by Mary Balogh
These people were their friends.
And then he was handing Viola down onto the green, and they were crossing the road to the vicarage.
“Lady Ferdinand,” the vicar said, beaming genially. “And Lord Ferdinand. We heard about your marriage, and we wondered if you would arrive home today. It is what we were talking about when your carriage came into sight. ‘That is them,’ I said to the ladies, ‘as sure as I am standing here. Mark my words.’ Welcome home.”
And he shook Ferdinand heartily by the hand while his wife hugged and exclaimed over Viola and the two sisters followed suit. There was a great deal of talk and laughter.
Not to be outdone, Ferdinand hugged the ladies too. The vicar’s wife hugged him back, Miss Merrywether looked slightly startled but not ungratified, and Miss Prudence Merrywether blessed her soul, tittered, and blushed to the roots of her gray hair just visible beneath her cap and bonnet.
“Oh, you ever were the charmer, my lord,” she said. “We have missed you at choir practice. And Miss Thornhill too, of course—Lady Ferdinand, that is.”
“We will be back,” Ferdinand promised. “And where has the ladies’ sewing circle met for the past few weeks?”
“In the church hall,” Miss Merrywether said, “where it always used to be held. There is quite enough space there, my lord.”
“But there is so much more light and comfort in the drawing room at Pinewood,” he said. “You must all return there next week, if you please. I still have not finished reading Pride and Prejudice, have I, and I do not enjoy reading aloud to an empty room.”
“Yes, you must come,” Viola said. “And in two weeks’ time we beg you all to come to Pinewood for a garden party in celebration of our wedding. We hope that everyone will come from miles around. And perhaps, like the May Day celebrations, it will become an annual event. Everyone needs a few days out of the year in which merely to have fun.”
Viola and Ferdinand had talked about it during the journey. They had had their quiet wedding in London, followed by the impromptu dance in Tresham’s ballroom after the reception at which Viola had been presented to London society. They had had their wedding night. And they had been happy. But Ferdinand knew that in her heart Viola would have liked to marry here in the small church at Trellick, where all the friends she had made during the two years of her new life could have rejoiced and celebrated with her. And so he had suggested that they celebrate anyway, that they organize a grand party for all their friends and neighbors—of all classes. And since it was summer, they had soon hit upon the idea of a garden party—with alternate plans for the indoors if the weather did not cooperate, of course. And it would be a garden party that would extend into the evening with dancing and perhaps fireworks.
“Oh, my,” Miss Prudence Merrywether said. “A garden party, Faith.”
“Splendid, splendid,” the vicar said, rubbing his hands together.
“You must let me know, Lady Ferdinand,” Mrs. Prewitt said, “what I may do to help.”
The innkeeper was sweeping the street outside the Boar’s Head Inn. Ferdinand raised a hand and waved to him. The man propped his broom beneath one arm and returned the greeting. A few children had gathered on the far side of the green and were watching them intently. Some of their mothers were standing in the doorways of their cottages, looking toward the vicarage.
Ah, it felt good to be home. How had he never known until he came to Pinewood that he belonged in the country, that despite all the pleasures of living in London, he had nevertheless been waiting for something more permanent, something more meaningful? But how could he have known about Pinewood before the sheer chance of a card game had brought him here? And how could he have known that Viola was waiting here? The love of his life.
It really was quite alarming how close he was getting to launching into the penning of sentimental poetry.
“Shall we walk the rest of the way?” he suggested to Viola.
“I was about to suggest the same thing,” she said, and she looked up to the clear blue sky overhead. “Even the weather is perfect.”
Ferdinand called over to the coachman, who climbed back up to the box, took the ribbons in his hand, and proceeded on his way to the house.
Having taken their leave of their four friends and waved to the children and to a few of their mothers, Ferdinand walked on with Viola on his arm—across the bridge over the river, and on up the winding, wooded driveway he had first ridden up on the second day of May. He had been in high spirits then even though he had not known what was facing him—house or mansion or ruin. If only he had known what was really facing him.
As soon as they were out of sight of the village, he took Viola’s hand in his and laced their fingers together.
“We have good neighbors,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Friends.”
“Yes.”
It was strange how little they talked sometimes, though often words simply spilled out of them. But words were necessary only when there was something to say. They were not necessary merely to fill the silence. Silence, they had discovered without ever discussing it or planning it, could be enormously companionable. Their bodies, their minds, their souls communed even when there were no words. Words were only one tool of communication.
“ ‘It was a lover and his lass,’ ” he sang, looking up at the tree branches overhead and the blue sky beyond, “ ‘with a hey and a ho and a hey-nonny-no.’ ”
He looked down at her, laughter in his eyes.
“ ‘That o’er the green cornfield did pass in the springtime,’ ” they sang together. “ ‘The springtime, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing hey-ding.’ ”
They laughed and swung their joined hands.
“ ‘Hey ding, ding-a-ding-a-ding-ding-ding, sweet lovers love the spring.’ ”
“Wrong season,” she said.
“Who cares?” he asked.
She looked around. “No one that I can see,” she said, and they laughed again.
That was another thing—laughing at any little absurdity. Anyone who overheard them would think sometimes that they had taken leave of their senses.
They had both stopped walking. He set his arms about her, one behind her waist, one around her shoulders, and drew her close. She wrapped her arms about him and lifted her face for his kiss.
“Welcome home, my love,” he murmured against her lips.
“Welcome home, Ferdinand,” she said.
It was, he supposed, his home officially. They were married, and her property had become his. But it was a question that would never be raised between them. It did not need to be. Pinewood was theirs, and it would eventually pass to their eldest child, who would be putting in an appearance within the next year or so if he had anything to say in the matter.
They joined hands and continued on their way.
VIOLA MUST HAVE walked from the village to the house dozens of times—perhaps hundreds—since she had first come here more than two years ago. But there was a moment in the walk that never failed to take her breath away and cause her to pause simply to look. There was a moment when the winding driveway drew clear of the trees and there was nothing but lawns and isolated trees and flowers ahead—and the house in the near distance, solid and substantial and beautiful. A symbol of love—it had been a gift from her father—and security, it had given her a new life and a new happiness. And hope.
Today she waited for the moment, and they both paused, hand in hand.
A new happiness.
And this time the happiness was unalloyed. She was married to a man she loved totally, to a man who loved her equally as much. The shadow of her past had been cleansed, and her family had been fully restored to her, all secrets swept away.
Life was good. It would not remain perfect for all eternity, of course. There was no such thing as happily-ever-after. But now it was good, and their love and their life were being built upon a firm enough foundation that any troubled times ahead would be d
ealt with and make the happier times all the sweeter. And they could only hope that the happy times would outweigh the less happy.
The lawns had been newly scythed, probably for their homecoming. Viola smelled the lovely fragrance of freshly cut grass.
And up ahead, she could see the front doors opening and remaining open. The servants would have been expecting their arrival today or tomorrow, of course, and they had had advance warning with the arrival of the carriage a short while ago. Mr. Jarvey would doubtless have all the servants, indoor and out, lined up formally in the hall to greet them.
Oh, it was lovely to be home.
“Jarvey will have everyone lined up,” Ferdinand said.
“Will you mind?” she asked.
“After they arranged for a pillow made of rocks, a crowing cockerel before dawn had even announced itself in the east, rags stuffed down the chimney, and cold, almost raw beefsteak for my breakfast, as well as other such delights when I first came here?” he asked. “Why should I mind?”
But he was smiling at her and then chuckling openly. After he had arrived back in May, claiming that Pinewood was his, won in a card game, Viola had conferred with her staff and together they had planned a whole series of annoyances they had expected would drive him back to London, never to be heard from again.
“I am glad you stayed,” she said.
“So am I.”
He drew his hand free of hers and offered his arm.
“This calls for a little formality,” he said. “Come, Lady Ferdinand, let us go and greet our staff.”
She linked her hand through his arm and smiled up at him.
“Yes, let’s,” she said.
I HAVE FOUND that readers fall into two camps when it comes to epilogues. Some find them cheesy, annoying, and quite redundant—everyone knows that the heroes and heroines of romance live happily forever, after all. As one of my readers commented recently, all we find out from an epilogue is just how very happy the couple is and how many children they have. And that reader is quite right. The epilogue would hardly show how unhappy and barren the lovers are, would it?
And then there are the readers in the other camp, those who crave more after a story is done. They want to be doubly assured that the love commitment was real and has stood the test of time. Some readers really do want to know how many children there are and what their genders and names are. I know—I hear from such readers all the time. I am always touched by their questions. They remind me that for some people the characters I have created are real, with lives before the book started and lives after it has ended. Some readers feel somewhat bereft when a book comes to end, as if they had been suddenly abandoned, left behind. They want one more glimpse of the characters to whom they have grown so attached. And these feelings are even more intense when it is a series rather than just a single book that has ended.
So—with apologies to the first class of reader—here is a very brief sneak peek at the Dudleys and their families five years after the ending of the third book in the trilogy, No Man’s Mistress. By now Jane is twenty-nine years of age, Angeline and Viola thirty, Ferdinand thirty-two, Jocelyn and Edward thirty-five.
THE SUMMER GARDEN fete held annually at Pinewood Manor near the village of Trellick in Somersetshire had grown in prestige over the years until now, five years after the first—which had been held in celebration of the marriage of Lord Ferdinand Dudley to Miss Viola Thornhill—most of the villagers and other inhabitants of the neighborhood were of the opinion that it was a superior event to the May Day fair. A few people occasionally expressed doubts. There were all the booths about the green on May Day at which one might cheerfully spend all one’s money on useless baubles and the telling of one’s fortune. And there were the bonfire and the dancing about the maypole during the evening. But then there were all the games and contests at the Pinewood garden fete, the same people inevitably remembered, and the prizes, each of which was of more value than all the baubles at the fair combined and cost them nothing at all. And there was the dancing on the lawn before the house during the evening. And the fireworks, the memory of which would tip the scales again in favor of the garden fete. Not to mention the sumptuous foods, both at teatime and later in the evening.
It was not essential to decide which event was the better of the two, of course. They were both something to be looked forward to with growing anticipation every year—and growing anxiety as the day approached lest rain spoil the festivities. Miraculously, it had never happened on May Day. It had once for the garden party—the third. But the games in the ballroom and tea in the dining room had had an added degree of intimacy that year, and the dancing during the evening had been really quite divine. Some of the neighboring families had never before seen so many candles alight all in one place. And even that year the rain had stopped in time for the fireworks display just before midnight.
This year there was the added excitement of illustrious guests present at Pinewood. Anticipation of the games and the tea and the dancing and even of the fireworks paled besides that of seeing a real live duke among other persons of only slightly lesser distinction.
Lord Ferdinand’s brother and sister were staying for a couple of weeks at Pinewood Manor, mainly for the purpose of attending the christening of Miss Harriet Dudley, newest daughter of the house, at the village church the Sunday after the fete. And Lord Ferdinand’s brother was no less a person than the Duke of Tresham. His sister was the Countess of Heyward. The duchess and the earl had accompanied them, of course, as well as their children. Even two of the children had titles—Earl of Everleigh in the case of Nicholas, the duke’s eldest son, aged eight, and Viscount Gladson in that of Matthew, the Earl of Heyward’s, aged four.
There were other guests too, but they were already familiar figures in the neighborhood. Lady Ferdinand’s mother had been here twice before, and her brother and younger sister, Benjamin and Maria Wilding, twins, spent a few weeks of each summer with her. The elder sister, Miss Claire Wilding, was here this year too and had brought with her the news that she was betrothed to Mr. Trotter, the new music master at the school in Bath at which she taught.
It was a rare thing for the Dudleys to be all together in one place for any length of time—or for any time at all for that matter. Ferdinand and Viola did not particularly enjoy London, and since Ferdinand was not a peer of the realm and was therefore under no obligation to be in town for the spring session of Parliament, they stayed away and enjoyed springtime in the country instead. And when Jocelyn and Jane went to Wimsbury Abbey following the birth of Angeline and Edward’s twins, Viola was too advanced in pregnancy with Abigail to go too. And after Viola had Julian, now two, Jane was still expecting Alexander.
This year was to be cherished, then. For despite everything, they were exceedingly fond of one another. And contrary to all expectations considering their background and personal histories, they had all made good, sound marriages that had stood the test of time and had children—three apiece, in fact—whose very existence was a joy to their parents.
It was good to be together.
Jane and Jocelyn were the first to arrive, three days before the garden party. It was Jane’s first visit to Pinewood Manor—Jocelyn had visited briefly before the marriage of his brother to Viola. But it was, she declared within a day, a good place for her boys, who always grew rather short of temper during long journeys. This was especially true of Christopher, now aged five, who was his father all over again, complete with black hair and almost black eyes and volatile temper. Pinewood was surrounded by well-kept lawns, over which the children could run and play until they exhausted themselves.
Angeline and Edward did not arrive until the day before the fete. They had been staying for a while with Lord and Lady Palmer in Sussex. Lady Palmer was a second cousin who had acted as Angeline’s sponsor and chaperon during her come-out Season. And while at Hallings, they had spent a day at Norton Park, home of their dear friends Lord and Lady Windrow and their two children.
“I am quite sure,” Viola said during an early luncheon, “that the fete is going to seem horridly tame after all the garden parties you must have attended in London during the Season.”
“But why ever would you wish to compete?” Jocelyn asked, raising black, arrogant eyebrows.
“Tameness can be vastly underrated,” Edward added.
“And we cannot take our children with us to London garden parties,” Jane said.
“Which,” Angeline said, “is sometimes a vast relief, one must admit, Jane.”
They all laughed.
“You are quite right, of course,” Jane said. “But I still enjoy a family entertainment more than any other kind. And a fete can be so much more amusing than a mere party. There are all the games.”
“I suppose,” Jocelyn said with a sigh, “you will be expecting me to run three-legged races and sack races and other such country delights, will you, Ferdinand?”
“How else am I to demonstrate my superiority over you?” Ferdinand asked with a grin. “I have been practicing all spring.”
“I was rather hoping, Jocelyn,” Viola said, “that you would do a trial run of the egg and spoon race just to show the children how it is done.”