The Bridemaker

by Rexanne Becnel

Hester heard what Adrian said. She simply could not believe what she heard. He loved her?

  “Marry me, Hester. Marry me because I love you and I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”

  She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to say yes, to fling herself into his arms and run away with him wherever he wanted to go. Scotland. America. She didn’t care where. But something in his words unsettled her. Something that mirrored too closely what her father had said.

  She stared down into Adrian’s handsome, earnest face. “What if… What if love is not enough?” She raised her gaze to look at her father. “It wasn’t enough that he loved my mother. She ended up hating him.”

  For a long moment her gaze remained locked with her father’s, and a new fear came over her. Perhaps she was not so much like her mother, but more like her father, too rigid and severe to make a happy marriage with anyone.

  As if he knew her fears, her father started toward her, an old man rejected by his wife and now by his daughter. He came up to the foyer door, then stopped there, never letting go of her gaze.

  He said, “I think the problem was not that I married for love, but that Isabelle did not. One person’s love is not enough. The inequality of emotion becomes a torture for both parties. A trap.” He tilted his head and tried to smile, but it was a weary, beaten-down expression. “Hawke here says he loves you. Tell me, child, do you love him?”

  Yes!

  Hester’s gaze veered back to Adrian’s. He hadn’t moved. He still held her hands in his and peered intently up into her face. “Do you love me?” he asked, his voice less than a whisper.

  “Yes.” She swallowed hard and fought the return of tears. But this time the only emotion fueling them was love—and happiness. Most definitely happiness. “Yes, I love you,” she whispered, her voice growing stronger. “Of course, I love you.”

  “Thank God.” He stood and pulled her into his arms, squeezing her so close she could hardly breathe. But she didn’t care. She circled his waist with her arms and squeezed him back, wanting to get as close to him as she could. Closer than was possible while they were still dressed, with onlookers so nearby.

  “Then you’ll marry me?” He kissed her temple, her eyes, her cheeks as he sought her mouth.

  “Yes. Yes—” The rest was cut off when their lips met to seal their promise.

  Someone started clapping. Someone else blew his nose.

  But for Hester there was only Adrian in her arms, declaring his love which was everything she’d wanted. She was going to marry the person she loved, as her father had done. But unlike her father, she was marrying someone who loved her back. And she’d taken a lover, as her mother had. But in her case, her lover was the one true love of her life, and she would marry him.

  She pulled back from Adrian at the realization: she was not entirely like either of her parents. They’d made a muddle of their marriage, and their children had paid the price. But then, they’d paid for it too.

  She turned to look at her father who was smiling at them, smiling as if he were truly happy for her.

  She couldn’t quite bring herself to smile back. But she nodded.

  It was a beginning.

  EPILOGUE

  Horace and Dulcie arrived at the St. Catherine Dock first. They’d brought their twin girls with them, as well as a cart to carry Hester and Adrian’s baggage. Shortly thereafter Edgar and Verna Vasterling arrived, and not two minutes too soon. The American schooner eased into its berth with a minimum of fuss. Still, for those on the shore the wait for the gangway to be laid out seemed to take forever.

  Hester stood on the deck with Garrett squirming in her arms. Three years away in America—three years of happiness beyond anything she could have hoped for— had done much to ease her animosity toward her father. She understood both sides of her parents’ marriage now. She understood how poorly suited they had been for one another, and she no longer blamed her father for the life she’d led without him.

  She had only to imagine herself growing up in the countryside, marrying some reasonably presentable fellow, never having the opportunity to meet her Adrian, to know that she would not now change anything that had happened in the past, not at the risk of losing everything she’d ultimately gained.

  She nuzzled Garrett’s neck, causing him to renew his efforts to get down and run. The fact was, she had more now than she’d ever imagined she could have. Certainly she had more than her father had ever had, for she was wed to the man she loved and who loved her.

  She sought out her father’s figure below them on the busy dock. In some ways her father had helped her know herself better. The letters they’d exchanged these past few years had allowed her to work out the worst of her animosity. But now, staring at him across the shrinking gulf of water, she worried once more that she could not do this.

  “It will be all right,” Adrian said, coming up behind her. He lifted Garrett out of her arms and settled the boisterous lad on his shoulders, careful to keep a grip on the two-year-old’s ankles. He slipped his other arm around her shoulder. “Your father and Verna have obviously been a tonic for one another. It’s not good for people to be lonely.”

  Hester leaned her head against his shoulder, comforted by his ability to sense her feelings, and his continuing willingness to soothe them. He couldn’t erase the damage of her childhood, but he certainly had made it less important to her.

  “They all look good,” she said. “Horace appears quite the country lord, doesn’t he?”

  Adrian chuckled. “You mean plump and well pleased with himself?”

  She poked him with her elbow. “Why shouldn’t he be? And Dulcie too. Oh, look at the twins. What a happy trio the girls will make with their big cousin Garrett.”

  “Your father looks well,” Adrian pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  “Better than he used to. But then, marriage has a way of doing that to a man. Marriage to the right woman,” he added, planting a kiss upon her temple.

  Hester studied her father, standing arm in arm with Verna, his wife of two years now. She’d wanted to be outraged when they’d written her about it. But she’d been too happy with the birth of Garrett to dredge up a proper head of steam over it. Slowly she’d become accustomed to the idea, and seeing them together now somehow banished the last of her resentments.

  Her eyes narrowed. Her father looked different than she remembered. He stood very erect, smiling up at them. And what a smart waistcoat he wore; what a jaunty hat. She smiled to herself. It appeared her father had become somewhat vain since his move to London. Verna’s doing, no doubt.

  Who would ever have imagined that he could leave the family estate in Horace’s care and become a bon vivant in his old age? But then, who would have imagined the strait-laced Bridemaker of London so willingly abandoning her business? She was far more content as a wife and mother to the pair of Scots-American men who formed the center of her life. In time, however, she might reprise the Mayfair Academy. There were plenty of American women in dire need of her help.

  When the gangway went down, Hester, Adrian, and Garrett were the first across. Hugs, kisses, exclamations, and compliments. In the midst of it all Hester found her son in her father’s arms. The lad looked not in the least fearful or shy as he took the watch her father dangled before him and held it ticking to his ear.

  “He’s a fine lad, Hester. Handsome and strong.” He hesitated, searching her face. “A fine lad,” he repeated.

  “Yes, he is.” She reached up to stop Garrett from tasting the gold case clock. “And quite a handful. He’ll run you ragged if you allow him to.”

  “Motherhood agrees with you.”

  That drew her up short. “Do you think so?”

  He nodded and a slow smile came over his lined face. “Motherhood and marriage too. You look happy.”

  “I am. Very.”

  And it was true. She’d been so happy the past few years. But now, seeing her beloved child in her father’s arms, that happiness became
surprisingly complete.

  A tiny shiver sped up her spine. Are you here with us, Mama? I feel as if you are.

  Then Adrian was guiding her toward the waiting carriages. “Well, love,” he whispered as everyone climbed aboard, debating who should sit where in the pair of crowded vehicles. “I believe the worst is over.”

  On impulse Hester turned and kissed him, the hot, sweet kiss of lovers, right there in plain view of everyone. Someone muffled a giggle, but she didn’t care. She was part of a whole, messy, healing family now: sister, daughter, mother to a beloved child, and wife to the man who was her lover and her one true love.

  It had taken a while, but the Bridemaker had become a bride—and so much more.