Winter Wedding

by Joan Smith

  “Aunt Charity knows very well we have fourteen bedrooms! Not even a line or a word to let me know.”

  “There was no time. And it would be improper to write to you when we are not engaged or anything.”

  He looked as if she had struck him. “Not engaged?” he asked, astonished. “Clara, we are practically married! I have already ordered the wedding dinner. What have I been doing the past days if not proposing my head off? You haven’t shown any aversion to the idea. Really this caution goes beyond understanding. It is inexcusable. You should be—I don’t know what is bad enough for you. You should be dunked like a common scold, in a cold pond in December.”

  Warmed by his angry love, she said in a teasing way, “Or have both my legs broken?”

  “It would keep you in one place at least.”

  “But I have stayed in one place, and you don’t like that either,” she pouted.

  “It was the wrong place. I wanted you there, with me.”

  “Well, I am here with you now,” she pointed out.

  “You shouldn’t be. Not engaged!” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Clara, really—what did you mean by leading me on in the parlor in front of Maximilian if you don’t consider yourself engaged?”

  “I was not leading you on! You leapt at me—and you never breathed a syllable about marriage either.”

  “I suppose till I go down on my bended knee and tell you I love you half-a-dozen times you won’t realize that rather obvious fact either.”

  “Very true. You come to know me uncommonly well. A lady dare not admit she’s smitten till she gets her offer,” she replied, refusing to be cowed by his temper.

  “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,” he repeated again and again, his voice rising with anger and impatience. “Dammit, I have loved you forever, Clara, as you know very well.”

  “That’s five,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers.

  “I love you. That’s six,” he said, advancing toward her with a menacing scowl.

  “I am glad to hear it, because you look as if you mean to murder me,” she said, retreating toward the grate as he advanced.

  “Don’t you have something to add to that—five or six times?”

  “Well, I suppose I love you, too,” she said uncertainly.

  “Not good enough, miss!” His hands rose as he leaned toward her.

  “All right! I love you!” she shrieked, jumping back as if in fright. “Oh dear, I am not at all sure I want to marry a savage ape!” she said, laughing.

  “Tame me then,” he said softly. Already a tamer air hung around him, and a tender light glowed in his eyes. “Stroke me. Speak softly to me. Tell me how much you love me.” He reached out a hand that did not seem bent on violence and possessed himself of her fingers, which he squeezed ever so gently.

  “I’ll remind you in ten years, if you haven’t returned to the jungle or been locked up with the other wild beasts at the Tower.”

  “I’ll be around. You will regret that rash promise, my cautious Clara. But for the time being, let us just back up a decade and get our marriage settled. We are getting married, Clara. You mentioned January as being a good month.”

  “I said December.”

  “We have less than four hours,” he said, looking at the mantle clock. “This is the thirty-first. We’ll have to do it here. I thought London...”

  She began to smile, till she realized he was serious. A contemplative frown had seized his face. “Ben, you’re mad! I’m not ready—we couldn’t possibly—”

  “January then. It’s even duller than December, and I know Mama and Maggie are looking forward to being there for the exchange of vows.”

  “Next year—”

  “Dear girl, if you mean next December, it is you who are mad. I don’t plan to wait another twelve months!”

  “A spring wedding would be lovely.”

  “Charming, but the spring, you told me, has its own pleasures, and how are we to get on in the dull winter months?”

  “What a lack of imagination. There are sleigh rides and skating.”

  “And this.” He pulled her roughly into his arms, and kissed her so hard and so long that it seemed a few weeks at least of the winter might slip by with less dullness than feared.

  Disengaging herself, Clara began to say in a distracted way, “We could always...” She had some unclear thought of saying they could go at once to London to get married.

  “Yes, darling, a dozen other delightful diversions occur to me, too, but we really should be married first, you know.” From the furious manner in which he went on to divert himself, Clara, cautious still, was strongly inclined to agree with him.

  With a last burst of conscience, she tried to persuade him to rejoin the Luckers in the gold saloon. He professed admiration for the few embers moldering in the grate, and with an eye on the comfortable armchair, thought it would hold two very nicely, being designed for one. It took the bribe of an uncut glass of claret and considerable struggling to get him into the gold saloon, and even then he went reluctantly.

  “Well, my dear, when do you plan to leave?” Lady Lucker asked eagerly as soon as they came in.

  “Pushing me out again, Auntie?” Ben asked with a good-natured smile, the savage lulled. “Take care or we won’t ask you to our wedding.”

  “Ben! Is it indeed to be a match? I couldn’t be happier. James, do you hear this?” She went to Clara and embraced her.

  “Very nice. Very nice indeed,” Sir James said. “Congratulations and all that. Ben, you were at the Roman Museum the other day. Tell me if you saw anything like this.” He held a coin out to him, but Ben could not recall seeing its match elsewhere. He scarcely saw the one held under his nose.

  “You have got yourself a very able manager here, Ben,” Lady Lucker said, ignoring her husband entirely. “My own girls could not run a house better. Not half so well. Clara will have your household in order in no time, and not cost you a fortune to do it either. When do you mean to get married?”

  Clara had tentatively in mind a short holiday in London, with perhaps a remove to Braemore and a wedding there in a month.

  “Next week,” Ben said.

  “A small do then,” she nodded. “Very wise. After just being through a large one, I must commend your wisdom. Though you must be sure to send all your relatives notices, Clara. There is no reason you must be diddled out of your gifts, only because you are having a small do.”

  “I doubt it can be arranged in a week, Ben,” Clara said.

  “It can. We’ll get a licence immediately when we get to London. Mama and Maggie have things well in hand. Ordering plenty of glasses and so on,” he said, with a brief but speaking glance to Clara.

  “There is no need to buy them, Ben,” his aunt objected at once. “Take what you need from here and return them on your way to Braemore.”

  “We won’t be returning to Braemore till the spring. Mama and Maggie will, I expect, but Clara and I have decided to honeymoon in London.”

  “Not a bad idea. It will save traveling expenses and having to put up at expensive hotels.”

  “Exactly,” Ben agreed with unsteady lips. “And Clara needs to do such a lot of shopping that we will be watching every penny,” he continued unblushing. “Gowns, bonnets, slippers—was that not what you said, Clara?”

  Clara said not a word, but cast a look of revulsion on her outspoken groom. Lady Lucker nodded her agreement. “Clara knows just where to buy wisely.” Visions of the Pantheon Bazaar rose in her mind’s eye.

  “Mama wants you and Sir James to come to us as soon as you conveniently can,” Ben said.

  “We will be there in a day or two,” Lady Lucker promised. “Oh and Clara, there are dozens of things left over from Prissie’s wedding—half of that huge ham and sweets and so on. I shall take a box of them with me.”

  “You are very kind, Aunt Charity,” Ben said, “but we really don’t want to have a wedding breakfast of leftovers. For that one o
ccasion, we are going to splurge.”

  His aunt looked doubtful at this poor beginning, but placed enough faith in Clara’s good sense that she had no real fear of improvidence on this scale continuing.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Sir James said. The racket going forth prevented him from doing justice to his bent and discolored coins. “A glass of champagne, what?”

  Lady Lucker prepared to intervene with the mention that Ben preferred claret. But there was champagne left over from the wedding, and she decided to splurge with this last magnanimous gesture.

  The toast was drunk, and with no more nonsense, James was led from the room. Lady Lucker dashed off to the parlor where Prissie’s gifts were laid out, to run her eye over the lot for duplicates and determine what she could part with for Clara’s gift. Ben’s silver tea service and the Wedgwood cups were tallied up with Clara’s wineglasses, and the decision taken that Prissie had no possible use for an ugly silver epergne featuring naked nymphs and some strange man with wings on his heels.

  “What will your mother say to rushing things forward so?” Clara asked Ben.

  “She will say, ‘Hallelujah and amen.’ She has not liked to see me racketing around the countryside, looking for you. It was her idea to stay in London and oversee things. She hasn’t Charity’s knack for cutting a corner, so it will be your lot to see she won’t go buying the food herself, instead of dunning the neighbors for it.”

  “A pity I am not acquainted with your neighbors.”

  “The caterer will provide us a fresh feast with no bother at all.”

  “Ben, you’re talking about pounds and pounds—of money, I mean.”

  “You will be in charge of curbing my wild extravagance, as well as my ferocity.”

  “A week doesn’t give me much time to do either.”

  “It offers too many opportunities—seven whole days—for you to vanish on me. Maggie and Mama will go with you to see to your trousseau, if you like. Whatever you can get made up in a week. The rest of the time you will be with me, tied leg and wing.”

  With a guinea left of her allowance, Clara foresaw the need for some considerable skill in assembling a creditable trousseau. With the most careful of contriving, she did not see how it could be done at less than five.

  “Not to worry, Clara,” Ben said, smiling at her fondly. “I mean to keep you quite as busy as Aunt Charity did, but I shall pay you better. I am arranging a settlement with my man of business.”

  “Oh I—I have some money,” she said in embarrassment.

  “Yes, love, I know you have a guinea and seven shillings, unless you’ve been squandering it on shoelaces and headache powders, but I am talking about an allowance. Don’t blush, Clara. We’re getting married. It is the custom, you know, for a husband to support his wife.”

  “It’s not the custom for a lord to marry someone so poor as I am,” she pointed out calmly.

  “You contradict yourself. You told me it was all the crack for a wealthy lord to marry a penniless beauty. I daresay you were dropping me a hint then, but I was too dense to see it.”

  “Don’t remind me of all the stupid things I said.”

  “I won’t. But in ten years’ time, I’ll remind you of one of your brighter remarks. And now I remind you of your primary duty. I am beginning to feel savage, Clara. Do something about it,” he demanded.

  She poured him another glass of champagne. He set it aside with a heavy frown and advanced toward her in a stalking fashion.

  Copyright © 1990 by Joan Smith

  Originally published by Fawcett Crest (0449217868)

  Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.