistress wasn’t as high and mighty as some ladies she had had dealings with.
Verity had brought an evening gown with her to be married in. It was made of plowman’s gauze, cream with little pink satin spots that shone in the candlelight as Lizzy strove her best wi
th comb and pins.
At last the maid achieved a creditable Grecian knot and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Oh, you look lovely, Miss Windsor.”
“I feel very nervous,” Verity admitted.
The maid smiled at her in the mirror. “There ain’t a woman in London wouldn’t envy you right now, miss.”
“Oh?”
“ ‘Is lordship’s the most ‘andsome man in the world.”
“And I love him,” Verity whispered.
Lizzy met her eyes again. “It’s the most romantic thing I ever ‘eard, miss, and to think that I’m your maid! Oh, I’ll be crowin’ like a country rooster after this, and no mistake.”
Verity smiled and suddenly felt more relaxed.
“Are you ready then, miss?”
“I—I think so.”
Lizzy drew her chair back and then smiled shyly at her. “Next time I address you, it’ll be as Lady Montacute.”
“Yes, I—I suppose it will...”
The maid hurried to a table where a little posy of white rosebuds was waiting in a dish of water. It had been tied with silver ribbons, which fluttered as she brought it to Verity. “This is from everyone belowstairs, miss.”
“Why, thank you, Lizzy.”
“We thought you might not ‘ave any flowers, and every bride should carry flowers, miss.”
Verity put the rosebuds to her nose and inhaled their perfume, “They’re beautiful, Lizzy. Please thank everyone for me.”
“Yes, miss.” The maid went to the door and held it open for her. Verity’s gown whispered softly as she went out to the corridor, where the butler was waiting to conduct her down to the drawing room.
Chapter Twenty
Footmen opened the double doors of the drawing room, and Verity entered a dazzling green-and-gold chamber that was furnished in the Greek style. Every chandelier and candelabrum had been lit, and all the servants were gathered as witnesses to the clandestine match which was bound to soon set the whole of London talking.
Nicholas had changed into evening clothes, and stood waiting with the priest. They both turned as she entered, and Nicholas came quickly over to her. “You look wonderful, my darling,” he murmured, drawing her palm to his lips.